8/12/2019 2nd Paper_2nd Qstn

1/3

What may be the possible remedies/how they can be handled-as per the

article?

In this new millennium, with increasing number of firms competing for the limited amount

of resources and a constrained budget, the edge lies within the human resource

management practices and its implementation-that serves as a competitive advantage for

the firms. However, the only problem with this approach is its effective measurement vis--

vis with the performance of the firm. The article attributes this issue to the earlier

approaches that had been pursued by the firms. As per the article, HR practices cannot be

effectively studied in isolation with other HR practices, and rather, the focus should be on

understanding how different practices interact with one another and are subsequently

linked to the business and functional strategies.

In this regard, the article tries to design an HRM analysis framework that would help in

establishing a relationship between HRM practices and manufacturing performance.

In an attempt to establish the aforementioned relationship, first, it tries to identify the key

HRM practices that could be deployed in a manufacturing firm and the key dimensions that

can effectively measure manufacturing performance. After much deliberation, the authors

contend that the manufacturing industry has the major share of responsibility for time of

delivery, quality, cost and flexibility. And as a major step towards building the conceptual

framework, it identifies five major categories that an HRM practice can be grouped into: (a)

Top management commitment; (b) Communication of goals; (c) Employee training; (d) Cross

functional teams; and (e) General HRM practices. The article also cites a finding that the

most essential success factor for implementing MBO (Management by Objectives) programswas top management commitment. After designing the conceptual model (provided in

figure 1 from the article), it postulates that the HRM practices are organized in a manner

driven by the strategic manufacturing goals (strategy precedes structure) rather than by

the practice itself. As a final remedy towards measuring the effectiveness of HRM practices,

the article suggests that the practices can be grouped into HRM-Cost, HRM-Quality, HRM-

Flexibility and HRM-Time. The interpretation should be as: human resource management

practices to support cost reduction goals and so on. Hence, it infers that a positive

relationship exists between each HRM-factor and measures of manufacturing performance.

As a practical implementation of the above research, the article cites that, while many NorthAmerican car manufacturers are adopting the advances made in Japanese manufacturing

techniques (JIT, Kaizen etc.), it should also look at the human resource management issues

inherent to the techniques so that an overall coordinated HRM strategy is crafted to achieve

the competitive goals of manufacturing.

8/12/2019 2nd Paper_2nd Qstn

2/3

Some of the highlights and comments on the propositions presented in the

paper:

From the point of view HRM, it is important to show how various HRM practices can have an impact

on the performance of an organization especially in a manufacturing organization where HR is

traditionally considered as a secondary function. For the effective performance of the organization,

Human resources should design some of the best practices that can have a direct impact on some of

the dimensions that measure performance.

The paper shows a direct relation between some of the practices and the dimensions like flexibility,

quality etc. However most of these practices are inter-related and their impact in the organization

can be mostly measured collectively.

The results from the paper indicate that strategy specific HRM bundles have a direct impact on the

corresponding dimension of manufacturing performance whereas generic HRM practices are less

effective for targeted performance improvements. For example, the practices of cross-functional

teams, cross training and broad jobs allow specific improvements such as flexibility if implementedstrategically rather than as generic bundles.

In todays competitive business environment, manufacturing performance can prove to be a reliable

indicator of overall competitiveness and adoption of best Japanese manufacturing practices

necessitates careful handling of human resource management issues.

As a group, we feel that HR Managers can quantify the impact of their best practices by the

improvement their HRM best practices bring about in targeted manufacturing performance

measures.

Overall coordinated HRM strategies must be devised that are linked to competitive goals of

manufacturing. Moreover, since HRM -Generic practices had a direct impact only on the time

performance measure, HR managers must use HRM- Generic initiatives as supplementary measures

to complement strategic HRM factors in order to improve overall manufacturing performance rather

than standalone measures for targeted improvements.

Concentrating on four specific dimensions ie. Cost, quality, flexibility and time, of manufacturing

performance can help formulate action guidelines for HR managers. The paper has measured how a

bundle of HRM practices have an impact on the various dimensions of manufacturing performance.

Thus, it validates the configurational approach for HR Managers, where the impact of HRM on

organizational performance is dependent on the adoption of an effective combination of HRM

practices.

An important conclusion of the study is the way different HRM factors discussed in the paper have a

relation among themselves. As can be interpreted from the paper, HRM Quality factor displayed a

significant negative relationship with flexibility performance. Quality efforts reduce variance while

flexibility efforts accommodate variance. An organization, as its requirement, needs to develop the

right balance between these factors. For example, an organization seeking strict conformance to

specification would not want to give too much flexibility in the organization. As a group, we feel that

it is very important for HR Managers to maintain the right balance between these two objectives

depending on the strategy of the organization.

As the research has also indicated, we believe that linking the best HRM practices with themanufacturing performance can have an impact on the bottom-line of the organization. And

8/12/2019 2nd Paper_2nd Qstn

3/3

hence these practices need to be implemented in a way that they fit the strategies of the

organization.