Best Fit and Best Practice in HRM

Best Fit and Best Practice in HRM Today, many organizations are facing an increasingly competitive and hastily changing environment illustrated by various labor market, deregulation, globalization, improved information technologies, uninterrupted labor markets among other factors. For success in its operations, a company/firm should improve its performance through reduction of its operation costs, creation of new processes and products, increasing quality, productivity and speed market. Consequently, organizations have to center on their workforces capabilities. If a firm manages its human resources effectively, it will be able to generate and enhance commitment, synergy and motivation that will to a sustained competitive advantage. Studies have shown that human resource management is one of the avenues that an organization can use to shape her employees behavior and attitude. Human resource management practices form forums that ensure employees get highly involved in the activities of the organization and work hard to achieve her goals. The manner in which an organization manages her human resource institutes the conditions and tone that will govern the relationship between employers and employees. There are many ways of defining human resource management (HRM) practices. Bowman Swart (2007) looks at it as organizational activities directed at managing the pool of human resources and ensuring that they are directed towards fulfilling the goals of the organization. It has also been looked at as a set of internally consistent policies and practices that are developed and upon implementation, they will guarantee that the human capital of an organization add to the achievement of its business objectives. The approach to definition of human resource management practices may vary slightly but the bottom line of it all is organizing and managing the man power i n an organization. The connections between a firms performance and its human resource management practices are based on two approaches namely best fit (contingency) and best practice (universal) approaches. In best practice, a set of HRM practices are argued to be associated with improved firm performance in all types of organization and by allusion for al types of employees (Nahapiet Ghoshal, 1998). Conversely, the best fit approach argues that performance of a firm is maximized if the human resources policies are constant with the firms business strategies. Both the best fit and the best practice have an assumption that human resource policies take on will be implemented and as projected and have the same consequence on all employees that work in the firm. Researches on human resource management however show that that there is no consensus on which human resource management approach is looked at as suitable. Notwithstanding the inconsistence in both the best fit and best practice approaches, there is a momentous effect of human resource management practices on attitudes and behavior of employees based on the idea of social change. Studies reveal that employees of an organization infer organizational actions like human resource practices as indicators of how much an organization is committed to their welfare (Abraham et al., 2001). In response, the employees counter this gesture through improving their obligation to the organization. Particularly if the human resource practices of the an organization are professed as supportive, the employees will take it as their employer being committed to them through concern and high level of care , consequently they will work hard to and get very much engaged in the organization expressing their enthusiasm in hard work to achieve the goals of the organization. MANAGEMENT 4 The concepts of best fit and best practice are applied in strategic human resource management to the particular policy section of reward structures. Each of the approaches endeavors to explain the manner in which human resource policies generally and reward policies particularly can lead to better organizational efficiency (Zupan KaÃ… ¡e, 2007). Organizations can wok within the framework both the best fit and best practice. I agree with the best fit that suggests that a close alignment between organizational strategy and different systems that it employs like the rewards will go along way in improving the efficiency of the organization. The idea that pay should be linked strategy is not new but it got momentum from scholars in the 1990 talking about its merits as the â€Å"new pay†. It is evident tat all organizational systems have to start with a business strategy to achieve the goals it has set, failure to which it may face difficulties to carry on its operations. This is b ecause the strategy will clarify what the organization wants to achieve over a specified period of time. It will also set the conditions on the manner in which the organization will behave to achieve them; this means that the organization sets cope of standards on the way it is run (Boxall Purcell, 2008). Additionally the strategy will express the types of performance and the levels of performance it wants to employ to run in a organized and effective way. This is as a result of business strategy, organizational behavior and diving individuals being the benchmark for the reward strategy development. The contingent nature of a reward system should not be looked at as a set of compensation practices at all. Nonetheless, it should be treated as one way of thinking about role of a reward system in a complex organization setting. This goes against an assumption that is often made to mean that certain best practices have to be incorporated into an organizations  approach to pay (Simons, 2002). Having looked at best fit, the attention now is on best practice. This premise has been popular in human resource management over the last decade. Studies show that this model otherwise known as high commitment was initially stimulated by work of some United States of America academics, although it was recently developed by those in Britain (KaÃ… ¡e et al., 2009). Although both the models of best fit and best practice are assumed to be complimentary, the later is arguably seen as not having an element of discussion on the organizations strategy at all. Its fundamental benchmark is that all organizations who adopt the best practice strategy will attract super human resources, competencies and talent. According to the views of its proponents, the super human resources available has an effect of influencing the strategy that an organization adopts hence acting as the source of its viable advantage. Consequently for this approach, the organizations policy precedes its strategy. Coff (1997) asserts that there are mutually compatible bundles of human resource policies that sustain high standards of motivation of employees and also their commitment that has a positive impact on the performance of the organization. This is the approach that advocates of best practice say it stands for. However, there is no common ground on which these practices are, on a general scale they are composed of: extensive training, selective hiring, and structure to encourage employees participation, employment security and pay policies which lead in relation to industry competitors (Lengnick-Hall Lengnick-Hall, 2003). There is apparent point of disagreement between in the sector of pay linked to performance appraisal. Researchers have criticized merit pay in a number of ways as: there is subjectivity and unpredictability that reward political skills instead of performance, there is no concern for performance of the organization, it encourages short term focus, there is an emphasis on the individual success that undermines teamwork and lastly there is a tendency of such like a system to create fear at work place. Those who support either side of the human resource management approaches argue that both approaches, hest fit and best practice, will help an organization to achieve its goals and objectives. There are several ways that an organization employs when it comes to organizing its human resources that will help it achieve what it was set up for. The methods of achieving the objectives are: attracting and retaining employees, motivating the performance of employees, promotion of skills and culture in an organization, contribution to corporate culture of an organization among other things There are differences in which the two approaches handle attracting and retaining employees. The capability of an organizations reward systems in attracting and retaining its employees is of cardinal concern to many organizations (Cullinane Dundon, 2006). During economic expansions, times when the labor markets are tight and organizations are struggling to fill vacancies at the same time trying very to ho ld on to hold on to their qualified employees, this becomes a very crucial issue. This also happens during recessions as organizations sometimes become keen on getting the services of qualified employees. To cope with this, the best fit approach boasts of the composition of its reward package attracting many and various kinds of applicants. This argument holds water because drawing example, an organization offering a straight base salary and no chance for incentive earnings, naturally attracts and retains quite different individuals that as compared to one that gives big amounts of incentive pay. Organizations rewarding their employees with different performance related pay incentives have increased chances of attracting employees who are more problem solving and entrepreneurial compared to those offering a base salary. The best fit proponents basically assume that it is in organizations where good performance is recognized and rewarded that good performers tend to seek or employment. This is a correct observation because skilled personnel will take pleasure in working where they will be appreciated as good performers. Systems have a way of identifying poor and a good performer as not all employees turn over is harmful to performance of an organization. To this effect, a reward system has to promote the retention of good performers at the same time aiding the decision of poor performers leaving the organization. According to Dowling Welch (2006), there is also an emphasis on the importance of external competitiveness of an organization for attraction and retention of employees. According to best fit advocates, for effectiveness, a reward system must distribute rewards such that the most valuable employees of the organization will feel contended while relating their rewards with those of individuals performing same jobs in organizations of the same nature as theirs. However caution must be taken here because some studies have shown that in some organizations, it is more cost effective in keeping the wages low and accepting high employee turnover, particularly if the cost of replacing them is low as it is the in unskilled labor. Despite the fact labor markets are far from being perfectly efficient, it is evident that there is some relationship between the quality of a work force and organization attracts and how it pays its employees. This is quite true and it is convincing for the best fit a pproach as it gives the facts on the behavior of employees and pay. Looking in the manner in which the best practice deals with attracting and retaining the employees, it emphasizes on employees that will assist an organization in gaining and sustaining competitive advantage. It achieves this through externally competitive pay levels. According to this however, a combination of a number of a number policies that are interrelated are responsible for highly qualified individuals apply and remain in an organization. The recruiting procedures which provide a huge pool of qualified applicants, coupled with a dependable and valid routine has a significant influence on the quality and type of skills the new employees will have. The thorough process of selecting employees will make the selected candidates feel that they are joining privileged organization with elevated prospects. The best practice approach advocates for positively value low turnover with no cautions whatsoever as opposed to the best fit approach. This happens so as other related procedures a nd policies make sure that the employees chosen are the right ones for the job and are taken in at first instance (Galpin Skinner, 2004). The best practice takes into consideration todays global business employment to be of key importance in attraction and retention of employees as opposed to the other approach which that claims that employment security does not reflect the realities of todays competitive global business. This is due to employees being unlikely to make suggestions to increase the productivity whenever they fear that it will make them loose their job. Researchers assert that the cardinal concern in the design of a reward system is the plan works in employee motivation. There are various theories of employee motivation and there is no one particular that has been accepted universally. The different theories that exist handle different types of reward systems. The best fit approach believes that the payment system of an organization should reflect individual employee contributions (Fitz-Enz, 1993). Employees may at times cut down their efforts to look for employment in highly paying jobs in other organizations due to dissatisfaction originate from negative inequity and some other consequences. It is observed that highly dissatisfied companies are more strongly attracted towards an external market orientation. On the other hand, organizations that are based on a single industry or technology will naturally find themselves much calm with an internal-equity basis. Both types of inequity in an organization have serious consequence for an organization but the implications for external equity like absenteeism and turnover are more rigorous for a particular organization and should be given chief consideration (Lepak Snell, 199). This is clear evidence that the best fit approach in human resource practice has support for the contribution principle. It therefore has an implication that employees who remarkably contribute to the success of an organization ought to be able to compare themselves with significant others form both outside and inside the organization and still get contented with the pay they get. The best fit practice for that matter looks at it as an obligation of the design to promote development and make use of employee inputs that will promote the organization. The best fit approach also makes use of expectancy theory of behavior. The theory utters that individuals make choices depending on some factors like: there expectancy that th ere efforts will make them achieve certain standard of performance, believing that their performance will result significant upshots and the scale of value they place on those upshots (Intagliata, et al., 2004). It is line with best fit thinking as it gives a design framework for each element of a reward system to utilize to its best advantage. The best practice advocates depend on the content theories of motivation as the foundation of their system of reward. It is apparent that factors that get drawn in to produce job satisfaction and motivation are different from those ones that lead to job dissatisfaction. Motivators are the source of job satisfaction and are intrinsic to the particular encompassing recognition for the achievement, the work itself, responsibility and advancement or growth. The potential source of job dissatisfaction is extrinsic and is made up hygiene factors like salaries. The approach does not advocate for incentives for as it results to spiralling of wages and employees who search for the next pay increase. Research has shown that firms block the development of some behavior that front competitive advantage by picking on incentives. Looking at the above discussion, it is apparent the both the best fit and best practice approaches as employed in human resource management practices are all directed towards ensuring that an organization achieves its goals and objectives through organizing its strategies and man power. Through striking a balance between the contingent and universal approach, an ideal or more comprehensive model can be developed by looking at their limit ations and merits. The value of the universal (best practice) framework depends in the demonstration of the strategic significance of human resource management. High rates of significance in their tests were achieved by its proponents but it has limitations in both its methodological and theoretical domain. There is compatibility between the two approaches as the contingency approach comes in handy here to complement the universal model encompassing the external relationships

Living in the Country

Living in the country has always been considered the healthiest and most relaxing choice one can make. The beauty of the land, open and friendly neighbours, genuine relationships, the tranquil pace of country life are some of the most attractive images that come to people?s minds when they feel tired of the pressures of city life. However, the dreams of moving away to a distant and quiet farm house are many times abandoned, especially by young people, when they come to think about the lack of opportunities that there are in the country. In fact, many young people feel they can not grow as professionals if they choose a quiet life style in the country, due to the poor quality of education and the lack of employment opportunities. The poor quality of education in the countryside can be perceived when one travels along rural roads and sees a few scattered primary schools, hidden among the mountains or in the woods. Children attend those schools only if it is not raining, and they travel long distances on horseback, or even on foot to reach the institution. Since the number of students is not enough to employ an English teacher, a Music teacher, a Sports teacher or a Computing teacher, those subjects are not taught, so children have no additional lessons. Finally, another factor that makes education reach very low quality standards is the fact that in many places there is no electricity, so it is imposible to imagine children from rural areas connected to the Internet, or having the possibility of watching a video or listening to music. To conclude, children from rural areas are not expected to develop their full potential due to the poor quality standard of education. Once young students finish primary school, and some priviledged adolescents can complete secundary education, they have to think about university or work. University is left only to the priviledged students who can afford to move to the city to continue their studies. The rest of the young population have to think about getting a job. And here comes another drawback of living in the country: as regards employment opportunities, there is a narrow range of jobs available for young people, and they are usually badly paid. Young people have to select among venturing into neighbouring towns, working at one of the relatively few jobs available nearby, or working on their own business. Since they have not been properly prepared at school, and employment opportunities are scarce, the joung rural population have relatively few opportunities to grow economically. Many people put forward many good reasons to live in the country and they are right. First, living in the country is safer than living in big cities, since there are less crimes. Second, it is also healthier because there is no pollution and no loud noises. Third, the pace of living in the country is quieter so sountry people’s lifespans are longer. Finally, many people argue that roads and means of communication have improved a lot in the last decades, so today living far away from the city is not so hard. However, for young people who are still trying to find their way to grow professionaly in order to gain economic stability, the city offers much more educational and economic opportunities than the stillness of the countryside.

Admission to the USC Undergraduate Program

I am a keen jet skier and having obtained a degree of proficiency in this highly exciting sport. The bracing sea breeze and the refreshing spray, which play against the skier, are some of the major attractions of this sport. Moreover, this sport has to refresh and rejuvenate its practitioner. This sport taught me the importance of concentrating on what we do. It also taught me prudence and helped me to achieve a calm mind.I decided to interact more with the world that I live in. Hence, I started to study the various changes taking place in the world. In this study, I came to realize that the multinational corporations had brought about the process of globalization. This process was affecting the whole world and even the US and the European Union had come under its influence.Some of the Asian countries like India and China have been showing extraordinary growth in their economies. These economies were developing at a greater pace than that of any other country. I wanted to participate in these astonishing developments. In order to do so, I made several enquiries and went through the syllabus offered by a number of colleges. My intention was to obtain a thorough knowledge regarding globalization and the economic success of some of the Asian countries.In the course of my search, I found out about the University of Southern California, which had been founded in 1880. This university is a private university, which is the best for research. It has several campuses that are famous their academic excellence (About USC).However, in addition to academic excellence, it also promotes community service programs. This work has been praised widely and its alumni are famous, not only for their academic excellence but also for their contribution to society. Its financial independence ensures that it remains unaffected by governmental policies and political interference (About USC). These facts made me very much interested in pursuing an MBA program in this university.Newton Par tMy parents left Armenia in the 1970’s, whilst it was under Soviet Rule. Their new home in the US was very hospitable to them. However, they could not attend college, because of their financial commitments. Most of their waking hours were spent in earning sufficient money to meet their expenses.They were always aware of this drawback in their life. As a result, they used to tell me repeatedly, to take my studies seriously. My performance at school was slightly above average. Therefore, I obtained an average high school diploma. My parents were very disappointed with my mediocre performance in school. They told me that I had to improve my performance.One day, while alone with my thoughts, I started thinking about what had happened to my performance in school. I am very good at logical analysis. Therefore, I thought for a long time and realized that if I did not study with greater diligence, I would end up like my parents. The choice before me was to either work hard at my stud ies or get a very good job or to obtain an ordinary degree and work very hard for the rest of my life, for poor wages. This was a very thought, so I decided to become a very good student in college.On another occasion, during this period, I came across a spider attempting to spin a web. It would try to attach a strand, which would break off. Nevertheless, the spider did not stop its efforts; it patiently and with the same amount of effort, made another attempt. Finally, it succeeded in its hard work. Like Robert Bruce of England, I too realized the value of perseverance. I understood that even if some topic in my studies was difficult to understand, I should keep on trying to understand it.There was another factor that had a strong influence on my attitude towards life. I have a cousin named, Haroutoun Aharonian. He was very good at studies in high school and college. After that he pursued a graduate program in the University of Southern California. He became very good at analyzing stock markets, due to the MBA program that he attended in the University of Southern California’s   Marshall School of Business. One of the largest stock broking firms in Los Angeles has appointed him to a very important post, in their company. The sole reason for this success was the very good teaching standard of that college. This incident taught me that I had to work hard and develop an interest in my chosen field of study. On studying his success story, I decided to follow in his footsteps, and apply for the MBA program in the Marshall School of Business.I want to become an expert in Finance and Business Economics and this school imparts the necessary training and knowledge to achieve this goal. I would also like to keep the choice of joining the Bachelor’s of Arts in Economics. The USC Marshall School of Business offers the latest world class instruction in accounting, finance, entrepreneurship and international business studies (About The Marshall School of Bu siness, 2007).The world has become smaller due to globalization; moreover, some Asian countries are showing highly rapid economic development. Traditional management techniques cannot address these phenomena. It is a course like that provided by the Marshall School of Business, which can properly describe these issues. This is the principal reason for my seeking a transfer to the Marshall School of Business.ReferencesAbout The Marshall School of Business. (2007). Retrieved January 25, 2008, from University of Southern California Marshall School of Business : http://www.marshall.usc.edu/about/About USC. (n.d.). Retrieved January 25, 2008, from University of Southern California:

A Brief Description of the Concept of Courtly Love

For a brief description of the concept of â€Å"courtly love†, a few characteristics must be highlighted. Courtly love appeared in Provence (southern France) in the eleventh century. It consists on the expression of love in its most sincere, chivalric and noble form. It tended to be chaste and adulterous. It was also secret and, in general, always took place between the members of the higher classes of society. Andreas Capellanus defines it in The Art of Courtly Love as â€Å"the pure love which binds together the hearts of two lovers with every feeling of delight. This kind consists on the contemplation of the mind and the affection of the heart; it goes as far as the kiss and the embrace and the modest contact with the nude lover, omitting the final solace, for that is not permitted for those who wish to love purely. [†¦] That is called mixed love which gets its effect from every delight of the flesh and culminates in the final act of Venus† (p.122). In Capellanu s’ definition, it seems to me, that the previous elements mentioned are placed out of the game of love, as long as we consider courtly love to be expressed by the total submission of a young man towards his lady. The fulfilment of the souls in courtly love can rarely be obtained, because there is no equality in the relationship of the individuals. The lover’s love is immanently pure, genuine in essence, but the beloved is usually characterized as unachievable because her self is so perfect that there is not much the lover canShow MoreRelated Francescas Style in Canto V of Dantes Inferno Essay5060 Words   |  21 Pagesis a confession that serves only as a sign that identifies and seals their eternal fates. The brief and compressed description of Minos and his  «offizio » would suggest that this confession of the sinners is largely a formal requirement full of sound and fury signifying only the level of their eternal degradation. Minos is not caught up in the sinne rs confessions, and, indeed, Dantes concise description of the entire process of confession and judgment ( «dicono e odono e poi son già ¹ volte », v. 15)Read MoreAnglo-Saxon Heroic Poetry5673 Words   |  23 Pages(he may have a commitatus, or group of noble followers with whom he grew up), he undertakes a task that no one else dare attempt. 6.Whatever virtues his race most prizes, these, the epic hero as a cultural exemplar, possesses in abundance. 7.The concept of arà ªte (Greek for bringing virtue to perfection) is crucial to understanding the epic protagonist. 8.The hero gains little honor by slaying a lesser mortal, but only by challenging heroes like himself or adversaries of superhuman power. 9.TheRead MoreFigurative Language and the Canterbury Tales13472 Words   |  54 Pagessnouts toward the rim of the hills, the planes raked the underbrush with gunfire. †¢ ..and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. -Abraham Lincoln 11. aubade: a poem about dawn; a morning love-song; or a poem about the parting of lovers at dawn 12. ballad: a song, transmitted orally, which tells a story. Usually narrator begins with a climactic or traumatic episode, tells the story tersely by means of action and dialogue and tells it withoutRead MoreWho Goes with Fergus11452 Words   |  46 PagesWho Goes With Fergus This poem is about the dichotomy of the thinker and the actor. Yeats, in love with Maud Gonne, was the thinker, the courtly lover -- the one who would brood upon loves bitter mystery. Yeats was Mr. Nice Guy. Yet Yeats wanted to be the actor - the alpha male - the Fergus. Note the sexualized subtext that permeates the poem, who will pierce the deep woods woven shade? Who will drive with Fergus. Finally, we get the reasons to be the alpha male - the man of action, in the