Knowledge that Transforms

Presented here is an in‐depth look at human resources scalability—an organization's capacity to get the right numbers of the right types of people to the right places at the right times. The authors pose Guiding Principles to Promote Freedom and Flexibility and Guiding Principles to Promote Discipline and Order, and discuss how HR and other business functions can work together to build a far more flexible and effective workplace.

HR challenges have more to do with changes in employment relationships than a shortfall of workers caused by demographic changes. But there are serious problems with forthcoming labor shortages as well, especially now that the baby boomers are beginning to leave the labor market. An immense change in the labor market from many perspectives—economic growth, demographics, labor supply trends, and other metrics—is investigated in this article.

In the 1980s, a combination of economic and political factors led to the demand for greater accountability in all functional areas of business, including HR. The massive restructuring of organizations in the 1990s led to the outsourcing of many of HR's basic transactional functions. In order for HR to add value to an organization, it must have several key competencies. “Influence in leadership is all about understanding the business well enough so that what you recommend adds value to the organization,” says one HR vice president. This article shows how this is done through the example of SYSCO Corporation.

To be successful, global companies must continue to look toward the future, and CEOs, senior line and HR management, and diversity leaders play a key role in that process. Workforce diversity cannot be delegated; it must be a partnership. Although the HR team plays the key staff role, total delegation from the top, without active involvement, is a recipe for failure. IBM considers diversity a business imperative as fundamental as delivering superior technologies in the marketplace. To ensure that talented people can contribute at the highest possible level, the company insists on a workplace that is free of discrimination and harassment and full of opportunity for all people.

This article investigates issues of convergence in human resource systems in Taiwan, with reference to the similarities and differences between locally owned companies and subsidiaries of multinational corporations (MNCs). Traditionally, management in Taiwanese companies has been largely influenced by Confucian values and is quite distinct from approaches common to MNCs. However, globalization has engendered significant competitive pressures, coupled with cultural and institutional change within Taiwan. This article provides a theoretical framework for understanding such changes and provides empirical evidence indicating that Taiwanese companies are acting very much like MNCs with regard to the adoption of flexible, highperformance work systems.

Will HR professionals continue on their journey to be business leaders, with full sway and equal influence in organizational decision making, or will they take the shortcut by sacrificing professional ethics and values for a “seat at the table”? The first challenge refers to value creation. Creating value in a global economy requires HR executives to clearly understand the confluence of economic, social, and technological forces that drive industry competition. The second challenge, value delivery, deals with the pressing need for HR to demonstrate its tangible impact by aligning with and driving the issues critical to the business. Finally, living values asks us to rediscover that we are the guardians of our organizations. We guard and preserve strategic capability, people, and values. These challenges are examined and a model is provided for understanding how the competing demands placed on HR create both organizational and professional conflict.

The contributors to this special issue provide unique perspectives and insights about the future of human resource management, and many of their ideas present opportunities for future research. Our intent is to focus on identifying and briefly discussing the key needs and directions suggested by these articles. The discussion is organized around four general themes: the HR function and its impact, the roles of HR professionals, the value of HR competencies, and the HR implications of globalization.

Successful work-design initiatives must overcome many obstacles in order to have their intended impact.This article outlines eight obstacles to work redesign: (1) influences on multiple outcomes, (2) trade-offs between different approaches, (3) difficulty in choosing appropriate units of analysis, (4) difficulty in predicting the nature of the job, (5) complications from individual differences, (6) job enlargement occurring without job enrichment, (7) creating new jobs as part of growth or downsizing, and (8) differences between longterm and short- term effects. This article examines the nature of these eight obstacles, reviews prior research on this topic, and outlines suggestions for managing these obstacles in practice.

With increasing globalization and hypercompetitive markets, most employers have resorted to headcount management to gain flexibility, remain competitive, and ensure survival. A new employment relationship has emerged. The bond between employer and employee no longer is a long‐term relationship involving loyalty and commitment, but a contractlike economic exchange. The authors take a closer look at this new employee relationship in the context of the more traditional employer‐employee relationship still found in many organizations. The economic value of the new employee relationship may be less attractive than previously perceived.

HR portals are complex information technology (IT) applications that can be accessed by all employees of a given organization. By placing more applications and information online, HR portals reduce the reliance employees have on HR personnel. Given this relational change, from human to computer, the HR portal implementation process must take into account the challenges of both change management and technology acceptance. By integrating change management theories with IT user acceptance models, this article adds to HR's collective knowledge of ways to effectively implement HR portals. In addition, this article describes the cross-national challenges that exist when a global firm attempts to implement an HR portal around the world. Thus, this article will present a model that (1) integrates change management theories and IT user acceptance models and (2) illustrates the ways in which change management plans may need to be adapted to be effective in various subsidiaries. A case study of Hewlett-Packard's (HP's) worldwide implementation of their @HP Employee Portal in the Italian subsidiary of HP illustrates the key issues of these theories.