EL ANÁLISIS MULTICRITERIO, COMO JUSTIFICACIÓN DE LA ALTERNATIVA ELEGIDA.

2.8.1 Introducing assessments of multi-level analysis literature

This section focuses on an assessment of literature that surrounds the levels of analysis being used within HRM scholarship. This pertains to the need for HRM to employ multi-level analysis. Compared to research fields like strategic management, there has been a slow uptake within HRM to embrace multi-level perspectives (Liao, Toya, Lepak, & Hong, 2009; Renkema et al.,

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2016). Assessments of the literature from analytical HRM scholars argue that inattention to multiple levels of analysis runs the risk of misdirected

interpretation of empirical work (Nishii & Wright, 2008). As a means of redress, Wright and Nishii (2013, 2007) put forward a model that attends to multiple levels of analysis, while also being largely compatible with the work of Guest and Bos-Nehles (2013). This has gathered traction, with some empirical application ensuing.

Yet, “despite a growing belief that multi-level research is necessary to advance human resource management’s understanding, there remains a lack of multi- level thinking – the application of principles for multi-level theory building” (Renkema et al., 2016, p. 204). Existing scholarship also entails the dominant application of top-down approaches to multi-level analysis (Renkema et al., 2017). Such top-down positions implicitly champion consistency of

implementation, with variability of implementation by line managers treated as undesirable (Pérez, 2012).

Within this section, I will outline scholarship that has elicited concern

surrounding the absence of multi-level analysis, or identified misalignments of multi-level approaches when they are used, before outlining specifically how my thesis will address these concerns. As outlined in section 2.3, SAP has used multi-level perspectives effectively in its scholarship (Jarzabkowski & Spee, 2009), and such approaches lend themselves to the criticisms of the current state of multi-level analysis within HRM. My thesis contributes to scholarship by attending to these outlined concerns.

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2.8.2 Planning and implementation

Within HRM, differences have been identified between intended and implemented HR practices (Keenoy, 1999; Khilji, 2002; Legge, 1995a; Purcell, 1999; Woodrow & Guest, 2014). Attending to the methodological implications from this distinction, Khilji and Wang (2006) isolated intended and implemented HR practices as a means to review the extent of their difference. This constituted a bridging of broader stakeholder inclusion and the movement from ‘what HR practices are present’ to a focus on the manner and quality in which they are applied (Guest, 2011). The early theoretical antecedents of such positions stem in part from strategic management positions, and have moved into SHRM.

In seeking to understand strategic formulation, the rationally planned and the emergent strategy explanations represent two divergent yet dominant positions within strategic management scholarship. These standpoints still influence many academic debates (Paroutis, Heracleous, & Angwin, 2013). The planned school - stemming from Chandler (1962) - positions the role of executive managers as those who plan, administer and coordinate. Here strategy is first a domain of the executive manager, and secondly a formal and planned activity in which executives who are provided with information make future decisions concerning resources. In terms of the manner in which strategy is developed, Barnard (1948) took a critical position against formal planning, referring to it as a “delusory exercise” (p.164). Up until the 1970s however, the role of formal planning “could do no wrong” (Mintzberg, 1994, p. 4). Mintzberg’s works (Mintzberg, 1973, 1987a, 1987b, 1994; Mintzberg & Lampel, 1999a;

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Mintzberg & Waters, 1985) subsequently contributed heavily towards the emergent school of strategy.

Mintzberg and colleagues contended that strategies are not always formal or explicit. This body of literature argues that strategy is not a plan. Rather, it is patterns of activity that arise over time where “organisations develop plans for the future as they also evolve patterns of the past” (Mintzberg, 1994, p.24). Emergent strategy therefore is far more inclusive of different paths and

people, with formulation possible from varied directions including the bottom (Regnér, 2003). While this causes problems in identifying what activity is actually strategic (Westley, 1990; Whittington, 2003), strategic activities have been well-argued to go beyond those of activities of managers (Mantere, 2005; Vaara & Whittington, 2012; Whittington, 2003).

Within HRM, Dyer’s (1985) positioning of intended and actual HRM drew from Mintzberg and colleagues, and positioned the creation of intended practices in the domain of top management. As within strategic management scholarship, the identification of gaps between intended and actual HRM practices emerged (McGovern, Gratton, Hope‐Hailey, Stiles, & Truss, 1997). In such implementations, consistency of implementation varied extensively, as did the quality of the implemented practice (McGovern et al., 1997).

Within subsequent scholarship, a misalignment between the purpose of the practice and the experience of employees was then identified (Truss, 2001). Such positions lend themselves to the broad notion that senior managers design practices, but such practices are implemented at the line (Boxall, 2012; Boxall et al., 2007; Nishii & Wright, 2008; Purcell & Hutchinson, 2007;

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Truss, 2001). As identified in section 2.4.6, the role of line managers has been credited with variations between intended and actual implemented practices (Nishii & Wright, 2008; Purcell & Kinnie, 2007). As such, top-down positions of strategic practices may not manifest.

Scholarship within this domain has been undertaken through top-down and bottom-up processes. The overwhelming amount of multi-level analysis with HRM however incorporates top-down perspectives. Renkema et al. (2017) note in their extensive review of HRM multi-level analysis, “although many studies have conducted HRM-performance research at more than one level, few have gone beyond top-down empirical considerations, composition-based emergence, and two levels of analysis”.

The role of senior management’s contribution to the development of the HRF has received considerable attention (Boxall & Purcell, 2011; Guest, 1997; Macky & Boxall, 2007; Wright et al., 1994), yet in line with the SAP and HRM-as-practice agenda, the role and importance of HR managers’ relationships with other parties requires attention. The roles of middle managers and employees within the HRM process have also remained underestimated (Nishii et al., 2008; Wright & Nishii, 2013). An increasing body of literature linking the importance of these other actors to the success of HR strategy (Currie & Procter, 2001; Mayrhofer, Müller-Camen, Ledolter, Strunk, & Erten, 2004; Purcell & Hutchinson, 2007) has emerged in conjunction with it being contended that there is a dearth of literature that examines the interactions across different levels of management in the operationalisation of HR (Stanton, Young, Bartram, & Leggat, 2010a).

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Brewster et al. (2013) make a strong argument that there now exists a need to link the ‘who’ and the ‘how’ together in understanding not only HRM policy design, but the development of the actual processes that accompany broader strategic policy.

In a comprehensive review of the field by Boselie et al. (2005), they found that the vast majority of research occurred at a single level of analysis. Accounting for the drivers of strategic practices certainly must account for such practices and praxis extending beyond that of senior managers (see Mantere, 2005; Vaara & Whittington, 2012; Whittington, 2003).

Mintzberg and Waters (1990) have also drawn attention to decision-making, arguing that decisions do not always precede organisational action. They contend that in some instances decisions to act simply do not exist. Rather, actions occur through many complex frameworks such as social systems. These occur without consensus and inadvertently snowball. Subsequently Mintzberg and Waters (1990) maintain it is through actions that we are best able to observe strategy, as action leaves an evidence trail that decisions may not always be able to provide.