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How to Look at Organizations and Human Resource Management in the Economy of the Future?

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Circular Economy and Engineering

Part of the book series: Management and Industrial Engineering ((MINEN))

Abstract

The present work seeks to provide a theoretical reflection, based on a bibliographical review of the main theoretical and empirical contributions on the influence of social, economic, financial, political, environmental, and other external forces on human resources management (HRM) approaches . According to the logic of Vickers (Hum Resour Plan 28(1):26–32, 2005) and Jabbour and Santos (Int J Hum Resour Manag 19(12):2133–2154, 2008), in presenting what we conceive as the present and future of HRM , based on the concept of “Social Pollution ” (Pfeffer in Acad Manag Perspect 24(1):34–45, 2010), we refer to sustainability as an imperative. We intend to launch the discussion on how human resources management policies and practices can be guided in the sustainability vector, in order to contribute to the improvement of the social and environmental performance of organizations , that is, adding value of social relevance . We suggest, based on the contributions of Dryzek (The politics of the earth: environmental discourses. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005) and following the work of Ferrão (Que Economia Queremos? Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos, Lisboa, 2014), that currently two main discourses of change coexist: the green growth economy and the welfare economy . To guide the thinking, we propose a theoretical model. The key implication of the model is that an organization’s ability to generate revenue from resources will depend primarily on its effectiveness in managing the context (internal and external). Therefore, the drawing and implementation of such conscious HRM models will allow to see organizations as spaces for joint promotion of opportunities in which each employee is considered as a co-creator of solutions and not as a simple executor of tasks and functions (Coutinho and Pereira in Urban Stud 39(13):2395–2411, 2010). Another implication is that future research on sustainable competitive advantage must focus not only on the attributes of tangible resources but also on how tangible and intangible resources are developed, managed and disseminated. Efforts to identify sources of resource capital and institutional capital between competitors can shed additional light on the management of both types of capital in order to foster sustainable competitive advantage , underscoring the relevance of longitudinal studies on the development and deployment of resources.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The concept “capital” as used throughout this chapter refers to a durable resource or capacity, but not necessarily tangible, which produces services throughout its useful life, which contribute as a source of sustainable competitive advantage for a given organization (Oliver, 1997).

  2. 2.

    Already in 1997, anticipating the paradigm shifts that would come during globalization, Ulrich warned to the need for organizations rethink their strategy and actions toward the target audience. He organized the debate by questioning the dialectic of the workforce versus client versus investor versus government, which had hitherto guided organizational strategies and practices, proposing that the four dimensions were (and should be) reconcilable.

  3. 3.

    To more information please see Ehnert (2009) model and review developed by Kramar (2014).

  4. 4.

    In Kramar (2014: 1081–1082) words “Measures would need to evaluate outcomes such as the quality of the employment relationship, the health and wellbeing of the workforce, productivity (organisational); the quality of relationships at work, organisation being an employer of choice and being recognised among a range of potential sources of labour (social); and job satisfaction, employee motivation and work–life balance (individual); use of resources, such as energy, paper, water use, production of green products and services and costs associated with work travel (ecological). The appropriate measures would need to be developed for an individual organisation and then cascaded down to all employees using HRM practices , such as role design, performance indicators and rewards.”

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  1. School of Economics and Management, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

    Diana Fernandes & Carolina Feliciana Machado

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  1. Diana Fernandes
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  2. Carolina Feliciana Machado
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Correspondence to Carolina Feliciana Machado .

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  1. Department of Management, School of Economics and Management, University of Minho, Campus Gualtar, Braga, Portugal

    Carolina Machado

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Aveiro, Campus Santiago, Aveiro, Portugal

    J. Paulo Davim

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Fernandes, D., Machado, C.F. (2020). How to Look at Organizations and Human Resource Management in the Economy of the Future?. In: Machado, C., Davim, J. (eds) Circular Economy and Engineering. Management and Industrial Engineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43044-3_5

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