Mousumi Bhattacharya

The Effects of Flexibility in Employee Skills, Employee Behaviors, and Human Resource Practices on Firm Performance

The components of human resource (HR) flexibility and their potential relationship to firm performance have not been empirically examined. The authors hypothesize that flexibility of employee skills, employee behaviors, and HR practices represent critical subdimensions of HR flexibility and are related to superior firm performance. Results based on perceptual measures of HR flexibility and accounting measures of firm performance support this prediction. Whereas skill, behavior, and HR practice flexibility are significantly associated with an index of firm financial performance, the authors find that only skill flexibility contributes to cost-efficiency.

Managing Human Assets in an Uncertain World: Applying Real Options Theory to HRM

While many authors have proposed a firms human resources as an asset that can provide value and competitive advantage, the SHRM field has tended to ignore the fact that assets have associated uncertainties and risks. The real options view provides a theoretical framework for how firms manage uncertainties associated with investments in real assets. We apply this logic to analyse the uncertainties associated with human assets and discuss how firms manage these uncertainties through HR ‘options’ which are capabilities generated by some HR practices and their combinations. We discuss these practices and develop an options model for managing different types of uncertainties.

The Routledge Companion to Strategic Human Resource Management

Combining up-to-date research, innovative content and practical perspectives, this book is the benchmark by which all other strategic HRM reference works should be measured. Leading figures from around the globe survey the current state of the discipline, while also introducing and exploring new, cutting edge themes in order to offer a comprehensive and authoritative overview of the field. Section introductions and integrative critiques pull together the separate themes to provide cross-comparisons between chapters to create a cohesive and well-structured volume. Unlike other texts in this area, The Routledge Companion to Strategic Human Resource Management incorporates contributions from leading management and business writers in areas adjacent to human resource management, including strategy, innovation and organizational learning. These add fresh and challenging insights into HRM themes from key mainstream business and management thinking. The field of strategic HRM is thus enriched and extended by this volume. Focusing on the interplay between theory and practice, this book is an essential resource for researchers and students studying human resource management and strategy.

What Have We Learned from 9/11? The Importance of Human Resource Crisis Planning

The terrorism events of September 11, 2001, unleashed feelings of shock and fear in employees working in corporations across the United States of America. The far-reaching consequences of the terrorist attacks in the United States, and the global wake-up call concerning the widespread nature of terrorism impacted corporations on an unprecedented scale and magnitude. Such dramatic events demanded a quick and immediate response on the part of human resource professionals to resolve employee concerns about their own security and the adequacy of security policies in the corporations in which they work. But have companies since then adequately addressed the concerns of employees to make their workplaces safer and more secure? How have companies reacted to the prospect of continuing terrorism in the worldwide global landscape?