Sinikka Vanhala

The boardroom gender paradox

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to contribute to research on gender and corporate boards of directors by focusing on how female board professionals construct particular notions of accessing and succeeding in boards.Design/methodology/approach – A discursive perspective is offered, based on conceiving gender as something that is “done” in social interaction. In the spirit of critical discourse analysis, the talk of female board professionals, produced in interviews in the Finnish context, is analyzed in‐depth.Findings – Two discourses are located in the talk of female board professionals: the discourse of competence and the discourse of gender. It is argued that the discourses constitute a boardroom gender paradox, which is characterized by several contradictory elements. By conceptualizing and illustrating this paradox, the study scrutinizes the elusive ideal of womens large‐scale entry into corporate boards.Research limitations/implications – Future studies should make use of the insights develop...

HRM, Company Performance and Employee Well-being

This paper is dealing with the relationships between HRM, company performance and employee well-being. The relationship between S/HRM and company performance has received much attention in prior literature, while the employee perspective has been widely neglected in this research tradition. The purpose of this paper is two-fold: first, to identify and evaluate how company performance and employee well-being are related, and, secondly, to evaluate the possibilities of HR policies and practices to impact on company performance and employee well-being. The results indicate that the relationship between company performance and employee well-being is weak and difficult to grasp. And such is the direct link between HRM and employee well-being, which is better explained by typical work-related factors. Instead, HR practices are relatively good predictors of company performance.

Human resource management practices and the HRM-performance link in public and private sector organizations in three Western societal clusters

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to explore HRM practices and HRM-performance (HRM-P) link in public and private sector organizations across three societal clusters: the Anglo, the Germanic, and the Nordic European. Design/methodology/approach – The article is based on international Cranet HRM survey data collected from large private and public organizations. Findings – According to results, HRM is more advanced in private companies than in public sector organizations, even across three societal clusters. Instead, the analyses related to HRM-P link in private and public organizations refer to interesting similarities but also differences between organizational sectors (public versus private) and societal clusters. Research limitations/implications – The main limitation is retaining in those performance indicators that are applicable in both private and public organizations: subjective measures of productivity and service quality, only. Performance measures relevant especially in the public sector (e....

Converging human resource management: A comparison between Estonian and Finnish HRM

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to participate in the convergence‐divergence debate related to the trends in European human resource management (HRM). The paper evaluates the converging vs diverging implications in Estonia and Finland by comparing HR strategies, policies and practices between the two countries in the context of HRM in the Nordic and EU‐15 countries.Design/methodology/approach – The research is part of a large international comparative HRM project (CRANET), which covers over 30 countries. Empirical data were collected by a survey questionnaire mailed to large private and public organisations employing over 200 employees. The Estonian survey data involve 69 organisations and the Finnish data 269. The data cover private companies and public sector organisations.Findings – The comparison of HRM in Estonia and Finland revealed a few interesting empirical observations: First, in spite of Estonias short history as an independent Baltic state, HRM has stabilised its position at both strat...

Human resource management in Finland

Describes the state‐of‐the‐art of human resource management in Finland in the mid‐1990s as the Finnish economy recovers from its deepest and longest post‐war recession. Typical to the Finnish system has been the mix of social, political and employers′ interests in the collective bargaining system; Finnish HRM cannot be understood without knowing its context, the main trends of which are: survival from rationalization and related labour reductions, increasing cost‐effectiveness and line responsibility, the flexible use of labour and utilization of the labour force. The implications of EU membership on the Finnish HRM are mainly seen to be related to free mobility of employees and changes in social security and labour relations.

Divergence in HR Functional Roles in Local Government

Abstract In spite of a growing body of research on the position and role of HRM and the HR function in organizations, local government HRM has not received the attention it deserves. This article contributes to research on the role of the HR function by deploying a discursive perspective on how HR managers construct their functions role in the context of Finnish local government. Five discourses are located in the talk of HR managers, which show emerging discursive tensions and contradictions in the roles of the HR function in local government.

The crisis management in Chinese and Estonian organizations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discover and compare the implementation of crisis management in Chinese and Estonian companies and the strategies the managers have used to prevent or manage crises.Design/methodology/approach – An empirical study was conducted in two economies in transition: China and Estonia, in 2008. Interview data were collected from 102 Chinese companies and 67 Estonian companies. The data were analyzed applying content analysis.Findings – The results indicate that the managers of Chinese and Estonian organizations have identified different crises reflecting the politico‐socio‐economic situation of the countries. The most common type of crises in Chinese organizations is those related to economy, while in Estonian organizations, they are related to human resources. Estonian companies are better prepared for handling crises beforehand than Chinese companies. However, the majority of companies in both countries started reacting after a crisis had already come true. A triangular...

Performance in local government HRM: the role of external customers

Purpose – The purpose of the article is to contribute to HRM‐performance research by focusing on how HR managers discursively construct performance in local government HRM.Design/methodology/approach – The study is carried out in Finnish local government organizations, where HR managers of ten large and medium‐sized cities were interviewed. The study adopted a constructionist approach: performance is constructed through the talk of different stakeholders, in this case, HR managers. The analysis draws upon discourse analysis.Findings – Performance in local government HRM is constructed through three predominant discourses: the service discourse, the process discourse, and the customer change discourse. The central finding of the study is the strong role of local residents, portrayed as external customers to HRM.Research limitations/implications – Typical to discourse analysis, the number of interviews is limited and the results cannot be generalized. Thirdly, according to the constructivist approach, resea...

Converging and Diverging Trends in HRM between the Nordic Countries and Estonia

Along with the increased focus on comparative HRM research, the role of context and the debate between convergence and divergence of HRM practices have received increasing attention (Martin-Alcazar, Romero-Fernandez & Sanches-Gardey, 2005; Pudelko, 2005; Brewster, 2007; Dewettinck & Remue, 2011). The US-derived vision of HRM as a universalistic paradigm (Delery & Doty, 1996) with highly individualized relationships with employees has faced strong criticism, especially from European HRM scholars (Guest, 1990; Brewster, 1995, 2007). The European view of HRM is seen to be more contingent, a kind of contextual paradigm. Based on the analyses of Cranet empirical contributions, Gooderham and Nordhaug (2010: 34) conclude that ‘the practice of HRM cannot be divorced from its institutional context’. This means that history, culture, legislation, trade union representation and the role of the state should be taken into account in understanding the use of HRM practices in particular countries.

Employee Age and Company Performance An Integrated Model of Aging and Human Resource Management Practices

This study investigated the relationships among company average age, company work ability, and company performance by examining (a) the effects of employee average use of selection, optimization, and compensation (SOC) personal strategies and high-involvement work practices (HIWPs) on employee work ability; (b) the buffering effects of both employee average use of SOC and HIWPs on the negative relationship between company-level average age of employees and employee work ability; and (c) the link between company average age and company performance as mediated by company work ability. Analysis was conducted on data from 70 Finnish companies in the retail and metal industries and their 889 employees. Results showed that company average age was negatively related to company work ability, which in turn was positively related to company performance assessed by company managers. HIWPs were positively related to company work ability. Employee average use of SOC strategies buffered the negative effect of company average age on company work ability. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.