Human Resource Strategy and Competitive Advantage: A Longitudinal Study of Engineering Consultancies
基于新西兰工程咨询公司的纵向数据，研究了人力资源战略与竞争优势的关系，发现存活下来的公司采用了相似的行业配方，并指出区分战略性HRM与持久竞争优势基础的重要性。
Concepts associated with the resource‐based view of the firm are increasingly finding their way into the strategic HRM debate. Drawing on this literature, this paper reports one of the first industry‐based, longitudinal investigations into the relationship between human resource strategy and competitive advantage. Set in New Zealand, but in an internationally oriented sector, the study examines one of the more neglected spheres of professional services: engineering consultancies. The results indicate that the consultancy firms that survived the major business traumas of the late 1980s and early 1990s adopted similar structural, competitive, operational and HR responses associated with their evolving ‘industry recipe’. In interpreting the relationship between HRM and firm performance, then, it is important to distinguish those features of a firm's HRM which are strategic to ongoing viability from those that might form the basis of a relatively enduring form of competitive advantage. While there is insufficient evidence to conclude that any of the primary subjects in this study have established an enviable form of superiority, the study suggests that opportunities do exist for professional service firms to develop industry leadership through superior HRM. The analysis has implications for the wider work of theory‐building in strategic HRM.