Expanding the resource based view model of strategic human resource management

Abstract

Strategic human resource management scholars have drawn on the resource-based view of the firm to argue that a high commitment human resource (HCHR) strategy leads to firm competitive advantage by creating greater firm-level employee-based resources that are rare and valuable. While there is early empirical support for this mediated model, prior studies have largely ignored two key aspects of the RBV perspective. First, extant research has not effectively explained why differences in employee-based resources persist across firms that have adopted the same firm-level HR strategy. Second, this body of research has largely ignored contemporary thinking on the RBV which suggests that employee-based resources only lead to competitive advantage when they are a fit to other organization capabilities that enable the firm to effectively orchestrate them for productive use. I draw on the literature on dynamic managerial capabilities to argue that CEO managerial cognition, social capital, and human capital help to explain when pursuing an HCHR strategy potentially leads to greater firm-level employee-based resources and when firms are able to effectively manage and deploy these employee-based resources for competitive advantage.