Study of evolution in human resources management programs in organizations. Application of "Path Dependence" and "Cladistics"

Abstract

[EN] This doctoral thesis analyses human resources management evolution in organizations. That is, changes introduced throughout people management. The key objective is to analyze how organizations evolve and change over time by means of human capital. Recent years have demonstrated that levels of adjustment and change required by organizations in order to adapt to a changing environment, are increasingly high. One of the main drivers behind this organizational change, is the introduction of new programs and tools that help organizations to improve their business performance. This work is focused on the identification and analysis of such programs in the field of human resources management. In particular: what sort of HRM practices are implemented, in what sort of organization, at which point in time, and finally, in which order. Although there are numerous studies to date analyzing HRM practices, none of them introduce methodologies that consider order or time factor within the management process of HR. This is the reason why 'path dependence' and 'cladistics' approaches are introduced in this doctoral thesis. 'Path dependence' approach shows how certain management decision taken at a certain point of time, influence future decisions. This makes it all the more essential to press ahead with analysis of where we come from and which path we have followed before being designed the future strategy of the organization. According to this approach, throughout this doctoral thesis, cladistics is used as methodology for analyzing organizations from a different perspective of people management compared to the habitual viewpoints. Cladistics is a methodology that can be used in the decision-making process; moreover, it allows identifying the expected result of implementing certain bundles of HRM practices, taking also into account HRM practices already implemented. It considers therefore, also prior organization history. This methodology, for the analysis and classification, has been commonly used in the field of biology for many years. Throughout this doctoral thesis, the transference of this methodology to HRM is shown. Biologist use Cladistics in order to build evolutionary maps termed as cladograms. Cladograms are graphic representations of animal species evolution. This methodology has already been used in fields other than biology, such as linguistics or astronomy among others. In management, it has not yet been developed sufficiently; in particular, the most relevant examples in this field are in operations management area. The purpose of this work is to extrapolate the basics of Cladistics to HRM field. In doing so, HRM practices have been analyzed, such as personnel selection, rewards systems, appraisal systems, training, etc? The bundle of HRM practices that certain organization has been implemented at certain point of time will determine what kind of organization is. Thus, a evolutionary map is built. It can be use as a benchmarking tool in order to analyze what sort of HRM practices has been implemented by…