Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES'

It is widely acknowledged that discipline at work is a neglected area of study in the context of contemporary employee relations. Within the workplace the handling of discipline is largely prescribed by formal rules that are captured in policies, applied through procedures and then interpreted by the actors who facilitate this process. This thesis argues that an empirical understanding of the disciplinary process can only be achieved if it includes an appreciation of the nature of the relationship that is established during the disciplinary process and that this is crucial for us to develop a full understanding of the dynamics that take place within this activity and between these functions. It contends that throughout the process of disciplinary handling there exists a highly contested terrain (Edwards, 1979) that is constantly contended by the various actors that play out this vital role in relation to aspects of power, control and consent.

A McDonald’s training program for the positions of grill and counter was evaluated in order to identify recommendations for curriculum refinement or enhancements. The methodological approaches developed by Ford and Wroten (1984) and Bownas, Bosshardt, and Donnelly (1985) were applied. Three evaluation assessment inventories were developed: The Job task Inventory, The training Emphasis Inventory, and The Training Effectiveness Inventory. These inventories were constructed with the assistance of 49 managers, trainers, and employees with six or more months of service. Four managers, seven trainers, and 22 recent training graduates responded to the appropriate inventory and these ratings were used in the content validity evaluation. Scale reliability was evaluated for each inventory using Cronbach’s coefficient alpha and Kuder-Richardson 21. Descriptive statistics were calculated for training requirements, training emphasis and training effectiveness measures. A plotting matrix was developed and correlation analyses were performed to assess content validity. Results of the analyses indicate: (a) that the three inventories are reliable, (b) that the overall grill training program reflects job tasks needed for successful job performance with the exception of a single content domain, (c) that counter managers and trainers differ in their perception of the importance of job tasks and the training emphasis needed, (d) that recent grill graduates find the training curriculum effective while counter graduates do not, and (e) that managers and trainers for both positions perceive task importance differently. The results call for slight grill training enhancements for the Secondary Duties content domain. Additionally it is indicated that the counter training program needs significant adjustments in terms of curriculum content and training emphasis.

This study investigated management development as a task of school managers by focusing on: • the need for a new education management development approach in South African schools; • the nature and scope of management development; • the international and national perspectives on the education management development practice; • current education management development activities in Gauteng schools; and • an education management development model for Gauteng schools. The literature study exposed the need for a new education management development approach in South African schools, the nature, scope and major aspects of management development. Furthermore, management development approaches, techniques and methods as well as guidelines for a new holistic approach are described. The investigation into the education management development practice for school managers exposed advanced levels in this regard in the UK and USA. Malaysia, Zimbabwe and Namibia are engaged in customising effective programmes for school managers. South Africa is focusing on a holistic approach, with a significant step taken being, the establishment of the National Institute for Education Management Development. The empirical study consisted of a structured questionnaire distributed to a sample population of I 08 school principals, 80 deputy principals and 210 heads of departments to investigate their management development needs, experiences and activities. Main findings revealed a lack of training for school management, uncoordinated education management development programmes, with existing ones being reactions to crisis situations, and ill-defined management roles for school managers. School principals seem solely responsible for school management, thus exposing a need for a school-based management development approach. The management development model developed for Gauteng schools focuses on whole-school development, recognises the participatory management vision of the new education system, includes stakeholder involvement in education management development and provides school managers with a model that employs the ODE Quality Assurance Framework. The major recommendations flowing from this study include customising education management linguistics for South Africa, defining job descriptions for school managers, preparing and inducing school managers, setting education management qualifications for education management posts and institutionalising the National Institute for Education Management Development.
Thesis (PhD)--PU for CHE, 1999

Mestrado em Gestão de Recursos Humanos
Para que as empresas possam colocar no mercado produtos e serviços suficientemente competitivos, torna-se essencial avaliar as formas de Recrutamento e Seleção de pessoas, visto que os Recursos Humanos são fatores importantíssimos para o funcionamento de qualquer organização. Os processos de Recrutamento e Seleção são importantes em todas as organizações, porque é através destas técnicas de Gestão de Recursos Humanos que os candidatos podem ingressar no mercado de trabalho. É importante o empenho nesse processo para que as pessoas selecionadas possuam as competências e skills necessários para desempenhar as tarefas de uma determinada função. A importância do estudo do Recrutamento e Seleção sente-se quando é efetuada a análise entre o perfil do colaborador e a função a ocupar, tendo em consideração o índice de rotatividade, absentismo, produtividade e os custos resultantes ao colocar-se o candidato certo no lugar certo. O tema do projeto do Relatório de Estágio abordou a temática do Recrutamento e Seleção. A escolha deste tema deveu-se ao interesse particular nesse ramo da Gestão de Recursos Humanos, com o objetivo de realizar um Estágio Curricular e elaborar o Trabalho Final do Mestrado em Gestão de Recursos Humanos. O Estágio Curricular realizou-se no Departamento de Recrutamento e Seleção da AutoVision, com o objetivo de examinar que práticas e atividades foram efetuadas nas diversas fases do processo de Recrutamento e Seleção em contexto real.
In order for companies launch market products and services that are competitive enough, it becomes essential to evaluate ways to recruit and select people. Nowadays Human Resources are crucial factors for the functioning of any organization. The Recruitment and Selection processes are important in all organizations, because it is through these Management of Human Resources techniques candidates will eventually start working. It is important that the commitment process for people to be placed in vacancies, whom have the competences and skills needed to perform the tasks of a given function. The importance of the study of Recruitment and Selection is felt when the analysis is performed between the profile of the employee to occupy and the vacancy to be fulfilled, taking in consideration the turnover, absenteeism, productivity and the resulting costs to putting the right candidate in the right place. The theme of the Internship Report project addresses the issue of Recruitment and Selection. The choices of this topic is due to the particular interest in this branch of Human Resource Management, with the aim of carrying out a internship, and therefore to prepare the final project of the Master Degree in Human Resource Management. The Internship was at the AutoVision Recruitment and Selection Department, aiming at examining practices and activities that were carried out at various stages of the Recruitment and Selection process in a real situation.

Mestrado em Gestão de Recursos Humanos
O presente relatório de estágio explícita as fases de Recrutamento e Seleção (R&S) na empresa Talenter tm desenvolvidas em dois departamentos: Talenting Search Department e Talenter Store do Chiado. Este estágio permitiu-me desenvolver conhecimentos no tema de R&S, aprendidos em contexto académico, transportando-os para o contexto real de trabalho. Relativamente à estrutura deste relatório, a primeira parte foca-se na revisão da literatura, abordando conceitos e práticas relacionadas com as fases de R&S; o capítulo seguinte caracteriza a empresa a nível de missão, valores e estratégia; o ponto seguinte enuncia as atividades desenvolvidas ao longo do estágio; e, por fim, o último capítulo consiste no confronto da revisão da literatura com as funções que desempenhei no estágio, ações de melhoria e a conclusão.
The present internship report explains the Recruitment and Selection (R&S) phases at Talenter developed by their two specialized departments: Talenting Search Department and Talent Store at Chiado. Throughout this experience I had the opportunity to develop my knowledge and skills about R&S, learned in my academic journey and address it at the work context. The report is divided in four chapters. The first one focus on the state of art, relating concepts and practices with the R&S; the second chapter defines and explains the company, their mission, vision and strategy as well; the third chapter describes the activities developed in the internship; and at last, the last chapter confronts the state of art with the activities and functions that I've performed on the Internship, further studies improvements and also the study conclusion.
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Mestrado em Gestão de Recursos Humanos
O presente relatório surge no seguimento das atividades desenvolvidas durante o período de estágio curricular na Page Personnel - subsidiária do PageGroup -, empresa de recrutamento e seleção especializados. O estágio teve como enfoque o suporte a diversas equipas, em áreas tão díspares como: Finance, Human Resources, Tax & Legal e Commercial & Marketing, desenvolvendo tarefas de diversa índole, no que ao recrutamento e seleção dizem respeito. Para uma melhor compreensão das temáticas abordadas, propõe-se uma revisão de literatura relativa às técnicas e aos métodos utilizados em cada etapa do processo de recrutamento desenvolvido na Page Personnel. Por fim, é apresentada uma análise das atividades levadas a efeito, confrontando as atividades realizadas com as teorizações literárias, assim como uma apreciação pessoal da experiência de estágio.
This report follows on from the activities developed during a traineeship period at Page Personnel - PageGroup affiliate -, a specialized recruitment and selection company. The traineeship focused the support provided to several teams, in such diverse areas as Finance, Human Resources, Tax & Legal and Marketing & Commerce, carrying out different type of tasks regarding the recruitment and job-seekers selection area. For a clearer understanding of the topics approached, it is firstly proposed a literature review on the techniques and methods applied at each step of the Page Personnel?s recruitment process. At last, an analysis of the activities developed is presented, confronting the practical tasks with the correspondent literary theories, as well as a personal statement on the traineeship experience

This diploma thesis deals with the analysis of the actual state of manpower and managerial activity at the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) as the highest judicial authority. Based on the findings from the questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews with the managers of the SAC changes in the management of the SAC are proposed that shall lead to the intended aim, i. e. increase efficiency of managerial work.

Human Resource Management (HRM) is a new system of managing employees in the orgamsation. The use of this system and its models is growing very fast among companies in different industries. The outcomes of a proper HRM modeJ are business ice, customer satisfaction and employee commitment. There are factors, e if an appropriate model of HRM is not practiced in a company. These include but not are limited to high staff turnover, stress, ageing workforce and gender diversity. This research examines the implementation of HRM in the shipping industry.

Over the last 20 years there has been a growth in the relative importance of personnel economics as an area of economics. However, due to a lack of suitable data most of the work in this area has been largely theoretical. It is only in the past decade that there has been a growth in the availability of firm-based data sets, making it possible for researchers to begin to test some of these ideas empirically. This thesis analyses data from a rich source of monthly personnel and payroll records from a large banking sector firm. The data is confined to the organisation's U. K operations and is available over the period January 1989 to March 1997 (giving 99 monthly observations). Although personnel data of this this sort is available for the US (see, for example, Baker, Gibbs and Holmstrom (1994) and Lazear (1999)), this is one of the first data sets of its kind to be available for the U. K. This thesis focues on three areas of personnel economics. It analyses the issues of promotion, absenteeism, and labour turnover, paying particular attention in all three cases to gender differences.

The multinational enterprise (MNE) is now a significant part of the world economy both in temis of trade and employment. The performance of an MINE is in part dependent on the capability of its human resource. The knowledge and experience of employees is a source of competitive advantage, but whether this is realised or not may depend on having the right human resource policies. Managers therefore seek to implement best practice, and in multinationals there is the potential for intraorganizational learning across national boundaries. The aim of this thesis is to examine a number of questions arising from the proposition that multinational firms are contributing to the development of international norms of best practice in human resource management as a result of a trend towards greater coordination of management practice in MNEs. It is suggested that multinationals are developing mechanisms to encourage the transfer of knowledge and experience across national boundaries, and this is therefore an important aspect of international human resource management (HRM). The thesis contains a review of the literature, firstly on the management of multinationals, secondly on the development of a strategic view of human resource management, and thirdly on HRM in the MINE. From this material, a theoretical framework is developed that links together a number of research questions. These formed the basis for the design and execution of a qualitative research project in which information on strategy, structure and management practice was obtained from twentyfour companies. These represented a cross-section of country ownership, including the UK, other European countries, the USA and Japan. The design of the research project is explained, and this is followed by a presentation of the results. These support the proposition that as a consequence of the globalization of markets, multinationals are tending to adopt a more global perspective in which there is greater cross-national integration of operations, coordination of management practice, and the development of internationally orientated management. The analysis discusses the implications of this for international human resource management, and offers a number of recommendations for HRM in the multinational enterprise. Finally some suggestions are made for future research to build on and extend the findings of this project.

Although Talent Management (TM) is a well-known concept, there are certain limitations in the area. Primarily it is about talent being an ambiguous concept and that there is currently no clear definition. Furthermore, previous research shows that there are no actual routines on how TM-activities should be designed. The specific contribution from the current study is therefore about identifying the challenges that exists for TM from an employer perspective. The findings we have noticed in the study are mainly derived from the structure of an organisation where there is a certain dynamic between the central management and local units. This makes it difficult to work strategically with TM as the division of responsibility is locally based. Another finding was that the definition of talent should be mutual in order for organisations to be able to handle talents effectively and to design activities that facilitates the work towards the organisation's goals. Thus, this study should be able to support future research in the field of TM by identifying the challenges organisations might face and therefore creating opportunities for better managing or strategically developing the work with TM.

In today’s fast paced, ever-changing world, one cannot help hearing the terms Big Data and analytics. The Internet holds vast amounts of data and this data, for example in retail, is being used to predict shopping habits, current needs, trends, and more. Why should this be limited to the retail side of an organization? Today, there is a more significant push for Human Resource (HR) professionals to be strategic business partners, and, therefore, HR professionals need to work on leading, not lagging, in the area of measurements and analytics. Some organizations that have adopted the use of analytics in their HR departments have been extremely successful. If this is the case, why are not more HR professionals adopting the use of human resource analytics (HRA)? The purpose of this study is to gain insight as to the reasons why more HR professionals are not using HRA to improve organizational performance and to gain and maintain a competitive advantage. An exploration of prior research was performed and resulted in the development of a model representing factors that impact the adoption of HRA. The model was then tested for content validity and reliability using Partial Least Squares of Path Modeling. Results of the study of 302 HR professionals, currently working in the field of HR, suggest the hypotheses testing social influence, tool availability, effort expectancy, performance expectancy, and quantitative self-efficacy as factors impacting the adoption of HRA were all significant. Conversely, the factors data availability, fear appeals, and general self-efficacy were not significant. Findings indicate that the factors impacting the adoption of HRA are not only in the hands of the HR professional but, to some extent, the organization as well. If organizations truly want to adopt HRA, they must make available to the HR professionals the tools, data, resources, and support necessary. This study contributes to the literature on individual-level adoption, specifically of HRA. Implications for theory and practice are discussed, as well as further research.

This research presents the Business Process perspective of HRM and demonstrates gaps in HR field. The research follows a combination of Constructive and Case Study research methodologies and complies with the quality criteria set for this type of research. In this light, the research develops the HRM Business Process Model by defining HRM as a business process. The first version of the model was initially developed following an extensive literature survey. Initial validation of the model involved several companies in the UK through a structured questionnaire. Second version of the model was developed according to the comments and recommendations received from companies. The second version of the model was validated by academics from HR and Business Process fields. The Model represents a hard systems model of HRM process, which is intended to be normative outlining the key activities and information flows. An audit methodology was produced based on the Model. The HRM business process of four companies were audited using the audit methodology. These four in-depth case study companies together with the research leading up to this point led to development of new insights to the HRM theory and practices. The most significant contributions of this research are as follows: Introduced HRM as a business process and classify it as a support process; Demonstrated that, the HRM activities can be modelled as a business process, taking a systems engineering approach. This provides a "Hard Systems" perspective to HRM; Demonstrated that, the Model provides a framework that would facilitate effective deployment of business objectives to HR objectives; HRM is a business process that supports other business processes. However, in practice HRM is not recognised as a cross-functional business process; Companies with no formal HR function seem to have the most complete HR business process where the process is embedded into each function; Impact of HR process / activities are not measured or monitored in an objective explicit manner.

This thesis analyses Human Resource Management (H.R.M) in English local government. The research shows how H.R.M in local authorities has been influenced by the development of New Public Management (N.P.M) that has adopted some but not all of the characteristics of H.R.M. N.P.M and H.R.M appear to have important differences arising from the unique nature of local government culture, organisation and structure. These differences were found in this study to prevent the full implementation of a strategic and effective form of H.R.M. As a result of these differences local government in England has developed a hybrid form of H.R.M suitable to the particular to the needs of local authorities. The study presents evidence that some cultural change has occurred in local authorities under H.R.M, particularly in the structure of organisations, and in the relationship between HR staff and managers. However, the inability of local authorities to overcome specific barriers to H.R.M means that the contribution H.R.M might make to the organisational performance of local councils is still unknown. These barriers are the inability of councils to produce integrated business and H.R strategies; underdevelopment of line managers; incomplete processes of devolution and decentralisation of HR responsibilities and issues arising from the political nature of local authorities.

High-performance work systems (HPWSs) have been a topic of debate due to the complicated links transforming human resource management (HRM) practices into valuable outcomes for both organizations and their employees. However, the complexity of these links between HPWS practices and outcomes has resulted in many incremental theoretical steps, one of which is to shed further light on the “black-box” of HRM – outcomes links. The black-box refers to the inadequate knowledge of issues; for example, how and when certain bundles of HPWS practices result in particular outcomes and why HPWSs do not always produce positive results. Hence, engaging with the “rhetoric” versus “reality” debate in HPWS literature, the current research comprises two studies, utilizing both qualitative and quantitative studies in an attempt to explore the HPWS black-box and contribute to the understanding of HPWS theory and literature. Equally as important and not adequately understood is the concept of HRM philosophy as an important component to understand what drives the HPWS infrastructure in an organization. HRM philosophy has been considered the driving force behind the implementation of HRM policies, signaling management’s intentions to employees. A well-defined HRM philosophy guides policymakers to craft successful HR goals; however, there have been few explicit studies of HRM philosophy in the HPWS context. This research begins with a qualitative study within three Pakistani telecommunication organizations to understand the way different HRM philosophies may drive different forms of HPWS, and consequently, different outcomes. Furthermore, this research draws on the theoretical notion of HRM system strength to further illuminate questions relating to the black-box. HRM strength is referred to as the consistent, distinct, and consensual implementation of HRM practices. Employees’ understanding of HRM processes and HPWS initiatives undertaken by managers is critical to the successful implementation of HPWS. Employees are the ultimate recipients of HPWS practices, and their perceptions of these practices have received substantial scholarly attention. Thus, this research incorporates employee awareness of and satisfaction with these HPWS policies as important variables of the HPWS black-box phenomenon. Employee attribution of HPWS policies is another important component of the HPWS model of this research, motivated by the fact that employee ratings of HPWS policies add to the success or failure of a HPWS. It is important to recognize that previous literature has demonstrated that HPWSs can have positive outcomes for organizations while having a negative effect on employees. Hence, this research was designed to ensure that the outcomes for multiple stakeholders were considered. The outcome variables of this research therefore include employee emotional exhaustion as an indicator of employee wellbeing at work, organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) as a measure for organizational benefit; and employee customer service measured as a proxy for customer service outcomes. Furthermore, the current research investigates HPWS implementation among three telecommunication organizations from Pakistan. Contextual factors and unique organizational HRM approaches cannot be overlooked in management studies. Pakistan is a developing economy with an organizational history of directive management styles, and HRM researchers have observed that these organizations have begun to implement sophisticated HPWS policies. Pakistan is a context embedded with strong national culture and Islamic values. However, transitions have been observed in the management styles of Pakistani organizations. Thus, Pakistani organizations, being exposed to simultaneous forces of convergence and divergence, propose Pakistan as an under-researched and possible avenue to explore HPWS. This research was driven by two overarching research questions: How does HRM philosophy influence the adoption and implementation of HPWSs in telecommunication organizations in Pakistan? and How do the HPWS practices influence employee outcomes through the black-box in telecommunication organizations in Pakistan? To further guide this research, these research questions were divided between two studies. The first research question was explored as a part of qualitative Study 1, where HRM philosophy was examined through interviews with participating organizations; while the second research question was explored as a part of quantitative Study 2, where elements of the HPWS black-box were hypothesized and statistically analyzed. Overall, an inductive-deductive exploratory research technique was applied with 55 interviews and 537 questionnaires from senior managers, HR managers, and employees. The key findings of the thesis revolve around the role of HRM philosophy, HRM system strength, and employees’ understanding of HPWS practices in the HPWS process. Findings indicate that HRM philosophy ensures vision and clarity for HPWS purpose not only for managers, but also allow them to share a salient HPWS purpose throughout the organizational levels. Additionally, following the HRM process approach, HPWS implementation with strong philosophical foundations are likely to enhance the employees’ awareness and satisfaction with HPWS and these improved employees’ perceptions generate positive employees’ reactions such as reduced emotional exhaustion, OCB, and customer service. The findings also support the conditional effects of HRM strength and employees’ attributions of HPWS practices. The findings suggest that HPWS can result into promising outcomes if they are supported by an HRM philosophy and their purpose is equally communicated with the employees. Not the presence of HPWS practices, but their right implementation and acknowledgment by the employees can make a difference to generate desired outcomes. This research contributes to the theories presented by P. Wright and Nishii (2007) and Kepes and Delery (2007) on shared HRM perceptions and employees HRM experiences, because in this research, employee awareness and satisfaction with the HPWS policies were found to actively enhance the effect of HPWS on employee wellbeing, OCB, and customer service. Moreover, the results also support Bowen and Ostroff’s (2004) theoretical proposition that consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus in HRM practices is critical to creating strong HRM structures. The study’s implications are for both managers and theory. As the findings observed a positive role of HRM philosophy in managers’ decisions to choose and implement a more purposeful and salient HPWS, it is important for managers to invest in the formulating a well-guided HRM philosophy and purpose to orient their HPWS decision at the workplace. Moreover, employee-centred HRM philosophies and HPWS processes considering employees as organizational assets can generate desired outcomes at greater lengths. Employees’ acknowledgement of managers’ efforts of HPWS practices increase chances for managers to build string employment relationships with employees. In theory, insights are for researchers and reviewers to conduct more research by linking HRM philosophy with the use of HPWS practices because philosophies represented the knowledge, assumptions, and expectations about the HR systems; thus, providing a better understanding of HPWS implementation. Additionally, it is also important to study the employees’ acknowledgement of actual HPWS practices as a part of ‘HRM process theory’ to investigate the impact of HPWS practices on the outcomes.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Dept Bus Strategy & Innovation
Griffith Business School
Full Text

Human resource outsourcing (HRO) is a strategic choice that managers implement because of a variety of anticipated benefits. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to identify HRO strategies managers used to reduce operating costs while maintaining human resource (HR) effectiveness. Data were collected from semistructured interviews using open-ended questions and a review of company documents. Study participants represented 3 midwestern firms with 50 or more employees. The participants drawn from the population consisted of a minimum of 2 participants per organization who had increased their organization's strategic value using HRO strategies. The transaction cost economics (TCE) theory was the conceptual framework for this study. Data were analyzed using methodological triangulation to identify codes from words, phrases, and sentences using multiple sources to identify recurring themes. Five key themes emerged: outsourcing strategies, outsourced functions, operational costs, organizational effectiveness, and success measurement. The findings of this study may lead to social change by supporting managers in making HRO decisions conducive to reducing operating costs while maintaining HR effectiveness, which might positively impact social change by providing core function jobs to the local community thereby decreasing unemployment rates.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 1985.
MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND DEWEY.
Bibliography: leaves 217-220.
by Earnest William Deavenport, Jr.
M.S.

Mestrado em Gestão de Recursos Humanos
O tema do presente Relatório de Estágio abordou a temática da formação e desenvolvimento organizacional. A escolha deste tema deveu-se ao meu interesse, durante o meu percurso académico, relativamente ao tópico da gestão da formação e também ao facto de ter realizado um estágio curricular nesta área, no âmbito do Trabalho Final de Mestrado em Gestão de Recursos Humanos. O estágio curricular teve lugar na Direcção de Pessoas- Departamento de Desenvolvimento e Comunicação da Companhia de Seguros Allianz Portugal, onde me foi dada a oportunidade de aplicar na prática os conhecimentos teóricos adquiridos ao longo do Mestrado, bem como obter experiência profissional, tomando contacto directo e participativo nas funções diárias deste Departamento. O objectivo deste relatório de estágio foi explanar e analisar as actividades desenvolvidas ao longo do estágio, para compreender como é feita a gestão da formação na prática organizacional. De modo a possibilitar uma análise crítica das práticas organizacionais sobre a gestão da formação, foi feita uma revisão da literatura sobre esta temática. Comparou-se o preconizado pela teoria com o praticado, o que permitiu demonstrar que a Allianz Portugal adopta boas práticas na gestão da formação, razão pela qual é uma organização certificada pela Bureau Veritas.
The subject of this Internship Report discussed the issue of organizational training and development. The choice of this topic was due to my interest during my academic path about the subject of training management and also because I had done a curricular internship in this field for my Master’s Final Work in Human Resource Management. The internship took place at the Development and Communication at Allianz Portugal Insurance Company, where I had the opportunity to apply in practice the theoretical knowledge acquired during the Master, as well as work experience, having direct contact and participating in the daily functions. The purpose of this Internship Report was to explain and analyze the activities performed along the internship, in order to understand how to manage training in an organization. First of all, was made a literature review that enabled a critical analysis of organizational practices on the training management field. At last, was made a comparison between the theory and the organizational practice, which proved that Allianz Portugal adopts best practices in training management, being even a certified organization by Bureau Veritas.

This thesis is an action research investigation into the influence of my Christian habitus on my consultancy practice. My research question: How does my Christian faith inform the work I do? is located within the academic field of Spirit at Work. The complexity and difficulties of my professional practice are explored using the literature on Christian spirituality. My investigation uses the research method of practical theology to explore: my own Christian perspective; my role as a spiritual mentor; the nature of spiritual formation; and, faith in relation to work. The analytical methods of theological reflection, narrative inquiry, and autoethnography support the critical reflection. Five themes emerge: the evangelical basis of my Christian perspective; an understanding of the grace of God; the consideration of resistance as sin; strategies to enable spiritual formation; and complex combinations of faith in relation to work. This study has enabled me to interrogate my approach to spiritual formation in relation to work. My inquiry in a variety of contexts – with colleagues, one individual, and with a client –has developed my ability as a reflexive practitioner, and has strengthened my vocation as a spiritual mentor. I have used the Holistic Development Model (HDM) to underpin my approach to spiritual mentoring, and created a Christian interpretation of it. Spiritual formation is explored through the topics of: church, faith, purpose and mission using scripture, adventure and leadership, and difficulty and struggle. The research provides insights into my work as a professional consultant in the area of leadership development. My reflexive learning, combined with participative inquiry, provides an insider perspective on living within an evangelical Christian worldview. Difficulties over how to interpret Christian faith in work contexts are explored, particularly with regard to inclusivity. The research links spiritual formation with leadership, concluding that, in my practice, faith takes precedence.

The objective of the proposed research is to develop interference-aware resource management techniques for CR networks that opportunistically operate within the licensed primary networks spectrum and to investigate the application of such CR techniques to emerging wireless networks. In this thesis, we report on a set of laboratory experiments that we undertook to analyze the interference between the CR-based wireless regional-area network (WRAN) standard and the digital television (DTV) broadcasting system. We determined the tolerable levels of WRAN interference into DTV receivers and studied the effect of these interference levels on WRAN deployment. Based on the need for efficient utilization of the primary network spectrum, we propose efficient interference-aware radio resource allocation (RRA) techniques for orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) CR networks. These RRA techniques aim to maximize the CR network throughput and to keep the CR interference to the primary network at or below a predefined threshold, known as the "interference temperature" limit. Moreover, we propose a joint spectrum-sensing design and power control algorithm that lead to increased CR network throughput and efficient protection of the PUs from undue interference. Interference coordination (IC) is considered a key technique for capacity maximization in emerging heterogeneous wireless networks. We propose a CR-based IC and RRA algorithm for OFDMA femtocell deployments to achieve efficient spectrum utilization and maximum network throughput. CR is envisioned as a key enabling technology for future wireless networks; our novel CR techniques will provide other researchers useful tools to design such networks.

The increasing penetration of mobile devices in everyday life is posing a broad range of research challenges to meet such a massive data demand. Mobile users seek connectivity "anywhere, at anytime". In addition, killer applications with multimedia contents, like video transmissions, require larger amounts of resources to cope with tight quality constraints. Spectrum scarcity and interference issues represent the key aspects of next generation wireless networks. Consequently, designing proper resource management solutions is critical. To this aim, we first propose a model to better assess the performance of Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA)-based simulated cellular networks. A link abstraction of the downlink data transmission can provide an accurate performance metric at a low computational cost. Our model combines Mutual Information-based multi-carrier compression metrics with Link-Level performance profiles, thus expressing the dependency of the transmitted data Block Error Rate (BLER) on the SINR values and on the modulation and coding scheme (MCS) being assigned. In addition, we aim at evaluating the impact of Jumboframes transmission in LTE networks, which are packets breaking the 1500-byte legacy value. A comparative evaluation is performed based on diverse network configuration criteria, thus highlighting specific limitations. In particular, we observed rapid buffer saturation under certain circumstances, due to the transmission of oversized packets with scarce radio resources. A novel cross-layer approach is proposed to prevent saturation, and thus tune the transmitted packet size with the instantaneous channel conditions, fed back through standard CQI-based procedures. Recent advances in wireless networking introduce the concept of resource sharing as one promising way to enhance the performance of radio communications. As the wireless spectrum is a scarce resource, and its usage is often found to be inefficient, it may be meaningful to design solutions where multiple operators join their efforts, so that wireless access takes place on shared, rather than proprietary to a single operator, frequency bands. In spite of the conceptual simplicity of this idea, the resulting mathematical analysis may be very complex, since it involves analytical representation of multiple wireless channels. Thus, we propose an evaluative tool for spectrum sharing techniques in OFDMA-based wireless networks, where multiple sharing policies can be easily integrated and, consequently, evaluated. On the other hand, relatively to contention-based broadband wireless access, we target an important issue in mobile ad hoc networks: the intrinsic inefficiency of the standard transmission control protocol (TCP), which presents degraded performance mainly due to mechanisms such as congestion control and avoidance. In fact, TCP was originally designed for wired networks, where packet losses indicate congestion. Conversely, channels in wireless networks might vary rapidly, thus most loss events are due to channel errors or link layer contention. We aim at designing a light-weight cross-layer framework which, differently from many other works in the literature, is based on the cognitive network paradigm. It includes an observation phase, i.e., a training set in which the network parameters are collected; a learning phase, in which the information to be used is extracted from the data; a planning phase, in which we define the strategies to trigger; an acting phase, which corresponds to dynamically applying such strategies during network simulations. The next generation mobile infrastructure frontier relies on the concept of heterogeneous networks. However, the existence of multiple types of access nodes poses new challenges such as more stringent interference constraints due to node densification and self-deployed access. Here, we propose methods that aim at extending femto cells coverage range by enabling idle User Equipments (UE) to serve as relays. This way, UEs otherwise connected to macro cells can be offloaded to femto cells through UE relays. A joint resource allocation and user association scheme based on the solutions of a convex optimization problem is proposed. Another challenging issue to be addressed in such scenarios is admission control, which is in charge of ensuring that, when a new resource reservation is accepted, previously connected users continue having their QoS guarantees honored. Thus, we consider different approaches to compute the aggregate projected capacity in OFDMA-based networks, and propose the E-Diophantine solution, whose mathematical foundation is provided along with the performance improvements to be expected, both in accuracy and computational terms.
L'esplosiva penetrazione di dispositivi mobili nella vita di tutti i giorni pone molteplici sfide nel campo della ricerca nelle comunicazioni 'senza fili', al fine di sostenere la crescente mole di dati generata dagli utenti cellulari, i quali richiedono connettività "in ogni momento, in ogni dove". Inoltre, le applicazioni più richieste, dotate di contenuti multimediali quali le trasmissioni video, richiedono l'utilizzo di molte risorse per sostenere stringenti vincoli di qualità. La limitatezza dello spettro, congiuntamente ai problemi legati all'interferenza, rappresentano i fattori chiave delle reti cellulari di nuova generazione. Conseguentemente, il design di tecniche per la gestione delle risorse risulta essere un aspetto particolarmente critico. A questo fine, proponiamo in primo luogo un modello per valutare le prestazioni simulate delle reti cellulari basate sulla tecnologia Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA). Un modello di astrazione del canale associato alla trasmissione in downlink di dati fornisce un'accurata metrica valutativa a basso costo computazionale. Il nostro modello combina metriche di compressione multi-portante basate sull'Informazione Mutua con profili prestazionali generati a livello di canale, esprimendo così la dipendenza del rate d'errore associato al blocco di dati trasmesso con i valori di SINR, e l'indice di codifica e modulazione (MCS) assegnato dall'allocatore di risorse. Inoltre, ci proponiamo di valutare l'impatto della trasmissione di Jumboframes in reti LTE, ovvero pacchetti la cui dimensione supera il massimo valore tradizionale di 1500 Bytes. Una valutazione comparativa viene eseguita relativamente a varie configurazioni di rete, in modo da mettere in luce specifiche limitazioni. In particolare, abbiamo potuto osservare una rapida saturazione del buffer di trasmissione legato alla trasmissione di maxi pacchetti attraverso link di bassa qualità. Abbiamo dunque proposto un'architettura di rete 'cross-layer' che ci permetta di prevenire tale esubero di risorse disponibili; si tratta di un approccio che rende possibile la regolazione della dimensione dei pacchetti a seconda della capacità istantanea del canale, nota attraverso procedure standard basate sulla conoscenza di predefinite sequenze pilota alle quali vengono associate valori di qualità (CQI). Nella ricerca applicata alle reti wireless è stato recentemente introdotto il concetto di condivisione delle risorse, visto come promettente approccio attraverso cui migliorare le prestazioni delle comunicazioni radio. Lo spettro radio è limitato, e il suo utilizzo risulta spesso inefficiente. Per questi motivi appare significativo proporre soluzioni nelle quali diversi operatori uniscano le proprie forze al fine di fornire accesso wireless a bande condivise piuttosto che proprietarie. Diversamente dalla semplicità concettuale di tale idea, l'analisi matematica che ne deriva può essere molto complessa. Per questo motivo proponiamo uno strumento atto a valutare le prestazioni delle tecniche di condivisone dello spettro nelle reti cellulari basate sulla tecnologia OFDMA, al cui interno è dunque possibile integrare, testare e valutare ogni politica di condivisione. D'altra parte, relativamente all'accesso a banda larga basato sulla contesa al mezzo, ci soffermiamo su un'importante problematica all'interno delle reti mobili ad hoc WiFi, ovvero l'intrinseca inefficienza del protocollo di trasporto universalmente riconosciuto come standard, il TCP. Quest'ultimo presenta ridotte prestazioni, principalmente legate alle politiche di controllo della congestione. Infatti il TCP è stato originariamente pensato per le reti cablate, dove le perdite di pacchetti indicano una congestione. Diversamente, gli eventi di perdita nelle reti wireless possono essere legati alle variazioni del canale radio, o alla contesa sul collegamento. Intendiamo dunque definire un'architettura 'cross-layer' sufficientemente snella e dinamica, basata sul paradigma delle reti cognitive. Questo framework include una fase di osservazione, i.e., un 'training set' all'interno del quale vengono collezionati svariati parametri di rete; una fase di apprendimento, in cui viene estratta l'informazione da utilizzare per il miglioramento delle prestazioni di rete; una fase di pianificazione, in cui vengono definite le strategie da utilizzare con le informazioni 'imparate'; infine, una fase di azione che rappresenta l'esecuzione 'online' di tali strategie all'interno della rete. La più recente frontiera per le infrastrutture di rete di prossima generazione si sviluppa intorno al concetto di reti eterogenee. Tuttavia, la presenza di una moltitudine di dispositivi diversi fra loro, in quanto a tecnologia e tecniche di accesso al mezzo, pone nuove sfide. Fra tutte, l'incremento dell'interferenza legato alla densificazione dei nodi e alla pianificazione autonoma. Proponiamo dunque un approccio atto a supportare il reindirizzamento del carico di rete dalle macro celle alle femto celle, attraverso una cooperazione fornita dagli utenti mobili in modalità 'idle', che operano a tutti gli effetti come nodi relay. In questo modo aumentiamo la probabilità che un utente connesso alla macro cella possa alternativamente connettersi ad una femto cella (procedura nota come offload). Abbiamo così definito un modello di ottimizzazione congiunto per l'allocazione delle risorse e la determinazione del collegamento stazione radio base - utente. Un ulteriore tema particolarmente importante riguarda il controllo per l'accettazione di nuovi utenti nel sistema. Tale modello deve garantire il mantenimento dei margini di qualità (QoS) associati ai nodi precedentemente connessi alla rete. A questo fine consideriamo diversi approcci per il calcolo della proiezione di capacità allocata in reti wireless basate sulla tecnologia OFDMA. Infine proponiamo la soluzione 'E-Diophantine' basata sulla teoria diofantina, di cui forniamo le basi matematiche, e mostriamo l'incremento delle prestazioni che ne risulta.

This study examines and describes the perceptions of human resource professionals about their contribution and that of their departments to strategic planning and management. Human resource leaders from organizations with five hundred or more employees in Southern California responded to this survey. The significance of this study is its potential to increase our understanding of the contribution of the human resource function to strategic planning.

Två begrepp som ofta diskuteras inom organisationsteori är Medarbetarskap och Human resource management. Personalen ses ofta som ett företags främsta resurs. Denna uppsats bygger på en kvantitativ undersökning bland personalen inom en Telekomkedja. Vårt syfte är att bringa klarhet i frågan om i vilken utsträckning det ”myndiga medarbetarskapet” existerar, hur olika strategiska åtgärder påverkar försäljningen, vad som påverkar medarbetarnas motivation samt hur deras lojalitet gentemot arbetsgivaren ser ut.

Undersökningen visar att personalen i Telekomkedjan trivs bra på sin arbetsplats. Det ”myndiga medarbetarskapet” existerar till stor del och personalen anser sig ha goda möjligheter att påverka. Vi har även lyckats hitta ett antal strategiska åtgärder som påverkar försäljningen positivt. Motivationsfaktorerna är främst beroende av sociala relationer och det har visat sig att relationer medarbetarna emellan är minst lika viktiga som relationen mellan medarbetaren och närmsta chefen. Medarbetarna uppger även att de har en stark lojalitet mot företaget ifråga både till den närmsta butiken där de arbetar, gentemot butikskedjan som helhet samt koncernen de tillhör.

Enhancing of internationalisation in Higher education institutions is investigated in the dissertation, with the priority given to human resource management. The intercultural competence is identified as an instrument for complex improvement of internationalisation: its perspectives quantitative and qualitative results. The theoretical and empirical research results are summarised in the concept of HEIs’ internationalisation proposed, which is based on the idea of human resource intercultural competence development.
Darbe nagrinėjamos aukštojo mokslo institucijų veiklos internacionalizavimo tobulinimo problemos, prioritetizuojant žmonių išteklių vadybą. Analizuojama aukštojo mokslo institucijų internacionalizavimo samprata, subjektai ir veiksniai sąlygojantys internacionalizavimo plėtrą, bei kokybinius ir kiekybinius parametrus. Atliktų teorinių ir empirinių tyrimų rezultatai yra apibendrinami pateikiamoje aukštojo mokslo institucijų internacionalizavimo koncepcijoje, grįstoje aukštojo mokslo institucijų žmonių išteklių tarpkultūrinės kompetencijos formavimu. Darbe patiekiami sprendimai siūlomai koncepcijai realizuoti.

In spite of the fact that Western companies have been actively developing the Russian market over the last twenty years, they are still faced with the Soviet-era heritage in human resource management. This paper gives an overview of the common Soviet human resource practices of the past. Understanding traditional human resource practices in the Soviet Union prior to the end of communism will help practitioners to design human resource management systems for Russia more efficiently today. Moreover, this article makes recommendations for HR professionals on some unwritten rules of human resource management, summarizes current best practices for the recruitment, selection and retention of employees and helps to reduce potential cultural misunderstandings and conflicts between the two different systems: market and planned economies.(author's abstract)
Series: WU Online Papers in International Business Communication / Series One: Intercultural Communication and Language Learning

This study set out to contribute to the literature on international human resource management (IHRM) strategies of multinational corporations (MNCs) and the factors that influence them. In doing so it sought to address a number of weaknesses in the existing literature, notably a marked lack of research into the strategies adopted by MNCs in developing economies, particularly when they become involved under the auspices of privatisation programmes. More specifically, the study sought to investigate the human resource management (HRM) reforms introduced by three French MNCs in privatised Jordanian companies and the factors that influenced them. The research utilised a longitudinal multiple-case design to achieve the study's aim and objectives, and was conducted in three phases over three years. More specifically, the study was based upon a sample of three case studies of privatised Jordanian companies that had recently come under the control of French MNCs operating in different sectors. Primary data was gathered through 67 in-depth semi-structured interviews with company directors, senior line and finance managers, and HR staff, including senior personnel based at headquarters in France. In addition, 14 interviews were conducted with government officials in Jordan and a range of supplementary documentary evidence was examined. In general, the findings from the case study companies revealed that in each of the Jordanian subsidiaries a wide range of changes had been made to the previously existing HRM policies. These encompassed the making of reforms in each of the specific areas of HR activity investigated: the people management responsibilities of line managers; staffing, recruitment and selection; training and development; performance appraisal; rewards; and communication and consultation. Taken together, the case studies highlighted similarities in terms of the objectives and broad thrust of the structural, policy and cultural reforms that were introduced. However, they also showed the companies to differ in terms of the way in which the reforms were centrally authored, the extent to which they were implemented in a participative way, the types of control mechanisms that were used to support the reform process, and the pace with which the reforms were introduced. The above similarities and differences appeared to nave been influenced by a number of interrelated factors. Most important was the beliefs that senior management held of what constituted 'good and appropriate' human resource practice. Others related to the characteristics of the industries in which the MNCs operated and the implications these had for company business strategies and structures; the parent company's country of origin and experience in managing international operations; the strategic role of the subsidiaries and their mode of establishment; and a number of host country effects. Overall, it is argued, that the study's findings contribute to existing knowledge in a number of ways. First, the findings lend some further support to the validity of Perlmutter's typology of the IHRM strategies that are adopted by MNCs, while also raising doubts about its future usefulness. They also add weight to the view that a process of convergence is occurring in respect of the HRM policies utilised by MNCs, and that this convergence is centred around an Anglo-Saxon conceptualisation of HRM best practice. At the same time, they also lend weight to the argument that this process of Anglo-Saxonisation is occurring in the context of national specific frameworks. As a result, the study suggests that there remains some country of origin influence over the way MNCs mange their human resources. More generally, the study's findings tend to suggest, contrary to some arguments in the literature, that MNCs do not apply different IHRM strategies and practices to their subsidiaries in developing economies. They also suggest that more attention needs to be paid to the way in which government policies and wider political pressures, surrounding the privatisation programmes of such countries act to influence the way in which MNCs approach the process of reform in subsidiaries acquired as a result of privatisation. More generally, the study's findings tend to suggest, contrary to some arguments in the literature, that MNCs do not apply different IHRM strategies and practices to their subsidiaries in developing economies. They also suggest that more attention needs to be paid to the way in which government policies and wider political pressures, surrounding the privatisation programmes of such countries act to influence the way in which MNCs approach the process of reform in subsidiaries acquired as a result of privatisation. More generally, the study's findings tend to suggest, contrary to some arguments in the literature, that MNCs do not apply different IHRM strategies and practices to their subsidiaries in developing economies. They also suggest that more attention needs to be paid to the way in which government policies and wider political pressures, surrounding the privatisation programmes of such countries act to influence the way in which MNCs approach the process of reform in subsidiaries acquired as a result of privatisation. More generally, the study's findings tend to suggest, contrary to some arguments in the literature, that MNCs do not apply different IHRM strategies and practices to their subsidiaries in developing economies. They also suggest that more attention needs to be paid to the way in which government policies and wider political pressures, surrounding the privatisation programmes of such countries act to influence the way in which MNCs approach the process of reform in subsidiaries acquired as a result of privatisation.

This study examined the relationship between Human Resource Management (HRM) and employee wellbeing in three large South African organisations (N = 284). Employee wellbeing was defined as the subjective experiences of employees and was indicated by job satisfaction, affective commitment and psychological wellbeing. Particular attention was paid to how the HRM system relates to employee wellbeing through an investigation of the content and process components of the HRM system. Regression analyses revealed significant relationships between HRM content and employee wellbeing, namely performance management and career management practices. No significant relationships were found for the process component, namely the strength of the HRM system. The research findings provide a basis for future research into which particular types of HRM practices lead to employee wellbeing, and how they could be implemented in practice. The discussion of the findings is intended to produce positive implications for organisations, HRM practitioners and employees.

Denna studie avser att undersöka användandet av digitala verktyg inom HR samt hur kommunikationen och interaktionen har påverkat HR-personalen och de övriga anställda inom organisationen. För att vidare forska inom studien har kvalitativa intervjuer genomförts med syfte till att samla in information kring de anställdas uppfattningar och åsikter kring användandet av digitala verktyg. Vi har även valt att fokusera på hur relationen mellan HR anställda och resterande av organisationernas medarbetare påverkas vid kommunikation via digitala verktyg. Med forskningsfråga som har inriktning i hur digitala verktyg har påverkat HR avdelningens arbetssätt och hur kommunikationen och interaktionen mellan HR personalen och övriga anställda påverkats. Resulterar det till att digitala verktyg har effektiviserat HR avdelningens arbetssätt. Kommunikationen har inte påverkats negativt och interaktionen mellan HR personalen och övriga anställda har förändrats, men därmed bidragit till nya möjligheter.
This study aims to investigate how digital tools support the HR department and affect thecommunication and interaction between HR managers and other employees within anorganization. To gather information in order to understand the employee's experience andopinions about how digital tools affect their work, have qualitative interviews been conducted. However, we have also focused on the relationship between HR managers and the rest of the organization's employees are affected by the new technology. With our research questions that include both the effects of the digital tools and how new technology changed the relationship and the interactions between HR managers and other employees. Did the results show that the digital tools facilitated the work of HR managers. Also, the communication between HR managers and other employees did not get affected negatively with the use of different digital and the interaction have changed but also gives new opportunities.

Understanding the relationship between Human Resource Management (HRM) and the performance of organisations has been an ongoing area of interest within management fields. Important in this domain has been ‘the black box’, the unknown construct of connections between HRM and performance, an area which has remained unable to be fully ‘illuminated’ by researchers. The significance of this being, that in increasingly competitive local, national and global markets, it is critically important for organisations to efficiently and effectively manage all forms of resources ’ involved in their operations. Here, human resources play an intrinsically pivotal role. To explore ‘the black box’, and with a refinement to the HRM/performance relationship, this research was driven by an overarching research question which was: What relationship/s did HRM have with employee performance? Focusing on employee performance allowed for the broad performance construct to be more discernable, providing an opportunity to better consider its potential relationships with HRM. To further guide this exploration, research objectives were developed to address unresolved needs in this field to: better conceptualise HRM and employee performance, develop a theoretical model which would assist in explaining the HRM/performance relationship, posit an explanation of the resolution to ‘the black box’, posit an effective methodology with which to research allied phenomena...
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Griffith Business School
Department of Management
Full Text

It is clear that the public hospital system operates in an environment which is rapidly and constantly changing. A major effect of those changes is the devolution of authority and responsibility for a wide range of decisions to the line manager level. In particular, responsibility for human resource management is being altered. Hence, there are demands for different skills and attributes in the roles of clinicians and other health professionals who are often unprepared for those responsibilities. A need thus exists to identify the human resource management skills, attitudes, abilities and knowledge required for effective management within the public hospital system. The aim of the present research was therefore to investigate the competency domains that are considered to be necessary for line managers in three occupational groups in the Queensland public hospital system to effectively manage their staff both at present and in the future. The thesis thus reports on an investigation with two related components. Initially, through a series of qualitative techniques, a model of competency domains was developed using a grounded theory approach. The model was then used as a basis for further analysis employing quantitative methods. The qualitative analysis incorporated four separate stages. In the first instance, a sample of existing position descriptions was obtained from a range of public hospitals in Queensland for the nursing, medical and administrative occupational groups. This provided information on the types of roles which the employer expected from each group. Secondly, a number of structured discussion group workshops were held with representatives of each occupational group from two major Brisbane hospitals. This furnished information on the types of skills, attitudes and knowledge which line managers are likely to need both now and in the future. Thirdly, the data obtained through the workshops was verified by a number of competency interviews with additional representatives of the three occupations. The fourth stage involved a synthesis of the information gathered through the first three processes to enable a model of human resource management competency domains to be developed with the assistance of a panel of subject matter experts. The model that resulted comprised eleven competency domains incorporating leadership, change management, information management, communication, staff development, performance management, resource management, employee relations, cognitive skills, knowledge and personal attributes. Quantitative methods were based on an analysis of data gathered through a questionnaire which was developed from this model. A total of 522 employees at prescribed levels within the public hospital system in Queensland were surveyed. A principal components analysis of the survey items showed only a single factor structure. In view of this outcome, subsequent analyses were based on the a priori categories as identified in the model of human resource management competency domains. Before proceeding further, tests were conducted to determine the internal reliability of the a priori competency domains. This showed that the model comprises an appropriate set of human resource management competency domains required by health service managers to effectively undertake their roles. A multivariate analysis was then undertaken to allow a comparison to be made between the importance of each domain to each of the occupational groups at present. The analysis revealed that there are only minor differences in the level of importance attached to the domains by each occupation. In addition, the analysis showed that there are limited differences between what is considered to be important now and what may be critical in the future. The only meaningful change is that administrative staff indicated that one domain, information management, is likely to become much more important. A number of multivariate and univariate tests were also undertaken to assess the effect of a range of demographic variables on the perceived importance of each of the domains. This highlighted that the number of people supervised had a significant impact on a number of domains while gender had a significant effect on all domains. The impact of having large numbers of employees to supervise can be readily understood. The effect of gender may be partly due to the large number of females in the nursing profession, as this occupational group rated all domains more highly than did the other two occupational groups. The project has therefore identified a model of human resource management competency domains which are considered to be necessary at present. It has also enabled a comparison to be made with the competency domains needed in ten years time. Further research is needed to develop more specific competency elements and standards within each of the domains. However, in the meantime, it is apparent that a number of human resource activities such as training and development, performance appraisal and recruitment and selection may be assisted through the further development of these domains. Clarification of the role of human resource specialists and line managers may also be needed as part of that process.

Flexibility is a term that recalls many different aspects in the life of organizations and employees. This thesis explores two different forms of flexibility to understand whether it can be strategically used by Human Resource Management as a tool to increase the performance of organizations. The first chapter of this thesis is conceived as an introduction to various forms of flexibility with a particular focus on numerical and temporal flexibility, which are at the core of Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. Chapter 2 analyzes aspects linked to numerical flexibility, namely the possibility of organizations to adjust workforce. The wider use of non-standard forms of employment of the last two decades and the economic crisis that characterized the last fifteen years changed the paradigm of the standard open-ended contract. As employers more frequently resort to more flexible arrangements to adjust to changing market conditions, it is crucial to understand the drivers of these choices and whether atypical contracts are distinctive to low skilled jobs or HRM practices can make a difference. Chapter 2 specifically explores the link- ages between specific characteristics of job and the deployment of atypical contracts. While previous literature highlighted the effects of single characteristics in the choice of employers towards permanent or atypical contracts, we bring together various characteristics that create configurations that can explain these choices using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). We found evidence that firms limit the deployment of atypical contracts not only in case of firm-specific and complex tasks, but also in case of simple and non-specific tasks when supported by HRM practices aimed at increasing internal flexibility. Firms can take advantage of a stable workforce by strategically using HRM flexibility practices as an alternative to numerical flexibility. Chapter 3 deals with the issue of temporal flexibility and is addressed in this thesis as a kind of flexibility that brings together the needs of both employees and employers. On one hand, the stronger request for autonomy and an increased work-family balance of employees brings organizations to increase the availability of programs and benefits to accommodate workers’ needs. On the other hand, these programs have proved to have positive effects on various job outcomes such as job satisfaction, motivation and performance and reduced absenteeism and turnover and therefore might be used by organizations to increase individual performance. Especially in a context like the public sector, that doesn’t allow great monetary incentives due to budget constraints, flexibility programs should be considered important tools to increase job outcomes. The implementation and the real effects of these programs, however, remain important topics that need to be addressed, as if not specifically tailored, these measures might not lead to the expected result. Chapter 3 deals with the effects of a flexitime program on absenteeism, overtime and hours worked using panel data from an Italian public health agency. We use a conditional DiD model and a flexible conditional DiD model to investigate how employee’s behavior changed in a four-year time period and the year right after entering the program. We found no results supporting the idea that the mere implementation of the program helps to reduce absenteeism. We argue that because individual motivational aspects might be the reason behind our results, organizations need to consider individual characteristics in order to obtain positive results from flexibility programs.

The starting point of this thesis is the idea in the literature that the main objective of NPM is to apply strategic direction to public organizations (Truss, 2006) that could help to achieve economic and cost-cutting objectives (Boyne, ibid.). Achieving these objectives is, in part, based on applying management reform (Hood, 1995) through a focus on performance management, the setting of quality standards, the adoption of a philosophy of enhancing value for money and the replacement of the allegedly traditional bureaucratic structure of management based on satisfying organizational members’ interests and demands a more market- or competition-based set of arrangements. In UK higher education institutions (HEIs), human resource management (HRM) has had a major influence by orchestrating these changes to achieve organizational effectiveness (Brown, 2008). Thus human resource professionals must address these changes when planning and carrying out their roles and programmes. This thesis proposes that there are two models that can be adapted to public sector organizations, such as universities: Stakeholder Satisfaction (SS) model and Instrumental Rationality (IR) model. Stakeholder Satisfaction model is concerned with balancing the demands and interests of different stakeholders and members. It is related to political, social and communicative forms of rationality as a base to achieve Organizational Effectiveness (OC). The HRM role in this model seems to focus on operations and people to satisfying members’ interests (Employee Champion role) and to perform administrative activities (Administrative Expert role). Instrumental Rationality model is seeking to achieve economic goals. The OE perspective under this model is related to technical and economic rationality. HRM within this model is concerned with achieving strategic orientation in an organization (Business Partner role). I argue that applying New Public Management (NPM) may influence public sector organizations to move from the Stakeholder Satisfaction model to the Instrumental Rationality model. Similarly, this might well be accompanied by HRM departments in universities shifting their main focus from the role of ‘Employee Champion’ to that of ‘Business Partner’.

This study aims at investigating the alignment between human resource management (HRM) and knowledge management (KM). The research was motivated by the increasing trend towards highlighting the role of HRM practices in supporting KM and its activities. Effective and efficient KM is claimed to only be possible if firms address its human dimension in addition to its information technology (IT) one. The review of relevant literature showed that there was a lack of sufficient empirical research to support the theoretical claims linking HRM to KM. Available empirical studies are rare and subject to criticism that question the validity of the studies. Two empirical research questions are adopted for this study: (1) How is KM perceived and implemented within the management consulting sector in the UK? (2) What is the role of HRM in supporting KM within the management consulting sector in the UK? The context of this study is the 'management consulting sector in the UK. This sector was thought optimal for uncovering links between HRM and KM, mainly due to the nature of this sector; it is arguably knowledge-intensive and is a major employer of a highly skilled workforce. The study utilised mixed methods to address the research questions, which were investigated in both an intensive and an extensive manner. Several methods were utilised as well to ensure replication, complementation and triangulation. The first method is a descriptive survey to assess extensively HRM, KM and their interrelations in the UK management consulting sector. A total of 52 participants replied to the survey, out of a sample of 323 organisations, achieving a response rate of 16.1 %. The second method comprises semi-structured qualitative interviews covering a representative sample of the survey sample. A total of 15 interviews were conducted at this research stage. The third method includes two mini case studies that were chosen based on the companies having a developed KM initiatives arid HRM practices. A total of five interviews were conducted; several relevant documents were also collected from each of the two organisations. The thesis generated several major findings that impact on the relevant literature. There is little evidence of formal holistic KM initiatives in the management consulting sector. KM is chiefly addressed through IT management. At the informal level, KM is viewed as a set of activities where the most cited activity is knowledge-sharing. Therefore, this study found that research is more useful, if it focuses on where knowledge resides and what are the contextual characteristics under each KM orientation. The study identified four KM strategies that organisations might adopt. The combination strategy is found to be the most adopted by consultancies followed by the codification, personalisation and laissez faire strategies. The study focused on the following contextual characteristics under each strategy: culture type, leadership style, IT, knowledge types, knowledge sources, KM responsibility and dominant KM activities. Each KM strategy has a distinctive set of contextual characteristics. Afterwards, the HRM function was found to have a limited role in supporting KM - and when some roles are claimed, they are identified as indirect and reactive, As for the HRM practices, practitioners viewed them as natural contributors to KM at various intensities, although they have not designed them with the intention to do so. Above all, participants perceived PA, R&S and T &D as significant contributors to KM. The thesis then moves on to allocate the contextual characteristics of the HRM practices under each KM strategy, which further illustrates the implicit role of those practices In supporting K.M. The case studies have added some depth to our understanding of this research branch. Firstly, they highlighted the internal politics and power struggles caused by introducing KM initiatives. Secondly, they illustrated how various KM strategies exist within the same organisation.

碩士
國立中山大學
人力資源管理研究所
92
For being in this changed rapidly new economic era, network technology has brought significant reform for enterprise operational mode, human resource information system has developed with the advantage of information technology, and become a necessary manage instrument gradually, adopt systematic and statistical analyze mode, collocated to display with visional graphic table (such as analytic form or statistic sketch), let high-level and human resource chief be capable of scientific and specific policy assistant data. Data Warehouse is a new technology for data storage, within the data warehouse not only could compile data, even more proceed to decompose、merge and intersect in different range and layer, and then utilizing the function of On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) or Data Mining to obtain one step ahead of information, providing applicable message for policy maker. Therefore, in recent year, data warehouse has become the main data source of Decision Support System (DSS) gradually. This research attempts to establish a data warehouse fledgling model for human resource management, providing the basic requirement for rapidly inquire related statistic data for policy maker, and extract data from human manage information system data base, establish a related multiple dimension data model. And apply the technology of Data Warehouse and OLAP, via Internet, policy maker could depends on his requirement inquiring related statistic data elastically and rapidly, and enhance the quality and time effectiveness of decision. This research could establish the systematic benefits as below： Ⅰ.Provide convenience to inquire data: via mouse proceed dragging action, rapidly and time effectively let user operate conveniently in data inquiring procedure. Ⅱ.Multi-dimensional analyze data: owing to OLAP could support multi-dimensional inquire, and makes different intersect analyze and variation comparison, could let the manager make decision reference material more explicitly. Ⅲ.Obtain necessary information elastically: could depend on user’s requirement, arbitrarily change dimension, obtain necessary information, increase user’s inquiring elasticity. Ⅳ.Via network medium access: establishing the base system by web-base, via network and browser could forward to inquire, enhance the system’s mobility and convenience. Ⅴ.Function of data base examination: through OLAP statistic outcome, could reach examine database correctly and completely.

With the rising trend of start-up companies being launched in the market at an exponential rate, an entirely new format and concept of financial management and human resource management techniques has emerged. These start-up companies are not operating as an entirely professional venture, but work through an association of a bunch of enthusiastic entrepreneurs who aim to develop and propagate some innovative products and services, as full time entrepreneurs with a full fledged consideration of the financial, social and environmental viability and sustainability of their produce. A great majority of such start-ups operate through loose organizational structures during their initial years and consequently develop their own operational styles that are far more flexible and innovation-driven than their conventional counterparts. They find major stiffness in capital generation and employee management during their preliminary years of operation. The main reason for the success or failure of any start-up depends on the nature and duration of funding as well as the support these start-ups get from their employees. Therefore, the project aims at highlighting the various sources of funding that are profoundly explored by such start-ups during their seed stage as well as the operational stage along with a sneak into their human resource management techniques during initial years of operation. The project targets to present the scenario with different categories of start-ups based on the nature of work and years of operation with deliberate focus on their schemata of financial and human resource management techniques. The research will include surveying the start-up companies operating in Delhi/NCR using questionnaires and some in depth interviews with certain relevant start-ups to completely analyze the ongoing notion. It can be confirmed that an entirely unconventional scheme of management can be explored in the research with start-up companies and a major transformation can be expected in the coming years. In the current study, the researcher aims to find out the challenges and issues faced by the start-ups with respect to their financial and Human Resource management perspectives.

Ao longo dos últimos anos, a Gestão de Recursos Humanos (GRH) tem vindo a adquirir cada vez mais um papel fundamental nas organizações, na medida em que constitui-se num fator crítico de sucesso na contribuição para melhorar o desempenho no alcance dos resultados. É nesta perspetiva que o presente relatório, assume-se com o objetivo de apresentar e descrever todas as atividades e tarefas realizadas durante o período de estágio no Departamento de Recursos Humanos do Instituto de Fomento Empresarial (IFE). O presente relatório, insere-se num dos momentos decorrentes do estágio no âmbito do Mestrado em Gestão/MBA da Universidade Aberta. A pertinência deste relatório, está relacionada com o estudo de um campo de conhecimento, o da área da gestão de recursos humanos, o qual desenvolveu-se sobre o tema central: “Estratégias, Processos e Técnicas na Área da Gestão de Recursos Humanos”. O relatório está estruturado essencialmente em quatro capítulos. O primeiro capítulo aborda o enquadramento teórico: a estratégia, processos e técnicas de RH. O segundo capítulo remete-nos para o enquadramento prático com a apresentação e caraterização da entidade acolhedora e seus departamentos, bem como a descrição das atividades desenvolvidas durante o período de estágio. O terceiro capítulo, debruça-se sobre a análise crítica das atividades desenvolvidas durante o período de estágio, a luz do enquadramento teórico por formas a permitir uma aproximação à realidade prática, estabelecendo a correlação entre o enquadramento teórico e o enquadramento prático. E por fim, o quarto capítulo, as considerações finais com realce nas limitações do trabalho e as recomendações.
Over the last few years, Human Resource Management (HRM) has gained a more prevalent role in organizations, thus becoming a critical success factor in the quest to improve performance driven results. Thus, this report aims to present and describe the activities and tasks performed over the course of the internship in Human Resource Department of the Business Development Institute (BDI). The internship which serve as the basis for this report is part of the Masters in Business Administration Program of the Universidade Aberta (UAb). The relevance of this report relates to the study of the discipline known as human resources, which was developed under the main them: „‟Strategies, Procedures and Techniques in the Field of Human Resource Management‟‟. This report consists of four main chapters. This first chapter discusses the theoretical background, strategy, procedures and techniques of HR management. The second chapter addresses the practical paradigm, with a detailed presentation of the host organization, as well as the duties performed over the course of the internship period. The third chapter offers a critical analysis of the duties performed during the internship, thus establishing a link between the theoretical paradigm and the practical reality. The fourth and final chapter presents the final considerations with special regards to work related limitations and recomendations.