Human resource strategy implementation in developing countries: discrepancies between intentions and outcomes:Disparities in Developing Countries: Types, Challenges and the Way Forward

Abstract

The emergence of strategic human resource management (SHRM) in the 1980’s as a practice and a field of academic study has generated vibrant debate among scholars, the current being the need to investigate if human resource strategy implementation is achieving its intended objectives of gaining the trust, commitment and loyalty of employees. The concern is that although organizational intentions are stated in the soft language of employee commitment, participation and empowerment, the reality, as experienced by employees is manipulation, exploitation and job insecurity. While these findings are based on developed world organizations, less is known about what happens inside organizations in developing countries. This paper contributes to this debate by exploring the process through which strategy implementation may lead to a gap between the organization’s intention and the reality as experienced by employees. The paper is guided by the premise that the discrepancy between the intentions of HR strategy and realized employee outcomes occurs due to underdevelopment of management skills, lack of complementary resources and practices to support the HR strategies, organizational politics, content of the HR strategy and a set of organizational attributes. It is argued that while these factors are universal, they affect organizations in developing countries differently because of unique environmental variables.