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Strategic Human Resource Development

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Introduction
There is now a general acceptance of a stakeholder theory of the modern organization (see, e.g.[1, 2,3]). Such a theory implies that managers have a duty to stakeholders. Stakeholders are defined as those groups who have a stake in or claim on the firm. Translated to the human resource development (HRD) context it suggests that each stakeholder group has a right not to be treated as a means to some end and should therefore participate in determining the future direction of human resource development activities within the organization.
The evolution of a strategic HRD concept has also highlighted the need for the application of a stakeholder theory to HRD within the organization. Commentators such as Sparrow and Pettigrew[ 4] …show more content…

The first is that the current state of the HRD function is the result of the supporting and the resisting forces brought to bear on the function by the stakeholders. Thus the present status of the HRD function is at best a temporary balance of opposing forces. Some of these forces provide resources and support to the function while others serve as barriers or constraints. The forces are generated by stakeholders in the course of pursuing their specific interests, goals and objectives.
The second premiss is that the outcomes of the HRD function 's strategies are the collective result of all the forces brought to bear on it by its stakeholders during implementation. The function is always in a state of quasi-equilibrium as it attempts to balance the various stakeholder forces. Each time the HRD function acts and its stakeholders respond, a new temporary balance is achieved. The status and performance of the HRD function at a given point in the future depends on the equilibrium it achieves throughout the period it is implementing its strategies.
These two premisses lead to an important conclusion. The validity of the strategies implemented by the HRD function always depend on the assumptions that are made about its stakeholders and about the steps they will take during the planning and implementation of HRD strategies to involve key stakeholders.
Models of HRD stakeholder management at the strategic level
Based on detailed analysis of 16

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