Dissertation Proposal

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6/17/2014





Introduction
Constant efforts are being made to relate the human resources management of an
organization with the business strategy laid out by the organization. For a long while, human
resources was always thought of as a department that was constantly involved in recruiting and
engaging new talent in the organization. It performed like an administrative department for the
company. It was not until very recently that the scope of the department evolved and it
encompassed in itself the whole business strategy as a pathway described for growth.
This changing dimension of human resources department has definitely brought out a
challenge for the organization in terms of staff attitude, changing leadership roles, evolving
talent growth structure and finally a business strategy that is meant to be strategized keeping a
holistic view. The reason for the changing dimension can be attributed to a whole load of issues
faced by the organization with respect to talent. No organization is able to hire the right kind of
talent, or even retain them. The need to create a value within the market space for the
organization is also one of the major reasons why one should change the whole scope for human
resources.
While this prospect is interesting and necessary with the business as the core point, it is
going to disturb the traditional ways in which businesses used to conduct themselves. While
innovating is one of the foremost duties for HR, this innovation will bring forth a major
challenge in the way HR conducts itself. There will be several factors affecting the human
resources strategy which include technological innovation, demographic changes as well as
uncertainty within the whole economic and social world. There will be challenges, issues and
some major factors that will affect this changing scope, but it is growing to be a necessity. This
paper will discuss all the factors that will possibly affect the changing scope of HR as well as the
issues that will arise out of it. The proposed paper will try and conduct primary as well as
secondary research to come up with recommendations for the same.
Statement of Problem
With the changing scope of HR, there will be a lot of issues related to staff dynamics and
management. This paper will discuss the interdependence between human resources strategy and
the firms business strategy. It will highlight how and why the dependence is so important for the
growth of the organization. While conducting this study, the paper will also study the staff
attitudes that the company would be faced with as a result of the strategic role of HR. This paper
will also deal with how talent would be dealt with in this changing view and how outsourcing
would be responded to by the employees as a result of strategic scope.
While this strategic scope is very essential to enhance service quality and also to meet the
consumers unending needs, it is also important to understand how and why the employees
would react to this changing scope. While the employees are being studied, it is also important to
know if the changing scope would be affected by external parameters that will change the staff
attitude.
Literature Review
Competitive edge avails opportunities to an organization within an industry that helps it
grow and empower itself. It is this competitive edge that allows an organization to utilize its
resources and capabilities while building on its relationships to provide an edge over the other
organizations (Hofer & Schendel, 1978).
One needs to manage the activities keeping in mind the importance of business strategy
while incorporating major human resources strategies that will aide them in the process. A
framework should help decide competitive strategies that will help the firms human resources
engage talent in getting growth and development within the organization (Floyd & Lane, 2000).
Human resources accounting is important from strategy point of view. Also personnel
management, forecasting manpower etc. are important from the firms human resources strategy
point of view (Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, Jacobs & Fleishman, 2000). All these need to be
taken care of in case one wants to associate business strategy to human resources strategy. The
organizational level should be considered separately from the functional level when it comes to
studying human resources management. Also the content issues should be kept separate from
process elements in this study. This way the whole strategy can be built on an easy manner.
Ultimately human resources valuation should be indulged in while combining the two strategies.
The ultimate aim should be to get good talent while keeping a tab on the overhead costs.
Research Methods
For the purpose of this study, a secondary research would be conducted to understand
how organizations perform when the human resources are accounted for in the business strategy
that is defined for the organization. This secondary research would help gain quite a lot of data
on this topic.
Apart from the secondary research, a primary research is essential to understand how the
staff and management deal with the changing scope of the human resources management. The
primary research would also give human resources a valuation which is essential. Cluster method
of research would help understand the different group dynamics and different attitudes ranging
out of different kinds of people. This kind of cluster dynamics would help the culture of the
organization eventually.
Limitations of the Research
Only secondary data would be able to help if the human resources can be given a
valuation. There is no effective way of discovering a valuation associated with human resources.
Though a primary research will help achieve a way to acquire talent, no research is capable of
inducing a way to retain the talent in the organization. Growth is very perspective using primary
research and an actual growth level cannot be known using the primary or secondary research.
Human resources contingency plan and the level of failure that the organizations can get
despite the contingency plan is difficult to map using this research. Overall the research shows
how business strategy and human resources strategy is linked, but does not show the growth or
failure levels as a result of this.

References
Hofer, C. W., & Schendel, D. (1978). Strategy formulation: Analytical concepts. St. Paul: West.
Floyd, Steven & Lane, Peter. (2000). Strategizing Throughout the Organization: Managing Role
Conflict in Strategic Renewal. Academy of Management, Vol. 25, (1), 154-177
Michael D Mumford, Stephen J Zaccaro, Francis D Harding, T.Owen Jacobs & Edwin A
Fleishman. (2000). Leadership skills for a changing world: Solving complex social problems.
The Leadership Quarterly, Vol 11 (1), 11-35.