Strategic Human Resource Management in World Airline Industry

For over 15 years, there has been an ongoing research on HR strategies and competencies differentiating the business performance. Besides this, HR practitioners have focussed their attention on other important questions as well. Bratton and Gold (2007), for example, tries to question what policies and practices make up HR strategies. Is it possible to identify cluster of bundle of HR practices with different strategic competitive models? What is relationship between different clusters of HR practices and organizational performance? For companies looking for ways to gain a competitive advantage, the implication of HR strategic choices for company’s performance is certainly the key factor. Recently business strategy researchers turned their attention to internal attributes of top firms looking at growth and utilization of human resources. This essay will aim to demonstrate how Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) practices are getting implemented in world airline industry. It will establish a clear link between industry trends and strategic response.
According to Baney and Hesterly (2006), SHRM theories are based on a set of assumptions, and hypothesis about the way competition in any industry is likely to evolve; and how that evolution can be exploited to earn a profit. The greater the extent to which these assumptions and hypothesis accurately reflect, more likely is that an organisation will gain a competitive advantage from implementing those strategies. On contrary, if these assumptions and hypothesis turn to fail, then organisational strategies are not likely to be source of competitive advantage. Huang (1999) agrees stating that there is a close link between business strategy and HRM methods. He moreover assumes that companies that closely coordinate their business strategy and HRM activities achieve better performance than companies that do not. The international airline industry is currently following similar trends.

Practice of SHRM has outpaced... [continues]

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