Evidence of different models of socially responsible HRM in Europe
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12203 |
| Author | Pedro M. Romero‐Fernandez,Rosalia Diaz‐Carrion,Macarena López‐Fernández |
| Date | 01 January 2019 |
| Published date | 01 January 2019 |
Business Ethic s: A Eur Rev. 2019;28:1–1 8. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/beer
|
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© 2018 John Wiley & So ns Ltd
1 | INTRODUCTION
The interfa ce between corpor ate social responsib ility (CSR) and
human resource m anagement (HRM) has inc reasingly captur ed the
interestofacademicsinrecentyears(e.g.,Bučiūnienė&Kazlauskaitė,
2012; Jamali, Dira ni, & Harwood, 2 015; Nie, Lämsä, & Pu čėtaitė,
2018;Sar vaiya,Ewe je,&Arrows mith,2016;Voe gtlin&G reenwood,
2013). Different te rms have been derived from th e convergence be‐
tween CSR an d HRM—ethical HRM , green HRM, sociall y responsible
HRM (SR‐HRM), sustainable HRM, etc.—among which SR‐HRM and
sustainabl e HRM often overlap ( Aust, Muller‐Ca men, & Poutsma,
2018). While SR‐HRM encom passes those poli cies and practic es
that contribute t o the improvement of empl oyees´w ork and life
quality(Dupo nt,Ferauge,&Giuliano,2013),sus tainableHRMrefer s
to the adoption of H RM strategies that e nable the achieveme nt of
financial, social,andec ologicalgoals (Ehnert,Pa rsa,Roper,Wagner,
&Muller‐Camen,2016).Thepresentresearchisemployee‐focused
and therefore a dopts the concept of SR‐H RM, which encompas ses
HR practice s that are in accordance wit h the CSR principl es of objec‐
tivity, justice, transparency, nondiscrimination, empowerment, etc.
(Dupont et al., 2013).
The literature indicates that SR‐HRM increases employees’
satisfaction, commitment to the organization,and, consequently,
organization alperforma nce(e.g.,Albr echt,Bakker,Gr uman,Macey,
&Sak s,2015; Barrick ,Thurgo od,Smi th,& Courtr ight,2015; Shen
&Benso n,2016).H owever,SR‐HRMi soriented tocrea tenot only
organizationalvaluebut alsoindividualand societalvalue(Paauwe
&Farndale,2017).TraditionalHRMfoc usedoncreatingsharehol der
valuen olongera llowsorg anizati onstomee tthechal lengesofa glo‐
balizedworld wheresociet yisincreasingl yconcernedabo uthuman
rights abuse s, environmental protecti on, corruption, etc. (Brews ter,
Gooderham ,& Mayrhofer,2016). Therefore ,current research sug‐
gests the nee d to go beyond strategic‐or ientated manageme nt of
employeestoincorpor ateaCSRapproachinordertomaketheHRM
systemsust ainableinthelongte rm(Albrechtetal .,2015;Barricket
al.,2015).
The import ance of SR‐HRM is obser ved in the proliferat ion of
international s tandards and principle s aimed to promote CSR in the
fieldof HRM, suchas theGl obalRepor tingInit iative(GRI) andt he
UnitedNationsGlobal Compact(UNGC),which emphasizetheim‐
portance of im plementing SR‐HRM s ystems that promote hu man
rights protec tion, decent work, nondiscr iminatory HR practices ,
etc. to enhance sustainable development (Diaz‐Carrion, López‐
Fernández,&Rom ero‐Fernandez,2 018).
Despite the cons ensus regarding the benef its of SR‐HRM, there
isalackofconsensusabo utthespecificact ionsthatitencompass es
Received:24Novemb er2017
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Revised:9July2 018
|
Accepted:22Aug ust2018
DOI: 10.1111/be er.12203
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Evidence of different models of socially responsible HRM in
Europe
Rosalia Diaz‐Carrion | Macarena López‐Fernández | Pedro M. Romero‐Fernandez
Facultad de Ci encias Economicas y
Empresaria les,TheUniver sityofCadiz,
Cadiz,Spain
Correspondence
RosaliaDiaz‐C arrion,Facult addeCiencias
Economicas y Em presariales, T he University
ofCadiz,Avenid aEnriqueVilleg asVelez,2,
11002,Cadiz,S pain.
Email:rosalia.diaz@uca.es
Abstract
Socially responsib le human resource manageme nt (SR‐HRM) is becoming increas‐
ingly import ant for academics and m anagers. The interf ace between HRM and cor‐
poratesocial responsibility (CSR)ist hesubjectof analysisin thisarticle. Itadopts a
contextual perspecti veto analyze whethert heinstit utionalcontex tinflue ncesthe
implementation of socially responsible HRM (SR‐HRM). Considering the differences
in the national insti tutional contexts across Europe, t his study explores the differe nt
modelsofSR‐HRM inthatregion. Theresearch isfocusedona sampleof153co m‐
panies headquar tered in Germany, Spain, Swede n, and the United Kingdom . The
findings eviden ce the influence exerted by th e national institutiona l context on the
implementation of SR‐HRM. Differences among country clusters suggest the exist‐
ence of different mod els of SR‐HRM in Europe. However, these models do n ot cor‐
respond to the bloc ks on HRM or on CSR id entified by the lite rature but instea d
provideanovelcategorizat ion.
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DIAZ‐CARRION et al.
and how it is implem ented in different co ntexts (Voegt lin &
Greenwood,2016).Withregardtothelatter,adaptingCSRandHRM
toth e institut ional fram ework of each co untry is key to ob taining
legitim acyandens uringanor ganizatio n’slong‐termsu rvival, asindi‐
catedbyVashchenko(2017)andBoon ,Paauwe,Boselie,andHar tog
(2009), respec tively. Therefore, SR‐HR M reflects the d ominant
models of corpor ate governance in the country i n which a company
ishea dquartered (Ehnert et al.,2016). Thisis due tothe influence
exerted by the in stitutional contex t on the CSR appro ach adopted
by companies, as d erived from the argumen ts of institutional th eory
(DiMaggio & Powell , 1983). The regulator y,n ormative, an d cogni‐
tive pressures of a n ational territory generate p rocesses of isomor‐
phismthatleadtosimilarapproa chesinCSR(Crane&Matten,2007;
Matten& Moon,20 08).Theref ore,consider ingthatH RMispar tic‐
ularly contex t‐sensitive d ue to the strong influence of the i ndustrial
relationssystemonHRpractices(Bro okes,Brewster,&Wood,2005;
Mayrhofer,Brewster,Morley,&Ledolter,2011;Vaiman&Brewster,
2015),SR‐HRMisexpec tedtodifferacrossco untries.
Reviewing the lite rature, few studie s comparatively an alyze
SR‐HRM.Au steta l.(2018),L ehnert, Craft, Singh,and Park(2 016),
andVoegtlin andGreenwo od(2016)pointto thelack ofcontextual
approachesfrom whichthis fieldofre searchsuffers. Inparticular,
Lehnert etal. (2016)recomme ndincludin gavar ietyof contexts to
enhance the representativeness of the research and performing
cross‐countr y analyses. This is th e focus of analysis in thi s article,
which explore s the impacts of th e institutional con text on the im‐
plementation of SR‐HRM.The study comparatively analyzes the
implementationof SR‐HRM amongEuropean countries (Germany,
Spain, Sweden,an dthe UnitedK ingdom)and among country clus‐
ters(Ce ntralEuro pean,L atin,Nor dic,and Anglo‐Saxon) that mani‐
fest significant institutional differences.
As that the liter ature on CSR an d on HRM—separ ately—notes
theexisten ceofseveralmode lsofCSR(Ar gandoña&VonWeltzi en
Hoivik, 200 9; Jackson & Aposto lakou, 2010; Maon, Swaen , &
Lindgreen, 2017) andof HRM (Brookes etal., 2005; Mayrhofer et
al.,2011; Vaiman&B rewster,2015) inEurope resulting frominst i‐
tutional differences between countries, we wonder whether there
are also differ ent SR‐HRM models in that region a nd hence propose
the following research question: Do different models of SR‐HRM exi st
in Euro pe?
This research co ntributes to the lite rature in several ways .
First, it add resses the need ind icated by Frynas and Yamaha ki
(2016)forstudiesth atemploymultiplelev elsofanalysisthathel p
understa nd both the internal an d external driver s of CSR. The
present research combines both internal (employee‐focus) and
external (contex tual‐focus) perspect ives to analyze the fac tors
underlying the implementation of SR‐HRM. Second, this study
contributes to t he understand ing of the influence of the n ational
institution al context on the adoption of S R‐HRM, which has so far
been neglected (Aust etal., 2018; Lehnert etal .,2016; Voegtlin
&Greenwood ,2016).Theresult sshowthatt herearediff erences
among European countries and among country clusters regarding
the implementation of SR‐HRM, indicating differences in SR‐HRM
models in Europe . However, these models do not co rrespond to
theblo ckson HRMor CSRindi catedby thelitera turebut rather
are a novel categoriz ation that has b een identifi ed by consider‐
ing both generic d rivers of CSR and specifi c factors that influence
HRM.
Thispaperisstruc turedasfollows.Afterthi sintroduction,inthe
secondsection, the theoreticalbackground that underliesthe es‐
tablishment of the hypotheses is presented. Because the implemen‐
tation of SR‐HRM dep ends not only on str ategic aspects b ut also
on aspects r elated to a company’s need t o obtain social legit imacy,
asaffir medbyins titutionalt heory( Wright&McMa han,1992),it is
themaintheore ticalfoundationoft hepresentresear ch.Inthethird
and fourth se ctions, the methods and r esults of the empirical s tudy
aredescrib ed.Inthe fifthsec tion,there sultsaredis cussed.Finall y,
the main conclusi ons, limitations , and future lines of re search are
presented in the sixth section.
2 | THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AN D
HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT
2.1 | An integr ative framework of strategic and SR‐
HRM
Achievinga competitive advantaged ependson acompany´sabilit y
torespondinabalancedwaytodifferentstakeholdergroups,prior‐
itizingthosethataremostrelevanttoitslong‐termsurvival(Mitchell,
Agle,& Wood,1997).Among themost relevantgroups aretheem ‐
ployees due to the im portant role they play in th e proper function‐
ingofthecompany(Gu est,2017;Jamalietal.,2015;Welfor d,Chan,
&Man,20 08).Theirsat isfactioni ncreasestheir commitmentto the
organization , contributing to th e achievement of compet itive ad‐
vantages (Barrick etal., 2015).T herefore,d evelopingH Rpract ices
that satisf y employees’ perso nal and professional e xpectations
iskey f or long‐term orga nizational su ccess (Albre cht et al., 2015).
Hence, developi ng a SR‐HRM system based on CSR pr inciples such
as objectivity, justice, transparency, nondiscrimination, and em‐
powerment contr ibutes to the creation of value for em ployees, the
company,andsociety(Paauw e&Farndale,2017).First,SR‐HRMhas
benefits at the individual level since it enhances employees’ well‐
being, as indic ated by the definitio n of the term SR‐HRM (Dupon t
etal ., 2013). Second, i t contribute s to organiz ational per formance
sinceen hancingwor kers’satis faction withand commitment tothe
organizationpositively contributetolong‐term organizationalsuc‐
cess(Beer,Boselie ,&Brewster,2015;Jamalietal .,2015).Third,SR‐
HRM improves soci etal well‐being since t he performanc e of a firm
and the developm ent of labor practices accor ding to CSR principles
positively imp act the societ y in which it is embe dded (Paauwe &
Farndale,2017)(seeF igure1).
Because of it s importance, stu dies on SR‐HRM have proliferate d
inrecentyears(Voegtlin&Greenwoo d,2016).AccordingtoVoegtlin
andGre enwood(2016), whorevis edthe literature linkingC SRand
HRM, most empi rical studies have f ocused on demonst rating the
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