From Intended to Actual and Beyond: A Cross‐Disciplinary View of (Human Resource Management) Implementation

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12220
• Author: Jordi Trullen,Anna Bos‐Nehles,Mireia Valverde
• Published date: 01 April 2020
• Date: 01 April 2020

International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 22, 150–176 (2020)

DOI: 10.1111/ijmr.12220

From Intended to Actual and Beyond:

A Cross-Disciplinary View of (Human

Resource Management) Implementation

Jordi Trullen , Anna Bos-Nehles 1and Mireia Valverde 2

Department of People Management and Organization, Universitat Ramon Llull, ESADE, E-08172, Sant Cugat, Spain,

1Department of Human Resource Management, University of Twente, Faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social

Sciences, 7500AE, Enschede, The Netherlands, and 2Department of Business Management, Universitat Rovira i

Virgili, 43204, Reus, Spain

Corresponding author email: mireia.valverde@urv.cat

Despite increasing interest in human resourcemanagement (HRM) implementation as

an explanation for the association between HRM and firm performance, considerable

confusion remains about what implementation means. In order to develop conceptual

definitions of HRM implementation and implementation effectiveness, this study builds

on three different literatures outside the HRM field (strategy, innovation, and change

management), which haveaddressed this topic extensively. As a result, implementation

is characterized as a dynamic process, involving the interaction among multiple actors,

starting with the adoption of a new practice and ending with its routinization. This

is distinguished from implementation effectiveness as an outcome of that process. The

study helps to achieve construct clarity, hence providing a more solid basis for future

research and allowing for a better consolidation of findings. The authors also develop

an agenda for further research byreviewing a number of theoretical and methodologi-

cal approaches that havebeen u sedin implementation research across fields, including

HRM. Overall, the study aims to establish implementation research as a highly rele-

vant academic and practical quest not only in HRM, but also in other management

literatures.

Introduction

While the positive association between strategic hu-

man resource management (SHRM) and performance

is well established (Heffernan et al. 2016; Jiang et al.

2012; Lin et al. 2016), interest remains in better un-

derstanding how this relationship comes about (Guest

2011). The fact that many companies end up adopt-

ing similar HRM policies and practices (Makhecha

et al. 2018) with dissimilar results suggests that what

makes a difference is not only which practices are

used, but rather how they are used, even if these two

questions are necessarily intertwined. Hence, more

attention needs to be paid to the quality of such

practices and their implementation (Guest and Bos-

Nehles 2013). Implementation problems may relate

to a variety of situations, for example, line man-

agers’ deficient use of HRM policies (Bos-Nehles

et al. 2013; Woodrow and Guest 2014), employees

defending their right to use HRM policies that are

ignored by their managers (Budjanovcanin 2018), or

HRM departments looking for ways to influence the

line to follow their newly created policies (Trullen

and Valverde 2017; Trullen et al. 2016). A focus

on implementation assumes that practices designed

at the corporate level (i.e. intended HRM practices)

may differ from those that are actually used across

the organization (i.e. actual HRM practices), which

in turn may be different from those experienced by

different actors involved(i.e. experienced HRM prac-

tices; Makhecha et al. 2018; Piening et al. 2014;

Wright and Nishii 2013). Whereas HRM process

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From Intended to Actual and Beyond 151

research (Hewettet al. 2018; Ostroff and Bowen 2016;

Sanders et al. 2014) has traditionally dealt with em-

ployees’ perceptions, understanding, and attribution

of HRM practices, the present study focuses on im-

plementation more broadly,looking not only at HRM

sensemaking but also at the specific roles that dif-

ferent actors (HR professionals, senior management,

line managers, employees, etc.) may play in the gen-

eration, development, and executionof HRM policies

(Steffensen et al. 2019).

For the past two decades there have been repeated

calls in the HRM literature to address implementa-

tion issues (Becker and Huselid 2006; Ferris et al.

1999; Gratton and Truss 2003; Guest 2011; Nishii

and Wright 2008), and it seems that research on this

topic is on the rise both by the increase of individual

articles (Arthur et al. 2016; Dewettinck and Vroonen

2017; Fu et al. 2018; Makhecha et al. 2018; Nishii

and Paluch 2018; Russell et al. 2018; Yang and

Arthur 2019) and the recent appearance of special

issues (Bondarouk et al. 2018; Bos-Nehles and Bon-

darouk 2017). This is encouraging, but there is still

a lack of understanding of what HRM implementa-

tion means. For example, some see it as a process

(Woodrow and Guest 2014), whereas others tend to

emphasize a state or end result (Sikora and Ferris

2014); some think it begins with the intention to in-

troduce a new HRM practice (Guest and Bos-Nehles

2013), or that it is even intertwined with its design

(Currie and Procter 2001), whereas others argue that

implementation occurs only after the design (Mc-

Cullough and Sims 2012); some see implementation

as an emergent and unbounded process (Raja et al.

2010; Van Mierlo et al. 2018), whereas others dis-

tinguish a set of beginning and end stages (Guest

and Bos-Nehles 2013); some see implementation as

performed mainly by line managers (Kehoe and Han

2019; Sikora and Ferris 2014), whereas others include

a wider variety of actors (Trullen et al. 2016). Without

a clearer conceptualization of HRM implementation

that builds connections with other related constructs

such as HRM design, HRM adoption, or HRM ef-

fectiveness, it remains very difficult to develop a co-

herent set of implementation research questions and

findings.

Furthermore, the HRM literature tends to confound

implementation with successful or effective imple-

mentation. Often, an ‘implemented’ HRM practice

is simply equated to a ‘successfully implemented’

or ‘effectively implemented’ HRM practice, with no

focus on the process that led to the state of effec-

tiveness or success. And when an effort is made to

demonstrate what an effectively implemented HRM

practice looks like, the main emphasis is on contrast-

ing whether the actual practice resembles as much

as possible the practice that was initially intended

(Guest and Bos-Nehles 2013; Khilji and Wang 2006;

Wright and Nishii 2013). Yet, such an approach does

not take into consideration the possibility that HRM

practices may change during implementation, as em-

ployees and line managers use them and try to inte-

grate them into existing systems (Bos-Nehles et al.

2017; Kehoe and Han 2019; Van Mierlo et al. 2018).

Therefore, detecting a difference between actual and

intended may not necessarily be a sign of ineffective

implementation.

Such a lack of clear conceptualization of HRM im-

plementation prevents the consolidation of research

findings. This is further complicated by the fact that

studies addressing HRM implementation are com-

monly not connected to other implementation studies.

Hence, while there are studies addressing HRM im-

plementation in a variety of HRM functional domains,

for example, performance appraisals (Farndale and

Kelliher 2013; Van Waeyenberg and Decramer 2018),

HRM information systems (Kossek et al. 1994;

Var ga s et al. 2018), or flexible work practices (Bud-

janovcanin 2018; Friede et al. 2008; Straub et al.

2018), the discussion of findings and main stated con-

tributions of the studies primarily relate to the HRM

functional domain literature, rather than to implemen-

tation studies. To sum up, the current HRM imple-

mentation research remains scattered and, more im-

portantly, lacks a clear definition of the phenomenon

of study. As a result, the field lacks consolidation

as well as its own specific agenda that guides future

research efforts.

This study aims to address these shortcomings. In

order to do so, we build on literatures that havealready

addressed the topic of implementation extensively –

namely strategy, innovation, and change management

– and attempt to bring some of their insights into

the HRM arena. We contend that these three areas

deal with problems similar to those encountered in

the implementation of HRM initiatives. When orga-

nizations implement strategic decisions, innovations,

and change projects, similar issues to those encoun-

tered in the implementation of HRM initiatives may

arise, such as the need to clarify objectives, to involve

sometimes sceptical stakeholders, or to help users un-

learn old routines and learn new ones. In fact, HRM

policies have often been described as a particular type

of administrative innovation(Damanpour 1987; Evan

1966; Wolfe1995), and while not all HRM initiatives

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