ترجمه مقاله تنوع نیروی کار در مدل های مدیریت منابع انسانی استراتژیک - نشریه امرالد

Purpose – Workforce diversity is considered one of the main challenges for human resource management in modern organizations. Despite its strategic importance, the majority of models in this field implicitly consider workforce as a generic and homogeneous category, and do not take into account cultural differences among employees. The aim of this paper is to present a systematic review of the literature on diversity among employees in strategic human resource management (SHRM). The objective of this conceptual analysis is to identify limitations in previous research and unresolved issues that could drive future research in this field.

Design/methodology/approach – To develop this conceptual analysis, the paper reviews previous literature on SHRM, drawing on the distinction between the universalistic, contingent and configurational perspectives. Each of these approaches is explored, looking for the way in which they have treated workforce diversity and cross-culturality.

Findings – The paper concludes that managing a heterogeneous workforce requires a holistic transformation of human resource strategies. Nevertheless, efforts to define cross-cultural and diversity-oriented models still remain undeveloped. Limitations of previous research in the diversity-SHRM field are indentified in the paper.

Research limitations/implications – Drawing on the limitations of the treatment given to diversity in SHRM research, the paper identifies four research questions that still need to be addressed: deeper analysis of the concept of diversity, introduction of psychological processes mediating the diversity-performance relationship, development of diversity oriented SHRM typologies and redefinition of performance indicators to measure the effects of diversity.

Originality/value – This paper proposes a theoretical model to illustrate present state of the art and future research lines in the fields of diversity, cross-cultural management and SHRM.

1. Introduction

Social transformations in the last two decades have substantially increased workforce diversity and cross-culturality (Cook and Glass, 2009; Seyman, 2006). Nevertheless, as Benschop (2001) argued, the majority of strategic human resource management (SHRM) models have implicitly assumed that workforces are “generic and homogeneous categories”, without considering cultural differences between employees. In this sense, the need to incorporate diversity in the SHRM debate has been considered one of the main challenges to be addressed in future research on the field (Curtis and Dreachslin, 2008; Shen et al., 2009).

3. Conclusions and implications for future research

Managing a diverse and cross-cultural workforce requires a complete transformation of HR strategies (Shen et al., 2009; Bleijenbergh et al., 2010; Tatli, 2011). Efforts to develop diversity-oriented SHRM models are still weak and presented in only general terms (Kossek and Lobel, 1996). Summarizing the theoretical discussion developed in this paper, we could highlight five limitations of previous literature about SHRM and workforce diversity. First, as we have seen, the majority of the studies reviewed followed a universalistic perspective, as they focused on identifying isolated best practices, without discussing contingent and contextual influences. This universalistic objective also leads them to follow a prescriptive orientation. In fact the majority of diversity management models are focused on recommending generic management tools instead of explaining the effects of diversity. The third limitation identified is the “black box” approach to the analysis of the effects of diversity. The effects of diversity were considered as direct causal relationships, without exploring potential mediating and moderating factors that could help explain this complex reality. Similarly, we have also perceived another limitation regarding the concept of diversity. Different ways of conceptualizing and measuring diversity have been proposed, focusing in many cases on different sets of attributes. Finally, one of the conclusions from our review of the literature is a lack of specific HR typologies. In fact, very few configurational models have been proposed to describe how different HR policies and practices can be synergistically integrated to manage workforce diversity.