People.Processes.Networks

European Journal of International Management is a new, very ambitious journal with a great track record already in its first couple of years on the scene. Here is the abstract of our forthcoming paper Human capital and structural position in knowledge networks as determinants when classifying employee groups for strategic HRM purposes in EJIM:

Until recently most theoretical models and empirical investigations in the strategic HRM field focused on inter-firm rather than intra-firm variability and thus implicitly assumed the adoption of the same HR practices (bundles) for managing all employee groups in a firm. Existing classifications of employees for strategic HRM purposes are mostly based on human capital and the employment mode. Through the lens of the knowledge-based view of the firm, we examine the ways in which an individual employee is valuable to a firm and suggest that an individual’s structural position in knowledge networks should also be considered. By conducting a social network analysis of an SME we establish that studying an individual’s relationship-based characteristics (i.e., an individual’s structural position in knowledge networks) strengthens the reasoning for employee classification and should thus be considered for strategic HRM purposes.