Still in search of strategic human resource management? A review and suggestions for future research with China as an example

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.22029
• Author: Yang Chen,Fang Lee Cooke,Mengtian Xiao
• Published date: 01 January 2021
• Date: 01 January 2021

SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE

Still in search of strategic human resource management?

A review and suggestions for future research with China as

an example

Fang Lee Cooke

1

| Mengtian Xiao

2

| Yang Chen

3

1

Monash Business School, Monash University,

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

2

School of International Business,

Southwestern University of Finance and

Economics, Chengdu, China

3

School of Business Administration,

Southwestern University of Finance and

Economics, Chengdu, China

Correspondence

Yang Chen, School of Business Administration,

Southwestern University of Finance and

Economics, No. 555, Liutai Road, Wenjiang

District, Chengdu, Sichuan 611130, China.

Email: chenyang@swufe.edu.cn, francisnju@

gmail.com

Funding information

National Natural Science Foundation of China,

Grant/Award Numbers: NSFC 71832003,

71502142, 71725001

Abstract

Strategic human resource management (SHRM) has been an important strand of

research in the HRM field for over three decades, and has attracted heated debates

in recent years. One main critique of the state of SHRM research is its increasing

detachment from HRM practice, in the pursuit of more theoretical rigor and method-

ological sophistication. Our review article has two main tasks. First, we review SHRM

research published in two leading HRM journals—Human Resource Management and

Human Resource Management Journal—in the light of the criticisms on SHRM research

and use this as a backdrop of our second task. Second, we critically examine SHRM

research conducted in the Chinese context by drawing on a systematic review on

extant literature. In doing so, we draw on a wider range of HRM journals such as

Human Resource Management Review,The International Journal of Human Resource

Management, and so forth. We find that while the trend of psychologization in SHRM

research is gathering pace, the range of theoretical perspectives mobilized to inform

the studies is actually expanding. We call for SHRM research to be more contextual-

ized and more practical phenomenon-driven SHRM research. We indicate several

avenues for future research, using China as an example.

KEYWORDS

bundled HRM, China, contingency approach, high-performance work practices, resource-

based view, strategic HRM

1|INTRODUCTION

Strategic human resource management (SHRM) has been an impor-

tant strand of research in the HRM field for over three decades, and

has attracted heated debates in recent years (c.f. Jiang &

Messersmith, 2018 for a meta review of SHRM reviews). One main

critique of the state of SHRM research is its increasing detachment

from HRM practice, in the pursuit of more theoretical rigor and meth-

odological sophistication (Kaufman, 2015a). Has the SHRM research

path been as narrowly treaded as its critics suggest? What theoretical

perspectives have been used to inform the studies? And how can

future research on SHRM address some of the criticisms and be more

responsive to various settings across nations? Our review study seeks

to address these research questions, with the aim to advance research

in this field and make it more relevant to specific societal contexts,

using China as an example, and more relevant to HRM practices. In

doing so, we accentuate the importance of engaging with practice and

attending to context.

Relatedly, the aim of reviewing SHRM in the Chinese context is

twofold: first, to suggest that SHRM research being conducted in

China needs to pay more attention to contextual factors instead of

simply adopting existing approaches that have evolved in other cul-

tures; and second, to provide suggestions to illustrate how future

SHRM research can engage in a country-specific context more fully to

DOI: 10.1002/hrm.22029

Hum Resour Manage. 2021;60:89–118. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrm © 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC. 89

identify what HRM issues are challenging firms and their responding

HRM strategy, policy and practice. This is because, as some scholars

have argued, SHRM in practice does not take place in vacuum; rather,

it is a strategic response to the external and internal environment, and

a product shaped by a wide range of factors and stakeholders in spe-

cific country and industry contexts (Boxall & Purcell, 2016; Jackson,

Schuler, & Jiang, 2014; Kamoche, 1994). As such, SHRM may carry

distinct institutional and cultural characteristics distinct to specific

nations as well as generic features that are universally found. How-

ever, in order to publish in English journals and to gain construct valid-

ity, there is a strong tendency for SHRM research, and HRM research

more generally, conducted in China to adopt/adapt western-

developed models and constructs and empirically test them, with little

reflection of what HRM problems are facing firms in China and the

context within which HRM strategy, policy and practice are formu-

lated and implemented. Therefore, by revealing the limitations in

SHRM research in the Chinese context, our study demonstrates how

researchers may advance the field by adopting a wider range of theo-

retical approaches and an expanded set of research methods, not least

qualitative ones.

2|MAJOR CRITIQUES ABOUT THE

RESEARCH DIRECTION OF SHRM

SHRM has attracted growing interest and has been defined in a vari-

ety of ways by researchers and practitioners with little consensus of

what it is specifically (Wright & Boswell, 2002). As Boxall (1996, p. 59)

observed, SHRM is “an area of difficult definitions and contentious

theory.”For the purpose of this study, we adopt Jackson et al.'s (2014,

p. 2) definition of:

strategic HRM scholarship as the study of HRM sys-

tems (and/or sub-systems) and their interrelationships

with other elements comprising an organizational sys-

tem, including the organization's external and internal

environments, the multiple players who enact HRM

systems, and the multiple stakeholders who evaluate

the organization's effectiveness and determine its

long-term survival.

We also identify with Jiang and Li's (2019, p. 26) summary of a range

of theoretical perspectives and models, such as the universalistic, con-

tingency and configurational perspectives proposed by Delery and

Doty (1996); human capital theory, social exchange theory, social cap-

ital theory and the ability-motivation-opportunity (AMO) framework

for explaining “the relationship between HRM systems and firm per-

formance”; and the high-performance work systems (HPWS), includ-

ing high-commitment work systems (HCWS) and high-involvement

work systems (HIWS)—we neglect the debates on the differences in

these systems here, as they are not the focus of this study. This inclu-

sive approach allows us to capture different views and orientations in

the field of SHRM research.

Several critical reviews and controversy pieces have been publi-

shed which provide insightful analyses of the state of development of

research on SHRM, highlighting issues related to conceptual ambigu-

ity, methodological weakness and practical relevance, and illuminating

ways forward (Boxall & Mackay, 2009; Guest, Conway, &

Dewe, 2004; Jackson et al., 2014; Jiang & Li, 2019; Kaufman, 2015a,

2020; Lengnick-Hall, Lengnick-Hall, Andrade, & Drake, 2009;

Paauwe & Boselie, 2003, 2005; Purcell, 1999). In particular, Human

Resource Management (HRM) and Human Resource Management Jour-

nal (HRMJ), two leading HRM journals, have been at the forefront in

publishing the controversy issues (see HRM, volume 54, issue 3;

c.f. Cascio, 2015; Kaufman, 2015a; Wright, Guest, & Paauwe, 2015;

and HRMJ, volume 30, issue 1; c.f. Kaufman, 2020; Troth &

Guest, 2020; also see Budd, 2020; Godard, 2014, 2020).

Schuler and Jackson (2014, p. 54) eloquently argue:

After two decades of research investigating “strategic”

HRM, we still have little understanding of how effec-

tive organizations use HRM systems to improve t heir

financial performance while simultaneously ad dressing

all of the major concerns of employees, customers,

partner organizations and society (i.e., a mul ti-

stakeholder approach). Nor do we yet know much

about why some firms invest more to acquire an d

develop HRs, the conditions under which inves tment

in formal HRM systems is worthwhile, or the d ynamics

that influence the relative salience of employees ' con-

cerns, or any other stakeholder relative to the con-

cerns of the other stakeholders. Thus, HRM

professionals and scholars can play an important role

in improving our understanding of HRM and OE [orga-

nizational effectiveness] by conducting resear ch

together to help reveal further understandin g of these

relationships.

Schuler and Jackson's (2014) view is vigorously echoed by Cas-

cio (2015, p. 423) who believes that SHRM research is “too important

for an insular approach,”and Kaufman (2020, p. 49) who uncompro-

misingly declares, with strong provocation, that “the deadly combina-

tion of psychologization, scientism, and normative promotionalism

takes strategic human resource management down a 30-year dead

end”(see rebuttal from Wright et al., 2015 to Kaufman, 2015a, and

Troth & Guest, 2020). It should be noted that the aim of these cri-

tiques is not to deny the important contributions that the psychology

and, more specifically, the organizational behavior (OB) discipline has

made in advancing the field of SHRM research. Rather, critics warn of

the danger of the rapid process of psychologization in SHRM research

and its effect of marginalizing research from other disciplinary per-

spectives; such perspectives have broader concerns and levels of anal-

ysis of, for instance, the dynamics of stakeholder interactions, social

values, and structural differences in the power of institutional actors

(c.f. Farndale, McDonnell, Scholarios, & Wilkinson, 2020b; see also

Budd, 2020; Kamoche, 1994).

90 COOKE ET AL.