پژوهشهای مدیریت عمومی (Feb 2017)
Developing Customer-Oriented Human Resource Management Model in Manufacturing Industry
Abstract
Extended Abstract Despite the fact that customer orientation as a strategic orientation has significant role in organization success, customer oriented human resources management has not received enough attention. Also the extant HRM models are generic and not appropriate enough for customer oriented organizations. According to the Systems View, all organizational elements and functions must be aligned with the strategic orientation in order to achieve success. This study aims at developing customer oriented HRM model in manufacturing industry. Materials and Methods It is an applied study using explorative strategy and mix methods. The qualitative data was analyzed using thematic analysis. At the first time, data was coded by MAXQDA and at the second time handy coding was used. Using the related keywords, customer orientation resources including books, book chapters, articles, conference papers and etc. were identified and accessed. All the accessed sources were studied thoroughly and the codes related to the research question were extracted. Then, similar codes were bundled into basic themes. Also, the basic themes were bundled into organizing and global themes. At the second stage of the research, a questionnaire was designed based on the results of the qualitative study and distributed among 20 human resources management expert to measure the themes’ relevance to the proposed model. Discussion and Results Applying thematic analysis, 135 basic themes, 29 organizing themes and 7 global themes have been identified. The extracted themes have been presented and described in a model. Results of the thematic analysis indicate that customer oriented HRM model in manufacturing industry has three main dimensions: content, context and results. Organizational orientation, infrastructures, leadership, organizational culture, and relations constitute the contextual factors of customer focused HRM model. HRM content refers to HR strategy, processes, and functions. Results of the model refer to employee, customer, organization, and society results. The context dimension not only directly influence HR strategy, processes and functions but also directly influence HR results, customer results, organization results, and society results. Also, results of the quantitative data analysis show that all the identified themes are relevant to the model and there is consensus among the experts on the importance of the themes. Conclusion This study presents some new and valuable insights to HR managers and researchers. First customer focused HRM is significantly different from generic HRM. The sub-dimensions and components of the model clearly show that HRM needs a substantially different approach in order to add value and be conducive to customer success. In order for HRM to be effective, HR strategy, processes and functions must be aligned with customer needs and developed in a way that exhibit the importance of customers. Second, customer focused HRM is not merely satisfying employees’ needs in order to satisfy customer needs. Customer focused HRM goes beyond this traditional thinking and focuses on customers’ needs, although it does not ignore the necessity of employee satisfaction. Third, customer focused HRM needs a system view from managers. If HR function is going to contribute to organization’s customer success, the contextual factors including organization’s orientation, infrastructures, leadership, organization’s culture and relations must be conducive to customer orientation.
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