Influencia de factores del entorno en la adopción de políticas de recursos humanos en las PYMEs

Zusammenfassung

In the last years, several HR models have been proposed to explain how HR systems are defined. The majority of them have proposed internal factors that determine the degree to which certain HR practices are adopted. Nevertheless, reviewing this literature, we can observe that the majority of the models have been designed for big organizations, which normally have formal structures and explicit HR management patterns (Gulbro et al., 2004; Bacon and Hoque, 2005). In our opinion, the particular characteristics of SMEs make it interesting to study the HR function in these organizations. Size must be therefore considered as a factor that directly determines the strategic orientation of firms� social policy. To be successful in current global markets, SMEs need highly motivated and qualified workforces, able to improve quality and reduce costs (Holt, 1993). Nevertheless, to develop this human resource pool, firms need to implement human resource strategies (Wright y McMahan, 1992; Deshpande y Golear, 1994). SMEs have attracted the attention of several empirical studies in the last 20 years. In fact, this group of organizations is the main generator of employment and wealth in the whole worlds (Lafuente and Yagüe, 1989; Huck and McEwen, 1991; Tirado, et al., 1995; Alvarez and García, 1996; Camisón, 2000, 2001; Gómez 1997; Gadenne, 1998). As a consequence of this explosion of the literature about SMEs, nowadays, we know much more about their particular conditions and their relationships with the economic environment. Literature has highlighted the importance of human resources for SMEs (Bacon y Hoque, 2005; Katz et al., 2000; Wilkinson, 1999; Katz, Aldrich, Melbourne y Williams, 2000), but does not offer orientations about how to design human resource management systems that could help the firm to obtain sustainable competitive advantages. Moreover, literature has not proposed processes to formulate those human resource strategies. Therefore, in this paper, we concentrate our effots in analysing the different human resource strategic perspectives, focusing on the specific conditions of SMEs. In the second part of the paper, we will study the factors that influence the development of human resource systems within these organizations, trying to verify certain hypothesis extracted from precedent literature by using data from a sample of 816 SMEs located in the frame of the Autonomous Region of Andalusia.