Strategic Human Resource Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 3

Strategic Human Resource Management - Essay Example The discussion provides recommendations on how organizations should align their strategies to achieve excellence. Competitive advantage and Life cycle models explore the link between the set business strategy and the policies and practices within the human resource department. Comparing and contrasting lifecycle model and competitive advantage is essential in terms of their similarities and differences with respect to HRM. Competitive advantage model includes differentiation as a way of achieve unique feature that can be of valued to the buyers. The resources that give a firm a competitive advantage should have value. Life cycle model encompasses all the relevant stages demonstrate the growth or maturity stage of a firm. For the HRM to have a gain competitive advantage, the policies and practices must be in keeping with the development stage in the life cycle model (Rees and Smith, 2014). The viability of human resource depends on how well the differentiated products are in tandem with the industry demands (Johnson, Scholes, and Whittington, 2002). Therefore, competitive advantage and life-cycle models help to shape the HRM policies and practices in response to industry demands in different life cycle stages. Competitive advantage and life cycle models cannot be applied in isolation. A mature organization requires cost leadership and differentiation to survive in the industry. The viability of a firm to sustain competitive advantage stems from attaining maturity. Boxall and Purcell (2011) argue that a firm may set out to be the best in the industry by focusing on cost and product differentiation but it must have reached the maturity stage to position itself well in the market. The organization must be mindful of the lifecycle stages to initiate a change in the tactics used to approach the market. The HRM practices are geared towards reducing competition and offering products that are cost effective for all customers (Marchington and Wilkinson,