Introduction
InterClean, Inc. is a company at a crossroads. The David Spencer, CEO of InterClean, Inc., has a new vision for the future of his company: an expanded, global company specializing in cleaning and sanitation. To this end, he seeks to steer InterClean, Inc.’s management into a business model the exploits new solutions and sales models, merges with the recently acquired EnviroTech, Inc., and increases revenue by 40% annually. The way that InterClean, Inc. functions, how management targets tasks and develops strategies to complete them, its corporate culture, the way it trains its staff and the structure of the company itself will require substantial change.
Analysis
The framework of strategic human resource management (HRM) provides guidance into both descriptive and prescriptive lines of questioning. The literatures in strategic management and organization theory have long argued that the fit between business strategies and organizational characteristics is a key determinant of organizational performance (Chandler, 1962; Lorsch and Allen, 1973; Galbraith and Nathanson, 1978). While these strategies have had problems in defining exactly what constitutes “fit” (Van de Ven and Drazin, 1985; Venkatraman, 1989), the general proposition that fit is important with some empirical support and has motivated the emergence of what has become known as strategic HRM. Strategic HRM holds that the sets of policies and practices used to manage a firm’s labor force should be considered in the context of organizational strategy. Further, strategic HRM argues that a key criterion for evaluating the effectiveness of personnel practices should be the extents to which those practices help the organization meet its goals. Most existing research in human resource mana ...