Freedom of choice in human resource management strategy: Limitations and opportunities

Abstract

The study addresses the Strategic Human Resource Management research stream and questions the firms’ freedom of choice in selecting Work Systems. The theoretical part of the research aims to define conditions for achieving such freedom, which include distinctiveness, additivity and legitimacy. Referring to the self-determination theory allows us to satisfy the first two of them, and explore barriers in reaching the third one. The empirical part of the research explores limitations and opportunities for choosing Work Systems characterized by their low legitimacy and institutional voids which are typical of the developing economies of the former Soviet Union. The investigation enables us to distinguish between three Work Systems: High-Performance, High-Commitment and High-Involvement with the stress being put on the High-Involvement Work System as the least legitimate option. This Work Systems is applied for encouraging innovative work behavior of employees and is intended to improve firm’s innovativeness. The authors refer to quantitative methods while exploring institutional voids that limit legitimacy of the observed Work Systems: exploratory factor analysis, linear regression analysis, non-parametric criteria and mean comparison. A special emphasis is made on the change in validity of the methods brought about by the different environment point at the institutional voids. The findings confi rm preference for the High-Involvement Work System with regard to the chosen outcomes. However, the respondents treat as the most legitimate approach the one which is based on high relatedness, but limited autonomy and competence. It means that the most legitimate approach is a complex one that combines several Work Systems with the dominance of the High-Performance Work System. The findings contribute to the search of a suitable and sustainable strategy for managing corporate Human Resources, accounting for a contextual specificity of emerging economies.