Human resource alliances: defining the construct and exploring the antecedents

Abstract

Numerous scholars have documented a dramatic transformation taking place in the relationship between employers and employees. Job security and career ladders are being replaced with a doctrine of employability. In exchange for loyalty and hard work, firms are promising to keep employees' skills current and develop them for opportunities in other workplaces. To meet these changing needs, labour market intermediaries such as temporary help firms and employee leasing organizations have emerged to mediate the relationship between firms and the spot labour market. Companies are also forming collaborative relationships, termed ‘HR alliances’ with other firms to manage their human resources. These take the form of employee-sharing relationships, training and development partnerships and ‘quasi-internal labour markets’ where employees are trained and work in one firm then permanently ‘promoted’ to a position of higher responsibility in a partner firm. In this theoretical paper, I explore the types of employees likely to be managed using an HR alliance, factors that influence firms' use of such alliances, and factors that influence firms' choice of collaboration partners. The paper concludes with a proposal of potential qualitative and quantitative research to study this phenomenon.

Keywords:

• Strategic human resource management
• alliances

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies at Cornell University for providing financial support during the writing of the bulk of this manuscript. Thanks also to Lee Dyer and two anonymous reviewers for constructive feedback on an earlier version of this paper. The original version of this paper was presented the 2002 National Meeting of the Academy of Management in Denver, CO.