Introduction: Review Issue

We are pleased to publish our second annual review issue in the International Journal of Human Resource Management (IJHRM). Scientific reviews have several important functions in helping to advance our knowledge. The academic community is interested to know what insights and knowledge already exists in a specific field or regarding detailed research questions. Beyond this, reviews can strengthen or even affirm the credibility of research areas and foci. Amongst the editorial team at The International Journal of Human Resource Management we are clear that we want reviews to go beyond simply reproducing the theories, insights or opinions of other scholars. Good reviews show a well-executed ability to critically assess various approaches in sub-fields of HRM, manage to outline which theories, frameworks and concepts are relevant in the chosen field, and give a clear overview outlining which research methods or strategies have been applied in investigating it. In addition to integrating ideas where possible and depicting inconsistencies in our data, they may present substantial controversies within HRM. Review authors may help the HR community to advance or develop analytical frameworks, may result in the identification and inclusion of new issues or variables. Overall, they should be instrumental in delineating the boundaries of our knowledge which can lead to the presentation of unanswered research questions. This can inform other researchers in their interpretation of their own data (Bryman & Bell, 2015).

Reviews can be a good starting point for academics, business people and others to engage with a topic and/or critically assess new avenues for research. The field of HRM continues to advance and the mounting research available on specific HR topics is developing constantly. Just in IJHRM we receive well in excess of 1000 submissions per year. Reviews can, therefore, be an excellent tool for fellow researchers to help in the quest for high quality knowledge.

In this review issue we are presenting seven highly interesting and well executed pieces of research. The first three take up broad and long-standing issues related to strategic HRM and strategic human capital. Kaifeng Jiang and Jake Messersmith argue that strategic HRM has seen substantial growth in interest in the last years. In ‘On the shoulders of giants: a meta-review of strategic HRM’ the authors explore three decades of SHRM research. Their meta-review outlines a range of theoretical approaches and summarizes key empirical findings before identifying recent trends and future avenues of research into SHRM.

Corine Boon, Rory Eckhardt, David Lepak and Paul Boselie focus on both strategic human capital and strategic HRM. Their starting point is to focus on human capital, an area of interests for many disciplines. However, authors have used different perspectives, often informed by the key discourse on human capital in fields such as psychology or economics. In their aptly names paper ‘Integrating strategic human resource capital and strategic human resource management’ they focus on human capital in organizations and exploit opportunities to contrast and combine our insights, outlining boundary conditions and directions for future research.

Anthony Nyberg, Gregory Reilly, Spenser Essman and Jenna Rodrigues link to the human capital debate by focusing on human capital resources reflecting on the attraction, development and retention of talent. In ‘Human Capital Resources: A call to retire settled debates and an introduction to a few that are needed’ the authors fundamentally challenge some of the enduring discourse. Instead of focusing on established debates they argue for alternative human capital resources issues to be explored.

The next review articles move the focus away from strategic human capital issues to cover attribution theories in HRM, well-being research and global HRM issues. Rebecca Hewett, Amanda Shantz, Julia Mundy and Kerstin Alfes present a manuscript titled ‘Attribution theories in human resource management research: a review and research agenda’. The authors argue that attribution theory is important to extend beyond the field of social psychology to the HRM arena. The 65 papers that the authors analyze show three largely distinct research streams: the first focusses on HR system strengths, the second on how judgements and behaviours are influenced by attributions in specific HR areas and the third on the attributions staff make of the intent of an array of HR practices. The authors outline areas of further research within each of these streams and also identify opportunities for studies that use the connections between these.

The fifth article in this issue concentrates on well-being research. Susanne Imhof and Maike Andresen focus on temporary workers and identify substantial inconsistencies in our knowledge. In an article named ‘Unhappy with well-being research in the temporary work context: Mapping review and research agenda’ they call for a better definition of temporary workers and working as well as what we understand and how we measure well-being. The authors argue for more specificity in the definition of terms and operationalization of the research context and outline future research avenues.

The next review article explores global staffing and talent management issues. David Collings and Michael Isichei have taken up issues that have been important in the international HRM literature for decades and continue to be relevant in the current discourse. The paper on ‘The shifting boundaries of global staffing: Integrating global talent management, alternative forms of international assignments and non-employees into the discussion’ broadens the disparate writing on organizational and wider forms of global talent management. The authors argue for a more strategic approach to global mobility in the light of changing mobility patterns and for an increased focus on non-employees as key alternatives to traditional forms of global working. As expected from a review paper, a future research agenda is delineated.

The last paper conducts a review of repatriation research. Emmy van Esch, Flora Chiang, Thomas Birtch and Margaret Shaffer themed their manuscript ‘Repatriation: what we know and where we go from here’. In it, they argue that the field of repatriation is surprisingly fragmented even though there has been such a strong interest in expatriation. The authors identify a range of difficulties with the repatriation phase and outline the difficulties that hinder a more complete and integrated research picture. Based on a systematic analysis of the literature they develop a framework for repatriation research that encourages researchers to pursue a range of new directions.

As you can see from the scope of papers, we look for a wide range of papers which focus on micro and macro issues of interest to scholars studying HRM and other facets related to the management of human capital. We are excited to publish these papers and we hope these articles generate discussion, insights, and debate in the field of HRM.