The role of Spanish local development and employment officers in human resource management

Abstract

The aim of this study is to contrast the existence of a significant relation between good human resource practices and business results. The empirical analysis is applied to strategies implemented by Local Development and Employment Officers (LDEOs) with regard to the management of social integration and job placement programs within the context of Local Development in Spain for both the universalist and contingent perspectives of Human Resource Management. The novelty of this study lies in the impact local development programs are having on social integration and job placement, and, in particular, the effects of project management.

Keywords:

• business success
• Human Resource Management
• job placement
• Local Development and Employment Officers
• social integration
• Spain

Notes

1 Studies of similar characteristics have been carried out in Spain applied to other economic sectors, e.g. the sector of financial bodies in Social Economy (credit cooperatives and savings banks) by Hernández Perlines and Peña García-Pardo (2007).

2 Organizations of a public nature are included in this study at a local level (Agencies dependent on Town Halls), at a district level (Agencies dependent on Local Authorities and other such bodies), at a provincial level (Provincial Authorities) and at a regional level (Regional Institutions, etc.), as well as institutions of a private nature.

3 The Contingent Theory states that, in a changing environment, the organization cannot be effective by following a single, exclusive organizational model, (Mintzberg 1979). Organizations related to different areas require different structures because the level of uncertainty is increased when the environment is complex, dynamic or hostile. For businesses to be competitive, the type of environment has an effect on the relation between competitive strategies and the type of organization (Van de Ven and Astley 1983; Donaldson 1996; Batt 2000).

4 These actions include continuous education, training and learning throughout their working lives, advice and assistance in gaining access to the job market through self-employment and the creation of itineraries for integration, improvement in infrastructures, management of local firms, support and management of the creation of microfirms and of small and medium-sized firms and carrying out socioeconomic studies on sustainable development, environmental policies, rural and cultural tourism and any other aspect that contributes to the economic and social growth of a particular local community (Antonelli 2003; Lawton-Smith 2003).

5 Three types of validity analysis can be distinguished (Spanos and Lioukas 2001): content validity, construct validity, and nomological validity. In our case, we used construct validity as nomological validity cannot be applied.

6 The Cronbach alpha statistic determines the degree of internal consistency of a measurement scale using the calculation of the average correlation of one of the variables with all the other variables in the scale. Values range between 0 and 1, and the closer the value of the Cronbach α to 1, the greater the internal consistency of the items that make up the measurement tool.

7 In order to be able to apply an analysis of reliability, quantitative variables of size, age and quantity were converted into categorical ordinal values, while multiple response questions, such as available resources, were treated as 0–1 dichotomies.

8 This is a kind of orthogonal rotation of factors that tries to minimize the number of variables with high saturation in one factor. The aim of rotating the original factors is to obtain a more easily interpretable solution, in the sense that the variables that are closely interrelated show high saturation levels (as an absolute value) on the same factor and low levels for the rest.