Abstract
These days, employability and sustainability in the Romanian marketplace are seriously challenged by the general economic development conditions, the continuously rising living standards, and the unfortunate imbalance and irregularities in the policies of labor markets. These defining factors mirror in this current research that focuses on describing the importance, implications, and specificities of human resource management (HRM) and strategic human resource management in the 21st-century organizational landscape, while seeking to pinpoint the considerable and valuable benefits brought by human and intellectual capital as drivers for performance management at the organizational level. The results of the study themselves possess the explanatory power of showing that human resources are the main assets of the organization, which decisively determines the potential for present and future line of action, since human resources have unlimited growth and development potential, even though they are regarded as extremely rare, highly valuable, yet difficult to insure or replace.
TopIntroduction
Nowadays, Human Resource Management (HRM) – as the sophisticated process of managing people belonging to entities in a structured, constant and thorough manner, is fast becoming a key instrument in the 21st-century organizational landscape, while Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) – as the complex practice and sustainable process of attracting, developing, rewarding and retaining employees for the benefit of individuals, companies and society, emphasizes the role played by both human capital and intellectual capital as drivers for performance management.
To begin with, human resources represent one of the entities’ main resources having the powerful capacity to increase their value over time, unlike other enterprises’ resources which may be used in some cases physically and in other cases morally (Tociu et al., 2017). Additionally, as organizations develop over time, it should be pointed out that they have to deal with a number of essential activities and tasks strongly related with HRM (Popescu & Popescu, 2015). Thus, among these particular activities and tasks can be mentioned the following components: firstly, managers will need to create a complex organizational plan capable to attract and to retain people possessing the exact skills the organization’s need (Popescu, 1997; Popescu & Popescu, 2000); secondly, the implementation of the plan will involve several significant steps, among which can be stressed recruiting, selecting, integrating, training, rewarding, and evaluating the employees’ performances in order to check on a continuous basses wheatear the organizational objectives are achieved (Popescu et al., 2015).
In the new global economy, the management of human resources takes into consideration all the activities oriented towards ensuring, developing, motivating and maintaining human resources within the organization focusing on the methods needed, on the one hand, in order to achieve with maximum efficiency the entities’ objectives and, on the other hand, in order to satisfy the needs of the employees (European Commission, 2017). A primary concern for specialists these days is closely related with the organizations’ development and growth processes: in this context, entities worldwide have to deal more and more with a larger and more complex number of essential aspects of HRM (European Commission, 2018a). Likewise, another significant concern for specialists these days is closely related with the organizations’ managerial processes and structures: in this context, managers worldwide have to deal more and more with the challenges derived from the need to thoroughly create and constantly adapt a plan capable to attract and retain people with the precise skills needed by their organizations (Holban et al., 2017). Investigating the implementation of the entities’ managerial plan as well as the entities’ activities considered components of human resources management: (a) involves recruiting, selecting, integrating, training, rewarding the organizations employees, and, in the same time (European Commission, 2018b), (b) choosing the most appropriate benefits and permanently evaluating the performances in order to check if the organizational objectives are achieved (European Commission, 2018c).
Recent developments in business administration, economics and management have heightened the need for better understanding the implications of SHRM in the 21st-century organizational landscape, with a particular emphasis on the role and the importance of human and intellectual capital as drivers for performance management (European Commission, 2019).
Previous studies on SHRM have reported the significance and connections derived from HRM functions, examining the crucial and unprecedented contribution made by people in the astonishing and complex process of offering entities worldwide competitive advantages (Popescu & Dumitrescu, 2016a).
However, a major problem concerning SHRM comes precisely from the fast changes taking place in today’s business environment and organizational landscape (Popescu & Dumitrescu, 2016b). This lead researcher to the conclusion that new ways need to be found in order for organizations to become, on the one matter, more appealing for their customers and, on the other matter, possess a higher competitive advantage, in order to enhance the advantages derived from applying the functions of SHRM (Popescu & Banța, 2019). In this context, questions have been raised about the role, implications and importance of human and intellectual capital as drivers for performance management, especially since all organizations have come to rely more and more on individuals’ competencies, skills and talent, and people’s capabilities to face the continuously challenging business tasks (Yi et al., 2019).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Intellectual Capital: Is seen as a highly complex notion with multiple roles and functions, which embodies a dynamic system of intangible resources and activities that possess the capacity to ensure and to enhance the sustainable competitive advantage of organizations over time.
Strategic Human Resource Management: Reflects the complex processes and specific organizational activities centered on the human resources of organizations, being subordinated to the general strategy of the company and strongly contributing to the companies’ objectives, namely, firstly, to the strategic objective, which refers to the forecasting, planning and adoption of the long-term personnel policy and, secondly, to the operational objectives, which reflect more tactical and administrative issues connected with the organizations.
Performance Management: Embodies all the necessary organizational abilities capable to empower the entities’ policy in the field of human resources created by the management of the organization to adequately and carefully guide the activity of each employee, no matter of the hierarchical level existing in those companies, by taking into consideration the requirements specific to the efficient human resources policy which focuses on integrating human resources management into the management of the organization; motivating of the organizations’ entire staff to carry out the activities arising from the need to reach its strategic objectives; ensuring a climate of positive involvement and deep motivation of all the employees in order to achieve high results and to participate directly in the adoption of the decision-making processes at the level of the companies.
Human resource management: Represents the organizations’ most praised and valuable assets, since human resources are regarded indeed as the most strategic resources of the entities, on the one hand, being considered as unique due to their ability to enable growth, development, self-improvement and self-awareness, and, on the other hand, embodying a complex set of both general and specific activities addressing, in the same time, the assurance, maintenance and efficient use of human resources within companies.
Human Capital: Is regarded as a multifaceted and multifactorial concept, possessing heterogeneous traits, which addresses a complex set of theoretical knowledge belonging to individuals, as well as a general and specialized set of skills capable to aid employees at their places of work, thus enabling the process of creating goods and services for our society during the production activities.