Competing pressures for human resource investment

https://doi.org/10.1016/S1053-4822(97)90011-5Get rights and content

Abstract

Since the late 1970s, many organizations have professed to view human resources as valued assets rather than liabilities, and the investment in human resources as strategically imperative to corporate competitiveness. However, over the past fifteen years, there has been considerable variability in the extent to which corporate America has embraced and implemented this new view. This article brings agency, resource dependence, and institutional theories to bear in an effort to understand the variability in emphasis that organizations place on human resources investment. The argument is made that the pressures exerted on organizations by stockholders for short-term financial performance will have consequences which are to the detriment of investment in human resources and of long-term corporate competitiveness and viability.

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