Professor M Diane Burton E52 581 617 253 5539 burton mit edu Spring 2001 MWF Time Location Teaching Assistant Corrine Bendersky E52 533 617 253 3940 cbenders mit edu First Class April 2 2001 STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 15 660 Course Overview and Objectives This course is about both the design and execution of human resource management strategies This course has two central themes 1 How to think systematically and strategically about aspects of managing the organization s human assets and 2 What really needs to be done to implement these policies and to achieve competitive advantage This course will not get into the technical details of personnel management such as the psychometric aspects of test validation the specifics of job evaluation methods the mechanics of interviewing or the intricacies of employment law These topics are primarily relevant to those intending to be human resource professionals Instead this course adopts the perspective of a general manager and addresses human resource topics from a strategic perspective Many managers and organizations recognize that a critical source of competitive advantage often comes not from having the most ingenious product design the best marketing strategy or the most state of the art production technology but rather from having an effective system for obtaining mobilizing and managing the organization s human assets A number of recent developments including demographic changes in the labor force the rapid pace of technological change increased global competition experiments with new organizational arrangements and public policy attention to work force issues are making human resource management topics increasingly important for all managers in organizations Although many organizations recognize the importance of managing the work force effectively and even know what approaches are effective it is remarkable how often firms and managers fail to implement these approaches This course is designed to be integrative drawing upon foundational material to which you have been exposed in core curriculum courses Our orientation will be both analytical and managerial focusing on the development of concepts and strategies that can increase your effectiveness in developing policies and practices that general managers can use to enhance the value of the people in their organizations 1 To integrate the conceptual and applied material the primary course material will be a series of cases illustrating both successes and failures You will also be provided with supplementary readings and lectures that will supply concepts and frameworks Each case will provide an opportunity to use the conceptual material in an analytic way To help focus your analysis a set of study questions for each case is included These can be used to guide your case preparation It is also important that we take advantage of the experience of class members So where relevant please feel free to bring your own experiences and illustrations into class discussion Throughout the course virtually in every session we will consider how what we are discussing differs across settings Students with global experiences are especially encouraged to bring this knowledge into the classroom The employment relationship in the U S is different in many respects from many other countries so it is important that as managers we appreciate these differences in how human resources might be framed differently in other cultures If we are to meet our goal of increasing your effectiveness in managing human resources it is important to explore how why and under what circumstances various approaches work Your previous experience both positive and negative is a valuable source of data for this learning The course is divided into three sections The first addresses the implementation of strategy and the importance of aligning human resource practices so that they are internally consistent and produce the skills and behaviors required to make the strategy work The second section addresses a number of key HR levers available to managers in the development of an effective personnel system including investing in people training and development participation and involvement team based systems measurement and incentives compensation and information sharing The third section of the course provides a summary and integration illustrating how firms have succeeded or failed at tapping the potential of their work force Course Reading Materials Required Materials This is a case based course The primary reading material for each session will be a case study There will often be recommended readings associated with a session These readings provide some conceptual frameworks that may help you in your case analysis These readings come from a number of different sources and have been carefully chosen to reflect a variety of perspectives and stimulate your thinking however they are no substitute for your own analyses of the cases The cases and readings will be available in a packet that is available at the MIT Copy Technology Center located in the basement of building E52 2 Optional Readings There are several other books that you may find useful during the course These are not required but should you desire to pursue a topic in greater depth these might provide a useful starting point for further research I list these only for your future information 1 James N Baron and David M Kreps Strategic Human Resources Frameworks for General Managers New York John Wiley Sons 1999 This book offers a comprehensive set of theoretical perspectives on human resource management The authors provide a highly readable integrated way of thinking analytically about a broad range of HR issues These frameworks often provide significantly greater insight into HR topics than conventional best practices approaches 2 Edward Lazear Personnel Economics for Managers New York Wiley 1998 Lazear is an innovative labor economist who has creatively used rigorous economic analyses to illuminate HR topics His book along with Baron Kreps provides an interesting and rigorous way of framing many HR issues His approach often provides useful but nonintuitive ways of understanding alternative approaches to a problem 3 Robert S Kaplan and David P Norton The Balanced Scorecard Boston Harvard Business School Press 1996 This book outlines the steps necessary to think through the measurements that will drive the execution of strategy Although not specifically oriented