Introduction: Human resource management and organisational effectiveness - an overview and synthesis

An important major challenge for human resource (HR) professionals and for HR management (HRM) research and the associated literature has been to establish clear, robust evidence concerning the relationships between the contributions of HRM systems, processes and functions to organisational effectiveness. While strategic HRM (SHRM) theory proposes and promotes these linkages as a key foundation, supportive empirical work has been limited and largely confined to small-scale studies conducted in the West, most commonly in particular sectors or large organisations. Few such studies have been undertaken in the Asia Pacific region. Our book presents contemporary research from this region to explore the relationship between HRM systems and practices and organisational effectiveness both conceptually and empirically through an Asia Pacific contextual lens. Accordingly, our book adds to both the existing literature on this issue and aims to encourage further research on such aspects as differences and similarities between these linkages in Asian and Western contexts, diverse sectors, local and multinational companies (MNCs) and organisations and larger versus smaller organisational types.