Late to the party: HR’s contribution to contemporary theories of strategy

Abstract

Drawing insights derived from systems theory, the resource theory of the firm and historical developments within the functional areas of management, this paper calls attention to the emergent importance of HR system design to firm competitiveness. The reader is introduced to the FourSquare Model and its premise that successful strategy formulation and implementation requires integrated decision-making across four primary functional domains. The Model makes three significant contributions to our understanding of organizational performance: (1) it brings together important insights from a range of theoretical perspectives; (2) it presents a parsimonious yet theoretically sophisticated model for empirical investigators and management theorists; and (3) it provides practicing organizational leaders with a cogent and accessible tool to guide executive development.