ABSTRACT
Many large companies take a strategic approach to business planning. But whatever the strategy, they all involve people and, in particular, the management of people (HRM). In strategic planning and strategy making, HRM becomes a vital actor. The strategy a company adopts – for example, Porter’s cost leader vs. differentiator – also impacts on HRM so this is taken into consideration when strategies are developed, for example using a SWOT analysis or when a strategy is formulated as a prospector strategy, defender strategy, analyser strategy, or reactor strategy. Above that, four overall strategies have been identified: classical strategy, crafting strategy, an evolutionary approach to strategy, and a systemic approach to strategy. When companies develop a strategy, HRM is often faced with four levels of incorporation, the purely administrative level, the one-way, the two-way level, and a fully integrated way of strategy making. Strategy always and necessarily leads to some form of organisational change. As a consequence, change management – at the level of HRM – operates with four distinct models of change: top-down, piecemeal, bargaining, and systemic-jointism.
