Abstract

Ali Ahmed Qayed Al-Emadi, Christina Schwabenland

The existing Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) approaches have been studied and analyzed in order to identify the main theoretical perspectives or models that are usually applied to SHRM. The investigation of the literature starts with the identification of such popular SHRM perspectives as the universalistic perspective, the contingency perspective, the configurational perspective, and the contextual perspective. Both the traditional and recent studies were examined in order to assert the main concepts of the models and to compare the approaches in relation to their effectiveness when used in the context of discussing HRM practices implemented in the public sector of Qatar in 2009. The literature on the configurational approach was discussed with particular attention, as this approach is usually selected by researchers in order to discuss the effectiveness of the HRM practices’ implementation and is often chosen to work with quantitative data. This study will cover the details of different SHRM perspectives, the comparison of the approaches, the advantages of the configurational approach, the appropriateness of using the configurational approach while working with quantitative data, and the aspects of using the configurational approach in different contexts.