Business strategy, work processes and human resource training: are they congruent?

This study examines the extent to which human resource (HR) training (conte nt and context) is contingent on business strategy (i,e. classified accordi ng to Miles and Snow (1984) typology-'Designing strategic human resource sy stems', Organizational Dynamics, 13, 36-52) as well as the characteristics of the work process. Sixty-five Spanish organizations (i.e. 65 senior execu tives and 65 senior HR officers) participated in the study. Using primarily factorial and cluster analyses, support was found to the assertion that co mpanies adopting a particular type of training strategy/policy have a high degree of internal consistency amongst the training objectives sought. In t erms of work processes and training, results indicate that under work proce sses where the content of work provides for enrichment and for long-term re sults, companies tend to adopt training strategies where emphasis is on enh ancement of individual specialized skills aimed at improving direct product ivity. By contrast, firms who use work processes that are characterized by repetitive and routine tasks, de-emphasize this type of training content. R esults also indicae that limited level of contingencies exist between train ing policies and business strategy, especially when time dimension is also accounted for. While the theory suggests that organizations that have their HR training fit (contingent) on their business strategy are more effective , the empirical results portrayed in this study shows a more complex pictur e. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.