The field of human resource management (HRM) was emerged as a sovereign intellectual field in the United States (US) since long. Relationship between human resource management practices and job performance in Pakistan as a major driving force for improving the productivity and efficiency is yet to be explored. To authenticate this view, a number of researchers have investigated theoretically, as well as empirically, how and whether HRM practices or a bundle of practices affect organizational outcomes (Delery and Dotty 1996; Huselid 1995; MacDuffie 1995). More recently, international researchers have examined the applicability of USbased findings in other national contexts (Bae and Lawler 2000; Guthrie 2001; Takeuchi et al. 2007).
As public sector organizations have experienced dramatic changes in their ways of managing people, academic interest in the organizational consequences of HRM has grown accordingly in Pakistan-based management. Recent reviews, such as those of rehman, Ajmal Waheed, and Hamid Rafiq (2010) reported the growing importance of Human Resource Management studies in Pakistan-based HRM literature. As this subject is attracting increasing number of researchers, it would be useful to closely examine the current standing of the research and identify the ways to effectively move the field forward. To serve these needs, this review recognizes the contributions of extant research on the HR- performance relationship in Pakistan, and offers recommendations for future research by reviewing empirical studies published both in prestigious international and local journals. Main focus on whether and how the Pakistan-based HRM literature has participated in current theoretical and methodological dialogue in the global HRM literature. Over the last twenty years, there has been an exponential growth in the number of studies on HR-Performance link that have appeared in prestigious international journals. Meyer (2006) has shown a great concern about the scholars who tend to be overly receptive to western theories and consequently, they have made limited contribution to the global scholarly discourse. By putting Pakistan-based HRM studies in the context of the global HRM, there is an opportunity to reflect on the relevance of the above-mentioned criticisms to the emerging stream of Pakistan-based HRM research.
Pakistan is a fast developing country in the South-Asia region. Apart from being a natural resources rich country, Pakistan is widely known as an open and forward-thinking country, willing to experiment with innovative HR practices and various models that will assist it in seeking an effective diversification of its economy. With the influx of multinational companies over the past decade, Pakistan has achieved an impressive mix of domestic and foreign companies. The growing competition in a Pakistan market (with a little
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over 170 million population) has made both domestic and foreign companies intensely productivity conscious. This, in turn, has generated a strong interest and enthusiasm among organizations to search actively for the best management practices in all fields, including HRM, to improve their efficiency and overall performance. Thus, Pakistan offers an appropriate setting to examine how a bundle of HR practice, such as job analysis, job design, job evaluation, job security which have received considerable attention in Western countries as a useful HR planning tool, affects job performance in a developing country. The present study may be seen as an opportunity to validate and extend the findings of HR–performance studies conducted in Western countries to a non-Western context.
The paper consists of four sections. The first section explains how the articles were selected. Then, a brief overview is provided of the important characteristics of the Pakistan-based HRM research literature. The third section discusses how Pakistan-based HRM research has interacted with the major debates in global HRM literature. Finally, this study will provide some recommendations for future research. The major purpose of this study is to survey the current status of empirical research about HRM, particularly on the issue of the HRM–job performance relationship. Empirical studies were reviewed those focus on HR-Performance link and to establish a framework in the context of a non-western country like Pakistan.