Having explained how the three developments of life cycle, organization design, and contingency
models have influenced thinking, in this second part of the chapter we consider the question should a
firm's strategy help decide its HR processes in other cultures? We noted that Taylor et aI's (1996) work
touches on this question, but to answer this question we move into a discussion of some key theories.
It is not possible to discuss exhaustively all the theoretical perspectives connected with the SIHRM
field in this chapter, but we provide a brief outline of what we see as the four main perspectives:
1. Resource dependence theory
2. Resource-based view of the firm
3. Knowledge-based view of the firm and organizational learning theory
4. Relational and social capital theory
We leave discussion of a fifth theory, institutional theory, which asks "do HR strategies developed
in Western countries in reality apply to other cultures?" to our treatment of this question in the
final section of the chapter. However, let us return to the question of should the strategy help decide
the HR processes across countries.