QUESTION 1

DISCUSS THE CONTINGENCY APPROACH AND WHY IS IT RELEVANT IN

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

INTRODUCTION

Contingency approach or situational approach acknowledges the difficulty of offering simple

general rules to explain or predict behaviour in organisational settings. In other words, the
contingency approach to Human Resource Management is an idea in management that states
there is no one universally appropriate set of management rules by which to manage
organisations. Contingency refers to the immediate contingent circumstances. Effective
organizations must tailor their planning, organizing, leading, and controlling to their particular
circumstances. In other words, Human Resource Management should identify the conditions of a
task, the requirements of the management job, and people involved as parts of a complete
management situation. The leaders must then work to integrate all these facets into a solution
that is most appropriate for a specific circumstance.

RELEVANCE OF THE CONTINGENCY APPROACH TO HUMAN RESOURCE

MANAGEMENT

The Relevance of the Contingency Approach to Human Resource Management practices on

firm’s performance and is conditioned by an organization's strategic posture. For example, at a
basic level, one might argue that Human Resource Management is superfluous to performance in
business unless human capital is somehow a central component of a firm's strategy. That is, if a
firm's approach to competition depends on, or makes use of, the talents and capabilities of
employees, then Human Resource Management practices would be more likely to have an
impact on performance; otherwise the connection between Human Resource Management and
performance might be minimal.

The Contingency approach empowers management to create specific, integrated solutions to

solve workplace issues and meet the project goals of clients. This can provide highly specialized
task completion, as long as managers and supervisors assign the right mix of qualified
employees.
Human Resource Management embrace the contingency approach because it helps them
realistically relate to individuals, groups, and organisations, and moreover, it sends a clear
message to managers in today’s global economy. Strategic management provides contingency
theories with potential value for marketers.

The Contingency approach is pragmatic in nature. It avoids vague judgments and widens the
horizons of practicing managers. It guides them to be alert and adaptive to environmental factors
while choosing their techniques and styles. They get the opportunity of becoming innovative and
creative. The contingency approach has a wide-ranging applicability and practical utility in
organization and management. It advocates comparative analysis of the organizations to bring
about matching between the organizational structure and situational peculiarities. Hence, this
approach is also known as ‘Situational Approach to Management’.

The contingency approach focuses attention on specific situational factors that affect the
management strategy. It requires the managers to develop skill in situational analysis. It com-
bines the mechanistic and humanistic approaches to fit the particular situation.
It is an improvement over the system approach as it not only examines the relationships between
the sub-systems of an organization but the relationship between the organization and its environ-
ment too.

Managers can be flexible and adapt the management style to the situation at hand and encourages
management to view organisational behaviour within a situational context. It involves identifying
commonly recurring settings and observing how different structures, strategies and behavioural
processes fare in each setting. It offers an alternative technique for generating marketing theory.
It enables management to change employee roles to meet the individual needs of a given project
quickly. The highly-tailored nature of project assignments also increases the chances a company
will have the right people in place to complete a job to the satisfaction of the client.

Indeed, the prevailing wisdom in manufacturing for many years was to replace labor with
physical capital, thereby minimizing the effect that employees could have on performance and
effectively removing Human Resource Management from the production equation (Zuboff,
1988). Although some firms still compete this way, a variety of strategies are used in
contemporary business settings. In general terms, researchers have made a distinction between
"low road" strategies that focus on cost reduction and "high road" strategies tending to focus on
quality, variety, or service (Osterman, 1994: 179).

Management work to determine specific solutions to handle workplace issues and satisfy client
needs by assigning employees to a task based on relevant skills, developing situational strategies
to meet deadlines, and integrating these efforts to provide a fully realized plan of action. The
manager has to systematically try to identify which technique or approach will be the best
solution for a problem which exists in a particular circumstance or context. The contingency
approach may consider, for policy reasons, that an incentive scheme was not relevant. The
complexity of each situation should be noted and decisions made in each individual
circumstances. There is no best way to manage and organize as circumstances vary.
Understanding contingencies, or situational characteristics, helps a manager to know which sets
of circumstances dictate which management actions are to be applied.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the basic theme of contingency approach is that organizations have to deal with
different situations in different ways. There is no single best way that management can manage
to all situations. The contingency approach to planning and managing organizational innovation
takes into account the climate, the organizational characteristics, and the interrelationship
between key variables and the organization’s performance.

The contingency approach to Human Resource Management assumes that there is no universal
answer to many questions because organizations, people, and situations vary and change over
time. Often, there is no one right answer when managers ask: “What is the right thing to do?
Should we have a mechanistic or an organic structure? A functional or divisional structure? Wide
or narrow span of management? Tall or flat organizational structures? Simple or complex control
and coordinated mechanisms? Should we be centralized or decentralized? Should we use task or
people oriented leadership styles? What motivational approaches and incentive programs should
we use?” Thus, the answer depends on a complex variety of critical environmental and internal
contingencies.
Therefore, Human Resource Management should match its approach to the requirements of the
particular situation. To be effective, management policies and practices must respond to
environmental changes. The organizational structure, the leadership style, the control system
should be designed to fit the particular situation because management’s success depends on its
ability to cope with its environment, it should sharpen its diagnostic skills so as to anticipate and
comprehend environmental changes.

REFERENCES

Contingency Approach to Human Resource Management.” Bizcovering 20 Mar 2007. Available

from: http://www.bizcovering.com/Business-and-Society/Contingency-Approach-to-
Management.
Gresov, Christopher, and Robert Drazin. “Equifinality: Functional Equivalence in Organizational
Design.” Academy of Management Review April 1997.
Lawrence, Paul R., and Jay Lorsch. Organizations and Environment: Managing Differentiation
and Integration. Homewood: Irwin, 1967.
Mark, L.C. (2010). Organisational Behavior: Why People Matter to Organisations: McGraw
Hill.
Schroeder, R. G., Anderson, J. C., & Cleveland, G. 1986. The content of manufacturing strategy:
An empirical study. Journal of Manufacturing, 6: 405-415.
Schuler, R. S., & Jackson, S. E. 1987. Linking competitive strategies with human resource
management practices. Academy of Management Executive, 1: 2
Wright, P. M., Smart, D., & McMahan, G. C. 1995. Matches between human resources and
strategy. Academy of Management Journal, 38: 1052-1074. Wright, P. M., & Snell, S. A.
1991.
Zeithaml, V.A., & Varadarajan, P., & Zeithaml, C.P., (n.d). Winfrey, Frank L., and James L.
Budd. “Reframing Strategic Risk.” SAM Advanced Management JournalAutumn 1997.
Woodward, Joan. Industrial Organization: Theory and Practice. London: Oxford
UniversityPress, 1965.
QUESTION 2

For each of the following statements, indicate whether it is a characteristic more applicable
to quantitative or qualitative research problem or both. Place an "X" in the appropriate
column.

QUANTITATIVE QUALITATIVE

A study in which the author seeks to:

a. Measure variables _____X______ _____________

b. Study a process ____________ ______X______

c. Generate theories ____________ ______X______

d. Study a few sites ____________ ______X______

e. Explain concepts _____X______ _____________

QUESTION 3

Examine the following results reported in a quantitative study:

"The scores varied for band members (M=3.5), choir members (M=3.9), and for student athletes
(M=5.4) for attitudes toward engaging in school activities during the 3-5 p.m. period of time. A
comparison of the groups, at an alpha of .05, showed a statistically significant difference among
the three groups, F(3,8)=9.87, p = .031, effect size = .91 SD."

As you examine this statement, you conclude: (place an X in the appropriate column)

NOTES

a. The null hypothesis was rejected. ____________ ____YES____

b. The level of significance showed

a probability of rejection set at .05. ____________ ____YES____

c. The statistics test used was a t-test. _____NO_____ ____________

d. The magnitude of differences

among the groups was more than

one standard deviation. _____NO_____ ____________

e. Band members differed

significantly from student

athletes in their attitudes. _____NO_____ ____________