Skip main navigation

HRM Achitecture

Short definition HRM architecture. Distinguish between buying or developing.
Because of their unique contributions, different groups of employees require different sets of policies, tailored to these specific contributions (such as efficiency, creativity, and quality), together leading to competitive advantage.

Based on these ideas, Lepak and Snell (1999) developed the concept of the HRM architecture. This framework is ultimately grounded in the choice between “make-or-buy” (Miles and Snow, 1984), which forces organizations to think how they want to improve their human capital; either by developing current employees or by buying them on the job market. This is also called the duality of internalization and externalization.

An easy example is whether firms choose to promote employees from within and offer them the training and development opportunities to achieve the level of expertise that is needed, or whether they choose to hire people from outside the firm. This will be explained later into more detail.

© University of Twente
This article is from the free online

The Future of Human Resource Management (HRM)

Created by
FutureLearn - Learning For Life

Reach your personal and professional goals

Unlock access to hundreds of expert online courses and degrees from top universities and educators to gain accredited qualifications and professional CV-building certificates.

Join over 18 million learners to launch, switch or build upon your career, all at your own pace, across a wide range of topic areas.

Start Learning now