ISSN 0798 1015

Vol. 38 (Nº 21) Año 2017. Pág. 1

Factors of Labor Management Strategy: a multiple case study in a value chain

Factores de la estrategia de manejo laboral: un estudio de casos múltiples en una cadena de valor

Tiago Bernardino VARGAS 1;Caetano Fischer RANZI 2;Robson SELEME 3; Nicolle Christine SOTSEK 4

Recibido: 07/11/16 • Aprobado: 01/12/2016

Content

1. Introduction

2. Theory

3. Materials and methods

4. Analysis and Discussions

5. Final considerations

References

1. Introduction

Since the North American real estate crisis of 2008, the world economy went through numerous oscillations of growth and retraction in different aspects, such as: (i) the devaluation of assets, represented by the worldwide stock market crash, and by the retraction of United states consumption, which was once the largest global consumer; (ii) increased Chinese consumption; (iii) the reduction of reserves and increased fiscal deficit; and (iv) the insecurity of the dollar as the single currency for international payments. (SILBER, 2010).

Economic fluctuations, as currently experienced, are directly related to the macroeconomic stances and production systems adopted in the industry and, consequently, the relations with the employee, either by the government or by the company. (Batista, 2008).According to Porter (1993), the worker, or laborer, is the first of five competitive advantage factors of a nation. This factor contributes to market movements and can be used as a balancing piece, or even as a source of fluctuations in the competition (GERWIN, 1993).

The concept of the laborer as a key resource encouraged companies to develop a "human resource strategy" (MASCARENHAS, 2008). Besides the company's’ strategy, there are strategic options for managing anyone interfering with the company's ability to react to environmental changes. (ARTHUR, 1994).

Each labor strategy establishes a different relationship with the worker, from a vision in which they are easily exchangeable, to the perception that each worker is a creative being capable of developing plans or methods for improving the business. A final factor to be considered is labor flexibility, which is considered to be either the differential between production systems (Womack et al., 1990) or the scale in the definition of human resources indicator groups. (MACDUFFIE, 1995).

Thus, this study will analyse four factors of direct labor management strategies: (i) the macroeconomic, which relates to the company’s external environment strategy; (ii) the production system, which provides a strategic choice of people that is, at first, the result of a manufacturing structural change; (iii) The third group of indicators highlights the practices that are promoted to try to achieve the intended people strategies; and flexibility, which reports the effect of the relationships among these factors on the company. This work therefore relates factors which act in direct labor management strategy, and contribute to its understanding and results through a reflection using case studies on the work strategy used in three companies of the same chain value. Alfalla-Luque et. al (2015) and Abreu and Alcantara (2014) identified the need to deepen scientific knowledge of the strategic factors of human resources and supply chain management. This relationship was also portrayed by the work of Gowen III and Tallon (2003) and Marwah et al. (2014).

2. Theory

2.1 Human resource strategy

Within the administration the concept of strategy differs depending on the historical context in which it appears. Mintzberg et al. (2004) tried to find a definition that encompasses essentially all searches of the term "strategy". The author did not offer an easy definition. Instead, he concluded that the concept of strategy required five distinct definitions.

The "five settings" of Mintzberg et al. (2004) are summarized as "5 P's" (Plan, Pattern, Position, Perspective and Ploy). In short, the strategy "5 P's" is a plan that provides a direction, guided by previous experiences, which identifies a position and a desired perspective and, finally, draws a ploy to differentiate themselves from competitors. (MINTZBERG et al., 2004, p. 17-21).

One particular area where there is the formation of a unique strategy in line with the company's strategy, is the area of personnel which is the subject of this work. Mascarenhas (2008), in his work "Strategic People Management" indicates three main strategies of direct labor: person-job-fit, systemic alignment, and human resources as competitive potential. This strategy has been characterized as rational and impersonal. (SHAFRITZ, 2001). In a person-job-fit strategy the company conceives individuals as utilitarian, without socio-cultural complexity. (MASCARENHAS, 2008). In this person-job-fit model the role of human resources is to receive and implement the strategic guidelines set by decision makers. Therefore, according to this strategy, human resource workers are passive and the direct labor is the source of costs that must align to the time and environment in which the company operates.

To try to meet the demand that high turnover and lack of direct labor commitment shows in the person-job fit model, a new human resource strategy arose: systemic alignment. (Boxall and Purcell, 2000). The intent of this model was to prepare the direct labor from one company to organizational behavior changes (VASCONCELOS, 2004). People are seen as important in implementing the strategies made by leaders. That is, they are considered to have a certain subjectivity that affects production. As the environment and the demands are modified over time, the company needs to adapt continuously, and this adaptation also involves the behavior of direct labor. Thus, the traditional practices of personnel management have limitations, and each organization will have different behaviors, according to the environment in which it operates. So, this systemic alignment proposes that people can participate in the implementation of the strategy: whether from dosed practices as required by the contingency model, from the adoption of universally accepted practices as superior, or from the intention of acting in the cultural symbols. However, this human resource strategy approach does not include labor as a participant in strategy formation, characteristic of the third strategy of people that will be reported in the next section.

The third aspect of people management strategy is characterized as human resources as competitive potential. The latter differs from the systemic view and its ramifications to suggest that they strive only to react to changes that have been initiated by a leader and that, at its most advanced level, the manpower creates only more effective ways to improve their own activities.

This third aspect encourages people to collaborate with the formation of strategies. The basic premise is therefore that human resources can be organized as a source of competitive advantage, being able to generate change, as opposed to being a simple result of adaptation, by promoting policies and practices that affect the behavior of individuals. There are, therefore, three strategic management possibilities, each with different attitudes toward expectation and understanding of labor management. The following topics present a discussion of the influential factors in choosing this strategy.

2.2 Factors in human resource strategy and the economy and production systems

To understand the active factors in the strategy of people in production engineering, theoretical reflections will be made, from the literature, addressing the three areas in three topics: the economy and production systems; people management indicators; and flexibility. Then the macroeconomic concepts and production systems will be addressed, from a historical perspective the emergence of both and, finally, a relationship between them and the strategic human resources will be made.

2.2.1. The liberalism and the Fordism

Liberalism is an economic policy that defends the free market. That is, the free market reaches its own balance, while competition increases the production and work efficiency. In other words, competition improves and balances the economy constantly, and this balance would be the effect of the famous "invisible hand" theorized by Adam Smith (TEIXEIRA, 1996).

Historically, the liberal policy prevailed, since the contributions of Adam Smith, until the economic crisis of 1929. Before this crisis the government interfered very little in economic relations, including the employment relationship. An exemplifying fact and icon of this model is the rise of the Ford industry in the United States.

Ford used the concept proposed by Taylor, division of labor, coupled with interchangeability (WOMACK et al., 1990).

The specialization of labor to extreme levels, represented by the assembly lines in continuous motion (WOMACK et al., 1990), added to the concept of interchangeability, which was initially applied to parts, and resulted in a relationship with the worker also interchangeable and anyone with little or no training could take the role. As advocates Hopp and Spearman (2001, p. 20): "Workers, as well as parts were interchangeable."

Therefore, with the division of labor, Ford was able to make workers the main variable to suit market movements, demand and price. This model of how the company deals with labor was characterized earlier in strategy "person-job-fit".  This model gives the industry a "quantitative flexibility" which is the ability to react to changes by changing the amount of resources - in this case: people (MASCARENHAS, 2008).

2.2.2. The Keynesianism and its relation to the Fordism

With the 1929 crisis, the liberal macroeconomic model was questioned, and the work of the British economist Keynes came into vogue. Keynesianism is an “interventionist” policy that argues that the state needs to limit and balance the market. Keynes thought that the state should invest in macroeconomics to boost trade and safeguard jobs. (FEIJÓ, 2007).

In this macroeconomic model state plays an important role in economic relations, and once again, also in the employment relationship. Thus, with the adoption of this new model, beyond the state investing in economic stimulus, it must also interfere with the agency relationship.

This duality lasted, reaping the fruits of cheap products manufactured with high division of labor, and the state interfering with the accumulation of capital from industry, until the oil crisis in 1970 (RIBEIRO, 2013).The oil crisis culminated in two significant events for this study: the questioning of interventionist ideals and the rise of Toyota as a production model.

2.2.3. The neoliberalism and the Toyota system

Womack et al. (1990) in "The machine that changed the world", narrates the rise of Toyota as a production model, and places the workforce as one of the company's success factors. The Toyota model, then, does not provide a contrast to the Fordism model, but an evolution. (Muffato, 1999; Engström et al, 1995;. Antunes, 2009). Indeed, Liker (2005) tells how the leaders of Toyota traveled to the United States to study the model of Ford.

Studies and research on the Toyota model, sometimes called Lean or Lean model, sought to understand what was different in the new Japanese proposal (WOMACK et al., 1990; LIKER, 2005 SPEAR AND BOWEN, 1999).

Liker (2005, p. 27), for example, states, "unbelievable consistency in the performance of Toyota is a direct result of the operational excellence." This operational excellence comes from tools created and supported by two pillars: production in units based on need (just in time) and the focus on quality, giving the machine capacity to detect defects (autonomation or jidoka).

Thus, after the oil crisis comes into vogue the Toyota model, focused on human motivation and practices of operational excellence improvements. The Japanese system has changed the working model before advocated by the industry. It proposed multifunctionality and versatility of workers. In other words, the same person could operate more than one machine (multifunctionality) and was able to manage his own time, responding to variability - versatility. (MUFFATTO, 1999).

Therefore, the company has a "qualitative flexibility”, being able to react to changes by modifying the way resources are organized, lining up as a strategy. This effort to "align people" strategically from the hierarchy down, defines, exactly, the human resource strategy model of "strategic alignment" (MASCARENHAS, 2008).

At the same time, governments sought new macroeconomic alternatives to deal with the crisis of the 1970s, which was accompanied by economic stagnation and high inflation. (Noronha and Matos, 2014). Friedman was therefore the great representative of the neoliberal school that traced back to the idea of a state acting as little as possible on market relations - for example, monetary action. (RIBEIRO, 2013).

Thus, the macroeconomic historical evolution and the evolution of production models - culminating in the 2008 crisis and the need for companies to react quickly to fluctuations - can be summarized in three phases.

The first phase is the state whose economic policy is liberal and the production model is mass production, unstable and marked by constant conflicts between the company and the employee - the culmination being the world economic crisis of 1929.

The second phase is an interventionist state acting in labor relations and attenuating the mass production model contradictions - until the oil crisis in the 1970s.

And the third phase, which culminated in the 2008 crisis, is characterized by little intervention by the neoliberal state in the economy, represented by the deregulation of the financial market in the 1980s, and the rise of the Toyota model as an evolution of the previous Fordism model, but directed for operational excellence through personnel development.

2.2.5. The Volvo system

The central idea of the Volvo model is to organize labor in autonomous working groups. The Swedish model proposes that a group of workers is responsible for the construction of every product without prior definition of how to perform tasks and, with this, supervision is not necessary (JONSSON et al., 2004; ENGSTRÖM et al., 1995).

At this point there is a difference between the previous models, because even with the Japanese model, which conceived a range of more activities to be performed by the workers, the definition of how to do them and control them were separated from direct labor. (MUFFATTO, 1999; ENGSTRÖM et al., 1995).

Considering the Swedish model of labor organization as direct labor strategy, studies and reports claim that there is a flexibility advantage in this model because it goes beyond quantitative and qualitative flexibility by offering greater integration of labor in the response to changes and in the strategy formation. (ENGSTRÖM et al, 1995; JONSSON et al., 2004). Thus, as exemplified in JONSSON et al. (2004, p. 767). This flexibility, then, is a proactive flexibility (GERWIN, 1993), and represents a workforce strategy in which the human is considered competitive potential which participates in the formation of the strategy. (MASCARENHAS, 2008).

Volvo created its model of industrial organization by autonomous groups in the same period in which the industry found the Japanese model as a solution to the criticism of Fordism - after the 1970 crisis. Therefore, the present macroeconomic policy during the period in question was the Keynesianism. Coincidentally, the factories suffered the redeployment of other models, Ford's assembly lines and Toyotist production cells, when neoliberalism had become the European macroeconomic policy. (JONSSON et al., 2004; MUFFATTO, 1999).

Therefore, to contextualize the dialectic of macroeconomic models and manufacturing models, it is proposed that the macro economy on the Swedish model is best represented by a social macroeconomic model, which sees society, the collective, the "human" as the focus of their attention.

2.2.6. Macroeconomics, production systems and people strategies

So are designed, historically, three phases and a historical experience - the Volvo model - which relate to macroeconomics, production systems and people strategies. Within this temporal design, studies have linked the work organization models and macroeconomic models like Ford/Toyota and Keynes/Friedman. (Batista, 2008; Antunes, 2009).

However, from the perspective of the entities "government" and "industry", as they relate to the employee, the relationship between such models, is reversed. Since the Ford model and liberalism (or neoliberalism) credited little or no importance and act in favor of "human" workers, while the Toyota model and Keynesianism credited some importance and act in favor of the "human" worker. (Womack et al., 1990; Liker, 2005; Spear; Bowen, 1999; Ribeiro, 2013; Silber, 2010; Teixeira, 1998). Therefore, considering the relationship with workers, the link between macroeconomic factors, production systems and human resource strategies can be expressed as in Table 1.

Table 1.  Summary of related direct labour strategies with macroeconomic models and production systems

The macroeconomic stance and the adopted production system are factors that characterize the strategic choice of personnel management, however, these factors do not reflect practices in the areas of human resources. The next section includes a thorough analysis of these.

2.3 People management practices and the strategy of people

The adoption of indicators to measure performance and results of a company date the industrial revolution. Initially they were developed by enterprises as a financial indicators system. "If they want to survive and thrive in the information age, companies should use performance management and measurement systems derived from their strategies and capabilities." (KAPLAN AND NORTON, 2006, p. 21).

Thus, the measuring system of the company should serve as a management tool in all areas of the company. Having this study focus on human resource strategy, the discussion on indicators will be directed to the management of human resources and strategic management of human resources. Human resource management (HRM) evolves about 90-100 years, however, this study focuses on strategic human resource management (SHRM) and its origin dates back nearly 30 years. (LeENGNICK-HALL et al., 2009).

Wright and Boswell (2002) propose a division of these study lines - Strategy and functional - on two perspectives: number of human resources practices and level of analysis. The typology of HRM work is then a rating between these two perspectives. In short, the selection of indicators for SHRM is a choice of a set of indicators, which relates to the desired strategy. So, the next question to be discussed is: what are the existing indicator packages and which strategies do they direct?

2.4. Flexibility

Flexibility is defined by Slack (1983) as ability to take different positions or adopt variable states. In this sense,  flexibility would be related only to the ability to change, regardless of the effort made to do so. With this, the ability to change must also be evaluated in terms of time and cost as this change occurs.

Upton (1994) also identifies flexibility as a frequent concern of managers of factories. In his definition, he explains: "Flexibility is the ability to change or react with little penalty in time, effort, cost or performance." (UPTON, 1994, p. 73).

In short, the size of the reference flexibility of this study is the labor flexibility, defined by Koste and Malhotra (1999), but adding the definition of the term flexibility previously established Gerwin (1993).

Then, the relationship of flexibility with labor strategy is based on the Atkinson (1988) definition, which differentiates the flexibility arrangements, together with models of human resource management practices reported by MacDuffie (1995), and the flexibility definition proposed by Gerwin (1993). Flexibility is also a factor of choice in human resource strategy as well as the macroeconomic model, the production system, and groups of practices adopted by the company. The relationship between factors acting on the workforce strategy can therefore be represented as shown in Table 2.

Table 2  Relation between human resource management strategy and their factors

3. Materials and methods

The research proposed by this paper aims to explain and interpret complex social phenomena through three case studies.  As for emphasis, this work is exploratory and descriptive. This work, therefore, is an applied research, qualitative approach, descriptive / exploratory. It uses the case study method with techniques of semi-structured interviews, observation and document analysis.

In order to make the study more robust (with greater external validity) it was decided to adopt multiple cases, including allowing the comparison between each case (YIN, 2005).

Aiming for higher learning to the reader and researcher, it was decided to cover companies that are nominated as exemplary within the study topic (people management), with reference to the level of satisfaction of employees in the company (BOWEN AND OSTROFF, 2004). The medium used to identify such companies was the media publication “Guia Você S/A Melhores Empresas para se Trabalhar” (translated in English means “Best Companies to Work For”).

The last publication of the guide before the present study was in 2014 and therefore, this publication will be the reference for this work. It qualifies the best companies to work for within different sectors. Given the focus of the study, direct labor, it was decided to filter the search within the sector "various industries".

Within this sector are 18 companies listed in the publication of 2014.  Companies that participate in the same value chain were chosen to be included in the study. Two companies were chosen because they have an option that enables learning research - are renowned companies for their people management practices -; and fill a scientific gap - part of the same value chain.

In addition, it was decided to include a third company that belongs to the same supply chain, allowing a more thorough analysis. The criteria for choosing the third company are importance and scope. Thus, we selected a supplier that had as its main customer the selected company (importance) and would reach worldwide (scope). With this, the company was selected for the study. The companies agreed to participate in the survey, since it maintained the confidentiality of company names and of the participating employees. In this study they will be represented as COM1, COM2 and COM3.

The selected value chain operates in Electro-electronics sector in Brazil. This industry sector comprises electronic goods industries consumer, telecommunications, information technology and industrial automation. Within consumer electronics, are the industries of sub-sectors: appliances, image and sound.

In a survey conducted by the National Confederation of Metalworkers, published by DIESE in 2012, the sector grew in 2011 by 8% in revenues, with growth of 3% of exports, but with growth of 15% of imports. Part of this growth of imports is justified by the import of inputs for domestic industry. The industry's turnover in 2011 was 134.9 billion dollars, representing 3.3% of GDP. The increase in the sector is justified by the value of income, employment and credit facilities easily accessible to low-income population.

The COM3 company is a multinational company, which employs in Brazil around 15,000 employees, has a diverse product range and focus on innovation. COM2 is the leading global provider of COM3, in one of the its product lines, and the company has factories in Europe, Asia and North America, and Brazil employs around five thousand employees, and also features innovative focus on efficiency and sustainability. COM1 is the only supplier of its product for COM2 worldwide. It has plants in Europe and Asia, but operates in other businesses besides the manufacture of the items sold in the value chain of the study. The Brazilian factory has around fifty employees directly allocated to production.

The company's strategy formation and, consequently, the SHRM can have different actors, depending on the strategy concept adopted by the company. (MINTZBERG et al., 2004). So, to make it possible to investigate the factors affecting the strategic choices, the study proposed a semi structured interview with an employee who has a position of responsibility in HR management, and participates in the strategic choices made by the company.

However, the interview with the HR responsible doos not deepen the discussion on the effects of the strategies of people and their perception by the people - scientific gap identified by Kehoe and Wright (2013). Therefore, this study proposed to interview in addition to the head of HR, three people from the same workgroup and in different contribution periods in the company in a semi structured interview. Together with the interviews and observations, documents of lists of HR KPI’s and practices, external audit HR evaluation of practices and KPI’s, documents of  production model description, including the tools of problem solving adopted, and other documents that were collected as evidence for analysis and findings.

4. Analysis and Discussions

The case studies in the companies showed that in the chosen chain there is little convergence of human resource management strategy between them. This result reflects recent work from Alfalla-Luque et. al (2015), that advocates supply chain integration as a mediator between employee commitment and performance.

Figure 1 has three lines representing the three positions proposed by the study. The first row, closest to the center, is the posture of individual-position adjustment and its factors. The middle line represents the systemic posture alignment, and the outermost from the center represents the HR position as competitive potential.

Each pentagon angle Figure 1 is a factor analyzed, and the colored lines describe the evaluation of the study of each company on  HR strategy and its factors, based on evidences and literature review. The three companies analyzed in the study have different behavior with regard to HR management, from the point of view of the analyzed factors.

The company COM1 has a range of small HR management practices, adopts Fordism work organization model, and responds to demand fluctuations with quantitative flexibility practices.

The company COM2 has refined HR management practices as perceived by workers. It has an operational improvement project based on the Toyota model, but does not change the organization of work or respond to market fluctuations with quantitative flexibility practices.

The company COM3 has several HR management practices, and the most evident is the training. It adopts the Toyota model, including work organization design, and develops qualitative practices to respond to demand fluctuations - in addition to the quantitative practices. Thus, in comparison, the three companies can be represented as shown in Figure 1.

Regarding the evaluation of the relationship between the proposed factors of HR management strategy, an analysis of each factor, listing the consistencies and contradictions will be shown in the following.

The first factor, macroeconomics, is often cited as an interview factor, but without a clear understanding of their relationship with the strategy of people. The evidence to this fact, which appeared in COM1 and COM2, is the desire of companies to participate in an environment with higher unemployment, where the turnover is lower.

The desire for higher unemployment rates contradicts, for example, the option of macroeconomic COM2 by interventionist governments, to act on regulatory efficiency and sustainability of the product, that encourage it to have a greater competitive advantage. This contradiction concludes the dichotomy that the interventionist macroeconomics, in addition to incentives for competitiveness of COM2 in theory aims for low levels of unemployment.

Figure 1 – Analysis between companies

Evidence that validates the macroeconomic factor relationship with the human resources strategy is the realization of COM1 and COM2 companies that human resources strategy is hostage to labor market conditions. When there are many jobs, they become passive to the environment, reacting through better pay incentives.

The COM3 company, by comparison, has a proactive attitude in macroeconomics, recognizing its importance and dialoguing with the responsible agencies. In addition, the COM3 reported to always be in line with the environmental conditions and exemplified that from this position it is able to take advantage of opportunities offered by the government.

Confirmation of the speeches of HR heads of companies came through the workers thereof. In COM1, the economic preference is diffuse and the example of the employee benefit cited by respondent employees is unemployment insurance.

In the COM2, workers prefer interventionist macroeconomic positions and realize the economy through the financial performance of the company.

That is, although in both companies, there is a difficulty in dealing with economic factors (unemployment), the perceptions of workers differ between them. Indicating that in the strategies of people there are also significant differences - which is found in the evaluation of the study.

The perception of the COM2 and COM3 employees, for example, on economic factors, is through the company's performance, converging with the strategic choice of labor reported by them, systemic alignment. An assumption of this fact, reported by both HR respondents, is that people are aligned with business objectives and realize the economy through its impact on same - or as "business performance" or "threatening their safety employment" (COM2 Worker). Unlike the perception of workers COM1 who see the economy impacting only their own social benefits.

A final analysis in relation to the macroeconomic factor is that, besides the difficulty of understanding of HR about the relationship of this with the HR management, there is an even greater difficulty of understanding of workers. The clearest case study is the interview with an employee of COM3, which despite having a history of over 20 years of participation in the union presents arguments that contradict each other.

This employee, who represents the views of the union, defends government social benefits like retirement, but delegates to the state any responsibility for the financial results of the company. That is, by his speech, the government must intervene with tax exemptions to ensure the company's profit and thus keep the jobs of workers.

In short, the macroeconomic factor is perceived clearly by companies, but its relationship with the management of people do not. Still, the relationship of this factor with the human resources strategy is evidenced by the study, even with the difficulty of understanding of respondents about their effects.

The second factor production system is also valid for the case studies. By reporting companies, they know the Ford and Toyota models. The three that took part adopt the Japanese model, with the exception of COM2 who reported already used the model and to be experiencing a new stage with its own nomenclature, but with the same approach practices.

However, as the design of work organization, they adopted little or nothing of the Toyota model. The COM3 company was the only one that was aware of a partial adoption in newer lines, reporting the difficulty, as described in the literature review, as a modification cost of existing processes.

The case of greatest contradiction was the COM2 applying many practices of the Toyota model, but its production process is characteristic of the Fordism: production line, with high division of labor, highly automated and short cycles. In other words, there is not a proper combination of technology management and production strategy (GARRIDO-VEGA et. al, 2015).

The relationship of the production system with production strategy was also evidenced in COM2. Given the rigidity of lines in the Ford model, producing at full capacity of the machines, the company has difficulty in making their workforce a source of creativity and competitive advantage, committed to the company. Evidence of this difficulty is because of HR being responsible in COM2 for the challenges experienced in retaining direct labor, competing with companies that offer simpler jobs even with lower salaries.

Similar is COM1 that, in designing rigid processes, coupled with the limited use of indicators of training and motivation, structure their human resource strategy of person-job-fit experiencing retention difficulties similar to COM2. The speech of the HR responsible in COM1 shows that their difficulty is such to retain their workers that 5% wage fluctuations can make their employees change companies.

Preference reported by workers to perform a creative activity is evident in all businesses, but the opportunity to perform such activity is demonstrated only by the company's workers on COM2 and COM3. This finding is consistent with previous evidence indicating that there are work enrichment initiatives in these companies.

In short, the companies have knowledge of the adoption of the production system model. However, there is a difficulty of relating the organization of work (production systems) with the strategy of people. The perceived impact for them is in the effort to empower the workforce but not in the benefits of problem solving, performance and commitment. This data suggested that companies still feature the Ford model in their work organization.

The third and fourth factors analyzed, workforce strategy and set of indicators, are referential based on the theme of this work. In the literature review, we identified the most cited works that relate the sets of indicators to people strategies.

Thus, the qualitative deepening the relationship between sets of indicators and the strategy of people proposed by this work are a statement of evidence proven by previous studies.

Briefly, the COM2 and COM3 companies were selected to participate in this work by presenting a group of indicators (or practices) higher than Brazilian companies. Selecting the COM1 was not the same criteria. It was selected to present importance and scope in the value chain: it is unique and global supplier of COM2.

The document analysis and interviews showed the evaluation of the HR strategy and set of indicators, in COM2 and COM3. Both were evaluated from an external audit on the previous year as “best company to work for?” in the country. COM2 has an outstanding rate on HR practices and COM3 on leadership, besides their high rate on employee perception and HR KPI’s.  

In COM1, the person responsible for HR reported that the company adopted a systemic alignment strategy. However, the data reported was described as a wish of the company, “know how to retain people is the great challenge” (HR Responsible of COM1), as in interviews with workers and documentation and the company conceives labor as a person-job-fit strategy without designating the manpower to the implementation of the strategy for the company, as reported from one of its workers:

“Today I was in overtime shift because I need to deliver parts until 4 pm, and it is a goal, because I have to try to meet up to 4 pm. [...] What I can deliver at most, right? They establish a goal, and It’s better to deliver everything, but if I get close it is ok.” (COM1 labour worker reporting what targets to pursue).

With this, a rising question of this study is if companies that have structured HR departments (dedicated to achieving the strategies of the company through HR management practices) are aware of their workforce strategy - which is the case of companies COM2 and COM3. And if, on the other hand, companies without a HR department, as COM1, where practices are developed and implemented by the factory management, there is dissonance between what the company believes to be its workforce strategy and what actually is.

The last analyzed factor is labor flexibility. The study highlights the relationship of this factor with the other factors analyzed.

With the macro economy, for example, flexibility is a response option to market fluctuations. In the study, one can identify the COM3, which presents quantitative and qualitative flexibility practices, and can adapt to the interventionist macroeconomic environment of low unemployment - characteristic case of the present situation of Brazil.

However, COM1 and COM2 have only quantitative flexibility practices and do not have the same adaptability to macroeconomic variations. In other words, these companies use the practice of overtime, bank hours, shutdowns, layoffs and contingency labor, but still have difficulties in adapting to a low unemployment context - low retention.

The study showed, then, the relationship between macro economy and flexibility. So, in interventional macroeconomic environments, where the unemployment rates are low, qualitative HR flexibility shows itself as a good performance alternative, as in COM3.

The relationship of the production system with the flexibility last demonstrates that this is a consequence of the first. The organization of work of the Toyota model, for example, provided a multifunctional and versatility capacity (qualitative flexibility). This relationship was observed in COM3 that among the companies studied, this was the one who reported adopting the Toyota model in work organization.

The study in COM2 rectifies the flexibility of the relationship with the production system. Although the company strives to adopt a "universal practice" of improved operating performance, it changed little (or nothing) its organization of work, hence the possible flexibilities practices being adopted are only quantitative.

Finally, the relationship of flexibility with the strategy of people can be evidenced by the worker's valuation level. In this case, flexibility qualifies the strategy of people, the greater the appreciation of the worker and his creative ability in the human resources strategy, more elaborate will be the flexibility practices.

In the strategies of "person-job-fit", identified in COM1, workers have little training in relation to the other chain companies, and little creativity is demanded. In this case, qualitative flexibility, which presupposes a multifunctional worker, versatility and at best expectations, creative strategies, would not apply.

In COM3, the strategy of "systemic alignment" consists of a set of training practices and motivation to provide workers multifunctional and versatility capabilities.

The contradiction evident in COM2, which presents a systemic strategy and organization of the Fordism work, doesn’t contradict the relationship between the factors in HR management strategy, by contrast, stresses that it can serve as a tool to suggest improvements in the management of people's organizations.

If such a company introduced more complex work befitting its systemic strategy, it could generate a more flexible work and could be more resistant to a market with a low unemployment rate. The COM2 could tailor their employees to other functions, could extract from them new strategies and could justify more attractive salaries, because it would have, as a result, more productive workers.

Thus, the case studies in the value chain in companies with different characteristics (e.g., size and organizational culture) show that there is a relationship between the factors of the study. The study was also able to identify that some companies are not aware of the depth of the inter-relationship of these factors.

This relationship between the factors in labour management, therefore, showed to be in the cases studied an assessment tool that identify the relationship between macroeconomic factors, production systems, strategy, workforce strategy and flexibility in an organization. More than that, it was able to identify the relationship between some contradictions in the production system of these companies and the lack of awareness of the factors that produce such contradictions.

5. Final considerations

This work has therefore proposed a relationship of macroeconomic and production systems with the labor strategy. The relationship between the factors in the field of labor management strategy has been tested in three companies of the same value chain, demonstrating the assertiveness of interdisciplinary relations proposals and some contradictions of people management strategies of the companies studied. Therefore, this article contributes to this discussion of the relationship between HR management and value chain, scientific gap reported by Alfalla-Luque et. al (2015), Abreu and Alcantara (2014), Gowen III and Tallon (2003) and Marwah et al. (2014).

The value chain of the study presents the same macroeconomic reality, with similar market fluctuations and labor market behavior. Still, their HR management strategies are different and, consequently, so are their results. This article sums up the discussion on the issue by proposing an analysis of other factors overlooked by previous studies, which showed consistency and showed to be an important analysis perspective.

Finally, the relationship between the factors in labor management strategy created can be used as a diagnostic tool for companies and serve as a guide for choosing direct labor strategy, providing greater awareness of organizations as their choices.

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1. Master in Production Engineering from the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), tbvargas@gmail.com

2. Master in Environment and Development, the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), caeranzi@gmail.com

3. PhD in Production Engineering from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), seleme@ufpr.br

4. Master in Production Engineering from the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), nicolleramos@ufpr.br