• Understand the organisational role of HRM and HRM-strategy.
• Analyse external and internal influences on HRM strategy and practices and reflect on strategic HRM options and actions.
• Identify the role of HRM in relation to major change efforts.
• Characterise the multiple purposes of performance management in HRM practices.
• Assess the value of key design choices and core properties of performance measures and evaluations with respect to decision making and motivation in organisation.
• Analyse and critically reflect on the value and relevance of multiple performance management designs in specific organizational settings.

In the face of increasing internal and external pressures on organisations to respond to changes in Business and Society, HRM offers on the one hand a distinct set of conceptual approaches to deal with these and on the other hand a growing range of strategic HR-practices, which are increasingly implemented in many leading organizations. The course offers an introduction and critical examination of key concepts of HRM and examines a number of key human resource practices from an HR-professional as well as an Executive perspective.

The first part of the course provides an overview of the history of HR-thinking, HR strategy, globalization, talent management and leadership issues. The focus here will be on linking internal and external challenges, which strategic HR decisions have to be made within. The internal challenges include transformation of psychological contracts, management of high performing employees, assessment of organizational and individual capabilities, talent and performance management, etc. The external forces, which influence HR decisions, are for example technology change, social responsibility, mergers, regulatory changes, and war for talent.

The second part of the course is reserved for further reflections on the issues of how to evaluate and measure performance and how these performance accounts are used in organisations for decision making and motivation in organisations. The design and use of performance evaluations and measures are fundamental in many HRM topics like performance reviews, talent management, compensation, promotions, feed back and competence development. Moreover, they also provide essential knowledge useful in strategy execution, budgeting and operations management, which are subject areas addressed at other courses later in the EMBA program.