Addressing contextual pressures and challenges in social care : the prospects of multi-actor engagement with strategic HRM

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Baluch, Alina and Scholarios, Dora and Cunningham, Ian and James, Philip and Jendro, Eva and Johnstone, Stewart (2025) Addressing contextual pressures and challenges in social care : the prospects of multi-actor engagement with strategic HRM. Human Resource Management, 64 (6). pp. 1747-1765. ISSN 0090-4848 (https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.70000)

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Abstract

Drawing on an exemplary case of strategic HRM in a nonprofit social care provider responding to a recruitment and retention crisis, this article offers evidence for a multi-actor, recursive model of HRM implementation. We examine how multi-actor engagement with strategic HRM reinforces or modifies intended HRM, and how this engagement is shaped by external and internal contextual pressures in nonprofit social care organizations. Through an in-depth qualitative study, we shed light on the internal process dynamics that not only engender a shared understanding of intended HRM strategy and practice among key organizational actors (convergence) but also allow for local deviation (divergence) that forges a more adequate response to workforce challenges. Our study contributes to theory on the social dynamics of HRM implementation within wider institutional contexts while highlighting the limits of a business-oriented HRM system for delivering a sustainable workforce within social care.

ORCID iDs

Baluch, Alina, Scholarios, Dora ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3962-3016, Cunningham, Ian ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3738-156X, James, Philip, Jendro, Eva ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5106-2397 and Johnstone, Stewart ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7181-4795;
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