Analysis of Human Resource Management Research Studies

This assignment requires a detailed analysis of several human resource management (HRM) research studies. The studies cover topics such as recruitment and selection, organizational culture, leadership styles, and burnout. Students are expected to critically evaluate the findings of each study and discuss their implications for HR practices in different organizational contexts. A total of 15 references from various sources, including journals and books, are provided for analysis. The assignment aims to develop students' critical thinking and research skills in understanding HRM concepts and their application in real-world scenarios.

MANAGING PEOPLE IN
ORGANISATION

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................... 3
Recruitment, selection, training and Induction.........................................................3
Factors affecting behaviour and teamwork..............................................................5
Management and leadership style...........................................................................7
Organizational structure and culture......................................................................10
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................... 11
REFERENCES...............................................................................................................12
Books and references............................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Management of people in an organization help the managers in understanding
the relation between human resource management, strategies, employees,
management action in relation to the business strategies of an organization. This report
will lay emphasis on the recruitment, selection, training and induction process of Apple
Inc., Factors that affect team work and individual behaviour, Different types of
management and leadership styles and lastly organizational structure and culture of
Apple Inc.
MAIN BODY
Recruitment, selection, training and Induction
Recruitment and selection
Recruitment and selection process is one of the main and most important
process or operation in human resource management. It is designed in such a way that
employee strength is maximized in order to meet employer's objectives and strategic
goals (Ekwoaba, Ikeije and Ufoma, 2015). It is a simple process which includes
screening, sourcing, short-listing and screening of right candidate for the vacant job
position. In simple words it is a process of identifying, locating and attracting capable
candidates.
Commence Recruitment
Before announcement of any position, some document work is completed by
Director of Human Resource such as: Recruitment request form, Job classification, job
description, range of the suggested salary, test or evaluation process, Interview
questions and criteria for evaluation of candidates.
Position Announcement
Then an advertisement is drafted for the open position based on the
announcement made by Human resource department (Rivas, 2016). Then Job
description is circulated by the hiring team as well as is uploaded on their portal of the
job Vacancy. Advertisement for the job position is done on their website, posted on

LinkedIn etc. this decision of choosing the type of media completely depends upon the
job vacancy, target candidates etc.
Application Selection
When applicants apply for the vacancy and submit the Resume on their Portal or
Website with complete details. After submission of Applications Screening process of
Applicants is started where suitable resume of the candidates are selected. All the
selected candidates are then invited for the interview process.
Interview
All the candidates need to go through four rounds of interviews. First is a group
interview where candidates are divided into group of 15 and are asked social questions.
If the candidate passes the first round then they need to go though second interview
which is a telephonic interview of 15 minutes. If the candidate passes the second
interview then they need to go through third interview which lasts approximately for 20
minutes and lastly one to one interview is conducted by the head manager (Velmurugan
and Rajan, 2018). After this complete process if the candidate passes then reference
check is done where manager personally check all the references and after this the
candidate is selected for the vacant job position.
Training and Induction Program
Induction program is a process used by companies for welcoming their new
employees in the company and for preparing them for their new job role. This induction
program helps their employees to effectively integrate with the organization. Training of
all the employees is important so that they can understand their roles and
responsibilities and can become productive employees of the company.
Induction and training program in Apple goes on for one week. This induction and
training program held for the employees includes following things such as: Get to know
the organization, its businesses, products and software etc., ways to greet the
customers, induction to the business departments, organizational and management
structure is given, terms and condition of employment, health and safety rules and
regulations, business rules and procedures, employee and welfare benefits are

explained. After these employees are also given training regarding their job roles,
responsibilities and the work they will be doing (Farndale, Nikandrou and
Panayotopoulou, 2018).
During this induction and training process continuous monitoring of employees is
done for evaluation. Different activities are conducted to know how much new
employees have learned during the induction and training process (Lake, Salakhutdinov
and Tenenbaum, 2015). After this complete one week process employees are assigned
mentors under which they will work so that there work can be assessed and can be
evaluated.
Factors affecting behaviour and teamwork
There are various factors that affect the individual behaviour and team work in an
organization like Apple. This can be explained by organizational theories, which studies
everything associated with organization. Organization theories helps in examining
organizational design, motivation, culture, managerial styles, group behaviour and
communication (Kaur and Dubey, 2015). It affects organizational behaviour by affecting
its stakeholders both internal (owners, managers, employees) and external
stakeholders (suppliers, customers, shareholders, creditors etc.).
This give rise to various factors that influence an individuals' behaviour at
workplace are:
Ability
Ability is one of the factors that influence an individual's behaviour at workplace.
Like intellectual ability of a person define their level of intelligence and the way they
think. Physical ability of a person defines physical strength of a person and Self-
awareness ability of a person defines the way they feel about the work or a given task
(Pradhan, Jena and Kumari, 2016).
Perception
Perception about someone or something also influence an individual behaviour.
Perception about someone or something is build by the information one hear about

someone or something. Perception always differ from person to person according to the
way they think about that thing, task or person.
Attitude
Attitude is behaviour, feelings and belief of someone that affect an individuals'
behaviour. One of the most important attitude towards work place is job satisfaction. It is
influenced by various factors such as salary, type of job, opportunities, promotion etc.
All these factors participate in influencing behaviour (Kim, and et.al., 2017).
Motivation
Motivation is one of the major factor that influence an individual's behaviour in
various ways. There are various motivational theories that explains the way an
individual gets motivated to work at workplace. Out of all the motivational theories,
theory that is applicable in Apple that influence an individual's behaviour is Expectancy
theory (Dulebohn and Hoch, 2017). This theory says that people choose the way they
behave depending upon the outcome they expect as a result of their behaviour. An
individual decides the way they behave depending upon what they expect the outcome
to be.
All these factors influence an individual's behaviour. There are various factors
that affects effective team work are:
Focus on Goal
In order to have an effective team it is important to have an effective team. Team
with common goal can focus on achieving success and achieve target goal.
Effectiveness of a team is affected by the goal of the team. If All the individual in the
team have different goal then it will not only hinder individual's performance but it will
also hinder teams performance.
Communication
Communication is one of the most important factor that affects the effectiveness
of the team. Communication between team members should be clear, effective and
efficient, so that any information can be communicated easily within the team members
clearly. Interaction between team members should be good so that all the required

information can be passed within team members. This affects the effectiveness of the
team at workplace (Aveling and et.al., 2018).
Attitude
All the members within the team should have a positive attitude towards the
company, project, team members and goal or target. Casual meeting can be conducted
within the team members so that they can get to know each other and positive attitude
can be encouraged within the team members for the building trust, bond and effectively
achieving target goal. Negative thought people should be removed from the team so
that effectiveness of the team is not reduced.
Conflicts
Many times conflict within the team arises which should be dealt with for the
effectiveness of the team. These conflicts work as a hindrance within the team which
also reduced the effectiveness of the team. As the conflicts arises it should be
immediately dealt with so that effectiveness if the team is not reduced.
Management and leadership style
One of the most important factor for success is effective and efficient
management by efficient managers for improving productivity, reduce turnover rate and
improve employee morals. Whereas for effective management effective leader is
important who can easily lead a group of people (Yahaya and Ebrahim, 2016).
There are various types of leadership and management styles that should be followed
by leaders or manager for leading and effective team. Few of them are:
Types of management Styles:
 Autocratic : In this management style decisions are taken without taking inputs
from the subordinates.
 Consultative: Decisions are taken by the managers after consulting from there
subordinates.
 Persuasive: in this final decision making control is maintained by persuasive
managers based on persuasion of subordinates.
 Democratic: These types of managers give there subordinates a chance in
engagement of decision making.

 Laissez-faire: in this managers give their subordinates a chance of making
majority of decisions.
 Management by walking around: in these managers gather information by
listening to their subordinates and then taken any decision.
Types of leadership styles:
 Autocratic: this type of leaders centralizes there decision making power to
themselves.
 Democratic: This type of leaders consult with there team members and
encourage participation in decision making.
 Laissez-faire: this type of leaders avoid responsibilities and power and passes
decision making responsibilities to their team members.
 Paternalistic: This tyle of leaders assume there functions as parental
Apple uses democratic management and leadership style (Arnold and et.al.,
2015). In democratic management style managers offer their employees an opportunity
of engaging in decision making, i.e. all the decisions are agreed upon the basis of
majority. In democratic leadership style leaders take input from all the team members
and then take any decision. This helps Apple in taking all the majority decisions and
helps them in managing effective team.
Leadership style Management style
 Leadership styles are used in
creating new aims and visions. For
example Apple uses Democratic
leadership style in creating new
aims and vision.
 Leadership Styles are used and
applied by making new rules and
policies.
 It is used in visualizing.
 It is used in creation of new job
roles.
 Whereas management styles are
used in implementing tactical
actions.
 Management styles are applied
under applicable rules and policies.
 While it is used in planning.
 While it is used for recruitment of
people for job role.
 While it is used in convincing new

 This helps in improving productivity
and efficiency.
 It helps in establishing morals and
ethical positions.
job opportunities.
 It helps in checking and managing
morals and ethics.
Organization culture and structure affects leadership style by affecting decisions
and actions of employees and managers. It also affects the organization structure,
performance control, performance appraisal, performance and learning. Culture helps
organization members to determine meaning of decisions, things, concepts and events
within an organization for taking decisions and actions accordingly (Anderson and Sun,
2017). Therefore, it can be said that culture and structure affects the leadership style in
various ways Such as: decision making approach and style changes according to the
type of culture and structure of the organization. Culture also influences the behaviour
of a person which eventually influences the leadership style.
Leadership is one of the most researched topic in organizational behaviour field.
Most of the time organizational culture determines the type of leadership style as it
further shapes the culture. Sometimes type of organization structure and culture affects
the type of leadership style adopted by an individual in an organization. Organization
structure is designed according to the classification of culture which influences they type
of leadership style (Bir and et.al., 2017). Degree of involvement employees in the
process of decision making and in problem solving also affects the leadership style. In
other words different types of organization culture and structure in an organization
implies different types of leadership style. Various types of organization culture are role
culture, power culture, people culture and task culture. Based on all these cultures type
of leadership style in a company is differed and influenced (Ata, 2016). Based on these
culture authoritarian or participative leadership style is chosen. In Apple there is power
culture so they follow participative leadership style.
Advantages of this identified structure and culture are:
 All the people or employees participate freely in any decision making process.
 More effective decisions can be taken.

 Increases job satisfaction of employees as well as encourage innovation (Palmer
and Biggart, 2017).
Disadvantages of this identified structure and culture are:
 Leader cannot take any decision themselves without the majority. Efficiency of the leader can be reduced i.e. they may struggle to define clear
leadership.
Organizational structure and culture
Organizational structure directly affects organizational culture because of
placement of individuals within that structure. Different size companies have different
structures with different flow of communication (Winnubst, 2017). So, chain of
commands and hierarchy in the structure is extremely important as it might hinder or
destroy their culture. If one part of a company is compliant and another one is
innovative then in this situation, Organization will be needing two different types of
structures and as a result culture of both the parts of the organization will be different
according to their structure. According to the needs and objectives of the company
organization's culture is affected.
Apple uses power culture which is a tall i.e. top down structure where all the
objectives are determined by individuals or individual. This structure is linked with
Autocratic leadership style where it is seen that where that individual stands in the
hierarchy (Young and Ghoshal, 2016). One of there part has adopted role culture in
their structure where they use democratic style of leadership. So, it can be said that
according to the structure of the Organization they have adopted both role and power
culture according to the hierarchy within their organization. In other words they have a
open culture which focuses on both task and persons. The organizational structure of
Apple is divisional and functional which is a traditional structure. The large size of the
organization with traditional structure influences the culture within Apple. This culture
encourages the employees to take responsibilities and complete the task assigned to
them (Ponnuswamy and Manohar, 2016).
This tall structure and power and role culture of Apple has its own advantages and
disadvantages such as:

Advantages: it gives clarity and managerial control. Close Supervision of employees
can be done by the narrow span of controls. Tall structure gives line of responsibilities,
clear and distinct layer and a clear promotional structure.
Disadvantages: Communication takes way too long to travel through all the levels and
as a results in hindered progress and hampering in decision making (Helms Mills, and
Mills, 2017).
Recommendation:Role culture should be adopted by Apple Organization as it give rise
to participation of employees in all the activities including participation in decision
making. This type of culture and environment will give rise to a stable organizational
structure.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that Apple has a unique and
different process of recruitment and selection of Applicants for a specific job position.
After the selection of deserving applicants they provide one week induction and training
program to the employees. Then different type of factors have been explained that
influences or affect an individual's behaviour as well as affect the effectiveness og the
teamwork. Then different types of management and leadership styles have been
explained with advantages and disadvantages of Apple's organizational structure and
culture and lastly analysis of relationship between organizational structure and culture
has been done.

REFERENCES
Books and references
Anderson, M.H. and Sun, P.Y., 2017. Reviewing leadership styles: Overlaps and the
need for a new ‘full‐range’theory. International Journal of Management
Reviews. 19(1). pp.76-96.
Arnold, K.A., and et.al., 2015. Leadership styles, emotion regulation, and
burnout. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. 20(4). p.481.
Ata, S., 2016. Examination of Relationship between Attachment Dimensions and
Teaching Profession Attitudes of Preschool Pre-service Teachers in
Turkey. Journal of Education and Training Studies. 4(12). pp.100-107.
Aveling, E.L., and et.al., 2018. Factors influencing team behaviors in surgery: a
qualitative study to inform teamwork interventions. The Annals of thoracic
surgery. 106(1). pp.115-120.
Bir, C., and et.al., 2017. A Survey Of Farm Management And Reproductive Managment
Strategies On US Commercial Dairy Farms (No. 1240-2016-101671).
Dulebohn, J.H. and Hoch, J.E., 2017. Virtual teams in organizations.
Ekwoaba, J.O., Ikeije, U.U. and Ufoma, N., 2015. The Impact of Recruitment and
Selection Criteria on Organizational Performance.
Farndale, E., Nikandrou, I. and Panayotopoulou, L., 2018. Recruitment and selection in
context. In Handbook of Research on Comparative Human Resource
Management. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Helms Mills, J.C. and Mills, A.J., 2017. Rules, Sensemaking, Formative Contexts, and
Discourse in the Gendering of Organizational Culture . In☆ Insights and
Research on the Study of Gender and Intersectionality in International Airline
Cultures (pp. 49-69). Emerald Publishing Limited.
Kaur, T. and Dubey, R.K., 2015. Influence of personality traits on acceptability of
counterproductive work behavior: A study in Indian context. International
Research Journal of Human Resources and Social Sciences. 2(12). pp.1-14.
Kim, A., and et.al., 2017. Multilevel influences on voluntary workplace green behavior:
Individual differences, leader behavior, and coworker advocacy. Journal of
Management. 43(5). pp.1335-1358.

Lake, B.M., Salakhutdinov, R. and Tenenbaum, J.B., 2015. Human-level concept
learning through probabilistic program induction. Science. 350(6266). pp.1332-
1338.
Palmer, D.A. and Biggart, N.W., 2017. Organizational institutions. The Blackwell
companion to organizations, pp.257-280.
Ponnuswamy, I. and Manohar, H.L., 2016. Impact of learning organization culture on
performance in higher education institutions. Studies in Higher Education. 41(1).
pp.21-36.
Pradhan, R.K., Jena, L.K. and Kumari, I.G., 2016. Effect of work–life balance on
organizational citizenship behaviour: Role of organizational commitment. Global
Business Review. 17(3_suppl). pp.15S-29S.
Rivas, R.C., 2016. International Recruitment and Selection–More than a Simple
Extension of Policies and Practices Across National Borders. Available at SSRN
2795580.
Velmurugan, A. and Rajan, S.N., 2018. A Study on Effective Recruitment Process by a
Recruitment Consultancy in India. Indo-Iranian Journal of Scientific Research
(IIJSR). 2(3). pp.23-37.
Winnubst, J., 2017. Organizational structure, social support, and burnout.
In Professional burnout (pp. 151-162). Routledge.
Yahaya, R. and Ebrahim, F., 2016. Leadership styles and organizational commitment:
literature review. Journal of Management Development. 35(2). pp.190-216.
Young, C. and Ghoshal, S., 2016. Organization theory and the multinational
corporation. Springer.