| Over the past several years there has been an increasing emphasis among researchers and practitioners to view human resources as an integral part of the strategic planning process. While intuitively it makes sense to match the human resource strategy of an organization to its competitive strategy, there are surprisingly few resources available to managers to aid them in this matching process. One of the few strategic human resource management theories to address this need is the Behavioral Perspective (Schuler & Jackson, 1987) of strategic human resource management.;The focus of this study is the fastest growing companies in Canada, for the years 1991-1993. From this population, questionnaires were sent to 176 of the fast-growth companies, of which 77 usable surveys were received, for a response rate of 43.75%.;A factor analysis was performed on the data, using a combination of the theoretical and statistical standards drawn from the original research of Schuler and Jackson. Once the factors were determined, a Pearson Product Correlation was run between the factors, to determine if there was a relationship between the Competitive Strategy, the Management Strategy, and the Human Resource Strategy.;The study demonstrates that a Competitive Strategy of Innovation has a corresponding Management and Human Resource Strategy. It also shows that a Cost Reduction Competitive Strategy has a corresponding Management and Human Resource Management Strategy. While there was support for a Competitive Strategy of Quality, and to a lesser extent, a Quality Management Strategy, there was limited support for a separate and distinct Human Resource Strategy for Quality. But in all cases, the level of significance was not sufficiently high to meet the 95 percent criteria.;Schuler and Jackson (1987) suggest the human resource practices of an organization must complement the competitive strategy of an organization if the organization is to successfully meet their strategic goals and objectives. Unfortunately, the Behavioral Perspective, while intuitively appealing, has been subjected to limited empirical analysis. Thus, the purpose of this study is to re-examine the original hypotheses of the Behavioral Perspective, and verify its predictive ability. |
