Human resources (HR) outsourcing has become a norm that organizational leaders leverage as a strategic tool to achieve various business objectives. However, the outsourcing of specific HR functions generates unintended consequences and impacts the performance of internal staff. The purpose of this qualitative, descriptive multiple case study was to explore the strategies used by HR managers to mitigate the negative effects outsourcing has on HR staff performance. The conceptual framework underpinning this research was transaction cost theory. Data were collected from 6 HR executives with experience leading HR outsourcing initiatives in the financial services industry in the United States. Primary data were gathered by conducting semistructured interviews with a set of 8 consistent, open-ended interview questions. Data analysis involved coding of the interview transcripts and analysis of company documents provided by the participants to identify themes. Member checking and methodological triangulation enhanced the credibility of the study. Three themes emerged from the interviews with HR executives as key strategies for managing HR performance: training, communication, and performance management. The findings of this study may contribute to positive social change by providing best practices and strategies to increase the effectiveness of HR outsourcing by mitigating its impact on the performance of HR staff. Furthermore, the effective management of HR outsourcing decisions may increase employment stability, positively affecting the lives of HR staff, increasing the profitability of U.S. businesses, and contributing to a stable U.S. economy.

This research explores the linkages between HR practices and business sales performance in a retail bank branch network. Whilst previous research in the last two decades has generally supported the notion that when appropriately designed HR practices can help enhance organizational outcomes, there is still ongoing debate regarding how such practices can actually influence business results. In particular, academics have highlighted the importance of the quality of HR implementation, because this can affect employee day-to-day experiences of and reactions to the HR practices which can impact on variance in the business results. In effect, it is crucial for research to take up the employee lens of the implemented practices and their reactions to these, if the HR-performance relationship is to be clearly understood. This thesis contributes to this research agenda by adopting the social exchange lens to shed light on the nature of the aforementioned relationship. A multidisciplinary and multilevel HR-performance model was employed for conducting empirical tests. Specifically, the empirical model was constructed from the literature in three different fields: strategic human resources management, social exchange theory and psychological contract, with the aim of eliciting the nature of employer-employee exchange relationships in the HR process. Subsequently, the model was tested using the data obtained from 1,286 employees in 149 bank branches and analysed so as to assess the multilevel process through which HR practices can influence business sales performance. The empirical results indicate that an organization can improve branch sales performance by paying careful attention to several processes pertaining to the implementation of HR practices. That is, through the psychological contract process, employees, based on their perceptions of the quality of the received practices (i.e. HR level and breach), reciprocate the organization with their discretionary performance, i.e. commitment attitudes and organizational citizenship behaviours and these outcomes have an impact on business results. Moreover, the findings also point to a boundary condition, whereby the HR-performance relationship can be enhanced by stressing the role of the key constituencies responsible for delivering these practices, namely: senior management and the line manager. That is, respectively, through the affective and relational processes, these agents can have an impact on employee perceptions of HR level and whether there has been a breach of the psychological contract, which in turn influence employee reactions in the causal chain. In summary, having applied the social exchange perspective to elicit the employee interaction with the different quality of HR implementation across bank branches, this study has contributed to the literature by identifying the key processes including psychological contract, relational and affective processes through which HR practices can impact on business sales performance, thereby illustrating how an organization’s human resources can serve as the source of sustained business competitive advantage.

Bakgrund & problem: CSR, Corporate Social Responsibility, är sedan länge ett väl utforskat område, både i Sverige och internationellt, där många tidigare studier behandlar dess koppling till finansiell prestation, framförallt inom stora företag. Ett område som är relativt outforskat är CSR inom idrottsvärlden och vidare inom fotboll, framförallt ur en svensk kontext. I vilken utsträckning engagerar sig svenska fotbollsföreningar i CSR-relaterade aktiviteter och vilken effekt har det för deras prestation? Syfte: Syftet med studien är att testa och förklara CSR-engagemangs påverkan på svenska fotbollsföreningars HR- och sociala prestation samt om organisationsstruktur i termer av formaliserings-, centraliserings- och komplexitetsgrad påverkar detta samband. Vidare är det praktiska syftet att bidra med vägledning för hur svenska fotbollsföreningar kan arbeta med CSR-engagemang för att uppnå en högre prestation. Avsikten är att belysa och förklara kopplingarna mellan CSR-engagemang, prestation och organisationsstruktur och på så sätt fylla det gap som existerar inom forskningsområdet. Metod: Studien utgår från en kvantitativ forskningsstrategi med en deduktiv forskningsansats och tvärsnittsdesign. Insamlande av data har skett genom utskick av en enkät och studiens urval består av 223 fotbollsföreningar från Allsvenskan till Division 2. Slutsatser: Studiens resultat visar tydligt att CSR-engagemang påverkar såväl HR- som social prestation positivt inom svenska fotbollsföreningar. Vidare tyder resultatet på att organisationsstruktur i termer av formaliserings- och centraliseringsgrad samt komplexitet hierarki inte påverkar detta samband. Däremot finns det, trots viss osäkerhet i resultaten, en påverkan av komplexitet socialt kapital i relationen mellan CSR-engagemang och HR- prestation. / Background & problem: CSR, Corporate Social Responsibility, is since long ago a well explored area, both in Sweden and internationally, where many previous studies deal with the connection to financial performance, especially in large companies. An area which is relatively unexplored is CSR within the sports industry and further on within football, especially from a swedish context. To which extent do swedish football clubs engage in CSR-related activities and what effect does it have on their performance? Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to test and explain the impact of CSR-engagement onswedish football clubs’ HR- and social performance and if organizational structure in terms of formalization, centralization and complexity affects this relationship. Furthermore, the practical purpose is to contribute with guidance on how swedish football clubs can work with CSR- engagement in order to accomplish a higher performance. The intent is to highlight and explain the connections between CSR-engagement, performance and organizational structure and thus fill the gap that exists within the research area. Method: The thesis is based on a quantitative research strategy with a deductive research approach and cross-sectional design. Data collection has been done by sending out a survey and the selection of the thesis consists of 223 football clubs from Allsvenskan to Division 2. Conclusions: The result of the study clearly shows that CSR-engagement positively affects both HR- and social performance in Swedish football clubs. Furthermore, the result indicates that organizational structure in terms of formalization, centralization and complexity hierarchy does not affect this relationship. However, despite some uncertainty in the results, there is an impact of complexity social capital in the relationship between CSR-engagement and HR- performance.