Market Environments, Competitive Strategies, Manufacturing Technologies and Human Resource Management Policies: A Two-Industry amd Two Country Analysis

In this paper an attempt is made to gain further insight into the environment–strategy–performance linkages. A framework is developed to relate managers’ perceptions of their market environment and competitive strategies to the (advanced) production technologies and human resource management (hrm) policies adopted by their firms. Data from 12 dutch and 8 british companies in the chemical and food & drink industries reveals that firms with coherent environment–strategy–technology–hrm configurations outperform rivals with incoherent profiles. Further, refined typologies of manufacturing technologies and hrm policies are proposed.