Advances in Natural and Applied Sciences

Advances in Natural and Applied Sciences

Journal home page: www.aensiweb.com/anas/index.html

Corresponding Author: Charles AmechiUti, Faculty of Management, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia

Performance Effects of Outsourced Training and Payroll Functions

Charles AmechiUti and Choi Sang Long

Faculty of Management, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history:

Received 25 January 2014 Received in revised form 12 March 2014

Accepted 14 April 2014 Available online 5 May 2014 Keywords:

Performance Effects, Training, Payroll, Outsourcing, Strategic, competitive Advantage.

The increasing call for the improvement of Human Resource (HR) administrative activities aimed at making HR a more strategic player that should add value to organizational growth has made training and payroll vulnerable candidates for outsourcing in order to increase productivity, speed, flexibility and innovation in growing business processes as well as acquiring modern technology and requisite skills. Although, studies show that increased dependence on outsourcing may eventually lead to a reduction in the level of innovation, it was also discovered that HR training function has the capacity to produce a positive organizational performance effects. On the other hand, payroll activities are perceived to be transactional not relational as well as being of insignificant strategic importance, therefore does not provide a source of competitive advantage. This paper therefore examines the performance effects of outsourced training and payroll functions of organizations to ascertain the extent to which they have boosted productivity, sped, flexibility and innovation drawing from existing detailed literature. The need for organizations therefore to first understand and define the problems they want to solve before approaching outsourcing as a solution is imperative. There are evidences in this study that suggest that these insights are important for organizations making outsourcing decisions.

© 2014 AENSI Publisher All rights reserved. To Cite This Article: Charles AmechiUti and Choi Sang Long., Performance Effects of Outsourced Training and Payroll Functions. Adv. in Nat. Appl. Sci., 8(4): 261-268, 2014

INTRODUCTION

Scholarly and corporately, many definitions have been postulated to support the concept of human resource outsourcing (HRO), its implications, benefits and even drawbacks. Aside this growing development in human resource outsourcing, only a negligible number of researches have been carried out empirically. According to Abdul-Halim et al (2010), how outsourcing decisions are formulated and executed have only been investigated by a limited number of academic researchers which has impacted on its level of effectiveness as it relates to the performance effects of outsourced training and payroll. The dialogue on human resource outsourcing is diverged. Many scholars view the issue of HRO differently; to some it is an avenue for HR function, while to some others it is a threat. To the first school of thought, human resource outsourcing is a tool facilitating the process of making HR a strategic player that will add value to organizational growth. The second school of thought however believes that HRO is a tool aimed at pruning HR staff drastically (Delmotte&Sels, 2008). Human resource administration deals with processes, structures and as against outputs or outcomes. The core function of human resource administration has payroll administration, training, benefits, policies compliance and recruiting as its basic tenets. Strategic core competencies entail the combination of physical and human resources, which facilitate the organization’s couched and perspicuous knowledge (Espino-Rodriguez & Pardon-Robanina, 2005). Scholars appear to agree that to a high degree, that HR can consciously or unconsciously influence an organization, which might enhance organizational performance that will provide a source of competitive advantage and profit. Professional development opportunities, compensation and benefit strategy, learning programmes, consultancy, rewards and compensation have also been found to be factors capable of influencing an organization to gain competitive advantage and increased performance. Although assumed not to be a strategic player that adds value to organizations growth, yet HR administration entails diligence, expertise and competence to deal with. Outsourcing or creating on-site outsourcing of non-strategic HR functions to third party agencies believed to have expertise in those areas of operation has become globally acceptable. The need to be more tactical, make administrative functions more strategic and consultative, gave rise to the present HR management modification (Cook &Gildner, 2006).

The increasing demand to react to fluctuating market situation regularly and the inability to predict the trend of such fluctuations require organizations to concentrate on their areas of core competence and experience (McIvor, 2008). Hence, as the world gradually embraces globalization, outsourcing is becoming an essential business strategy that has the capacity of yielding competitive advantage as a result of the effective and efficient production of goods and services by the third party agencies (Yang, Kim, Nam and Min, 2007; McIvor, 2008). Outsourcing which gives organizations the opportunity to concentrate on their strategic areas of core competence by transferring their inadequate resources with the aim of improving their basic goods and services (Lee & Kim, 2010) as well as tactically utilizing the services of third party agencies to carry out functions originally performed in-house by the HR department (Raiborn, Butler, and Massoud, 2009; Elmuti, 2004; Bustinza, Arias-Aranda, & Gutierrez-Gutierrez, 2010), help organizations to gain competitive edge in the global market.

Problem Statement:

In a bid to boost organizational efficiency and development, HR activities in recent years have become vulnerable candidates for outsourcing as part of efforts to improve productivity, speed, flexibility and innovation in growing business processes as well as acquiring modern technology and requisite skills to enhance product and service quality, reduce cost, intensify efforts on fundamental capabilities and cut down on production cycle times (Elmuti, 2004; Gilley, Greer and Rasheed, 2004). It is becoming fashionable today for organizations to outsource majority of their HR activities to third party agencies while retaining only a negligible set of functions, a development that has become acceptable even among scholars and practitioners with the belief that it is the solution to competitive advantage (Yang, et al. 2007; McIvor, 2008). Regardless of the growing development towards outsourcing, an indication of its performance effects is horrendous. Although, there has been enthralling arguments in favour and against outsourcing geared towards attaining long-run competitive advantage. On one hand, by outsourcing HR activities to third party agencies, organizations would begin to exploit latent values by concentrating on their core strategic activities (Lee & Kim, 2010; Raiborn, et al. 2009; Elmuti, 2004;Bustinza& Gutierrez-Gutierrez, 2010). Moreover, the potentiality of outsourcing’s growth may lead to a decline in costs as a result; cause a reduction on investment in facilities, manpower development and equipment (Gilley & Rasheed, 2000; Espino-Rodriguez &Robaina, 2004). Evidence from literature advocates that depending on outsourcing greatly has the capacity to decrease innovation (Espino-Rodriguez &Robaina, 2004), subsequently lead to competition from outsourcing associates (Gilley, et al. 2004), and diminutions in the control of the problem of payroll functions, as such the performance effects of outsourcing is uncertain. This paper examines the performance effects of training and payroll, the most vulnerable candidates of human resource outsourcing. Contemporary investigations conducted by Frayne &Geringer (2000) and Ulrich &Smallwood, (2002), observed that training as a HR function has the capability of producing a positive organizational performance effects. However, many organizations begin outsourcing of their training activities, which gives the impression that most of these human resource departments, engage in outsourcing to improve the worth of the investment from training. Nonetheless, the performance effects of outsourced training have remained mostly unexplored.Payroll has also become a vulnerable candidate for outsourcing, unlike training; there is no proof of an extensive study carried out on the performance effects of outsourced payroll function. As such, the execution of payroll activities a lot of times entail managerial assistance, which is usually a challenge for small and medium enterprises (SME’s), since they lack expertise to attain economies of scale in the processing of payroll activities. This paper examines these gaps in the literature by examining the performance effects of these two outsourced HR activities(Norman, 2009).

Conceptual framework:

According to Lee & Kim (2010), the ability to distillate resources in designated areas with the proficiency to bring about competitive advantage is a key principle of strategy. That organizations do not achieve competitive advantage by merely allocating wealth in the same fashion as their competitors is the repercussion of this principle (McIvor, 2008). Only a small number of organizations have the capacity to inject first-rate resources to all areas of competition as a result of scare resources. However, to achieve competitive advantage, organizations must have the ability to choose areas they prefer to focus their resources (Lee& Kim, 2010). For these principles to be relevant in outsourcing organizations need to focus their resources on activities that bring about competitive advantage, such as enhanced service quality or novelty, which can be achieved by outsourcing the HR functions believed will be adequately handled by third party agencies can be the grounds for argument on enhanced organizational performance (Yang, et al. 2007). Investigations report that up to 91 per cent of respondents engage in outsourcing activities, as such, outsourcing and human resource outsourcing precisely, have become universal singularities, whereas, this glassy actions has been complemented by a growing literature of outsourcing and expectations of performance effects (Yang, et al. 2007; McIvor, 2008). Competitively limited empirical investigations have looked at the performance effects of outsourcing. In the current study conducted by Gilley & Rasheed (2000), they found that some types of outsourcing had a positive

effect on organizational performance for those interested in cost leadership and innovative differentiation strategies including those functioning in more stable industrial climate, unfortunately, their study did not find any direct effect of human resource outsourcing on organizational performance. Nevertheless, there is no empirical study attributed to the performance effects of human resource outsourcing as relating to training and payroll. This dearth of investigation is divergent to the escalating dictatorial literature on the pecuniary and tactical reasons for outsourcing (Rubery, Earnshaw, Marchington, Cooke, and Vincent, 2002) and the process of actualizing it (Rippin, 2001).

Fig. 1: Conceptual Framework for performance effects of outsourced training & payroll.

Outsourcing today, as it is known suggests that its purpose has been totally diffused or probably lost to the third party agencies in a bid to gain competitive advantage. Richman &Trondsen (2004) advanced this investigation into what they called “outsourcing/out-tasking continuum”, a process where at a particular point we find out-tasking, where third party agencies carry out specific functions; at the other end we see them get involved in comprehensive outsourcing, where third party agencies take absolute responsibility of an organization’s total human resource development (HRD) activities. Amid these two points lies selective outsourcing, where the third party agencies take charge of selected activities. Obviously, it has become a matter of concern about the high level of dependence on expertrates, however, the level of concern in the determination of what outsourcing method is suitable within larger multinational organizations as well as at the national level is not out of place (Al Dosary, 2004; Beausang, 2004; Hall, 2000; Wang & Wang, 2006). Other related expressions used in the literature, includes “contracting” (Hale, 2006) and “strategic partnering” (Al Dosary, 2004), with modifications among the different methods. It may also reveal the transactional (“working for”) or transformational (“working with”) nature of the relationship.

Motivation for outsourcing: A. Cost:

According to Beausang, (2004), among the most frequently mentioned motives for outsourcing the HRD activities is the need to save cost. It is believed that outsourcing will help save cost since the third party agency renders such services to number of organizations, as such they could enjoy economics of scale. As technology continues to develop, the need for most businesses to relocate their entire learning function to large service-centre facilities is on the increase, which influences heavy fixed costs among numerous clients (Harris, 2003; Beausang, 2004). However, it is necessary to note that Gainey&Klaas (2002) found in their study that cost saving should only be viewed as a secondary consequence of outsourcing in the area of training, rather than as its primary function.

B. Competence:

The need for organizations to focus on their core competencies and areas that yield competitive advantage are often the motivating factors for organizations to distillate the limited resources on product enhancement (Tyler, 2004; Woodall, Gourlay and Short, 2002), since most organizations do not possess the required internal resources to cope with the increasing technological advancement (Leimbach, 2005). The need to utilize third party agencies for training to ensure efficiency in the area of good employment practice becomes inevitable (Buyens, Wouters and Dewettinck, 2001; Gainey&Klaas, 2002). However, outsourcing is believed to have the propensity to enhance organizations access to a variety of experts and specialists (Woodall et al., 2002).

C. Capacity:

Tyler (2004) and Woodall et al. (2002) postulates that an organizations total reliance on internal HRD activities will make the organization susceptible to the effects of upsizing and downsizing emanating from demand fluctuations. They emphasized that outsourcing helps organizations to react swiftly to changing market forces, thereby viewing human resource outsourcing as a response to a “risk assessment of demand uncertainty”.

Training

Payroll

Glitches of outsourcing: A. Culture:

Third party agencies may never have the capacity to fully grasp an organizations in-house culture that will help bring about effective execution of the training function in specific areas. However, (Norman, 2009) advocates that within an organization, a lot of the employees’ knowledge and experience is implicit in nature and would be difficult to express effectively to people outside the organization. Therefore, an organization that require customized training to meet learners’ needs may not be a viable candidate for outsourcing, since non-generic programmes entail a significant investment by the third party agency for them to appreciate the unique needs of both the organization and the learners, which most likely may lead to higher prices, making outsourcing less attractive (Klaas, McClendon, Gainey and Outsourcing, 2001).

B. Trust:

Third party agencies may become opportunistic in behaviour as a result of outsourcing agreement that might make organizations vulnerable to exploitation from these agencies. As a result, Gainey&Klasas (2002) called for control over the level of leverage given to third party agencies in relation to the service they provide to avoid a situation where they begin to “carve a niche” for themselves that portend a negative consequence as well as ensue an unhealthy development of power and control, to ensure that organizations do not become over-dependent on a few key third party agencies. Recently, Gainey&Klaas (2005) discovered indications that show that understanding between an organization and its training provider was lower when either party was not sure of the design of training, and came to the conclusion that it was as a result of its potential for self-serving behaviour. Moreover, (Ulrich& Smallwood, 2002;Richman &Trondsen, 2004) submits that outsourcing has the capacity to limit an organization from expanding its in-house skills and expertise, making the organization susceptible in its emergent state of knowledge and experience.

Managing Outsourcing: A. Prioritize:

Nilson (2003), advocates for an analysis of employee needs as well as an effective methodology for the transfer of their knowledge for organizational benefit, which was imminent at first instance. Hale (2006), also suggests that in other to first establish which areas of the function was beneficial if outsourced, the strengths and weaknesses of the in-house training department ought to be identified, however, emphasizing that the overall leadership of the function must not be outsourced. Further study, describes how organizations determine those aspects of its HRD function that needs to be outsourced (Belcourt, 2006). The organization unequivocally concentrated core resources on the strategic undertakings required for anticipated organizational transformation (Kuchinke, 2003) as well as give charge of other activities to third party agencies. Corning’s method was accredited to be discreet, since it concentrated on the pluses of retaining in-house those facets of training concomitant to its core competencies. According to (Beausang, 2004), an organization need not lose those learning processes that convey key knowledge to the organization and are likely to add viable competitive advantage and overall intellectual capital.

B. Select :

According to Nilson (2003), once considerations about which HRD activity need to be outsourced, it behooves on the organization to choose which of the third party agencies has the capacity to deliver efficiently. Though, consigned and differing interests may arise in the process of selection as most of the agencies double their operations both as brokers and service providers, however, the use of a formal “request for proposal” (RFP) document could be of immense value, as the benefits of this method ensures that the anticipations of the organization are actualized. Hale (2006), advocates that it is of great necessity that the anticipations of organizations are properly managed as well as adequately outline workable areas within the relationship from inception to avoid misconceptions, adding that the use of a service level agreement (SLA) will be of immense benefit.

C. Trust :

The relationship expected to exist between an organization and the third party agency once selected is that built on trust to foster close partnership, as it is imperative in the design of programmes for the advancement of core competencies (Klaas et al., 2001). High level of performance, effective design and delivery of training and higher level of overall satisfaction were indicated by respondents in (Gainey&Klaas, 2002) as the result of high level of trust established between the organization and the third party agencies. In a further investigation, (Gainey&Klaas, 2005) discovered that third party agencies are prone to involving themselves in opportunistic behaviours that have negative consequences on the organization, such as the disclosure of vital information to competitors, only they perceive lack of trust in their relationship with the organization. These researchers, (Gainey&Klaas, 2005; Hale, 2006), opines that trust in a relationship can be fostered in numerous ways, such

as; accurate and frequent communication between both parties, enhancing better understanding of each other’s needs and capabilities, plus a huge sense of loyalty, as factors that build’s and sustains trust.

D. Monitor:

In the area of monitoring, Corning searched for critical informations on the outsourced HRD activities from various departments within the organization (Heraty& Morley, 2000). It utilized different critical procedures to ascertain how effective the HRD activities were performed. It comprised an even budget; the development of new programmes; a low rate of programme cancellations; and detailed and rapid programme assessment (Wang & Spitzer, 2005).

E. Evaluation:

Kremic, Tukel and Rom (2006) suggest the necessity of constant evaluation of the partnership and probably initiating a certification scheme that will serve as a yardstick for third party agencies. The need to regularly evaluate the outsourcing activities to ascertain its alignment with the organizations strategic policy is imperious. In the case of Corning, a comprehensive contract agreement was drawn up at the inception of the outsourcing relationship. It included clauses that dealt with issues of liability, evaluation timeframes, and the termination of the policy. To ensure understanding, multiple communication channels were established, which comprised of a project team that met monthly.

Outsourcing of HR activities:

To ascertain which HR activities should be outsourced, Lepak& Snell’s (1998) model of virtual human resources gave direction in that respect. Their model was drawn from transaction cost economics (TCE) (McIvor, 2008). From the transaction cost theory standpoint, it advocates that the activities that are not core strategic are vulnerable candidates for outsourcing, as against the standpoint of the resource-based (RBV) which advocates that activities that do not add value should be outsourced. These strategic principles imply that for organizations to enhance performance, human resource departments should preserve those activities that bring about competitive advantage and allow the others to be handled by third party agencies believed to have expertise in those areas. According to Greer, Youngblood and Gray (1999), and McIvor (2008) aside the theoretical validations postulated by TCE, the strategic human resource angle and the concept of competency, there are other validations for human resource outsourcing, which culminates into specialized expertise, reductions in liability or risk, cost savings, and temporary expansion of human resource capabilities to facilitate astonishing conditions. Though, there are exclusions to these validations, which include a situation where the outsourcing of any human resource function would make the organization susceptible to entrapment by third party agency.

Performance Effects of Outsourced Training Activities:

According to the investigations conducted by Frayne &Garringer (2000), Norman (2009), showed that the theory has been accompanied with some other studies that have established the fact that there is a certain level of positive effects of training on organizational performance, and these effects could be productivity and cost reduction, gross profit per employee and market-to-book ratios (Elmuti, 2004), return on investment (McReynold&O’Brien, 2002), sales revenue (Frayne &Geringer, 2000), and perceptual measures of performance (Silverman,2002). Moreover, Norman, (2009) have also made enthralling arguments in support of the performance effects of training. Consequently, the success of most organizations has been attributed to the influence of training. There are no empirical investigations that have basically looked into the performance effects of outsourced training and payroll, in as much as there have been several studies in the area of performance effects of training and that of outsourcing in totality (Norman, 2009). Since outsourced training brings about the decrease in the fixed cost accompanying staff training maintenance, cost saving has shown to be a probable effect. In addition, the outsourcing of training can contribute through the availability of specialized high quality training experts. Due to lack of expertise in many organizations to carryout in-house training, they prefer to outsource training to third party agencies, believing that by outsourcing training activities to third party agencies they will attain a high level of employee performance and productivity that will bring about huge financial performance, and enhanced customer satisfaction. However, enhanced training has the capacity to increase novelty since employees with expertise training are more knowledgeable, they can enhance products and processes. As a result of the outsourcing of training activities, the organization will be more equipped to focus on their core strategic competency that initiates competitive advantage. An emerging development in human resource development has brought about the high rate at which training is being outsourced to third party agencies (Ardichvili&Gasparishvili, 2001; Woodall et al., 2002; Cooke, Shen, McBridge, 2005). Though the benefits of outsourcing, such as cost saving, improved quality of service and enhanced access to those believed to have expertise in those areas cannot be over emphasized (Abu-Jarad, Yusof and Nikbin, 2010).

Performance Effects of Outsourced Payroll Activities:

Payroll does not possess the same strategic capability as other human resource activities, so when they are flawlessly executed it does not matter, because it is of lesser strategic importance contrary to training. Though, payroll functions are seen not to be adding value, they are transactional rather than relational, yet payroll is expected to accomplish great tasks since it is believed that service failure will have negative influence of the morale of employees (Norman, 2009). The call to make human resources a more strategic player that adds value to core competencies and the use of outsourcing to cut costs of marginal human resource functions such as payroll is on the rise (Lepak& Snell, 1998, Adler, 2003).

Moreover, since payroll functions are considered to be transactional instead of being relational, third party agencies can execute their functions with diminutive forfeiture to the organization. Because payroll activities are also considered to have less undertakings and social relation desires, it has the capacity to accomplish task in virtual seclusion from other organizational functions with minimal information and direction from other organizational components. Therefore, organizations are expected to outsource their payroll functions to enable them improve organizational performance, since these functions do not add value as well as enhance competitive advantage, following the direction provided by the Lepak& Snell (1998) model, the Speaker typology (Greer, 2001), and the Baron & Kreps (1999) model. Jarvis, Mills, Desai, Subramony and Sridhar, (2006) argued that since third party agencies providing payroll services possess the advantages of scale, greater expertise and modern technology as well as in-depth knowledge in the areas of operation which enables them render efficient service at reduced cost, thereby giving human resource departments the privilege of achieving quality service at lesser cost, organizations should adopt the outsourcing policy to enable them gain competitive advantage.

Discussion:

Fromextant literature reviewit was discovered that the organizations resort to outsourcing as a tool for enhancing core competencies and the outsourcing of human resource activities for similar reasons in relation to theTCE theory and RBV. Consideration for outsourcing is a matter that is thoughtfully decided,as such, the notch to which the transactional or relational humanresource functions can be considered for outsourcing is appraised in agreement in this regard. In their recent research, Abdul- Halim &Che-Ha (2009) conducted a similar investigation on outsourcingdecisionsamong 232 HR managers, findings from the study showed that there is a significant relationship between organizations with organizational strategies that were preemptive and the ability to make decision that facilitate the outsourcing of both the transformational and transactional HR activities. Consequently, the decision to outsource both Human resource functions has a significant relationship with the performance effects of outsourced training and payroll. Galanaki&Papalexandris(2007) carried out similar study to examine the effect of outsourcing strategy on organizations performance. In their hypothesis, they stated that HR outsourcing is observed to be an innovative drill. They further emphasized that the system will be more utilized by the multinational organizations than the national firms. From these studies, it was discovered that human resource outsourcing has the budding to inspire HR professionals to concentrate on their strategic core activities that has the capacity to add value to organizational growth.

Conclusion:

This paper tries to bring to the fore, outsourcing and its performance effects on outsourced training and payroll by examining the extent to which organizations saved cost by outsourcing training and payroll activities to bring about increased productivity, speed, flexibility and innovation in growing business processes as well as the acquisition of modern technology and requisite skills (Elmuti, 2004; Gilley, et al., 2004). From the review of relevant literature, it was discovered that outsourced training has the capacity to positively affect organizational performance. Consequently, payroll portrayed the capacity of accomplishing tasks in virtual seclusion from other organizational functions with minimal information and direction from other organizational components (Jarvis, et al., 2006).

However, many researchers have done several works on outsourcing, concentrating on outsourcing and organizational performance, so we tried to do a review of all that has been done concerning the entire issue, looking at the performance effects of outsourced HR activities from a broader scenario. We therefore suggest that in the future, studies can be done in other areas of third party agencies opportunistic behaviours.

REFERENCES

Abdul-Halim, H., N. Che-Ha, 2010. Human Resource Outsourcing Among Malaysian Manufacturing Companies. Business Strategic Series, 11(6): 363-370.

Abdul-Halim, H., N. Che-Ha, 2009. The Influence of Business Strategy on the Decision to Outsource Human Resource Activities: A study of Malaysian Manufacturing Organizations, Journal of Human Resource Costing & Accounting,13(4): 274-293.

Abu-Jarad, I.Y., N. Yusof, D. Nikbin, 2010. A Review Paper on Organizational Culture and Organizational Performance, International Journal of Business and Social Science, 1(3): 26-46.

Adler, P., 2003. Making the HR Outsourcing Decision, MIT Slogan Management Review, 45(1): 53-59. Al Dosary, A., 2004. HRD or Manpower Policy? Options for Government Intervention in the Local Labour Market that Depends upon a Foreign Labour Force: The Saudi Arabian Perspective, Human Resource Development International, 7(1): 123-35.

Ardichvili, A., A. Gasparishvili, 2001. Human Resource Development in an Industry in Transition: The Case of The Russian Banking Sector, Human Resource Development International, 4(1): 47-63.

Baron, J.N., D.M. Kreps, 1999. Strategic Human Resources: Frameworks for General Managers. New York: Wiley.

Beausang, F., 2004. Outsourcing and the Internationalization of Innovation, (Working Paper No.18) Presented at the American University of Paris, 24 November 2004.

Belcourt, M., 2006. Outsourcing – The Benefits and Risks, Human Resource Management Review, 16(2): 269-279.

Bustinza, O.F., D. Arias-Aranda, L. Gutierrez-Gutierrez, 2010. Outsourcing, Competitive Capabilities and Performance: An Empirical Study in Service Firms, International Journal of Production Economics, 126(2): 276-288.

Buyens, D., K. Wouters, K. Dewettinck, 2001. Future Challenges for Human Resource Development Professionals in European Learning-Oriented Organizations, Journal of European Industrial Training, 25(9): 442-453.

Cooke, F.L., J. Shen, A. McBride, 2005. Outsourcing HR as a Competitive Strategy? A Literature Review and an Assessment of Implications’, Human Resource Management, 44(4): 413-432.

Cook, M.F., S.B. Gildner, 2006. Outsourcing Human Resources Functions: How, Why, When and When Not to Contract for HR Services, Society for Human Resource Management, Alexandra, VA.

Delmotte, J., L. Sels, 2008. HR Outsourcing: Threat or Opportunity?, Personnel Review, 37(5): 543-563. Elmuti, D., 2004. The Perceived Impact of Outsourcing on Organizational Performance, Mid-American Journal of Business, 18(2): 33-42.

Espino-Rodriguez, T.F., V. Padron-Robaina, 2004. Outsourcing and Its Impact on Operational Objectives and Performance: A Study of Hotels in the Canary Islands, Hospitality Management, 23(3): 287-306.

Frayne, C.A., J.M. Geringer, 2000. Self-Management Training for Improving Job Performance: A Field Experiment Involving Salespeople. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(3): 361-372.

Gainey, T.W., B.S. Klaas, 2002. Outsourcing the HRD Function: Results from the Field, Human Resource Planning, 25(1): 16-22.

Gainey, T.W., B.S. Klaas, 2005. Outsourcing Relationships Between Firms and Their Training Providers: The Role of Trust, Human Resource Development Quarterly, 16(1): 7-25.

Galanaki, E., N. Papalexandris, 2007. Internationalization as a Determining Factor of HRM Outsourcing, International Journal of Human Resource Management, 18(8): 1557-1567.

Gilley, K.M., A.A. Rasheed, 2000. Making More by Doing Less: An Analysis of Outsourcing and its Effects on Firm Performance. Journal of Management, 26(4): 763-790.

Gilley, K.M., C.R. Greer, A.A. Rasheed, 2004. Human Resource Outsourcing and Organizational Performance in Manufacturing Firms, Journal of Business Research, 57(3): 232-240.

Greer, C., S.A. Youngblood, D.A. Gray, 1999. Human Resource Management Outsourcing: The Make or Buy Decision, Academy of Management Executive, 13(3): 85-96.

Greer, C.R., 2001. Strategic Human Resource Management: A General Managerial Approach, 2nd ed., Prentice-Hall, Engelwood Cliffs, NJ.

Hale, J., 2006. Outsourcing Training and Development: Factors for Success, Pfeiffer, San Francisco, CA. Hall, R., 2000. Outsourcing, Contracting-Out and Labour Hire: Implications for Human Resource Development in Australian Organizations, Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 382: 23-41.

Harris, P., 2003. Outsourced Learning: A New Market Emerges, Training and Development, 57(9): 30-38. Heraty, N., M. Morley, 2000. Human Resource Development in Ireland: Organizational Level Evidence, Journal of European Industrial Training, 24(1): 21-33.

Jarvis, A., S. Mills, A. Desai, M. Subramony, B.S. Sridhar, 2006. Employee Reactions to Outsourcing: Development of Attitudes Toward Outsourcing (ATO)Scale, Competition Forum, 4(2): 405-413.

Klaas, B., J.A. McClendon, T.W. Gainey, H.R. Outsourcing, 2001. Outsourcing HR: The Impact of Organizational Characteristics, Human Resource Management, 40(2): 125-138.

Kremic, T., O.I. Tukel, W.O. Rom, 2006. Outsourcing Decision Support: A Survey of Benefits, Risks and Decision Factors, Supply Chain Management, 11(6): 467-482.

Kuchinke, K., 2003. Contingent HRD: Toward a Theory of Variation and Differentiation in Formal Human Resource Development, Human Resource Development Review, 2(3): 294-309.

Marketing Management, 39(5): 853-861.

Leimmbach, M.P., 2005. Invited Reaction: Outsourcing Relationship Between Firms and Their Training Providers: The Role Of Trust, HumanResource Development Quarterly, 16(1): 27-32.

Lepak, D.P., S.A. Snell, 1998. Virtual HR: Strategic Human Resource Management in the 21st Century. Human Resource Management Review, 8(3): 215-34.

McIvor, R., 2008. What is the Right Outsourcing Strategy for Your Process?,European Management Journal, 26(1): 24-34.

McReynolds, S., B. O’Brien, 2002. Earning Pressures Boost Shared Services, Financial Executive, 18(1): 36-39.

Nilson, C.D., 2003. How to Manage Training: A Guide to Design and Delivery for High Performance, Amacom, New York, NY.

Norman, T.J., 2009. Outsourcing Human Resource Activities: Measuring the Hidden Costs and Benefits’, (Doctoral dissertation). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses database.

Raiborn, C.A., J.B. Butler, M.F. Massoud, 2009. Outsourcing Support Functions: Identifying and Managing the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,Business Horizons, 52(4): 347-356.

Richman, H., E. Trondsen, 2004. “Outsourcing: What it can do to your job”, Training and Development, 58(10): 68-73.

Rippin, S., 2001. How to Outsource the HR Function. People Management, September, 27: 42-44.

Rubery, J., J. Earnshaw, M. Marchington, F.L. Cooke, S. Vincent, 2002. Changing Organizational Forms and the Employment Relationship. Journal of Management Studies, 39(5): 645-672.

Silverman, B.S., 2002. Organizational Economics, in Baum, J.A. (Ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Organizations, (pp: 465-493). Blackwell, Oxford.

Tyler, K., 2004. Carve Out Training, HR Magazine, 49(2): 53-57.

Ulrich, D., N. Smallwood, 2002. Shared Services, Executive Excellence, 19(12): 11.

Wang, G., D. Spitzer, 2005. Human Resource Development, Advances in Developing Human Resources, 7(1): 5-15.

Wang, J., G. Wang, 2006. Exploring National Human Resource Development: A Case of China Management Development in a Transitioning Context, Human Resource Development Review, 5(2): 176-201.

Woodall, J., S.N. Gourlay, D. Short, 2002. Trends in Outsourcing HRD in the UK: The Implications for Strategic HRD, International Journal of Human Resource Development and Management, 2(1/2): 50-63.

Yang, D.H., S. Kim, C. Nam, J. Min, 2007. Developing a Decision Model for Business Process Outsourcing, Computers & Operations Research, 34(12): 3769-3778.