Alignment Between Strategic Planning and Human Resource Processes : A Qualitative Study

The United States Congress in 1987 voted to enact the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award with the goal of encouraging U.S. businesses and other types of organizations to approach and deploy effective quality processes in the delivery of their products and services. The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award provides a framework of internal assessment for companies to use in their planning and implementation of quality initiatives. Through this internal assessment process, company leadership gains a better understanding of the alignments/linkages within its operations in order to modify its processes for meeting or exceeding customer expectations and requirements. The purpose of the research is to examine the extent of the alignment between strategic planning processes and human resource processes. Eleven manufacturing companies were selected for a site visit. Each of these 11 companies represents a different industry sector, geographical location, and organizational size. Documents searches, personal interviews, and observations were used to collect the data. The initial observations of the alignment between the two categorical variables strategic planning and human resource processes suggest that a moderate to weak alignment is present