Effective people performance strategies : critical ingredients for business success in Barbados and Eastern Caribbean business enterprises.

Abstract

Today, the effective management of people is assuming prominence as a source of sustained business performance improvement. The rationale for this trend is that other significant aspects of business, such as marketing, new technology, market niche, trademarks and brand image have generally been mastered. Therefore, business enterprises are being encouraged in seeking to gain comparative advantage by reliance on their human resources because this aspect of business is arguably more difficult to imitate or understand than the more conventional resources. As a result, there is an awakening of the need to introduce management practices that will concentrate on the added value which a highly motivated work force may provide to the organisation. The idea of added value from a highly motivated work force assumes even greater significance when the main business hinges almost entirely on the attitudes and approaches of people. This concept applies most forcibly to Barbados and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (BOECS), the region covered by this study. This research therefore, explores the idea of gaining comparative advantage through appropriate people management methods and follows the trend in the developed and more industrialised nations of the world in an effort to determine whether there is a useful model of effective management practices which may be replicated in the BOECS and thus lead to improved business performance in the micro states which constitute this ii region. However, this study is mindful of the limitations of the research methodology which a vast number of contributors to this intriguing topic have employed. Nevertheless, this exploratory attempt examines the issue in the light of its possible positive effect on a previously uncharted area, viz., Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean (BOECS) as far as it relates to scholarly treaties on Human Resource Management. The idea is that even in the absence of clear unequivocal empirical evidence about its benefits, it may be useful to pursue the strategic approach to Human Resource Management including expansion of employee involvement, for it own sake.