reas (process and product engineering, quality and logistics) becomes equivalent to those of other functional areas (human resources, marketing and finance). Within this context, the relationship between the sub-functional areas of the manufacturing function and human resource management are established based on their competitive priorities and dimensions which are a set of options with which a business unit has to compete in its markets during a period of time.1:0 The Link Between HRM And Strategic Planning Among several approaches of competitive strategies (Hayes and Wheelwright, 1984; Slack et al., 1995), the following are adopted (Pires, 1995): Costs, which means seeking a lower manufacturing cost; Quality, which implies offering high quality products and services to the customers; Performance delivery, which represents the accomplishment of two basic objectives, i.e. lower and more reliable delivery deadlines; Flexibility, mainly related to the innovation of products and services, the product mix and the production volume.Competitive priorities aim at drawing manufacturing function attention toward a range of market demands.1:1Competitive Dimensions Of Human Resource StrategySimilar to the manufacturing function, the main concern of the human resource functional area is to be included in the company management as a whole and specifically in the strategic business management. The main strategic purposes or competitive dimensions of the human resource strategy considered in this paper are presented as follows. The formation of a network based on teams, which make the integration of competencies, skills and technologies into, the core competencies related to the competitive advantages of the company strategy (Mintzberg, 1993; Hamel and Prahalad, 1994). The renewal of their employees’ professional competencies, which consists of organizational learning in order to create organiz...
