Global models, local realities: contextualising SHRM through an institutional lens in Pakistan

Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) research increasingly recognises the importance of context in shaping organisational outcomes. Yet much of the field remains informed by Western assumptions , providing limited insight into how SHRM is interpreted and enacted in institutionally complex Global South environments, where weak governance, informal norms, and low institutional trust shape organisational practices. Moreover, limited attention has focused on SHRM variations across organisational types within the same national context, despite distinct institutional pressures. To examine this , we draw on institutional theory and interviews with thirty-eight senior HR executives across sixteen public organisations, local private organisations, and multinational subsidiaries in Pakistan. We find pronounced intra-national SHRM variations. Public organisations diverge from performance-oriented SHRM due to political interference, regulatory constraints, and patronage-based trust. Local private organisations exhibit selective convergence, combining formal HRM practices with community-embedded relational norms and legitimacy concerns. Multinational subsidiaries pursue contextual convergence by hybridising global HR templates with local institutional expectations. Across organisational types, HR actors interpret, filter, and negotiate institutional pressures, resulting in differentiated SHRM configurations . Our study contributes to contextualised SHRM by demonstrating how organisational type shapes SHRM responses within a single national context and advancing an actor-centred account of SHRM in less formalised institutionalised settings.