| Course | HRM-6100 Human Resources as a Strategic Partner |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 1 |
| Paper type | Module 1 written assignment: the context of strategic HRM |
| Length | About 673 words, 5 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Thomas Edison State University |
| Program | Master of Science in Human Resources Management |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for HRM 6100 Module 1
Why Costco Pays More to Charge Less: Strategy and Strategic HRM
Student Name
Master of Science in Human Resources Management, Thomas Edison State University
HRM-6100: Human Resources as a Strategic Partner
Mentor Name
Month Day, Year
Why Costco Pays More to Charge Less: Strategy and Strategic HRM
Company Selection and HR Functions
Costco runs membership warehouses in the United States and roughly a dozen other countries, with a workforce of more than 300,000 (Costco Wholesale Corporation, 2024). It is a strong choice for this course because its approach to employees is unusual in retailing, widely studied and well documented in its annual reports and in academic research. The five HR functions this course will analyze are staffing, compensation, training and development, performance management and retention, because together they form the system that produces Costco's workforce.
Costco's Competitive Strategy
Costco competes on low prices for a limited range of goods, sold in bulk to members who pay an annual fee. Its warehouses carry far fewer items than a typical supermarket, which lets it buy in very large volumes, and it caps the markup on most items. Membership fees provide a large share of operating income, so the company depends on members renewing each year. The strategy requires efficient operations, high sales per square foot and a member experience good enough that people keep paying to shop.
How HR Fits the Strategy
Costco's HR approach looks like a contradiction: it pays wages and benefits well above those of many retail competitors while charging some of the lowest prices in retail. Cascio (2006) compared Costco with Walmart's Sam's Club and found that Costco paid substantially higher average wages, covered a larger share of employees with health insurance and had far lower turnover. He argued that Costco's employees were more productive, generating more sales per employee, and that lower turnover saved recruiting and training costs, so that higher pay did not mean higher labor costs per dollar of sales.
Ton (2014) explained the logic further. Companies that follow what she called a good jobs strategy combine investment in employees with operational choices, such as offering fewer products, cross-training employees and standardizing work, that make that investment productive. Costco's limited assortment is a strategic choice that also makes jobs easier to learn and employees easier to move between tasks.
Theoretical Perspectives
In the account of Barney (1991), lasting advantage rests on resources that are valuable, scarce, costly to copy and backed by the organization. Costco's experienced, committed workforce meets these conditions: competitors can copy its prices and its warehouse format, but not easily the employee loyalty built over decades of consistent practice. Wright and McMahan (1992) described several theoretical perspectives on strategic HRM, including the behavioral perspective, which holds that HR practices should elicit the employee behaviors a strategy requires. Costco's strategy requires efficient, reliable and courteous work with little supervision, and its pay, promotion from within and job security are designed to elicit exactly that.
Incident: A Proposal to Cut Wages
For this assignment, consider an illustrative incident. A new board member, noting that analysts compare Costco's labor costs unfavorably with competitors', proposes freezing the top of the hourly wage scale and reducing the employer share of health premiums to raise operating margin by half a point. How should the head of HR respond?
The HR leader should not argue from sentiment but from the strategy. The evidence above suggests that Costco's wages are an investment that produces productivity, low turnover and member satisfaction. A cut would save money in the first year but would weaken the resource that distinguishes Costco. The HR leader should bring data to the board: turnover and its cost, sales per employee and member renewal rates, compared with competitors, and a projection of how a rise in turnover would offset the savings. This is how HR earns its place in strategic planning: by showing how people decisions affect strategic outcomes.
Conclusion
Costco shows that HR can be central to strategy rather than a cost to be minimized. Its pay, benefits and promotion practices fit a low-price, high-productivity model, and theory explains why that fit is hard to copy. The five functions selected here will be analyzed in the coming modules to judge how well each supports that strategy.
References
Barney, J. (1991). Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. Journal of Management, 17(1), 99-120. https://doi.org/10.1177/014920639101700108
Cascio, W. F. (2006). Decency means more than "always low prices": A comparison of Costco to Wal-Mart's Sam's Club. Academy of Management Perspectives, 20(3), 26-37. https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.2006.21903478
Costco Wholesale Corporation. (2024). Annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 1, 2024. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Ton, Z. (2014). The good jobs strategy: How the smartest companies invest in employees to lower costs and boost profits. New Harvest.
Wright, P. M., & McMahan, G. C. (1992). Theoretical perspectives for strategic human resource management. Journal of Management, 18(2), 295-320. https://doi.org/10.1177/014920639201800205
What the HRM 6100 Module 1 instructions ask for
All five HRM-6100 written assignments, which carry 40 percent of the grade, follow the company you pick for the final project, so Module 1 asks you to choose a well-documented firm, have your mentor approve it and name five HR functions to study. Expect the first assignment to ask how the company's strategy and HR fit and how HR can become a strategic partner, often through an incident to analyze. Research is an important part of every assignment; the course has no textbook, so use articles from the New Jersey State Library databases and company sources such as annual reports, cited in APA style.
How this HRM 6100 Module 1 example is built
The paper begins by justifying the company choice and naming five HR functions. A strategy section explains how the company competes. The fit section uses a published comparison with a rival and research on good jobs to explain how high pay supports low prices. A theory section applies the resource-based view and a behavioral perspective on strategic HRM. An illustrative incident, a proposal to cut wages, is answered with an argument built from strategy and data. Each section prepares a later module, since the five functions recur through the course. The analysis prepares later modules by naming the five functions that will be followed through the course.
Where the marks sit in the HRM 6100 Module 1 rubric
Mentors grade the written assignments on analysis of the incident or question, application of strategic HRM concepts, quality of research and clear APA writing. In the first assignment, a well-justified company choice and five functions that can be researched set up the course. Answers that explain the fit between strategy and HR with evidence, rather than describing HR practices, show the strategic thinking the course is built on. Using theory to explain why the fit creates advantage earns more credit than description alone. Mentors also look for an incident response that an executive would find persuasive: an argument tied to the company's strategy and supported with data, rather than an appeal to values alone. Distinguishing an illustrative incident from documented facts shows care with evidence.
HRM 6100 Module 1 help: mistakes that cost marks
Students lose points by choosing a company with little public HR information, which makes later assignments hard, or by describing HR practices without linking them to strategy. Others answer the incident with opinion instead of evidence. Check that annual reports, research and credible press cover your company's HR. Explain how the company competes before discussing HR. Use at least one strategic HRM theory. Answer incidents with data an executive would accept. A free first sample using your own HRM-6100 company is available on request. Write the company's strategy in two or three sentences before you discuss HR, since every later assignment depends on it. Mark any hypothetical incident as illustrative.
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More HRM 6100 and Master of Science in Human Resources Management sample papers
- HRM 6100 Module 2: Written Assignment: Planning and Staffing a New Costco Warehouse
- HRM 6100 Module 3: Written Assignment: Training, Development and Performance at Costco
- HRM 6100 Module 4: Written Assignment: Pay Strategy and Labor Relations at Costco
- HRM 6100 Module 5: Written Assignment: Separation, Retention and Employment Law at Costco
- HRM 6100 Module 6: Final Project: Five HR Functions at Costco, Analyzed
- HRM 5400 Module 5: Written Assignment: Benefits and Pay for Special Groups
- HRM 5500 Module 5: Discussion: Fit to the Job, the Team or the Company?
- HRM 5600 Module 4: Final Project: A Learning System for Entrepreneurial Behavior
- HRM 5700 Module 6: Final Project: Knowledge Management and Change at a Research Lab
HRM 6100 Module 1 questions, answered
Where can I find a free HRM 6100 Module 1 sample paper?
The complete Module 1 paper on Costco is above, with company selection, five HR functions, strategy and HR fit, theory and an incident response.
Why does Costco pay higher wages?
Research suggests higher pay brings productivity and low turnover that offset its cost and support Costco's low-price, high-volume strategy.
What is the resource-based view?
Barney's view is that a company stays ahead for long only through valuable, scarce resources that rivals struggle to copy and that its organization is built to exploit.
What is the good jobs strategy?
Zeynep Ton's term for combining investment in employees with operational choices that make that investment productive.
How does HR become a strategic partner?
By showing with data how people decisions affect strategic outcomes such as productivity, customer loyalty and cost.