Chapter 1 Contemporary
Human Resource
Management
The Role of Critique
Defining Human Resource Management
HRM aspires to:
1. Be strategic.
2. Focus on the ‘human capabilities’.
3. Integrate the HR system with the organisation’s goals.
4. Be shaped by, and shape, context.
Management and HRM
• ‘Human capital’= traits that people bring to the workplace.
• Management = process designed to coordinate and control
productive activity.
• Human resource management = (unlike other resources)
requires the coexistence of control and cooperation.
The Employment Relationship
Regulation of employment relationship:
• Unilateral (employer).
• Bilateral (employer and trade unions).
• Trilateral (employer, trade unions, government statutes).
The Dimensions of the Employment
Relationship
1. Economic = ‘exchange of pay for work’ (Brown, 1988).
2. Legal = contractual and statutory rights and obligations.
3. Social = social relations, social structure and balance of power.
4. Psychological = two-way exchange of perceived promises and
obligations.
Reflective Question
• What do you think of the concept of psychological contract? How
important is it to manage the psychological contract for (1) fornt line
workers (2) managers?
The scope and goals of HRM
• Micro (MHRM) = individual employees and small work groups.
• Strategic (SHRM) = links HR strategies with business strategies and
measures effects on organizational performance.
• International (IHRM) = management of people in companies
operating in more than one country.
• Clusters of follower-centred HR practices support transformational
leadership (Bratton, 2020).
Scope and Functions of HRM
Important Questions
• What do HRM professionals do? Functions
• What affects what they do? Contingencies
• How do they do it? Managerial Skills
The Goals of HRM
1. Cost-effectiveness
2. Flexibility
3. Social legitimacy
4. Power
Theorising HRM
The Michigan Model, Figure 1.3, p. 33
Four core activities:
• People selection
• Worker performance appraisal
• Equitable distribution of
rewards
• Employee development
Theorising HRM
The Harvard Model, Figure 1.4, p. 34
Six components:
1. Situational factors
2. Stakeholder interests
3. HRM policy choices
4. HR outcomes
5. Long-term consequences
6. Feedback loop
Theorising HRM
The Storey model, Table 1.2, p. 36
• Differences between Four parts:
‘personnel and • Beliefs and assumptions
industrials’ and HRM • Strategic aspects
paradigm by creating an • Role of line managers
‘ideal’ type. • Key levers
Theorising HRM
Ulrich’s strategic partner model
• Demonstrates the Four Roles:
added value of HR • Strategic partner
activities in business • Change agent
terms. • Administrative expert
• Employee champion
Theorising HRM
The Bath model, Fig 1.5, p. 39
Focuses on the Six Components:
processes through • HR system choices
which HR policies and • Employee AMO
practices affect • Line management influence
employee motivation • Employee responses
and performance. • Discretionary behaviour
• Performance outcomes
Reflective Question
• Reviewing the five models, what beliefs and assumptions are implied
in them? How well does each model define the characteristics of
HRM? What are the pros and cons of devolving much of the HRM
function to line managers?
HRM and the Role of Critique
Internal Critique
• Legge (2005), Townley (1994), Winstanley and
Woodall (2000) Keenoy and Anthony (1992)
HRM and the Role of Critique
External Critiques
• Academics within the broad field of critical management studies
and labour process theory.
• Alvesson and Willmott (2003), Godard (1991), Thompson and
McHugh (2009) and Watson (2004)
HRM and the Role of Critique
Feminist Paradigm
• The processes of gender roles, inequalities in society and the
workplace, problems of power, and women’s subordination and
oppression.
• Important Early Thinkers:
• Classical Wollstonecraft
• Modern Friedan
HRM and the Role of Critique
Post-colonial Discourse and Scholarship
• US/European theorising does not capture complexity of cultures that
populate the planet.
HRM and the Role of Critique
Intersectionality
• An analytic approach that recognises multiple social categories in
society (e.g. class, race, gender, sexuality, age, disability) operate not
as discrete entities, but build on each other and work together (Collins
and Bilge, 2020).
• E.g., used to examine how race and gender interact to influence
multiple dimensions of inequality.
The Effect of Critique on Work and People
Management
• Improve capitalism and, by extension, work organisations.
• Delegitimise models of HRM and divest them of their effectiveness.
• Compels organisational leaders to justify those actions.
• Offers less-optimistic analysis of the reactions of neoliberal
capitalism.
