HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Human Resource Management

Human Resource Management

Part A

Understanding URM

An overriding assumption in the literature is that the purpose of HRM is to help organizations achieve their objectives, which are essentially seen in terms of performance. According to Brewster (1999), 'the value of this paradigm lies in the simplicity of focus, the coalescing of the research around this shared objective and the clear relationship with the demands of industry'. Conversely it ignores the other relevant stakeholders. All too often we see books on HRM that merely concern themselves with questions

like 'How can we manage better?' 'What practices are appropriate for what organizations?' 'How can we best adopt these practices to meet organizational objectives?' Such approaches are usually devoid of theory, are manifestly functionalist in their stated purpose to serve organizational ends while ignoring other stakeholders, and are clearly underpinned by a rationalist epistemology which works on the basis that the reality around us is knowable, and accessible through systematic analysis. The role of the academic in helping organizations achieve their 'strategic objectives' through HRM is not necessarily disputed here. However, such efforts must not lose sight of a fundamental tenet of good scholarship: to understand as fully as possible the nature of the phenomenon - HRM - its social, political, ethical and cultural dimensions, rather than merely how to make it work better. The rationalist epistemology leads to the conclusion that through rigorous systematic analysis of the reality around us we can reach the truth, which consists of universal knowledge. This eventually leads both researchers and managers alike to adopt or recommend 'solutions' which have been found to work elsewhere. While few people today are prepared to ignore such contingencies as culture, size, organizational form and so forth, there is still an expectation that so long as we allow for such minor inconveniences, human resource management can be made to work. HRM thus becomes at once a set of practices for realizing managerially defined business outcomes and a mirror of the desired reality which is then projected onto the organization. There is, however, more to human resource management than this scenario would suggest. What constitutes HRM, how it is constituted, for whom it is constituted and by whom it is applied are issues that are just as problematic as the issue of what sorts of organizations we are designing to achieve these ends. The role of human resource management is present in all organizations. Human resource management (HRM) can be used strategically by organizations to develop and implement processes that enhance organizational objectives. The strategy of HRM should be to link the human resource process to specific objectives that impact how employees should effectively be managed. As an organization grows from operating domestically to internationally, the role of HRM functions must expand into new and broader responsibilities. When a domestic organization expands to foreign markets the HRM function must adapt to changing and far more complex environments. This paper will discuss the strategic role of HRM in the global business ...