In search of HRM

Abstract

It is common in discussions about human resource management (HRM) to distinguish between “rhetoric” and what is regarded as a clearly separate “reality”. This is naïve in that it fails to recognize the way those researching the human aspects of management and those practically involved in it influence each other. It also fails to recognize the power of recent developments in social science theorizing which focus on the relationship between discourse and action. The concepts and language of HRM are perhaps most usefully seen as discursive resources which both managers and academic writers make use of – or refuse to make use of – in their occupational practices. Illustrates this argument with ethnographic material gathered in an organization in which many of those activities frequently labelled “HRM” occur but where the notion of HRM is not used. The dog does not bark.

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