Human resource management (HRM) is strongly associated with the rise of management power and the rediscovery of the management prerogative. In most models, however, emphasis is placed on commitment and empowerment as means of control in place of command and control systems with their Taylorist notions of work design and fragmentation. The universal explanation for the growth of the rhetoric, if not the practice, of HRM is found in the internationalization of product markets, weakened trade unions and the relative withdrawal of the State from regulating labour markets. The danger of descriptions of HRM as modern best managerial practice is that they stereotype the past and idealize the future. The distinctive feature of HRM from an industrial relations perspective is the downgrading of secondary institutions and the rise of individualism within the firm. But the focus on the single firm in isolation from its environment is seen to be misleading. Ironically, when questions are asked about why best practice in HRM is so rare and so little diffused, attention turns again to the role of institutions external to the firm in the industry, region or country which support or inhibit the further development of HRM.
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