Abstract:
Human Resource Management (HRM) has become the predominant term to
describe the theory and practices relating to the way people are managed at
work. In previous times (and indeed even now in some places) other terms
have been used which, in varying degrees, broadly correspond. These other
terms include personnel management, personnel administration, people
management, employee relations, human capital management, industrial
relations and employment management. Each of these terms reflects the
diverse antecedents of HRM and they also reveal aspects of the differ ent ideologies associated with these approaches. For example, some early
forms of personnel management had a ‘welfare’ parentage, others carried
traces of a social-psychological ‘human relations movement’ history (Mayo
1949). Each of these traditions reflected a primary focus on individuals and
small groups. Conversely, the terms ‘industrial relations’ and ‘employment
relations’ reflect the collectivist (pluralist) approach to management-worker
relations which, at times and in places, were dominant throughout much
of the 20th century in Europe, North America and beyond (Clegg 1979;
Dunlop 1958; Flanders 1964; 1970; Fox 1974). This tradition was devel oped in North America and beyond with ideas about mutual gains and
union-management partnerships (Kochan and Osterman 1994). The disci plinary roots of the field include aspects of labour economics, industrial
sociology, psychology and law.
