Abstract:
n the last decade, there have been some
strong critiques of research and practice
in the area of human resources (see, e.g.,
Delbridge & Keenoy, 2010; Kaufman,
2012; Kochan, 2004; Thompson, 2011).
What these authors have in common is their
desire for research that focuses on the man agement of people in the workplace to be
relevant. But relevance changes, just as how
we work and where we work have changed
significantly in recent decades. Thirty years
ago, manual jobs made up more than half of
the workforce (Lambert, 2010). It has been a
long time since manufacturing has been the
industry of focus and the male breadwinner
the main employee group under consider ation within scholarly research. The global
labor market has quadrupled in size in the
last 20 years (Lambert, 2010), bringing with it
a range of issues for HR practitioners and
scholars to contend with. Equally, we have
much greater interest in the interface of work
and leisure and how one pervades the other.
This special issue seeks to understand the
changing world of work in an era of significant
social, economic, and technological change
and to bridge the gap between research,
practice, and policy. Key issues for the future
of employment relations (ER)1
include how to
balance the imperatives for efficiency, quality,
and high performance so that the needs of
employees can also be met (Wilkinson &
Townsend, 2011).
