Human Resource Management: A Critical Analysis

Abstract

Since the 1970-BOs, employment relationships in the western world have been influenced by the emergence of human resource management (HRM) which has, to some degree, challenged the existing order- industrial relations (IR). The debate resulting from the emergence of HRM has kept the academic presses churning. At one Level, there is a 'co-existence' debate which explores the likelihood that HRM will supplant IR. At another Level, debate focuses on the 'distinctiveness' of HRM from IR and/or personnel management theory. However, the debates between the HRM and IR fields have only been intra-discourse; HRM literature has been almost silent on the subject of IR, while IR has had little to say about HRM. This, despite the fact that it could be argued that IR and HRM are simply different views of the same set of phenomena. Neither the HRM nor IR fields seem able to incorporate the strengths of the other. By mapping the underlying paradigms of these two fields, this paper explores the question: 'What makes the fields of HRM and IR unable to articulate?'