Human Resource Management: A Very Short Introduction

Adrian Wilkinson reviews the historical development of human resource management, showing how the changes in political, legal, and macroeconomic spheres have shaped how human resources are managed. Reviewing HRM in a global world, he considers how it is adapting to a very different work landscape.The way in which organizations manage their people has always been pivotal to their performance, long before formal human resource management coalesced into a definable and somewhat fashionable discipline in the mid-1980s. Earlier campaigns for worker welfare in the 18th and 19th century were driven by a mix of humanitarian, religious, philanthropic, and business motives, seeking workplace amenities such as medical care, housing, and libraries. At the same time, functionaries and departments specialising in HR processes such as hiring, payroll, and record keeping emerged.This Very Short Introduction describes how the key players and watershed moments in labour history shaped the state of human resource management today. In our era of globalisation, human resource management has to contend with a number of new and increasingly complex factors such as global sourcing, regional trade agreements and labour standards, remote working, strategic alliances, and innovation driven by competition. As traditional sources of competitive advantage such as access to capital, protected markets or proprietary technologies evaporate, firms increasingly look to human resource management to offer a competitive edge.In the 'laboratory' of university departments or in the gritty and sweaty reality of the shop floor, there is no single model of human resource management. Instead human resource management today is as able to impact everything from small owner-managed shops in Brick Lane to the high tech behemoths of Silicon Valley. Adrian Wilkinson shows how human resource management covers the relations between employees and their employers, and explores the range of HR practices, processes, and line management activities.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.