Human Resource Management - Competing definitions of HRM

Competing defintions of HRM

The term 'human resource management' is typically used in one of the two following ways:

• To describe any approach to managing people, as in Boxall and Purcell's defintion: 'HRM includes anything and everything associated with the management of employment relationships in the firm' (Boxall and Purcell, 2003:1). In other words, it is the contemporary 'umbrella' term used to denote the activities associated with people management in work organisations.
• To describe a distinctive approach to managing people that is significantly different from traditional personnel management practices through its ability to contribute to both organisational performance and to engender employee commitment to the organisation (hence sometimes referred to as high-commitment HRM). Such an approach to HRM offers management, theoretically at least, the prospect of enhanced organisational performance whilst simultaneously improving workers experience of employment (the 'mutual gains' perspective). In the words of…