undertake commitment and trust-building measures in the employment relation-
ship’ (Thompson 2003 : 363 ). UnfulWlled or exploitative ‘bargains’ are nothing new
in capitalist economic organization but Thompson suggests that the cause may be
shifting from the long-recognized contradictions of capitalist workplace relations to
broader system-wide disconnections between the realms of corporate governance,
work organization, and employment relations. SpeciWcally, he comments that ‘there
is a massive tension between the degree of stability necessary for HRM and HPWSs
to operate eVectively and the insecurity inherent in current forms of corporate
governance’ (Thompson 2003 : 365 ).
Certainly recent research has shown the tensions and diYculties faced by
workplace-level HR managers in seeking to meet corporate requirements,
manage employee expectations, and support operational performance (Barton
and Delbridge 2004 ). These tensions can be interpreted through the language of
strategic human resource management as the challenge of matching business
strategy and HR policy while simultaneously integrating HRM at the workplace
level. The increasing contradictions of ‘externalWt’ between HR policy and business
strategy and ‘internalWt’ of HRM and workplace measures are analogous to the
breakdowns in employment bargains outlined from a diVerent perspective by
Thompson ( 2003 ). Thus, Legge ( 2005 : 328 ) has used these diVerent terms in capturing
similar tensions: ‘externalWt may undermine the possibility of achieving internalWt.’
Such arguments emphasize that the management of human resources must be
situated in the wider organizational, institutional, political, and economic context
of manufacturing.
20.6 Concluding Comments
.........................................................................................................................................................................................
The future prospects of manufacturing industries in mature economies rely heavily
on the ability ofWrms to meet challenging targets for higher creativity and value
added. Such innovation is generally understood to require skilled and knowledge-
able employees who are willing and able to commit discretionary eVort to man-
agerially deWned tasks while also working creatively and collectively in creation of
knowledge. The role of human resource management is seen as central in contrib-
uting to the organizational contexts and sustaining the employment relationships
through which this can happen. This chapter has reviewed the empirical evidence
on work organization and HR practices in contemporary manufacturing, focusing
on high-performance work systems and lean manufacturing as the dominant
system before considering the alternatives in moving towards manufacturing
organizations as sites of knowledge creation. Our review of the empirical evidence
hrm and contemporary manufacturing 421