the term ‘HRM’ started to appear in the mid- 1980 s (e.g. Hendry and Pettigrew
1986 ; Guest 1987 ) in journal articles. A particularly inXuential early book was John
Storey’s edited volumeNew Perspectives on Human Resource Management( 1989 ).
As recounted by Kelly ( 2003 ), the topic of HRM entered academic discourse in
Australia in a signiWcant way only in the late 1980 s. She cites several inXuential
papers, such as Boxall and Dowling ( 1990 ). Common to both countries was an
initial period of hot debate and deep skepticism about this new import from
America. Kelly states, for example, that the response of many Australian academics
was (p. 152 ) ‘dismay, doubt, and deep concern. Scholars rejected the foundations
of HRM, the suggestions to integrate theirWeld with HRM, and even notions that
the emergentWeld of study should be taken seriously. Debate followed debate.’
A number of British authors wrote highly critical assessments of HRM, suggesting
it was little more than ‘rhetoric,’ ‘ritualism,’ and ‘religious fervor’ (Strauss 2001 ).
Why did HRM engender such a sharp and divided reaction? In part it was
because HRM threatened the well-established industrial relations group and in
part because HRM was seen as a stalking horse for union avoidance and Thatch-
erist neo-liberalism (Guest 1987 ; Purcell 1995 ). But also crucial to the debate was the
ambiguous and to some degree contradictory deWnition and model of HRM that
had come over from America. Was HRM a generic concept covering all forms of
labor management, another name for personnel management, or a new ‘human
asset’ model of labor management? The Americans tended to say, either pragmat-
ically or uncritically depending on one’s viewpoint, that HRM was all three and
‘let’s get on with it.’ Nor were American HRM scholars interested in a deeper probe
of the new paradigm’s underlying normative and ideological principles. What went
largely unquestioned in America, however, did not go unquestioned by scholars
in Britain and elsewhere. A minority view was that HRM was largely a repackaged
version of PM and thus not anything to get excited about. But many British and
Australian writers opted for the view that HRM was indeed a substantively diVerent
model built on unitarism, individualism, high commitment, and strategic
alignment (e.g. Guest 1987 ; Storey 1995 ). Given this, several strands of critical
commentary and outright rejection emerged. One criticism, for example, was
that HRM is inherently Xawed because it mixes positive/descriptive with
normative/prescriptive (Legge 1989 ); a second was that HRM is practiced in only
a distinct minority of workplaces and may thus be of small practical signiWcance
outside the USA (Sisson 1993 ); a third was that HRM focuses only on corporate goals
and ignores employees’ interests (Mabey et al. 1998 ); and a fourth was that HRM
did not seem to deliver the advertised positive performance eVects (Hope-Hailey
et. al. 1997 ).
From the early 1990 s onward, the dust started to settle and HRM became more
Wrmly established and less controversial in Britain and Australia. The boundaries
and content of HRM remain unsettled to the present time, but a growing body of
thought holds that for HRM to be a useful intellectual construct across counties
40 bruce e. kaufman