One problem with such engagement is that HRM is not a homogeneous body of
scholarship. The most obvious distinction is between those who see HRM itself as a
distinctive approach to managing the employment relationship based on a high-
skill, high-commitment workforce and a central role for human capital inWrm
strategy (Guest 1987 ; Storey 1985 ); and those who take a more contingent perspec-
tive and seek to identify ‘what HR practices are proWt-rational in which contexts’
(Boxall and Purcell 2003 : 10 ). To the extent that theWrst group is more likely to
make distinctive, contrastable claims, our engagement is more with them than the
second. However, the diVerence is not as substantial as it may appear. For the latter
group, HRM is not merely a territory (e.g. work, employment, and industrial
relations) to write about. Its prime purpose is still normative—to derive general,
though context-dependent rules that guide and enhance the quality of labor
management in theWrm. So, Boxall and Purcell ( 2003 ) utilize a framework in
which the critical HR goals of cost eVectiveness (through labor productivity),
organizational Xexibility, and social legitimacy create multiple bottom lines
whose tensions can and must be managed by successfulWrms. There is, in our
view, suYcient commonality to refer to ‘core propositions.’
8.2 Core Propositions of HRM
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We argue that there are at least three core claims to which most scholars of HRM
subscribe. TheWrst is that major changes in the nature of the environment in which
organizations operate have placed pressure on organizations to be more strategic in
their management of employees. This is the familiar view that most organizations
are now operating in increasingly global, competitive, and volatile markets in
which they must beXexible and able to develop unique products and services
which are not easily imitable. Whilst some sector diVerentiation is made, according
to most of the HRM literature it is through employees that such competitiveness
can best be developed, because employees possess the kinds of skills that allow
Xexibility and which are diYcult to imitate.
Second, largely as a result of changes mapped out above, there has been a shift
away from management practices that involve the attempt to control employees
towards those which seek to win employee commitment and generate motivation.
The essence of this argument is that Taylorist labor management practices, with their
emphasis on squeezing eVort from employees, simply do not work in an environ-
ment where organizations must harness the skills and creativity of their workforces.
The third, and closely related, claim is that in the context of these changes and
contrathe arguments of radical or conXict theories of the employment relationship,
both workers and managers can increasingly be beneWciaries of the new approaches
148 paul thompson and bill harley