chapter 23
....................................................................................................................................................HRM AND THE
NEW PUBLIC
MANAGEMENT
....................................................................................................................................stephen bach
ian kessler
23.1 Introduction
.........................................................................................................................................................................................
AsHuman Resource Management (HRM) has developed as aWeld of study, the
attention paid to public sector employment relations has been relatively limited.
The preoccupation with the link between HR practice and corporate performance
has been less applicable to public service organizations that are answerable to
a range of stakeholders and in which HR policy has been geared to ensuring
political accountability. There has been a recognition that the public sector con-
frontsWscal and political pressures that are altering HR practice (Boxall and Purcell
2003 : 102 – 3 ). However, this observation has rarely been backed up by a sustained
focus on people management in the public sector. Alvesson ( 2004 : 12 ), for example,
notes that many public sector organizations are knowledge intensive but, without
any apparent justiWcation, chooses to exclude them from his discussion of know-
ledge work.
This limited attention arises from characteristics of the sector. DeWning the
public sector is not straightforward because there are diVerences between countries
in terms of the size, scope, and role of the sector. These diVerences reXect diVerent
patterns of ownership with processes of privatization altering the size and scope of