Human Resource Management Fact, Fiction and Fallacy

HRM took its birth in the precincts of Harvard Business School in the early 80s as an offshoot of organisational behaviour. It propagates unitarism, individualism, strong cultures, teamwork, flexibility, commitment and the take-over of personnel function by line managers, and seeks to present a revolutionary recipe with a ‘cure-all’ flavour. HRM influenced employers, academics and students in varying degrees. The undue emphasis of OB theory and deemphasis of personnel/IR practice led to a host of dysfunctional consequences. Upcoming managers are the worst hit in terms of translating their knowledge into skills required to handle complex problems lying in store for them. The shallowness of HR assumptions, the inherent contradictions among its concepts and the wide gulf between its precept and practice-all these have reduced it to ‘fiction.’