M. Marchington
‘Best Practice’ Human Resource Management: perfect opportunity or dangerous illusion?
Marchington, M.; Grugulis, I.
Authors
I. Grugulis
Abstract
In recent years there has been a considerable degree of interest in the notion of 'best practice' HRM, inspired at least in part by the work of Jeffrey Pfeffer. Along with other contributions from the UK and the USA, this has resulted in assertions that a particular bundle of HR practices can increase profits irrespective of organizational, industrial, or national context. In this paper, we focus on the way in which HRM is characterized in these writings, querying whether the practices which are typically assumed and put forward as 'good' may not appear quite so beneficial to workers when analysed more systematically. It is suggested that there are a number of problems with the notion of 'best practice', both in relation to the meaning of specific practices, and their consistency with each other, and the claims that this version of HRM is universally applicable. The unitarist underpinnings of this literature are also exposed. This is not to argue that HR policies and practices do not influence organizational performance but, rather, that we cannot determine this from the current literature. The 'best practice' conclusions may be attractive but the jury is still out.
Citation
Marchington, M., & Grugulis, I. (2001). ‘Best Practice’ Human Resource Management: perfect opportunity or dangerous illusion?. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 11(6), 1104-1124. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585190050177184
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Publication Date | Dec 1, 2001 |
Deposit Date | Jan 7, 2011 |
Journal | International Journal of Human Resource Management |
Print ISSN | 0958-5192 |
Electronic ISSN | 1466-4399 |
Publisher | Taylor and Francis Group |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 11 |
Issue | 6 |
Pages | 1104-1124 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1080/09585190050177184 |
Keywords | Human Resource Management, BEST Practise, Unitarism, Performance. |
Public URL | https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1511895 |
You might also like
The missing middle: communities of practice in a freelance labour market
(2011)
Journal Article
Skill and performance
(2011)
Journal Article
Information but not consultation: exploring employee involvement in SMEs
(2007)
Journal Article
The determinants of retail productivity: A critical review of the evidence
(2010)
Journal Article
Introduction: the WES 2004 Conference selected papers
(2005)
Journal Article
Downloadable Citations
About Durham Research Online (DRO)
Administrator e-mail: dro.admin@durham.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search