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Book Review: Human Resource Management: A Critical Approach By David

G. Collings and Geoffery Wood

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Vision: The Journal of Business Perspective
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Book Reviews
Vision: The Journal of Business Perspective 2010 14: 99
DOI: 10.1177/097226291001400111

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 116· Book Reviews
A brilliant leader just not focuses on the long-term
objectives of his organisation and team but tries to link
them with the short-term goals well. Four key strategic
areas: People, Planning, Processes and Performance
demand different time and focus. A successful leader is
one who avoids disproportionate amount of time and
focus and thrives to find the right balance. Much of the
coverage of this book has focused on how such an
environment can be created while majoring the focus on
"leading by example" and "creating the right culture
within the team."
Reading the helpful advices in Simon Cooper's book
and taking cue from the Selfridge's beautiful insight of
"We" not "I" and "Let's go," rather than "Go," the
contemporary and future leaders of our business world
can emerge as truly successful leaders as a force to reckon
with in the ever dynamic and changing business scenario.
Abdul Qadir
Faculty - HR & OB Area
Jaipuria Institute of Management
A-32 A, Sector-62, Noida- 201301
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
David G., Collings and Geoffery Wood, Human
Resource Management: A Critical Approach,
Routledge, London, 2009, xi+319pp, £26.99, Soft.
The replacement of traditional personnel management
by human resource management (HRM) in the nineteen
eighties in the UK and the USA led to generation of
voluminous research literature especially in these two
countries. Gradually, this thinking reached to other locales
through the benchmarking of HR practices of
multinational companies (MNCs), which they spread
globally at an unusual speed. These developments clashed
with the well-entrenched pluralism in industrial relations
(IR) that was being celebrated as a fundamental
workplace value especially in the European countries.
But the strategic use of HRM attacked and eroded the
edifice of pluralism even where it had taken strongest
possible roots. These new developments led to
intensification of critical HRM literature. Around now,
the debate on HRM discourse seems to have nearly
concluded after being in the heat for more than two
decades. The participants in this debate were mainly
British scholars, but to some extent scholars from
continental Europe and the USA as well. During this
period came the outstanding, and perhaps the most
quoted, HRM work of Karen Legge that focused on
whether HRM was different from traditional personnel
management. Talking of the promises of HRM and its
VISION-The Journal of Business Perspective • Vol. 14 • Nos. 1 & 2 • January-June 2010
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future agenda for the pluralistic societal goals, she gave
quite a dismal picture highlighting the unitarist designs
of employers for securing competitive advantage at the
expense of fairness in employee relations.
In the last decade or so, new themes and research
questions emerged in the HRM discourse both at
conceptual and empirical levels. HR outsourcing has
become a flourishing industry which has further reduced
the transactional role ofHR departments. Call centers have
now become a widespread reality. Many other new business
issues emerged: talent management; exponential rise of
the services especially in the private sector; fast emergence
of gold-collared worker; learning organisation and
knowledge management; the linkage between HRM, firm
performance and business strategy; ethics, values and
people management; cultural and institutional effects of
globalisation; and the rise of India and China as emerging
economies. The global economy and polity are adjusting
to the new realities giving rise to a new dispensation. The
countervailing power of workers has almost failed to
expand itself especially in the private sector in view of the
onslaught of globaliaation; though in the Indian case union
density has actually risen substantially between 1989 and
2002 (the latest year for which verification ofunion density
has been done by the federal labour department; it was
completed in 2007) as they are seen focusing themselves
on the workers in the informal sector. In view of these
developments we can certainly not treat the discipline of
HRM uncritically; for new ways of workplace pluralism
are bound to emerge, despite the fact that students / scholars
in management schools tend to now accept HRM as
unproblematic.
The book under review contains 16 well-written
essays besides the issues raised by the editors in the
introduction. They are divided into three sections: the
context of HRM; the practice of HRM; and the
international context of HRM. These essays have
reviewed the research in respective areas so as to establish
patterns in all these domains. The issues dealt with in
the first section are the changing organisational contexts;
critical review of HRM; HRM relationships with
organisational performance; the ethical perspective of
HRM; the implication of HRM for outsourcing;
knowledge management; and HRM in SMEs. The second
section deals with the issues in recruitment and selection;
HR planning; performance management; reward
management; human resource development; and
industrial relations and HRM. The last section discusses
HRM in emerging markets; the debates on comparative
HRM; and international HRM.

In a short review such as this one, it may not be
possible to comment on all the chapters. But some of the
more interesting ones to the reviewer may be commented
upon. In a very interesting paper on linkage ofHRM with
organisational performance, Wood discusses whether it
is particular HRM models that are associated with firm
performance. Precisely speaking, he focuses on the issue
whether employee involvement, which is the key method
of employee empowerment, and employee development,
the key method of developing employability amongst
employees, have actually led to higher degree of
organisational performance. His paper discovers that
research evidence does provide a firm answer to this issue.
Rather the relationship paints a mixed picture.
What about HRM in SMEs? In this regard Dundon
and Wilkinson's paper deals with charting the extent of
various HR and newer type managerial practices. They
argue that in examining people management outcomes in
SMEs it is more important to know the context in which
the small firm operates rather than the number of people
employed by it. They also suggest that to know which of
these factors are more or less important will vary over time
and space. The chapter on recruitment and selection argues
that there are significant shifts in applicant populations;
and this factor has thrown a complex challenge to the
fairness and discrimination of testing processes, attitude
towards cheating and faking of results. This, they say,
reflects the ongoing changes in structure and location of
work, and also job criteria and their assessment. Richbell
and wood's chapter on reward management has argued that
heightened competitive pressures and the declining power
of unions is resulting in individually-oriented performance
based reward systems. In chapter 7 Hislop illustrates that
socio-cultural factors is the key to understanding the
dynamics of organisational management processes. He
concludes that many features of modern business
organisations make it difficult to create conditions that
facilitate knowledge management.
The overall message of the authors is that unlike
the initial apprehensions of critics about sustainability
of HRM when it originally emerged in the early eighties,
HRM has survived the test of time. It is very much alive
and kicking, and has become a huge industry in the last
quarter century or so. More and more Western companies
are busy in benchmarking the best people management
practices in their race towards competitive supremacy in
their respective fields. The union data across the globe is
showing decline. in its density and influence, which are
indicators of the success of the HRM agenda.
VISION-The Journal of Business Perspective· Vol. 14· Nos. 1 & 2· January-June 2010
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Book Reviews • 117
Undoubtedly, the determining factor is the insecurity
caused by globalisation in employees, and perhaps
employers alike.
Unlike the usual HRM texts, this one is not a run-
of-the-mill, prescriptive HRM book dealing with any best
practices or how-to solutions or cases. Rather, it has
critically examined HRM systems, processes, activities
and policies in terms of their impact on the managerial
agendas and organisational performance. Many papers
focus on whether the US approach of maximising
shareholder value or the European approach of
maximising gains to stakeholders is getting greater
attention today. In this context a variety of perspectives
are important to strategic HRM i.e. inside-out and outside-
in, strategic contingency theory, resource-based view,
systems approach. They have cautioned that often HRM
can be very reactive and short-tennist. The reaction of
HR departments across organisations in the recent down
tum is a case in point where large scale cuts were noticed
at the behest ofHR including lay offs and retrenchments.
The book is certainly quite stimulating, but at the
same time it may not be very popular with MBA students
who are looking for discussion on prescriptive best HR
practices. But those looking for critical debates on
different HRM issues will find it quite interesting or even
intriguing. For, the would-be managers are more
concerned with looking for solution to their managerial
problems. That is something expected of them by their
employers. This is a timely book, which has further added
interesting dimensions to the HRM debate. But the
number of mistakes in the book is many, which could
have been checked. For example, where a hyphen was
needed an N-dash has been put At some places words
are repeated or missing. Overall, certainly, the book will
be exciting for those researching HRM issues or even
those doing their M.Sc. in HRM.
Debi S. Saini
Professor - Human Resource Management Area
Management Development Institute
Gurgaon-122007
K.R., Shyam Sundar, Benchmarking Industrial
Relations and Labour Market, IFCAI Books, 2010,
328pp, Rs.500, Hard.
No other facet of the industry can be projected in a
theatrical format except, labour and industrial relations.
I cannot but help recall an incident during a strike in a
large automobile company. Work was at a standstill as
the Union wanted higher wages and the productivity
linked bonus. The police were called to ensure peace. A
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