Customer Reviews

Human Resource Management: Rhetorics and Realities; Anniversary Edition (Management, Work and Organisations)

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In this revised edition Legge adds a new new introduction of 42 pages, though the rest of the book is the earlier edition itself. She notes a number of new developments, which, among others, include the following: the private sector services sector has been emerging at a fast pace; the emergence of call centres as a huge industry; Mcdonaldization is taking place; knowledge worker has demonstrated a different set of needs; management of emotions is becoming an important area; there is a major attempt towards conceptualizing the links between HRM, business strategy and firm performance; there is a growing debate on cultural and institutional effects of globalization; the debate on Asian tigers, Japanese keiretsu and Korean Chaebols is giving way to outsourcing to India and China and rising growth rates of these two economies; unions' failure to organize new private sector manufacturing and service sector workplaces; and comprehensive increase in business ethics in general.

Legge continues to point out yawning gaps between the promises of HRM and its practice. Even as the author has stuck to her original arguments on the projected and realistic role of HRM, her new introductory chapter to the earlier edition will stimulate HRM scholars to further contribute to critical HRM scholarship. By deconstructing the HRM discourse, she had summarily dismissed the claims of HRM. She has not substantially diluted the spirit of the arguments she had put forward in the earlier edition. For most scholars, the book will surely recast the original debates in the context of the new realities that have been emerging over the years.

But it must be said that even as the book is an intellectual extravaganza in critical HRM, it will certainly not be of much interest to MBA students as the book claims on the back cover; they will be apt to protest vigorously if any teacher prescribes this book to them as it is too heavy for them; and they may also argue that they do not need to go into such perspectives. Rather they are expected to uncritically accept--or are going to be told to so--the competitiveness potential of soft HRM. That is also what industry wants from them. The book is an essential reading for anyone who researches in these areas, given the depth of analysis and rigour that is the hallmark of all writings of Legge.

Debi S. Saini
MDI, Gurgaon, India