| dc.description.abstract | The theoretical roots for the study of human resource management (HRM) in organisations
have existed in the Western contexts for over a century when seminal ideas
of influential management thinkers such as Taylor, Drucker and McGregor were in
prevalence. Earlier conceptualisations of work and employment adopted a different
(pluralist) emphases and focused on terms such as labour welfare, labour relations,
personnel management and industrial relations to name a few. One could argue, this
view reflected contemporary developments in the field of HRM, albeit with different
ideological and philosophical focus that have been in operation for several centuries.
For example, in India, work practices were influenced by the ancient ideas of
Chanakya (also referred to as Kautilya), whose pioneering work on Arthashastra
was regarded as a treatise in the field of economics, politics, military strategy and
governance. This seminal work had also developed ideas of organisation and administration
in the fourth century BC. Indeed, one only needs to turn back and look at
the practices of one of the world’s oldest multinational corporation–the erstwhile
East India Company, which was founded in the early 1600 in India by the British to
pursue trade with the East Indies. Even though it ended up trading, in the main, in
the Indian subcontinent, its operations spanned across several borders.
Managing people in the colonial era was quite different from how we manage
people today. Some might even ask, has the nature of capitalism or business goals
changed in principle? If so, what might have caused the change? Were these changes
triggered by changes in people’s aspirations of seeking better and humane conditions
of work and employment? Or, due to changing political agendas, new legislation
for protecting workers, change in ideologies and other influences such as
religion and industrial revolution? These questions bring to our mind the importance
of changes in context and its distinctive and highly variable character.
While the immediate focus of HRM and employment relations (ER) is on managing
people and work within an agreed framework of the employer–employee relationship
and setting the rules for engaging people and governing their conditions of
employment, HRM and ER is also influenced by multiple, direct and indirect factors.
These include a range of factors such as different: stakeholders state, regulation,
customers and institutions. It is by learning the multiple and specific instances
from different contexts that we may be able to generate some generic guidelines for
understanding how we manage people and work. | en_US |
