Re-Theorizing Human Resource Management and Human Resource Management in Context

Abstract

In this chapter an attempt is made to focus on the ideological and practical implications of the new people-oriented forms of healthcare management variously described as strategic human resource management, high-performance management, human capital management, or high commitment management. The chapter details the managerial and academic claims concerning the management of human resources and goes on to emphasize the impact that the literature of Human Resource Management (HRM) has had on healthcare employees and healthcare organizations. The restrictions of the applied research approaches are also highlighted and the author argues that the managerial and post-structural literature is limited in that its conceptualization of HRM and changing performances is incomplete. Also considered is a range of literature that has been used to study individual and organizational change with a labour process perspective and explains why an approach based upon the study of the disparity between the “HRM rhetoric” and the day-to-day practice, as well as how people experience and respond to that disparity within a wider frame of social, political, and economic relations, is to be preferred. As a basis for further contextualization, the powerful and privileged positions of healthcare professionals and the distinctive character of their employment relationship are considered. The chapter concludes that a more critical analysis is necessary to challenge the way in which the concept of HRM is examined by healthcare management academics and practitioners.