This module examines the conceptual and cultural foundations of Human Resource Management.
The answers to these questions are around us, all the time, everywhere – except we do not see them because we are accustomed to the assumptions of HRM.
In this module, we will investigate these assumptions and their roots, and so the task of HRM will appear in a different light. The essential question HRM has to answer seems simple: what is the value of a person’s work? The problem, of course, is that the relationship between work effort and the value of work is always indeterminate. How much is an hour of work worth? How much should anyone be paid so that work is ‘fair’ or ‘just’?
These essential questions cannot be answered independently; they depend on other crucial questions: What is the work that I have to do? What counts as the work covered by an employment contract? Where does effort begin and end? What does it mean, for instance, to be ‘committed’ to one’s job, to be ‘passionate’ company or team – in terms of effort? What does it mean to be creative or innovative? Who has ‘potential’? Are these part of the employment contract? What is work today, after all?