British Journal of Industrial Relations

29:2 June 19910007-1080 $3.00

Personnel Management: The End of

Orthodoxy?
David E. Guest*
Final version accepted 20 December 1990.

Abstract

Within the broad field of British industrial relations, personnel/human

resource management grew significantly as a focus of conceptual and
empirical analysis during the 1980s. This paper reviews the central features
this development and considers the prospects and priorities for future
research. It argues that human resource management now represents a ne
orthodoxy within the general subject area, partly replacing the traditiona
Donovan framework. Research exploring the application of human resource
management is reviewed. This reveals that only modest innovation has
occurred, often with little evidence of positive outcomes. Seeking an
explanation for this limited impact, attention is focused on the nature and
effectiveness of personnel management. The reasons why there might be a
'problem' of personnel management are considered. Finally, the sustain-
ability of the new orthodoxy is called into question.

I. Introduction

Looking back over the 1980s, those of us engaged in the study of the
management of industrial relations have grounds for satisfaction. It has been
the topic of fastest growing research and teaching interest within the broad
subject area of industrial relations. New chairs in human resource manage-
ment have been created in universities and polytechnics throughout the
country, while industrial relations departments in many universities have
altered their name to reflect the new interest in management. In industry,
too, industrial relations departments are less common while departments of
human resource management are emerging everywhere.
Debates on pluralism, tripartitism and trade union power, debates that
reflect the Donovan tradition, no longer dominate our thinking and
research. Instead it is possible to detect a new orthodoxy under the
optimistic but ambiguous label of human resource management. The aim of
this paper is to review the trends in theory and research on personnel and
human resource management. At the heart of the argument will be
•Professor of Occupational Psychology, Birkbeck College, London.
150 British Journal of Industrial Relations
questions about the status of this new orthodoxy: evidence on the ground, it
will be asserted, reveals as many signs of the fragmentation of personnel
management as of any new coherence. A better understanding of this
fragmentation is one of the key emerging research priorities for the decade
ahead.
The review and analysis that follows is organised around four main
themes. The first is the consideration of 'the new orthodoxy' of human
resource management (HRM) and of what others, more concerned with the
process, have called the transformation of industrial relations. The second
reviews evidence about the types of innovation in personnel/HRM policy
and practice that have occurred and the part played in their introduction by
personnel specialists. The third examines the nature and effectiveness of
personnel management; this is necessary to try to understand the contribu-
tion to change made by the personnel function. Emerging from this, a fourth
section asks whether there is a 'problem' of personnel management and
explores the possible nature of this problem. The final section considers
some of the theoretical and research issues emerging from this analysis.

2. The new orthodoxy: the emergence of human resource management

Probably the dominant research issue in industrial relations during the

1980s has been the exploration of what is broadly termed the 'new
industrial relations'. Following the model provided for America by Kochan
et al. (1986), but armed with a better data base, researchers have
attempted to map or describe the changes, to evaluate their significance
and to explain them. The debate centres on the question of whether the
1980s was a decade of continuity or change in industrial relations. Perhaps
the real question is how significant and fundamental the change that
undoubtedly occurred has been. A related and equally important question
is the direction of the change. It is in this context that the question of a new
orthodoxy emerges.
By 'new orthodoxy', what I am concerned with is a new view of what
constitutes good practice and what the appropriate model for the conduct of
employee-management relations should be. This model, even if it is viewed
critically, is also likely to set the agenda for academic writing and research
within the broad subject area of industrial relations. Therefore while some
enthusiasts proclaim the arrival ofthe new approach (Bassett 1986; Wickens
1987) and consultants write about the 'how' of HRM, researchers from
Warwick's Industrial Relations Research Unit go in search of the new
industrial relations in the workplace and even Beyond the Factory. At the
same time, some tike Maclnnes (1987) deny its existence, while others (e.g.
Kelly and Kelly 1991) deny its feasibility.
For at least two decades, the dominant orthodoxy was the pluralist
Donovan model. This was true as much for those interested in management
as in other aspects of industrial relations. In the 1980s this was challenged by
 Personnel Management: The End of Orthodoxy? 151
the emergence of human resource management. In focusing the debate and
the research in this way, we risk imposing a spurious order on reality.
Indeed, a central theme of this review is that HRM has been considerably
'talked up', and that the evidence from the USA (Guest 1990) and the UK
(see e.g. Marginson 1989; Storey and Sisson 1989) reveals considerable
diversity of practice, raising doubts about the extent of its application.
Similarly, much of the debate surrounding the Donovan Report concerned
the extent to which its recommendations were implemented and more
especially the impact of any implementation. For example, Metcalf (1989)
has argued that, although many of the proposals were implemented in the
1970s, it was only in the 1980s that they delivered an impact in UK
workplaces. The risk of overstating change, and therefore the need to
analyse and understand what change has occurred, is precisely why the
concept of an orthodoxy is useful. It provides a yardstick against which to
measure practice. It is for this reason that we need to analyse and
operationalize HRM and distinguish it from traditional personnel manage-
ment.

Human resource management v. personnel management

Several writers have tried to contrast HRM and personnel management
(e.g. Guest 1987; Legge 1989; Sisson 1989). One of the problems in such
attempts, as Guest notes, is the basis for asserting that differences exist.
Indeed, Keenoy (1990), with some semantic juggling and by imposing his
own criteria, has managed to argue away any useful distinction. Legge
(1989) extracts distinctions by reviewing the definitions of a variety of
writers. An alternative is to distil good practice (Foulkes 1980; Peters and
Waterman 1982). However, as Legge has noted, there is always a danger of
mixing normative and descriptive views.
From her review of the literature, Legge identifies three features which
seem to distinguish HRM and personnel management. (1) Personnel
management is an activity aimed primarily at non-managers whereas HRM
is less clearly focused but is certainly concerned more with managerial staff.
(2) HRM is much more of an integrated line management activity whereas
personnel management seeks to influence line management. (3) HRM
emphasises the importance of senior management's management of culture
whereas personnel management has always been rather suspicious of
organisation development and related unitarist, social-psychologically
oriented ideas.
While Legge captures some of the key dimensions in the definitions of
HRM and personnel management, greater precision is needed if an
operational analysis is to be provided. One possibility is to use theories of
control in organisations derived from the relevant sociological (Etzioni
1961) and psychological (McGregor 1960) literature. Walton (1985) and
Guest (1987) have highlighted the contrasts. Walton distinguishes 'control'
and 'commitment'; however, since both approaches are forms of control, it
152 British Joumal of Industrial Relations
is more appropriate to label them 'compliance' and 'commitment'. Person-
nel management is closely associated with compliance-based systems of
control while HRM is typically allied to commitment. Comparisons along
the dimensions presented in Figure 1 present normative views which
provide a starting-jKjint for empirical research.
FIGURE 1
Alternative Assumptions and Beliefs Underlying Human Resource Management

Compliance Commitment

Psychological Fair day's work for a Reciprocal

contract fair day's pay commitment
Locus of control External Internal
Employee Pluralist Unitarist
relations Collective Individual
Low trust High trust

Organising Mechanistic Organic

principles Formai/defined roles Flexible roles
Top-down Bottom-up
Centralised Decentralised

Policy goals Administrative Adaptive work-force

efficiency
Standard performance Improving performance
Cost minimisation Maximum utilisation

As Legge implies, compared with personnel management, HRM is a

more central, senior-management-driven strategic activity. This raises
questions about the role of personnel managers and focuses attention on the
difficult issue of strategy. It is now several years since Thurley and Wood
(1983) called for a greater focus in industrial relations research on
management strategy. Interest in HRM has helped to answer that call.
Purcell (1989) has outlined the different levels at which HRM strategy can
be considered. Hendry and Pettigrew (1986) have provided a useful fourfold
classification of the way in which writers have referred to HRM strategy:
first, it concerns the use of planning; second, it implies a coherent
employment policy, often underpinned by a philosophy; third, HRM
activities are matched to an explicit business strategy; andfinally,people are
seen as a strategic resource for gaining competitive advantage. Those
organisations claiming an HRM strategy may incorporate one or any
combination of these elements, but a full HRM strategy is likely to
incorporate them all. Hendry and Pettigrew (1990) take the view that the
focus on strategy and the link between business strategy and HRM
constitutes the distinctive feature of HRM and provides the most fruitful
focus for its study. They have therefore developed an analytic framework
within which to explore cases of change in business strategy and its link to
HRM. The potential problem that can arise from this approach is that
 Personnel Management: The End of Orthodoxy? 153
personnel policy and practice, rather than outcomes such as company
performance, may become the dependent variable of the analysis.
These issues help to set the research agenda. If HRM is a strategic activity,
the questions then become: Is it now considered seriously at board level? If
so, does this represent a change in board priorities? Are organisations
seeking to change the basis on which they manage their employees? For
example, is there evidence that they are pursuing the HRM goals of high
commitment, flexibility, quality and strategic integration (Guest 1987)?
What part are personnel managers playing in any innovations, and what role
is most appropriate for the personnel specialist in an HRM environment?

Is HRM rww considered more strategically at board level?

Since all writers on HRM stress the importance of considering it strategic-
ally, this is a logical starting-point. However, the answer to the question
must be that we do not know. We have some very indirect evidence, but it
needs to be treated with considerable caution. For example, surveys
typically show a very slight growth in the board representation of the most
senior personnel managers during the 1980s. However, in most surveys the
proportion of companies with board-level personnel management represent-
atives remains between 30 and 40 per cent (Legge 1988). ITie only
dissenting voice comes from the Cranfield/Price Waterhouse Survey, which
reported that two-thirds of their organisations, all employing 200 or more
people, had a main board i>ersonnel director (Brewster and Smith 1990). Of
course, this tells us nothing about the influence of these directors or indeed
about what they do.
The Cranfield survey reported that half the heads of the personnel
function contributed to the development of corporate strategy; this rose to
62 per cent of those on the main board. Most of the remainder were
consulted later on broad strategic matters. Furthermore, just over 70 per
cent said their organisation had a personnel strategy. However, Marginson
et al. (1988) have warned us that these claims may have little meaning in
practice, since in their study many of those claiming the existence of a
strategy could not describe its content. Support for this scepticism can be
found in the Cranfield survey: nearly half of those claiming a personnel
strategy work in organisations where there is no personnel management
involvement in the development of corporate strategy. Many organizations
could provide little information on personnel costs, reinforcing the lack of
precise but essential data. All this suggests that the message about the
importance of personnel strategy hasfilteredthrough and that many senior
fiersonnel managers aspire to the idea of a strategy. But we must treat survey
data on the existence of such strategy with caution.
TTie same arguments hold true for another indirect source of evidence, the
growth in the use of mission statements. We know that these are more
common and that many contain some reference to management of
employees. But they are usually statements of good intent rather than
154 British Journal of Industrial Relations
practice, evidence again that those at senior levels in organisations are
paying more lip service to the importance of their human resources.
Furthermore, they would seem to have only a minor role at best in the
management of organisational culture (Schein 1985).
The lack of good evidence implies the need for more detailed case-study
research on the development of strategy and more particularly HRM
strategy, and on the roles and values of the key actors in strategy
development and implementation. We do have limited case material
(Hendry and Pettigrew 1990) which reveals that some organisations are
adopting a more sophisticated approach. In the absence of stronger
evidence, we must assume that they are the exception rather than the rule.

Are organisations pursuing HRM goats?

Much of the relevant research is survey-based. However, we can use it to
look at the central HRM goals of commitment, flexibility, quality and
strategic integration.

(a) Commitment
Despite some claims that it is the key to HRM, there has been very little UK
research examining the antecedents and consequences of commitment. This
is important, because there has been considerable encouragement from the
Conservative government and from employers' organisations for policies of
employee involvement. Typically, these assume that employee invoivement
will lead to greater organisational commitment, which in turn will lead to
enhanced motivation and performance.
A review of the mainly North American literature, reinforced by the
limited UK research that is available, is fairly clear (Guest 1991b). High
organisational commitment is associated with lower labour turnover and
absence, but there is no clear link to performance. Even with respect to
labour turnover, the more careful studies indicate that commitment is a
statistically significant but not a major source of variance and that the much
maligned concept of job satisfaction is probably at least as important if not
more so (e.g. Price and Mueller 1986). Nor is the research encouraging for
those advocating employee involvement. While appropriate job design can
enhance organisational commitment, the main influences seem to operate at
the time of recruitment and selection and through the process of met
expectations rather than through management policy initiatives designed to
influence established employees.
Surveys have reported an increase in the use of employee involvement
techniques during the 1980s (e.g. Millward and Stevens 1986; Batstone
1984). However, they also reveal no clear hnk between use of involvement
techniques and improved performance (Edwards 1987; Marginson et al.
1988). There are a number of possible explanations for the absence of any
clear link between employee involvement and performance. One is that the
implicit assumptions about the importance of the key intervening role of
 Personnel Management: The End of Orthodoxy? 155
organisational commitment are wrong, a view that gains support from the
research specifically on commitment, A second, which is strongly supported
by the survey data, is that employee involvement is typically approached in a
piecemeal way, mainly through some attempt to improve communications
or through share ownership. A third possibility is that attempts to enhance
organisational commitment ignore the strength of competing commitments.
This has stimulated research into dual commitment to company and trade
union.
The available evidence suggests that dual commitment is possible but that
it depends on the industrial relations climate (Angle and Perry 1986), Where
there is what Walton and McKersie (1965) termed a climate of integrative
bargaining reflected in a predominantly co-operative stance from both sides,
then dual commitment is more likely to flourish. One reason for this is that
employees are rarely confronted with the need to make a choice about
whether they owe their primary allegiance to their employer or their trade
union. In a more distributive environment of the type associated with the
traditional form of personnel management and built around compliance,
workers are forced to make a choice and dual commitment is less likely. One
recent British study has indicated that the outcome may be to display
commitment to neither company nor union (Guest and Dewe 1991). Indeed,
the typical response seemed to be — a plague on both your houses.
Organisational commitment is a complex and important topic. On its own
it appears to bring few gains to an organisation. Its value must therefore lie
in the part it can play in an integrated HRM strategy. More specifically, if an
organisation has invested in a high-quality,flexiblework-force, then it will
pay to retain that work-force; and commitment can help to ensure this.

(b) Flexibility
The debates between those who advocateflexibilityas a strategy for more
effective manpower utilisation (Atkinson and Meager 1986) and critics of
the concepts and the strategy (e.g. Pollert 1988) are by now well known.
Survey research is also beginning to present a consistent picture. Marginson
(1989), utilising the material from the Warwick 'Beyond the Workplace'
study, reports that any change inflexibilitypractices is opportunistic rather
than strategic. Furthermore, although corporate policy might advocate
flexibility, this was often divorced from establishment practice. The result
was far more continuity than change in this aspect of manpower policy.
Hakim (1987), on the basis of an extensive Department of Employment
survey, reports similar findings; only a very small proportion of organisa-
tions even claimed to have a strategy on flexibility.
Marsden and Thompson (1990) examined the content and consequences
of flexibility agreements. They argue that where they have actually been
implemented these agreements have indirectly contributed to productivity
gains, partly by initiating a sequence of changes. However, many agree-
ments have not been fully implemented, raising a question about whether
156 British Journal of Industrial Relations
this is due more to management inertia or to trade union and worker
resistance.
Among those who have introduced forms offlexibleworking, the benefits
have not always met expectations. Edwards and Whitston (1989) have
drawn attention to the problems for production posed by tighter staffing
based on flexible working when absentee levels are high and there is no slack
to provide cover. A CBI (1989) survey of subcontracting, while revealing
that it was very extensively and increasingly used, also identifies significant
disadvantages: 50 pier cent cited lack of control and 35.5 per cent cited high
costs as disadvantages. Taking the service sector alone, 43 per cent saw high
costs as a disadvantage compared with only 27 per cent who cited low costs as
an advantage.
Perhaps the key aspect of flexibility for the more optimistic variants of
HRM, which focus on full utilisation of human resources, is the functional
flexibility gained through job redesign and team working. There is anecdotal
evidence of the benefits of this approach, but the one careful UK study,
using longitudinal data and a control group, revealed no direct productivity
gains from job redesign. On the other hand, there may have been some
indirect efficiency gains and the workers displayed increased job satisfaction
(Wall ef a/. 1986).
As with commitment, the research on flexibility reveals that, despite its
proclaimed potential, there is little evidence that companies have embraced
it with any enthusiasm and only a few even claim to have thought about it
strategically. Furthermore, those who have sought to introduce some form
of flexibility have only occasionally made the gains for which they might
have hoped.

(c) Quality
In the context of HRM, quality refers not only to quality of goods and
services but more particularly to the quality of the work-force and of the
management of the work-force. Concern for the quality of the work-force
has focused attention on training and development. The lamentable training
record of British industry a well documented and, perhaps in partial
recognition of this, management development has emerged in recent
surveys (Deloitte, Haskins and Sells 1989; Brewster and Smith 1990) as the
top priority for improvement in the broad HRM field. However, Keep
(1989) has examined the evidence and concluded that, with a number of
publicised exceptions, there has been no major new investment by
companies in training and development in the aftermath of the Handy
Report (Handy 1987).
There has been considerable interest in quality circles. However, as
Sisson (1989: 33) notes, even if thefiguresof the quality drcle enthusiasts,
who claim that 500 companies have introduced them, are correct, that
should be set against the 11,000 establishments in manufacturing industry
alone. More importantly, the predominantly American evidence from
surveys of those companies that have used them is not altogether encourag-
 Personnel Management: The End of Orthodoxy? 157
ing (Griffin 1988; Ledford et al. 1988). Although short-term gains are
sometimes realised, the typical life expectancy of a quality circle is short and
few survive more than three years; many collapse much sooner. However,
we know much more about the conditions necessary for quality circles to
succeed. These include middle management support and ownership, high
levels of trust, and an educated worWorce that can understand basic
statistical control information. Once again, most of the evidence is
American, but the limited independent UK evidence suggests that the
conditions necessary for success are even less likely to be met in the UK, and
the most careful comparative study (Bradley and Hill 1987) bears this out.
Recently the emphasis has shifted towards 'total quality naanagement'.
This is typically market- or production-driven, and HRM concerns are some
way down the line. The exceptions are to be found in some foreign-owned
multinationals, of which Rank Xerox is one of the best known (Giles 1989).
In summary, there is evidence of interest in HRM goals and of the more
extensive use of the techniques associated with them. However, these
techniques have often been adopted in a rather piecemeal fashion. Despite
the claims of their enthusiastic advocates, the more careful surveys indicate
that we must be careful not to overstate the extent of their use. Furthermore,
although the research on the effectiveness of these techniques is still limited,
particularly in the UK, there is little evidence that on their own these
initiatives have any sustained impact. This raises a question about the type of
evidence we require before sceptics are convinced that HRM initiatives are
achieving their intended goals. It also raises again the question of why an
approach with such a poor track record attracts so much attention,
particularly when the American evidence, if viewed dispassionately, seems
to point in the same negative direction (Lawler 1986; Staw 1986). The
response consistently provided by advocates of HRM is to point to the
importance of what can be termed 'strategic integration'. Lawler (1986)
refers to this as 'total involvement management'. Others typically refer to
the impmrtance of changing culture, starting at the top of the organisation
(Schein 1985; Peters and Austin 1985). It seems to imply the need to
integrate HRM and business strategy, to integrate HRM policies and
to integrate HRM values into the day-to-day practices of all managers.

(d) Strategic integration

Much has been written about the need to find a fit between HRM and
business strategy. Typically, HRM has been seen as downstream from
business strategy, so the issue is how to fit HRM to the business strategy.
Schuler (Schuler and Jackson 1987; Schuler 1989) has used the Porter
typology (Porter 1985) to analyse the choices. Those seeking advantage
through innovation-driven strategies are more likely to need a sophisticated
HRM policy making full use of human resources. In contrast, a cost-!ed
strategy is Hkely to call for efficient rather than full use of human resources.
Quality-driven strategies are less clear-cut but will typically imply fuU
utilisation of human resources. Miles and Snow (1984) have written in
158 British Jourruil of Industrial Relations
somewhat similar vein. Using their own typology, they suggest that HRM
strategies should vary according to whether the company is a prospector, a
defender or an analyser.
Hendry and Pettigrew (1990) have suggested that the link between
business strategy and HRM has now progressed from an analytic and often
prescriptive debate to an empirical question. Evidence is beginning to
emerge. Goold £ind Campbell (1987), while saying little explicitly about
HRM, have identified different strategic approaches among leading British
firms and hinted strongly at their different implications for personnel
jJoHcy. Hill and Pickering (1986) have identified a cotisiderable level of
decentralisation in multi-divisional or M-form organisations, raising doubts
about the feasibility of a centrally driven, coherent HRM strategy. Miller
(1987) among others has noted that the companies most frequently cited as
HRM practitioners are typically single-product businesses in which it is
feasible and sensible to operate a fairly centrally driven, coherent and
consistent set of HRM policies. Purcell and Gray (1986) have confirmed
the evidence on the decentralisation of a range of personnel policies in M-
form companies. However, the wider-ranging survey by Marginson et al.
(1988) reveals a more complex pattern with some variation across indust-
rial sectors.
Hendry and Pettigrew (1990) in a series of publications have presented
cases which demonstrate the importance of studying the emerging process
of strategy formulation and implementation. They show that this is a
complex interactive process, heavily infiuenced by a variety of contextual
Euid historical factors. As a result, there is no straightforward flow from
business strategy to HRM.
This body of research and writing has made an important contribution by
helping to integrate and focus HRM policy, by indicating scopie for
diversity of HRM policy according to business criteria, and by making
HRM more relevant and accessible to a wider range of managers. For
some it serves as a useful corrective to the view that HRM is inevitably a
'soft' theory Y type of approach (Storey 1987). But for those who seek to
link HRM to the quality of working life by arguing that it represents an
opportunity to build a better work environment based on a knowledge of
workers' values and potentials (e.g. Walton 1985), this is a less welcome
development. From either perspective, the central unresolved issue is the
problem of'fit'.
At one level, the problem of fit concerns the question of. Fit to what?
What should be the initial building block around which HRM policy and
practice is constructed? Should it be business strategy? Should it be a set of
values about the quality of working life? Should the stock of human
resources shape business strategy? Are there, as Legge (1989) implies,
inevitable conflicts between the different types of fit? At another level, the
questions concern the nature of fit. How do we identify and measure fit?
This question has not yet been satisfactorily answered by Mintzberg (1983)
and other leading advocates of consistency theory. Hendry and Pettigrew
 Personnel Management: The End of Orthodoxy? 159
(1990) seek to evade it by referring instead to 'coherence and appropriate-
ness'.
Another problem is how to integrate the various HRM policies. This is
more central to the traditional interests of personnel and industrial relations
specialists, but there has been little research on how the various elements of
personnel policy fit together and help or hinder each other, although the
case studies reported by Pettigrew and his colleagues are beginning to shed
some light on this, more particularly with respect to training policy
(Pettigrew e/fl/. 1989).
Discussion of strategy implies the presence of choice; and choices exist
concerning the nature of the strategic goal, around the processes for
managing shifts in HRM policy and practice, and in the types of technique to
implement HRM on a day-to-day basis. These decisions may be based on
rational analysis, but more often (Hendry and Pettigrew 1990) political
considerations and the values and beliefs of those making the choices will be
critical. It follows that we need to understand more about the values in
relation to the human resources of those making the choices. One of the
motives behind the developments in the USA towards teaching HRM on
MB As is to shape the values of senior managers to ensure that they
recognise the potential contribution of human resources. By implication,
HRM is too important to be left to personnel managers. But is this being
unfair to personnel managers, the traditional guardians and promoters of
HRM values and policies? One of the features of the 1980s, alongside a
recognition of the need to develop HRM strategy, was the refinement of a
range of operational techniques to facilitate the acquisition, development
and utilisation of human resources and to demonstrate the pay-off from
these policies. These techniques include goal-setting, behaviour modifica-
tion, realistic job previews and utility analysis. Given the growing interest in
HRM and in these techniques, have personnel managers seized the
opportunity to operate more strategically, to promote HRM values and to
introduce the range of available 'best practice' techniques?

3. Personnel managers as innovators

'Deviant' innovation
In her important analysis of personnel management, Legge (1978) advo-
cated as one possible way of increasing their power and influence that
pesonnel managers become 'deviant innovators'. According to Legge, the
deviant innovator 'attempts to change this means/ends relationship by
gaining acceptance for a different set of criteria for the evaluation of
organisational success and his contribution to it' (p. 85).
What this implies in practice is that the innovator should promote
important new values in the organisation. She was rightly pessimistic about
the likely success of this strategy. However, the impression of the 1980s has
160 British Journal of Industrial Relations
been one of very considerable innovation in pereonnel management, and if
HRM has become the new orthodoxy and has been accepted as such by line
managers, then perhaps personnel managers have become deviant innova-
tors after all.
This possibility should be enhanced by the greater weight attached to
innovation, including innovation in HRM, by researchers and practitioners
alike as they recognise the importance for business success of a capacity for
swift response and reduced product lead times. The work of Kanter (1984;
1989) has addressed the question of innovation and change in large
organisations. Importantly for personnel managers, she shows that those in
the middle of large organisations can be innovators. Furthermore, although
her data are very weak, she tries to show that HRM innovations matter. In
The Change Masters, she defines progressive companies partly on the basis
of their reputations as innovators in HRM and claims that 'progressive
companies have been more profitable and faster growing over 20 years than
their matches (non-progressives) on each of three measures of profit and two
of growth — even in fast growing industries' (Kanter 1984: 375). A more
recent British replication of this study by Deloitte, Haskins and Sells (1987)
claimed similar results.
The typie of change required for Legge's version of deviant innovation
implies some form of organisation culture change. Wiliams et al. (1989) have
examined the personnel role in culture change and find that piersonnel
managers rarely if ever initiate significant change of this sort but they can
have an important role in helping to implement it, especially since
implementation techniques typically include training and communications.
Pettigrew (1985) has provided a detailed case study of attempts over a
number of years in ICI to change values through organisational develop-
ment. This programme was initiated and driven largely by personnel
sp>ecialists but it met with limited success. Indeed, instances of personnel
managers acting as 'deviant' innovators are very rare, and those who do so
often appear to be organisational misfits who find it extremely difficult to
survive in conventional personnel roles. The most typical exceptions are
seniorfiguresbrought in to personnel directorships who have an opportunity
while they are new to the job to make a mark in much the same way as a new
managing director.

'Conformist' innovation
Given the case for multi-function senior-level input to business strategy, and
the hope, however optimistic, that other senior managers are becoming
more concerned with human resource issues, it may be unrealistic to expect
a distinctive 'deviant' innovation from personnel managers. However, with
the range of new techniques available, it is certainly reasonable to expect a
considerable amount of what Legge terms 'conformist innovation'. She
defines conformist innovation as what occurs when the personnel manager
focuses on 'acquiring expertise that will enable him to demonstrate a closer
 Personnel Management: The End of Orthodoxy? 161
relationship between his activities and organisational success criteria'
(p. 79). In the present context, this should imply greater use of those
personnel techniques that have a potential organisational pay-off. Argu-
ably, many techniques fall within this category, including many of those
described in the earlier sections on commitment, flexibility and quality.
Innovation in other areas of personnel work is described in Sisson (1989) and
Armstrong (1989), and only a few illustrations will be provided here.
In the field oi selection, advances in the application of utility analysis (e.g.
Schmidt and Hunter 1983) show the financial pay-offs of using the more
valid selection techniques. A 1988 survey of 73 large companies in the UK
(Shackleton and Newell 1991), replicating a 1984 survey by Robertson and
Makin (1986), reveals some growth in the use of the more valid techniques,
and more especially cognitive tests to select managers. However, biodata,
performance tests and assessment centres are still very infrequently used.
From time to time publicity is given to companies such as Nissan and Ford,
which have begun to use tests to select key categories of employee for a
range of job grades. But these examples remain very much the exception.
The picture with respect to training and development has received much
more pubhcity and is even gloomier. The low general level of skill in the UK
has been widely acknowledged, and a series of research reports from the
NIESR have drawn attention to the increasingly unfavourable comparisons
with our European partners. For example, their comparison of kitchen
equipment manufacturers in Britain and West Germany showed that UK
problems were caused primarily by skill shortages and deficiencies, lack of
educated recruits and poor production management (Steedman and Wagner
1987). By implication, there are pay-offs from investment in training. In
management development the problems are even more familiar. The
summary of the findings of the Handy report noted:
There can be little doubt that, by comparison with the other countries in this
study, Britain has neglected her managerial stock . . . companies have given
[managers] too little in terms of education, training and development . . . in crude
statistical terms we should probably need to be doing nearly 10 times as much as
we are now as a nation. (Handy 1987, p. 13)
Although Brewster and Smith (1990) report claims of increased investment
in training and development among British organisations in the late 1980s,
Keep (1989) is more sceptical and believes that much of the serious
innovation is confined to a few well publicised cases. The surveys of both
Mangham and Silver (1986) and Brewster and Smith show that most
personnel managers do not carefully cost or evaluate their training cuid
development activities.
Daniel's (1987) survey of Workplace Industrial Relations and Technical
Change, linked to WIRS 2, paints a similar picture with respect to the
introduction of new technology. As he notes, 'a very modest picture emerged
of the part played by personnel managers' (p. 108). Personnel departments
were involved at some point in 46 per cent of changes involving new
162 British Journal of Industrial Relations
technology and in only 13 per cent of conventional technical changes. In
each case their role was invariably one of implementation rather than
participation in the decision itself. As Daniel concludes, 'technical change is
still largely seen as a technical matter within which there is no estabhshed
role or function for personnel management' (p, 110). This is not inevitable,
and Daniel found a much higher level of personnel involvement in foreign-
owned plants. Furthermore, personnel specialists can make an important
contribution, since Daniel found that, 'where personnel managers were
involved, and especially where they were involved at an early stage, the
reactions of workers to advanced technological change in manufacturing
industry was much more favourable' (p. 110). Again, therefore, there
appear to be pay-offs from personnel specialists' involvement in innovation.
TTie story is repeated in the case of manpower planning. The Institute of
Personnel Management's own report on Planning for the Skills Crisis
indicates that, despite widespread publicity about the fall in numbers
coming on to the labour market, 'there are few signs that organisations have
grasped the real human resource implications facing them during the next
decade and beyond. This is a cause for concern and also, perhaps, an
indictment of the personnel profession' (Darling and Lockwood 1988: 2).
The pattern can be repeated across the range of personnel activities, from
involvement in the human side of acquisition (Hunt and Lees 1987) to
employee involvement and participation and job design (Guest and Knight
1979). Perhaps the key area is personnel/HRM strategy. Hickson et al.
(1986) and Hegarty and Hoffman (1987) have concluded that personnel
managers lack influence over any key strategic decisions, and Marginson et
al. (1988:120) conclude that 'There is little or no evidence to suggest that the
overall policy or approach which most of our respondents profess to have
makes any real difference to their organisation's policies or practices,'
All this evidence suggests that personnel managers are failing as either
deviant or conformist innovators. They may help to implement changes, but
they seldom initiate them or even play a significant part in shaping them.
This is unfortunate, because the picture appears to be rather different in a
number of foreign-owned and apparently successful firms with a reputation
for their personnel/HRM policies and in a number of predominantly
foreign-owned greenfield sites (Guest 1989). In these, as in a few British-
owned multinationals the personnel department has a higher profile and
greater credibility. Furthermore, where they do play a part, as Daniel in
particular indicates, personnel managers can make a useful contribution.
We can speculate on the reasons for this lack of involvement in
innovation. Before we look for reasons in British culture, it is worth noting
that Jain and Murray (1984) paint a similarly depressing picture for North
America. Furthermore, Freedman (1985), in one of the more comprehen-
sive USA surveys, has reported that personnel innovations are more likely
to come from line managers and that this is sometimes associated with a
decline in the traditional personnel management roles.
Returning to the question of the transformation of industrial relations and
 Personnel Management: The End of Orthodoxy? 163
the part played by personnel tnanagers, it appears that, despite extensive
publicity for change in some organisations and for attempts in many to
introduce changes, the overall picture is more one of continuity than of
change. The amount of change towards any sort of coherent HRM has been
extensively 'talked up' in both the UK and the USA. Legge's (1988)
conclusion for the personnel function of 'business as before' may well be
valid. But it would appear to be bad or at best mediocre business.
The research data present a depressing picture of the amount of
innovation in personnel policy and the limited role of personnel specialists as
innovators. This may be based on a narrow and unrealistic view of the
personnel management role, and it certainly raises the question of whether
this lack of effectiveness is perceived by people in organisations. This in turn
raises a subsidiary but important research question about how we determine
personnel management effectiveness. This question is explored in the next
section.

4. The effectiveness of personnel managers

The search for criteria for judging personnel management effectiveness has
so far proved elusive. Indeed, it reflects a more general problem. We have
ways of looking at effectiveness at the organisational and individual levels,
but we have tended to neglect the departmental or functional level. It should
be possible to borrow from models of organisational effectiveness (e.g.
Cameron and Whetton 1983). For example, resource allocation models,
which might judge effectiveness in terms of size of budget allocation, or
population ecology models, which would determine effectiveness through
indicators of responsiveness to change and environmental uncertainty,
could be adopted. However, the most widely applied criteria in British
industry, judged by our London School of Economics (LSE) research and
confirmed in the Cranfield/Price Waterhouse survey, are goal models and
political models. The pattem in the USA appears to be similar, with
research focusing in particular on political models (Tsui 1987) but also on
development offinancialcost-benefit criteria (Cascio 1982).
In practice, the goal and political models are interrelated. The goal model
will judge effectiveness by achievement of performance targets, probably
against a specified budget. The political model comes into play in judging
whether the target remained legitimate over a period of time, a problem of
all objective-based models. More importantly, because most personnel
management activities depend on the contribution of both personnel
managers and line managere, there is room for interpretation about who
claims the credit or takes the blame. Given the ambiguities about allocation
of function between personnel specialist and line manager, as well as
ambiguities that often arise in judging outcomes concerned with human
behaviour, the political model is likely to be especially important in judging
the effectiveness of personnel managers. Within this political model.
164 British Journal of Industrial Relations
measures of influence will be particularly important, since the nature of their
role requires personnel managers to get things done by influencing others.
Legge (1988) has summarised the relevant literature. One indirect
indicator of influence is the number and status of personnel managers in
industry. Legge's review shows no significant change during the 1980s in the
number of organisations where personnel managers are to be found and no
significant change in their representation at board level. This reinforces her
case that the 198Cls, far from being a time of major change, have been
'business as before'.
As Legge reports, there are difficulties in drawing conclusions from
studies that ask slightly different questions about the infiuence or power of
personnel managers or the personnel function. She concludes that the
studies reveal a perception of increasing influence, particularly (although
not only) as reported by personnel managers themselves. However, when
more specific questions are asked about influence over particular topics,
there appears to have been a greater growth in influence of line managers
over topics such as redundancy, while at the same time personnel managers
and personnel concerns do not weigh heavily in financial and planning
decisions. Nevertheless, there has been some overall increase in the weight
given to personnel concerns in decisions, as judged by line managers
(Edwards 1987). Finally, several of the surveys confirm that there has been
some devolvement of personnel responsibilities from personnel to line
managers (e.g. Mackay and Torrington 1986).
Legge's review covers the survey data. At the same time there is a dearth
of more detailed organisation-level data that address the question of
personnel management effectiveness. Some of the research at the LSE has
explored this type of evaluation of effectiveness in a number of organisations
(Guest 1991a). It did so by conducting surveys of pierceptions of the
influence and effectiveness of personnel management among iine managers
and personnel managers. Four points are worth highlighting. First, person-
nel and line managers choose a wide range of criteria on which to judge
personnel management effectiveness. Second, a consistent set of topics are
rated more and less effective and there is a reasonable consensus in this
respect between line and personnel managers. More specifically, effective-
ness is considered to be highest in the predominantly administrative areas of
people-processing and in the high-profile areas of industrial relations and
employment legislation. In contrast, it is the more proactive areas and those
that can be accomplished only through other people that are rated least
effective; employee motivation and involvement are the dearest examples
of this. They are also rated the priority areas for improvement. Third, both
hne managers and personnel managers accept that personnel managers have
relatively limited influence and should have more. Finally, line managers'
ratings of personnel management effectiveness are consistently lower than
the ratings given by personnel managers themselves. Indeed, thisfinalpoint
can be taken a step further. In one study we asked whether problems in
achieving effectiveness were common to any service function or specific to
 Personnel Management: The End of Orthodoxy? 165
personnel management. Personnel managers thought it was common to all
service functions; line managers thought the problem was particularly
severe among personnel people.
There is a puzzle in the pattem of research on the importance and
influence of personnel management. Surveys conducted over a number of
years in both the UK and the USA (Guest 1990) report that it is perceived to
be growing in importance and influence. Yet surveys also consistently reveal
concern about the lack of influence and report a widely shared view that
personnel management should have greater influence. Logically, if the
trends of perceived increases in influence were real, personnel managers
should by now be running most organisations and personnel issues should
dominate management thinking. There is something wrong with our
research.
How are we to explain these contradictions? Part of the answer can be
found in the distinction between the personnel function and personnel
issues. It seems likely that a wider range of personnel issues have been
recognised as important by more managers in recent years. Second, if the
image of personnel management is poor yet current performance is seldom
as bad as the image, the present rating is invariably seen as better than the
image which is associated with the past. The result is perceptions of
increasing influence. Finally, survey results may reflect good intentions and
a recognition that personnel management should be becoming more
influential; yet the good intentions are rarely of sufficient importance to be
translated into action.
One of the consistent outcomes of research on personnel management
effectiveness is that personnel managers are less effective than they should
be. Set alongside the growing evidence that some personnel management
activities are being given back to line managers, this serves to feed the
sometimes introspective neurosis of the personnel function about its
influence (fuelled no doubt by reviews of this sort!). It raises the important
research question of whether there really is a problem of personnel
management or whether this is afigmentof academic imaginations.

5. Is there really a problem of personnel management?

The case for a problem

A growing number of organisations have produced mission statements.
Invariably, such statements include a section which asserts that 'people are
our most important asset'. Yet these same organisations rarely behave as if
they mean it. In other words, a central dimension of the 'problem' is the
continuing undervaluation of human resources, reflected in all the evidence
cited earlier but perhaps most blatantly in attitudes towards training.
166 British Journal of Iruiustrial Relations
The second dimension of the 'problem' is the persistent undervaluing of
personnel departments and personnel specialists. As noted above, they have
less influence than many people believe they should. Although these may
appear to be two separate issues, they are clearly interdependent if
personnel specialists have responsibility for promoting personnel issues.
The implication is that they are failing. American writers have neatly
identified the dilemma. On the one hand, the growing recognition of the
importance of human resource management and of the theory Y type values
associated with it in the USA led to a Fortune article proclaiming that
'Personnel Directors are the New Corporate Heroes' (Meyer 1976). On the
other hand. Skinner (1981), as part of the Harvard case that human resource
management is much too important to be left to personnel managers,
described their record in terms of 'Big Hat, No Cattle', a reference to their
promises over the years of new solutions which had consistently failed to
come up to expectations.

The case against a problem

If organisational success is defined in terms of financial performance and
determined by financial, product and market strategies, then personnel/
HRM is appropriately downstream. Personnel issues are not the key to
success, and in the 1980s British industry has done well by recognising this.
The role of personnel departments is therefore to provide a service to line
managers, who must implement personnel in practice. Personnel managers
can and perhaps increasingly do act as effective problem-solvers and fire-
fighters. They administer existing personnel systems reasonably efficiently
and help to implement new systems when encouraged by other senior
managers to do so.
One of the key areas in which British manufacturing industry claims to
have been particularly successful in the 1980s is in raising productivity.
Traditionally, this should also be a central concern of personnel and
industrial relations managers. Yet the evidence (Metcalf 1989; Nolan 1989;
Muellbauer 1986) suggests that the part played by personnel issues is
relatively slight. The role of trade unions remains controversial, but there is
consensus that govemment policy and in particular high unemployment
facilitated change. Industrial relations played a part on the fringe, for
example throughflexibilityagreements (Marsden and Thompson 1990), but
personnel management was largely, and some would say appropriately,
marginalised. From this perspective there is no problem, except for those
who claim that personnel should have a larger role.

Explanations of the problem

This stereotyped contrast draws attention to the lack of evidence of the sort
that will appeal to the sceptics that personnel/HRM issues make the
difference, and provide the key to competitive advantage. Those of us
 Personnel Management: The End of Orthodoxy? 167
teaching and researching in thefieldtend to take its importance for granted,
although for reasons that might not appeal in industry. The studies of
'excellence' and innovation, which could be used as evidence of the
importance of fully utilising human resources, could equally well be
interpreted as making the case for the critical role of leadership. In other
words, one dimension of the problem — if indeed it is a problem — and one
explanation for it is the lack of convincing evidence that HRM makes the
difference.
This explanation needs to be complemented by another familiar analysis
built around the problem of British culture. The conventional argument is
that personnel management in Britain has an uphill struggle because the
predominant values in industry are particularly unsympathetic. Therefore,
while in some American companies the 'excellence' studies might be readily
interpreted as making the case for HRM because of the already sympathetic
values, the prevailing values in British industry are likely to favour a
different interpretation. Given the inevitable ambiguity of much of the
research, this problem will persist. Indeed, one of the research challenges is
to identify the sort of evidence that would convince the sceptics.
The cultural explanation can be taken a step further and linked to the
more general critique of British attitudes to industry and management
(Weiner 1981; Barnett 1986). Thurley (1981), for example, has suggested
that personnel managers have always had to fight against a business culture
that was unsympathetic. If we follow the logic of this, then in many
organisations personnel management grew, particularly in the 1960s, as a
response to organisational problems, such as labour shortages and the need
to cope with legislation and plant-level union militancy, rather than out of
any belief in personnel management and its values. It also grew as a
reflection of the growing complexity of organisational life. The question
then is. What hapf>ens to personnel management when and if the problems
disappear? One solution is tofindmore problems and to become indispens-
able as problem-solvers. This would help to explain why many personnel
specialists have not been good innovators: they are less familiar with the
more proactive, positive role. Nevertheless, there are dangers in pursuing
the cultural explanation too far, Ritzer and Trice (1969) found similar
problems for personnel management in America, and it appears that these
problems largely persist (Guest 1990).
Altemative explanations are to be found in an analysis of the personnel
role. Research reveals that personnel roles can be very complex (Guest and
Horwood 1980; Torrington 1989) and Torrington has likened personnel
managers to general practitioners. The problem with this analogy is that it
can quickly degenerate into 'Jack of all trades'. Legge (1978) has identified a
vidous circle whereby the focus on problem-solving and fire-fighting
precludes problem prevention — perhaps reinforcing the analogy to the UK
general practitioner. Guest and Horwood adjust the vicious circle to one in
which personnel managers enjoy and seek out unpredictability and variety,
for example through an open-door policy, and as a result fail to engage in
168 British Journal of Industrial Relations
planned, proactive activities. In short, any vidous circle may well be partly
of personnel managers' own devising.
Another aspect of the role analysis concerns the pivotal part played by
personnel management in organisational bureaucracies. Personnel depart-
ments typically operate a complex system of controls, justified in part by
legislative requirements, in part by the need for manpower control systems
at the centre. This is likely to encourage a focus on administrative efficiency
and a concern for disturbance minimisation and associated problem-solving.
It implies little capacity for or interest in innovation, except possibly in
systems improvements. This bureaucratic, administrative and sometimes
policing role helps to explain why one image of piersonnel management
among some line managers is of a 'bureaucratic nuisance'. Furthermore, in
so far as organisations always have a 'problem' of bureaucracy, they have an
associated problem of personnel management, and personnel managers get
the blame for the failings of the bureaucracy. Finally, this analysis implies
that, as attempts are made to break up bureaucracy, the traditional role of
personnel management is seriously threatened.
A further role-related interpretation of the problem of personnel
management, and one already referred to, concerns the ambiguity in the
role. It was noted that, since personnel managers get things done by
influencing others, there are ambiguities concerning where to draw the line
about who should undertake certain activities, about who draws the line,
and about who claims credit or takes the blame for successes and failures.
We know from attribution theory (see e.g. Hewstone 1989) that there is
some tendency to internalise successes and externalise failures, more
particularly in ambiguous situations. It is possible that personnel managers
are falling victim to this type of attribution and taking the blame when things
go wrong but missing out on the credit, thereby damaging their image and
their future resource allocation.
A rather different explanation of the 'problem' of personnel manage-
ment, which emerges from UK and US research (Tyson 1985), uses
individual-level explanations. Tyson suggests that British personnel man-
agers are typically risk-averse. Furthermore, they will not be 'deviant'
innovators because they lack a belief in any professional base. Although
they may belong to the Institute of Personnel Management, they do so
largely for instrumental reasons. Indeed, Tyson's image is that of cham-
eleons, blending into whatever organisational environment they find. They
will do as they are told if itfitsthe organisation's requirements. Again, this
helps to explain the limited capacity for innovation.
Each of these explanations of the so-called 'problem' of personnel
management is plausible, and they are by no means mutually exclusive.
Each also attracts some empirical support. Yet we lack a sufficiently strong
empirical base with which to test these competing explanations, and more
research is clearly required. The analysis of personnel management
presented by Legge (1978), on the basis of evidence from the 1970s, seems
largely valid today despite the growth of HRM. Nevertheless, it is important
 Personnel Management: The End of Orthodoxy? 169
to bear in mind that there are exceptions to this general picture: they are to
be found mainly in the foreign-ownedfirmsand some major UK multination-
als towards which many of the best personnel spiecialists seem to gravitate.
For the present, these various explanations help us to understand why there
is only limited personnel management-driven innovation. Chameleon-like,
personnel managers will innovate if others decide that innovations are
required. But unless the values of other managers change, this analysis
throws serious doubts upon the feasibility of effectively introducing and
sustaining the new orthodoxy of HRM in British organisations.

6. Conclusions: the end of orthodoxy?

This review started by arguing the case for a new orthodoxy, built around
HRM. I wish to conclude by questioning the sustainability of this orthodoxy
and by questioning too the survival of the professional model of personnel
management.
As noted at the outset, the concept of an orthodoxy to guide research and
practice serves mainly as a useful template. Such orthodoxies are always
under pressure from competing theory (Keenoy 1991) and from practice
where, as Sisson (1989) notes, 'diversity and pragmatism' is the norm.
Challenges to the new orthodoxy comefirstfrom within its own theoretical
limitations. Problems remain in defining the nature of HRM to the extent
that it still risks meaning all things to all people. The link with business
strategy encourages concern for diversity of HRM policy and practice,
increasing the danger that the value base for the 'soft' full utilisation model,
which possibly provides the best hope for coherence, will be neglected.
Instead, it implies a new contingency theory which simply adumbrates the
view that there is no one best way of managing human resources.
Those wishing to challenge the 'orthodoxy' can also point to the growing
influence of Europe and of European rather than American values as the
basis for personnel policy (Thurley 1990; Thurley and Wirdenius 1989). The
move towards European integration could be construed as a move towards
stability; but recent experience points to an ever more turbulent, competi-
tive and unpredictable environment for organisations, further limiting the
case for one best way. In contrast, the case for a population ecology
approach, based onflexibilityand adaptability and therefore on a diversity
of models, gathers strength. Indeed, this seems to be the main contemporary
message of American management gurus such as Peters (1988), Waterman
(1988) and Kanter (1989).
A final and largely unresearched problem for HRM is the question of
sustainability. Miles and Rosenberg (1982) have drawn our attention to
what they term second-generation problems, and Walton (1982) has
described the ebb and flow of innovation at the Topeka plant of General
Foods. What happens to greenfield sites as they turn brown and the young
recruits grow older? Is there a danger that organisations like IBM, with a
170 British Journal of Industrial Relations
clear HRM philosophy, become trapped by that philosophy and unable to
respond with the speed and flexibility that the environment requires? Peters
has suggested that what organisations require is 'a constant stream of
Hawthorn effects' to sustain the excitement and sense of innovation. This
requires new challenges which personnel managers are not well prositioned
to respond to.
Any move towards organisational flexibility and a capacity for constant
innovation challenges bureaucracy and therefore challenges personnel
management. Already we can see that the response is one of increased
diversity away from an established professional base. This is reflected in the
Institute of Personnel Management's decision to alter its core professional
examinations to allow for more diversity and add-on specialisms. Less than
ever does it provide a core value and knowledge base for personnel practice.
AH this implies a more diverse set of personnel management roles.
Already large organisations like BP have reduced the headquarters role of
personnel management. There will be some administrative role required to
ensure top management succession and pay and to recruit and develop an
emerging elite. Similariy, at local level the traditional administrative and
reactive role will still be required. However, for innovations we must look
elsewhere. First, a key emerging trend is the growth of personnel specialists
as consultants. When innovations are required, it appears that organisations
increasingly turn to such consultants, who in practice may sometimes have
been the victims and failures of personnel management roles but more often
will have been those who found the restraints of personnel management in
organisations too irksome and prefer instead the freedom and flexibility of
consultancy. Second, we can look to line management. With the growth in
MBAs and related programmes, there is a major onus on those teaching in
business schools tofindways of communicating the importance of HRM and
industrial relations. It is the recognition of this need that persuaded those
interested in HRM and in the management of industrial relations in the USA
to concentrate their attention on the future management elite. The
preceding analysis suggests that this was a wise move. Those of us teaching
and training personnel and industrial relations managers to promote the
social sciences in industry may have been backing the wrong horse.

Acknowledgements
This article is based on the annual review paper presented to the British
Universities Industrial Relations Association Annual Conference, Warwick
University, July 1990.

References
Angle, H. L. and Perry, J, T. (1986), 'Dual commitment and labor-management
relationship climates'. Academy of Management Journal, 29:31-50.
 Personnel Management: The End of Orthodoxy? Ill
Armstrong, P. (1989). Limits and possibilities for HRM in an age of management
accountancy'. In J, Storey (ed.). New Perspectives on Human Resource Manage-
ment. London: Routledge.
Atkinson, J. and Meager, N. (1986). Changing Patterns of Work: How Companies
Introduce Flexibility to Meet Changing Needs. Falmer, Sussex: IMS.
Bamett, C. (1986). The Audit of War. London: Macmillan.
Bassett, P. (1986). Strike Free. London: Macmillan.
Batstone, E. (1984). Working Order. Oxford: Basil Blackweli.
Biadiey, K. and Hill, S. (1987). 'Quality circles and managerial interests'. Industrial
Relations, 26: 68-82.
Brewster, C. and Smith C. (1990). 'Corporate strategy: a no go area for personnel?'
Personnel Management, July: 36-40.
Cameron, K. S. and Whetten, D. A. (1983). Organisational Effectiveness: A
Comparison of Multiple Models. New York: Academic Press.
Cascio, W. (1982). Costing Human Resources. New York: van Nostrand Reinhold.
Confederation of British Industry (CBI) (1989). Subcontracting in British Business:
A CBI Survey. London: CBI.
Daniel, W. W. (1987). Workplace Industrial Relations and Technical Change.
London: Frances Pinter/PSl.
Darling, P. and Lockwood, P. (1988). Planning for the Skills Crisis. London:
Institute of Personnel Management.
Deloitte, Haskins and Sells (1987). Innovation: The Management Challenge for the
UK. London: Deloitte, Haskins and Selis.
(1989). Management Challenge for the 1990s. Sheffield: Training Agency.
Edwards, P. K. (1987). Managing the Factory. Oxford: Basil Blackweli.
and Whitston, C. (1989). The Control of Absenteeism: An Interim Report,
Warwick Papers in Industrial Relations no. 23. Coventry: IRRU.
Etzioni, A. (1%1). A Comparative Analysis of Complex Organisations. New York:
Free Press.
Foulkes, F. (1980). Personnel Policies in Large Non-Union Companies. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Freedman, A. (1985). Changes in Managing Employee Relations. New York: TTie
Conference Board.
Giles, E. (1989). 'Is Xerox's human resource management worth copying?' Paper
presented to British Academy of Management Annual Conference, Manchester,
September 1989.
Goold, M. and Campbell, A. (1987). Strategies and Styles: The Role of the Centre in
Managing Diversified Corporations. Oxford: Basil Blackweli.
Griffin, R. (1988). 'Consequences of quality circles in an industrial setting: a
longitudinal assessment'. Academy of Management Journal, 31: 338-58.
Guest, D. (1987). 'Human resource management and industrial relations'. Journal
of Management Studies, 24: 503-21.
(1989). 'Human resource management: its implications for industrial relations
and trade unions'. In J. Storey (ed.). New Perspectives on Human Resource
Management. London: Routledge.
(1990). 'Human resource management and the American Dream'. Journal of
Management Studies. 27: 377-97.
(1991a). 'Pearls before swine: thepoliticsof personnel policy evaluation'. Paper
presented to the Occupational Psychology Conference of the British Psychological
Society, Cardiff, January 1991.
172 British Journal of Industrial Relations
(1991b, in press). 'Employee commitment and control'. In J. Hartley and
G. Stephenson (eds). The Psychology of Employment Relations. Oxford: Basil
Biackwell.
and Dewe, P. (1991). 'Company or trade union: which wins workers'
allegiance? A study of commitment in the UK electronics industry'. British
Joumal of Industrial Relations, 29: 75-96.
and Horwood, R. (1980). The Role and Effectiveness of Personnel Managers:
A Preiiminary Report. London School of Economics, mimeo.
and Knight, K. (1979). Putting Partidpation into Practice. Farnborough:
Gower.
Hakim, C. (1987). 'Trends in the flexible workforce'. Employment Gazette,
95:549-60.
Handy, C. (1987). The Making of Managers. London: National Economic De-
velopment Office.
Hegarty, W. H. and Hofftnan R. G. (1987). 'Who influences strategic decisions?'
Long Range Planning, 20.
Hendry, C. and Pettigrew, A. (1986). 'The practice of strategic human resource
management'. Personnel Review, 15: 3-8.
(1990). 'Human resource management: an agenda for research'. International
Joumal of Human Resource Management, 1:17-43.
Hewstone, M. (1989). Causal Attribution. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Hickson, D. J., Butler, R. J., Cray, D., Mallory, G. R. and Wilson, D. G. (1986).
Top Decisions: Strategic Decision Making in Organisations. Oxford: Basil Black-
well.
Hill, C. W. L. and Pickering, J. F. (1986). 'Divisionalisation, decentralisation and
performance of large UK companies'. Joumal of Management Studies, 23: 26-50.
Hunt, J. and Lees, S. (1987). 'Hidden extras: how people get overlooked in
takeovers'. Personnel Management, 19: 24-8.
Jain, H. and Murray, V. (1984). 'Why the human resource management function
fails'. California Management Review, 26: 95-110.
Kanter, R. (1984). The Change Masters. London: Allen & Unwin.
(1989). When Giants Leam to Dance. London: Simon & Schuster.
Keenoy, T. (1990). 'HRM: A case of the wolf in sheep's clothing?' Personnel
Review, 19: 3-9.
(1991). 'The roots of metaphor in the old and new industrial relations'. British
Joumal of Industrial Relations, 29: 313-28.
Keep, E. (1989). 'Corporate training strategies: the vital component?' In J. Storey
(ed.). New Perspectives on Human Resource Management, London: Routledge.
Kelly, C. and Kelly, J. (1991). 'Them and us: a social-psychologicat analysis ofthe
new industrial relations'. British Jourruil of Industrial Relations,29:25-4S.
Kochan, T. A., Katz, H. and McKersie, R. B. (1986). The Transformation of
American Industrial Relations. New York: Basic Books.
Lawler, E. E. (1986). High Involvement Management. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Ledford, G. E., Lawler, E. E. andMohrmann, S. A. (1988). 'The quality circle and
its variations'. In J. P. Campbell and R. J. Campbell (eds). Productivity in
Organisations. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Legge, K. (1978). Power, Innovation and Problem Solving in Personnel Manage-
ment. New York: McGraw-Hill.
(1988). 'Personnel management in recession and recovery'. Personnel Review,
17:2-70.
 Personnel Management: The End of Orthodoxy? 173
(1989). 'Human resource management: a critical analysis'. In J. Storey (ed.).
New Perspectives on Human Resource Management. London: Routledge.
Maclnnes, J. (1987). Thatcherism at Work. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
Mackay, L. and Torrington, D. (1986). The Changing Nature of Personnel
Management. London: institute of Personnel Management.
Mangham, L L. and Silver M. S. (1986). Management Training: Context and
Practice. Bath: University Press forESRC/DTL
Marginson, P. (1989). 'Employment flexibility in large companies: change and
continuity'. Industrial Relations Journal, 20:101-9.
, Edwards, P. K., Martin, R., Purcell, J. and Sisson, K. (1988). Beyond the
Workplace: Managing Industrial Relations in the Multi-Establishment Enterprise.
Oxford: Basil BlackweU.
Marsden, D. and Thompson, M. (1990). 'Flexibility agreements and their signi-
ficance in the increase in productivity in British manufacturing since 1980'.
Work, Employment and Society, 4: 83-104.
McGregor, D. (1960). The Human Side of Enterprise. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Metcalf, D. (1989). 'Water notes dry up: the impact of the Donovan reform
proposals and Thatcherism at work on labour productivity in British manufactur-
ing industry'. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 27:1-28.
Meyer, H. (1976). 'Personnel directors are the new corporate heroes'. Fortune, 93:
84-8.
Miles, R. and Rosenburg, H. (1982). 'The human resources approach to manage-
ment: second generation issues'. Organisational Dynamics, WinteT: 26-41.
Miles, R. and Snow, C. (1984). 'Designing strategic human resource systems'.
Organisational Dynamics, Summer: 36-52.
Miller, P. (1987). 'Strategic industrial relations and human resource management:
distinction, definition and recognition'. Journal of Management Studies,
24: 347-2.
Millward, N. and Stevens, M. (1986). British Workplace Industrial Relations, 1980-
1984. Aldershot: Gower.
Mintzberg, H. (1983). Structure in Fives: Designing Effective Organisations.
Engiewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Halt.
Muellbauer, J. (1986). 'Productivity and competitiveness in British manufacturing'.
Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 2 (3): 1-25.
Nolan, P. (1989). 'Walking on water? Performance and industrial reiations under
Thatcher'. Industrial Relations Journal, 20: 81-92.
Peters, T. H. (1988). Thriving on Chaos. London: Macmiilan.
and Austin, N. (1985). A Passion for Excellence. Glasgow: Collins.
and Waterman, R. (1982). In Search of Excellence. New York: Harper and
Row.
Pettigrew, A. (1985). The Awakening Giant: Continuity and Change in ICI. Oxford:
Basil BlackweU.
, Hendry, C. and Sparrow, P. (1989). Training in Britain: Employers' Perspec-
tives on Human Resources. London: HMSO.
Poliert, A. (1988). 'The "flexible firm": fixation or fact?' Work, Employment and
Society, 2: 281-316.
Porter, M. E. (1985). Competitive Advantage. New York: Free Press.
Price, J. L. and Mueller, C. W. (1986). Absenteeism and Turnover Among Hospital
Employees. Greenwich Conn.: JAI Press.
Purcell, J. (1989). 'The impact of corporate strategy on human resource manage-
174 British Journal of Industrial Relations
ment'. In J. Storey (ed,). New Perspectives on Htunan Resource Management.
London: Routledge,
and Gray, A, (1986). 'Corporate personnel departments and the management
of industrial relations; two case studies in ambiguity'. Journal of Management
Studies, 24: 205-23.
Ritzer, G. and Trice, R, (t969). An Occupation in Conflict. A Study of the Personnel
Manager. New York: Humphrey Press,
Robertson, I. and Makin, P, (1986). 'Management selection in Britain: a survey and
critique'. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 59: 45-57.
Schein, E. (1985). Organisational Culture and Leadership. San Frandsco: Jossey
Bass,
Schmidt, F. L, and Hunter, J. F, (1983), 'Individual differences in productivity: an
empirical test of estimates derived from studies of selection procedure utility'.
Journal of Applied Psychology, 68: 407-416.
Schuler, R. S. (1989). 'Strategic human resource management and industrial
relations'. Hitman Relations, 42: 157-84,
and Jackson, S, E. (1987), 'Linking competitive strategies with human re-
source management practices'. Academy of Management Execittive, 1: 207-19.
Shackleton, V. and Newell, S. (1991). 'Management selection: a comparative survey
of methods used in top British and French companies'. Journal of Occupational
Psychology, 64; 23-36,
Sisson, K, (1989), 'Personnel management in transition'. In K, Sisson (ed.).
Personnel Management in Britain. Oxford: Basil BlackweU.
Skinner, W, (1981). 'Big hat, no cattle; managing human resources'. Harvard
Business Review, 59: 106-14,
Staw, B. M. (1986). 'Organisational psychology and the pursuit of the happy/
productive worker'. California Martagement Review, 28:4,
Steedman, H. and Wagner, K, (1987), 'A second look at productivity, machinery and
skills in Britain and Germany', National Institute Economic Review, November.
Storey, J. (1987), Development in the Management of Human Resources: An
Interim Report. Warwick Papers in Industrial Relations, no. 17. Coventry:
IRRU.
and Sisson, K. (1989), 'Limits to transformation: human resource management
in the British context'. Industrial Relations Jourrtal, 20: 60-5.
Thurley, K. E. (1981). 'Personnel management in the UK; a case for urgent
treatment?' Personnel Management, August: 24-8.
(19W). 'Towards a European approach to personnel management'. Personnel
Management, September; 54-7,
-and Wirdenius, H. (1989). Towards European Management. London; Pitman.
and Wood, S, J. (1983), 'Business strategy and industrial relations strategy'. In
K. E. Thurley and S. J. Wood (eds), Irtdustrial Relatiorts and Management
Strategy. Cambridge: University Press.
Torrington, D. (1989). 'Human resource management and the personnel function'.
In J. Storey (ed.). New Perspectives on Human Resource Management. London;
Routledge.
Tsui, A. (1987). 'Defining the activities and effectiveness of the human resource
department; a multiple constituency approach'. Human Resource Management,
26; 35-69,
Tyson, S. (1985). 'Is this the very model of a modem personnel manager?'
Personnel Management, April; 000-00.
 Personnel Management: The End of Orthodoxy? 175
Wall, T., Kemp, N., Jackson, P. and Clegg, C. (1986). 'Outcomes of autonomous
work groups: a long-termfieldexperiment'. Academy of Management Journal, 29:
280-304.
Walton, R. E. (1982). 'The Topeka Work System: optimistic visions, pessimistic
hypotheses and reality'. In R. Zager and M. P. Rosons (eds). The Innovative
Organisation: Productivity Programs in Action. Elmford, NY: Pergamon Press.
(1985). 'From control to commitment in the workplace'. Harvard Business
Review, 63: 76-S4.
and McKersie, R. B. {1965). A Behavioural Theory of Labor Negotiations. New
York: McGraw-Hill.
Waterman, R. (1988). The Renewal Factor. New York: Bantam.
Weiner, M. J. (1981). English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit 1850-
1980. Cambridge: University Press.
Wickens, P. (1987). The Road to Nissan. London: Macmillan.
Williams, A., Dobson, P. and Walters, M. (1989). Changing Culture. London:
Institute of Personnel Management.