Professional Documents
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Strategic Human Resource Management An I
Strategic Human Resource Management An I
ISSN 0019-8692
India can best be described as a ‘country of complete contrasts’. This ancient country
with a population of over a billion people is on the threshold of transformational
change, economically, politically, socially and culturally.
On the one hand, the positive outlook for India presents a promising picture: a
booming economy that has finally overcome the infamous Hindu rate of growth;
thriving intellectual capital that boasts the world’s second largest pool of English-
speaking scientists and engineers; robust democratic political system; Western-
oriented education, judicial and financial systems, thanks to British legacy; and
world-class information technology (IT)-enabled services sector that dominates global
business process offshoring of most professional services. On the other hand, the
majority of the population lives in rural areas; 60 per cent is dependent on agriculture
and the country is still plagued with woeful infrastructure. Hardly 10 per cent of the
500 million strong workforce is in the so-called organised sector of the economy which
pays wages and salaries and is covered by federal and state laws. The ‘new economy’
that covers knowledge-oriented service sector and powered by IT has made a very
small dent in the largely unorganised, agrarian and small-scale business sector.
Considering these extreme features of the Indian economy, one can understand the
difficulty in generalising the context and nature of a management discipline. This is
more so in the case of human resource management (HRM) discipline, which is highly
context specific with a largely intangible outcome. Most of the publications on HRM
in India take the form of a chapter in books on HRM in the Asia Pacific (e.g. Saini
and Budhwar, 2004) or a comparative study between HRM systems in India and
another country (e.g. Budhwar and Khatri, 2001) or an account of HRM-related
phenomenon in a particular sector of the Indian economy (e.g. Agrawal and Thite,
2003) or a particular HRM function (e.g. Amba-Rao et al., 2000).
While sector and functional-specific empirical articles on HRM in India have made
good contribution to Western understanding, there is limited contribution from
books that take a macro view of HRM discourse in India. For example, Rao (1999),
Ramaswamy (2000) and Varkky et al. (2001) do provide an Indian setting to their
HRM discourse but by mainly recycling popular Western HRM concepts and prac-
tices; they offer ‘old wine in a new bottle’ and often send ‘confusing signals’ (Saini and
Budhwar, 2004). Therefore, this book that offered an Indian perspective to HRM had
the opportunity to fill a void, particularly to Western readers who are eager to
broaden and sharpen their understanding of an emerging nation from the perspective
of managing people.
Mohan Thite
Department of Management, Griffith University, Australia
References
Agrawal, N. M. and M. Thite (2003), ‘HR Issues, Challenges & Strategies in Indian Software
Services Industry’, International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management,
3, 3, 249–264.
Amba-Rao, S. C., J. A. Petrick, J. Gupta and T. J. Von der Embse (2000), ‘Comparative
Performance Appraisal Practices and Management Values among Foreign and Domestic
Firms in India’, International Journal of Human Resource Management, 11, 1, 60–89.
Budhwar, P. and N. Khatri (2001), ‘Comparative Human Resource Management in Britain
and India: An Empirical Study’, International Journal of Human Resource Management, 13,
5, 800–826.
Ramaswamy, E. A. (2000), Managing Human Resources: A Contemporary Text (New Delhi,
Oxford University Press).
Rao, T. V. (1999), HRD Audit: Evaluating the Human Resource Function for Business Improve-
ment (New Delhi, Response Books).
Saini, D. and P. Budhwar (2004), ‘Human Resource Management in India’, in P. Budhwar
(ed.), Managing Human Resources in Asia-Pacific (London, Routledge) pp. 113–159.
Varkky, B., P. Parashar and G. Brahma (2001), Human Resource Management: Changing
Roles, Changing Goals (New Delhi, Excel Books).