Strategic Human Resource Management – Boxall & Purcell
Chapter 1 – Human Resource Management: What and Why?
FUNDAMENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF HRM
What are human resources?
Human resources = the characteristics that are intrinsic to human beings, which people can apply to
various tasks and challenges of their lives
Knowledge
Skills
Energies
(labour-power, capacity of labour, Karl Marx)
Physical health
Emotional health
Intellectual capabilities
Personalities
Motivations
(dynamic characteristics)
We have strengths (assets) that we can build on throughout life, using them to create social and economic
opportunities for ourselves. But we also have weaknesses (liabilities) that can influence our options and
affect the way other people perceive us.
PEOPLE ARE NOT HUMAN RESOURCES, people are independent agents who possess human resources,
which are talents they can deploy and develop at work and which they take with them when they leave an
organization.
Whatever our particular blend of strengths and weaknesses, we each have an underlying potential that
can be more or less realized in our life (Abraham Maslow, ‘self-actualization’ is the ultimate goal). We can
apply our human resources to an ongoing process of personal development or may underuse or talents
and fail to reach our potential.
Inkson (2008) argues that individuals face a challenge of self-management. They need to make
choices about how to deploy and develop their human resources, not only at work. Overuse of our talents
in work, and under-investment in our relationships, can lead to late-life regret.
The styles we adopt to make these choices are very variable. Some individuals are driven by the
expectations of others before they accumulate greater understanding of their own likes and dislikes.
Some develop a highly specific set of goals for their working lives. Many of us do not plan these choices in
any formal way, but we learn from our experience as it accumulates.
What is human resource management?
Organizations are dependent on people who have the kind of human resources that will make them
successful in their environment. Managers need to gain access to human capital, or stock of human
talents, that is relevant to the organization’s survival. But HRM is not simply about engaging the services
of talented individuals. Working with the individuals they have recruited, managers are concerned with
developing the organization’s social capital and fostering the overall performance that it needs. They are
involved in creating a network of relationships among these people that combines their talents into the
collective outcomes on which the business depends.
HRM is an inevitable process that accompanies an entrepreneur or intrapreneurial team’s effort
in combining a group of individuals into a functioning organization. It’s essential in entrepreneurial activity
and a driver or organizational growth.
Chapter 1 – Human Resource Management: What and Why?
FUNDAMENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF HRM
What are human resources?
Human resources = the characteristics that are intrinsic to human beings, which people can apply to
various tasks and challenges of their lives
Knowledge
Skills
Energies
(labour-power, capacity of labour, Karl Marx)
Physical health
Emotional health
Intellectual capabilities
Personalities
Motivations
(dynamic characteristics)
We have strengths (assets) that we can build on throughout life, using them to create social and economic
opportunities for ourselves. But we also have weaknesses (liabilities) that can influence our options and
affect the way other people perceive us.
PEOPLE ARE NOT HUMAN RESOURCES, people are independent agents who possess human resources,
which are talents they can deploy and develop at work and which they take with them when they leave an
organization.
Whatever our particular blend of strengths and weaknesses, we each have an underlying potential that
can be more or less realized in our life (Abraham Maslow, ‘self-actualization’ is the ultimate goal). We can
apply our human resources to an ongoing process of personal development or may underuse or talents
and fail to reach our potential.
Inkson (2008) argues that individuals face a challenge of self-management. They need to make
choices about how to deploy and develop their human resources, not only at work. Overuse of our talents
in work, and under-investment in our relationships, can lead to late-life regret.
The styles we adopt to make these choices are very variable. Some individuals are driven by the
expectations of others before they accumulate greater understanding of their own likes and dislikes.
Some develop a highly specific set of goals for their working lives. Many of us do not plan these choices in
any formal way, but we learn from our experience as it accumulates.
What is human resource management?
Organizations are dependent on people who have the kind of human resources that will make them
successful in their environment. Managers need to gain access to human capital, or stock of human
talents, that is relevant to the organization’s survival. But HRM is not simply about engaging the services
of talented individuals. Working with the individuals they have recruited, managers are concerned with
developing the organization’s social capital and fostering the overall performance that it needs. They are
involved in creating a network of relationships among these people that combines their talents into the
collective outcomes on which the business depends.
HRM is an inevitable process that accompanies an entrepreneur or intrapreneurial team’s effort
in combining a group of individuals into a functioning organization. It’s essential in entrepreneurial activity
and a driver or organizational growth.
