Explaining the Performance of Human Resource Management

Steve Fleetwood is Professor of Employment Relations and HRM in Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Bristol. His research focuses on philosophy of science and methodology as it is applied in social science, especially in organization and management studies and economics. He has written extensively on critical realism. Anthony Hesketh is Senior Lecture at Lancaster University Management School. His research focuses on capturing the impact of people and strategy on organizational performance.

• List of figures; List of tables; Acknowledgements; Preface; Part I. HRM and Organisational Performance Today: 1. Crisis? What crisis?; 2. Tracking the emergence of the human resource management-performance link paradigm; Part II. Meta-Theorising the HRM-P Link: 3. The state of contemporary research on the HRM-performance link: a technical analysis; 4. Scientism: the meta-theory underlying empirical research on the HRM-P link; 5. Prediction, explanation and theory; 6. Critical realism: a meta-theory for analyzing HRM and performance; Part III. Reflexive Performance: 7. Putting critical realism to work; Index.

'… this book speaks well to the UK tradition of empirical workplace research, and is a valid plea for theoretical rigour in a world where churning out academic articles is now an end in itself … it is a uniquely challenging and thought-provoking contribution that should appeal to all academics and researchers concerned with understanding the [world] of work.' Industrial Relations Journal