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Conclusion: Insights and Implications Having surveyed a half-century of development in early human resource management, it is now time to conclude with a brief summary of insights and implications. Many of these findings and implications are of interest to both academic and nonacademic readers; several, however, are specifically addressed to the former. The Origin of HRM The time and place of origin of human resource management depends on how the term is defined. Most broadly and generically defined, HRM occurs whenever one person controls, coordinates, and directs the work of another in the act of producing goods and services. HRM in this guise is “labor management ” at its most general level. So viewed, the origin of HRM is at the dawn of human civilization. The Egyptian pharaohs practiced HRM when they directed their slaves to build the pyramids, as did the Chinese emperors when they directed tens of thousands of their subjects to build the Great Wall. A different definition of HRM leads to a different date (and place) of origin. One possibility is that HRM commences when a capitalist employer directs the work of a large group of wage laborers in a factory, mill, mine, or other centralized place. When seen in this way, the origin of HRM moves up to the late 1700s–early 1800s (the beginning of the Industrial Revolution) and takes place in England. Another possibility is that HRM commences when business firms create an autonomous department in the management hierarchy to handle issues Insights and Implications 281 pertaining to labor. The first such departments, originating in most rudimentary form as a centralized hiring office or administrative home for welfare activities, appear to have developed first in late-nineteenth-century Europe. So perhaps it is here where the origin of HRM is located. Yet another definition of HRM equates it with a particular model or system of labor management. In this view, the distinguishing mark of HRM is an approach to labor management that rests on a strategic orientation, a focus on employees as capital assets, and an emphasis on attaining employee commitment through participation and teamwork. So viewed, HRM originated in the late 1960s or early 1970s in the United States. The contemporary literature on HRM moves back and forth between these alternative definitions (and some others), although with some preference for the last. A result is some skewed ideas and unproductive controversy. As evidenced in this book, a broad and generic conceptualization of HRM works the best. From this perspective, HRM is an updated and more contemporary label for the timeless and generic practice of labor management. Given this, the precise origin of HRM is lost to us in the mists of early human history. What we can date, however, is the origin of specific models (or systems) of HRM and the historical time of transition from one model to another. HRM, at least as I define it, was not born in the roughly half-century from the late 1870s to the early 1930s examined in this book just as it was also not born in the 1970s and 1980s. In both cases, it changed and evolved from one model to another. Thus, I claim that the Burlington Railroad, to take an example , was practicing HRM (labor management) in the 1870s even though it had no HRM function in the management hierarchy and employment policies and practices were quite informal and ad hoc. What happened at the Burlington , and across a wide swath of American industry, was a profound shift—in fact a transformation—in the philosophy, organization, delivery, and practice of HRM. One might pick out numerous other transitions in HRM over recorded history, but I focus on this half century of human experience because the HRM transformation was the most marked and profound heretofore seen. I also focus on developments in America because this HRM transformation was most centered, active, and far-reaching in the United States. What was this transformation? We do not have a good label for it, but one can perhaps best say that the transformation was from the traditional model of labor management to the modern model. The defining features of the traditional HRM model were, first, reliance on the lessons of experience and custom to guide labor management and, second, small-to-negligible regard for the human life and values of the people providing the labor. The central features of the modern HRM model are the opposite. They can be summed up in two words: science...

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