Human resource management: an agenda for the 1990s

In keeping with an inaugural issue, we seek in this paper to do four things: to trace the origins of human resource management (HRM); to provide an explication and critique of it as a conceptual model; to outline the perspective which characterizes our own research programme at Warwick University, and in the process identify a range of themes and issues which the study of HRM ought to address; and finally, given the centrality of the strategic concept to HRM, to argue for an adequate treatment of strategy. in conclusion, we suggest a number of ways forward for research in the 1990s.