HRM and Critical Social Science Analysis

In her early work on personnel management, Karen Legge showed the way forward for a non‐prescriptive and critical analysis of employment management practices. Legge has developed this concern in subsequent work and given it a wider focus by setting her analysis of HRM in its broad socio‐political context. A great deal of the academic HRM literature has tended not to follow this lead, however, and often remains prescriptive, functionalist and uncritical. Even when HRM analysis does set out to be critical, it can be seen as out of touch with important developments in social science thinking. A scheme for undertaking critical social scientific analysis is developed to overcome some of these difficulties and this is applied to a narrative of HRM strategy‐making in Moddens Foods .