Book review: Routledge Handbook of Human Resource Management in Asia

Abstract

The concept of ‘human resource management’ (HRM) as a more strategically savvy update of established thinking and practices defining ‘personnel management’ was developed and disseminated from major Western business schools during the 1980s. During this period, Western companies were challenging across world markets, notably spurred on in competition to Japanese companies, whose own HRM strategies and practices appeared so different – perhaps even ‘exotic’ – to these common in ‘the West’. Regardless of whether we choose to emphasize ‘personnel management’ or ‘human resource’ (HR) management, the fundamental challenges and decisions facing ‘people’ managers remain universally valid: for example, recruitment, selection, training and performance evaluation of employees; designing systems of rewards/compensation that should prompt the best out of employees; and managing each employee’s transfer or ‘exit’ from the employing or parent company. Now, in the advanced 2000s, the world of global business and international trade has changed: there has been a frequently cited ‘pivot’ from Europe and North America to Asia. As a consequence, the context for HRM policies and practices have evolved into new forms, these changes being initialized from markedly non-Western origins. By tracing emerging flows and patterns of foreign direct investment (FDI) we can recognize how the locations of HRM practice and research are indeed pivoting towards the East and the Asia-Pacific region in particular. While in the 1980s, American and European scholars would be asking and researching questions such as: ‘How does HRM at Toyota differ from HRM at Daimler?’ Questions that occupy these scholars today might be more along the lines of: ‘How does Samsung, an essentially Korean company, compete for and attract global talent?’ Or: ‘How does Huawei, a privately owned Chinese company, select train, and retain its managers for expatriate assignments?’ Against this background, the appearance of books such as the new Routledge Handbook of Human Resource Management in Asia, edited by Fang Lee Cooke of Monash University and Sunghoon Kim of the University of New South Wales (UNSW), both in Australia, is both timely and to be warmly welcomed. There are 22 chapters distributed evenly over 430 pages of main text. The Introductory chapter – HRM in Asia in the global context – could stand alone as an informative and insightful essay on the broader context for HRM in Asia, identifying and examining some of the more salient factors giving shape to policy and practice across Asia and in world regions impacted by HRM sourced in Asia. Here, Editors Fang Lee Cooke and Sunghoon Kim make explicit reference to factors that motivated them along with publisher Routledge to bring together this collection of contributors and chapters. To cite Lee Cooke and Kim directly: