Human resource management in higher education: Idiom and incidence

Abstract

Increasingly, in many employment contexts, ‘human resource management’ (HRM) has replaced ‘personnel management’ as a description of the functions associated with managing people in organisations. This paper reports the findings of a small-scale investigation of HRM in an ‘old’ and ‘new’ university, in order to describe the extent to which the principles and practices of HRM have had an impact on higher education (HE) institutions. Interviews with senior staff with management responsibilities in each university showed that, while some of the language of HRM is beginning to be more widely used, the practices associated with managing staff are only slowly changing. Some contrasts are noted in the acceptability of HRM approaches to the different cultures of ‘new’ and ‘old’ universities. The tension between HRM's cultural appropriateness and HE's need to strive for excellence and competitive advantage is shown to resolve itself in a continuing pattern of fragmented rather than integrated personnel practices. © 1996 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.