Human Resource Management Applications: Cases, Exercises, Incidents and Skill Builders 6th Edition

Citation

Bartram, T. (2007), "Human Resource Management Applications: Cases, Exercises, Incidents and Skill Builders 6th Edition", Management Research News, Vol. 30 No. 11, pp. 872-873. https://doi.org/10.1108/01409170710832287

The last two decades have witnessed an enormous growth in academic and practitioner interest in human resource management (HRM). In line with this interest from practitioners and researchers has been the continued advancement of HRM education in our universities. This book provides an innovative approach to the education of HR practitioners by providing a single source of cases, incidents and skill builders to supplement any introductory HRM textbook. This six‐part book by leading international HR scholars captures the “dynamic, real‐life organisational events, confronting both HR managers and line managers”. HRM applications is designed to aid the HRM lecturer to develop a course that is practical, relevant and contributes to the advancement of student's analytical and problem skills.

This book is directed to both undergraduate and postgraduate lecturers in the area of HR and employment relations. For the HR academic this book is ideal for developing an innovative and relevant tutorial program and creating individual and group assessment. The exercises will give students the opportunity to conduct role plays, identify and solve HR problems and apply HRM theories. The incidents are cases composed of critical HRM events and are directed towards enhancing students problem solving‐skills. The skill builders are short individual or group assignments that can be used for student assessment. All names of organisations have been changed.

HRM Applications contains six parts. Part 1 of the book, HRM in Perspective: Environment and Legal Issues provides a number of cases, exercises, incidents and skill builders on the role of HRM within the environment, managing diversity and the role of HRM in the regulatory environment. Some interesting topic areas include: evaluating the financial impact of HRM activities and reducing turnover costs; sexual harassment and discrimination scenarios; and data analysis for affirmative action plans. Part 2 of the book, Meeting Human Resource Management Requirements: Job Analysis and Design, Planning, Recruitment and Selection provides a number of cases, exercises, incidents and skill builders on managing layoffs, outsourcing and mergers and recruitment and selection activities. Some highlights include: a case about employee layoffs within a hospital, termination of employment; developing a job description and exit interviews. Part 3 of this book, Developing Effectiveness in HR: Training, Career Development and Performance Appraisal provides a number of interesting highlight including: developing a mentoring program; designing and evaluating training programs; a performance management interview role play; identifying training needs through task analysis. Part 4, Implementing Compensation and Security: Compensation, Incentives, Benefits and Safety and Health again provides some practical cases, incidents and exercises. Some highlights include: allocating merit raises; ethical and practical compensation dilemmas; developing a wage structure; managing non‐monetary compensation; disaster preparedness. Part 5 of this book, Enhancing Employee Relations: Motivation, Employee Rights and Discipline, Labour Relations and Collective Bargaining provides some thought provoking cases, ethical issues and incidents such as drug testing of employees, union organising at the workplace as well as union busting. Finally Part 6 of this book, International HR Issues offers a number of cases relating to the expatriation of employees.

In my assessment of this book I must say that I personally will be using it to develop my tutorial program. The integrative approach of the book with its use of the correlation table outlining the cases, exercises, incidents and skill builders for a range of more than 70 contemporary HR and employment relations issues will be extremely useful for any HR lecturer. The exercises provide clear objectives that can be linked to the course or lecture learning objectives, an indication of preparation time, in‐class time suggested, procedures and clear background and related questions. I particularly enjoyed the applied nature of many of the exercises that really encourage the student to think about HRM not only from a theoretical perspective but also a broader managerial, ethical and organisational viewpoint. For example, the exercise on evaluating the financial impact of HRM activities encourages students to think of HRM from an accounting perspective and the impact of HRM on the bottom line of the organisation. The cases are well written and provide enough detail about the issues, the organisational context and the scenario to provide lecturers with useful material for tutorial exercises and assessment. The skill builders require students to apply their knowledge of the HR theory to develop for instance job descriptions and job interviews. The skill builders would be ideal for tutorial exercises.

HRM applications is an interesting and useful book particularly for lecturers and tutors. The interesting and topical cases, incidents, exercises and skill builders are excellent. The step‐by‐step and integrative approach of this book sets itself apart from most contemporary HRM textbook resource materials. The lecturer or tutor is left thinking about how they can make their HR courses more relevant, practical and useful for the managers of tomorrow. However, one limitation for non‐American readers is that the cases are American‐centric, particularly in terms of employment relations. Employment relations systems and processes are often products of a national setting. Despite this limitation many of the cases could be used as starting points and adapted for different national settings.

Overall, HRM applications is a great read, its format is easy to read and the information easily digestible. I think this book is great value for money and would greatly recommend its purchase for students and academics.