Wednesday, August 27, 2008
[IWS] ILR Press: MANAGING THE HUMAN FACTOR: The Early Years of Human Resource Management in American Industry [August 2008]
IWS Documented News Service
_______________________________
Institute for Workplace Studies----------------- Professor Samuel B. Bacharach
School of Industrial & Labor Relations-------- Director, Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell University
16 East 34th Street, 4th floor---------------------- Stuart Basefsky
New York, NY 10016 -------------------------------Director, IWS News Bureau
________________________________________________________________________
ILR Press (an imprint of Cornell University Press)
MANAGING THE HUMAN FACTOR: The Early Years of Human Resource Management in American Industry [August 2008]
by Bruce E. Kaufman
http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4860
$49.95s cloth
2008, 384 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, 4 tables, 4 charts/graphs
ISBN: 978-0-8014-4227-8
Human resource departments are key components in the people management system of nearly every medium-to-large organization in the industrial world. They provide a wide range of essential services relating to employees, including recruitment, compensation, benefits, training, and labor relations. A century ago, however, before the concept of human resource management had been invented, the supervision and care of employees at even the largest companies were conducted without written policies or formal planning, and often in harsh, arbitrary, and counterproductive ways. How did companies such as United States Steel manage a workforce of 160,000 employees at dozens of plants without a specialized personnel or industrial relations department? What led some of these organizations to introduce human resources practices at the end of the nineteenth century? How were the earliest personnel departments structured and what were their responsibilities? And how did the theory and implementation of human resources management evolve, both within industry and as an academic field of research and teaching?
In Managing the Human Factor, Bruce E. Kaufman chronicles the origins and early development of human resource management (HRM) in the United States from the 1870s, when the Labor Problem emerged as the nation's primary domestic policy concern, to 1933 and the start of the New Deal. Through new archival research, an extensive review and synthesis of the historical and contemporary literatures, and case studies illustrating best (and worst) practices during this period, Kaufman identifies the fourteen ideas, events, and movements that led to the creation of specialized HRM departments in the late 1910s, as well as their further growth and development into strategic business units in the welfare capitalism period of the 1920s. The research presented in this book not only uncovers many new aspects of the early development of personnel and industrial relations but also challenges central parts of the contemporary interpretation of the concept and evolution of HRM. Rich with insights on both the present and past of human resource management,
Managing the Human Factor will be widely regarded as the definitive account of the early history of employee management in American companies and a must-read for all those interested in the indispensable function of managing people in organizations.
Reviews
"Managing the Human Factor is an excellent analytical history of the early twentieth-century emergence and development of human resource management as a distinct management function and profession that also identifies and provides a convincing story about three founders of this specialty field."-David Lewin, Neil H. Jacoby Professor of Management, Human Resources & Organizational Behavior, UCLA Anderson School of Management
"This book is a must-read for anyone in the field of strategic human resource management and industrial relations. It documents the precursors of today's strategic HR, showing that the field has much earlier roots than previously thought. Many of today's corporate HR 'innovations' have deep historical precedents. Bruce Kaufman's volume is both easily accessible and exhaustive-its strong overview chapters are punctuated by rich case studies of major U.S. corporations since the late nineteenth century, and it provides excellent material for undergraduate and graduate courses in our field."-Rose Batt, Cornell University
About the Author
Bruce E. Kaufman is Professor of Economics and Senior Associate of the W. T. Beebe Institute of Personnel and Employment Relations at Georgia State University. He is the author most recently of The Global Evolution of Industrial Relations and coeditor of What Do Unions Do?: A Twenty Year Perspective. He is the editor of Theoretical Perspectives on Work and the Employment Relationship, also from Cornell.
______________________________
This information is provided to subscribers, friends, faculty, students and alumni of the School of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR). It is a service of the Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in New York City. Stuart Basefsky is responsible for the selection of the contents which is intended to keep researchers, companies, workers, and governments aware of the latest information related to ILR disciplines as it becomes available for the purposes of research, understanding and debate. The content does not reflect the opinions or positions of Cornell University, the School of Industrial & Labor Relations, or that of Mr. Basefsky and should not be construed as such. The service is unique in that it provides the original source documentation, via links, behind the news and research of the day. Use of the information provided is unrestricted. However, it is requested that users acknowledge that the information was found via the IWS Documented News Service.
Stuart Basefsky
Director, IWS News Bureau
Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell/ILR School
16 E. 34th Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10016
Telephone: (607) 255-2703
Fax: (607) 255-9641
E-mail: smb6@cornell.edu
****************************************
_______________________________
Institute for Workplace Studies----------------- Professor Samuel B. Bacharach
School of Industrial & Labor Relations-------- Director, Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell University
16 East 34th Street, 4th floor---------------------- Stuart Basefsky
New York, NY 10016 -------------------------------Director, IWS News Bureau
________________________________________________________________________
ILR Press (an imprint of Cornell University Press)
MANAGING THE HUMAN FACTOR: The Early Years of Human Resource Management in American Industry [August 2008]
by Bruce E. Kaufman
http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4860
$49.95s cloth
2008, 384 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, 4 tables, 4 charts/graphs
ISBN: 978-0-8014-4227-8
Human resource departments are key components in the people management system of nearly every medium-to-large organization in the industrial world. They provide a wide range of essential services relating to employees, including recruitment, compensation, benefits, training, and labor relations. A century ago, however, before the concept of human resource management had been invented, the supervision and care of employees at even the largest companies were conducted without written policies or formal planning, and often in harsh, arbitrary, and counterproductive ways. How did companies such as United States Steel manage a workforce of 160,000 employees at dozens of plants without a specialized personnel or industrial relations department? What led some of these organizations to introduce human resources practices at the end of the nineteenth century? How were the earliest personnel departments structured and what were their responsibilities? And how did the theory and implementation of human resources management evolve, both within industry and as an academic field of research and teaching?
In Managing the Human Factor, Bruce E. Kaufman chronicles the origins and early development of human resource management (HRM) in the United States from the 1870s, when the Labor Problem emerged as the nation's primary domestic policy concern, to 1933 and the start of the New Deal. Through new archival research, an extensive review and synthesis of the historical and contemporary literatures, and case studies illustrating best (and worst) practices during this period, Kaufman identifies the fourteen ideas, events, and movements that led to the creation of specialized HRM departments in the late 1910s, as well as their further growth and development into strategic business units in the welfare capitalism period of the 1920s. The research presented in this book not only uncovers many new aspects of the early development of personnel and industrial relations but also challenges central parts of the contemporary interpretation of the concept and evolution of HRM. Rich with insights on both the present and past of human resource management,
Managing the Human Factor will be widely regarded as the definitive account of the early history of employee management in American companies and a must-read for all those interested in the indispensable function of managing people in organizations.
Reviews
"Managing the Human Factor is an excellent analytical history of the early twentieth-century emergence and development of human resource management as a distinct management function and profession that also identifies and provides a convincing story about three founders of this specialty field."-David Lewin, Neil H. Jacoby Professor of Management, Human Resources & Organizational Behavior, UCLA Anderson School of Management
"This book is a must-read for anyone in the field of strategic human resource management and industrial relations. It documents the precursors of today's strategic HR, showing that the field has much earlier roots than previously thought. Many of today's corporate HR 'innovations' have deep historical precedents. Bruce Kaufman's volume is both easily accessible and exhaustive-its strong overview chapters are punctuated by rich case studies of major U.S. corporations since the late nineteenth century, and it provides excellent material for undergraduate and graduate courses in our field."-Rose Batt, Cornell University
About the Author
Bruce E. Kaufman is Professor of Economics and Senior Associate of the W. T. Beebe Institute of Personnel and Employment Relations at Georgia State University. He is the author most recently of The Global Evolution of Industrial Relations and coeditor of What Do Unions Do?: A Twenty Year Perspective. He is the editor of Theoretical Perspectives on Work and the Employment Relationship, also from Cornell.
______________________________
This information is provided to subscribers, friends, faculty, students and alumni of the School of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR). It is a service of the Institute for Workplace Studies (IWS) in New York City. Stuart Basefsky is responsible for the selection of the contents which is intended to keep researchers, companies, workers, and governments aware of the latest information related to ILR disciplines as it becomes available for the purposes of research, understanding and debate. The content does not reflect the opinions or positions of Cornell University, the School of Industrial & Labor Relations, or that of Mr. Basefsky and should not be construed as such. The service is unique in that it provides the original source documentation, via links, behind the news and research of the day. Use of the information provided is unrestricted. However, it is requested that users acknowledge that the information was found via the IWS Documented News Service.
Stuart Basefsky
Director, IWS News Bureau
Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell/ILR School
16 E. 34th Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10016
Telephone: (607) 255-2703
Fax: (607) 255-9641
E-mail: smb6@cornell.edu
****************************************
# posted by SBasefsky : 1:10 PM
