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Introduction to Contemporary Research Perspectives in Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior

First Online: 05 May 2023

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research topics on human resource management pdf

Riann Singh 3 &
Shalini Ramdeo 4

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This book integrates the most relevant contemporary research ideas within the field and practice of Human Resource Management (HRM) and Organizational Behavior (OB) into a cohesive research discussion, with the aim of synthesizing and advancing research perspectives. Indeed, these two fields intersect through the management of employees to drive competitiveness, while understanding their behaviors to maximize efficiency and effectiveness. Accordingly, the first chapter evaluates the alignment between organizational strategies, HRM and OB approaches, the relevance of research to advance the fields of HRM and OB, and identifies ten (10) research topics, which cover novel and emerging perspectives as well as developments within classical areas of HRM and OB. The justification for the selected topics is also presented. Finally, this chapter provides a roadmap for readers by briefly describing each of the remaining chapters in the book.

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Singh, R., Ramdeo, S. (2023). Introduction to Contemporary Research Perspectives in Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior. In: Contemporary Perspectives in Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30225-1_1

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Research trends in human resource management. A text-mining-based literature review

International Journal of Manpower

ISSN : 0143-7720

Article publication date: 26 April 2022

Issue publication date: 14 March 2023

The purpose of the study was to detect trends in human resource management (HRM) research presented in journals during the 2000–2020 timeframe. The research question is: How are the interests of researchers changing in the field of HRM and which topics have gained popularity in recent years?

Design/methodology/approach

The approach adopted in this study was designed to overcome all the limitations specific to the systematic literature reviews and bibliometric studies presented in the Introduction. The full texts of papers were analyzed. The text-mining tools detected first clusters and then trends, moreover, which limited the impact of a researcher's bias. The approach applied is consistent with the general rules of systematic literature reviews.

The article makes a threefold contribution to academic knowledge. First, it uses modern methodology to gather and synthesize HRM research topics. The proposed approach was designed to allow early detection of nascent, non-obvious trends in research, which will help researchers address topics of high value for both theory and practice. Second, the results of our study highlight shifts in focus in HRM over the past 19 years. Third, the article suggests further directions of research.

Research limitations/implications

In this study, the approach designed to overcome the limitations of using systematic literature review was presented. The analysis was done on the basis of the full text of the articles and the categories were discovered directly from the articles rather than predetermined. The study's findings may, however, potentially be limited by the following issues. First, the eligibility criteria included only papers indexed in the Scopus and WoS database and excluded conference proceedings, book chapters, and non-English papers. Second, only full-text articles were included in the study, which could narrow down the research area. As a consequence, important information regarding the research presented in the excluded documents is potentially lost. Third, most of the papers in our database were published in the International Journal of Human Resource Management, and therefore such trends as “challenges for international HRM” can be considered significant (long-lasting). Another – the fourth – limitation of the study is the lack of estimation of the proportion between searches in HRM journals and articles published in other journals. Future research may overcome the above-presented limitations. Although the authors used valuable techniques such as TF-IDF and HDBSCAN, the fifth limitation is that, after trends were discovered, it was necessary to evaluate and interpret them. That could have induced researchers' bias even if – as in this study – researchers from different areas of experience were involved. Finally, this study covers the 2000–2020 timeframe. Since HRM is a rapidly developing field, in a few years from now academics will probably begin to move into exciting new research areas. As a consequence, it might be worthwhile conducting similar analyses to those presented in this study and compare their results.

Originality/value

The present study provides an analysis of HRM journals with the aim of establishing trends in HRM research. It makes contributions to the field by providing a more comprehensive and objective review than analyses resulting from systematic literature reviews. It fills the gap in literature studies on HRM with a novel research approach – a methodology based on full-text mining and a big data toolset. As a consequence, this study can be considered as providing an adequate reflection of all the articles published in journals strictly devoted to HRM issues and which may serve as an important source of reference for both researchers and practitioners. This study can help them identify the core journals focused on HRM research as well as topics which are of particular interest and importance.

Human resource management
Text-mining

Piwowar-Sulej, K. , Wawak, S. , Tyrańska, M. , Zakrzewska, M. , Jarosz, S. and Sołtysik, M. (2023), "Research trends in human resource management. A text-mining-based literature review", International Journal of Manpower , Vol. 44 No. 1, pp. 176-196. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-03-2021-0183

Emerald Publishing Limited

Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

1. Introduction

The human resource (HR) function has evolved over the years from serving a purely administrative role into one that is more strategic in character. Today it is believed that the mission of human resource management (HRM) is to support the organization in achieving its objectives by developing and implementing HR strategies that are integrated with a company's business strategy, promote staff development, foster a positive employment relationship, promote an ethical approach to people management, and care about the environment (social and natural) ( Ehnert, 2009 ; Braga et al. , 2021 ).

In practice, HRM means providing continuous solutions to a wide array of problems occurring in employee-employer, line worker-manager, and employee-employee relations and also in contacts with, e.g. trade unions. Human behaviors, feelings and attitudes are determined both by the personal characteristics of individuals and by the impact of the environment. The shape of HRM is significantly influenced by such factors as, e.g. the demographic and technological transformations ( Greiling, 2011 ; Silva and Lima, 2018 ), and globalization ( Gerhart and Fang, 2005 ).

HRM has evolved as a professional and academic discipline in parallel with both planned shifts in global considerations and unplanned phenomena such as, e.g. epidemics. For researchers it is crucial to identify, define, explain, and help practitioners understand the key factors which have an impact on HRM. Another of the researchers' roles is to formulate practical guidelines on how to manage people in different circumstances and outline areas of future research. HRM thrives on the contributions made in other fields that it assimilates and applies in practice. It unscrupulously builds on theoretical developments made earlier in related disciplines ( Boxall et al. , 2009 ). Finally, the researcher endeavors to provide an overview, comparisons, analyses and syntheses of previously published findings ( Paul and Criado, 2020 ).

The theme of trends in HRM has been addressed in numerous publications (e.g. Cooper et al. , 2020 ; Madera et al. , 2017 ). Their authors have employed various approaches to identify such phenomena, including systematic literature reviews. Articles offering a traditional overview provide a quantity-oriented (i.e. meta-analytical, systematic) approach together with descriptive or qualitative elements. Jointly, they develop a theoretical background, highlight irregularities in existing findings, integrate the findings of a wide variety of publications and in general provide other researchers with an up-to-date understanding of the discipline, frequently prepared by leading specialists ( Palmatier et al. , 2018 ). In most cases, the documents selected for analysis were based on titles, keywords and abstracts only. Unfortunately, they contain only around 8% of all research findings ( Blake, 2010 ). In order to gain a deeper insight into such a body of knowledge authors have often turned to the by-hand review method (e.g. Cooper et al. , 2020 ).

Conventional systematic by-hand literature reviews are sometimes characterized by errors in article selection, possible simplifications and potentially incomplete and not universal results (subjective, impressionistic descriptions), In response to these shortcomings, in recent years a number of new alternatives have emerged. One new approach that has attracted increasing attention is bibliometric studies. This method applies dedicated IT tools to gauge trends in articles. They examine academic material from both an objective and qualitative perspective for the purposes of identifying, organizing, and analyzing information in a specific research field ( Capobianco-Uriarte et al. , 2019 ). As far as trends in HRM are concerned, Markoulli et al. (2017) presented a summary of previously published traditional and narrative reviews and on its basis created a science map and defined clusters based on keyword co-occurrence analysis and the VOSviewer software tool.

Bibliometric analyses can be treated as a platform for writing an entire article or can be used only as preparation for the groundwork for further in-depth content analysis and qualitative descriptions. In turn, a text mining toolset can help identify research trends and select papers which are in line with a particular trend. Moreover, a full-text analysis of publications using a text mining toolset enables researchers to obtain higher-quality results than when using only keywords, such as in the case of VOSviewer analyses ( Kobayashi et al. , 2018 ). As a consequence we decided that it was worth adopting a methodology based on full-text mining and a big data toolset in order to identify trends in HRM research. We believe that big data and analytics help not only companies function but also researchers in a highly data-driven world ( Kobayashi et al. , 2018 ).

The purpose of the study was to detect trends in HRM research presented in journals during the 2000–2020 timeframe. The following research question was asked: how are the interests of researchers changing in the field of HRM and which topics have gained in popularity in recent years?

The paper is organized as follows. In the second section we describe the HRM research trends identified in previous studies. Here the focus is on the context in which authors were operating when analyzing HRM issues. The third section is devoted to the research method employed for the purpose of this study. Then we present the results and discussion. The article ends with conclusions, including limitations and areas of future research.

The article makes a threefold contribution to academic knowledge. First, it uses modern methodology to gather and synthesize HRM research topics. The proposed approach was designed to allow early detection of nascent, non-obvious trends in research, which will help researchers address topics of high value for both theory and practice. Second, the results of our study highlight shifts in focus in HRM over the past 20 years. Third, the article suggests further directions of research.

2. Trends in the HRM research identified in previous studies

In their search for HRM research trends authors of this study firstly used the Scopus database and a search strategy based on such terms as: trends in human resource management/HRM, trends in research on human resource management/HRM, human resource management/HRM trends, intellectual structure of human resource management/HRM. The searching process covered titles, abstracts and keywords and was limited to articles written in English. The search produced 37 documents. Then the authors also searched for additional articles in Google Scholar.

Most of the articles were devoted to the trends identified in HR practices in companies (e.g. Dubravska and Solankova, 2015 ). One of such trends is HRM digitalization ( Ashbaugh and Miranda, 2002 ). Table 1 presents a list of HRM trends identified in the research (related to academic work) conducted by different authors.

It can be concluded from the above that researchers employed different approaches to defining and identifying these trends. Research trends may be associated with research topics (e.g. Özlen, 2014 ), research methods (e.g. Pietersen, 2018 ) and the general characteristics of the academic domain (e.g. Sanders and De Cieri, 2020 ). Although a number of authors have provided traditional literature reviews of trends in HRM, Chae et al. (2020) , for example, focused only on the local (Korean) research trends and used only keyword analyses. Others focused on a specific sector ( Cooper et al. , 2020 ), industry ( Madera et al. , 2017 ) or region ( Wood and Bischoff, 2020 ). There are also articles that outline the evolution of research in particular journals (e.g. Pietersen, 2018 ). Others address specific problems, such as international HRM (e.g. Sanders and De Cieri, 2020 ) or green HRM ( Yong et al. , 2020 ). The most visible trends identified in previous studies and associated with research topics were strategic HRM, HR performance and employment/industrial relations. The first topic was addressed in eight works while the remaining was the subject of five publications.

3. Material and methods

The approach adopted in this study was designed to overcome all the limitations specific to the systematic literature reviews and bibliometric studies as presented in the Introduction. The full texts of papers were analyzed. The approach applied is consistent with the general rules of systematic literature reviews ( Tranfield et al. , 2003 ) and consists of several steps, which are presented in Figure 1 .

3.1 Selection of journals

Thousands of articles covering HRM can be found on both Scopus and the Web of Science. For the sake of the present analysis, it was necessary to define inclusion criteria in the meta-analysis.

The main topic of the journal was related to HRM,

The journals were indexed in Scopus and WoS,

The journals have a high SNIP index value (the limit value is set at 1 - status for 2020; full values are presented in Table 2 ),

Full versions of the article were available,

The articles were published in the years 2000–2020.

A total of 8 journals met the above criteria ( Table 2 ). The full texts of the papers were downloaded from academic databases. No duplicates were found. Only research papers were included, while editorials, calls for papers, errata and book reviews were excluded.

All the metadata were removed from the papers. The titles and abstracts often contain catchwords designed to increase readership. As a consequence, only the texts of papers minus their titles, keywords, abstracts and references were analyzed in this study. Additional bibliographic information that could be useful in the analytical process was downloaded from the Crossref database. Each paper was converted into a text file and then into a bag-of-words model for the needs of automatic analysis using computer algorithms. The algorithms were created using Python libraries, such as grobid, nltk, scikit-learn, hdbscan, and scipy ( Pedregosa et al. , 2011 ).

3.2 Search for the most important terms

w i j – result for term i in document j ,

t f i j – number of occurrences of i in j ,

d f i – number of documents containing i ,

N – number of documents in the corpus (set of documents).

The TF-IDF method is not a mathematical model. It requires extensive computation, cannot be used to discover synonyms and ignores multiple meanings of words ( Zhang et al. , 2011 ). However, in the case of research papers, these problems have a minimal impact due to the more precise language used by researchers.

3.3 Identification of thematic groups (clusters)

The TF-IDF model presents each paper as a multidimensional vector. The number of dimensions is equal to the number of keywords used in the analysis. In the next step, all the vectors were compared to each other, which led to the discovery of clusters.

As mentioned in section 3.2 , the TF-IDF model does not analyse synonyms and ignores multiple meanings of words and phrases. In scholarly texts, it is rarely a problem. Even in HRM, where the number of synonyms can be perceived as higher than in other areas of management, the impact on the results should be negligible.

There are two main approaches to clustering: partitioning and hierarchical clustering. The former can be applied when all the corpus elements must be included in one of the groups. This induces data noise, as not even similar elements have to be included. The latter allows some elements to remain outside the clusters. The clusters become much more homogenous. This constitutes a better approach when it comes to identifying trends. Multiple hierarchical clustering methods are available, e.g. meanshift, DBSCAN, Optics and HDBSCAN (Hierarchical Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise) ( McInnes et al. , 2017 ). HDBSCAN is characterized by the least number of limitations. It takes each paper (vector) and checks at what distance it can find similar publications. Then it compares the results, and the densest areas are detected as clusters. Unlike some other methods, the clusters lack permanent density or a fixed number of elements. The only parameter that the researcher needs to establish is the minimum cluster size. The best value can be determined through a series of experiments.

In the present study, the authors carried out a set of experiments using different minimum cluster sizes. The highest value detected was 20. Lower values lead to a much higher number of clusters. Moreover, general phrases not directly related to HRM played a significant role in the discovery of these clusters. With the minimum cluster size set to values greater than 20, the number of clusters was significantly lower. That led to general results based on the most popular phrases only.

The entire sample was divided into groups of papers published in 5-year overlapping periods starting with 2000–2004 and ending with 2016–2020. Each paper was assigned to all the groups into which it fitted. Cluster analysis was performed for every group separately, and the results were used to identify trends.

Cluster analysis was performed on each group separately, and the results were used to discover trends. Approximately 30 clusters on average were identified for each five-year period. However, for a trend to be identified at least two similar clusters had to be discovered in successive periods Therefore, many unrelated clusters were excluded by the algorithm. Such behaviour is expected, as it removes noise from data. Usually, only one-third of clusters meet the conditions to form trends.

The number of papers published in each year is presented in Figure 2 . A slight decrease in the number of articles can be observed compared to 2018–19, which may have been a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

3.4 Identification of trends

Long-lasting trends that existed and evolved during the studied period,

Declining trends which came to an end during the studied period,

Emerging trends which began during the studied period,

Ephemeris trends that began and ended during the studied period.

3.5 Interpretation of trends

The results delivered by the algorithm must be checked through further studies. The algorithm can detect mergers or splits in trends. We decided, however, that the final decision should be left to researchers. At this stage, trends should also be named, interpreted and described. The interpretation phase should help highlight changes within trends and try to predict their future evolution.

4. Results and discussion

The analyses, performed by researchers using automatic algorithms and further verification, led to the discovery of 42 trends presented in Table 3 . These trends are ordered according to the year of their first occurrence and their duration. It is worth emphasizing that the year in which a trend was observed does not indicate that the idea behind it emerged at the same time. Rather, it shows when a subject began to increase in popularity among researchers. Furthermore, the number of identified trends is much higher than the results from previous studies presented in Section 2.1 Table 4 .

The use of tracking revealed the evolution of clusters, and made it possible to identify trends. The analysis led to the discovery of the types of trends presented in Section 3.4. Of the 42 trends, 4 were long-lasting, 5 declining, 17 emerging and 16 ephemeris in character. One possible fact to note is that “strategic HRM”, which was a prevailing trend in previous studies, is not directly presented in the results obtained using text-mining analyses. However, it is included in the “architecture and changing role of HRM” trend.

At this point it is worth emphasizing that sociologists of science have examined the principles governing the selection of topics analysed by researchers, and noticed that it may result from a trade-off between conservative production and risky innovation ( Bourdieu, 1975 ). The main problem when choosing research topics is deciding whether to continue topics fixed in the literature or take the risk of exploring new, hitherto unknown themes. Trend a analysis offers an indirect solution based on strategic ambidexterity. This is not only because it allows us to observe disappearing themes that continue to be exploited, but also to identify those topics, in which there is a growing interest (exploration).

Long-lasting trends are not homogenous and change over time. The evolution of trends can be tracked using keywords of considerable importance in subsequent years. The importance of keywords was evaluated using the TF-IDF algorithm and averaged for each cluster. The TF-IDF formula was presented in the Methodology section. It should be noted that the TF-IDF score has to be calculated for each phrase in each paper. In this study, over 150,000 phrases were identified in over 6 thousand papers. That resulted in a significant number of calculations made by the algorithm, which cannot be presented in the paper. A comparison of cluster keywords reveals new topics within trends. The evolution of trends may lead to the disappearance of earlier topics or to their parallel development. Declining and ephemeris trends are associated with issues that are of less interest to researchers, have been resolved or were eclipsed by changes in a researcher's approach to the object of their study. The disappearance of certain trends is a normal phenomenon in science. Such a disappearance can be predicted to a certain degree when the average number of papers decreases.

Since we identified many trends, only a few examples will be described below. One example of a long-lasting trend is “Diversity Management”, which covered the entire 2000–2020 timeframe. The articles that discussed this trend focused on effective diversity management, its impact on organizational performance (e.g. Choi et al. , 2017 ), team performance ( Roberge and van Dick, 2010 ), knowledge sharing ( Shen et al. , 2014 ), innovation ( Peretz et al. , 2015 ), and the various factors which impact upon its effectiveness. Some papers discussed only one form of diversity in the workplace, e.g. age diversity ( Li et al. , 2011 ), gender diversity (e.g. Gould et al. , 2018 ) or ethnic diversity (e.g. Singh, 2007 ).

One sub-trend that can be observed within the above-discussed trend is age management', which falls within the 2005–2018 time range. The papers assigned to this sub-trend focus on HR practices towards older employees (e.g. Kooij et al. , 2014 ).

One example of a declining trend is “new and traditional career models”. This trend, which was observed in the years 2000–2019, highlights the fact that the weakening of organizational boundaries has increased career freedom and independence from previously constraining factors. The papers which examined this issue provide conceptual knowledge of different career dimensions. For example, a shift has taken place from objective to subjective careers. Individuals have to make sense of their careers, because they can no longer depend on their employers ( Walton and Mallon, 2004 ). Individual cultural, social and economic capital builds a field of opportunities for pursuing a career ( Iellatchitch et al. , 2003 ). Simultaneously, two major kinds of boundaries to the “boundaryless career” have been identified: the competence-based boundary (industry boundary) and the relation-based boundary (social capital boundary) ( Baghdadli et al. , 2003 ).

In the last two decades, increasing environmental awareness has pushed researchers towards addressing the issue of HRM as a strategic tool for making companies sustainability-driven organizations (e.g. Podgorodnichenko et al. , 2020 ). One of the emerging trends identified in our study is “Green and sustainable HRM”. This trend focuses on the environmental responsibility of companies (e.g. DuBois and Dubois, 2012 ) or/and achieving simultaneously social and economic goals (if the triple bottom line concept is discussed) (e.g. Ren and Jackson, 2020 ). The results, in the form of behavioral changes, have also been examined (e.g. Dumont et al. , 2017 ) and the contribution of HRM to company sustainability has been discussed in the context of different countries (e.g. Alcaraz et al. , 2019 ).

Finally, one example of an ephemeris trend is “HR certification”. The discussion on this trend was initiated by Lengnick-Hall and Aguinis (2012) . They applied a multi-level theory-based approach to investigating HR certification. They tried to assess the value of HR certification for individual HR specialists, their organizations as well as for the HR profession as a whole. The main topic addressed in later articles devoted to this trend was the value of HR certification (e.g. Aguinis and Lengnick-Hall, 2012 ). The value of HR certification has been linked with shareholder value ( Paxton, 2012 ). The link between organizational values and HR certification is another issue that has been addressed. Organizational values are treated as a key antecedent to the use and pursuit of HR certification ( Garza and Morgeson, 2012 ).

Table 3 presents only those periods during which specific trends were active, but provides no information on their dynamics. This can be observed by looking at the average number of papers per year (ANPY) in consecutive periods. Table 4 presents all the trends active during the last year of the study. They were divided into three groups according to whether the ANPY was decreasing, increasing or stable in recent years. To depict the relative strength of these trends, table shows the average number of papers published in the final 5-year period.

It can be concluded that trends with an increasing dynamic coincide with the trends defined in the literature. For example, “flexible employment from the perspective of HRM” corresponds with “employment relations” distinguished by Markoulli et al. (2017) and “the HRM process, the changing nature of HRM, and precarious employment relations” in the typology developed by Cooper et al. (2020) . “Diversity Management” is related to “organizational culture” ( Özlen, 2014 ). “Employee participation” may be associated with “employment relations” ( Cooke et al. , 2019 ) and “organizational commitment” ( García-Lillo et al. , 2017 ). The latter occurs both in the presented typology and in previous ones. “leader–member exchange” should be included in “behavioral issues” ( Özlen, 2014 ). Finally, a trend characterized by an increasing dynamic is “green and sustainable HRM”. Green HRM was an independent subject of analysis in a study by Yong et al. (2020) .

5. Conclusions

5.1 contributions and implications.

The present study provides an analysis of HRM journals with the aim of identifying trends in HRM research. It makes contributions to the field by providing a more comprehensive and objective review than analyses resulting from conventional systematic literature reviews as well as by identifying 42 different trends. It fills an existing gap in literature studies on HRM with a novel research approach – a methodology based on full-text mining and a big data toolset. As a consequence, this study can be considered as providing an adequate reflection of all the articles published in journals strictly devoted to HRM issues and which may serve as an important source of reference for both researchers and practitioners. It can also help them identify the core journals focused on HRM research as well as those topics which are of particular interest and importance.

As the study covers a period of over 20 years it should come as no surprise that some trends emerged and declined over this time. However, our study creates an opportunity for reviving research topics which combine old trends with new ones, and at the same time take into account the interdisciplinary nature of HRM as a field of research. Some researchers have observed that success can often be achieved by adopting a tool from another research area or through a new way of analyzing old problems that brings new insights and solutions ( Adali et al. , 2018 ).

Finally, we observed the emergence of a number of trends during the studied period that are still active. In particular, green and sustainable HRM is not only an emerging trend but also developing rapidly. It is worth mentioning here that while many articles have focused on green HRM issues, they have not been published in journals that specialize in HRM but in journals devoted to environmental issues. One possible future challenge for researchers may be to estimate the proportions between HRM articles published in HRM journals and those featured in other journals.

Practitioners interested in the evolution of the field can find in this paper areas of HRM that require improving in their own businesses or which can be treated as a platform for introducing innovations in HRM (emerging trends). The information contained in this paper can also be utilized as a source for evaluating the performance of sub-fields in a HRM research domain and for adjusting research policies with regard to funding allocations and comparing research input and output ( Gu, 2004 ). The editors of journals may take into account the results presented in this paper when making decisions regarding the direction, scope, and themes of their journals.

5.2 Limitations

First, our eligibility criteria included only papers indexed in the Scopus and WoS database and excluded conference proceedings, book chapters, and non-English papers. Second, only full-text articles were included in the study, which could narrow down the research area. As a consequence, important information regarding the research presented in the excluded documents is potentially lost. Third, most of the papers in our database were published in the International Journal of Human Resource Management, and therefore such trends as “challenges for international HRM” can be considered significant (long-lasting). Another – the fourth – limitation of the study is the lack of estimation of the proportion between searches in HRM journals and articles published in other journals. Future research may overcome the above-presented limitations. Although we used valuable techniques such as TF-IDF and HDBSCAN, the fifth limitation is that, after trends were discovered, it was necessary to evaluate and interpret them. That could have induced researchers' bias even if – as in this study – researchers from different areas of experience were involved. Finally, this study covers the 2000–2020 timeframe. Since HRM is a rapidly developing field, in a few years from now academics will probably begin to move into exciting new research areas. As a consequence, it might be worthwhile conducting similar analyses to those presented in this study and compare their results.

Workflow of the methodology used in this study

Number of papers in the years 2000–2020

Trends in HRM research identified in previous studies

HRM-related journals included in this study

Trends in HRM research in the years 2000–2020

Activity of long-lasting and emerging trends in recent years

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Human Resource Management

(24 reviews)

ISBN 13: 9781946135117

Publisher: University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing

Language: English

Formats Available

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Learn more about reviews.

Reviewed by Steve Custer, Professor, Oakland City University on 11/17/23

This text covered a wide range of HR competencies. At first, I was not expecting to find such a comprehensive text, particularly in light of the fact that the copyright was 2016 - well before the COVID-19 pandemic. However, I was pleasantly... read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

Content Accuracy rating: 5

I found the text to contain a high degree of accuracy in addressing the fundamental elements of human resource management inherent to most organizations.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

Aside from some name changes in functional areas that have occurred in recent years (safety and health to risk management, compensation and benefits to total rewards, training and development to learning and development - just to name a few), the essence of the content remains pertinent to today's organizational culture.

Clarity rating: 5

This text was easy to read and should be very understandable to both undergraduate and graduate students in either traditional or adult learner formats.

Consistency rating: 5

The text was consistent in its definitions of the functional areas of HRM and in the resources provided.

Modularity rating: 5

It would be very reasonable to devise a schedule of learning activities from the contents of this text.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

This material is grouped in a logical fashion and could be tailored to fit a variety of course delivery options.

Interface rating: 5

This reader did not experience any issues in this regard.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

This reader did not note any grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

The text places a priority on respecting diversity and devotes significant coverage to this important realm.

As a certified HR professional, I found this text helpful in guiding students to a greater understanding of human resource management.

Reviewed by Sungdoo Kim, Associate Professor, Northeastern Illinois University on 5/9/23

It covers all major HR topics. It even includes chapters on communication and motivation that are not typically included in traditional HRM textbooks. One issue, though, it is too lean on some major topics like job analysis, HR planning, benefits,... read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

I do not see any issues in accuracy.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 2

I think the biggest issue with this book is the content update. As the role of HR is complying with and adapting to rapidly changing work environment like new legislations, new developments in training and staffing, etc., it is critical that HR book needs to be updated frequently. That being said, given so many benefits open books can offer students, I think instructors can supply up-to-date knowledge through separate materials (exercise, cases, assignments, news articles), supplementing the book.

The book is written in an easy to understanding manner with many real-world examples. Those who have a difficulty understanding traditional textbook would have a better time with this book as it focuses less on abstract concepts but more on practical use of those concepts.

Yes, this book is well organized from the start to the end, starting with the broad overview of HRM and trends to end with topics such as labor relations and international HR which is typical in other HRM textbooks. The book is consistent across all the chapters in terms of its components (topic discussions, key takeaway, cases, and team activity).

Each chapter consists of several sub units that are well fit together and help readers understand the topic in a step-by-step manner. At the end of each chapter, key takeaway section looks like a good wrap-up and the cases and team activity assignments are very useful in teaching students hands-on knowledge.

Each chapter is presented in a logical, clear fashion.

Interface rating: 4

I do not see any glaring issues on this, though I think they may use more images to illustrate hear and there.

No grammatical errors noticed.

No issues on this aspect. Actually, this book, unlike other traditional HRM books spend more space on diversity and multiculturalism (see ch.3).

Reviewed by Robert Eliason, Lecturer, James Madison University on 4/12/23

This professionally prepared textbook offers a wide overview of the management of Human Resources. Although over 10 years old, the book is up-to-date enough to serve as a primary textbook or a supplemental resource for a Human Resource Management class. This text covers a wide range of topics in the Human Resource Management field. Created as a published textbook, it has examples, illustrations, pictures, graphs, and charts to enhance the content. It generally covers tests, assessments, and software but does not go into specific tools in these areas. The text fails to provide an index or glossary.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

The overall content is high quality and free of errors. It has a quality fitting a professional textbook in the HRM field. Being over a decade old, it does not reflect Generation Z or many minority groups in society.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 3

The text was written in 2011 with a publishing edition in 2016. The publisher does not want to receive attribution. Updates and improvements are not likely. The content remains basically sound but fails to include any content from the last decade. Additional content could easily be added and fit into the framework provided.

Clarity rating: 4

The text does contain a large amount of technical language that is well defined and easily understood. Key terms are bolded but the text is not consistent in providing definitions nor is there a directory of key terms with definitions.

As a professionally constructed textbook, it is well organized with chapters that are all structured on the same order, layout, and boxes.

The text is structured with defined chapters and subchapters allowing the content to be delivered in any order desired. Each chapter is followed by cases and problems related to that chapter. The text provides a summary at the end of each chapter.

The chapters do flow in an acceptable structure that has special topics at the front, follows employee paths from recruitment to termination, and then adds additional topics at the end. It could have been structured better if it gathered relevant topics together. The text does make it easy to assign chapters in a more logical order.

Links to videos mostly work. Clearly the book was created as a printed text so navigation within the text does not work. Links to other sections in the text do not work in the PDF version.

The text contains no grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

The text does discuss diversity and multiculturalism. The photos throughout the book largely portray white males and females in workplace settings.

This textbook would work well as a supplemental source or as a primary text if you add additional content to bring it up-to-date.

Reviewed by Donala Kawaauhau, Associate Professor, Hawaii Community College on 12/12/22

The text covers all topics associated with the appropriate performance of a Human Resource Manager. It also introduces the reader to additional elements associated with strategic planning and performance focused on legal compliance. read more

The text did a great job explaining and describing the various tasks and performance measures of and in the field of Human Resource Management. The discussion of and on racial situations were perspective based and read as an outlier in an otherwise legally driven field focused on quantifiable employee performance and compensation, but the rest of the text did an excellent job preparing its reader for and on what to expect if and when employed in the field of Human Resources or in the field of general management.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

The text provided an up to date analysis of Human Resource Management and presented the reader with tools that can assist them in their preparation for work in the field.

Clarity rating: 3

The text did an excellent job presenting multi-dimensional topics in a clear and comprehensive way. Steps were broken down and connected appropriately to assist with reader comprehension. The chapter on multiculturalism confused the clarity of the topic of EEO compliance. The topic of multiculturalism is of great importance in the field and should be discussed within the realm of equal employment expectations to ensure the avoidance of illegal activity (accidental or otherwise) in the recruiting and hiring process.

Consistency rating: 4

The topics in the text were exceptionally consistent throughout. The only outlier is the section on diversity and multiculturalism, which brought in statements that could be seen as legally problematic in both public and private sector Human Resource environments.

The text segments topics well and allows for comprehensive learning at both the micro and macro level.

Topics in the text are organized well with generalized introductions that are further dissected and broken down in later chapters. Chapters make references to one another and all tie together well.

The interface was excellent. The text loaded appropriately and all images appeared without incident.

The text was well written. No significant grammatical errors were found.

This is a very difficult topic to discuss in general but it is next to impossible to appropriately discuss in the field of Human Resource Management. Human Resource Managers are expected and required to ensure that the most qualified employees are hired, that all employees are treated equally, and that discrimination or preferential treatment does not exist at or on any level within the organization. Having to balance that requirement with the essential discussion of diversity means that language must be purposeful and devoid of any possible misinterpretation to ensure consistent legal compliance. Human Resource Management is required to follow the law and even a hint of predetermined prejudice can cost a company millions even if coming from a place of good intentions. The chapter on diversity and multiculturalism fails to make mention of that and contains language that may cause a learner to carry with them misunderstandings of and on the field of Human Resources that could lead to their eventual termination. Statements on the truth of the field as it stands is essential and should be added to the chapter to ensure that learners understand what can happen if they get ahead of the law when working in the field.

A substantial amount of work went into the creation of this text, which is full of important and useful information on the processes and tools of and in the field of Human Resource Management.

Reviewed by Angela Hayslett, Lecturer, James Madison University on 9/18/22

This book covers most key HR areas with just enough depth. This book could benefit from including a wider array of HR policies affecting employee rights and restrictions. read more

This book covers most key HR areas with just enough depth. This book could benefit from including a wider array of HR policies affecting employee rights and restrictions.

Content seems to be consistent with other similar texts.

This book addresses generational differences in HR management, and a chapter on diversity and multiculturalism, both of which are timely and should be relevant for years to come.

Keywords and terminology are defined and examples are used to help with understanding of text.

Each chapter follows a similar structure.

The book design uses sections, headings, bold text, enumeration, bullets, etc. to help organize and structure the topics. It is easy to follow and digest.

Some chapters are organized in a logical order of the chronological stages of HR management. Each chapter consistently concludes with case studies and problems.

It was not immediately apparent how to navigate to the next page. Instead of a task bar at the bottom of the website, a next page button at the bottom of the reading or something similar to the scroll up arrow that hovers over the text would be more obvious. Hyperlinks allow readers to easily navigate to videos and different sections of the book. There is an effective search feature that allows you to search by keywords. Images are clear.

No grammatical issues were observed.

Cultural Relevance rating: 4

Some of the examples given may show a bias to who is reading the text, but care is given to provide background to the issues of how bias and discrimination impact the workplace.

This is a great option to orient students to the function and role of human resource professionals. Relevant examples are included and information is presented in an easy to read format.

Reviewed by Elizabeth C. Orozco Reilly, Professor, Loyola Marymount University on 2/18/22

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

This book covers the basics of HRM and is suitable as an introduction to the vast array of topics in the field. It provides a professor with competent summaries of each chapter at the end, which could also be used to frame the chapters. The principal limitations of this text are the dated references, broken links, and lack of discussion of how diversity, equity, and inclusion is fundamental to achieving socially just organizations.

Content Accuracy rating: 3

Insofar as this book provides a fundamental overview of the broad functional areas of HRM, it presents accurate information about what each area is. As references are quite dated by 2022, which is when this review is written, there are more current examples that would resonate better with students.

Because of the changing nature of HRM and the sheer number of professional settings for which this work is applicable, all topics should be supplemented with relevant and timely case studies to personalize students’ experiences of the topic. For example, there are no cases relevant to educational settings, yet all educational institutions have HR departments or divisions—and it is applicable subject matter for all educators, whether K-12 or higher education.

Most of the author’s references cited are a decade or older old at this point, requiring the professor to provide newer research to supplement or build on more background that is frequently aged. The diversity, equity, and inclusion theme is missing for the most part, and this warrants extensive discussion in many of the topics covered. For example, implicit bias is a natural topic for HRM courses.

Many examples are provided for the principles of each functional area. For example, in the chapter on communication (Chapter 9), explanations are fulsome and then the charts and opportunities for students to consider their own circumstances, help build deeper understanding.

The book has a standard format that is internally consistent. Narrative is frequently enhanced with tables, graphs, charts, etc., and this is very helpful to summarize concepts.

Modularity rating: 4

My view is that these chapters are stand-alone topics that, for the most part, could easily be taught in any order, or prioritized or eliminated for shorter modules within a more global course on business functions.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 3

Overall, the book is well organized and easy to follow. Learning Objectives, Key Take-Aways, Exercises, Case Studies, and References are very helpful to get the professor started on their lessons, presentations, and application of the content. The links in the digital PDFs link back to topics within the book as well as to external topics. One issue is that when you click on an external link, you cannot then easily get back to the section of the book you were reading, as the default is back to the beginning of the book. In addition, many links are broken, which occurs enough so as to affect the flow. As mentioned, references are very dated, so professors should check topics for updated content, research, case law, etc.

Interface rating: 2

The links in the digital PDFs link back to topics within the book as well as to external topics. One issue is that when you click on an internal or external link, you cannot then easily get back to the section of the book you were reading, as the default is either not available for internal links or sends you back to the beginning of the book with external links. In addition, many links are broken, which occurs enough so as to affect the flow.

The book is free of grammatical issues.

Cultural Relevance rating: 2

I am waiting for an HRM book that has diversity, equity, and inclusion as a through line for each functional area and topic. With the exception of Chapter 3, which is only six pages, DEI is missing and is not presented or revisited as issues relevant to the many facets of HRM, and yet its relevance warrants extensive discussion in many of the topics covered in the book. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are key issues in HR and the topic demands addressing and requires relevant, current content.

I have reviewed and used a variety of HRM books over the years, and while the fundamentals of the functional areas are present in all of them, including this text, one of the challenges of keeping this field relevant and rigorous for our students is presenting current examples, laws, policies, and trends to supplement the basics. While this book can provide some of these basics, professors would do well to supplement with generous amounts of additional materials. I do appreciate that is is open access, as students can learn the basics without paying for a really expensive textbook.

Reviewed by Steven Dickson, Adjunct Professor, Southern Oregon University on 1/2/22

This is an excellent open-source text for use in any business course with a focus on human resources as an occupation or a function. Student reception of the text was in the affirmative for courses Strategic Staffing and Principles of Human... read more

The foundational content of the book is good; however, there exists a need for a text revision due to changes in the working environment.

The content of the text is applicable across small to large business operations. Great introductory text.

The text was easy to read and the content is applicable to practice.

The text is consistent with the theme specific to the practice of human resources throughout.

The text is easily divided into sections into strategic learning/teaching sections.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

The framework of the text is easily followed and has a clear flow. Some of the subunits may need to be reorganized based on the course focus.

The text is a PDF that is easily navigatable and searchable.

No significant grammatical errors were seen.

No significant culturally discrepant material was noted; however, an update/revision of the text may be warranted.

Reviewed by Kevin Knotts, Assistant Professor, Marshall University on 10/28/21

The textbook provides an overview of most key areas in HRM that would be covered in an introductory or survey course. Any introductory HRM textbook should cover HRM strategy, diversity/EEOC, recruitment and selection, comp and benefits, turnover, training and development, and performances with additional focus where the author feels it needs to be devoted - communication, safety, international HRM, etc. This textbook provides coverage of most major HRM areas and there is no truly lacking areas that needed to be completely added.

There are some areas that could have a bit more detail provide or additional chapters provided on that material. For example, EEOC should potentially have its own chapter to fully provide the context and understanding of the different laws. Another example is that compensation and benefits are combined into a single chapter. There are so many different areas that have to be considered in the context of these two areas that separation of them into two chapters would allow for a more comprehensive coverage of both key HRM issues.

Overall, there was not many errors throughout the text and it appears to be mostly unbiased. There were some definitions that were proposed by the textbook that could have discussion on the specifics of the text; however, for the most part the content was accurately conveyed with few errors.

This is probably the area of the textbook that I am the most concerned about as an instructor. Per the nature of the content covered in HRM with the everchanging landscape and adjustments that have to be made, the structure and framing of the textbook give me concerns over my ability to use it for a longer period of time without having to make major adjustments. There are a multitude of different change to legislative actions that occur every year that would impact different elements of these chapters. One way to potentially address this is through updating of supplementary materials to provide instructors with more current information. If I were to use this, I would assume that I would need to bring in a large amount of outside materials to make the material be as up to date and relevant as possible for the students in the course.

The clarity of the textbook was well done. I did not see any major issues that I would run into when having students use this text. While there is some jargon that is used throughout the textbook, it is relevant to the field and the terminology that would be used - that is, when working students would need to know this jargon anyways and the textbook provides the introduction to that.

The text is generally consistent with terminology and framework, following a similar pattern throughout chapters. Additionally, most of the terminology is comparable to what would be used outside of the context, however, with the everchanging landscape of HRM, there are obviously changes to terminology that are not captured due to the older materials used. This would be a relatively easy item for an instructor to incorporate into the materials they were covering.

The modularity of the textbook is well done. The material is broken down into smaller, readable sections that a reader can easily get through or digest in smaller components. The information is also prepared in a way that would be easy to move the material around within a course to adequately compose the course in the instructor's desirable manner.

The topics are presented in a logical manner. For the most part, there is a order in which material should be covered. This text covers it in that manner. In the very few instances that it is not, the modularity of text would allow the items to be moved around.

Interface rating: 3

There were no major concerns regarding interface, but there was several items that did not seem to work properly for links and the layouts sometimes seemed to not be clear. This isn't a total problem, but there is the possibility for improvement to make sure that all video links are up to date and work, proper formatting of tables/figures, etc.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

There did not appear to be any major grammatical errors. As I reviewed the grammar, I came across a few minor errors, but they were few and far between. I may have missed more grammatical errors, but for the most part, I did not notice major errors throughout the text.

There was adequate coverage to cultural elements throughout the text by having both a chapter on diversity/multiculturalism and international HRM. These are two major areas that help to provide a cultural understanding within the context of HRM. A separate chapter on EEOC laws could have been included to help strengthen the arguments and framing. The language did not appear to be culturally insensitive or offensive in any way - a suggest, similar to my prior comments would be to update the material as need be to be more up to date with current terminology.

Reviewed by Satoris Howes, Professor, Oregon State University on 8/17/20

The main content includes areas that are of most importance for HR practitioners, although some areas are missing and/or under-represented. I think this is to be expected of most any book, and completely understand and appreciate the difficulty in creating a truly comprehensive yet reasonable-length book. Overall, there is much to like, and most of the main topics that are usually covered (and those covered for SHRM certification) are included. In terms of some specifics, I liked that there was a section on alternate dispute resolution when discussing performance management issues. I don’t see that in all HR books but it is quite valuable. The section on employee separation – I personally don’t like the term “rightsizing” as I think it likely has negative “PR” connotations. In addition, in today’s world, I think a discussion of furloughs is needed, as they are quite prevalent. I feel like HR has gotten much more savvy in recent times in terms of possible ways to deal with economic woes, and examples that are more recent (e.g., related to how companies have handled things during the COVID-19 pandemic) would be helpful. Given that many of the references/examples are from 2011, this is an area where much supplementation would be necessary. In Chapter 11 (on Employee Assessment) there are also areas I would feel the need to supplement. For example, given the animosity associated with performance appraisals, I typically like to discuss the reasons for / purposes of performance appraisal and link it more clearly to strategic imperatives. I like how motivational theories are brought into the section on compensation (termed pay theories in this book) as I think that is a key element of compensation that is not always considered. I didn’t see any mention of corporate social responsibility and felt the discussion of ethics was a bit short, so those would also be areas I’d supplement. In sum, the basic comprehensiveness is fine for a standard undergraduate HR text. I would feel the need to supplement in many areas, whether wholly (e.g., CSR issues, HRIS, impact of AI, ) or to bring in more detail (e.g., ethics). In order to make room for this during a term, I’d likely not use the chapter on communication, as we cover that in our OB course and there wasn’t really anything in that chapter that seemed HR-specific.

Most of the information is accurate. However, due to the outdated nature of some of the information (the book was originally published in 2011 and this version was adapted/published in 2016 yet it seems like things weren’t updated beyond 2011…), there is some misinformation within the text that an instructor would want to be aware of. For example, Table 10.1 shows the various employment-at-will exceptions by state. Unfortunately, there are several that appear to be wrong. At the very minimum, I would recommend alerting students to the need to check on their state’s requirements and restrictions when it comes to any law as legal issues are quite fluid. To be fair, this is an issue that any textbook would have after a couple years. In addition, some links to YouTube videos no longer work so that is something to also be aware of (though the ones that do work are valuable and/or fun in many cases).

This book was originally produced in 2011 and adapted/published to the current version in 2016. While much of the basic information is still very much relevant (basic terminology and general HR concepts) some things are simply out-of-date (e.g., legal findings mentioned earlier) or haven’t updated to be fully reflect today’s realities (e.g., furloughs, gig work, AI). As I noted earlier, this is a fine basic text with most content areas included, but you should definitely plan to supplement the content to ensure you’re up-to-date with what you’re covering. This is true for any HR book that is over 3 years old. Unfortunately, given most of the information in this book is from 2011, with just a few updates in 2016, there is much to update. Is it worth compiling all of that separately versus going with a more recent/updated text? I’m not sure.

This is a clear positive for the book. I like that it is clear and there are light-hearted / funny examples that I think would appeal to students (e.g., Jack Sparrow and Barbossa negotiation video link). The cases, while sometimes a bit simplistic, are good ways to engage students in a discussion, though again with the simplicity they are likely somewhat shorter discussions (or well-suited to an online forum perhaps?). Overall, the text is well-suited for an undergraduate course (again, if supplemented content-wise), but would be far too simplistic for a graduate course.

No problems with consistency. The layout of the chapters were fine and consistent with one another. Some chapters felt far shorter with less information than others though, so it might be worth combining the chapters when covering them (e.g., Chapters 10 and 11 – both on performance management).

I have no problems here either. The chapters essentially stand on their own so you can teach them out of order, and there are links to related material in other chapters in case more explanation is needed. The text is also easily searchable, and Table of Contents easy to decipher, so the book seems easy in that respect.

The author(s) is(are) upfront about the point that there is not a separate chapter focused on HRM laws, and that instead the laws are presented in the relevant chapters. I typically like to cover a separate section on legal issues as many laws cut across HR activities and I don’t want students to be confused. I find that many students already think that many laws only apply to the hiring of people and not to things like training and development opportunities or performance management. I like to talk about them early in the course and briefly refer back to that when we get to various chapters / content. So I feel like I would be supplementing this book with a separate section just on legal issues, and it may become overly redundant when presented again later. Alternatively, it could be seen as a great reminder / refresher of information. Regardless, I’d be supplementing beyond what is here to discuss HRM laws as a separate unit/section. Job analysis is in the section on recruitment. I have never taught it there, so that’s odd for me. And no mention of O*NET? That’s a clear miss IMHO. This said, the general organization is fine if you’re okay with legal things being interspersed, etc. – and like I noted earlier, the text is easily searchable and there are links throughout that take you to areas in other parts of the text that are relevant, so that’s nice.

I had no problems with the basic interface. I was disappointed there was no subject index, but at least there is the possibility of searching in the text. Some searches are just funky (e.g., searching for ONET, it gave me “monetary” and I got nothing for O*NET, so it may be there and I just overlooked it and am not choosing the right search term). Many videos on YouTube have been removed so that’s no good, but within the text itself the links appear to work.

I may have missed some, but I didn’t see any problems here. Things were clear and easy to read, unlike some open source texts I’ve seen that feel like they were thrown together with typos and poor grammar.

Given the importance of diversity and inclusion in today’s world, and for HR in particular, I think this chapter could really be expanded on. Certainly, the surface of this issue is covered, but there is a lot more that could be done to discuss this topic. Many HR managers are struggling to update their DEI policies and create a diverse workforce, so more tangible discussions of ways to ensure equity beyond the four-fifths rule is needed. In addition, the reference to research in this chapter was a bit light, and the recommendations seemed a tad trite at times. Again, it’s great there is a chapter and the material is broached, but more depth would be ideal. In addition – the stock photos most definitely do not reflect a diverse population and should be updated accordingly so that students can relate to the profession.

If you’re looking for a basic, inexpensive option for an undergraduate HR course, and you’re willing to supplement (in some cases considerably) in order to bring in important topics and ensure the material is up-to-date, this book works. There are definitely things to like about the book, and aspects that deserve kudos. Unfortunately, as with any textbook, there are things that are missing and/or don’t work for my particular style of teaching an HR course. With some updating, I think I’d love this option. With it being so outdated, I just can’t bring myself to be excited about it as an easy option to adopt.

Reviewed by Julia Carr, Professor, James Madison University on 7/30/20

The topics covered by the book are comprehensive and reflect the areas an HR manager would deal with on a daily basis. The book begins with a very good overview of human resources with sets the stage for the information to follow. It is well organized and the Key-Takeaways will be very helpful for students as well as the way the important vocabulary is called out in bold.

The content is accurate, error-free and unbiased. It provides a good foundational knowledge for those seeking an introduction to human resource management and development. It does need to be updated with present day statistics. It does indicated that it was updated in 2016, however most of the references were from 2010 or 2011 or earlier. In addition, I would recommend a more robust group of references to deepen the content presented.

The general content covered is good and relevant to a person learning about the basics of human resource management. It hits the major functional areas if HR that I am teaching in an Introduction to HR type of class. Much of the data presented is coming from statistics gathered in 2011 or earlier. In addition there are topics where significant changes have been made since 2011, such as web-based training delivery platforms, employment law, challenges of labor unions and examples shared related to sexual orientation. That being said it is tough to keep this information up to date. There are many areas that are presented that would be very helpful to student with no background in human resource management such as the introduction of a SWOT analysis and then the practical example that follows and the forms presented such as in the section on job analysis

The text is written in an organized fashion that is easy to follow. Technical terminology is bolded and definitions are provided for additional clarity.

The text is consistent in the framework and it is very easy to follow. In addition, as an instructor, it is helpful because each chapter has the same flow and consistent ancillary items.

The design of the text lends itself to a flexible course design. It would be easy to change the organizational structure to cover things in a different order or to leave a section out if it was not relevant to course objectives. However, the topic order that the text follows work well as is and does not need much, if any adaptation.

The topics in this text were sequenced well and very easy to work though. The organization was such that it built on the basic introductory topics to the more technical concepts.

There were no significant interface issues that I encountered. I did use mainly the printable PDF version because from past experience I thought that is what my students would primarily use. There are some videos that require additional login credentials.

I did not see any glaring issues here. I do think a more robust discussion of these topics could be presented. As I said previously, much has occurred in this area since 2011. It is stated that this textbook was updated in 2016, but the references in the Diversity and Multiculturalism chapter are from 2010 and 2011. This is a chapter given the present state of our society that I feel warrants expansion and deeper coverage of the areas presented.

This textbook provides a solid foundation in human resource management and development. I would consider adopting it for my class if the information was updated and brought into present day terminology and issues/challenges. I love the organization, key takeaways and may of the exercises. I also appreciate the cases and the connection between many of the concepts to practical workplace examples.

Reviewed by Lauren Maguire, Professor, Bunker Hill Community College on 5/27/20

The text provides a solid overview of the tenants of HR Management. It is somewhat technical in its approach, but touches on all important areas of a introductory review. read more

The text provides a solid overview of the tenants of HR Management. It is somewhat technical in its approach, but touches on all important areas of a introductory review.

Content is accurate, error-free and unbiased.

The approach to the subject matter is broad and offers examples across the spectrum.

The reading level is fairly high. The text uses some business jargon and occasionally refers to concepts that may not be readily understandable to entry level students.

The text is internally consistent in terms of terminology and framework.

The material is broken down within each chapter. Each concept is addressed individually and also as a whole.

The text manages the information in a clear and effective manner.

The text is free of significant interface issues, including navigation problems, distortion of images/charts, and any other display features that may distract or confuse the reader.

The text discusses a variety of corporate situations and managerial tools. It assumes a formal business structure which does not always address the many different cultural and personality issues which complicate HR Management.

A solid option and valuable OER resource.

Reviewed by Joshua Jensen, Adjunct Professor, SHRM-SCP, George Fox University on 4/3/20

This textbook addresses a wide range of important topics relevant to human resource management today. The text covers most of the key areas that should be considered in an undergraduate course on human resource management. Strengths of the text include content related to the strategic role of HR (Chapter 2), which is placed toward the front of the text (as it should be), along with content related to HR’s role in retention of top talent (Chapter 7). A weaknesses of the text relates to the inclusion of a chapter on successful employee communication (Chapter 9). This is indeed an important topic but one that is often covered in other undergraduate courses. Another weakness of the text is that it is very thin on any content related to Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS), which in today’s global business environment is a critical component of an effective human resource management function. On a final note, a considerable difference between this text and most other HR texts is that it addresses applicable HR/employment laws within each respective section of the text, whereas many other human resource management texts dedicate an entire chapter to HR/employment laws. The approach of this text makes more sense as these concepts are often first exposure for many students in an undergraduate human resource management course.

The content of the text is accurate and relatively free from error. The text does a good job of providing sources for most information. However, I would recommend inclusion of more rigorous, academic sources to complement the existing professional sources referenced throughout the text. Several of the URLs and links provided throughout the text are broken and need updated. Human resource management changes so frequently and any textbook on the subject must also be updated frequently, as discussed below.

Human resource management is a highly dynamic subject matter. Just this week Congress and the President enacted significant new legislation related to human resource management and employment matters due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a good example of just how fast things can change in the field of human resource management. While I wouldn’t expect a textbook on human resource management to be updated in real-time, I would expect that it be reviewed at least every two years, if not every year. Some content of the text is outdated and in need of refreshing. Many of the data points and sources used throughout the text are outdated – some by nearly 10 years. The text does not provide adequate coverage of Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS), which is a critical component of any human resource department today. On a final note, in the discussion regarding skills necessary for human resource management, the discussion on HR certification only covers the Human Resource Certification Institute’s (HRCI) PHR, SPHR, and GPHR certifications. The text makes no mention of the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) HR certifications which came on the scene over 5 years ago. The SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP today are highly recognized and sought-after standards in the human resource field.

The text is well written with regard to clarity. Human resource management is a complex subject matter, yet the text does a very good job of addressing difficult topics in a clear, easy to understand manner. It provides the perfect balance of informal and technical language.

The text is internally consistent in terms structure and style. The terminology, framework, and flow of the text is very good. Chapters are sequenced in a logical format, and chapters have a similar look and feel. No inconsistencies were noted.

The modularity of the text provides for ease of breaking down concepts and looking at individual components within chapters. The Table of Contents guides the reader to particular sections within each chapter which is helpful. The text is organized by relevant chapters and then each chapter is organized with multiple sections that are of reasonable length with appropriate section headings that are easy to follow. Overall the book is easy to navigate.

Overall the text is organized very well, the structural consistency is good, and the content flows in a very effective manner. Organization is critical to a complex subject matter, and this text provides that.

The text is laid out well and is visually appealing. It is more “exciting” from a visual perspective than many e-texts I have come across. Sections are properly titled and they are chunked into sections that contain manageable amounts of information. However, as mentioned previously, many of the URLs and links throughout the text are broken and don’t work. Many of the video links do not work as well.

The text is well-edited and relatively free from grammatical and typographical errors.

I appreciate the fact that the text had a separate chapter on Diversity and Multiculturalism (Chapter 3). That said, it could be more robust, and include other forms of bias not mentioned (such as unconscious bias). In general, the discussions on diversity and inclusion are well laid out. One issue that I would point out is that while there are few images and pictures sprinkled throughout the text, these images do not portray much diversity – they mostly reflect individuals of Caucasian decent with very little cultural diversity reflected. Consideration of updating the images and pictures to reflect the more current diverse workforce is recommended.

Overall, this open textbook on Human Resource Management is a good open textbook that is a viable alternative to expensive big-publisher textbooks on the subject matter for an undergraduate class. While the textbook is not perfect (and no textbook is), I support adoption of this open textbook for undergraduate human resource management courses facilitated by a human resource management professional who can supplement the text with updated materials and cases to give students a relevant and current overview of the human resource management field.

Reviewed by Jiwon Suh, Assistant Professor, University of Texas at Arlington on 2/5/20

The author covers pretty much every topic that should be covered in HR management. Especially, I like that the author places Strategic HR management upfront. Additionally, I like that the author has a chapter 9: Successful Employee Communication... read more

I did not come across any inaccuracies. But, I found some tables do not have references.

This textbook needs to be updated. Tables are mostly from 2010 - 2011 which are perceived old. For example, Table 14.2 Top Global 100 Companies is based on 2010 data. We all know that the contents in the table are no longer true. Also, youtube videos should be replaced with more recent examples.

This textbook is written concisely, and I believe students would easily be able to read and understand.

The structure and style are great and consistent. I also like the cases that are included at the end of the each chapter. It will be easily used by instructors.

The content is adequately divided into small pieces. Yes, the modularity is great.

The organization of the chapters are good, easy to follow, and very logical.

No serious issue, but some minor issues as I mentioned earlier. Some tables do not include references.

I did not come across any grammatical errors.

I did not notice any cultural insensitivity. Diversity and cultural perspectives are a very important topic in HR management and the textbook successfully includes the topic.

Generally, this textbook is in excellent shape and I am considering to adopt. However, I strongly recommend to update or publish the next version.

Reviewed by Patturaja Selvaraj, Assistant Professor, Gettysburg College on 3/14/19

The textbook covers the most important topics in Human Resource Management. Diversity is vital for the success of organizations. A full fledged chapter covers the aspects of diversity and multiculturalism. The following topics could have been covered in detail: Equal Employment Opportunity and the legal environment, Employee Benefits, HR Analytics (could have been a separate chapter), Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS) and Talent Management. Employee engagement is emerging as an important area in HRM. A separate chapter about employee engagement would have added great value. Subject index at the end would be of great help.

I did not come across any inaccuracies in the textbook. The information and examples provided is accurate and unbiased. Some of the practical aspects of HRM are justified using theories. It provides an opportunity for the participants to know about the theoretical underpinnings as well.

Constant changes in laws and regulations make it difficult to incorporate the amendments, as and when it takes place. Some of the examples are dated. The text is simple, hence incorporating updates will not be an issue.

The content is simple and well structured. The examples provided for the concepts would help students to learn the concepts clearly and grasp it quickly. The cases provided at the end of every chapter is also very helpful.

I found the textbook to be consistent. There is not much of overlap between chapters. The book chapters are arranged in a logical chronological order , which provides an opportunity for the students to built on the concepts learnt in earlier chapters.

The textbook is divided into different sections and organized very well. It is easy to read and understand each section. The table of contents provide link to different sections, which makes it easy to access the particular section in the textbook.

The content and topics are arranged in a logical order. Students would be curious to know about the benefits that they would be entitled for, as an employee. It would help to provide more details about employee benefits.

There is a scope for improvement, although I did not encounter major issues. 1) some of the links require login credentials. 2) Some of the video links did not work. for examples the link provided in page 125 (Silly Job interviews: Monty Python) did not work. 3) issue with page lay out for tables and figures. for example In page 35. the table heading appears in page 35 whereas the table appears in page 36.

The textbook appears inclusive. It is neither insensitive nor offensive. It has a separate chapter dedicated towards diversity and multiculturalism.

This is a good text book for a beginner to understand the basic functions of Human Resource Management and it also provides practitioner focus. The book is very practical and interesting. The cases and video links provided would help the students to understand the concept in a better way. The text book can covers some topics in greater detail like - In the job analysis topic, detailed coverage of techniques for collecting data for job analysis and also mention about different job analysis technique could have incorporated. Similarly, in Chapter 2, the author could have mentioned how HR practices change depending on the strategy of the organization like cost leadership, differentiation and focus. While discussing about different techniques of selection, discussing about group discussion, case method, case competition conducted by different organizations would have helped students to know more about different and contemporary techniques. While discussing about pay for performance , it would have helped to know about advantages and disadvantages of pay for performance and conditions in which it can/cannot be used. Overall, it is a comprehensive textbook.

Reviewed by Lee Myers, Faculty, Linn-Benton Community College on 2/13/19

The (2016) content is appropriate for a survey course in Human Resources Management. It is geared toward helping current and future supervisors and managers understand the functions, roles, and practices needed to manage employees. While the practical examples and applications are dated (2011) key HRM terms are relevant and are clearly communicated. The specific sections of the text that are limited and could use more detail:

1. Laws, regulations, and policies. Laws have been amended, legislation has been passed and agency regulations have changed since 2011 (e.g., the Affordable Care Act, FSLA, Privacy Law, OSHA, IRS (tax) and Labor Law)

2. Include a new section on HRM digital technology, (e.g., Talent websites, social media, video job interviewing, mobile apps and optimization, cloud-based record management, analytics, and predictive modeling, real-time and always-on feedback systems)

The text is relatively free from errors. Authors have taken care to represent several sources and practices applicable to various public and private organizations as well as industries and company size. Relevance and reflection of recent research are a greater concern.

Specific content reflecting "current practices" and organizations dated. Updates would be time-consuming in order to replace existing content. Most examples are from resources dated 2011 or prior.

The writing style is conversational and has limited jargon. It is appropriate for most students at the community college level.

Consistency rating: 3

The framework is consistent from section to section. The section content does build upon previously discussed and defined terminology.

The content is broken down in a format where cross-reference links are embedded into section areas. While the intention is to help the reader either skip to a section or review content from an earlier section, it be may not be all that helpful to the reader. A possible alternative to this formatting would be: 1. Including a glossary of terms and subject index. 2. Including a typeface whereby the key terms are not only bolded but the definition of the term is also designated by italics or linked to a lookup feature.

Modularity rating: 3

Most Human Resources Management activities do not happen in a vacuum, therefore, the difficulty of creating a text that is modular reflect this challenge. The text is broken down according to basic HR functions and concepts and has some potential of reorganization and standalone capability.

There are some distortion and sizing issues with images and charts. Some video quality is marginal.

Most resource direct links are currently available, though have not been updated with current material. (e.g., Dictionary of Occupational Titles -could be updated to using O*Net Online, YouTube videos could be searched for more current content and higher quality video, SHRM resources replaced by sources that do not require access rights or logins.)

Few grammatical, word usage or typographical errors were noted.

To be more reflective and sensitive to the current workforce and cultures, additional content would make the text more inclusive. (e.g., gender identity, sexual orientation, single parenting and caregiving, biculturalism, veteran status, and disabilities.)

The basic structure (headings and numbering) allows users to navigate throughout the document and appear to be conducive to assistive technology. YouTube videos allow for closed captioning and transcripts increasing accessibility.

Reviewed by Huh-Jung Hahn, Assistant Professor, Winona State University on 5/21/18

The textbook is very comprehensive, covering various subjects adequately. Unlike most other HRM textbooks, some unique chapters (e.g., Chapter 3 and Chapter 9) are included. However, some areas can be improved by adding more explanations or detailed information. My overall impression about the contents is that they are short and simple. This is fine for a survey textbook, but can be too brief for students wanting to study the topics in depth. Furthermore, it would help to have an index or glossary at the end.

Overall, the content is conveyed accurately with a neutral tone.

Some of the HR content (e.g. laws and regulations) requires continuous updates due to constant changes. Considering that the textbook was written several years ago, an update is recommended in terms of the content and the supplementary materials.

The author did an excellent job on clarity of the content. The content was very straight-forward and well-guided for readers.

The textbook has a high-level of consistency in terms of terminologies, interfaces, and organizations.

The textbook's modularity is excellent. The content is adequately divided into smaller chunks.

The topics are arranged in a logical order. Also, chapters throughout the textbook did a great job on connecting different topics by referring to other chapters appropriately. This may help students understand the interconnectivity of contents.

There were no significant interface issues. The textbook's interface was easy to follow and consistent throughout the chapters. However, I recommend addressing an issue regarding page layout for tables or figures. Specifically, several pages do not present tables or figures despite showing only their titles. For example, the title of a table is placed on page 254, while the actual table is shown on page 255. Similar issues are found on pages 269-270 and pages 295-296.

I did not notice any grammatical errors.

I did not notice any cultural insensitivity or offensiveness in the content. Rather, the textbook puts the importance of cultural perspectives as one of the key fundamentals for good HR practice; this was done by placing the subject of diversity and multi-culturalism at the front of the textbook while other HR textbooks do not.

The author did an excellent job on making the content very practical and interesting. Each chapter has a good balance of containing both general information and the necessary how-to's for particular, real-world situations. Human Resources Recall, cases, and exercises at the end of each chapter are very critical and thought-evoking - one of the best that I have ever seen. Lastly, this book leaves a very positive impression in regards to the quality of open textbooks. This reviewer hopes the use of open textbooks becomes more mainstream throughout universities and other teaching institutions.

Reviewed by Joseph Frank, Adjunct Instructor / Manager HR Reporting and Compliance, Fontbonne University on 5/21/18

The book covers a wide variety of topics related to human resources management. There is 1 brief mention of analytics for candidate sourcing, but much more discussion of HR analytics is needed in order to bring this forward to present day. The... read more

The book covers a wide variety of topics related to human resources management.

There is 1 brief mention of analytics for candidate sourcing, but much more discussion of HR analytics is needed in order to bring this forward to present day. The HR analytics subfield has grown dramatically in its significance to the field during the past decade. Also the related subfield of HR Information Systems is barely mentioned at all. A solid understanding of HR practice requires knowledge of how these subfields work and how they relate to the other subfields such as recruitment, training, compensation, benefits, etc.

The content is somewhat accurate but not always unbiased. For example, the discussion of how we define diversity vs multiculturalism is not necessarily how I would have constructed it. Another example is Table 2.2. It is a good summary of the 4 stages in business lifecycle but “Seattle University presentation” is not the original source of this! That’s like the kind of citation an undergraduate student might use in a paper. The citations URLs overall – when they are not broken links -- are from random local news and other types of websites that are rather dated (like jobs.aol.com) way too often. These are the kinds of sources that disappear quickly. Academic citations would be much more stable, but admittedly less digestible for the average student. However, more solid academic citations would be more useful as resources to give students for writing their own academically rigorous papers.

HR is a difficult topic to keep up-to-date. The activities are actually really good and pretty much timeless, especially the suggested group activities (although most of those would be hard to do in an online class, could be useful face-to-face).

I have several concerns in the discussion of generational differences. The “Generation Y” case study reads really outdated. Millennials now make up a slight majority of the workforce. Would be more compelling as a discussion of how Generation Z – the group really entering the workforce and college in the next 5 years – as Digital Natives differs from Millennial, Gen X, Baby Boomer and the earlier generations work styles. Lots of articles are out there now that could be cited about “the 5 generations now in the workforce.” This quote is also outdated and conflicts with current reality: "It is expected that over the next ten years, over 40 percent of the workforce will retire, and there will not be enough younger workers to take the jobs once held by the retiring workforce (Fernandez, 2007)". In fact, Baby Boomers – and some of the older generation too -- have stuck around. Because of the 2009 recession, many could not afford to retire when they planned. As an instructor with this book I would have to supplement with more current articles.

The section about PHR, SPHR and GPHR is now outdated since SHRM is now offering their own competing credentials. That’s a confusing landscape even for seasoned HR pros – needs some explanation for students to understand how and why to pursue those HRCI credentials instead of SHRM-CP, etc.

Also I have several concerns in the areas of compensation and benefits. The ACA discussion is very, very outdated. Section 6.4 should be called Benefits instead of Other Types of Compensation, and the title of Chapter 6 should be Total Rewards in order to be current with the jargon typically used today in the professionals of compensation and benefits.

Also policies and employee relations matters need updating. Sections about social media recruiting are very outdated (reflecting a 2011-12 timeframe). Issues with mobile device usage by nonexempt workers (i.e., Chicago Police Department) and overtime eligibility not addressed. Map of “right-to-work” states is also outdated given the political debates in several states on this issue. Internet usage policy is mentioned but nothing specifically about employee rights under the National Labor Relations Act (even in non-union employers) to conduct protected concerted activity online. This has in practice limited the legal scope of Internet acceptable use and social media policies.

The writing is accessible, conversational without being unprofessional, and generally clear even when addressing complex, confusing jargon-laden HR topics. This is where this book excels!

The framework and terminology used are generally consistent without the textbook, although not always consistent with the terminology actually used by current-day HR practitioners.

It would be pretty easy for me as an instructor to pick and choose chapters from this book to utilize and not stick with the textbook order. For example, I would pretty much scrap Chapter 6 (compensation and benefits) and replace with more current articles that reflect current practice in Total Rewards, particularly the impacts of the Affordable Care Act. But much of the other content I could use without too many changes and without much concern that the chapter refers to the previous chapter a great deal.

The content generally flows well, although some of the "key takeaways" call-out boxes could be shorter and more succinct.

Most of the video links did not work for me, and the ones that did were pretty low-quality videos. Maybe that's just a function of my connection speed, but could use enhancement. Many of the images were stock photos of questionable relevance to the content.

The grammar and the writing style were generally easy to follow and there were few typographical errors.

The discussion of multiculturalism vs diversity is a good one, but leaves out the most common diversity and inclusion training concept in U.S. corporations today: unconscious bias. Also the imagery is still mostly white faces in this chapter, which is also problematic. Aspiring HR practitioners are in my experience more diverse than the general student population. Overall, the book has too many white faces in its imagery (whether stock photos or cartoons) which is problematic given the increasingly diverse U.S. student body and workforce. A textbook about HR matters including diversity and Equal Employment Opportunity needs to be especially cognizant of this.

Many videos required a login; and many of the URLs deep-linking to specific articles from HRE, SHRM, etc don’t work anymore.

Reviewed by Mussie Tessema, Professor, Winona State University on 5/21/18

The textbook covers most HR topics that are found in other HRM textbooks. Although many issues related to Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) were discussed in different chapters, it would have been good if an entire chapter had been devoted to EEO. Besides, compensation and benefits were discussed in one chapter (chapter 6), which should have been discussed under two separate chapters given the size, variety, and importance of employee benefits. Unlike other HRM textbook, however, the textbook includes full-fledged chapters on communication (chapter 9), and diversity and multiculturism (chapter 3), which are both important in effectively managing an organizational workforce.

The content of the textbook is accurate and unbiassed. It covers fair presentation of the theoretical and practical aspects of HRM and includes references of all sources used, which also improve their verification and credibility.

The content of the textbook is relevant to the respective HR topics/issues, although some of the data/information are not updated. The textbook was originally published in 2011/2012 and used sources from 2005-2010. Since its publication, there have been some legislative (laws and regulations) changes which have impacted some HR practices. Overall, the textbook is written in such a way that makes future updates relatively simple.

The textbook is written clearly and offers good examples and explanations of HR concepts and terminology.

The style and presentation of the content of the textbook is consistent across all 14 chapters, which makes it easy to follow.

The 14 chapters are divided into HR topics and sub-topics, which are also arranged in manageable sizes for the reader. Such presentation also makes navigation and assigning readings to students easy and straightforward.

The textbook presented the 14 chapters in a logical and straight forward manner. It assigned learning objectives for each chapter and section, which allow students what to expect from each chapter/section.

The textbook is free of any issues with the interface or distortion of images/charts, and any other display features that may distract or confuse the reader. The only problem I encountered was with some links that required login credentials (e.g. video link: Chapter 2.2- How Would You Handle This).

The textbook does not contain grammatical errors that would be distracting to students. I only found a few typo-errors, which could be easily corrected. For example, on page 23, “… and expectations are different(Capezza, 2010).” There is no space between the word ‘different’ and ‘(Capezza)’. Also, there is no space between ‘200,000’ and ‘total’ on page 393, “… incidence rate=number of injuries and illness × 200,000total hours worked by all employees…”.

The textbook does not have insensitive or offensive examples. Unlike other HRM textbooks, it dedicated a chapter to “diversity and multiculturism” (chapter 3), which is also presented fairly. It also makes a good point in that while diversity is about the ingredients, the mix of people and perspectives, inclusion is about the container, the place that allows employees to feel they belong, to feel both accepted and different. Cultural sensitivity is a critical issue in managing people in an organization.

It is one of the best textbooks I have used. It presents both the theoretical and practical aspects of HRM in appealing and convincing way. Overall, it is clear and easy to follow and is a great textbook for course in HRM for undergrad students. My two comments are: Adding two more chapters: Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and employee benefits and updating the text with most recent laws and regulations.

Reviewed by Denise Potosky, Professor, Penn State University on 2/1/18

The textbook covers most of the main topics typically associated with HRM and includes a "linked" table of contents. The definition of HRM in Chapter 1 (“the process of employing people, training them, compensating them, developing policies relating to them, and developing strategies to retain them”) is used to set up most of the subsequent chapters in the text. But this definition is narrower and more basic than the implied definition of HRM according to Ulrich’s model presented in Chapter 2, in which a manager of HR needs to be a strategic partner, change agent, administrative and functional expert, human capital developer, and an employee advocate. I wish the text were organized to address the latter definition, as it would be more comprehensive and suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate level students interested in managing human resources and/or becoming HR managers.

The depth of coverage varies for each topic. The information on compensation, for example, is quite detailed and interesting, but the information on selection tends to "mention" ideas rather than develop details.

In Chapter 4, the section on job analysis seems peculiar. First, figure 4 provides a very simple process model (e.g., select the jobs to study, determine information needed, identify sources of data…), but then quickly introduces forms and questionnaires. Where are students of this course supposed to get the questionnaires? Then task vs. competency-based approaches are described, but there is no mention of worker-based job analysis approaches. If a competency approach focuses on KSAOs, is it still a job analysis?

And why not use O*Net to help identify essential tasks of common jobs?

A lot of the information presented is general and most information is accurate, albeit dated in places.

Some of the information provided is incorrect. For example, in the context of selection tests in Chapter 5, the author states, “Personality tests such as Meyers-Briggs and the “Big Five” personality factors may be measured and then compared with successful employee scores.” The Meyers Briggs measures personality style and preferences, not personality traits, and is not valid for use in selection.

In other places, the presentation of information is peculiar and somewhat misleading, if not incorrect. For example, when presenting cognitive ability tests, the author writes, “A cognitive ability test measures intelligences, such as numerical ability and reasoning. The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is an example of a cognitive ability test. It is important to note that some cognitive ability tests can have disparate impact. For example, in EEOC v. Ford Motor Co. and United Automobile Workers of America, African Americans were rejected from an apprentice program after taking a cognitive test known as the Apprenticeship Training Selection System (ATSS)1. The test showed significant disparate impact on African Americans, and it was then replaced by a different selection procedure, after costing Ford $8.55 million. Some sample test categories might include the following…”

The SAT is considered as an entrance exam by some universities, and the ATSS showed disparate impact against African Americans. In fact, many if not most cognitive ability tests administered in the U.S., including the SAT, are associated with disparate impact. This is an important consideration, but is it part of the definition of what cognitive ability tests are? Why not have a separate paragraph about disparate impact in selection tests, which would include considering how interviews and various tests might create adverse impact?

Another example where accuracy can be questioned is the statement “Most expatriates go through four phases of adjustment when they move overseas for an assignment.” (Chapter 14). A few studies have found some support for the culture shock model of adjustment, but several studies have found that this model is not very accurate. Further, expatriation is only one type of global assignment, and is not necessarily the most popular type of global work performed in organizations today. More recent research evidence would really help to update the material presented.

An HRM textbook can be difficult to keep up-to-date, and the author has done a good job in terms of the many laws and changes to HR systems that have occurred since the 1980s. That said, the underlying assumptions and research evidence for the different recommendations regarding key HR practices do not always reflect current thinking in the field. There is so much to cover and keep up-to-date, it might be helpful to have co-authors from different areas of expertise in the different HR functional areas work on this textbook.

In addition, some of the actitivities seem dated. For example, in chapter 1 the exercise reads: "In a group of two to three people, research possible career paths in HRM and prepare a PowerPoint presentation to discuss your findings." In an online course (likely to use an online textbook), student teams are likely to use other, newer presentation technology and formats.

The language used throughout the book is professional and accessible, but sometimes the author assumes that little to no explanation is necessary for examples or key points. For example, I watched the Wendy’s 1989 training video (Chapter 8), but whatever the author implied was excellent about this training video was not obvious to me. The author states, “This excellent training video was used at Wendy’s to teach employees how to grill the perfect burger. Although the video is over twenty years old, the concepts used in it are still true today.” What concepts? Why is this video excellent?

The author writes, "this book is equally important to someone who wants to be an HR manager and to someone who will manage a business," but for the most part this book assumes that the reader is a student looking to begin a career as an HR manager. All of the information and cases put the reader in the role of an HR manager or consultant. For example, in chapter 1, "You have just been hired to work in the human resource department of a small company. You heard about the job through a conference you attended, put on by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM)." Why would anyone not already pursuing a career in HRM attend a SHRM conference?

For someone going into HR, some of the scenarios make it seem deceptively easy to change an organization's culture or people's attitudes towards, say, training or performance. In several places, key information is presented more like "do's and don'ts" advice than evidence-based guidelines.

The overall format of the book is very consistent, with key concepts presented at the beginning and summary definitions and exercises presented at the end of each chapter. Some of these exercises and cases seem quite good and interesting.

This is a difficult criterion to evaluate because certain concepts and practices in HRM would be difficult to move around in a 100% modular fashion in a course. For example, job analysis and specification needs to come before recruitment, which logically precedes information on selection, training, and performance appraisal. Overall, this textbook does a fairly good job addressing so many different but related concepts and practices in separate chapters, and as such could probably be reorganized to some extent.

One thing that could be improved, however, is the fact that in the first five chapters, the author often mentions that other topics will be covered later in the book. For example, several legal concepts are embedded in the material for different chapters, but sometimes this information seems "too little, too late" in that students may not have the opportunity to develop an overall understanding of the U.S. legal framework for employment. By the time they get to international HRM in Chapter 14, it may not be obvious why the managers in the case about operating in Peru were unable to anticipate cultural and legal differences.

The opening case for chapter 4, similar to the one used in the other chapters, seems to refer to a 50-employee company. Is the author recommending a job analysis for 50 employees? Wouldn’t employees in a smaller firm have more overlap between jobs? What about person-job fit or person-organization fit?

Most of the opening chapter cases put the reader in the role of an HR manager in a small firm, but chapter 7 abruptly tells the reader to change roles to an “HR consultant.”

The overall organization and flow of the chapters is clear.

The interface is ok. There aren't many images or figures. The figures are fairly small on the screen, and it would be good to have a "click to enlarge" link associated with some of them.

Most of the video links return the message, "“Flash-embedded videos are no longer supported…but you can watch on YouTube.” The video on "Stereotypes and the Effect on Privilege" in chapter 3 is no longer available on YouTube.

Grammatical Errors rating: 3

The use of second person and especially second person commands adds a “preachy” tone. For example, “Make sure that job announcements aren’t posted only for your Facebook friends to see; post them in a variety of places to gain the largest and most diverse response.”

Although the sentences are grammatically correct, it is not appropriate to change person and verb tense and voice so frequentialy within paragraphs. For example, “Once you have developed your recruitment plan, recruited people, and now have plenty of people to choose from, you can begin the selection process. The selection process refers to the steps involved in choosing people who have the right qualifications to fill a current or future job opening. Usually, managers and supervisors will be ultimately responsible for the hiring of individuals…”

I did not find this text to be insensitive or offensive. In chapter 3, the author perhaps approaches inclusiveness to a fault. multiculturalism is not defined, but focuses on inclusiveness, understanding, and respect, “looks at” unequal power and privilege, i.e., whether “advantages are based on a system in which one race, gender, and sexual orientation is predominant in setting societal rules and norms.” Although the author claims that “the idea of power and privilege is not about “white male bashing” but understanding our own stereotypes and systems of advantage so we can be more inclusive with our coworkers, employees, and managers.” Yet, in a U.S. business school classroom context, it is difficult to imagine that a white, heterosexual, male student won’t view this as some sort of intervention. At the end of the chapter, the focus on inclusiveness and respect seems to fade into the background: “Multiculturalism is a term that is similar to diversity, but it focuses on development of a greater understanding of how power in society can be unequal due to race, gender, sexual orientation, power, and privilege.” In the chapter on selection, a few of the example interview questions are confusing and may suggest an implicit bias. For example, “You can’t ask direct questions about marital status or ages of children. An alternative may be to ask, ‘Do you have any restrictions on your ability to travel, since this job requires 50 percent travel?’” This example made me pause, as it seems to imply that readers assume that a job candidate's willingness to travel is somehow connected to their marital status or family situation. Why is a question about travel an alternative to a question about marital/family status?

I appreciate and admire the effort that went into preparing this text, as I believe it is a tremendous endeavor in a rapidly changing field that functions in so many different ways in different types of organizations.

The exercises and case examples are a strength and they reflect the author's commitment to students application of course concepts and their development of critical thinking skills.

Reviewed by Valerie Wallingford, Professor, Bemidji State University on 4/11/17

The majority of the HRM topics included in most HRM textbooks. That being said there area few areas that were left out or could be elaborated upon: Equal Employment Opportunity should have an entire chapter devoted to it. Workforce, jobs, and job analysis should have an entire chapter devoted to it. Training & development were combined in one chapter and possibly should have a chapter devoted to each topic. Compensation & benefits were combined in one chapter and possibly should have a chapter devoted to each topic. There should be a chapter devoted to employee rights and responsibilities. A new release is probably due to discuss changes in healthcare, etc.

Content was accurately represented (just needs to be updated with most recent laws and regulations), error-free, and unbiased with good examples and links that support the content.

The most recent reference source noted was 2012 which is already 5 years old. A newer release would be good to make sure that recent changes in laws and regulations are covered such as with healthcare requirements.

The text was written so that students would easily be able to read and comprehend the material.

All chapters utilized consistent terminology, style and structure which makes it easy to follow.

It is consistent in that chapter concepts are introduced and further expanded upon, therefore, I see no disruption to the reader so yes the book's content has modularity.

I think the organization is for the most part good. However, equal employment opportunity should be covered early on and as I mentioned in #1 there are chapters that combine two important topics that should be in separate chapters, etc.

Some videos required additional login information that I was not able to view. For the most part the book's interface was good.

There were no grammatical errors that I found.

The content was written with no biases, it utilized good examples that were inclusive. I did not perceive anything to be insensitive or offensive.

I teach a senior undergraduate level HRM course and this course needs to cover the latest in rules and regulations which this text does not in some case. Therefore, I would not adopt this text for my course but it may be appropriate for lower level HRM courses.

Reviewed by Kathy Milhauser, Professor, Concordia University Portland on 12/5/16

The text covers most of the necessary material to support an introductory course in Human Resource Management for undergraduate business students. One topic that I don’t always see emphasized in textbooks that was included here was Retention of employees (Chapter 7) and Communication (Chapter 9) which I believe could be left out, since this is covered in lower division courses on organizational behavior and communication. The only thing I didn’t see that is included in the text I am currently using was a chapter on Job Design.

I didn’t see any accuracy issues, other than issues with the use of data and sources that are a few years old that may no longer be accurate. Details in the Relevance section.

I didn’t find all of the videos to be as helpful as I would have liked, and didn’t feel that they were tied in very well with the key points in the text (i.e. Dilbert Video in Chapter 1). Text uses data from 2010 census that should be updated (Figure 1.6). Generational differences article was from 2005.

The book was primarily written to the potential HR Manager. I prefer a perspective that speaks to any potential/future manager in a way that holds each accountable for managing human resources, not looking to a formal HR Manager to do so. Sections on how to develop an HRM Plan, for example, would not be relevant to managers of other functions, even though the tasks in the HRM Plan might represent valuable work for any manager to perform.

I really like some of the examples and explanations of concepts. Section 3.2 does an especially good job of defining and illustrating issues of privilege that can be encountered in the workplace. Chapter 4 on Recruitment is also very clearly laid out and would be simple for students to follow. Good integration of motivational theories to help students think about various compensation plans in Chapter 5.

I found the style and structure of the text to be consistent.

The text could easily be aligned to a 10 week term or 15 week semester course, as the chapters can be assigned singly or in pairs to students and support classroom activities and projects. Chapters could also be assigned and used out of order.

I thought the flow of the text was fine. I can see following the flow of the chapters in a course, or changing the order of some of the chapters, and don’t see any issues with this in the design of the text.

Getting back to the text after watching a video required using the back button – it would be easy for students to be distracted by the additional videos offered, and not go back to their reading. There were also some links that required a user. i.d. and password that I wasn’t able to access (api.wistia.com . . .). There were also YouTube videos linked to the text that are no longer available (i.e. Chapter 3). Video in Chapter 4 on Top Interview Questions wanted viewer to click on Subscribe.

I saw only a few very minor grammatical errors that would not be distracting to students.

There was a very good chapter on Diversity and Multiculturalism (Chapter 3) and another on International HRM (Chapter 14) that were very good and added to the global relevance and cultural issues in organizations.

I think this is a great book, and could be an asset to a course in Human Resource Management for undergrad students. It is well written and provides clear, easily usable activities, exercises, and cases. My only issues are that there are some issues with some of the videos and quite a few of the resources need to be updated to ensure relevance.

Reviewed by Tom Zeni, Assistant Professor, West Virginia University on 12/5/16

The book includes all of the major HR functional areas and topics included in most HRM textbooks. To their credit, the author choose to include several additional sections (such as communication, management & leadership styles, and multiculturalism) that are not found in traditional HRM texts. There have been several key legislative changes which have impacted the field of HRM since the text's last update. Discussions surrounding the Affordable Care Act and recent changes to the FLSA should be added to subsequent releases. I was not able to locate an index or glossary per se, however, a list of references is provided at the end of each major topic.

I did not observe any inaccuracies in reading the text and the language used is objective and neutral.

The book is definitely arranged to make future updates relatively simple. In my earlier comments, I suggested several potential updates which could be (along with all others) seamlessly integrated into the existing work.

The author does an excellent job of keeping the text readable, particularly when addressing topics that can sometimes get bogged down in legalese and other jargon (we love or acronyms). The author introduces the language of HR in a way an everyday reader can interpret.

The text follows a general format throughout making it easy to navigate on all platforms.

In its current form, the text is reasonable modular. Chapters are broken into topics and these are referenced in the Table of Contents making navigation straightforward. Within each topic are various subtopics. These are arranged and blocked in manageable sizes for the reader. As a recommendation for improvement, the author may wish to consider revisiting the topics/subtopics. In many cases throughout the text, the number of subtopics under and topic heading are fairly large. It would benefit the reader to either have more topics with fewer subtopics, or to have subtopics referenced in the Table of Contents for easy navigation.

The topics are presented in a fairly standard fashion that mimics the flow of human capital through an organization. Many HR areas overlap, and I commend the author on the introduction of topics when necessary to fully explain a concept, while indicating the topic will be discussed in further detail later (see, for example, the treatment of EEOC concerns in Chapter 3 on Diversity & Multiculturalism and how it is revisited again in Chapters 4 and 5). This is a glaring omission in many other works, and it serves to make the concepts feel isolated and distinct when they are very much interrelated. Bravo!

I did not observe any issues with the interface or distortion. I will note that at least one video link I attempted to follow required login credentials and I was therefore not able to view it (see Chapter 2.2 "How Would You Handle This?).

I did not notice any grammatical errors in the book.

The text includes a chapter on the front end devoted to Diversity and Multiculturalism. I see this as an improvement over many texts that do not have a devoted chapter on the subject, or that "tuck it away" towards the end. Cultural sensitivity is an important issue in HR and General Management, and introducing the topic up front allows the reader to consider cultural issues throughout the remainder of the text. The author does a noticeably good job of selecting images and stories the reflect cultural diversity as well.

One of the more comprehensive (yet readable) HR textbooks I have encountered. Each chapter opens with a short vignette that puts the reader into a lifelike and highly probable scenario, engaging their interest in what's to come. This is a refreshing change over the traditional chapter opening highlighting a corporate operating lesson. Beyond the text, the book is embedded with external resources that are both interesting and relevant, improving the reader's overall experience. Each section is organized by learning objectives, chapters close with summaries and exercises... this book delivers everything a traditional textbook has to offer and then some!

Reviewed by Valerie Barnett, Instructor, Kansas State University on 8/21/16

The textbook covers some topics in depth, but leaves key elements out of other topic areas. For example, the section related to workforce planning in chapter 2 does not completely cover supply and demand and does not discuss actions that can be taken to respond to anticipated surpluses and shortages. Background and reference checks were not covered in the chapter on selection. Employment laws were covered briefly in chapter 3 and interspersed throughout the text. It felt like a piecemeal approach.

The textbook included complete chapters on employee communication, retention and motivation, and safety and health. These are topics I normally reference, but do not cover in depth in my course.

I did not find any inaccuracies. However, I found that in some places the author used different terminology than what is normally used by human resource management professionals.

The textbook was originally published around 2011 and key cases and laws are not included in the text. Many of the YouTube videos are available, but are dated.

The book provides good examples and cases to explore the concepts and terminology.

Modularity rating: 2

The book incorporates the practice of introducing a topic and then indicating that the topic will be explored further in later sections and chapters of the textbook. This practice would make it hard to assign chapters out of order.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 2

The chapters are not organized in the order I normally teach the topics and topics are covered in more than one chapter. Compensation and benefits are discussed in the same chapter. Typically I use texts that include separate chapters for pay structure, incentive pay and benefits and I cover the topics in more depth.

The interface is fairly clean. Several of the videos required an access authentication code. However, most of the links to videos worked.

I did not find any problems with the grammar in the textbook.

I did not notice any insensitive or offensive examples or references in the text.

This book does not fit my needs. According to the preface, "competing books are focused on the academic part of HRM, which is necessary in a university or college setting. However, the goal with this book is not only to provide the necessary academic background information but also to present the material with a practitioner’s focus on both large and small businesses." I needed the book to go into more depth in some areas and include less information on other topics.

The organization of the topics and the flow of the textbook also does not work with the way I teach my class.

However, I will use this textbook as a source for my teaching. The text includes excellent cases, discussion questions, tables, videos, etc. that I can use to enhance the class.

Reviewed by Marilyn Byrd, Assistant Professor, University of Oklahoma on 1/12/15

The author covered the most commonly discussed topics that are found in HRM textbooks. Setting this textbook apart from others was the inclusion of a standalone chapter on communication. This is sensible since communication is critical to managing people. The inclusion of a section on workplace bullying and workplace violence is also timely and not commonly provided in detail to which the author presented. Also I was pleased to see a discussion on career development and succession planning these items are often missing from HRM textbooks.

The author included discussion of SIGs, professional organizations, and conferences as a useful way for professionals to enhance their professional expertise and as a source for jobs. This is another discussion that is timely and well needed.

Based on the other HRM textbooks I have used, the author gives an accurate presentation of HRM. By using examples like the Fortune 500 Focus and links to resources that support the discussion, the author gives credibility to the content.

It can be taken into consideration that the time lapse between writing the content and the actual publication there may be more updated information available. I did not necessarily discover that in this text, although I did note the latest reference sources were 2012.

Clear and reader friendly.

The textbook was consistent in layout and presentation of content across all 14 chapters.

The author sectioned each chapter and assigned learning objectives for each section. This is a technique I have not encountered widely and sets this textbook apart from others. It also makes it easier to assign readings to students.Assigning learning objectives for each section allows students to self-check before moving on to the next section.

Organization and structure of the textbook was clear and easy to follow. In some places, the author highlighted or numbered items and this makes it easier for points to "jump out." It is often a challenge to encourage students to read--this technique may be more motivating.

Visually, the book was appealing and I did not note issues that would confuse the reader. The one thing I noted was the need to have spacing between paragraphs. There was not a distinguishable separation in most cases.

I encountered no grammatical errors.

Chapter 3 was devoted to topics of diversity and culture. This textbook presented a realistic discussion of diversity that is not encountered in most of the HRM textbooks I have used. The discussion of power and privilege was most needed. Most HRM textbooks omit this discussion. Instead other textbooks will present diversity from the perspective of "diversity is appreciated" but lack a discussion of cultural sensitivity. I also appreciate how the chapter addressed diversity training with an emphasis on power and privilege---this is an approach lacking (in general).

This book delivered what the author promised---a textbook that is practitioner focused. Human resource management is a course that needs a "how to" approach as well as a conceptual approach so that students can see how to perform tasks. I have used and read several HRM textbooks--this one is the most useful I have found. For example, the author described for students how to design training programs and how to make relevant. The author gave examples of types of issues that might be causing performance issues--this is particularly useful for students who have not been in management positions. These types of examples places the content into context. The author described how to design a performance appraisal system and how to write job descriptions. The author described practical examples of theory--for example instead of stating what a Theory X manager might do, the author gave an example. The "how to" approach and designing the textbook for the HRM practitioner is what makes this HRM textbook unique. The cases, scenarios, team activities, and video examples are what students need to make the concepts come to life.

Chapter 1: The Role of Human Resources
Chapter 2: Developing and Implementing Strategic HRM Plans
Chapter 3: Diversity and Multiculturalism
Chapter 4: Recruitment
Chapter 5: Selection
Chapter 6: Compensation and Benefits
Chapter 7: Retention and Motivation
Chapter 8: Training and Development
Chapter 9: Successful Employee Communication
Chapter 10: Managing Employee Performance
Chapter 11: Employee Assessment
Chapter 12: Working with Labor Unions
Chapter 13: Safety and Health at Work
Chapter 14: International HRM

Ancillary Material

About the book.

Human Resource Management teaches HRM strategies and theories that any manager—not just those in HR—needs to know about recruiting, selecting, training, and compensating people.

Most students will be managing people at some point in their careers and not necessarily in a human resource management capacity. As businesses cut back, they may outsource HR duties to outside vendors. Or, in smaller businesses, the HR department is sometimes small or non-existent, and managers from other departments have to perform their own HRM. Therefore, teaching HRM from the perspective of a general manager, in addition to an HR manager, provides more relevance to students' careers and will give them a competitive advantage in the workplace.

This text also provides practical applications of theory relevant to today's workplace. You won't find discussions about “posting vacancies on a job board” or “sending memos.” In the real world, HRM leverages technology in every aspect of the job—from online training modules to technology for better managing flex-time workers and telecommuters.

Consider how most companies have gone “paperless” with pay stubs by using software. While such technology has made HRM easier, it has also created a new set of challenges. For example, how does a manager actually implement a new pay system? Therefore, it's important for students to understand what kinds of platforms exist in today's workplace to enhance their effectiveness as future managers.

The conversational style of Human Resource Management engages students, while the academic rigor of its content provides them with the tools that any manager needs—whether they work in HR or a different department. PLUS it offers an array of supplements that gives them practice creating real HR documents and role-playing real HR scenarios. Add value to your students' education, enhance the relevance of your curriculum, and make your students more employable by adopting this book for your HRM class. Read it now online today!

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HRM Dissertation Topics

Published by Carmen Troy at January 6th, 2023 , Revised On April 16, 2024

Introduction

Human resource management studies stated that employees should be hired, retained and managed. It is an extensive field that requires an in-depth understanding of the underlying factors and concepts.

As a human resource management student, you will study many different concepts, frameworks, and theories related to employee management. However, before your graduation, you will be required to submit a dissertation on a human resource management research topic of your choice.

Even though several topics and concepts are yet to explore in the field of human resource management, you will want to make sure that your proposed topic has sufficient literature to support and justify the content of a theoretical framework , or else you might struggle with data collection .

This article provides you with a comprehensive list of HRM topics that are relevant to your field and identifies some interesting literature gaps.

Choosing from our list of topics will certainly improve your chances of submitting an outstanding dissertation. So, go ahead and choose an HRM dissertation topic of your interest. We can even customize these topics based on your project needs.

PhD qualified writers of our team have developed the proposed topics, so you can trust to use these topics for drafting your dissertation.

Note –

You may also want to start your dissertation by requesting a brief research proposal from our writers on any of these topics, which includes an introduction to the topic, research question , aim and objectives , literature review along with the proposed methodology of research to be conducted. Let us know if you need any help in getting started.

Check our dissertation examples to get an idea of how to structure your dissertation .

Review the full list of dissertation topics for here.

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2024 HRM Dissertation Topics

Topic 1: how human resources departments achieve equal employment opportunities.

Research Aim: The research will aim to investigate how HR departments achieve equal employment opportunity in organizations. EEO, or Equal Employment Opportunity, is the notion everybody has an equal chance to pursue a job on the basis of merit, regardless of skin color, gender, or gender identity. It is the duty of HR department to give every employee and equal right in the organization. The research will examine how HR department keep the organization environment friendly by controlling equal employment opportunities.

Topic 2: The effect of motivating strategies on employee performance

Research Aim: The research will aim to find the impact of motivating strategies on employee performance. Employee motivation plays a huge part on performance. Employee engagement cannot be substituted by anything else in order for any organisation to run efficiently and without interruption. It is critical that a company and its employees not only have a strong connection with the top management, but also have a good and healthy relationship with their colleagues. The study will also make recommendations on what further might be done to obtain optimal results utilising motivating methods for the benefit of both the company and the individual.

Topic 3: Organizational Conflicts as Antecedents of Staff Turnover: Evidence from the UK Food Sector

Research Aim: The research will aim to review recent available literature on employee turnover in order to determine organizational conflicts as antecedents of employee turnover in the UK food sector in order to close gaps in the literature and present a broader range of turnover factors and understanding of employee motivational factors in their job decision.

Topic 4: How does AI involvement in HRM provide Zara with a competitive advantage?

Research Aim: The research will aim to inspect the benefit of competitive advantage at Zara through the involvement of artificial intelligence in their HRM. AI assists the human resources department in identifying their personnel’ skill sets and recommending a training programme based on their work positions. It combines all of the data and assists the HR staff in making succinct decisions about what training to do in which sector to boost abilities. The study will also explain the importance of AI in organizations and organizations success. It will also look into strategies and policies Zara used to achieve competitive advantage.

Topic 5: The role of HR in creating a respected working environment that contributes in sustainable revenue growth

Research Aim: The research aims to examine the role of HR in creating a respected working environment and sustainable revenue growth. The study will identify current misunderstandings and disparities in understanding of topics such as sustainable development, corporate social responsibility, and the link between strategic human resource management and sustainable HRM through a comprehensive literature review. It will also identify and recognise the challenges that sustainable HRM encounters in reality, with a particular emphasis on the prevalent strategic HRM schema and the misunderstanding of corporate social responsibility.

Covid-19 HRM Research Topics

The role of managers during the pandemic.

Research Aim: In this study, the Human resource management techniques which HR managers will adopt for performing their operations during the COVID -19 will be discussed.

The management techniques for employees.

Research Aim: This study will focus on how the employees are trained during the Coronavirus pandemic.

The economic Crisis for HR Managers during Covid-19

Research Aim: This study will discuss how the economic crisis will disturb the payroll and how the managers will work.

The policies of HR for affected employees.

Research Aim: In this study, HR will design policies on how HR will manage when there is a gap between employees working. How will the ill patients be provided with support by companies through HR?

The employees' cooperation for HR

Research Aim: This study will highlight how well the employees support the decisions of the HR policymakers during the pandemic.

HRM Dissertation Topics for 2023

Topic 1: effect of employee engagement on customer loyalty in the service-based industry.

Research Aim: Employees engagement means that employees are passionate and committed to their work. In the service industry, where employees’ performance can greatly influence the quality of service, it is worth exploring employee engagement in customer loyalty in the service-based industry. Therefore, in this study, survey-based research will be conducted to identify employee engagement in customer loyalty.

Topic 2: Contingent workforce and its impact on organisation’s performance – Evaluating the IT Industry

Research Aim: Nowadays, companies hire freelancers and contractual workers, unlike permanent payroll employees. Various cost benefits can be obtained by hiring such a workforce. However, such a workforce may not have the required skills to do a job as effectively as a trained staff would have done. Thus, the present study focuses on identifying the impact of a contingent workforce on its performance in the IT industry.

Topic 3: Factors of growing mental health issues of employees at workplace in service-based industries

Research Aim: The wellness of employees at the workplace is necessary for their mental health and work performance. This study will identify the factors that can increase employees’ mental health issues at the workplace based on survey-based of employees and managers of service-based industries.

Topic 4: Analysing the importance and impact of training and development on an organisation’s sustainability during economic crises.

Research Aim: to achieve organizational objectives and milestones, leaders and business owners have realized the importance of training and developing their workforce to align with the organizational objectives. This research aims to analyze the importance and impact of employee training and development on the organization’s sustainability during economic downturns.

Topic 5: How online digital platforms have helped organisations in recruiting effectively and efficiently

Research Aim: With the advent of technology, firms have revolutionized their business operations. Under this revolution, many organizations have adopted different techniques and methods to recruit talented employees. Therefore, this research intends to determine how online digital platforms have helped organizations find employees more efficiently and effectively.

Topic 6: Analysing the factors which directly impact an employee's personal decision to leave employment

Research Aim: Employee turnover rate has always been a major concern for many organizations regardless of their size and nature. A valuable and talented employee is usually hard to find and retain. However, it has been found out that different factors motivate an employee to search for a new job. Keeping this phenomenon in mind, the current research will be analyzing the factors that directly impact the employee’s personal decision to leave employment.

Topic 7: Critically analysing the concept of workplace flexibility and how it impacts employee and organisational performance

Research Aim: In today’s modern era, the workplace environment has been transformed drastically from a strict and conventional style to a more flexible one. Therefore, this research aims to critically analyze the concept of workplace flexibility and how it impacts employee and organizational performance.

Topic 8: A comparative analysis of employees' job satisfaction and motivational factors in public versus private organisations.

Research Aim: Job satisfaction and employee motivation are regarded as the most important element of HR practices. The main aim of HR policies is to satisfy, retain, and motivate employees. Therefore, this research aims to conduct a comparative analysis of the employee’s job satisfaction and motivational factors in public versus private organizations.

Topic 9: The influence of COVID-19 on virtual employee management practices by organisations

Research Aim: This research is highly useful in the current context of COVID-19. Organisations all around the world are getting impacted by the COVID-19 and are closed at the moment. The current study will focus on using different virtual employee management practices that companies can use in the current context of COVID-19. These practices will be beneficial for organizations in almost all business sectors.

Topic 10: The role of using transformational leadership style in the improvement of organisational creativity at Morrisons

Research Aim: The aim of this research will be the benefits of using the transformational leadership style by Morrisons’ leaders to improve organizational creativity. This study will research how leaders can get the advantage of a transformational leadership style for increasing creativity at the organization.

Topic 11: The green HRM practices and their impacts on the corporate image of IKEA

Research Aim: This study will aim to study different green HRM practices and their role in improving IKEA’s corporate image and reputation. It will be researched how companies can improve their corporate image by focusing on green HRM practices and processes. The findings will be beneficial for the management, customers as well as employees.

Topic 12: Involving employees in the decision-making process and its influence on employee productivity at Subway

Research Aim: It will be researched in this study how Subway and other companies in this industry can involve the workers in the decision-making process to improve employee productivity. It will be studied that employee productivity is increased by involving the employees in the decision-making process. The findings will be useful in designing useful HR practices by Subway.

Topic 13: The impact of a flat organisational structure on the decision-making process

Research Aim: The main objective of this study is to evaluate the decision-making difficulties and issues faced by HR managers of companies with a flat organizational structure. This study will also investigate the benefits and challenges related to the flat organizational structures used by companies. A case study approach will be used.

Topic 14: The role of workforce diversity in improving organisational capability and innovation at Toyota Motors

Research Aim: To carry out this study, an innovative company named Toyota Motors will be selected. The main objective for carrying out this study will be to analyze how the organizational capability and innovation at Toyota Motors are improved due to workforce diversity. The main emphasis will be on studying the workforce diversity present at Toyota Motors and its significance in improving innovation and organizational capability. The success factors of Toyota Motors for HR will be studied.

Topic 15: The impact of digitalization on changing HRM practices at Aviva

Research Aim: The contemporary business world moves towards digitalization due to technological advancements. This research will study the different impacts of digitalization in changing various HRM practices at Aviva. Different HRM practices used by Aviva before and after the digitalization era will be discussed, and the changes will be analyzed. This study will show how digitalization has changed HRM practices in the contemporary business world.

Topic 16: The influence of employee learning and development opportunities on employee satisfaction at British Airways

Research Aim: It will be studied in this research that how employee satisfaction at British Airways is influenced by employee learning and development opportunities. Different employee learning and development opportunities at BA will be studied, along with their impact on workforce satisfaction.

Topic 17: The impact of recognizing employee contributions on employee retention at Shell

Research Aim: This study’s main objective is to analyse whether Shell can retain its employees by recognizing their contributions or not. Different strategies used by Shell for recognizing employee contributions will be studied that lead towards motivating the employees, which ultimately impact the retention of workers.

Topic 18: The role of green HR practices in employee engagement and retention

Research Aim: Green HR practices is a newly emerged concept in HRM. The study will aim to research the impact of green HR practices on employee engagement and retention. It will be studied how companies can improve employee engagement and retention by focusing on green HR practices.

Topic 19: The role of providing daycare facilities in increasing the productivity of female employees

Research Aim: This study will be focusing on the productivity of female workers. It will be studied how female workers’ productivity is increased by providing daycare facilities for their children. The impact on the satisfaction level of female employees due to the daycare facility will also be explored.

Topic 20: The impact of artificial intelligence on enhancing the human resource practices of Zara

Research Aim: For this study, the researcher will focus on the concept of artificial intelligence and use it in the HR context. It will be studied that either the HR practices at Zara can be enhanced by implementing AI. The benefits and implications of implementing AI in the HR context will also be part of this study.

Topic 21: The role of e-leadership in improving employee productivity and motivation.

Research Aim: The contemporary business world has become highly advanced due to technological capabilities. The concept of e-leadership has emerged due to advancements in technology. The purpose of this study will be to analyse the impact of e-leadership in improving the productivity and motivation level of the workforce.

Topic 22: The role of effective HR planning in a successful strategic alliance process.

Research Aim: This study will study the importance of effective HR planning for the strategic alliance process. It will be studied how HR management can mould the HR practices and focus on effective HR planning to make the strategic alliance process successful.

Topic 23: The impact of different personality traits on teamwork at Microsoft

Research Aim: The main focus of this research will be studying Microsoft’s teamwork. It will be further analyzed how Microsoft’s teamwork is influenced by the personality traits possessed by different team members. Different types of personality traits will be studied in this research that impacts teamwork positively and negatively.

Topic 24: The impact of career growth opportunities on employee loyalty at HSBC Holdings.

Research Aim: This study will aim to review different types of career growth opportunities offered by HBSC Holdings to its employees. Moreover, it will also be studied how employee loyalty is improved due to various career growth opportunities. The findings of this study will be beneficial for the banking sector.

Topic 25: The role of adapted HR practices in improving organisational performance at the international branch of DHL.

Research Aim: The study’s main objective will be to analyse companies’ changes in their HR practices for international branches. How and why the HR practices are adapted by HR management for improving the organisational performance at the company’s branch, which is located outside the country. For this, the DHL case study will be selected, and it will be assessed how and why DHL has used adapted HR practices across different countries.

HR Learning and Development Dissertation Topics

All organisational activities aimed at improving the productivity and performance of groups and individuals can be classified as HRM’s learning and development function elements. Learning and development encompass three pivotal activities, including education, training, and development.

As such, the training activities help to evaluate an employee based on his existing job responsibilities. Educational activities include those focusing on jobs that an employee can expect to carry out in the future.

Finally, the development activities are those that the employer may partake in the future. If you’re interested in exploring this human resource topic in-depth, we have some interesting dissertation topics for you:

Topic 1:The importance of appreciative inquiry with respect to organisational learning and development culture – A case study of ExxonMobil

Research Aim: This research will discuss the importance of appreciative inquiry and its impact on organisational learning and development culture with a specific focus on ExxonMobil.

Topic 2:To establish the correlation between organisation competency development and learning activities & programmes

Research Aim: This research will discuss how organisational competency development and organisational learning activities are correlated.

Topic 3:An examination of knowledge management and organisational learning for sustained firm performance. A case study of British Telecom

Research Aim: This research will examine how organisational learning and knowledge management helped British Telecom sustain their firm performance.

Topic 4:Investigating learning and development of human resources in the public sector in the UK

Research Aim: This dissertation will evaluate the different ways of achieving the learning and development of human resources in the UK’s public sector.

Topic 32:The importance of HR learning and development activities for SMEs

Research Aim: This research will focus on how SMEs utilize HR learning and developmental activities to improve their employees’ performance.

Topic 33:Human resource practices and employees’ decision to quit – Does Lack of Learning and Development play a Role.

Research Aim: This research will focus on whether or not lack of learning and development in an organization leads to employee turnover,

Topic 34:Developing organisational competitive advantage through strategic employee training in computer knowledge

Research Aim: This dissertation will explore how companies can gain a strategic advantage over their competitors through employee training.

Topic 35:The impact of various training and learning based activities on employees’ productivity

Research Aim: The main aim of this research will be to determine the impact of different pieces of training and learnings on employees’ productivity.

Topic 36: The role of HR analytics and metrics in improving organizational performance at Tesco

Research Aim: This study aims to research a new concept in human resource management, named HR analytics and metrics. Moreover, their impact on improving organizational performance will also be studied. This study will be beneficial for Tesco in using HR analytics and metrics in different HR practices that can lead to improved organizational performance.

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HR Performance Review Dissertation Topics

A performance review, also known as a career development discussion, performance evaluation and employee appraisal, can be defined as a method to evaluate an employee based on their job performance, mainly for appraisals. This might be an interesting area to focus your dissertation on. Here are some interesting topics in this area of HRM:

Topic 37:To understand the relationship between performance review and employee motivation in large and diversified business organisations

Research Aim: This research will understand the relationship between employee motivation and employee performance review. Large and diversified businesses will be the main focus of this study.

Topic 38:Effective performance appraisal – A study to establish a correlation between employer satisfaction and optimising business results

Research Aim: This research will analyse the impact of performance appraisal on employer satisfaction and how it optimises business results.

Topic 39: Investigating the efficacy of performance appraisal from the perception of employees in UK retail industry – A case study of Tesco

Research Aim: This research will analyse the efficacy of performance appraisal concerning employees, with a specific focus on Tesco.

Topic 40: Employee performance appraisal and the role of fairness and satisfaction

Research Aim: This dissertation will explore whether employees report satisfaction and fairness when performance appraisal is conducted.

Topic 41:Investigating performance review and appraisal methods employed by human resource department of any large oil and gas company

Research Aim: This research will study the human resource department of a large oil and gas company and will investigate how “performance review” and appraisals are conducted.

Topic 42: Job satisfaction and performance appraisals – Are they Interconnected?

Research Aim: This research will study in-depth whether job satisfaction and performance appraisals are interconnected or not.

Topic 43:Investigating the relationship between public sector appraisals and the spinal pay reward

Research Aim: This research will talk about the spinal pay reward system and evaluate its effectiveness in the public sector.

Topic 44:Analysing the impact of performance management on employee performance improvement

Research Aim: This research will investigate how performance management helps companies improve their employees’ performance.

Topic 45: Can HR performance drive employee engagement? Studying the UK banking industry

Research Aim: This research will talk about the different ways through which HR performance review helps in improving employee engagement. The UK banking industry will be in focus in this study.

Topic 46:The role of HR performance review in increasing employee retention and productivity

Research Aim: This research will investigate how organisations utilize performance reviews as a tool to improve employee retention and productivity.

HR Employee Motivation Dissertation Topics

Employees need objectives and goals to remain focused. The quality of work may significantly drop if they are not constantly motivated by their employers.

Business organizations employ various employee motivation methods and techniques to keep their employees motivated. Thus, this is an interesting topic to explore for your final year dissertation. Here are some HRM dissertation topics related to employee motivation.

Topic 47:To investigate the role of motivation in HRM – A study highlighting the most important motivation factors for future business leaders

Research Aim: This research will discuss the different motivation factors organisations should use to develop future leaders. In addition to this, the role of motivation throughout HRM will be discussed.

Topic 48:Employee satisfaction and work motivation – Are they both related?

Research Aim: This research will understand the relationship between motivation and employee satisfaction and the different motivation techniques companies can employ to increase employee satisfaction.

Topic 49: Evaluating the Role of Employee motivation in performance Enhancement

Research Aim: This study will discuss the role of employee motivation concerning employee performance, i.e. whether it enhances performance or not.

Topic 50:Human resource management – Motivation among workers in large and diversified business organisations

Research Aim: This dissertation will talk about motivation in large and diversified organisations and how these companies ensure that their employees are motivated at all times.

Topic 51:Effects of motivational programmes and activities on employee performance

Research Aim: This research will focus on the different motivational techniques and programs that impact employee performance.

Topic 52: Does motivation play a role in decreasing employee turnovers? A case study of British Airways

Research Aim: This research will discuss the role of motivation in decreasing employee turnover with a specific focus on British airways.

Topic 53:Motivation and performance reward – Are the two interrelated?

Research Aim: This research will talk about motivation and performance rewards and will assess whether the two are interrelated and directly related.

Topic 54: Work productivity and the role of employee motivation programmes and activities

Research Aim: This study will assess employee motivation programs’ impact on employee productivity, i.e. if it increases or decreases.

Topic 55:To discuss the role of employee motivation in relation to retention levels

Research Aim: This research will analyze employee motivation’s role to help companies retain employees.

Topic 56:Differences and similarities between traditional and contemporary theories

Research Aim: This research will discuss and compare traditional and contemporary motivation theories implemented by companies.

Topic 57: The role of employee empowerment in employee motivation and satisfaction at British Petroleum.

Research Aim: This study will aim to analyse different strategies of employee empowerment carried out by British Petroleum and their impact on workers’ motivation and satisfaction. The research will be studied that either different employee empowerment strategies improve employee motivation and satisfaction. The findings will be beneficial for companies working in the petroleum sector.

Topic 58: The impact of open communication in improving employee engagement at Zara

Research Aim: In this research, different modes of communication used by organisations will be studied and especially the impact of open communication in improving employee engagement at Zara will be analyzed. The importance of open communication for different organisations in the fashion and retail sectors will be discussed. Moreover, different communication strategies that can help improve employee engagement at Zara will be discussed based on past literature, theories, and framework.

HR Performance Management Dissertation Topics

All processes and activities to consistently meet organisational goals and objectives can be considered the HR performance management mechanism elements. Different organisations employ different performance management strategies to gain a competitive advantage. To explore this area of human resources, here are some intriguing topics for you:

Topic 59:Investigating different performance management techniques for retaining employees

Research Aim: This research will talk about companies’ various performance management techniques to retain employees.

Topic 60:The role of performance management activities in improving employees’ skills and abilities

Research Aim: This research will discuss how performance management helps employees improve their skills and abilities and how it ultimately helps companies.

Topic 61:Managing performance of workers through performance management techniques – A Case Study of Google

Research Aim: This research will explore how organisations use different performance management techniques to manage employees and their performance. A specific focus of this study will be Google Incorporation.

Topic 62:Employee performance and performance management systems – A qualitative study

Research Aim: This study will conduct a qualitative study to understand the different performance management systems for improving employee performance.

Topic 63:Performance management examinations in human resource management of profit-oriented organisations

Research Aim: This research will understand performance management in profit-oriented companies regarding how their human resource department ensures optimal performance.

Topic 64:Exploring the essentials elements of the performance management framework

Research Aim: This research will explore its vital features and performance management framework.

Topic 65:Human resource management practices and business performance – The role of environmental uncertainties and strategies

Research Aim: This research will explore whether environment uncertainties and strategies play a role in employee and business performance.

Topic 66:The efficacy of performance management systems in the UK’s retail industry

Research Aim: This research will explore the UK’s retail industry’s performance management efficacy.

Topic 67:Towards a framework for performance management in a higher education institution

Research Aim: This research will investigate performance management in the educational setting.

Topic 68:Should wages be capped through performance management – A qualitative study

Research Aim: This research will analyse whether wages should be adjusted and capped concerning performance management with a focus on its effects.

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Strategic Human Resource Management Dissertation Topics

Strategic human resource management is tying the human resource management objective to the company’s goals and objectives. This helps companies in innovating and staying ahead of their competitors by gaining a competitive advantage.

Being a relatively new concept, there are various aspects of strategic HRM that are left to be explored. Here are some interesting strategic HRM dissertation topics for you:

Topic 69:The efficacy of communication processes and employees’ involvement plans to improve employee commitment towards organisational goals – A case study of Sainsbury

Research Aim: This research will study the role and efficacy of the communication processes and employees’ involvement in order to improve employees’ commitment towards organisational goals.

Topic 70:To investigate SHRM theory and practice in a call centre – A case study of any UK call centre

Research Aim: This dissertation will discuss the various SHRM theories and how it is implemented. A UK-based call center will be focused on this study.

Topic 71: Differences and similarities between SHRM strategies and policies employed by German and Japanese automobile companies

Research Aim: This research will compare the different SHRM techniques and policies implemented by German and Japanese automobile companies.

Topic 72: A resource-based view assessment of strategic human resources quality management systems

Research Aim: This research will understand the resource-based view of strategic human resources quality management systems.

Topic 73: To understand and critically evaluate the HRM strategies employed by small and medium sized enterprises in the UK

Research Aim: This research will discuss and evaluate the different strategic HRM strategies employed by small and medium-sized enterprises in the UK.

Topic 74: Relating organisational performance to strategic human resource management – A study of small scale businesses in the UK

Research Aim: This study will analyse whether organisational performance and strategic human resource management are interconnected by assessing small scale businesses in the UK.

Topic 75: Investigating strategic human resource management in Singapore – A qualitative study

Research Aim: This research will analyse strategic human resource management in Singapore by undertaking a qualitative method.

Topic 76: The role of organisational support programmes to enhance work outcome and employees behaviour

Research Aim: This research will understand the organisational support program in order to enhance employee work outcome and their behaviour.

Topic 77: To establish the most important components of strategic HRM for SMEs in the UK to develop a competitive advantage

Research Aim: This research will talk about the relationship between the different SHRM components for SMEs in the UK in order to gain a competitive advantage.

Topic 78: To establish the significance of the relationship between organisational performance and strategic human resource management

Research Aim: This research will explore the relationship between organisational performance and strategic human resource management and how it helps companies achieve their objectives.

Human Resource Theory Dissertation Topics

The human resource theory framework consists of a soft and hard approach to human resources management. Various theories cover the different aspects of the soft and hard human resource approach.

Exploring this area of HRM will help in understanding more about the soft and hard HRM approaches. Here are some dissertation topics in this area that you can choose from.

Topic 79: A comparative analysis of various human resources theory approaches

Research Aim: This research will discuss various human resource theories and approaches and provide a comparative analysis.

Topic 80:To study human resources systems practiced by Multinationals in the UK

Research Aim: This research will discuss the various human resource systems as practised by multinational companies operating in the UK.

Topic 81:The role of human resources management (HRM) in regards to addressing workers’ concerns.

Research Aim: This research will discuss the importance of human resources in understanding and addressing worker’s concerns.

Topic 82: Can HRM have a negative influence on the performance of business organisations – A qualitative study?

Research Aim: This research will discuss a unique aspect of human resource management, i.e. whether it harms the company’s performance or not.

Topic 83: Is Human resources the only option for employees? An exploratory study

Research Aim: This study will analyze human resources’ role in solving employee issues and assess whether it is the only option for employees.

Topic 84:Exploring the contribution of human resource to the success of organisations

Research Aim: This research will aim to understand the role and contribution of the human resource department in companies’ success.

Topic 85:To investigate the most predominant human HRM and control strategies employed by business organisations

Research Aim: This research will discuss an interesting topic, i.e. the most predominant HRM strategies organisations implement.

Topic 86:To investigate the role of HR as a shared service.

Research Aim: This study will discuss human resources’ role as a shared service in the organisation.

Topic 87:Does a supervisor has a role to play in implementing HR practices – A critical study

Research Aim: This study will critically analyze supervisors’ role in implementing human resource practices in an organization.

Topic 88:The ethics of firing employees – Do companies really follow it?

Research Aim: This research will focus on how employees are fired at organizations and whether human resources follow the ethics of firing or not.

HR Organisational Culture Dissertation Topics

Organisational culture, also known as organisational climate, is defined as the process by which an organisation’s culture can be quantified. The properties of the work environment that are either considered positive or negative by the employees (and that may influence their behaviour) are the most important components of the organisational culture framework.

Studying this aspect of human resources will help you gain an in-depth knowledge of the role of culture in human resource management. Here are some interesting dissertation topics in this area:

Topic 89:The role of leadership, HRM and culture in vitalising management systems in firms

Research Aim: This research will understand the role of leadership and culture in human resource management and how it helps companies manage their systems.

Topic 90:Finding the right balance between differentiation and standardisation of HRM practices and policies – HRM of multinational companies operating within the European Union

Research Aim: There are certain human resource practices that are standardized throughout the world. This research will investigate the differences between such standard policies with respect to culture. Multinationals operating in the European Union will be focused.

Topic 91:Cross-cultural human resource management – The role it plays in the success of different organisations

Research Aim: This research will study the role of cross-cultural human resource management in the success of companies.

Topic 92:The impact of cross-cultural competencies in start-up companies

Research Aim: A lot of companies do not encourage cross-cultural human resources in the workplace. This research will analyse how cross-cultural competencies help startups grow and succeed.

Topic 93:The role of organisational cultural on HRM policies and practices – A case study of Cambridge University

Research Aim: This research will aim to understand the role of organisational culture on human resource policies and practices. The main focus of this study will be at Cambridge University.

Topic 94:The relationship between human resource management practices and organisational culture towards organisational commitment

Research Aim: This research will assess the relationship between different cultures and human resource practices with respect to organisational commitment.

Topic 95: Investigating cultural differences between the work values of employees and the implications for managers

Research Aim: This study will conduct an investigation related to the work values of employees based on their various cultural differences. It will then be concluded what this means for the managers.

Topic 96:To effectively manage cultural change without affecting work productivity

Research Aim: This research will discuss an interesting topic as to how managers should manage organisational cultural change without harming productivity.

Topic 97:Inducting new employees into the culture – Does it help organisations?

Research Aim: This research will discuss whether or not it is feasible for organisations to hire employees when the company is undergoing a cultural change.

Topic 98:Recruiting to change the culture – The Impact it has on the Profitability of the Company

Research Aim: This research will discuss whether companies should hire to lead change in the organisation, i.e. whether hiring should be done for this specific purpose, and what this new hiring means for the company in terms of profitability.

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HR Diversity Dissertation Topics

The changing corporate world has provoked organisations to develop and implement diversity management systems as part of their human resource management system. Although relatively new, diversity management is an important research area of human resource management that brings challenges and learning to employees.

With many areas unexplored and literature gaps in this subject, there are some extremely interesting dissertation topics you can select for your final year project. Some of them are listed here:

Topic 99: Investigating the difference between discrimination and diversity – How Do they Impact Organisations

Research Aim: This research will discuss the differences between the two concepts, diversity and discrimination and their impact on organisations.

Topic 100:Managing diversity through HRM: A conceptual framework and an international perspective

Research Aim: This study will discuss how the human resource department can manage diversity. The study will be conducted in an international setting.

Topic 101:Managing diversity in the public sector – How do companies manage to remain successful

Research Aim: This research will explore managing diversity in the public sector and how these companies can be successful even through diversity.

Topic 102:Managing cultural diversity in human resource management

Research Aim: As much as a human resource helps companies manage diversity, how will companies manage diversity in their main HR department. This research will answer this exact question.

Topic 103:The managerial tools, opportunities, challenges and benefits associated with diversity in the workplace

Research Aim: This research will focus on the tools available to human resources in managing diversity, and how they change it to opportunities and overcome diversity-related challenges.

Topic 104: Investigating the challenges of exclusion and inequality in organisations – Assessing HR’s role.

Research Aim: This research will first investigate the exclusion and inequality challenges that organisations face and how human resources overcome these challenges.

Topic 105:How does HRM Help in managing cultural differences and diversity

Research Aim: This research will discuss HR’s role in managing cultural differences and diversity in organisations.

Topic 106: Can HR eliminate diversity-related discrimination from workplaces? Assessing its role

Research Aim: This research will talk about HR’s role in eliminating diversity-related discrimination from organisations, and whether it will be successful in doing so or not.

Topic 107:Training managers for diversity – How difficult is it for companies and HR

Research Aim: This research will discuss and analyse the role of HR and companies in ensuring manager’s learning and development for diversity.

Topic 108:Training the newly hired staff for diversity in a large and diversified business organisation

Research Aim: This research will investigate the role of HR in training employees and staff to deal with, manage and coexist with diverse employees.

Important Notes:

As a human resource management student looking to get good grades, it is essential to develop new ideas and experiment with existing human resource management theories – i.e., to add value and interest to your research topic.

Human resource management is vast and interrelated to many other academic disciplines like management , operations management , project management , business , international business , MBA and more. That is why it is imperative to create a human resource management dissertation topic that is articular, sound, and actually solves a practical problem that may be rampant in the field.

We can’t stress how important it is to develop a logical research topic based on your entire research. There are several significant downfalls to getting your topic wrong; your supervisor may not be interested in working on it, the topic has no academic creditability, the research may not make logical sense, there is a possibility that the study is not viable.

This impacts your time and efforts in writing your dissertation , as you may end up in the cycle of rejection at the initial stage of the dissertation. That is why we recommend reviewing existing research to develop a topic, taking advice from your supervisor, and even asking for help in this particular stage of your dissertation.

While developing a research topic, keeping our advice in mind will allow you to pick one of the best human resource management dissertation topics that fulfil your requirement of writing a research paper and add to the body of knowledge.

Therefore, it is recommended that when finalizing your dissertation topic, you read recently published literature to identify gaps in the research that you may help fill.

Remember- dissertation topics need to be unique, solve an identified problem, be logical, and be practically implemented. Please look at some of our sample human resource management dissertation topics to get an idea for your own dissertation.

How to Structure your HRM Dissertation

A well-structured dissertation can help students to achieve a high overall academic grade.

A Title Page
Acknowledgements
Declaration
Abstract: A summary of the research completed
Table of Contents
Introduction : This chapter includes the project rationale, research background, key research aims and objectives, and the research problems. An outline of the structure of a dissertation can also be added to this chapter.
Literature Review : This chapter presents relevant theories and frameworks by analyzing published and unpublished literature on the chosen research topic to address research questions . The purpose is to highlight and discuss the selected research area’s relative weaknesses and strengths while identifying research gaps. Break down the topic and key terms that can positively impact your dissertation and your tutor.
Methodology : The data collection and analysis methods and techniques employed by the researcher are presented in the Methodology chapter, which usually includes research design , research philosophy, research limitations, code of conduct, ethical consideration, data collection methods, and data analysis strategy .
Findings and Analysis : Findings of the research are analysed in detail under the Findings and Analysis chapter. All key findings/results are outlined in this chapter without interpreting the data or drawing any conclusions. It can be useful to include graphs, charts, and tables in this chapter to identify meaningful trends and relationships.
Discussion and Conclusion : The researcher presents his interpretation of the results in this chapter and state whether the research hypothesis has been verified or not. An essential aspect of this section is establishing the link between the results and evidence from the literature. Recommendations with regards to the implications of the findings and directions for the future may also be provided. Finally, a summary of the overall research, along with final judgments, opinions, and comments, must be included in the form of suggestions for improvement.
References : Make sure to complete this following your University’s requirements
Bibliography
Appendices : Any additional information, diagrams, and graphs used to complete the dissertation but not part of the dissertation should be included in the Appendices chapter. Essentially, the purpose is to expand the information/data.

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