This text provides a succinct analysis of themes and topics relevent to the management of human resources. It covers issues of critical contemporary importance such as restructuring, continuous improvement, involvment and participation, pay and working time, training and development, recruitment and selection. It also looks at the implications o f contextual changes such as the signing of the "social chapter" of the EU Maastricht Treaty, and movement towards European Economic and Monetary Union. Three features in particular distinguish this volume: it deals with the individual and the collective aspects of managing the employment relationship; in analysing thinking in both areas, it takes account of the large body of empirical research that is available and identifies what it all means for the practitioner; and the distinctive style gives it an immediacy.

This book brings together a review and analysis of human resource management and industrial relations. Its pivotal theme is the interplay between "individualism" and "collectivism" which are central to recent initiatives in personnel management. Industrial relations, the new industrial relations, and human resource management are explored.