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Restoring Trust in the Human Resource Management Profession

MIT Institute for Work & Employment Research and The MIT Workplace Center, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA, tkochan{at}mit.edu

The human resource management profession faces a crisis of trust and a loss of legitimacy in the eyes of its major stakeholders. The two-decade effort to develop a new ‘strategic human resource management’ role in organizations has failed to realize its promised potential of greater status, influence, and achievement. To meet contemporary and future workplace challenges, HRM professionals will need to redefine their role and professional identity to advocate and support a better balance between employer and employee interests at work. Specifically, the next generation of HR professionals will need to be more externally focused and skilled at building networks and productive alliances with other groups and institutions, become more analytical and able to document the benefits associated with effective HR policies and practices, and be skilled at managing in an increasingly transparent society and information savvy workforce. The changing gender composition of the HR profession may affect its success in making these changes and meeting these challenges.

Key Words: employer-employee interests • gender composition • HRM professional identity • productive alliances

Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 42, No. 2, 132-146 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/1038411104045352


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