Nowadays industrial relations and human resource management are definitely different and both very important academic fields in human labour. Although the situation of the two subjects may be upside down compared with before that there are some critics argue that the academic industrial relations is better described as human resource management, these arguments may not be all right. Human resource management is the organizational function that deals with issues related to people such as compensation, hiring, performance management, organization development, and training; whereas industrial relations refers to the rights and responsibilities and all the things in the work and employment relationships. These two aspects are relevant but not the same. Understanding the similarity and difference is helpful for further study on the labour force and corporate governance.
Industrial Relations
The definition of industrial relations is different made by different people. Industrial relations encompasses a set of phenomena, both inside and outside the workplace, concerned with determining and regulating the employment relationship (Salamon, 1987). Its focus is the regulation (control, adaptation and adjustment) of the employment relationship which is shaped by legal, political, economic, social and historical contexts (Edward, 1995). It is a multi-disciplinary field of study, drawing on economics, law, sociology, psychology, political science and history and provides a multi-level understanding of relationships at work, analyzing the interconnections between the workplace, the company, the sector and the national regulatory framework (Clarke et al, 2008).
Industrial relations mainly considers the rules of managing work relationship and the institutes founded to carry out these rules. The rules include the agreements related to working conditions such as labour contract, collective bargaining, welfare etc. They are achieved by negotiate, intervene, or arbitrate in employers' association or trade union.
Human Resource Management
Human resource management initially is a subdivision of industrial relations as I mentioned before. The more general term is “human resource” but not “human resource management” at that time. Human resources was employed to connote the idea that the nation's labor input is embodied in human beings and represents a form of capital good that can be augmented through various forms of private and public investment, such as education, training, and public health programs (Commons, 1919). In 1964, Myers et al changed the name of their textbook into “Management of Human Resources: Readings in Personnel Administration”. Mondy and Noe (1990) consider human resource management as to achieve the organization’s goal by using the organization’s labour force. They point out that there are six functions in human resource management: Recruitment, Human resource development, Security and Hygiene, Compensation and welfare, employer relationship, and human resource research.
In conclusion, human resource management is the management of all the activities aimed at attracting, developing, encouraging and maintaining the high performance in the organization.
Compare and contrast
There are many common points between human resource management and industrial relations. Based on the Kaufman’s research (2001), they focus on the employment and workplace issues, care about the relationship between employer and employee and expect the organization to operate more smoothly. Government policy has a great influence on both of them, and they must adjust themselves according to the policy adjustment. These two fields’ research theories are based on the essence of human beings. Scholars cannot ignore the motivation, perception and emotion when they establish the structure of these academic fields. What’s more, they are both seeking positive-sum solutions to labor problems. This may be a key feature of many subjects as everyone wants to find a best way to solve problems that human resource management and industrial relations are not eliminated.
Although human resource management and industrial relations have some commonalities, the emphases of them are sometimes different. When faced with a problem between the employee and the employer, human resource management may stand on the organization’s side, in other word, the employee’s side to find a solution whilst industrial relations pay more attention on the employer’s benefits. Their developing directions of research are totally distinct. What’s more, industrial relations focus on the external aspect of the organization but human resource management concentrate about the internal aspect. Some theories in industrial relations try to find the answer of labour problem by studying on historical reason or business cycle. Human resource management looks for the source of labor problems inside the employing organization such as the employers’ psychology change or organization culture. However, the distinct between the two fields are becoming more ambiguous. As I mentioned before, there are some critics that industrial relations gradually turn to be described as human resource management. This is because human resource management becomes more external in the last decades. It goes up to the strategy level of the organization which called HRM strategy and cannot ignore the external environment of the organization. On the other hand, industrial relations become more sensitive to the inside dimension such as performance employment systems. Due to the extension of both, the boundary is not as clear as before.
Conclusion
Industrial relations is the conflict and cooperation between the employer and the employee that the employee pursue efficiency but the employer emphasize fairness. They can achieve agreement through negotiation or based on government policy. From 1980s, human resource management becomes more and more important. The co-opetition of the two begins and will last a long period of time. Adams (1993) said that it is not a daydream that the human resource management replaces the industrial relation but human resource management does not have the ambition to understand all parts of the people in work. The HR and IR fields are still distinguished nowadays, however, by numerous differences in their approach to research and practice. If the name “industrial relations” no longer works, scholars need to find another term and then rebuild cross-disciplinary dialogue and supporting institutions so the field once again can claim jurisdiction to be the study of “all aspects of work”(Kaufman).
Reference
Clarke, Linda and Donnelly, Eddy and Hyman, Richard and Kelly, John and McKay, Sonia and Moore, Sian, 2008. ‘What's the point of industrial relations?’ British Universities Industrial Relations Association Conference, 2008,June 26-28
Kaufman, B.E., 2001. ‘Human resources and industrial relations: Commonalities and differences’. Human Resource Management Review, Volume 11, Issue 4, 2001, 339-374
Storey, J.(2007), ‘HRM today: an assessment’, in Storey,J.(ed), HRM: a critical text(3rd edition), Thomson, Ch.1
Ackers, P., and Wilkinson, A., 2003. Understanding Work and Employment. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Colling, T., and Terry, M., 2010. ‘Work, the employment relationship and the field of Industrial Relations’, in Colling, T., and Terry, M.(eds), Industrial Relations: theory and practice(3rd edition), Chichester: Wiley
Hyman,R., 1975. A Marxist Introduction to Industrial Relations. Basingstoke: MacMillan
Bach,S.(2005), ‘Personnel Management in Transition’, in Bach, S., Managing Human Resources(4th edition), Blackwell Publishing
