Human Resource Management and Organization Behaviour: Selected Perspectives

Citation

Booth, J. (2004), "Human Resource Management and Organization Behaviour: Selected Perspectives", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 25 No. 1, pp. 109-110. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437730410512813

Human Resource Management (HRM) and Organisational Behaviour Management (OBM) have a tendency to be addressed separately. However, the author of this book has endeavoured to combine and review these two disciplines. Consequently, the reader is presented with a rich collection of enlightening information, useful data and clear illustrations that facilitate the amalgamation of these two areas effectively.

In all, the book consists of seven chapters each one dedicated to one particular topic. There is no fixed pattern to how each chapter is written; some are brief while others are lengthy. However, most of the chapters present the reader with a discussion on past and present theories followed by recent discoveries on each topic, concluding with solutions on how to improve each area under discussion.

Chapter 1 begins with a concise description of job evaluation, what it is and what procedures should be used in order to measure it accurately. Although brief, it does provide the reader with enough information so that they may undertake such a process themselves. The authors even provide a job information checklist so that the reader may compare this against their own job evaluation instrument.

Work interests are said to affect job performance yet the authors of the next chapter discuss how work interests have been neglected in the testing literature. As with other chapters, the authors present examples of inventories used to measure interest, together with a detailed analysis on scoring and norms and the problems incurred with such inventories. Thoughtfully, they do provide a section on practical guidelines for constructing and employing interest inventories and aim to encourage researchers to take the time and effort to develop new inventories.

Work adjustment is the focus of chapter three. The authors here deal mainly with the contending theories of work adjustment and congruence theory. Following an analysis of the two theories the authors propose how the theories could be simultaneously merged and be extended to provide a more coherent understanding of work adjustment. It is an interesting chapter with plenty of diagrams and statistics, which, admittedly, did get a little difficult to follow at times.

Teamwork is said to have an effect on the productivity and economic viability of the organisation. The reader in this next chapter is presented with the finding that group cohesiveness is not a unitary concept as once thought but that it is diachronic and consists of socio‐emotional (affect orientated) and instrumental (task orientated) cohesiveness. The authors continue to point out how group composition affects task performance and that many factors contribute to making groups effective. They conclude that the wrong combination of members in a group could not only result in poor productivity but in certain organisations could have disastrous effect on the group's very survival and recommend ideas for future research.

Chapter 5 is about choosing the appropriate staffing instruments for personnel selection. Eight categories are presented to the reader, each of which is discussed in detail. These are split into traditional (e.g. reference check, interviews and psychological tests) and contemporary methods (e.g. assessment centres, integrity and honesty tests). Not only is each test described in great detail but thorough attention is given to the reliability and validity of each of the methods.

Chapter 6 is dedicated to the area of performance appraisals. The reader is initially presented with the processes involved in the construction and operation of a performance appraisal system and what it actually measures. Subsequently, various problems encountered in the process of appraisal are also described together with recommended solutions. Following this, the authors delve into an exhaustive examination of two contentious aspects of the performance appraisal process. The first is a critical comparison of two commonly used systems of performance appraisal: behaviour rating formats and graphic rating scales. Second, the raters’ political considerations at work, said to have an effect on the efficiency of the performance appraisal, are discussed in depth. For instance, a supervisor may deliberately decide to distort performance ratings in order to achieve their own personal goals. The reader is further informed on this particular area, especially regarding the tools that have been recently designed in order to measure the extent that certain political considerations are evident in performance appraisals.

The final chapter is dedicated to highlighting some of the recent innovative work in the field of economic assessment of organisational behaviour and human resource management strategies. The authors propose that by using quantitative models organisations will be able to generate all the factors needed to estimate real financial gains and/or losses before any intervention strategy is implemented in the workplace. The central message here is that economic return can be obtained through effective human resource management practices.

Managers, practitioners, researchers, academics and students of the disciplines, will find this book crammed with valuable information. No doubt, it is a book, that will be picked up and put down many times and read and re‐read by all those who acquire it.