First, the authors present human resources as a critical part of a SYSTEM, integrated with the company's external environment, workforce, culture, strategy and production methods, rather than as an isolated or downstream activity.

Second, they bring insights from economics, sociology and social psychology to the topic, in a powerful way. The four appendices alone (transaction cost economics, game theory, agency theory and market signaling) are worth the price of the book.

Third, they avoid the trap of "best practice", where an author looks at a few successful firms (GE? PepsiCo? 3M?) and encourages others to imitate them. In contrast, this book offers clues to creating real and inimitable competitive advantage from a company's human resource management.

The entire treatment is readable and rich in cases.


No-bull human resources   March 23, 1999
 4 out of 6 found this review helpful

I had the fortune to have access to early versions of some chapters of this book, and it changed my opinion about human resources. They present the issues surrounding human resources management using frameworks that come from economics and organizational science, not from opinions and feelings...