Human resource management strategies for small territories: an alternative proposition

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Abstract

This paper tackles the issue of educational development from a somewhat different, and still under-explored, perspective: that of human resource management (HRM). This paper argues that small territories have, often blindly, accepted an ‘industrial relations’ (IR) framework that is much more at home in the formalistic, mass production and mass employment based, manufacturing economies of the industrialised world. While the future of ‘IR’ in these settings is also being called into question today, small territories have been hard put all along to apply their labour relations practice to the strictures of this theory. An inductive analysis of the human resource condition in small territories reveals rather a contextual disposition for empowerment and entrepreneurship — a critical component for successful HRM practice — which is often unacknowledged, let alone addressed in public policy. The paper identifies aspects of current industrial relations as well as educational practice that could be addressed in order to better tap the benefits of this different understanding of human resourcefulness.

Section snippets

Preamble

It is only in the last few decades that a serious attempt has been made to explore the idiosyncrasies of small territories. This area of research was by definition non-existent until such a category of independent, sovereign units started taking their place on the world's geo-political map, albeit late in the epoch of decolonisation. The fascination of the small, often island, site and its fair share of associated glamour and myth have no doubt contributed to such locations becoming academic

The critical resource

That the major resource of any particular organisation is, or lies in, its human endowment is a glib statement we may have heard all too often. In a world increasingly open and inevitably disposed towards global competition, organisations and firms are finding themselves sharing markets with adversaries who match, or exceed, their ‘best practice’ in terms of delivery times, quality levels and technological sophistication. All eyes therefore turn to the human resource department as that which

Enter human resources

The above philosophy and associated techniques would have been anathema a few years ago. Conceiving of workers as ‘human resources’ (HR) is a very recent trend. As Springer and Springer (1990, p. 41) suggest, the history of HRM may be said to have started when NCR Corporation established a separate personnel office in the 1890s. The term itself — HR — has been coined as recently as the Second World War; while ‘human capital theory’ came onto the scene in the 1960s (Hendry and Pettigrew, 1990).

Five domains

A wide and critical reading of the experiences of various small territories suggests that at least five key domains highlight the distinctive nature of such a deployment. These collectively intimate that the value of the discrete and enterprising person in a small territory is more pronounced than elsewhere.

Firstly, ‘person power’ is enhanced thanks to the ease of achieving expertise and monopoly status. With the obligation to provide the same roles and services forthcoming from larger social

Discussion

Such a conclusion raises at least two major concerns. First of all, it illustrates a condition that is in sharp contrast to received wisdom, highlighting the difference which may exist between imported “common sense” and home-grown “good sense” (Baldacchino and Greenwood, 1998). One should not be surprised to find out that practitioners in small territories have intuitively known all along that human resource management is the preferable, indeed the only possible, strategy in their small-scale

Conclusion

While there is general agreement that education has to respond to the changing needs of a country's social–economic development, the character of such a response remains the subject of perennial debate, a condition exacerbated by the high expectations stakeholders hold of education and its output. Small territories are not exempt from such tensions. While the stakeholders therein will also be pulling educational systems now this way, now the other, seeking an elusive balance between different

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Mark Bray, Antoinette Caruana and Michael Crossley for their comments on an earlier draft.

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