Continuous improvement in the history of human resource management

Abstract

Human resource management’s challenge is to improve the balance among three competing quality targets: equity, flexibility and alignment. Management of these targets has improved through four historical periods: the pre‐industrial, paternalist, bureaucratic and high performance. There always have been tradeoffs among the three quality targets, but the balance among them has improved through history.

Citation

Langbert, M. and Friedman, H. (2002), "Continuous improvement in the history of human resource management", Management Decision, Vol. 40 No. 8, pp. 782-787. https://doi.org/10.1108/00251740210437734