The Oxford Handbook of Human Resource Management, edited by Peter Boxall, John Purcell, and Patrick Wright, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, 658 pp., ISBN 978-0-199282-51-7.

At 658 pages, and with 42 contributors, The Oxford Handbook of Human Resource Management is notable not only for its size and heft, but also for the density of ideas and perspectives packed between its covers. By enlisting top academic experts to review theory and research within their respective areas of expertise, the editors are not only attempting to pull together the latest and best thinking in the academic field of human resource management (HRM), but also to go considerably beyond the conventional remit of an academic handbook. However, since there is no preface or foreword to explain the editors’ goals and aims for this volume, we don’t discover this until more than halfway through their introductory chapter. On page 8, we learn that the editors’ aim is “to foster a more integrated conception of HRM with much better connections to the way production is organized in firms and the way workers experience the whole management process and culture of the organization.” This is clearly a laudatory aim, but if readers are looking for a unified framework that integrates the field of human resource management, they won’t find it in this volume. Although some of the individual contributions do work towards this, what this book actually does is to convey the immense complexity of the terrain covered by HRM. However, while readers may find this degree of complexity can be somewhat overwhelming, charting the full scope of the complexities of the field is a necessary first step in coming up with a real understanding of how things fit together and in developing the “integrated conception of HRM” that the editors seek. Although I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that this book be read sequentially chapter by chapter, I do recommend that all readers tackle the first chapter before going further. Chapter 1 is written by the three editors, and provides the underlying perspective that informs the editors’ conceptualization of the field of HRM and their rationale for how they have organized and selected the content for this book. For example, one key perspective shared by the editors is a deep skepticism of universalistic prescriptions, as propounded by advocates of “best practices.” The editors therefore stress the need for researchers to be alert for possible interactions both among the various HRM practices themselves and between HRM practices and aspects of their context. The editors suggest that HRM consists of three major “subdomains:” (a) micro HRM, which deals with “subfunctions” of HRM policy and practice such as recruitment, training, compensation, and work organization; (b) strategic HRM, which examines how the various HRM policies and practices might fit together; and (c) international HRM, which seeks to understand how HRM policies and practices need to be adapted to different national and cultural contexts. They observe that researchers have tended to pursue questions in specialized niches within these subdomains, and contend that it is “critical for the intellectual life” of all three subdomains to apply the concept of “analytical HRM” in future work. They identify three key goals of “analytical HRM.” First, to understand what management tries to do with work and people in different contexts, and explain why organizations try these things. Second, to understand the chain of processes through which various models of HRM work (or do not work). Third, to assess the outcomes of HRM, for both employee and management interests, in order to lay a “basis for theories of wider social consequence.” Beyond this introductory chapter, this volume consists of 28 chapters, organized into four parts—Foundations and Frameworks, Core Processes and Functions, Patterns and Dynamics, and Measurement and Outcomes. Part I (“Foundations and …