Strategic Human Resources: Frameworks for General Managers

Rating:
Summary: The best book on strategic human resources I have ever read!
Review: Baron & Kreps write with wit & grace, pulling together a vast amount of literature to make their point that human resource management is critical to a firm's success. In every chapter, they get to the point quickly, writing for students in a way that faculty will appreciate. They retain the essence of the academic research on which their principles are based, while focusing on what it all means for managers. I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: A major achievement in an underserved field
Review: Essential reading for both general managers and human resource executives, this book breaks new ground in several ways.

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.

Rating:
Summary: No-bull human resources
Review: 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...