ABSTRACT
Reforms of the human resource management system have proceeded at an accelerating pace in East and South-East Asia since the 1980s. It could be said that the reforms have been strongly influenced by concepts and practices that originated in the United States: more strategic importance given to the human resource function with involvement of all employees and managers in the devising and implementation of practices; introduction of appraisal based on individual merit and pay-for-performance systems with a drastic decline of the traditional elements of age and tenure; adoption of the concept of flexible enterprise with a clear categorization of employees in terms of status, career prospects, and working conditions; nurturing of a unitarist corporate culture minimizing or removing organized labor. The adoption of such systems has deeply changed the HRM and business strategy of a large number of Asian firms.
