ABSTRACT
Introduction It is certain that human resource management is one of the most popular management concepts of the 1990s; evidenced by the proliferation of texts bearing the title, and university and management training courses on the subject. However, equality and diversity issues are often absent from the debate, where the theory, policy and practice of HRM tend to assume the ‘generic’ universal employee. This gap is significant in that looking at HRM is relevant to the study of equality initiatives, first, as the human resource function (personnel/industrial officers and managers) is most likely to hold the main responsibility for the people
planning within an organization. There are, however, interesting debates about the extent to which the human resource function is the main driver of progressive change regarding equity issues (Cattaneo, Reavley and Templer, 1994; Cockburn, 1991; or the counter opinion in Gooch and Ledwith, 1996).
