ABSTRACT
This chapter refers to some of the implications for human resource management that result from changes occurring due to globalization and the adoption of new technologies in the organizational world.
From a macro-perspective, it is possible to identify two opposing trends: a reduction of jobs due to increased automation and the use of sophisticated technology and another one resulting in manpower shortage due to an aging population, leading to a situation in which the number of individuals available to join the labor market will be much lower than the number of individuals retiring. While the reduction of jobs contributes to the increase in the unemployment rate, population aging allows to foresee a substantial decrease in unemployment in the coming years, even if the number of jobs diminishes.
At the micro-level, three conceptualizations of human resource management indissociable from the changes taking place are identified: as representing a new conceptualization of the personnel function; as an evolution and an embellishment of personnel administration; and as mere 16rhetoric or mere language difference that aims to convey a set of “White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant” (WASP) values, such as individualism and work ethics, and to credit the personnel function. Human resource practices associated with these conceptualizations cannot be dissociated from the current conjecture.
