ABSTRACT
This chapter reports on findings from a one-year study of twenty firms’ involvements in training. This is part of a larger, continuing programme of research into corporate strategy change and human resource management (HRM). We begin by arguing that previous treatments of HRM, strategic change and competitive performance fail to deal with the processes linking these. Having outlined the character of the research programme, its objectives, and conduct, we briefly identify a series of changes in the outer context of firms and the strategic responses they have made, the changes accompanying these within firms, and the range of HRM responses they have initiated. We then take up the critical question of how transformations in training and development, and in HRM have actually occurred. We conclude that effective transformations in firms’ training and people development result from the mobilization of the spatial and temporal context, and develop a series of models to show how this works. In so doing we return to the question of the linkages between strategic change, HRM, and competitive performance, and outline some implications for public policy.
