ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the research which explores the most notable drivers and developments which account for the divergent modes of employment management. The analyses reveal the repercussions for employment stemming from far-reaching economic, social, and technological changes. The post-war settlement in a number of the advanced economies was based on a tri-partite employment governance system brokered by employers, trade unions, and the state. Human Resource Management (HRM) specialists began to displace industrial relations specialists as the link between employment approaches and business strategy was made explicit. The ebb tide exposed characteristic features of employment which appear antithetical to the orthodoxy of HRM as extolled in the 1980s. The ways in which globalisation is playing out in the sphere of human resource management has been and is being intensively studied. With fast-changing technologies and with the spread of knowledge work there has been much interest in the appropriate form of HRM for such work settings.
