ABSTRACT
This book is about human resources audits for management. It is concerned with how and what to audit in any organization. This chapter deals essentially with two things. First, it is concerned with the ‘science of measurement’. Psychologists have spent most of this century refining the process of psychometrics - ways of measuring individual psychological functioning. Much of management science and organizational behaviour has leaned heavily on this source of expertise, and to a large extent is therefore derivative. But whereas the methods of assessing individuals and organizations might be similar, the resultant instruments or tools, or assessment are not invariably the same, nor in the case of organizations should they be. Management science needs to develop a library of useful measurement instruments to assess organizations in general and which are capable of reflecting the varying nuances and idiosyncrasies of different organizations. Secondly, this book considers four quite different, but often related audits: culture, climate, communications and customers. This begs two questions of why these audits should be studied and used and, equally important, of how they are interrelated.
