Personal Management Vs. Human Resource Management

2.2 Personal Management vs. Human Resource Management

Many researchers believe that there is a difficulty in distinguishing clear differences in terms of Personal Management (PM) and Human Resource Management (HRM). Some of them such as Torrington (1989, citied in Koster 2007), support that the difference stands in the change of title and that in fact there is no difference in the content of HRM. On the other hand, there are researchers such as Guest (1987, citied in Arsmtrong, 1999), who argued that the administration of HRM differs from the traditional personnel management. HRM is engaged in the implementation of operating activities that traditionally were carried out by the staff. However HRM performs these functions in a qualitatively

In PM models, the role of the production line refers to the observation that all managers manage humans (Storey, 1989). It can be said that all managers, in a sense, manage staff. Furthermore, it is recognized that more specialized staff tasks should still be applied within the part of managing the production line, where the workforce operates (Legge, 1987, citied in Storey, 1989). On the other hand HRM belongs to the management production line, and organization managers are responsible for the coordination of all resources so as to pursue the final result (Legge & Storey 1987, Guest, 1990). Thus, the final result looks to be like more correctly defined than the personnel management models. Also, the HRM model affects the quality of the product or service (Storey, 1987). But despite of this, there is a clear distinctive relationship between the success of this effect and appropriate and practical use of human resources from the production line to the business unit (Legge & Storey, 1987; Guest,

28) “HRM, in theory, is more effective since it is essentially a more central task management strategy than the administration staff. It is viewed by managers as the most valuable resource of the company with management, employs in achieving business objectives and is the preferred value of the organization in senior management.” Based on this Fowler (1987) argued that the real difference between HRM and PM has nothing to do with what is said, but with who says it. Guest (1990; 1987), said that there is need for greater precision in order for an operational analysis to be conducted. Initially theory control should be used in organizations from the relevant sociological (Etzioni, 1961) and psychological (Mcgregor, 1960 in Guest, 1990) literature. Walton (1985) and Guest (1987) indicate the contrary. Walton (1985) differentiated control and commitment, and since both approaches are forms of control, he argued it is more appropriate to identify them as compliance and commitment. PM is inextricably connected with the control base system through compliance, while HRM is usually associated with commitment. Comparisons with respect to the dimensions are showed in Table 2.1 below (Guest,