Labour Research December 2001

Reviews

A dictionary of human resource management

Edmund Heery and Mike Noon, Oxford University Press, 449 pages, hardback £45.00, paperback £14.99

Designed to demystify and make accessible the vast specialist language that has developed in the field of industrial relations, this dictionary has over 1,400 entries.

Although it is not written from a trade union perspective, it is very clear and thorough. For example, the term "human resource management" is given 10 different definitions, including the ninth, that HRM is "rhetoric to disguise the exploitative nature of capitalism and make new management techniques more palatable". It could be a useful tool for negotiators.