HRM: Definition, Functions, Strategy and Challenges

To quote from Christopher Bartlett (2002), "The business 's nature has shifted from a concentration on scarce financial capital to a concentration upon scarce human capital." There is no doubt that financial capital is a key strategic capital in the period of industrial society. In that time the economic growth depends on the financial capital and work force. However, the strategic capital of today 's society, the information and knowledge society, is human resource. Peter F. Drucker (1993) explains it as follow: 'The most important, and indeed the truly unique, contribution of management in the 20th century was the fifty-fold increase in the productivity of the manual worker in manufacturing. The most important contribution management needs to make in the 21st century is similarly to increase the productivity of knowledge work and the knowledge worker. ' To look at it another way, his words also means that knowledge has become the key factor of productivity and competitive power. As Peter F. Drucker (1994) has observed, '...an economic order in which knowledge, not labor or raw material or capital, is the key resource. ' That is to say human resources are the most important assets a modern organization has, because only human beings can make, transfer and exercise knowledge. Moreover, different resources have different functions and significances in the organization. However, human resources bulk most important into there, because only people can create the holistic values by planning all the other resources as a whole.

* Definition of HRD

Human resource management (HRD) has been defined as an organized learning experience, conducted in a definite time period, to increase the possibility of improving job performance and growth (Nadler, Leonard, 1984). To put it simply, it means that organization designed a systematic way and planned activities to provide its members with the necessary skills to achieve the desired results of the organization.

*HRD Functions

Bibliography: 1. Peter F. Drucker (1993), Post Capitalist Society [online]. 3. Nadler, Leonard (1984). The Handbook of Human Resource Development (p 1.3) New York: John Wiley & Sons. 4. What is HRD? Evolution of the Field (08 Feb. 2001) [online]. Available from: http://gervis.net/pages/whatishrd.htm [Accessed from 08.06.04] 5. Learner, R. (1986). Concepts and Theories of Human Development (2nd Edition) New York: Random House). 7. Gilley, J.W. & Eggland S.A. (1989). Principles of Human Resource Development, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley.