HRM: from compliance to commitment?

Abstract

A central plank of Guest’s (1987) normative model of HRM is the development of employee commitment to the organisation. ‘The rationale behind this can be found in the assumption that committed employees will be more satisfied, more productive and more adaptable’ (Guest, 1987, p. 513). Explicitly, commitment is contrasted favourably with the ‘resigned behavioural compliance’, seen as characteristic of employment relationships under conventional personnel management (Ogbonna and Wilkinson, 1988, 1990). Commitment is portrayed as internalised belief, as generating constructive proactivity, of ‘going one step further’ on the part of employees. Compliance, in contrast, is seen as maintained by externally imposed bureaucratic control systems, as generating reactive rather than proactive behaviours, of working to contract, of even ‘working to rule’.

Much of this chapter is based on an earlier publication, ‘Managing culture: fact or fiction?’ (see Legge, 1994).