Underlying forces
How and why the content of SHRM is so diverse and why it changes over time are themselves important issues. If SHRM is a repository of the ways in which academics, consultants, senior managers and other authorities think about and attempt to change organizations – and how some of them at least think about and evaluate these theories and prescriptions – then an understanding of how and why SHRM changes is important because these changing ideas are highly significant. They affect how organizations are changed, and how they perform; they affect how employees are treated, they affect security of employment and they affect the nature of employment. They also affect us as individuals, influencing how we see ourselves and our relationships. SHRM prescriptions, theories and practices mediate between the public and the private, defining the relationship between biography and history. Although SHRM initiatives are frequently presented by their proponents as simply tech-nical matters – means of improving organizational performance – they frequently owe their appeal and influence to their affinities with larger political ideological forces.