It should be noted that this is not our definition but rather the encapsulation of the meaning-making of strategic actors. That point has not always been understood.
Another approach to ‘defining’ SHRM is to treat the task as the demarcation of an academic field of enquiry and/or a general field of practical activity. This is essentially what Boxall and Purcell (2003) do when they describe how their definition ‘allows for a wide variety of management styles’ (p. 3). They go on to state ‘Human resource management (alternatively employee relations or labour management) includes the firm’s work systems and its models of employment. It embraces both individual and collective aspects of people management. It is not restricted to any one style or ideology’ (p. 23).
Both approaches are legitimate. It is a reasonable ambition to seek to con-struct an analytical framework with hypothesized causal connections and with an open-model which allows for multiple and variegated choices about how to manage work (and often, indeed, multiple choices are made for different groups within the same firm). This endeavour is in effect designed to define the field. But it is equally legitimate, albeit a different ambition, to seek to explore the meaning and implications of a more specific mode of approach to managing labour – of the kind that came to prominence in the 1980s. Boxall and Purcell acknowledge this point, but this distinction between the generic and the particular meanings of SHRM, which has been noted from the very outset of the debate, seems periodically to trigger misunderstanding.