There is a fundamental paradox at the heart of any attempt to define or
otherwise engage with SHRM. Despite, or possibly directly because of, the
important role SHRM plays in theories of, and attempts to describe, understand,
critique and change organizations and theories of organizational structures
and functioning, it is virtually impossible to define SHRM. There is no such
thing as SHRM because SHRM is not a unitary phenomenon but a collection
of phenomena. It consists of very diverse phenomena: prescriptions, models,
theories and critiques.