Personnel Management in the Management Hierarchy

Introduction There have recently been a number of articles arguing that the status of personnel management within the management hierarchy of many firms in Britain is increasing quite considerably. These articles have then gone on to discuss some of the general factors, such as the extensive programme of industrial relations legislation of the previous Labour Government, responsible for this change. However, beyond these fairly general statements on the status of personnel management our “hard evidence” on the subject is very much confined to single industry studies (i.e. engineering, chemicals) that have been almost solely concerned with the influence of one variable, that of establishment size, on the development of the personnel management function.