HRM in the New Economic Environment: An Empirical Study of India

This paper is developed from the second author's ongoing Ph.D. research, which focuses on the managerial thinking (personnel specialists) about strategic management of human resources from a cross‐cultural viewpoint between India and Britain. The Indian Personnel Specialists are under a severe pressure to bring about large scale structural changes in their organisations to cope with the challenges thrown by the recent liberalised economic policies. The role of Human Resource (HR) function has become more important than ever in such conditions. An attempt is therefore made to analyse the HR function in India in the changing economic environment. The influence of a number of national and contingent variables on the HR function is therefore studied to place it against the worldwide patterns of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices.