Sociological Paradigms and Human Resources: An African Context

Ken Kamoche sets out to explore the nature of people management in Africa, informed by a sociologically inspired multiple‐paradigm analysis of empirical data collected in his home state of Keyna. More specifically, he evaluates the possibilities of importing HRM principles to inform and govern the “human side of enterprise” in a developing economy. Kamoche seeks to help to rectify the problem of “the dearth of published work on the management of employees in Keyna”, on the one hand, while looking critically at the “Western” model of employment practice, on the other. Kamoche observes that while some commentators may present them as though they were a set of universal interventions that can be transferred unproblematically across diverse cultures and organisations, management approaches in general represent “a socio‐cultural phenomenon”. Kamoche highlights the importance of context, therefore. He argues that governance principles in Keyna tend to reflect the continued dominance of foreign investment capital. Combined with, or as an alternative to, this he perceives a propensity among local managers and policy‐makers unquestioningly to embrace foreign ideas, as a necessary ingredient in economic success. In short, Kamoche’s argument is that complications of “diverse socio‐cultural and politico‐economic considerations, which are characteristic of a developing country, should not be overlooked”.

Kamoche’s analytical terrain is not merely a parochial one, however. He refers to the challenge faced by ideas presented to inform contemporary managerial practice globally, namely, a “productivity and profitability test”. Under the dominant view of managerial theory and concomitant practice, it is argued that initiatives are judged meritorious only “to the extent that they make a tangible and quantifiable contribution”. Human resource activities are thus placed at a disadvantage, since their outcomes are not readily demonstrable in these terms. The more outspoken among commentators within the professional people management community are beginning to call for the abandonment of a “Fruitless search for proof of the links between HR policies and business success” (Brown, 2000, p. 65), but these outbursts remain rare and tend to fall on deaf ears. Kamoche postulates that the rise in interest in HRM as a paradigmatic inspiration for prescription on employment practice, needs to be understood as deriving from the combination of a number of factors. The latter include:

As a vehicle for theoretical and empirical commentary at a domestic, regional and international level, Kamoche’s book offers something that should interest readers in both academic and practitioner circles, including students of comparative and international employee relations. Kamoche readily admits that the “field” data informing his analysis comprise views obtained mainly from managers, and thus anticipates criticism of a possibly “managerialist bias” manifested in his conclusions. However, in his methodological reflections, the author draws the reader’s attention to the resourcefulness needed to conduct academic research in a developing country. Not only are there the usual barriers to access, arising from a general propensity among managers to regard academic researchers with the suspicion accorded to all “unwelcome guests”. In countries such as those in Africa, research sites are frequently located in physically remote areas or “export promotion zones”, testing the investigator’s resilience and necessitating tolerance of a degree of opportunism in “getting at the facts”.

Over the course of nine concisely worded chapters, Kamoche introduces and reviews three substantive themes. These themes, first, seek a clarification of an HRM model, drawing on the work in the UK led by Guest and others, in its evolution towards an aspirant “strategic” role. Kamoche argues that a descriptive‐prescriptive approach to model building has been followed. Either the HRM framework is derived empirically from observation of corporate practice, which claims to be, or is attributed by others, as exemplifying HRM. Alternatively, in a conceptually based construction of the model, a set of assumptions about what constitutes management of human resources is followed. Guest seeks to operationalise a set of testable propositions, leading to policy prescription. Secondly, management in Africa is reviewed, in historical and contemporary context. Thirdly, the notion of multiple‐paradigm analysis is introduced. The latter begins with the definitional work around the concept of “paradigm” in the 1960s, attributed to Khun, the elaboration and application of analytical paradigms developed in the 1970s by Burrell and Morgan (whose work provides a major influence on Kamoche’s thinking, featuring throughout much of the book). A critique of the paradigm concept is then outlined, followed by an examination of its application in an African context. The middle section of the book examines HRM, as a contender for paradigmatic status as the “new” workplace hegemony, against three different paradigms drawn from the sociological literature. The narrative proceeds to evaluate the HRM practices of recruitment, selection socialisation, training and development of employees, exploring the way these are underpinned by structural‐functionalist principles. This analytical perspective sets out to supply “practical solutions to practical problems”. The orientation is one of social engineering, based on managerial conceptions of organisations. While prescribing how organisations should work, however, this approach to organisational analysis and utilisation of the “human resource” fails to explain why they do not function as intended. In contrast, drawing on the work of Gramsci, the book moves on to assess HRM on the basis of a radical critique that pays attention to contradictions inherent in the political economy. Gramsci’s major contribution to social theory is to offer insights into the ways in which modern capitalist societies are organised, to achieve a hegemonic status for dominant interests. In relation to HRM, Kamoche argues that the radical perspective facilitates an exploration of the power/political dimension of social organisation that is ignored by the structural‐functionalist paradigm. The latter operationalises the problem exclusively in technical terms. The radical critique offers scope analytically to establish whether and how HRM may represent management’s attempt to constitute and reproduce congruence of interests within the workplace, and to seek legitimacy for managerial strategies to control the activities of labour. Informed by social anthropology considerations, such as symbolism and ritualism, a penultimate chapter follows the interpretative paradigm, privileging the view that social phenomena, such as those associated with the management of people at work, must be understood from the perspective of the social actors themselves. Under this analytical formulation, HRM may be represented as “a form of ritualistic and magio‐religious behaviour” on the part of management, relaying desired and obscuring undesirable social realities associated with people at work. ERM practice perceived interpretatively is intended to encourage a shared sense of identity, incorporating the entire workforce (HRM is underpinned by a distinctly unitarist world‐view), in the pursuit of managerial goals. Such manufactured consent is required even though these goals represent particular, politically slanted, priorities. The book concludes with a synthesis of the argument and evidence presented. While offering a balanced appraisal of the merits of the competing frames of reference, the closing argument is perhaps a little sterile. At this point, one might have expected Kamoche to display his hand more forthrightly, in terms of his own position on the ideological divide.

Overall, one might assess the contribution to the HRM literature made by Kamoche on two grounds: analysis and readability. In analytical terms, Kamoche’s multi‐paradigm approach presents a stimulating pathway to understanding HRM and its applications from a variety of angles, surfacing the contextual assumptions accompanying each framework. In particular, the argument opens avenues of thought within which to evaluate the merits and potential of HRM theorising, with insights that may be absent from more prescriptive texts and/or “packaged” consultants’ “solutions”. Both students and practitioners stand to benefit from access to this multiple set of lenses, in arriving at their own conclusions. Kamoche’s playing out of the arguments, drawing real data from a relatively unresearched empirical setting adds a rich texture and “real world” credibility. Kamoche has taken due care in constructing his analytical artefacts with due attention to the requirement for intellectual rigour. The author has made a significant intellectual commitment to the development of the arguments and material presented, which pays off in terms of the confidence with which the narrative is articulated. He describes the book as the result of a decade‐long effort (the book derives from Kamoche’s 1992 doctoral thesis – the dateline somewhat reflected in a literature review that is largely of 1980s vintage). In terms of readability, not only is the book at just over 200 pages accessible to any thoughtful reader interested in the field: of enquiry, its open style conveys fresh insights into managerial practice in a part of the world that, to‐date, has had only limited attention afforded to it by Western commentators.

Clearly, a more comprehensive evaluation of contemporary orientations towards the employment relationship, across the African continent, would have proved even more stimulating reading, offering an intra‐regional comparative perspective. Limitations of breadth are compensated for by depth of empirical iteration, however. And, as Kamoche himself states, an elaborate study of industrial relations is beyond the scope of this book. A further minor reservation is that, while arguing that HRM needs to be perceived as emerging as a direct result of America’s anxiety to respond to the onslaught of Japanese competition in the 1980s, Kamoche does not take up the challenge of exploring in what ways its formation partly reflects the “Japanisation” of employee relationships, itself reflecting still earlier academic theorising emanating from the USA. The latter, while largely ignored at the time among American policy makers and business people, was embraced by a Japanese society seeking to rebuild its economic fortunes and national prestige. As such, the HRM embraced and repackaged in Westernised wrappings for global consumption may usefully perhaps be evaluated as a derivative of “a generalized model of Japanese human resource practices” (Eaton, 2000, p. 24).

It is to be hoped that Kamoche’s contribution to an enhanced appreciation of people management in Keyna, and the questions he has aired for analytical attention regarding the problems of transplanting Western “best practice” prescription, will inspire an increasingly extended and sophisticated research effort following in the wake of this book.