Purpose – The paper examines the operational impact of project management systems on the management of human resources and the practical implications of this for practitioners in two project‐led engineering contractors Design/methodology/approach – The paper achieves these objectives...

It has recently been argued that the use of external consultants is indicative of a crisis in personnel management. However, the use of consultants, of whatever type, has not been adequately explained for a umber of reasons. The reasons underlying the increasing usage of external consultants by...

Explores the burgeoning literature on HRM with the aim of assessing its distinctiveness in terms of the arguments expounded by Guest in 1989 in his article “Personnel Management and HRM: Can You Tell the Difference?”. Summarizes Guest’s article, drawing out his three main approaches;...

Critical and prescriptive evaluation of human resource management (HRM) tells us little about the direction in which its practice and rationale purport to push management. Contends that the prevailing course of HRM ventures to make management more entrepreneurial. Distinguishes between the...

This paper reports on a case study of an internationalized‐industry Engineering Process Plant Contracting (EPPC). The study examines how a leading engineering contracting project management firm has responded to heightened competitive pressures through a process or organizational change. A key...