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Full-Text Articles in Labor Relations
[Review Of The Books Managing The Human Factor: The Early Years Of Human Resource Management In American Industry And Hired Hands Or Human Resources? Case Studies Of Hrm Programs And Practices In Early American Industry], Rosemary Batt
Rosemary Batt
[Excerpt] Bruce Kaufman has produced two volumes on the early development of human resource (HR) management that should become mainstays in undergraduate and graduate courses in the fields of HR studies and industrial relations. Not since Sandy Jacoby's pathbreaking book on the development of personnel management has such careful attention been paid to the inner workings of American corporations' personnel policies a century ago (Employing Bureaucracy: Managers, Unions and the Transforming of Work in American Industry, 1900-1945, 1985). Unlike Jacoby, who specifically analyzed how and why companies developed these policies in response to union movements and external pressures, Kaufman's purpose …
Strategic Segmentation In Frontline Services: Matching Customers, Employees, And Human Resource Systems, Rosemary Batt
Strategic Segmentation In Frontline Services: Matching Customers, Employees, And Human Resource Systems, Rosemary Batt
Rosemary Batt
This paper examines variation in the use of high involvement work practices in service and sales operations. I argue that the relationship between the customer and frontline service provider is a central feature that distinguishes production-level service activities from manufacturing. In particular, through strategic segmentation, firms are able to segment customers by their demand characteristics and to match the complexity and potential revenue stream of the customer to the skills of employees and the human resource system that shapes the customer-employee interface. Unlike manufacturing, where high involvement systems have emerged in a wide variety of product markets, therefore, service organizations …