Human resource management practices: a theoretical review

Human Resource is the set of individuals who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, or economy. Human Resource is considered as an important asset for any organization and is the source of achieving competitive advantage. “Human capital” is sometimes used synonymously with human resources, although human capital typically refers to the knowledge the individuals embody and can contribute to an organization. Managing human resources is very challenging as compared to managing technology or capital and for its effective management, organization requires effective HRM system. HRM system should be backed up by sound HRM practices. HRM practices refer to organizational activities directed at managing the pool of human resources and ensuring that the resources are employed towards the fulfilment of organizational goals. This research study is an effort to review the existing literature available on human resource management practices and how it is practically applied in different organization. After evaluating the existing literature available on human resource management practices it is found that HRM practices get affected by external and internal factors and directly or indirectly affect other variables such as employee's attitude, employee employer relations, financial performance, employee productivity etc. and ultimately contribute to overall corporate performance.