Traditionally, personnel department has been viewed as a cost-center in organizations, and therefore personnel management has been considered a secondary staff function which never contributes directly to the enterprise achievement. However, theoretical developments of human capital theory, behavioral sciences, strategic management theory and resource-based theory of the firm after the 1960's and practical movements of “the After Japan” and “the In Search of Excellence” after the 1980's have changed the traditional view of personnel management role. And today, personnel management is emphasized as a major function in organizations which decides the economic success of enterprises. Those details appear the change in technical term from personnel management to human resource management. Then, while the term human resource management (HRM) develops into strategic human resource management (SHRM), personnel management is coming to be viewed as a significant source which gains the sustained competitive advantage of enterprise.
There are three types of SHRM theory. The first type inquires into the strategic fit of personnel systems to business strategies. The second type normatively puts emphasis on “the commitment model” of HRM as best practices. The last type makes efforts to build the HR bundles or configurations as “high performance work practices”, though the posture to inquire into best practices of HRM is the same as that of the second. However, the logic of SHRM has some characteristics: first, SHRM seriously takes the financial performance of enterprise as the success-criteria of personnel management; second, SHRM aims at building high-operational and technical personnel systems; third, SHRM puts a focus on some, not all functions of personnel management. These characteristics may not bring the necessarily desirable advantages to employees.
