HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 12 NO 2, 2002 3

F o re w o rd John Purcell, Editor, HRMJ

H R M J’s mission is to publish well-written, well-re s e a rched and well-informed

articles on aspects of the management of people at work, and to appeal to

practitioners as well as to academics. Most articles are between 6,000 and 8,000

w o rds and some can be quite technical since, in an authoritative journal, it is essential top rovide evidence and explanation. We were there f o re very pleased to learn that thejournal was this month (April 2002) awarded an `Emerald (formerly Anbar) Golden Page

Aw a rd for Practical Usability of Research’ . These annual awards are presented to

management periodicals that `consistently deliver excellent articles’. Below we draw out

some of the practical implications of the re s e a rch reported in this issue.

l Knowledge working and the problems of managing knowledge are reviewed thro u g h

the experience of Scottish law ® rms. Law is a classic area where access to knowledge and

the sharing of knowledge are crucial if the ® rm is to be successful, especially when major

clients want a co-ordinated response. Hunter, Beaumont and Lee look in detail at ways inwhich ® ve law ® rms coped with four key aspects: building human capital, leveraging

knowledge, deepening knowledge and diffusing knowledge.

l Can the psychological contract be managed is a question posed by David Guest and

Neil Conway. They look at the actions and policies that employers use to form and

communicate their expectations and promises to employees. But this communication

p rocess is far from simple. Personal, job-related and re c ru i t m e n t - related communication

a re shown to be more important than top-down communication. This is also linked to thenegative outcomes that occur when the psychological contract is breached. Both the

positive and the negative outcomes of managing and mismanaging the psychological

contract are visible in this study of HR managers. It con® rms that the management of thepsychological contract is important and can be done.

l The changing role of HR professionals is looked at over a seven-year period in twocontrasting organisations, the Chelsea and Westminster NHS Trust and Citibank, nowpart of Citigroup. Catherine Truss and her colleagues carried out numerous interviews to

show how the organisational environment has an impact on the beliefs and perceptions of

line and senior managers as to what HR professionals can do and ought to do. At the

same time HR professionals do not have to be passive. This is in¯ uenced by their stre n g t h

of will, how they deploy their re s o u rces and how they manage their visibility.

l Training provision in the UK has historically been poor compared with more re g u l a t e d

economies in continental Europe. Caroline Lloyd looks at two ® rms in high technologysectors to see whether it is better in leading-edge companies. The results raise important

issues for policymakers in government and large companies. The level of training wasgenerally low, and this could not be explained by the view that well-trained employees get

poached by competitors. Rather, in these lean and decentralised organisations thecombination of time, cost constraints and current job demands limited opportunities.

Relying on individuals to take up training is a ̄ awed approach, Lloyd shows.

l In a study of absence management Philip James and colleagues show how a planneda p p roach to the management of genuine long-term sickness and rehabilitation is rare

c o m p a red with some other countries, despite the organisational bene® ts. Based on their

re s e a rch in the UK they call for ® rms to adopt a case-based approach bringing together

line and specialist managers to look at the issues. This would mean more training andespecially a change to budgetary accounting for long-term sickness.