BOOK REVIEW

PAT LY N C H
Ashok Som (2008). Organization Redesign and Innovative HRM. New Delhi:
Oxford University Press. 197 pages.

had mixed reactions to this book. As a

former academic, I appreciate the time
and effort the author expended in conducting the longitudinal qualitative research that forms the basis for the book.
The information and insights he provides
advance a research agenda that, as noted
multiple times, just begins to scratch the surface of human resource management (HRM)
practices in developing countries. As companies move into unfamiliar territories, they
surely could benefit from research that sheds
light on how to optimize their performance
by adapting their business practices to their
new settings.
Speaking as a consultant, I was disappointed in the book for two reasons. First,
although the author identifies his target audience as including managers, entrepreneurs,
HR professionals, consultants, and practitioners involved in re-designing local and
global corporations (in addition to academics and students), the books format and language are primarily those of a dissertation.
This fact dissuades all but the very hardiest
of practitioners from wading through extensive literature reviews and academic verbiage
to uncover the gems that are so well hidden
from nonacademic eyes. Instead of telling
the intended audiences only what they need
to know, the author tells them everything
he knows, which becomes overwhelming.

Although the book is described as providing a theoretical framework, the fact that its
intended audience is composed primarily of
nonacademics suggests that the information
be provided in ways that those individuals
can understand and use easily. Second, the
phrase innovative HRM in the books title
signaled to me that the author would reveal
new, original, groundbreaking, and/or inventive HRM practices. I was disappointed to
find that this was not the case.
Trying to serve two very different audiences with one book does not work in this
case, primarily because the theoretical underpinnings of the study that enthrall researchers are of no interest to most practitioners.
Nor do the latter particularly care about future research and the extent to which this
study achieves its stated goal of furthering a
given research agenda. Even the case studies
are not very reader-friendly, as indicated by
the authors own description of them as being tortuously detailed (p. 34).
What practitioners do care about is
straightforward information about what was
done, what worked and why, what didnt
work and why, and how they may apply
others practices to achieve their own successes. Unfortunately, while the author does
provide this information eventually, it is too
well hidden to attract much interest from the
targeted practitioner audience. Even some

Human Resource Management, JulyAugust 2010, Vol. 49, No. 4, Pp. 809811
2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).
DOI: 10.1002/hrm.20377

810

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, JULYAugust 2010

academics may find the level of detail and

the number of theories covered in multiple
literature reviews daunting.
Both the title of the book and the stated
research question seem somewhat misleading, resulting in unmet expectations. The author defines the term innovative HRM on
page 22 as follows:
Any intentional introduction or change
of HRM program, policy, practice
or system designed to influence the
employee, adapt the skills, behaviors,
and interactions of employees and
have the potential to provide both the
foundation for strategy formulation and
the means of strategy implementation
that is perceived to be new and creates
current capabilities and competencies.
(Som, 2006)
Given that the author is addressing perceptions and is talking about organizational
re-design (primarily) in India, one could say
that HRM practices that seem run-of-the-mill
in more developed countries are innovative
in India and other developing countries. Because the title does not indicate that the study
is confined to companies doing business in
India, however, the implication I drew was
that the author would present new HR practices. Indeed, while the books abstract raises
questions specific to changes in the Indian
business environment (e.g., the organizational and managerial changes that have occurred in response to environmental changes
in India), the books purpose is stated broadly,
that is, to help managers and academicians
address this question: Given the changing
business environment, how do we redesign
the organization for superior performance?
(p. 1). The qualitative research methodology
the author uses, though appropriate for his
subject, does not permit the generalizability
of the results even to companies doing business in developing countries, as they are not
so big and so relatively advanced as India is.
The author specifies three potential contributions made by this book (p. xii): (1) furthering a research agenda that examines the
roles among organizational redesign, HRM,
and organizational performance; (2) providing

critical information about context-specific organizational redesign variables and the crossnational role of HRM; and (3) shedding some
light on the role of HRM in emerging countries
such as India. He is successful in all three areas,
and that makes it even more unfortunate that
the book is not more reader-friendly. The summary of relevant theory provides a solid foundation for his research, and he provides what
seems to be a comprehensive list of examples
of the dramatic changes in the business environment in India beginning in the 1990s as
the country opened its doors to outsiders. For
those who have little or no knowledge of the
transformation that began to occur, and those
who may contemplate doing business in India, this book provides valuable and fascinating background information.
As promised, the five case studies as presented initially (Chapters 37) are tortuous,
providing in most instances more detail than
even academic audiences may tolerate. As a
result, the interesting and relevant information may be lost or overlooked. I found myself dissatisfied at the end of four of the five
cases because the questions of most interest
to mesuch as details of the implementationwere left unanswered.
The Lafarge case was the exception, and
thus the most satisfying of the five examples.
At the other end of the spectrum, I found the
Renault case to be disjointed, with large gaps
that were disconcerting. For example, the narrative inexplicably jumped from speculation
about the likely success of 1990 changes in the
re-design of the HR department, to the companys 20062007 entry into the Indian market.
On the other hand, I found the summaries described in Chapter 8, which are meant
to integrate theory and practice, to be concise and easily understandable. They finally
revealed the how to that is of great interest
and value to many readers. Stripped of the litany of research results found in earlier chapters and providing just the facts (for the most
part), this chapter easily could stand on its
own as an excellent guide for those who are
most interested in the lessons learned from
this study, which are extensive. Once again,
information about Lafarge stood out among
the other four cases, though the Renault sumHuman Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm

BOOK REVIEW

mary shared information about what worked

for that company and why, and it provided
the outcomes missing from its earlier writeup. Table 8.1 on page 137 provides a wonderful visual of the authors main points.
This summary chapter could have provided a fitting end of the book. The author,
however, included another chapter that
made me realizeagainthat I was reading
a dissertation rather than a book. The literature review of the nine additional theories
contained in Chapter 9 might tax the patience even of academics who find this topic
of great interest.
The sections on research implications, limitations, and scope for future work are those I
expect to see in scholarly journal articles or dissertations, not in a bookespecially not in one
intended for largely practitioner audiences. Although the author states that the results of the
study are relevant to both academics and practitioners (p. 154), he makes it very challenging for these audiences to find them easily. He
does provide five implications for managers,
though they seem relatively generic, echoing
comments made by others. Curiously, I do not
recall reading anything about his fifth point,
which is the importance of line managers in
using HRM within an organization. Because
I know from my own experience how critical
such participation is to organizational success,
I would like to have seen something more specific about this issue.

Human Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm

There is no doubt that the book contains

valuable insights for its intended audiences.
While I might recommend it to academic
colleagues, it would be with the caveat that
it reads like a dissertation rather than a book.
Despite its value for nonacademics, I would
be unlikely to recommend the book to that
(large) segment of the intended audience
simply because most would be unable and/
or unwilling to wade through the extensive
amount of information that they find irrelevant. What I might do is recommend that
they read Chapter 8, as the author provides
usable information in a concise and relatively easy to understand format. I would like
to see this information made available in an
alternative, easily accessible format (e.g., a
nonacademic article, a booklet, a Webinar or
teleseminar), as it would be a shame for data
collected so painstakingly over the years,
and the processes and results that could be
put to good use, to be left to gather dust on
a shelf.
Pat Lynch earned her Ph.D. in personnel and
employment relations from Georgia State University. After teaching for a number of years in the
California State University system, she left academia to start her own management consulting
business. She served as a member of the HRCI
Item Writing Panel for the PHR and SPHR exams
for six years and as a member of the HRCI Forms
Review Panel for three years.

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