FOUCAULT, POWER KNOWLEDGE, AND ITS RELEVANCE FOR HUMAN-RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault, I argue that human resource ma nagement (HRM) may be best understood as a discourse and set of practi ces that attempt to reduce the indeterminacy involved in the employmen t contract. Here I reread HRM practices from a Foucauldian power-knowl edge perspective and suggest that this provides an avenue to reorient contemporary, historical, and comparative analyses of the area.