Technology, Community, and the Practice of HRM

This article examines the links between changing technology, work-related community attachments and the practice of human resource management. The article begins with an example from the world of the theatrical arts, and proceeds to a discussion of professional contract workers, to illustrate how temporary affiliations can produce enduring enhancements to a company's stock of knowledge. The management of technology, and thus knowledge, is different from people management. Companies need to have internal systems that attract and retain knowledge as an integral part of their work arrangements. Talented people accumulate knowledge and in turn it is knowledge itself, rather than the people who hold it, that is the stock-in-trade of the successful company. The company whose HRM advocates understand this will be rewarded - with knowledge, of course.