Answering pressing questions regarding employee selection and mobbing culture in the workplace, Andrew R. Timming explores the unique intersection of the biological sciences and human resource management.

In this provocative volume, a pioneering organizational psychologist explains that the failure of many human resource programs in business, education, and government is largely due to their mechanistic assumptions. By contrasting the classical human resource paradigm—and its emphasis on consistency and a clock-like structure to organizations— with the evolutionary paradigm and its focus on variation, conflicting interests and complexity, the author shows how shifting to an evolutionary perspective can make organizations more adaptive, hence human resource programs more attuned to human nature and to organizational realities. Colarelli gives a lively intellectual history of classical human resource management thinking, from Plato through the Renaissance to Marx and Taylor to the present, and shows that much of it is imbued with utopian ethos. This volume explodes the myths that there is one best way to organize, that organizations have goals and that human resource programs operate to further organizational goals or the good of the organization. The author explains the evolutionary logic that views organizations as collections of individuals pursuing their own interests and that human resource activities are inevitably enmeshed in personal and conflicting interests. Evolutionary-based interventions that are workable, innovative, and compassionate are presented for use in hiring and training. Colarelli also offers a novel approach to affirmative action to deal with the problems of fairness and performance.

The nature of human resource development (HRD) has been, and remains, a contested topic – the debate was sparked in part by Monica Lee’s seminal 2001 paper which refused to define the discipline of HRD, but has been accentuated by increasing globalization, political unrest, inequality and the erosion of boundaries. Should HRD now be seen as more than ‘training,’ or a sub-function of large western bureaucracy? This book represents a very wide view of HRD: that it is at the core of our ‘selves’ and our relationships, and that we continually co-create ourselves, our organisations and societies. These ideas are hung upon a model of Holistic Agency, and supported from sources as diverse as evolutionary psychology, science fiction, the challenges of transitional economies, and the structural uncertainties of contemporary society. Examining the tensions between self and other, agency and structure, the book draws inspiration from an almost-autoethnographic approach. This yields a text that is personal, entertaining, and easier to read than many academic tomes – yet considers the depth and development of the human condition, and locates HRD within that.

HRM is central to management teaching and research, and has emerged in the last decade as a significant field from its earlier roots in Personnel Management, Industrial Relations, and Industrial Psychology. People Management and High Performance teams have become key functions and goals for manager at all levels in organizations. The Oxford Handbook brings together leading scholars from around the world - and from a range of disciplines - to provide an authoritative account of current trends and developments. The Handbook is divided into four parts: * Foundations and Frameworks, * Core Processes and Functions, * Patterns and Dynamics, * Measurement and Outcomes. Overall it will provide an essential resource for anybody who wants to get to grips with current thinking, research, and development on HRM.

Why do people resort to plastic surgery to look young? Why are stepchildren at greatest risk of fatal abuse? Why do we prefer gossip to algebra? Why must Dogon wives live alone in a dark hut for five days a month? Why are young children good at learning language but not sharing? Over the past decade, psychologists and behavioral ecologists have been finding answers to such seemingly unrelated questions by applying an evolutionary perspective to the study of human behavior and psychology. Human Evolutionary Psychology is a comprehensive, balanced, and readable introduction to this burgeoning field. It combines a sophisticated understanding of the basics of evolutionary theory with a solid grasp of empirical case studies. Covering not only such traditional subjects as kin selection and mate choice, this text also examines more complex understandings of marriage practices and inheritance rules and the way in which individual action influences the structure of societies and aspects of cultural evolution. It critically assesses the value of evolutionary explanations to humans in both modern Western society and traditional preindustrial societies. And it fairly presents debates within the field, identifying areas of compatibility among sometimes competing approaches. Combining a broad scope with the more in-depth knowledge and sophisticated understanding needed to approach the primary literature, this text is the ideal introduction to the exciting and rapidly expanding study of human evolutionary psychology.

With the recognition that traditional bureaucratic structures are less likely to respond effectively to volatile and complex business environments, the movement toward structural empowerment has been touted as one of the most significant changes in modern organizations. However, research to date has advanced opposing viewpoints on whether or not structural empowerment will psychologically empower managers and enhance group functioning. The aim of my dissertation is to provide a more nuanced view of the downstream consequences of how managers navigate structural empowerment through the lens of evolutionary psychology. I developed a comprehensive model of how evolved motives for social influence--prestige and dominance--and situational constraints--resource scarcity and outcome interdependence--guide managers' cognition and behavior in the context of structural empowerment. To test my arguments, I utilized experimental (Study 1) and field survey (Study 2) methodologies. My dissertation contributes to the literature in three important ways: 1) I complement the predominant focus on the link between structural empowerment and psychological empowerment by providing accounts for an unintended consequence of structural empowerment, namely entitled managers; 2) my focus on managers' external resource acquisition and sharing as outcomes of structural empowerment expands conceptual boundaries of the role of leadership in the literature; and 3) my dissertation provides an example of how insights from evolutionary psychology can be leveraged to gain a better understanding of why managers do what they do within contemporary organizational structures.

(USE FOR PRACTITIONER/BUSINESS PIECES) In an increasingly knowledge-based economy, a company's success hinges on the quality of its people. People set strategy, make decisions, build relationships, and drive change. Businesses possess a powerful advantage if their people do their jobs better and faster than the competition. The need for more sophisticated, integrated, and strategically linked human resource applications (e.g., selection systems, training programs, and performance management interventions) is recasting the very role of HR. One of the critical tools in the HR professionals' toolkit that has been used to create these applications is job analysis. However, much of today's job analysis practice has failed to keep up with the evolutionary pace. This book is about a "next generation" job analysis method that involves translating business strategies into work performance and competency requirements, and using this information and data to create an architecture that can be used to support the sophisticated HR applications and enterprise resource planning systems that will be a part of high-performance third millennium organizations. Numerous case studies, applied examples, and project management tips contribute to the practice-oriented design of the book to illustrate a personnel research activity that is essentially an ongoing organizational development intervention. (USE THIS COPY FOR TEXTBOOK PIECES) The business landscape is changing and becoming more complex. Furthermore, human resources is at the vortex of much of what is changing. The need for more sophisticated, integrated, and strategically linked human resource applications (e.g., selection systems, training programs, and performance management interventions) is recasting the very role of HR. One of the critical tools in the HR professionals' toolkit that has been used to create these applications is job analysis. However, much of today's job analysis practice has failed to keep up with the evolutionary pace. This book is about a "next generation" job analysis method that involves translating business strategies into work performance and competency requirements, and using this information and data to create an architecture that can be used to support the sophisticated HR applications and enterprise resource planning systems that will be a part of high-performance third millennium organizations. Numerous case studies, applied examples, and project management tips contribute to the practice-oriented design of the book to illustrate a personnel research activity that is essentially an ongoing organizational development intervention.