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The Oxford Handbook of Human Resource Management.

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The Oxford Handbook of Human Resource Management, edited by Peter BOXALL, John PURCELL, and Patrick WRIGHT, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, 658 pp., ISBN 978-0-199282-51-7.

At 658 pages, and with 42 contributors, The Oxford Handbook of Human Resource Management is notable not only for its size and heft, but also for the density of ideas and perspectives packed between its covers. By enlisting top academic experts to review theory and research within their respective areas of expertise, the editors are not only attempting to pull together the latest and best thinking in the academic field of human resource management (HRM), but also to go considerably beyond the conventional remit of an academic handbook.

However, since there is no preface or foreword to explain the editors' goals and aims for this volume, we don't discover this until more than halfway through their introductory chapter. On page 8, we learn that the editors' aim is "to foster a more integrated conception of HRM with much better connections to the way production is organized...

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