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The extent to which stress at work produces a degree of psychological impairment has become a central issue in the current debate on the quality of working life. Various analyses of alienation as a result of paced assembly lines and other forms of mass production have spawned a range of possible initiatives to mitigate that condition: job enrichment, autonomous work groups and versions of industrial democracy being some of the best known.

In the quest for better management many companies are starting courses of management and of executive training for management. These vary from those with a broad sprawl of assorted lectures and discussions and limited penetration over a wide range, to those that attempt to teach specific techniques.

The ideas and evidence presented here are part of a piece of research commissioned by ESRC at UMIST on Management and Organisation of Secondary Schools (MOSS). A research team of nine included six serving teachers seconded from their authorities for twelve months. The main fieldwork phase was in 1986 and 1987. Methods included semi‐structured interviews and extensive observations. Aspects of the work have already been reported (e.g. Torrington, Weightman and Johns, 1987; Torrington & Weightman, 1989b; Reid, 1988; Adams, 1988). A full account of the research findings is in Torrington and Weightman, 1989a).

A reaction to an article in a previous issue of the journal about the dangers of Human Resource Management (HRM). HRM was described as amoral, anti‐social, uneconomic and ecologically destructive. Whilst accepting that HRM is flawed, argues that its acceptance is partly attributable to the dependence of management researchers on the approval of research councils and employers. Concludes with suggestions for personnel managers to consider: less obsession with strategy at the expense of operations; less preoccupation with management at the expense of other members of the business; and much greater preoccupation with the recreation of employment.

The concept of human resources could be a significant development for the personnel function, with a change of emphasis with implications as far reaching as the evolution of sales into marketing or of works management into operations management. On the other hand, it could be a simple novelty with only minor ramifications. What seems quite clear at the moment is that there is little consensus about what human resources management (HRM) actually is among either practitioners or academics. A shift in emphasis within and around the personnel function of organisations is clear, with personnel management tending to decline and for human resources management to increase, but this is often no more than changes of labels, and few people have a clear view of what they are doing and of the way in which their situation is changing(p. 178). In the academic world, we now see university chairs in human resources management being established, although no British university ever had a chair in personnel management.

The greatest challenge for management of human resources in the 1990s is to place their local actions in a framework of global thought and strategy. Focusing on Britain, France, the US, Japan and Germany, outlines the cultural differences in management practices around the world. Suggests a framework for organizing thinking about personnel practice with an international dimension; i.e. the seven “Cs” of international HRM work – change, cosmopolitans, culture, communication, consultants, competence and co‐ordination.

The information on which this article is based comes from a major piece of research on the changing nature of personnel management, which is being conducted by the authors and Lesley Mackay at UMIST. The work is being funded by the Leverhulme Trust in collaboration with the IPM. The first phase of the research was the completion of extensive and detailed questionnaires about personnel practice in 350 different establishments during the Spring and early Summer of 1984. That data are still being analysed, but the second stage of the research began at the end of 1984. This is a series of interviews with questionnaire respondents. Conclusions from the research will be published progressively until the end of 1986.

Personnel managers are increasingly using consultants to make the development of human resources more efficient. There are risks involved, however, as consultants who are poorly selected and briefed, with their activities neither monitored nor reinforced, can disable the training effort in an organisation. Personnel managers need to be both knowledgeable and skilled if they are to make good use of this potentially valuable contribution.

Discusses an extensive research project relating to the quality and quantity of training available to life assurance representatives. The research was undertaken for LAUTRO, the industry′s self‐regulatory body, and provided background information prior to the issue of training and competence standards which will operate industry‐wide from April 1993. Based on data relating to over 140,000 life assurance representatives, pinpoints the extensive variety in training and recruitment practices between companies in the industry and between categories of representatives, even within one company. Outlines the arguments in favour of providing comprehensive training for life assurance representatives, while concluding that there may need to be flexible forms of training to take account of the differing characteristics of representatives and their companies.

Volume 6 Number 2 of Employee Relations contains two articles of interest. In the first Cary L. Cooper writes on “Where Women are Going” in which he outlines some of the problems facing women managers, along with more optimistic evidence from a company known as F International which employs 90% women, and has been very successful in financial terms. In the second article, Elizabeth Goodman and Derek Torrington discuss “The Equal Pay Act (UK) — The State of the Law”. The decision of the European Court against the UK led to the introduction of the Equal Pay (Amendment) Regulations 1983, which came into effect in January 1984.