RESEARCH AND PRACTICE IN HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT Sett, P.K., (2004). Human Resource Management and Firm Level Restructuring: The South Asian Drama, Research and Practice in Human Resource Management, 12(1), 1-33. Human Resource Management and Firm Le

In advanced Western countries globalisation has been accompanied by the increasing use of sophisticated HRM practices at firm level. Content analyses of case studies of 59 South Asian firms identified a similar trend. The study results demonstrated that the best adopters of ‘soft ’ HRM practices were the firms at greenfield sites. While at the unionised brownfield sites ‘hard ’ HRM methods were used in the restructuring phase, after successful turnaround, ‘soft ’ HRM practices were increasingly invoked to gain employee commitment necessary to meet the competitive challenges. The findings suggest that the globalisation of the South Asian economy is accompanied by a discernible shift from the reactive adversarialism of traditional industrial relations towards increasing use of HRM practices