HRM: A contributor to employee alienation?

In response to organisational demands for improved human performance, the Human Resource Management (HRM) literature has placed escalating emphasis on employee commitment. Despite this focus employee commitment has declined to a point where many workers are experiencing powerlessness, meaninglessness, isolation, and self estrangement, that are symptoms, which Blauner (1964) associated with alienation. Specific issues and challenges concerning alienation and commitment are explored in this paper. It is then argued that the predicament is not indicative of flawed HRM theory, but rather it results from the marginalisation of HRM which is caused by the failure, intentional or otherwise, of human resource professionals to implement the commitment focussed models proposed by Beer, et al. (1984) and others. These notions are discussed.