Conceptualization in HRM Research and Conceptualization of HRM Research: A Simplified Conceptual Study

Abstract

Doing research has become a valuable duty of academics, a mandatory requirement to be met by the students pursuing Bachelor’s Honours Degrees, Research Master’s Degrees, and Doctoral Degrees, and an emerging responsibility, if not a duty, for practitioners. Conducting Human Resource Management (HRM) research is daunting and laborious, particularly for beginners and less experienced researchers. Surprisingly, little research has been conducted with regard to conceptualization in HRM research and conceptualization of HRM research particularly in Sri Lankan context, and perhaps even the broader Asian context. Adopting the authority method and the desk research strategy this study makes a systematic attempt to address this gap to some extent. The study yielded a comprehensive synthesis of conceptualization in HRM, which refers to the essential activity of making abstract, unclear, or general concepts used in conducting HRM research definite, clear, or specific, and conceptualization of HRM research, which refers to not an activity in researching but defining and understanding the meaning of HRM research itself.

Key Words: Conceptualization, Definition, Human Resource Management, Researching, Research Methodology, Research Methods