The Emergence and Rising of an Academic Discipline: The Adventure of HRM in Turkey

Abstract

What does an academic field mean, and how does it emerge? Obviously these questions are highly stimulating. Answering
these questions there is a requirement to begin with an ‘emergence of an academic field’ idea. However, this idea forces us to explore
the nature of ‘knowledge or science – power relation’. The main purpose of this paper is not to focus on this relation but an adventure of
HRM field in Turkey. In that paper, I intent to trace of personnel management area as an academic field in industrialised countries. And
the main focus of the paper will be on Turkey. So, I intend also to trace of the area in Turkey or in universities of Turkey. Several different
academic traditions appropriate the ‘employee relations’ issues in current university system in Turkey: Industrial relations, business
management, human resource management and partly public administration. In that paper, I suggest a ‘multi-disciplinary’ approach to
employee relations and explain two main bases for HRM area, one of them is industrial relations and the other is business management.
My key reason that lay under that suggestion is that: Looking at a certain point from different perspective produces a strong explanation.