Human resource management (HRM): Too busy looking up to see where it is going longer term?

HRM has always been located at the interface of potentially conflicting forces within organisations. However, in its quest for legitimacy, HRM has tended primarily to look up the hierarchy and focus on narrow performance goals, so neglecting other long-standing values and stakeholders. Unless HRM reasserts its independence, it is likely to wither both in academic and practitioner circles.