Context is increasingly recognised as a critical explanatory variable in accounting for commonalities and differences in human resource management. Giving expression to it in research models holds the prospect of enhancing theory development, deepening our appreciation of embedded practices in diverse territories, and opening up new lines of enquiry. However, contextualisation presents a significant research challenge and increasingly, international academic research networks that bring together scholars from different countries in the co-production of knowledge represent a key approach to rising to this challenge. This volume documents aspects of the development of one such network, namely the Cranet Network on International Human Resource Management, and presents a series of recent contributions from the network. The chapters highlight, inter alia, the limits to convergence in human resource management as a result of contextual determinism, the role of institutional actors, markets, and work regulation in accounting for variations in practices, the contextual specificities and dynamics at play in transition economies, along with key methodological challenges that arise when seeking to build cumulative comparative knowledge via network collaborations of this nature. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of International Studies of Management & Organization.

Against the backdrop of ancient cultures, a communist legacy and eventual institutional atrophy, many of the societies of Central and Eastern Europe have pursued aggressive development trajectories since the early 1990s. This part of Europe is now characterized by an rising economic heterogeneity and a rapidly changing socio-cultural context, underscored by waves of restructuring, privatization, increasing foreign direct investment and an emerging individualism. However, while there has been a growing interest in the transition economies in the past number of years, until now, the contemporary nature of human resource management in these societies has not been well documented in book form.

This long-awaited text:

• charts the contemporary landscape of HRM in this region
• describes key aspects of the transition process as experienced in each of the economies under consideration
• describes key legislative and labour market developments and reforms
• discusses key trends in HRM policy and practice.

Authored by leading names in this field, this much-needed text is an important addition to the regional texts in the Global HRM series.