Theory and Practice of Human Resource Management Views of Human Resource Managers in Apparel Sector in Sri Lanka

Abstract

University education system is always disparaged by many parties. Especially these criticisms are made about the management graduates. There is no any argument that the management education system and its theories & concepts were brought from the western philosophy. In Sri Lanka, management education has a history of over fifty years. However, many practitioners blame the management graduates regarding their orientation of theory than the practices. Therefore, there is a knowledge gap about to what extent the theory of management applies in to the practices. This is common in the field of human resource management. Therefore, the problem of the study is that whether there is a difference between the theory and practice of human resource management in the practical scenario. Using 80 human resource managers in the apparel industry in Sri Lanka, researchers tried to find the perception of HR Managers about the differences of theory and practice of human resource management in the apparel industry. 17 areas/activities of human resource management were asked from the selected sample and the closed ended questionnaire was distributed to them. Univariate statistics were used to analyses the primary data gathered from the sample and the main finding of the study is that there was moderate level of differences of theory and practices of human resource management in the apparel sector in Sri Lanka. However, there is a trend of applying the theory of human resource management into the practice in this sector through entering the human resource management graduates.