Contents -- Abstracts & keywords -- Introduction -- Continuous improvement in the history of human resource management -- The control of pensions -- Human resource accounting -- Improving employer-employee relationships -- The role of economics and industrial relations in the development of the field of personnel/human resource management -- Chester Barnard's ''executive'' and the knowledge-based firm -- ''Playing by ear'' . . . ''in an incessant din of reasons'' -- Juxtaposition of Chester I. Barnard and Frederick W. Taylor -- Managing a riot -- Chester Barnard: member of the ''eĺite''? -- Deming: a new philosophy or another voice? -- Note from the publisher.