Employment Relations in Chile: Evidence of HRM Practices

This paper presents empirical evidence about HRM practices in Chilean organizations with the aims of providing an overview of employment relations and adding to limited existing literature. Research was conducted in a sample of 2000 Chilean workers in the Metropolitan Region. The paper argues that HRM practices in Chilean organizations illustrate the normative perspective of modern HRM discourse, where managers understand the nature of employment relationships to be the control of workers. While HRM processes are articulated under a discourse of worker emancipation, in reality, discursive practices perpetuate patterns of subordination that have historically shaped employment relations in Chile.