Human Resource Management: Managing Employees for Competitive Advantage

Formerly published by Chicago Business Press, now published by Sage

Human Resource Management: Managing Employees for Competitive Advantage, Fifth Edition offers a strategic framework―applicable across large and small organizations―to efficiently recognize and empower the right talent in a rapidly evolving business environment. Written in an accessible and engaging manner, authors Mary Gowan, Beverly DeMarr, and Jannifer David enable students to learn about the various practices and tools that can be used for effective employee management, as well as how to leverage them in different situations.

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Mary Gowan, Ph.D., SHRM-SCP, SPHR, recently retired as Dean of the Mike Cottrell College of Business and Professor of Human Resource Management at the University of North Georgia. She received her Ph.D. in business administration with an emphasis in human resources management from the University of Georgia. Dr. Gowan served as dean and professor at the School of Business at James Madison University and at Elon University, and as associate dean for undergraduate programs and associate professor at the George Washington University. She has held faculty appointments in Florida, Texas, and North Carolina, served as a visiting professor at Aalto University in Finland and in an Executive MBA program at LG Electronics headquarters in South Korea. In addition to co-authoring Human Resource Management (6e), she has written other resources for teaching HR and has provided HR, leadership development, and organizational development consulting and executive education programs for numerous public, private, and non-profit organizations, including Lockheed Martin, Harris Teeter, Marriott Vacations, the City of El Paso and the city of Charlotte, NC. Dr. Gowan has served as chair of the Board of Governors for Beta Gamma Sigma International Honor Society, president of the Southern Business Administration Association, as a member of the board for the Society for Human Resource Management Foundation, and as a board member for the Human Resource Division of the Academy of Management. Her accreditation reviewer work for AACSB includes visits to the U.S., South America, and the Middle East. Dr. Gowan has received numerous awards in recognition of her teaching, scholarship, and service, including the Society for Human Resource Management Educator of the Year Award for the State of Texas. Her research focuses on career transitions and related HR topics and has been published in leading academic journals including the Academy of Management Journal and the Journal of Applied Psychology, as well as practitioner journals including the Journal of Compensation and Benefits.

Beverly J. DeMarr, Ph.D., is a Professor of Management at Ferris State University where she regularly teaches classes in Human Resources, Compensation, and Negotiations. She received her Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior/Human Resource Management and Master of Labor and Industrial Relations from Michigan State University, MBA from Grand Valley State University, and BSBA from Aquinas College. Dr. DeMarr’s other textbooks are Compensation: A Balanced Approach (DeMarr, Taylor, & Ferrante, 2026) and Negotiation and Dispute Resolution 2e (DeMarr & de Janasz, 2019). She has also published articles in Personnel Psychology, Journal of Business Ethics, Human Relations, Public Personnel Management, the International Journal of Conflict Management, and Management Teaching Review (MTR). Dr. DeMarr is an active member of the Academy of Management (AOM) and the Management and Organizational Behavior Teaching Society (MOBTS) and regularly presents at their annual conferences. She was awarded the AOM Management Education Division’s (MED) J.B. “Ben” Arbaugh Outstanding Member Contribution & Leadership Award in 2024, MTR’s Best Pedagogical Contribution Award for 2021, and a number of teaching awards. She currently serves on the Journal of Management Education’s Editorial Review Board and is a Mentoring Program Coordinator and Executive Committee Member for MED. She also chaired AOM’s All-Academy Teaching Theme Committee from 2016-2019.

Jannifer Gregory David, Ph.D., serves as the Interim Associate Dean and is an Associate Professor of Human Resource Management at the Labovitz School of Business and Economics at the University of Minnesota Duluth. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in human resource management, employee staffing, international human resource management, and labor history. Her research projects have studied the role of work passion in employee recruiting and selection and the impact of contingent workers on the work relationships of others within organizations. Her work has been published in Personnel Review, Human Resource Planning, Evidenced-based HRM, Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, and other human resources related outlets. She received her Ph.D. in Labor and Industrial Relations from Michigan State University.