[Excerpt] The current decade has brought yet another transformation in the practice and study of human resource management (HRM). The field, for better or for worse, has discovered, and indeed begun to embrace, a strategic perspective. The intellectual energy currently being invested in discussions of the nature, extent, and desirability of this development is a clear indication that something of significance is afoot. Understand it or not, believe in it or not, like it or not, strategy is well on its way to becoming an important paradigm behind much of what HR professionals do and think.