Strategy is without any doubt the most prevalently investigated type of research associated with HRM, and an entire sub-field called SHRM (strategic human resource management) is dedicated to it. SHRM investigates the combination of an organization's strategy and the efforts of its workforce, with a focus on achieving goals and targets. More specifically, this area of research deals with developing of an organizational strategy that effectively manages and utilizes the workforce's capabilities and resources to enhance business profitability.
The training and development aspect of HRM employs educating the workforce so it can efficiently make use of its resources to achieve organizational targets. This area of HRM specifically encompasses research from employee education and human skill enhancement/development domains, and is comprehensively studied in corporations running manufacturing or other specialty business. In other words, research in training and development-based HRM is usually conducted to identify the educational and motivational patterns over which employee skills can be enhanced.
Knowledge management-based HRM is an area of research that deals with sharing required knowledge to educate employees for two basic purposes: to avail maximum benefits from them and enhance their learning abilities. This domain of research is closely associated with the training and development domain, but knowledge management is a more recently formalized area of HRM research in which employees work as both instructors and students -- sharing information and experiences associated with their specific responsibilities.
This traditional area of research in HRM deals with understanding and manipulating employees' psychology to make them more effective within the organization. Like SHRM, the psychology-based understanding of HRM has been widely researched, and collectively focuses on identifying employee behavioral responses over different initiatives and actions from management. Any research in this area is expected to generalize the complex issue of employee perceptions regarding the organization and employer.
Organizational culture refers to the set of certain practices, norms, values, and traditions associated with a specific organization. This is like a social image of an organization, which is developed and sustained by the way it performs its operations, and more importantly, the way it manages and treats employees. This area of research deals with investigation how organizations adopt a culture, and what role its workforce has on its development.