Organization of Work and Indigenous HRM Practices: An Exploration through Ancient Public Administration Systems in Sri Lanka

With a heritage of a great civilization and evidence of rich principles and practices of management, Sri Lanka seems to own better indigenous practices for managing her local organizations. In addition to the lack of deep investigations into human resource (HR) practices prevailed in the ancient Sri Lankan public administrative system, we identify a void in the existing knowledge of the grounds on which indigenous human resource management (HRM) practices have been derived. Thus, the aim of this study is to identify the HR practices that have been institutionalized through diverse elements in the public work organization in ancient Sri Lanka. We adapt a qualitative inquiry with the use of a document analysis and a comprehensive review as the methods of study. As drawn from the themes emerged, and validated by the existing literature, the results suggest that work, authority, and resource allocation are the basic elements for exploring into institutionalization of HR in ancient Sri Lanka. The indigenous human resource management (HRM) practices have been derived from such institutions and based on job design, supervisory practices and reward allocation practices. Our findings offer grounds for exploring further into indigenous HRM practices and strengthening the contemporary HRM philosophies and policies in Sri Lanka.