Why not? We can always dream! After all, the human dream has resulted in so much innovation and progress. Our Social Science cousins have a few of them. Economics was instituted as a prize as late as 1968. Literature has one.
   And, even politics, which is less respected as a profession, has a prize in the Peace prize. Of  course, the Natural Sciences like Chemistry and Medicine have always been prize material for their enormous contributions to society.
But when we look at the specifics of the Nobel prizes, the dream for HR has to end. The work of the Economics Nobel winners from John Nash to Amartya Sen has made significant contributions to society. Literature is more subjective in its nomenclature, but clear in its message. The message conveyed by the Nobel literature winners from Kipling, Tagore, Churchill, Naipaul, etc can never be doubted for their clarity of expression.
Even that least respected profession - politics, has perhaps the most respected prize of them all, the peace prize, which has a distinguished list that includes Martin Luther King Jr, the Red Cross, UNICEF, Amnesty, Mother Theresa and others.
So where is HR going wrong? The problem with HR is that the overdose of  irrelevant jargon and a lack of objectivity, measurement and empirical study.
Surveys and allocating points for various situations as measurement. When we talk about measurement, we are talking about measurement of an HR situation with fixed assumptions and equations.
The present body of work in HR has a qualitative role to play. But it has dominated HR to the extent that quantitative analyses are not seen as important. This is a very dangerous trend, and  has to change if HR has to evolve. Economics and Psychology have re-invented themselves so drastically by including econometrics and statistics that people have an image of them as ‘scientific’ subjects. But they are as much Social Sciences as HR. The difference is that they are  into measurement to a large extent. 

Quantitative HR
What HR desperately needs is a new body of thought which should be termed ‘quantitative HR.’
This should be independent of what present practitioners and theorists of the subject are doing.
Quantitative HR should look to take a leaf out of the Economics’ book and start by incorporating ‘measurement of the residual’ which is a major part of econometrics.
For a simple explanation of this concept, measurement is done on the difference of what was estimated from a particular situation, and what actually happened. Measurement will bring a lot more accountability and improve performance criteria. Co-relations and other statistical methods can be used in almost all HR situations, and excuses like ‘HR deals with people and emotive issues’ will not wash, as economics deals with the most emotive issue of them all - money. The benefits Quantitative HR (QHR) will bring will be multifold. It will elevate the status of HR, as measurement always allows introspection and improvement.
Unnecessary jargon which is rampant today will become limited to theory and theory books. Most importantly, it will elevate HR to a more strategic role in a company.
Today, everyone accepts that HR is important. But very few companies actually practice what they preach and put HR people in strategic positions. If Quantitative HR is in place this will happen automatically, as the statistics will show that the HR people have made a difference to the company.
Finally, it is people who make a difference to a subject. The Nobel prizes have been given to people. The possibility of larger numbers of people being attracted to HR due to quantitative theories or measurement will be strong. A lot of these people could be from other disciplines (like mathematics) as is happening in economics. This would be the best indication that HR has really arrived on the ‘science’ scene.
It would also be the best chance for HR to become a Nobel prize for the 21 century. Effective ways of measuring these people processes will ensure that these people processes are credible.
Logically, we must accept the assumption that one per cent measurement of a situation is better than no measurement at all.

Joseph Rasquinha, is a PhD in Economics from St Andrews University, Scotland. He has over 18 yrs business experience in India, China, Singapore and the Middle East. Email: joe@truemenconsultants.com.
Mohammed Zaheer Hussain has Masters in HR and has been an HR professional for over 18 yrs. Email: zaheer@truemenconsultants.com