Reinventing human resource management
Business partners, internal consultants and the limits to professionalization
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9890260 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Christopher Wright (0000-0003-1296-1477, The University of Sydney) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 61 |
| Issue | 8 |
| Pages | 1063-1086 |
| Publication date | 2008-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Human Relations (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-7267 • E-ISSN: 1741-282X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0018726708094860 |
| OpenAlex | W2112224237 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 17 |
| References cited | 41 |
The status of human resource management (HRM) and its standing as a managerial profession has been a recurring concern for practitioners over time. In recent years, a normative discourse has developed which asserts that the path to improved status for HR `professionals' involves reinvention of their role as `business partners' and `internal consultants' promoting enterprise competitiveness. This article examines how HR managers interpret this new role and whether the internalization of this model results in an increase in professional identity. The findings suggest that while many gain greater self-esteem and organizational status from the identity and role of business partner/internal consultant, this does not equate to a broader identity as a member of an HR `profession'. Two developments are central here. First, the focus on the business partner/ internal consultancy role has served to undermine any pretence to a unitary and cohesive occupational identity, as the bifurcation between routine transactional and strategic transformational activities encourages competition within the HR profession between different sub-groupings. Second, this strategy of redefinition has reduced the entry barriers demarcating HR activities and facilitated the entry of new occupational groups and rival managerial specialisms
Business · Competition (biology · Economics · Human resource management · Human resources · Identity (music · Management · Normative · Political science · Professionalization · Public relations · Sociology · Labor Movements and Unions · Law · Management and Organizational Studies · Organizational Downsizing and Restructuring
HRM as a Profession
Hybrid professionalism and beyond
Managers as consultants
Working across Cultural Spheres
The Diffusion of Human Resource Transformation in Scandinavia
Ethics and HRM Education
Competition and collaboration
L'université, un employeur comme les autres ? L’essor de la « Gestion des Ressources Humaines » au Royaume-Uni
Project managers on the edge
Expert labour as a differentiated category
The price of corporate professionalisation
Private equity and human resource management
Professional credibility under attack
Business partners and working the pumps
How professionalization and organizational diversity shape contemporary careers
The social construction of professionalism among organizers and senior organizers in a UK trade union
Professional talk on cybervetting
The Transformation of American Industrial Relations
The revolt of the engineers
Employing Bureaucracy
Human Resource Management
The Rise of Professionalism
The System of Professions
Linking Competitive Strategies with Human Resource Management Practices
Expert Power and Control in Late Modernity
Social Capital
Qualitative research and computing
From prophets to profits
Community Within a Community
The servants of power
The Intraorganizational Power Struggle
Managing Human Assets
The Social Organization of Work
The Management of Labour
Employing Bureaucracy
The Mechanical Engineer in America, 1830-1910
Engineers, Management and Trust
Managers after the era of organizational restructuring
Internal Labor Markets
| Unique citing works | 17 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,06 |
| Citation span | 2010 - 2023 (14) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 17 |