Synopses & Reviews
Presenting findings from research into Sweden's leading multinationals this book focuses on engineering companies operating in global industries such as pharmaceutical, aerospace, packing systems and automotive. It explores research and practice within the area of HRM focusing on project-based organizations.
Synopsis
In many companies today, people spend most of their time working in various types of projects. This book addresses the important question of what this means for the management of human resources at the operational level in the firm. The authors address questions such as: How do first-line managers handle their HR responsibilities when people work in co-located project teams most of the time? What role do project managers have in performing HRM activities? What strategies do individual project workers use to manage their own development while moving from project to project? And, what role do HR specialists have in adding value to the HRM system where operative HRM is really performed?
This book summarizes empirical research in a number of industries and firms, most notably in engineering and development contexts. The authors introduce a framework for HRM - the HR quadriad - that expands traditional views on the important relationships that are at the core for HRM activities at the operational level. The framework builds on the idea that HRM is carried out in interplay among four actors in the organization, namely line managers, project managers, individual workers and HR specialists. Accordingly, it seeks to identify the major challenges for each one of these players and illustrates the value of the framework to explain how some of the world's leading companies have responded to these challenges.
About the Author
Karin Bredin, PhD, Assistant Professor, Business Administration, Department of Management and Engineering. She is a leading figure within HRM in Sweden. Bredin has written extensively within the area of HRM and has been awarded for her research by Emerald, IRNOP and IPMA. She teaches at undergraduate, graduate and executive programs throughout Scandinavia. Her work has appeared in Human Resource Management, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Personnel Review, and several project management journals.
Jonas Soderlund, PhD, Professor at the Department of Leadership and Management, BI Norwegian School of Management. His research centers on project management, project organization and Human Resource Management. He has published several books and more than thirty scholarly articles in journals such as Human Resource Management, Organization Studies, International Journal of Innovation Management, and R and D Management. He is on the editorial board of four journals. He is a founding member and Senior Research Fellow of KITE Excellence Center, Linköping University, Sweden.
Table of Contents
1. Projectification on the Way
2. Project-Based Organizations
3. Human Resource Management in Context
4. Reframing HRM: The HR Quadriad
5. Line Managers in the HR Quadriad
6. Project Managers in HRM
7. Project Workers in Project-based Firms
8. HR Specialists in Project-based Organizations
9. Comparisons and Contrasts