Chapter 12 - Human resource roles

Question 1

Personnel function

Answer 1

The HR responsibilities and tasts that are bundled in an HR department and performed by HR professionals

Question 2

Legge’s 3 HR ambiguities

Answer 2

1. Substaintial overlap between personnel management as a set of activities for all managers and PM as a specialist function - who is in charge vs who is the expert
2. HR successes are easily claimed by the others and HR failures are easily blamed on the PM and their department
3. Tension between the employer/employees needs and the mediating role of personnel managers

Question 3

What do personnel managers need to overcome the 3 ambiguities?

Answer 3

power and authority

Question 4

3 viscious circles that block the overcoming of the 3 ambiguities

Answer 4

1. lack of power, and HRM is a victim of decision making
2. lack of priorities of personel managers
3. The personnel department’s inability to authorize collective bargaining agreements CBAs

Question 5

Conformist innovator role

Answer 5

mainly emphasizing the economic value of employees
HR acts in line with the business, speaks the language of CEO, CFO, etc
and identifies with managerial values and criteria

Question 6

Deviant innovator role

Answer 6

Balance between economic value and human side of organizing

• identify with different sets of values; takes a powerful independent professional stance
• open to alternatives

Question 7

Problem-solver role

Answer 7

PM capable of delivering the basic HR practices –> credibility and good reputation for PM department

Question 8

Tyson’s 3 Weberian ideal types of models

Answer 8

1. the clerk of works model
2. the contract manager model
3. the architect model

Question 9

the clerk of works model

Answer 9

PM is an administrative support activity with no involvement in business planning; all authority is in line managers

Activities - recruitment, record-keeping, and welfare

Question 10

the contract manager model

Answer 10

confronting unions with a regulatory system as part of a comprehensive policy network; acting in behald of the line managers

Activities: TU agreements, reactive responding to problems, and day-to-day issues with TUs

Question 11

The architect model

Answer 11

create and build the organization as a whole
Activities: explicit policies that seek to influence the corporate plan
The personnel function is represented within the dominant coalition in the organization

Question 12

Carol’s 3 roles

Answer 12

1. delegator - enables line managers to serve as primary implementers of HRM systems
2. technical expert- comprise highly specific HR-related skills in areas such as remuneration and management development
3. innovator - HR manager recommend new approaches in solving HRM-related problems

Question 13

Storey’s 4 HR Role model

Dimensions: action orientation and strategic (long-term) vs tactical (short-term)

Answer 13

1. Advisors - internal consultants (strategy + non-interventionary)
2. Handmaidens - primarily customer-oriented in the sevices they offer (non-inventionary + tactical)
3. Regulators - formulate, promulgate, and monitor observance of employement rules (tactical + interventionary)
4. Changemakers - seeking to put relationships with employees on a new footing (interventionary + strategy)

Question 14

The most used model: Ulrich typology (4)

Dimensions: people vs process, and strategic vs operational

Answer 14

1. administrative expert role - HR profs. designs and delivers effiecent HR processes ( operational + process)
2. Employee champion role - involvement in day-to-day problems, concerns and need for employees (people + operational)
3. Change agent role - - managing transformation and change (people+strategic)
4. Strategic partner role - aligning HR strategies and practices with business strategy (strategic + process)

Question 15

The HR Competence Survey (HRCS) - 5 domain factors

Answer 15

1. Business knowledge
2. HR delivery
3. Strategic contribution
4. Personal credibility
5. HR technology

Question 16

strategic contribution

Answer 16

high-performing organizations have HR profs involved in the business at a strategic level

They manage culture, facilitate fast change, and are involved in a strategic decision making

Question 17

personal credibility

Answer 17

HR profs must be credible to both their HR counterparts and the business line managers whom they serve;
they need to promise and deliver results ans establish a reliable track record

Must have effective writing and verbal communication skills

Question 18

HR delivery

Answer 18

HR profs deliver both traditional and operational HR activities to their business in 4 major categories

• designing development programmes
• structure and HR measurement
• attractingg, promoting, retaining, and outplacing appropriate people
• designing performance-based measurements and reward systems

Question 19

Business knowledge

Answer 19

HR profs must understand the business and industry of the organization they serve, inculding applied understanding of the integrated value, the firms value proposition (how it creates wealth) and labour (legislation)

Question 20

HR technology

Answer 20

HR profs need to be able to leverage technology for HR practices and use e-HR/web-based channels to deliver value to their customers

Question 21

What positive relationship Boselie and Paauwe found?

Answer 21

1. between HR delivery and the position of the personnel function
2. Personal credibility and personnel function

Question 22

The new HR competence model (6)

Answer 22

1. The credible activist
2. The operational executor
3. The business ally -
4. The talant manager and org designer
5. The culture and change steward
6. The strategic architect

Question 23

3 levels in the model of Ulrich linked to the 6 domains

Answer 23

1. Relationships - credible activist
2. Systems and processes - operational executor and business ally
3. Org capabilities - talent manager, culture and change steward and stratgey architect

Question 24

What does the motivation of line managers to implement certain HR practices depend on?

Answer 24

The leeway they get for it

Question 25

In what cotext HR managers have more leeway for strategic choice and org change?

Answer 25

low degrees of institutionalization

It is likely that change agent and strategic partner roles will occur in this context

Question 26

Whose statement is “HRM is on the table”?

Answer 26

Jack Welch

Question 27

personnel managers in the 60s - 70s

Answer 27

reactive, passive, risk averse, not business oriented, not capable of affecting management decisions, not involved in d-m, lack of influence, operating in a vacuum

Question 28

What are the two essentials to effective HR?

Answer 28

HR delivery and Personal credibility