THE ROLE OF THE HUMAN RESOURCE DEPARTMENT AND

CONDITIONS THAT AFFECT ITS DEVELOPMENT: EXPLANATIONS

FROM AUSTRIAN CEOS

Julia Brandl
Department of Management
Interdisciplinary Group of Management and Organisational Behaviour
Vienna University of Economics and Business
Althanstrasse 51, 1090 Vienna, Austria
t: 43-1-31336-5027
f: 43-1-31336-905027
julia.brandl@wu.ac.at

JULIA BRANDL is an Austrian Science Fund Research Scholar in the Department of

Management at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and a lecturer at the
University of Innsbruck. She was a visiting scholar at Standford University in 2007 and 2008.
Her research interests include comparative HR management research, the HR profession,
women in management, and performance evaluation in organizations. She has published in
journals including Human Resource Mangement, International Journal of Human Resource
Management, Human Resource Management Jouranl, Business Research, Journal of
Management Inquiry, Gender in Management, and Voluntas.

Dionne Pohler
Assistant Professor, Human Resources & Organizational Behaviour
Edwards School of Business, University of Saskatchewan
25 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7N 5A7 CANADA
t: 1-306-966-1748
f: 1-306-966-2516
pohler@edwards.usask.ca

DIONNE POHLER is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Resources and

Organizational Behaviour in the Edwards School of Business at the University of
Saskatchewan, and is currently completing her PhD in Human Resources/Industrial Relations
at the University of Alberta. Her research interests include unions as a source of competitive
advantage, employee voice, social exchange, and strategic human resource management.
Dionne has published in journals including Human Resource Management and Industrial
Relations, and during her PhD has been the recipient of numerous research awards, including
a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Fellowship, a Killam Doctoral
Fellowship and an Andrew Stewart Prize for Research Distinction in the doctoral program.

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 ABSTRACT

Using a qualitative approach to study considerations of Austrian CEOs, this study fills

a key void within the broader literature on strategic human resource management by

analyzing CEOs’ perceptions about the current role of the HR department in their

organizations, and the conditions that constrain or enable the development of a more strategic

role. The results of this study suggest that even if CEOs have an overall positive evaluation of

the capabilities of their HR departments and are willing to delegate responsibility for higher-

level decision-making, in order to develop the role of the HR department, the CEO must also

feel he or she has the scope to do so. Our framework expands upon previously identified

factors that assist in shaping these three conditions and also identifies new ones. Directions

for future research are discussed, as well as practical implications for the opportunities and

constraints confronting HR managers when attempting to develop a more strategic role for

their departments.

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 KEY LEARNING POINTS

1. This paper identifies enablers and constraints for the role for the HR department from a

decision perspective of CEOs.

2. Our inductively developed framework identifies three general conditions that influence

CEO views regarding development of the HR department’s current role and ten

situational factors that help shaping these conditions.

3. We explain what factors shape CEO concerns about the aptitude of HR, about their

willingness to share responsibility and about their influence on HR policy. In doing so,

we organize previously identified enablers and constraints for the role for the HR

department.

4. We distinguish between necessary and sufficient conditions for developing a more

strategic role for HR. While improving perceptions of HR’s aptitude is necessary, it is not

sufficient unless HR manages to increase both scope for CEO action and delegation

willingness.

5. We explain how our framework can assist HR practitioners in diagnosing their current

role and in identifying steps for convincing their CEO to increase the participation of HR

in strategic decisions.

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 INTRODUCTION

For many years now human resource scholars have claimed that it is imperative for

human resource departments to play a more significant role in their organizations, through

involvement with strategic decision-making or becoming strategic partners (Ulrich, 1997).

Research in the area of strategic human resource management has suggested that HR

alignment with and involvement in strategic decision-making promotes better performance

for the firm (Brockbank, 1999; Novicevic & Harvey, 2001; Welbourne & Cyr, 1999).

However, there is a large body of empirical work indicating that many HR departments are

far from being involved with strategy issues (Cabral-Cardoso, 2004; Farndale, 2005; Scullion

& Starkey, 2000) and have actually made a fairly limited contribution to their organizations

(Guest & King, 2004; Stewart, 1996). Past research recognizes that whether or not the HR

department in an organization serves a more strategic than administrative role depends on a

variety of conditions (Kelly & Gennard, 1996, Teo & Rodwell, 2007), including the

perceptions of the HR department among top managers (Hambrick, 1998).

Our study builds upon this literature by analyzing CEO attitudes towards and beliefs

about the role of their HR departments. The relevance of CEOs’ attitudes for enabling or

constraining the HR department’s role is widely acknowledged (Guest & King, 2001; Purcell

& Ahlstrand, 1994; Ranft, Ferris & Perryman, 2007; Ropo, 1993; Sheehan, Cooper, Holland

& De Cieri, 2007; Truss; 2009; Truss, Gratton, Hope-Hailey & Zaleska, 2002). To date,

however, a systematic investigation of CEO beliefs about the role of their HR departments is

missing from the literature.

Against this background, our paper aims to analyze CEO perceptions about the

current role of their HR departments and the conditions they believe constrain or encourage

the development of a more strategic role for the HR department in their organizations. We

develop a future research agenda based on our results, proposing three conditions CEOs feel

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affect HR departmental roles, and outline ten contextual factors that help shape these

conditions. In the next section, we summarize the theoretical frameworks that have been used

to study HR departmental roles, and situate our study within these frameworks. We then

outline our methodology and results, and conclude with a discussion surrounding implications

for research and practice.

ROLE OF THE HR DEPARTMENT

Both academic and empirical typologies differentiate between two main roles of HR

departments (Truss, 2009). The first role is more traditional and administrative, where the HR

department is seen primarily as the administrator of functions such as payroll and benefits

(Beer, 1997). Extensions of this administrative role also focus on the function of the HR

department in promoting employee welfare (Beer, 1997; Boxall & Purcell, 2003), which

arises out of the human relations movement (Mayo, 1945). The second role is more strategic,

and is heterogeneously determined in the literature by the hierarchical position of the HR

department (Hope-Hailey, Gratton, McGovern, Stiles & Truss, 1997), the participation of the

senior HR manager in the strategy planning process (Golden & Ramanujam, 1985) and the

discussion of strategic HR matters at a senior level (Storey, 1992).

Factors affecting whether the role played by the HR department in an organization is

more administrative or strategic have been analyzed by drawing on various theoretical

frameworks, such as contingency and institutional theories; strategic choice, negotiated

evolution and role set theory; and co-evolution (Truss, 2009). Contingency and institutional

theorists argue that contextual factors and isomorphic pressures both internal and external to

the organization primarily determine the role of the HR department, which develops similarly

across organizations facing similar enablers and constraints (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983;

Kessler, Purcell & Coyle Shaprio, 2000). Examples of external pressures include tightness of

labor markets, legislative statutes that support the implementation of HRM, and unionization

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(Jacoby, 1985; Jennings, Cyr & Moore, 1995; Kochan & Cappelli, 1984), while examples of

internal factors include degree of centralization in the organization (Truss et al., 2002) and

characteristics of the HR department itself, such as aptitude of HR managers (Guest & King,

2004).

However, recent work using strategic choice and negotiated evolution frameworks

bring individual agency back into the determination of the role of the HR department through

examining credibility-building activities by HR managers and identifying key organizational

actors with whom HR managers should negotiate a more strategic role for the department

(Truss et al., 2002). Arguments using social constructionist frameworks (Berger &

Luckmann, 1966) also fit into this agentic view in that HR department influence in an

organization is seen to be a product of symbolic actions and political maneuvering on the part

of HR actors (Galang & Ferris, 1997). Finally, frameworks built on co-evolution (Paauwe &

Boselie, 2005) look at the interchange between both individual choice and macro level

constraints in determining the role of the HR department (Colbert, 2004; Truss, 2009).

STRATEGIC INTEGRATION OF THE HR DEPARTMENT

In recent years, the preferred focus in the literature on strategic human resource

management has become how to develop a more strategic role for the HR department (Ulrich,

1997), insofar as this role is seen to increase the performance of the organization (Welbourne

& Cyr, 1999). In this vein, there is a large body of empirical work aimed at specifically

analyzing the conditions that influence the strategic integration of the HR department. Some

of this literature focuses on macro level factors outside of the control of the organization such

as unionization and legislative statutes (Jennings, Cyr & Moore, 1995), labor market

munificence (Bennet, Ketchen & Blanton Schultz, 1998), and enabling social policy practices

that affect predominantly female-led HR departments (Brandl, Mayrhofer & Reichel, 2008).

Other studies focus on factors internal to the organization such as the type of business

6
strategy employed (Bowen, Galang & Pillai, 2002) and whether employees are viewed as

strategic resources (Bennett, Ketchen & Blanton Schultz, 1998).

However, there are also numerous empirical studies which analyze the attitudes and

perceptions of organizational actors towards HR. For instance, Golden and Ramanujam

(1985) propose based on interviews with ten senior HR executives from firms around

Cleveland, Ohio in the U.S. that senior management expectations of the HR function is one

factor that influences the strategic integration of the HR department. Building on this

research, Buller (1988) develops a model for the strategic integration of HR departments from

interviews with HR mangers and senior planning executives at eight high-performance firms

in the U.S. He finds that strategic integration of the HR department results from, among other

things, incumbent executives’ values and skills.

Based on a longitudinal case study in a Finnish company, Ropo (1993) finds that

ongoing strategic integration was driven by efforts of the HR department to build formal

relationships and increase personal level communication with different organizational actors.

Truss et al. (2002) employ a longitudinal study of two British organizations from the public

and private sectors to investigate how the attitudes of senior managers, line managers,

employees and members of the HR department towards the HR department’s level of

strategic integration changed. Based on their findings, the authors develop a framework that

explains changes in the HR department’s role by several interrelated factors including

expectations of senior managers and line managers, and the perception of the HR

department’s current role. Most recently, in a case study of six public sector organizations in

the UK, Truss (2009) analyzes the factors that influence the development of particular roles

for HR. She finds, among other things, that CEO attitudes are important for enabling the

development of a more strategic role.

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 The CEO is the top decision-maker in an organization, and as such analyzing CEO

attitudes toward HR and beliefs about how HR could develop its current role are of

paramount importance for HR actors attempting to elevate their status in an organization.

Although many of the aforementioned studies have underlined the critical role of the CEO

within others’ considerations, the particular concerns of CEOs themselves have not yet been

examined. Perceptions of the HR department vary among constituencies (Tsui, 1990; Tsui &

Milkovich, 1987) and research on managerial work suggests that executive decision-making

and attitudes are characterized by specific concerns (e.g., Hales, 1999; Watson, 1996),

lending to the necessity of studying the CEO beliefs about the role of the HR department

separately.

The primary purpose of our study is to examine CEO attitudes toward their HR

departments, and what factors determine whether or not the CEO believes the role of the HR

department can and should be developed. Our study seeks to elaborate upon the

considerations specific to CEOs, and to further explore previously identified conditions for

developing a more strategic role for the HR department within CEOs’ considerations.

METHODOLOGY

Methodological Background

Given the exploratory nature of our study, we employed a qualitative research design

(Eisenhardt, 1989) using semi-structured interviews with five Austrian CEOs. We utilized a

combination of inductive and deductive techniques by performing an extensive review of the

prior body of literature in this area to help inform the interviews with the CEOs. However,

unlike prior research in this area, we allowed for a systematic development of knowledge

from the interviewees about the conditions under which their attitudes towards the

phenomenon under investigation emerge. We aimed to identify core conditions that affect

8
perceptions of the HR department and its role already established in the literature, as well as

additions and modifications to these conditions from the perspective of the CEO, in his or her

specific context. In line with this goal, our study drew on insights provided by the CEOs from

experiences in their particular situations in order to assist in developing a broader conceptual

framework for future inquiry.

Data Collection and Analysis

Empirical data for the study were generated from semi-structured interviews with five

CEOs from organizations with a company site in Vienna, Austria, where all the interviews

took place. We defined a CEO in this study as the top decision-maker in an organization that

runs as an independent profit center. Based on this definition, a CEO could include the head

of a national unit or subsidiary within a multi-national corporation. As we wished to develop

a conceptual framework that could be used beyond our specific cases by elaborating upon the

commonalities across CEOs, the sampling strategy aimed at maximizing differences in the

settings. This approach was taken to make any pattern of results more conservative, and give

us confidence that the interpretation of the results is grounded in the data, and not

contaminated by the researchers’ preconceived biases. The first randomly-selected

interviewee was asked to name another CEO who would possibly have differing opinions

concerning the role of the HR department. This person was contacted for the subsequent

interview and the same request was made, and so forth.

Table 1 gives an overview of the interviewee profiles in terms of the company’s

industry, ownership, sector, number of employees, and profits, as well as the structure of the

HR department. Our sampling strategy enabled us to include variations in industry, size of

company (in both # of employees and profits) and HR involvement levels, as we intended.

-------------------------------

Insert Table 1 about here

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 -------------------------------

Using this sampling strategy, three basic conditions for developing the role of the HR

department were identified after five interviews. Conditions were relevant to all interviewees

and were useful for organizing the various contextual factors that the different interviewees

had discussed as enablers and constraints. The sample size is small, but it was sufficient for

identifying what considerations CEOs share as well as for identifying and systematizing

determinants of HR departmental roles from previous research. Moreover, sample size is

consistent with previous qualitative work in this area (e.g., Golden & Ramanujam, 1985;

Buller, 1988; Sheehan, 2005; Truss, 2009), and the number of different conditions and factors

affecting the development of a more strategic role for HR that we have collected is not fewer

than in previous studies that have used different procedures.

With each participant, a 60 to 90 minute interview was conducted by the first author

in German, the first language of all the CEOs (interview quotes in the results section are

translations). Interviewees were asked to discuss their perceptions of their HR departments

and beliefs about what would be necessary in order for the HR department to develop its

current role in the organization. CEOs were asked for important HR challenges that the

company faces and what they perceived the HR department's role was in addressing these

challenges. Sample questions used in the interview are included in Appendix A.

For data analysis the coding procedure by Strauss and Corbin (1998) was employed.

During open coding phase, a microscopic examination of the transcripts was conducted where

several tentative categories, their properties and dimensions were identified. For example,

among these categories were HR department competency, labor legislation and organizational

control mechanisms. HR department competency was assigned with the properties HR

aptitude, proficiency, and organizational unit. In addition, it contained several competency

dimensions (e.g., formal qualification, efforts, and achievements). Having collected several

10
categories but still lacking their integration, the analysis subsequently turned toward

developing an understanding of the process of decision-making regarding the HR

department’s role in the organizations from the perspective of the CEO, and of the differences

between HR departmental roles across the organizations. To identify the characteristics of the

decision-making process, we grouped previously developed categories along their properties

(axial coding), thereby determining what characteristics each category shared in regards to the

CEO’s attitudes toward development of the HR department’s role. The same grouping was

done with several different properties in order to stimulate alternative interpretations and test

them against the interview data. Using this process, we were able to differentiate between

factors that influence CEO scope for action, his/her willingness to delegate and his/her

assessment of the HR department. As the coding proceeded, it became apparent that these

conditions were relevant for all CEOs, as each interviewee repeatedly referred to them.

Finally, the interviews were checked to clarify whether a factor enhanced or diminished each

of these conditions (see Konecki, 1997). As is typical of inductive qualitative research, the

analysis was not a linear process but involved several steps back and forth between the

emerging categories and the empirical data where the categories were continuously elaborated

and refined.

RESULTS

The findings are organized as follows. We first outline the CEOs’ perspectives about

the current role of their HR departments. Then we delineate the three aforementioned

conditions found in our study that the CEOs believe primarily influence the development of

the HR department’s role. For each condition, we describe what contextual factors specific to

each CEO help shape the condition.

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CEO Perspectives on the Role of the HR Department

The CEOs that were interviewed in this study all appeared to examine the role of their

HR departments from a decision-participation perspective, whereby respondents determined

the role of the HR department to be based on its degree of actual involvement in higher-level

decision-making. Under this perspective, the level of involvement decreases from direct

participation in decision-making, to advising over decision-making, to administration and

auxiliary work. This decrease in the involvement of the HR departments in each company is

highlighted in order in the following quotes:

“It is of course extremely important to involve the HR department in our

business. This starts with inviting the HR director to our management meetings. I

expect from HR that they take on entrepreneurial co-responsibility, engage in

proactive thinking, and support management with new ideas about how & what

can be done. That they not only execute processes on demand but create and

optimize processes.” (CEO C)

“The HR department should deliver all expert input, be it in the direction of

employment policy, outsourcing, etc.” (CEO B)

“HR administrates legislative prescriptions, except compensation law. This lies in

the responsibility of the supervisory board. HR provides input but the

disbursement is already in the hands of the board.” (CEO E)

“HR management is responsible for the execution of compensation and recruiting

policy. They are responsible for recruiting activities and they run the whole staff

reduction program with new methods like the internal job center, leasing, etc.”

(CEO D)

“I want to have the feeling that they are able to carry out payroll administration

correctly.” (CEO A)

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Based on the previous quotations, the opinions of the CEOs on the current role of their

HR departments appear to differ greatly. The statement of CEO C is the most similar to

the conceptualization of strategic integration employed by Golden and Ramanujan

(1985), who depict it as the involvement of the most senior HR representative in

strategic HR planning.

Two extreme roles for the HR department can be distinguished using this perspective.

In the case of a more strategic role, CEO C requests that the HR department participates in

definition of problems that need to be addressed (i.e., identifying relevant issues,

environmental scanning). In this case the most senior HR manager has a vote that is

equivalent to other executive managers. On the other end of the continuum with CEO D and

CEO A, the HR department plays a more traditional and administrative role. Using the

decision-participation perspective, the HR department is involved in later stages of the

problem-solving process (e.g., staff surveys, audits) and is restrained to implementation and

auxiliary tasks not including core decisions (e.g., preparing employment contracts but not

signing them).

Conditions Influencing the Development of HR Departmental Role

We systematized general conditions limiting or facilitating the current role of the HR

department by repeatedly asking how each contextual factor mentioned by the CEOs affected

their decisions about the development of the HR department’s role in the organization. Our

analysis suggests that the CEOs’ explanations about their HR department’s current role can

be traced back to three conditions that were shared among all respondents. We have labeled

these conditions scope for CEO action, willingness to delegate responsibility, and aptitude of

the HR department. In what follows, we will utilize quotes from our interviews with the

CEOs to highlight these three conditions, as well as the contextual factors influencing each.

13
 We propose based on our analysis of these three conditions that in order to develop

the role of the HR department, three prerequisites must be fulfilled: CEOs must feel that they

have a wide scope for action regarding HRM policy and activities themselves, they must be

willing to share this responsibility with others and they must choose the HR department to

take over this responsibility. If any one of these prerequisites is missing, it is difficult for the

HR department to develop its current role.

Table 2 highlights our key findings surrounding the differences and similarities

among the CEOs as to the contextual factors that enable or constrain the conditions for the

development of the HR department’s role. Our analysis suggests that the factors influencing

the development of a more strategic role are not the same across all companies, as the factors

are a direct result of different CEO considerations in different contexts. Each of the

conditions and contextual factors influencing CEO considerations for developing the current

role of their HR department are developed in turn.

-------------------------------

Insert Table 2 about here

------------------------------

Scope for CEO Action. The development of the HR department’s current role

depends on how much responsibility CEOs themselves perceive to have for human resource

management (HRM). Scope for action refers to what CEOs define as their range of

possibilities for decision-making in HRM. When the interviewees talked about the role of

their HR department, they all sketched out their own scope for action. High scope for action

corresponds with a CEO assuming to have autonomy for deciding about HRM problems and

solutions. However, interviewees see their own unlimited autonomy as unrealistic:

“It would be a dreamer who assumes that I can do what I want. In fact our

compensation policy is highly determined.” (CEO D)

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 The less scope CEOs have, the less responsibility they are then able to devolve to their

HR department, hence, the development of the HR department’s role is not seen as feasible.

However, having scope does not imply that CEOs automatically devolve responsibility to

their HR department. Rather, scope explains why the HR department’s current role can or

cannot be further developed. The study revealed three situation-specific factors that influence

scope for CEO action, or autonomy over HRM. These are explained in turn.

Corporate governance structure. Corporate governance structure addresses how the

organization is controlled. It explains who has rights and obligations to participate in the

decisions surrounding HR policy of an organization. In addition, it defines the rules according

to which HR-relevant decisions are made. Our study revealed that two forms of corporate

governance, co-determination and headquarter-subsidiary relations, limit the CEOs’ scope for

action. Co-determination, legally stipulated participation rights held by works councils and

worker representatives, appear to reduce the CEOs’ scope for developing particular solutions

and limit the autonomy of decision-making. Co-determination would be comparable

(although not directly so) with unionization in North America. The statements tell how three

respondents see these restrictions:

“…though it is possible to break [the results of a staff survey] down to the

departments, this did not work with the works council, hence, we get the whole

thing anonymously.” (CEO A)

“Our options for cutting personnel costs and outsourcing rely on the climate with

the worker representatives.” (CEO B)

“…the decisions on recruiting and career steps were managed by committees – so

called personnel committees. Here was decided who makes it, who goes where

and who gains what position, etc. And fifty percent of these committees were

composed of labor union representatives.” (CEO D)

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 The second form of corporate governance identified in this study results from

regulation of headquarter-subsidiary relations. Being a subsidiary organization of a corporate

group seems to decrease the CEOs’ scope for action, since strategic decision-making

regarding HRM occurs at the level of the corporate organization. The comment on scope for

compensation activities underlines this:

“Compensation questions and the like are decided in corporate office, and this

gives me the feeling that I have little scope for decision-making in this area of the

company.” (CEO A)

Workforce skills and values. Workforce skills and values refers to the CEOs’

perceptions of values, strengths and weaknesses of their organizations’ staff (Buller, 1988).

Certain respondents believed they had a higher scope for action because they were concerned

about overcoming weaknesses in their workforce. Weaknesses in the workforce appeared to

stimulate the CEOs’ motivation to rethink current HRM activities and seek for new

opportunities, among other things. The following comments show how satisfaction with

workforce skills and values affects CEOs’ scope for action:

“…practically everyone who obtains a leadership task, somehow over night, has

to learn how to employ this task. What I mean is that the majority of people have

no previous education or introduction, but somewhere down the road have to

confront these things. And if one does not lend them a hand, training is fine, but

there are many other things that can be done.” (CEO A)

“Compared to others we are doing quite well, but I would doubt that we have

reached the top.” (CEO B)

“We have long, or actually I have long thought about whether we should include

building employee satisfaction [as one of the tasks of the HR department].

However, if one takes a closer look, our staff satisfaction level is, concerning the

16
 annual, biannual feedbacks, far above average. Hence, there is no need to put

more pressure on this.” (CEO C)

Labor legislation. According to certain CEOs, their scope for action is also affected by

labor law. For example, law protects employees from dismissals, and regulates the maximum

flexibility for wages or working time. Legislation creates restrictions for CEOs as to what HR

issues they can address and limits the possible solutions for these issues. The analysis shows

how two CEOs (from both the public and nonprofit sectors) experience constraints from law

on their scope for action:

“Public services law largely determines HR activities here. This has allowed no

space for individual initiatives in career planning and the like.” (CEO E)

“The real problem for why I cannot do anything strategic in HRM is the non-

changeable protection against dismissal. In fact, this company is heavily

handicapped by labor legislation.” (CEO D)

Labor legislation also seems to affect CEOs regarding what solutions they choose given legal

constraints. One example from the study shows how labor law constrains flexibility in

workforce level corporate restructuring:

“I need to redeploy the people somewhere after I have made their position

redundant. I cannot dispose of them, and it should be a meaningful activity, of

course.” (CEO D)

In summary, three major contextual factors affect a CEO’s own scope for action

regarding decisions surrounding HRM policy and activities: corporate governance

structure, workforce skills and values, and labor legislation.

Willingness to Delegate Responsibility. CEO willingness to delegate responsibility

constitutes the second core condition concerning the possibility for development of a more

strategic role for the HR department. Our study indicates that if CEOs have some autonomy

17
over HRM decision-making, the level of HR department involvement in this decision-making

still depends on how much the CEO is willing to share this responsibility with others. If

delegation willingness is high, CEOs readily let others actively participate in HR policy

development, and the chance for the HR department to develop its current role increases. If it

is low, however, the CEOs accomplish decision-making without even asking for advice or

suggestions from the HR department. We identified three contextual factors that influence

CEOs’ willingness to delegate responsibility. Each is described in turn.

Strategy. The analysis indicates that the extent to which the CEO formulated a “clear

explicit or implicit overall strategy” (Buller, 1988: 37) affects his/her willingness to delegate

responsibility for HRM. Clarity of business strategy allows for a concrete outline of what HR

systems are needed to achieve this strategy, and to which areas of the organization they

should be applied (Golden & Ramanujam, 1985). Specification involves priority setting and

enables delegation, providing a frame that allows others who receive responsibility to make

decisions and formulate and implement HR policy and activities without constantly

reassuring the CEO of their necessity. In our study, two examples illustrate this point:

“All preparatory effort on the part of management should be delivered by the HR

department, whether it is on the cost side, where the goal is to redesign

recruitment and negotiations on outsourcing or more general restructuring, or in

negotiations with worker representatives. Hence, here is a significant function of

the HR department.” (CEO B)

“The different functions [of the HR department] can be explained by what

presently happens. There are core functions in the corporation, which the HR

department accompanies, autonomously steers or exercises. We have a master

plan [in which] there are different topics relevant for the HR department. This

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 begins simply with staff reduction in the overhead-area and the tools which

underlie the staff reduction concept.” (CEO D)

However, CEOs who engage in strategy development do not necessarily succeed with a

concept that contains explicit priorities. The next quote reveals how a strategy process that

lacked clear positioning made it difficult for the CEO to formulate clear guidelines for HRM:

“I think that we have dedicated too little time in the strategy process for

discussing the priorities, and to tell the HR director unmistakably, this and that

first and foremost and the other in the second place.” (CEO A)

Control mechanisms. This factor refers to mechanisms that guarantee delegated tasks

are accomplished in line with the objectives outlined by the CEO. Lack of control

mechanisms appears to reduce willingness to delegate decision-making, because CEOs

perceive themselves to bear performance risks when they share responsibility with others,

consistent with traditional agency problems. Control mechanisms such as management

systems and reporting structures (Buller, 1988) seem to help CEOs compensate for these

risks. One CEO commented on how he uses management systems to achieve compliance with

business goals:

“…so I said you get a fixed and a variable portion. The fixed portion is certainly

insufficient, that means if you don’t meet the requirements, you’re on the way to

negative and cannot meet your own financial targets. And the variable portion,

there you get some extra compensation, and that’s how one encourages this

organization to make an entrepreneurial contribution.” (CEO C)

Another CEO commented how he uses audit to ensure compliance:

“…when you enter such a house and you find a structure that is very different

from what you usually encounter, you need to take steps for objectively assessing

the quality of your top managers first. And we conducted a management appraisal

19
 of the 110 top managers that we found. This appraisal was relatively expensive,

because every single one of the 110 managers was interviewed and evaluated

independently by two Korn/Ferry-people. It took us about three to four months to

recognize that over 60 percent of the top managers were positive. And this

encouraged us to continue on with the speed and consequences that we wanted. If

this had not been the case, we would have needed another strategy and a more

modest speed. And it was one of the most difficult tasks for the HR department to

participate in this story, to tow the management appraisal…and that’s how we

proactively got objectivity into the identification of top management quality.”

(CEO E)

In two other cases, the CEOs raised concerns about loyalty of staff that do not directly report

to them. The comments indicate that CEOs suspect other board members of being able to

exploit the HR department. One CEO, who intended to realize a cultural change project,

explained:

“…and suddenly they are drafted by the system. It’s like in LeCarré’s book

Smiley’s People: if a spy works too long in a foreign country and adapts to the

customs of this country, I cannot make use of him anymore. In the same vein, I

say that if an HR man comes into a temple of public servants and behaves like a

public servant, I cannot use him any more.” (CEO D)

CEO competency in HRM. CEO competency in HRM describes the expertise and

knowledge CEOs themselves perceive to have in the field of HRM. Respondents who regard

themselves as knowledgeable in HRM appear to be reluctant to involve others in debating the

adequacy of HR systems:

“We did not conduct an external check of the HR work. But from what I know

from my own training, and I collected a lot of experience in what [HR] systems

20
 organizations use, I believe that we are on the way to implement these systems,

as far as they are not too scientific. In short, I believe that I can assess myself

what systems need to be implemented, and what works in recruiting and

expenses, I dare to assess this myself. Thus, there is no external audit that enables

me to evaluate these things, I imagine to know this myself.” (CEO B)

In another example, where the CEO explained that “I’m not an expert in [HRM]”, he

commented that he benefits from and recognizes the need for the involvement of others,

although not solely the HR department:

“And I have asked him for advice time and again, and I believe that those who

hold a supervisor position in this house would be crazy if they would not ask [the

HR people] for help.” (CEO E)

“I believe that we need [to rely on the expertise of the line managers as] a second

level in [HRM] for a long time. We won’t be able to afford not to utilize the

expertise of the departments; I mean the business units, saying: ‘be happy that

you don’t need to cooperate with us’. (CEO E)

In summary, three major contextual factors affect a CEO’s willingness to delegate

responsibility for HR decision-making: clarity of overall business strategy, control

mechanisms, and CEO competency in HRM.

Aptitude of the HR Department. The aptitude of the HR department describes not

only the CEOs’ perception of the competency of their HR departments, but also how

appropriate the CEOs find it that the HR department should be involved in higher-level

decision-making. CEOs appear to assess the relative aptitude of the HR department against

others (i.e., compare it to line managers, work councils and external service-providers), and

not by its absolute aptitude (e.g., expressed by minimum qualification). For example, one

21
CEO compared his decision-making about the developing the role of the HR department to

situations where he fills a vacancy.

“It is like evaluating different candidates and finally deciding who will obtain the

position.” (CEO C)

In the case of low perceived aptitude of the HR department, the CEOs favor others’ expertise

over that of the HR department. On the contrary, when perception of HR aptitude is high, the

CEO is willing to delegate responsibility to the HR department and not to others. From the

study, four factors were identified that shape CEOs’ perceptions of the HR department’s

aptitude.

HR department competency. The competency of the HR department determines how

the CEOs evaluate the ability of the HR department to meet the requirements of the delegated

decision-making over HRM. High competency implies that CEOs believed that the HR staff

is able to perform these activities successfully. The CEOs appear to assess competency along

three sub-dimensions: perceived accomplishments, proactive behavior, and dealing with

failure. Replying to the question about why he was skeptical about the competence of his HR

department, one CEO referred to a recent bad experience with the HR department in terms of

lack of business knowledge:

“[The presentation of a concept for future HR activities] was not very structured

and I would say, the connectivity was probably missing too; that is, indicating

what is really important and what matters in the first place. And it was a huge

bunch of things.” (CEO A)

And another CEO referred to a lack of competency in basic HRM activities on the part

of the HR department:

“If they are not even able to manage the payroll properly, then how could I

expect team development training from them?” (CEO A)

22
Besides accomplishments, proactive behavior (e.g., readiness to perform and service

orientation) shapes the CEOs’ view of HR department competency. This factor also seems to

describe how CEOs see the relation between themselves and the HR department, as indicated

by the comments below:

“Whenever it is necessary, [HR] is there and quickly understands what is going

on and professionally organizes something……when someone had a big problem

somewhere, whether this was with a specific employee who was in trouble, or

whether someone wanted to employ team training because it did not develop in a

department how it should have.” (CEO A)

“We strongly push the participation of the HR department within international

committees. As an example, the HR director is a member of the working group,

involved in negotiating the European-wide cooperation scheme. And not every

country sends a delegate, but there are four to five people. This said, it is

acknowledged that HR proactively engages in the business and does not just sit

behind a large desk administrating things on demand.” (CEO C)

Two CEOs commented about how important the acknowledgement of failures is for their

perception of the HR department’s competency; however, the acknowledgment of failures has

different implications for different CEOs:

“It happened two years ago now when we had started the first [development of a

performance evaluation scheme] and the weights did not fit in two parameters,

where we said ok, we must adjust. In this situation the HR director - to his

disadvantage - came along saying ‘watch out we did wrong, this cannot be

corrected with the weights’.” (CEO C)

“You must not over-challenge these people, you must accept when they come

saying ‘we never accomplished this and we failed here’. You say, ‘OK fine’, and

23
 accept that they failed and try something different. The insistence of clinging to

programs for good or for evil when they don’t work impedes progress

tremendously, over many years. When nobody dares to speak out that we are not

successful, when nobody dares to say that it is the wrong method, in reality, this

is the bigger problem.” (CEO D)

Management acceptance of the HR department. Management acceptance refers to the

overall reputation of the HR department within the organization (Galang & Ferris, 1997). We

find evidence in our study that CEOs consider how other organizational members at the

management level evaluate the HR department when making decisions regarding delegating

responsibility for higher-level decision-making to the HR department. Two CEOs commented

that they are concerned about whether managers would co-operate with the HR department if

they assigned it a more strategic role:

“My concern is that the HR department won’t have an easy time being

acknowledged as a competence center for training and development. It will be the

duty of the board director who is responsible for personnel to build a bridge, to

support the HR department.” (CEO E)

Another CEO commented on how his colleagues reacted when he proposed a more strategic

role for the HR department:

“I faced strong resistance from other management team members with my

suggestion to involve the HR department more in business decisions. There are

streams in this organization proposing that regularly meeting up with HR,

discussing suggestions and the like binds resources, costs too much money and

therefore should be avoided.” (CEO C)

Resources. Resources refer to the capacity that enables the HR department to take on

strategic HR activities over and above functional HR activities. Resources including

24
manpower and time appear to be top among CEO considerations for whether the HR

department is able to handle additional and more strategic activities successfully. One

example shows how growth by acquisition decreases the development of a more strategic role

for the HR department:

“Presently we are not acting as strategically as we should, but focus on

implementing things that we have agreed upon. What suffers, and I say this

openly, is the strategy development…but now we first and foremost need to

implement. We must have integrated the organization and then will follow the

strategy development and the cooperation with HRM on the strategic level. I

suffer myself because at present I only have time for implementing and not so

much for reflecting on how one can make this perfect, elaborate upon it, and so

forth.” (CEO C)

Resource shortages can also result during planned organizational transformation processes.

One CEO commented:

“I would run it past [the HR director] but presently I cannot transfer the huge

amount of agendas to her that would be necessary, because she already has her

hands full with the department and also with special projects that run there; I am

reminded of the SAP implementation and the like. It would be illusionary to

believe that she could manage this all at the same time.” (CEO E)

Business segment autonomy. An organization’s business segment autonomy (Golden &

Ramanujam, 1985) seems to influence whether CEOs delegate their responsibility to

corporate business units or whether they centralize it. Interviewees appeared to see this

decision as a signal about how important these units are for their organizations in the long

run. In one case, the CEO justified his decision for shifting responsibility from the HR

department to business units with the necessity for concessions to line managers:

25
 “It was necessary to devolve the centralist recruiting system to locations where

the work is accomplished, to give the locations the room for recruiting,

appraising and taking in, but also for reducing the number of people that one

needs locally. This is realized in this system of responsibility of business units

being disaggregated to their regions and local sites. This was a paradigm change

that worked in many areas of the company, though not in all, and it would be too

early to say this that it works everywhere. But the truth is that it was needed for

signaling: ‘you matter, you who is closest to the customer, you are the utmost

importance for a service provider’. The decisive thing is what happens at the

front line, here is where the war is won or lost. And this already shows that this is

a fundamentally different way to influence a company from the HR side.” (CEO

D)

Business segment autonomy is not only driven by diversification strategy but also by cultural

norms on the participation level of an organization. One CEO commented:

“I don’t argue in favor of a dumpy centralism. I believe that in every department

or institute it is the responsibly of the department head to employ training and

staff planning, to outline career perspectives and the like. To centralize such

things is system adverse, even for a new [organization].” (CEO E)

In summary, four major contextual factors affect a CEO’s perception regarding the

aptitude of the HR department: HR department competence, management acceptance of

the HR department, available resources, and business segment autonomy.

DISCUSSION

Our paper has aimed to identify how CEOs view the current role of their HR

departments, as well as contextual factors they consider important when determining to what

26
extent this role can or should be developed. Figure 1 provides a summary of our conceptual

framework.

-------------------------------

Insert Figure 1 about here

-------------------------------

We found that CEOs explain the current role of the HR department as a function of the level

of participation HR has in higher-level decision-making, and the amount of responsibility

they are willing to delegate over this decision-making to the HR department. This is in line

with previous academic research that views a more strategic role for the HR department as

actual involvement (e.g., Buyens & DeVos, 2001; Golden & Ramanujam, 1985; Kelly &

Gennard, 1996). Our study suggests that in general, CEOs’ decisions surrounding the

development of the HR department’s current role ground on three considerations: How much

responsibility over decision-making do I have for HRM myself (scope for CEO action)? How

much of my responsibility am I willing to delegate (CEO willingness to delegate)? Is the HR

department the right unit for taking on this responsibility (aptitude of the HR department)?

The answer to each of these questions either explicitly or implicitly posed by CEOs is

affected by various factors that may or may not be context-specific.

However, the conditions are not independent from each other. That is, factors which

increase CEO scope for action and willingness to delegate are necessary but not sufficient

prerequisites for advancing the development of the HR department’s current role.

Furthermore, factors which influence the relative aptitude of the HR department do not assist

in developing its current role unless both scope for CEO action and delegation willingness are

also favorable. For example, HR competence does not foster the development of a more

strategic role if CEOs are generally unwilling to share their responsibility or if they do not

feel authorized to decide upon HR policy themselves.

27
 Taken together, these conditions suggest that often-stressed HR department factors

(e.g., business knowledge, HR expertise) in academic HR literature are not sufficient for

explaining the relative lack of integration of HR departments in strategic decision-making.

While they are unmistakably necessary for developing the HR department’s role, they appear

to play a rather limited part within CEO considerations. Many CEO considerations that matter

for developing the HR department’s current role have nothing to do with these factors.

Furthermore, factors affecting HR department aptitude may be relatively easier to change

than factors that affect CEO scope for action and willingness to delegate.

For factors affecting aptitude of the HR department, our findings suggest that CEOs

seek to involve the most capable candidate available. This suggests that CEOs see generic HR

activities as indispensable on the one hand, implying that even less capable HR departments

get involved if CEOs lack feasible alternative candidates. On the other hand, it supports

notions that HR departments need to demonstrate that they have a better expertise than others

to handle critical contingencies (Galang & Ferris, 1997; Russ, Galang & Ferris, 1998).

Many factors found in our study affirm those which were discussed in previous

research. We have elaborated upon some previously known factors (e.g., competence,

business segment autonomy) and have identified additional ones (e.g., CEO’s competency in

HRM issues, organizational control mechanisms). For other already known factors such as

labor legislation and strong unionized environments, our study suggests hindering and not

enabling effects on the development of the HR department’s role, contrary to findings in

previous work (Jennings, Cyr & Moore, 1995). One explanation that accounts for this result

is the structure of co-determination in the Austrian industrial relations system. Within the co-

determination structure, works councils are important HR actors at the company level too.

Since they are encouraged to cooperate in HR issues, they can take on more strategic roles in

place of the HR department (Waechter & Muller-Carmen, 2002).

28
 We have systematized CEOs’ considerations for developing their HR department’s

role by disentangling general conditions required for developing HR department roles from

the context-specific factors affecting these conditions. Our findings make a case for the

widely neglected, but important topic of finding commonalities of managerial work across

contexts (Hales, 1999). According to Hales, responsibility is “the defining element of

managerial positions” (p. 336), which is important to consider if HRM is to be taken seriously

as a profession (Kochan, 1997). Our study also elaborates on the importance of managerial

responsibility by showing how CEO perceptions of their own responsibility for HRM and

willingness to delegate this responsibility actually shape the considerations for their

decisions.

We expand upon previous research on conditions for developing HR departmental

roles that differentiates between organizational and HR department-specific factors. While

external organizational dynamics constitute external ties of CEOs (Geletkanycz & Hambrick,

1997), we have found that these dynamics also influence CEO considerations for delegating

responsibility over higher-level decision-making about HR policy and activities to their HR

departments. Research on managerial behavior shows managers are concerned with being

overruled by others (Watson, 1996). Our addition of CEO willingness to delegate

responsibility as a condition for the development of a more strategic role for an HR

department could be useful to help explain differences in HR departmental roles between

organizations when the CEOs’ scope for action is similar. It may also account for the negative

relationship between top management satisfaction and strategic integration of the HR

department (Bennett et al., 1998) or lack of relationship between strategic integration and

perceived performance of the HR department (Teo & Rodwell, 2007). If CEOs are hesitant

about delegation, and the HR department still pushes for the development of a more strategic

role, the performance rating of the HR department is potentially more likely to be negative.

29
Implications for HR Practitioners

While prescriptions in this area are likely premature, our study does provide some

insights for top HR managers who seek to advance the development of a more strategic role

for the HR department. Senior HR managers can use the proposed framework (Figure 1) as a

tool for diagnosing factors that determine their current situation and identifying important

levers for advancing their role.

In order to advance the CEO’s perception of the HR department’s aptitude, HR

managers need to demonstrate their competence, as previous research has already suggested.

Besides thorough business knowledge and HR expertise, a way to show competency could

also be to stress proactive behavior and to acknowledge failures openly rather than hiding

them (Smith, Bolton & Wagner 1999). They could indicate that they have resources available

for strategic HR activities over and above their administrative functions, and engage in

political maneuvering to develop positive relationships with other senior management

members (Galang & Ferris, 1997). Acceptance from other senior managers would signal to

the CEO that key organizational members are willing to co-operate with HR if it were given a

more strategic role.

Given the competitive nature of aptitude for HR that emerged from the study, it is

questionable whether or not HR managers benefit from developing HRM competency of line

managers, as most research suggests. Instead, it appears that HR managers improve the

perception of their own aptitude by stressing line managers’ (and others’) lack of HR

competence, although it is questionable whether this would be beneficial for the organization

overall, and may decrease overall management acceptance of HR. However, the study

findings do suggest that HR practitioners need to broaden the scope of their influence tactics.

While improving the CEO’s perception of the HR department’s aptitude is important,

focusing solely on this aspect provides little assistance in the quest to develop a more

30
strategic role for the HR department if the CEO lacks scope for action and/or is reluctant to

share responsibility, two more powerful conditions that drive CEO decision-making. To

enhance the CEO’s willingness to delegate, the HR department could propose a strategy that

sets up control mechanisms to ensure that the CEO’s objectives are not being undermined

(e.g., management by objectives, performance-oriented pay for the HR manager). Means of

widening the CEO’s scope for action are more difficult. However, HR managers should

attempt to make CEOs aware of their HR-related options and/or needs. This could be done by

pointing to shortcomings in skills and values, engaging in interpretation of labor law and

creating a favorable relationship with worker representatives.

Possibilities for exercising influence decrease with the nature of the impact of the

conditions on developing a more strategic role for the HR department. The HR department

may be able to improve perceptions of its aptitude, and – to a lesser extent – to enhance the

CEOs’ willingness to delegate responsibility. However, the condition with the most likely

impact, the CEO’s own scope for action, is relatively difficult to influence. Factors that

determine the options of CEOs are often outside of the control of the HR department.

Implications for Research

Our paper advances previous research on conditions surrounding HR departmental

roles in several respects. First, our study is among the first to explicitly shed light on the

decision-making process of the CEO, and on the influence of different factors for bringing the

role of the HR department to the CEO’s attention. While previous research has studied

management perceptions of HR in general, the framework that we develop in this study

systematizes specific concerns of the top organizational decision-maker. Second, we situate

our analysis in the previous literature while at the same time adopting a primarily inductive

approach to the study design. We are thus able to elaborate on many contextual factors

previously identified in other research, as well as discover other factors that have received

31
relatively little attention to date. By distinguishing between conditions required to develop a

more strategic role for the HR department and contextual factors influencing these conditions,

our framework proposes general and situational prerequisites influencing CEO decisions

regarding development of the HR department’s current role. In so doing, our study also

contributes to the fundamental question in HRM research of whether conditions shaping HR

roles are universally applicable across all organizations, contingent, or based on strategic

choice of individuals. We find support for the co-evolution perspective in that it appears to be

a combination of individual agency and situational factors (Truss, 2009).

Limitations

Notwithstanding the contributions of this study for both research and practice, there

are certain limitations that should be addressed. First, the study investigated accounts of

CEOs, and not their actual behavior towards the HR department. This limitation is somewhat

mitigated by the external information the authors collected about the nature of the HR

department in the organization, as the CEOs’ accounts of the HR department’s current role in

their companies was accurately reflected in the structure and nature of their HR departments.

Second, it is a possibility that the CEOs did not give credence to their honest opinions,

opting instead to give socially desirable accounts of the factors that enable and hinder the

development of the HR department’s current role (Scott & Lyman, 1968). However, the

CEOs all spoke on the condition of anonymity, which reduced the likelihood that they needed

to provide a socially acceptable answer. Furthermore, many new factors were identified in

this study that have not been previously identified in academic research or circulated in

practitioner’s journals.

Third, while the empirical research site of the study, Austria, is valuable for

expanding the scope of strategic HRM research beyond Anglo-Saxon countries, the context

needs to be considered when interpreting the findings. In the European context, CEOs lack

32
considerable latitude in regard to the development of a more strategic role for their HR

departments (Brewster, 2004). For instance, governance structures require CEOs to recognize

formal rights of various stakeholders including the state (Jacoby, Nason & Saguchi, 2005).

Culturally shaped principles for managerial decision-making in Austria like strong emphasis

on compliance with social rules (Brewster, 2004; Erten, Strunck, Gonzalez & Hilb, 2004), co-

determination, and a specific concept of management competency and control (Scheytt, Soin

& Metz, 2003) could limit the generalizability of our framework to other contexts.

Finally, the sample size raises the question of whether or not we achieved theoretical

saturation in our data. However, as previously mentioned, the sample size is consistent with

previous qualitative work in this area (e.g., Golden & Ramanujam, 1985; Buller, 1988;

Sheehan, 2005; Truss, 2009), and attempts were made to maximize differences in settings.

Even with this conservative approach, we identified patterns across the CEO interviews.

Furthermore, the relative scarcity of this type of data due to the difficulty in achieving CEO

interviews must be taken into consideration. However, future research should attempt to

replicate this study in other settings, and use larger data collection methods such as CEO

surveys.

Conclusion

We suggest that research on conditions required for the development of a more

strategic role for the HR department can reveal new insights for both academic research and

practice by focusing on a highly neglected area – the considerations of the top organizational

decision-maker in organizations. In systematizing CEOs’ perceptions of their HR departments

and outlining the conditions they deem to be important in order to develop the current role of

their HR departments, the framework presented here has made a first step toward this end. In

summary, the following three directions seem to be important for future research in this area.

As previously mentioned, the contextual factors affecting the three conditions we proposed

33
need to be expanded by studying CEO considerations in other contexts. Particularly fruitful

are comparisons of Europe and the U.S., as Brewster (2004) expects that European CEOs

have a narrower scope of action in regard to HRM decision-making than in the U.S. In this

respect, the findings from our study can be used as a starting point, and the framework

developed here can be used to help organize factors in other contexts. Second, non-reactive

research designs that study sensitive factors have been largely overlooked in research on

strategic integration of HR departments (e.g., gender of HR professionals). As there has not

been a lot of theory development in this area, a similar methodology to what was employed in

our study using a combination of both inductive and deductive approaches may be

appropriate. Finally, because perception of the factors affecting conditions for development of

the HR department’s role may be affected by both organizational and individual

characteristics (e.g., CEO background), it would be useful to investigate how different CEOs

within similar settings discuss perceptions of the HR department. An occasion for doing this

could be the replacement of the CEO.

34
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 TABLE 1
Characteristics of the Organizations in the Study Sample

CEO Industry Ownership Sector # of Profit Senior HR Senior Centralization HR Outsourcing

Employees € manager HR of HR specialists/ of HR
Millions on the manager functions staff ratio activities
executive report (headquarter (%)
committee directly vs. locations)
to the
CEO

A Insurance Swiss Private 700 200 no no centralized 2.2 -none

-training and
development
Private- -payroll
B Energy Austrian public 33,000 20,042 no yes decentralized 1.5 administration

-training and
C Electronics Dutch Private 900 678 yes yes centralized 1.3 development

-recruitment
-performance
evaluation
Private- -training and
D Logistics Austrian public 24,000 1,736 no yes decentralized 1.9 development

Non- -training and

E Education Austrian profit 1,200 93 no yes centralized 1.7 development

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 TABLE 2

Summary of Findings
CEO A B C D E
Conditions & contextual factors influencing HR departmental role
Scope for - Governance structure - Governance structure - Workforce skills and - Governance structure - Labor legislation
CEO action - Workforce skills and - Workforce skills and values - Labor legislation - Governance structure
values values - Workforce skills and
values
Willingness - Strategy - Strategy - Control mechanisms - Strategy - CEO HRM competency
to delegate - Control mechanisms - CEO competency in (management system) - Control mechanisms
responsibility (reporting structure) HRM (reporting structure)
- Control mechanisms
(management system)
Aptitude of - HR department - HR department - HR department - HR department - HR department
the HR competency (results, competency (results) competency (social competency competency (results)
department social relations) relations, insightfulness) (insightfulness) - Management
- Management - Resources - Business segment acceptance of the HR
acceptance of the HR - Management autonomy department
department acceptance of the HR - Resources
department - Business segment
autonomy

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 FIGURE 1

Framework on Conditions and Factors Influencing Development of HR

Department’s Current Role

41
 APPENDIX A

Sample Interview Questions

(Translated from German)

 Who are the major players in managing human resources in your organization
and what are their roles?
 What specific role does the HR department play in your organization for
managing human resources?
 What makes it useful or necessary to provide this particular role to the HR
department?
 Can you think of any circumstances that may alter the role of the HR
department?
 What is necessary to happen for the HR department to develop its current
role?
 What other organization should be contacted to get a different viewpoint on
the role of the HR department from the CEO?
 Why do you think this viewpoint would differ from your own viewpoint?

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