Senior managers perceptions of the HRM function during times of organizational change

Christopher J.Rees & Hasanah Johari Summarized by: Ali Haj Aghapour

Introduction Organizational Change and Development(OCD) is a new key theme which is emerged in recent years and can be considered in both academic and applied behavioral science. In addition, OCD is integrated into both people management and human behavior within organization(Olesen,2007). In fact, all changes in organizations context such as strategy, technology, finance, marketing, and logistics are associated with the people. According to definition, people who has mutual relation to organization such as costumers, employees , agents, and Suppliers (Kotler,2009). Although boundaries between HRM and OCD are not very transparent(Ellis,2000), HR function is providing appropriate substructures to implement the change. In other word, by converging activities associated with disciplines such as Human resource Management(HRM), Human Resource Development(HRD), and Organizational Development(OD). Complexity of relation between OCD & HRM encouraged many scholars to explore distinctive parts of this integrated relation. However, in order to demonstrate the contribution and effectiveness of HR, this study has designed upon two main aims: Exploring the extent to which the HRM function is perceived by senior managers to contribute to organizational change. Identifying main challenges which HR experts face during change and development Keywords Organizational change and development, Malaysia, HRM, spirituality, credibility, and ethics

Literature Review The search for a strategic focus Western experts state that HRM theories and practitioners should move from traditionally transactional models to strategic ones and must become a strategic change partner. In order to achieving this goal, HR department must spend more time on some HR roles such as delivering services, maintaining records, auditing, controlling, Development of HR systems, and strategic business partner(Lawler,2003). On the other word, HR experts must participate in organizational design, strategy development, strategic planning, and HR planning(Lawler,2003). In addition, becoming a strategic partnership needs some changes in HR structures which are divided to f distinctive factors: outsourcing, rotation, teams, decentralization, and resource efficiency(Lawler,2003). Figure1. Factors associated with HR as a strategic partner(Lawler,2003)

Knowledge- & competencybased company and initiative

Integrated HRIS

-planing -organizational design -Development

Strategic partner

-HR/line management teams -HR deployed to business -Rotation within HR -transfer HRM tasks to the line

Head of HRM

However, Strategic focus of HR functions and roles might be fluctuated by many internal or external factors(Marqus,2006) such as geography, population, economies, labor market, organizational environment, organizational culture regulatory, and HR systems of region as well as its values(Warner,2000). In addition, these mentioned factors have proportionally impacts on HRM as a strategic partner, specifically in Asia-pacific region. In fact, HR specialists in South-West part of Asia have faced to some challenges which will be mentioned bellow(Budhwar&Debra,2004): Change the stable workplace made by globalization How to be able to deal with outcome of employees response to the perceived violation of psychological contract Information system enable service(ISES) Transition from collectivism to individualism in HRM practices Involving into acknowledge-based economy Management of acknowledged workers Diversity management Management of multicultural work team Outsourcing the service of job from industrial countries to developing ones Utilizing internal labor market in company(ILMs) Highly corruption in Asia-Pacific region However, HRM is a new concept in comparison with Western context which is recognized as infancy stage in Asia-pacific region. Finally, Debrah&Budhwar(2004) suggest that Future format and structure of HRM, in the region, must be a hybrid and context-based system, a mixture of Western rationalized systems and traditional Asian characteristics. On the other hand, religious values are another thing that makes differences between Western context and what is distributed in Asia. By and large, many scholars (koys,2001; taylor,1997;Budlhwar& Fadzil,2000) illustrated that problems which organization usually is faced, are possible to be solved by ethical principles. This essential issue encourages HR managers to consider religious values in their HR functions and planning. According to definition, ethical principles include respect, responsibility, integrity, and competence(Plante,2008).

Environmental context of study The concentration of this study is Malaysia which is located in Asia-pacific region. According to WAM reports(2007) The major racial components of the Malays 61%, Chinese 24%, Indian 8%, and others 8%. Also, the most populated religion is Islam, followed by Buddhism, Daoism, Hinduism, Christianity, respectively. Moreover, Malaysia simulates the complexities associated with organizational change and development according to the above discourses. Base on international reports, Malaysian officials has designed range of policies and plans which have effectively extended their GDP from 5.9% to 6.3% in 2006 and 2007, respectively. By and large, Malaysia claims that their successes in economy are related to some critically macro factors such as leadership, political will, a well-trained civil service, a well-developed a physical and institutional infrastructure, a strong private sector, motivated nongovernmental organization and academic communities. The case study organization Bank A is a financial institution, looks like other ones. is owed by the Federal Government of Malaysia. In early, this bank had PD as HRM with non-effective activities. But by implementing an organization-wide five-year change program, a meaningful change is occurred. Methodology This research has been done to explore two main Questions: 1. What extent has the HRM function played a contributory role to the strategic change agenda? 2. What are your views on integrating ethics and spirituality into HRM practices in the workplace? Tape-recorded English interview is used to obtaining data. And consequently, the interview transcripts were examined by ATLAS which is used to linkage between any elements of the qualitative database. For this study, a purposive sampling was used. The respondents(n=23) were drawn from all department, and minimally each department has a representative. The group contained men and women, and Muslims and Christians.

Findings Results of this study could be classified in 3 distinctive categories which will be mentioned bellow: The strategic role of HRM function Progress in HRM function was recognized by most of respondents. Surprisingly, senior managers stated that HRM function should positively contribute to activities both inside and outside of organization. Credibility and Independence Majority of respondents believed that credibility and independence is the main issues that HRM function faced if it was adjusted into strategic role within organization. HRM staff must be brave and initiator of idea rather than sole followers or implementers of idea. Ethics and spirituality A little variation was seen during study. Most of senior respondents spoke positively about ethical climate of organization. Moreover, majority of respondents were interested in universal values rather than religious ones. Also, respondents have shown respect toward integration of Islam in workplace, specially, in relation to HRM practices. Conclusion Author tries to show that how extant to which HRM function will be perceived by senior manager in a financial organization in Malaysia by designing a tape-based interview to examine HRM-related change interventions, strategic focus, independence, and credibility of HRM function. According to the finding of this study, all of these variables were approximately recognized by senior managers, although there are some evidence that supports that there is a gap between western developed countries and non- western ones. By considering this study, in my opinion, recognizing HRM as a strategic partner by seniors in Malaysia, provides infrastructure conditions which helps organization to improve its productivity. Also, an appropriate HR-based leadership, credibility and independence will be increased when organization is faced challenges which are usually occurred during the organizational change and development. In addition, by distributing spirituality and ethic issues into organization, all involved people can adopt themselves better. All in all, these crucial issues back to HRM as the coordinator and facilitator.

Reference Budhwar &s. Dedrah,Y.(2004), Dynamics of HRM systems in the Asian context and research agenda, 4th Asia Academy of Management Conference. Shanghai, China 16-18 Dec 2004. Ellis,F. (2000), the benefits of partnership for OD and HR, strategic HR review, Vol. 6 No.4, pp. 22-5. Kotler,P. Keller,k.,(2009). Marketing management an Asian perspective. Fifth ed. Singapor: Prentice hall. Lawler, E. E.III and Mohrman, S.A.(2003), HR as a strategic partner: what does it make it happen? Human resource planning, Vol. 26 No. 3, pp. 15-29. Marques, J.(2006), The Human Resource Department: A Cross-Functional Unit, Resource Development Quarterly Journal, Vol.17 No.1, pp. 117-123. Olesen,c. White,D. and Lemmer, I.(2007), career models and structure change at macrosoft, Organization Development Journal, Vol.25 No.2, pp.33-6. Plante, G.,(in press) what do the spiritual an religious traditions offer the practicing psychologist, Journal of Business media.(accepted to publication in January 2008). Warner, M.(2000), Introduction: the Asian-pacific HRM model revisited, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol.11 No. 2, pp..171-82.