Title: Fit for purpose? Designing HR organisations and HR departments in project-based organisations

Authors: Karin Bredin, Jonas Soderlund

Addresses: Department of Management and Engineering, Linkoping University, 58183 Linkoping, Sweden. ' BI Norwegian School of Management, 0442 Oslo, Norway

Abstract: This paper makes three contributions: 1) it suggests a conceptual separation between HR organisation and HR departments to better comprehend the challenges facing HRM in project-based firms; 2) it identifies two configurations of HR departments to advance the comparative analysis across project-based organisations; 3) it offers a model and a set of propositions to determine the organisational conditions influencing the design of the HR organisation and the HR department. The paper emphasises the importance of the character of functional coordination and type of project participation for the design of the HR organisation and HR department.

Keywords: HRM; HR departments; HR specialists; project organisations; project-based firms; projectification; configuration; structure; HR organisations; human resources; human resource management; coordination; project participation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHRDM.2010.036087

International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management, 2010 Vol.10 No.4, pp.327 - 361

Published online: 18 Oct 2010 *

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