Management Revue

The End of Personnel? Managing Human Resources in Turbulent Environments

Flexible Employment As a Unidirectional Career? Results From Field Experiments**

Although the number of flexible workers is constantly growing, little is known about career paths built up on flexible employment. In this article, we investigate the chances of former flexible workers to be employed in a permanent full-time position. In two field experiments, we asked for employers' evaluation of applicants with a flexible employment history. Results indicate that former part-time work is in fact perceived as a disadvantage for candidates when applying for a permanent full-t...

The Manager and the Flexworker: An Interpretive Interactionist Perspective**

Contemporary work arrangements are undergoing a dramatic transformation with increasing diversity in how work is done, by whom and where. This paper focuses on flexwork as an increasingly common work arrangement which changes the physical and relational dynamics between managers and employees. Drawing on a qualitative study of 'flexworkers' in a large MNC in Canada, it explores their relationships with their managers and vice versa. Located within an interpretive interactionist perspective, i...

An Identity Construction Perspective On Careers of Swedish International Itinerants**

Considering international assignments as part of an individual's career, beyond the traditional expatriate assignment as employed and sent out by a company, this paper focuses on international itinerants. The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of individuals with multiple international work experiences, crossing the boundaries of a single employer, their experiences, identifications and identity construction. In the study an identity construction perspective is applied on ...

Aligning Performance: The End of Personnel and the Beginning of Guided Skilled Performance**

For almost twenty years researchers have predicted the end of personnel as HRM practices increasingly became a line management function. However, while useful for describing shifts in human resource responsibilities, this practice-based view obscures the fundamental strategic reason for this shift - executive demands for effective means to manage performance. This paper contributes a new approach for HRM that may better predict which current practices will be most successful and suggests the ...

A Balanced Approach to Understanding the Shaping of Human Resource Management in Organisations**

There is a need for alternative theories to get a better understanding of human resource management (HRM), in particular with regard to the shaping of the employment relationship in organizations. This study examines how market, institutional and configurational factors affect HRM in a global financial services company using the strategic balance theory and Paauwe's model. Interview data and document analysis show the impact of critical incidents (e.g. a merger) and trends (e.g. a transition ...