Practicing Human Resource Strategy: Understanding the Relational Dynamics in Strategic Hr Work by Means of a Narrative Approach**

Zusammenfassung

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This article presents the results of a qualitative research project aimed at examining how Human Resource (HR) practitioners interpret HR strategy and strategic change. We will illustrate how they develop HR strategy by relying on a system of shared practices which, in turn, constitute the underlying relational dynamics. We argue that HR strategy is embedded in a (rhetorical) network of middle and top managers from HR departments and corresponding operational departments. This implies that HR strategy happens in a social process, more precisely in practices -in-use. Drawing on a systemic constructionist framework, the article discusses the nature of practices -in-use and presents findings from an inductive analysis of a qualitative HR study. The qualitative nature enabled us to shed light on previously neglected aspects of the field of strategic human resource management (SHRM). We will outline our research approach and method in detail and discuss its suitability for studying SHRM issues. The article concludes by proposing a new understanding of SHRM that will hopefully prove to be fruitful both in theory and practice. [PUB ABSTRACT]

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Practicing Human Resource Strategy: Understanding the Relational Dynamics in Strategic Hr Work by Means of a Narrative Approach**

Introduction

"Not enough is said, though, about the unheroic work of ordinary strategic practitioners in their day-to-day routines" (Whittington 1996, 734).

The growing interest in strategy as social practice (Johnson et al. 2007; Jarzabkowski 2005; Hendry 2000) gives reason to examine new aspects of the "HR strategy" construct. Practitioners and strategy practices have arguably been of vital interest in the applied approach, and there is an increasing need to explore in greater detail how HR professionals and line managers "do strategy" as seen from this perspective. Especially the diverse theoretical threads connecting applied research in strategy with (systemic) constructionist epistemology (Rouleau 2005; Hendry/ Seidl 2003; Samra-Fredericks 2003), offer promising ways of discussing and understanding the HR strategy, strategic HRM (SHRM) or Strategic Human Resource Manager constructs in a new way. However, despite the emphasis on the importance of practices (Chia 2004; Jarzabkowski 2004), empirical studies on strategic management practices-in-use (Jarzabkowski 2004), and especially on SHRM practices-in-use, are still rare (Palthe/Kossek 2003; Krauss 2002). The aim of this empirical study is therefore to close this gap by adopting a qualitative research approach. The study focuses on HR managers at the line, middle, and top management levels. This group is referred to as the HR Community, a concept that presumes "co -practicing" to take place among these three levels that collectively make up the HRM function in the organisation (Legge 2005, 170; Tyson 1997).

According to Boxall/ Pur cell (2003), the strategic HRM field today is marked by an unfortunate theoretical disconnect between SHRM concepts and strategic management concepts, as well as by a disregard of the perspective under which business strategy (and with it HR strategy) is conceptualised (Legge 2005, 140). Boxall/ Purcell further argue that "the growth of interest in strategic management and HRM has not, however, been accompanied by sufficient concern for integrating these two important fields of theory and practice. [. . .] Too much of the literature on strategic management continues to downplay or disregard the human issues that affect the formation and execution of strategy" (2003, vi-vii).

At the same time, the quest for legitimisation of the SHRM discipline (Nkomo/Ensley 1999) gives reason to re-examine widely accepted SHRM constructs that propose "best practices" and "best fit" strategies (Boxall/Purcell 2003; Ridder et al. 2001). However, as Legge (2005) points out so tellingly "the act of consciously matchin...

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