Abstract
Personnel Departmental Power: Realities from the UK Higher Education Sector
Highlights
The Personnel occupation continues to be plagued by “tensions between competing role demands, ever-increasing managerial expectations of performance and new challenges to professional expertise” (Caldwell 2003: 983)
This study has highlighted that the power debate has not been fully resolved amidst universalistic claims being made within prescriptive Personnel role typologies regarding the impact of strategic contribution
As the power literature has become increasingly complex in identifying the dimensions of power, this study has highlighted the importance of considering a structural perspective at departmental level, but that this must be complemented by insights into relational and individual power
Summary
The Personnel (or Human Resources – HR) occupation continues to be plagued by “tensions between competing role demands, ever-increasing managerial expectations of performance and new challenges to professional expertise” (Caldwell 2003: 983). It is constantly struggling to achieve status and legitimacy, yet is consistently identified as a weak occupational group with inherent role ambiguities (Guest/King 2004; Legge 1978). This debate surrounding Personnel department power was lively in the 1980s when the industrial relations role of the department was in decline, and Human Resource Management (HRM) was in ascendancy. Studies by Caldwell (2003) and Guest and King (2004) of the changing and conflicting roles of Personnel have highlighted the reality that the power debate in both the literature and in practice at this departmental level has not yet been resolved
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