Human Resource Management in Project‐Based Organizations: The HR Quadriad Framework

Beverley Lloyd‐Walker (Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia)

International Journal of Managing Projects in Business

ISSN: 1753-8378

Article publication date: 6 September 2013

1177

Keywords

Citation

Lloyd‐Walker, B. (2013), "Human Resource Management in Project‐Based Organizations: The HR Quadriad Framework", International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Vol. 6 No. 4, pp. 827-830. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMPB-07-2013-0029

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2013, Emerald Group Publishing Limited


This is a timely book that provides support for the need to create the HR Quadriad framework and details of how and where this might be used by organisations. That work is organised differently in today's organisation has been acknowledged for some time. Maxwell (2008) commented on the increased level of reliance by today's organisations on teams to carry out the work formerly conducted by individuals. This is not surprising as Maxwell's research also revealed that organisation's were finding teams enabled them to be more productive and successful than when work had been performed by individuals alone.

More specifically, this change in work organisation has been linked to the increase in the project management profession (Crawford, 2005; Hodgson, 2004), because project teams are now used extensively to deliver processes and products (Bredin and Söderlund, 2011). Lindgren and Packendorff (2006) stated that across all sectors and organisation types projects were becoming the common way of organising work leading Cicmil and Hodgson (2006) to predict this would become the organisational form of the future. Along with the move to project teams, the term “temporary organisation” has been used by many authors (Lundin and Söderholm, 1995; Turner and Müller, 2003; Bredin and Söderlund, 2011) to describe this new way of working, usually within a project team on a temporary endeavour. This “temporary organisation within an organisation” (Shenhar, 2001, p. 395) may take a range of forms from shorter, smaller projects that do not demand the full time commitment of team members to those that require geographic relocation and total commitment of the employee to the project. Wiewiora et al. (2009, p. 3) described an organisational structure in a project‐based organisation as creating a situation where within a dedicated project the project manager becomes “a chief executive of a temporary organisation”.

If the way that employees are being organised to carry out their roles has changed so dramatically, and acknowledging that “it is people who deliver projects, not processes and systems” (Cooke‐Davies, 2002, p. 189), we might expect that the area responsible for developing the policies and practices related to managing this important resource might also have altered, reflecting the structural changes taking place.

The book contains nine chapters and uses tables, figures and fact boxes well to support discussions throughout. In chapter four, Bredin and Söderlund put forward their “HR Quadriad framework”. Four parties, or groups, are identified in this framework: human resource (HR) specialists, line managers, project managers and project workers. Just as many have recognised the devolution of HR management (HRM) activities to line management (Kulik and Bainbridge, 2006, p. 71), so Bredin and Söderlund acknowledge that “HRM is a collective act carried out and influenced by several players within the project‐based organisation”. If HRM is described as the interplay between employers and employers, then not only line managers but also project managers, especially when an employee's entire job is carried out within a project, are responsible for implementing the HR policy and practices relating to their direct reports.

Bredin and Söderlund refer to two types project teams: intra‐functional teams, or Type A, where participation usually accounts for only part of the employee's workload; they remain within their designated area working with colleagues with similar expertise and reporting to their functional line manager. The inter‐functional project worker, or Type B, works with people from other specialisations who come from different areas of the organisation. In Type B project settings the worker will usually co‐locate with the other team members, moving outside their functional area and amongst people coming from a range of different specialisations and with different expertise. It could be expected, therefore, that the Type B project worker would, for the time being, report to the project leader not their functional leader.

Much valuable material appears between chapter four and the final chapter, but I will leave this to the readers of this book review to examine the book in depth. It is in chapter nine that Bredin and Söderlund make clear the reasons why HR needs to consider a new structure to better meet the needs of the new organisational form. In this final chapter they clearly distinguish between the employee whose main daily work responsibilities remain within their designated work area (intra‐functional), with their line manager carrying out HR‐related activities such as work allocation, performance management and development and when an employee is assigned to a project team and works entirely on the project with those from other specialisations (inter‐functional). Linking project type to the HR quadriad framework, the authors demonstrate how the roles of line managers, project managers, project workers and HR specialists might be better aligned with the organisation's structure.

Whilst there has been wide recognition of this change, how HRM practices might be structured to fit with the changed working practices has not been similarly recognised. This book is important because it reminds us that currently a mismatch exists between organisational context, the way work is carried out and how the HR function is structured. The employee‐manager relationship is altered when people are appointed to projects, whether this is for only part of their role or their total work role. It makes sense that the HRM practices and processes an organisation adopts should support the choice made by project‐oriented organisations to use project teams to achieve their goals (Huemann et al., 2007). This is likely to be even more so the case in project‐based organisations.

Bredin and Söderlund's book is written for project‐based organisations, but it also has much to offer for project‐oriented organisations, indeed any organisation that used project teams to develop or deliver processes and products.

This book provides evidence that HR structures have not changed in line with work structure changes and it details approaches that HR practitioners might take, according to the various types of projects operating in their organisation, to address this issue. I found this book extremely interesting. It has fed into both my teaching and research. It challenges HR practitioners to consider whether their HR structures fit their current organisational structure and researchers and teachers of HRM are challenged to consider whether new theoretical models of may be required.

These changes in structure Bredin and Söderlund refer to “organisational innovation” but this organisational innovation has not been acknowledged to this point by changes in the way that people are managed within organisations. What becomes obvious is that project managers, especially in co‐located project teams, perform the role of supervisor and of HR manager, for they do not always feel the presence of HR advice and assistance. Francis and Keegan (2006) discussed the notion that there are new emerging models of HRM. Revised theoretical models of HRM that better describe how the employer‐employee relationship operates in today's organisations are required for all organisations but especially those within project‐based organisations if HR is to support achievement of organisational goals.

There are very few organisations today that operate according to organisational structures established in the mid twentieth century, so this book is for HR managers in a wide range of organisations and it challenges them to consider whether their HR structure matches and serves well all parties within their organisation's structure. But it is also for project managers and leaders, project workers and indeed all managers, especially those involved in deciding the overall structure of their organisations.

Bredin and Söderlund make it clear that we have to re‐think the way we manage the HRs of the organisation as a result of organisational innovation. This book is about organisation strategy and structure as well as HRs in project based organisations, thus it also has implications for organisations that may not consider themselves “project‐based”. Organisations that use project teams to achieve their goals will find this book relevant and valuable.

References

Bredin, K. and Söderlund, J. (2011), Human Resource Management in Project‐Based Organizations: The HR Quadriad Framework, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.

Cicmil, S. and Hodgson, D. (2006), “New possibilities for project management theory: a critical engagement”, Proceedings of PMI Research Conference Project Management Institute, Newtown Square, PA.

Crawford, L. (2005), “Senior management perceptions of project management competence”, International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 23, pp. 716.

Francis, H. and Keegan, A. (2006), “The changing face of HRM: in search of balance”, Human Resource Management Journal, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 231249.

Hodgson, D.E. (2004), “Project work: the legacy of bureaucratic control in the post‐bureaucratic organization”, Organization, Vol. 11, pp. 81100.

Huemann, M., Keegan, E. and Turner, R. (2007), “Human resource management in the project‐oriented company: a review”, International Journal of Project Manaement, Vol. 25, pp. 315323.

Kulik, C.T. and Bainbridge, T.J. (2006), “HR and the line: the distribution of HR activities in Australian organisations”, Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 44 No. 2, pp. 240256.

Lindgren, M. and Packendorff, J. (2006), “What's new in new forms of organizing? On the construction of gender in project‐based work”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 43, pp. 841866.

Lundin, R.A. and Söderholm, A. (1995), “A theory of the temporary organization”, Scandinavian Journal of Management, Vol. 11, pp. 437455.

Maxwell, J.R. (2008), “Work system design to improve the economic performance of the firm”, Business Procerss Management Journal, Vol. 14 No. 3, pp. 432446.

Shenhar, A. (2001), “One size does not fit all projects: exporing classical contingency domains”, Management Science, Vol. 47 No. 3, pp. 394414.

Turner, J.R. and Müller, R. (2003), “On the nature of the project as a temporary organization”, International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 21, pp. 18.

Wiewiora, A., Trigunarsyah, B., Murphy, G.D., Gable, G.G. and Laing, C. (2009), “The impact of unique characteristics of projects and project‐based organisations on knowledge transfer”, 10th European Conference on Knowledge Management, Università Degli Studi Di Padova, Vicenza, Italy, 3‐4 September, pp. 19.

Further Reading

Gareis, R. (2005), in Turner, R., Huemann, M. and Keegan, A. (2001), “Human resource management in the in the project oriented organization: employee well being and ethical treatment”, International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 26 No. 5, pp. 577‐585.

Related articles