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To understand how line managers make decisions about employee requests for time off at short notice and to consider the consequences for management training.

Based on evidence from case studies carried out in four financial sector companies in Scotland, this paper illustrates a model of line manager decision making in relation to employee requests for time off at short notice.

Factors that were found to have an impact on decisions of this kind included: organisational policies, the extent of devolution of personnel decisions and the role of the human resource function, operational constraints and the nature of the employee's request for time off and their previous commitment. Management experience and competence and the use of “common sense” mediated these factors. Managers received very little training in order to help them make appropriate decisions.

Although the authors consider that the model of decision making is general enough to be applicable outside the financial services sector, further research testing in other industrial sectors would be welcomed.

While the use of management “discretion” can have advantages for employees, it could also have negative consequences resulting from inconsistent application, in terms of staff relations, company climate, morale, productivity and labour turnover. Therefore, effective training is important in order to deconstruct line managers’ notions of “common‐sense” decisions and make better decisions around these issues.

The paper outlines a model of line manager decision making for dealing with time off at short notice that can be used by HR professionals in designing management training programmes.

This research brings together two streams of thought applied to decision-making: lean thinking and stakeholder theory. Both have been identified as ways to improve organizational value. Previous studies disagree regarding whether they can work together. This study investigates if managers balance stakeholders and lean thinking in decision-making.

This research investigates if both lean thinking and stakeholder salience share common literature by using data mining. It surveys organizations that perceive themselves as lean and have multiple diverse stakeholders to determine whether waste and salience are considered when making decisions. An ANOVA is done to see if organization type, management level, organization size, geographic location, or lean maturity has an effect on the priority of stakeholder salience or lean thinking's waste variants when making decisions.

Findings of this research are: 1) stakeholders salience criteria are considered more often than lean thinking's waste variants in decision-making by managers as a whole and in particular by middle-level managers and senior managers. However, lean thinking's waste variants are considered as often as stakeholder salience criteria by first-line managers. 2) The ranking of stakeholder salience in making decisions is not affected by organization type, respondent position, organization size, perceived lean experience, or geographic location. The organization type, organization size, lean experience, and location do not affect the ranking of lean thinking variants either. But the ranking of lean thinking's waste variants is significantly different for first-line, middle-level, and senior managers. Middle-level managers rank lean thinking higher than that of either first-line or senior-level. Because of this, middle managers have a more balanced approach in using lean thinking and stakeholder salience than other managers. 3) Stakeholder salience criteria have a significantly higher ranking than lean thinking variants in making decisions for all organization types: manufacturing and nonmanufacturing.

This research demonstrates a significant disconnect exists between lean thinking and demands of stakeholders that impacts the value of an organization, and only middle-level managers bring balance and awareness of both streams of thought. An empirical instrument has been developed to balance the stakeholder salience criteria with the lean thinking variants.

The purpose of this study is to examine the rostering practices and work experiences of medical scientists at four health services in the Australian public healthcare sector. There are over 16,000 medical scientists (AIHW, 2019) in Australia responsible for carrying out pathology testing to help save the lives of thousands of patients every day. However, there are systemic shortages of medical scientists largely due to erratic rostering practices and workload issues. The purpose of this paper is to integrate evidence-based human resource management (EBHRM), the LAMP model and HR analytics to enhance line manager decision-making on rostering to support the wellbeing of medical scientists.

Using a qualitative methodological approach, the authors conducted 21 semi-structured interviews with managers/directors and nine focus groups with 53 medical scientists, making a total 74 participants from four large public hospitals in Australia.

Across four health services, manual systems of rostering and management decisions do not meet the requirements of the enterprise agreement (EA) and impact negatively on the wellbeing of medical scientists in pathology services. The authors found no evidence of the systematic approach of the organisations and line managers to implement the LAMP model to understand the root causes of rostering challenges and negative impact on employees. Moreover, there was no evidence of sophisticated use of HR analytics or EBHRM to support line managers' decision-making regarding mitigation of rostering related challenges such as absenteeism and employee turnover.

The authors contribute to HRM theory by integrating EBHRM, the LAMP model (Boudreau and Ramstad, 2007) and HR analytics to inform line management decision-making. The authors advance understandings of how EBHRM incorporating the LAMP model and HR analytics can provide a systematic and robust process for line managers to make informed decisions underpinned by data.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and theoretically explain how line managers and lower-status experts work together in public health-care organizations. Hence, this study explores how lower-status experts influence line managers' decision-making and task prioritizing in order to guide staff experts' cooperation and performance improvements.

The authors used a qualitative method for data collection and analysis of the experts' and line managers' explanations about their cooperation. A theoretical approach of experts' identity positioning, in terms of differences and similarities, was used in analyzing the interaction between managers and experts.

This study shows that similarities and differences in positioning acts exist simultaneously. Similarity is constructed by way of strategic and professional alignment with the line managers' core tasks. Differences stem from the distinction between knowledge-grounded skills and professional attributes such as language, analytical tools, and jargon. Lower-status experts need to leave their entrenched positions and match the professional status of line managers in both knowledge aspirations and appearance to reach a respected approach of experts' identity positioning.

Unlike many previous studies, this study demonstrates that similarities and differences in positioning acts exist simultaneously.

This article examines the reallocation of human resource management responsibilities from HR specialists to line managers in UK public sector organisations in an increasingly regulated working environment. It uses evidence about the extent and scope of HR devolution in a large unitary city council, the British Library and a county probationary service. Based on the perceptions of senior managers, middle managers, HR specialists and the trade union representatives, it specifically explores: the issues devolution raises about the HR responsibilities of line managers; the experience of HR devolution in the public sector; and the impact of a more externally regulated and litigious workplace on continuing devolution.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether formal authority of the HR department has any impact on line managers’ evaluations of HR department effectiveness.

Two studies were conducted in Vietnam. Study 1 comprised a survey of 405 line managers to test the hypothesized model. Study 2 comprised a survey conducted with 155 line managers validated the findings from Study 1. Structural equation modeling and PROCESS macro were used to analyze the data.

Line managers’ perceptions of the HR department’s formal authority had a positive and indirect impact on HR department effectiveness through the HR department’s strategic involvement and influence. Public sector line managers tended to perceive their HR departments as possessing a higher level of formal authority than did their private sector counterparts.

This study extends the theory of political influence as it applies to the HR department. Specifically, the study provides empirical evidence of the influences of an organization’s political conditions on the perceptions of HR department effectiveness. This study also contributes to the extant literature on HRM in Vietnam by showing how Vietnam’s HR departments can utilize power and influence in accordance with specific ownership types.

Public sector HR managers could establish their formal authority among stakeholders as a way to enhance the recognition of HR department effectiveness. This can be done by relying on the presence of the traditional bureaucratic characteristics of the public sector which confer the HR department with formal authority.

The study contributes an understanding of the determinants of HR department effectiveness in the context of Vietnam. Research findings show that highly formal authority practices in the public sector affect the way line managers perceive the strategic involvement of the HR department. The more formal the authority, the more the public sector HR department is perceived to be involved in the strategic management process. Thus, formal authority is a prerequisite that public sector HR departments need to signal its importance among line managers. To have a long-term influencing role in the organization, the HR department in the public sector needs to develop its political and influencing skills. In contrast to this, the private sector HR department needs to develop a strategic partnership with line managers in order to increase its influence and perceived effectiveness.

Investigates the devolution of human resources (HR) responsibilities to the line within a large food manufacturing company. A total of 13 senior/board level line managers took part in this study. Records questionnaire and interview data with reference to line manager perceptions of their involvement in HR activities. Of interest is the finding that the line managers claimed to be satisfied with the HR responsibilities that have been devolved to them and are keen to take on activities that relate explicitly to the development of their team. Most line managers report working closely with their HR counterparts and see the configuration moving towards a partnership. The line managers’ main concern is that a lack of support from HR during the delivery of the service can detract from the overall effectiveness. They also note that junior level line managers are likely to feel less supported by HR and comment that it is merely their high level position that drives the HR‐line partnership in their situations. Suggests that this research will act as a first step in exploring the relationship between varying levels of line managers and their HR counterparts in order to ascertain whether the higher your status in the organisation, the better your relationship is with HR.

Employee participation is in the news because of the stakeholder concept and European legal developments. Argues that for most employees what matters is the working relationship with their boss, rather than indirect forms of representation, such as works councils. If employers are genuine about participation, the prime area of attention needs to be the day‐to‐day behaviour of line managers. This necessitates reviewing the performance, selection and training of line managers. This is also necessary if indirect forms of participation are to work as they too depend on effective and co‐operative line management. Participation also needs to be examined in the context of organisational and national culture and the pressures on an organisation at particular points in time. Too often the topic is addressed as though the objectives can be achieved simply through mechanistic/legal imposition.

The purpose of this study is to explore the nature of human resource management in publicly listed finance sector companies in Nepal. In particular, it explores the extent to which HR practice is integrated into organisational strategy and devolved to line management.

A structured interview was conducted with the senior executive responsible for human resource management in 26 commercial banks and insurance companies in Nepal.

The degree of integration of HR practice appears to be increasing within this sector, but this is dependent on the maturity of the organisations. The devolvement of responsibility to line managers is at best partial, and in the case of the insurance companies, it is more out of necessity due to the absence of a strong central HR function.

The survey is inevitably based on a small sample; however this represents 90 per cent of the relevant population. The data suggest that Western HR is making inroads into more developed aspects of Nepalese business. Compared with Nepalese business as a whole, the financial sector appears relatively Westernised, although Nepal still lags India in its uptake of HR practices.

It appears unlikely from a cultural perspective that the devolvement of responsibility will be achieved as a result of HR strategy. National cultural, political and social factors continue to be highly influential in shaping the Nepalese business environment.

Few papers have explored HR practice in Nepal. This paper contributes to the overall assessment of HR uptake globally and highlights emic features impacting on that uptake.

The training that is necessary and appropriate for the training officer himself is of several distinct kinds. Basic is the need to acquire knowledge and skill in the actual subject matter, the context of the training that he is giving, such as accountancy, engineering, marketing and so on. Again there is knowledge and skill in the design and conduct of the training processes, be they called didactic, experiential, discovery, or whatever. We might call the above the technical expertise that the trainer brings to his job — a detailed grasp of what to teach, how to teach, who, when, and where. And yet none of this expertise is of much use unless the decision‐making line managers will play their part in allowing, and helping, it to become effective in the form of training courses actually wanted. So there is another dimension to the trainer's job which is not about training as such, and one which he shares with a wide range of different staff specialists. It is to the task of increasing the trainer's effectiveness, to empowering him, in his dealings with line managers, that this brief article is addressed. And it will surprise a few readers to learn that I don't see the scope for this in augmenting or brushing up his technical skills.