| There is little evidence on the process of how business occupations, like human resources, increase their status and influence within an organizational setting and the effect that this has on the organization and the role of the occupation. In this ethnographic study, I examine the transformation of human resources to the role of strategic business partner during a change in the decision-making culture at Auto Parts Manufacturing (APM). The constant comparative method of Grounded Theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967; Strauss and Corbin 1990) was used to generate a theory of change and explain the transformation. I used three events, reconstructed from tape-recorded interviews with members from all levels of APM, to develop a three-stage process model. My analysis describes the process of human resource managers undergo to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to fulfill the role of strategic business partners.; The transformation was influenced by the cumulative effects of the following three events at APM: (1) human resources' involvement in various employee participation initiatives (e.g., quality circles), (2) the professionalization of human resources concerning team-based training and the recruitment of engineers and co-ops, and (3) the implementation of world class manufacturing process. By means of implementing and initiating decisions, human resources at APM shaped the three events that contributed to the transformation to strategic business partner.; Two theoretical perspectives, institutional theory and strategic rational choice theory provided some insight into the transformation that occurred at APM. Institutional theory accounted for the exogenous pressure on APM to change while strategic rational choice theory accounted for the endogenous pressures to change. Yet, each theoretical perspective only partially explained the organizational and occupational changes. I propose a new model (i.e., toggle process model of change) that better accounts for the interacting effects of organizational, as well as occupational forces, on the changing role of human resources. |
