Customer Reviews

Achieving Strategic Excellence: An Assessment of Human Resource Organizations

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You will have to be interested in HR at a certain deep level to find this academic report compelling. It isn't that the material is wrong or unimportant. In fact, it is really good stuff. Rather, it is presented in an academic style (happily, mostly free of jargon) with lots of tables that will, if you don't know how to read them, cause your eyes to cross.

The gist of the report is that HR has not decreased it ratio to employees during the time of the report (1995-2005), that its tasks have increased because certain transactional operations are now done with IT HR systems (computers and software), that HR managers and the rest of management do see the role of HR differently, but not as differently as one might first expect, that outsourcing has increased for HR - but only for certain tasks, that outsourcing might be costing companies a strategic resource in their employee relationships, that HR needs to reinvent itself to become more of a business and strategic partner in the corporate power structure, and that such a re-invented HR function could very well be a value-add contributor to the success of the company.

One of the things the authors underscore again and again is that in more strategically focused companies, the HR function tends to be not only more strategically designed, but that it usually contributes more. Where the company is intensely focused on strategy, the HR function tends to be viewed as an administrative cost center.

Interesting for the right audience.

Co-authored by the team of Edward E. Lawler, III (Distinguished Professor of Business and Director of the Center for Effective Organizations in the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California), John W. Boudreau (Professor and Research Director at the Marshall School of Business and Center for Effective Organizations at University of Southern California), and Susan Albers Mohram (Senior Research Scientist at the Center for Effective Organizations at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California), and with the assistance of Alice Yee Mark, Beth Neilson, and Nora Osganian, Achieving Strategic Excellence: A Assessment Of Human Resource Organizations is a seminal study of the human resources functions and attributes in large corporations. Focusing on a range of relevant issues ranging from how Human Resources contributes to the value of corporations, to the use of information technology, Human Resources science, design, and activities, "outsourcing", and more, Achieving Strategic Excellence guides readers through diverse aspects of effectively managing of human capital. Achieving Strategic Excellence is very strongly recommended for MBA students corporate board members, CEOs, and Human Resource managers.

Between 1995 and 2004, the Center for Effective Organizations conducted periodic surveys of the role of human resource departments in large U.S. corporations. Edward E. Lawler III, John W. Boudreau, Susan Albers Mohrman and other researchers, analyze that study in this useful book. Although their style can get dry and academic (perhaps since they are all university faculty members), this work is by no means purely theoretical. It includes applicable, real-world information that shows how HR managers and other corporate leaders perceive the changing role of the organizational HR department. This study says corporate leaders have come to realize that human resource work adds strategic value, given the importance of skilled personnel. It is no news to insiders that HR has become far more than a cost center, but these authors explain why. getAbstract recommends this work to HR managers and other executives who have a professional and intellectual need to stay on top of HR trends - and who will fearlessly take on tables, statistics and the halls of academe in the quest for that knowledge.