Creating a Strategic Human Resources Organization: An Assessment of Trends and New Directions [Paperback]

Edward E. Lawler III (Author), Susan Albers Mohrman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0804747024 | ISBN-13: 978-0804747028 | Publication Date: March 13, 2003 | Edition: 1

Corporations are undergoing dramatic changes that have significant implications for how human resources are best managed and organized. There is growing consensus that human capital is critical to an organization’s success. But how should the HR function itself be organized? Is change in HR keeping pace with organizational change overall?

Creating a Strategic Human Resources Organization reports the findings from a 6-year longitudinal study of whether and how the HR functions in large corporations are responding to the challenges and opportunities posed by the changing business environment. The book identifies the changes that will be required in order for HR to become a true strategic partner, and suggests why, in too many companies, this transition is not occurring. It examines the paradoxical roles played in this transition by the focus on talent management and the application of IT capabilities, and proposes a new way of conceptualizing HR as providing three service lines. It finds that the most effective HR teams are substantially changing their mix of activities to become knowledge-based contributors to organizational strategy and effectiveness.

The authors conclude that HR is at a crossroads, and will either have to face up to these challenges or become a marginal contributor to corporate success.

The study was carried out at the Center for Effective Organizations in the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, and was funded by the Human Resource Planning Society and the corporate sponsors of the Center for Effective Organizations.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Corporations are undergoing dramatic changes that have significant implications for how human resources are best managed and organized. There is growing consensus that human capital is critical to an organization’s success. But how should the HR function itself be organized? Is change in HR keeping pace with organizational change overall?
Creating a Strategic Human Resources Organization reports the findings from a 6-year longitudinal study of whether and how the HR functions in large corporations are responding to the challenges and opportunities posed by the changing business environment. The book identifies the changes that will be required in order for HR to become a true strategic partner, and suggests why, in too many companies, this transition is not occurring. It examines the paradoxical roles played in this transition by the focus on talent management and the application of IT capabilities, and proposes a new way of conceptualizing HR as providing three service lines. It finds that the most effective HR teams are substantially changing their mix of activities to become knowledge-based contributors to organizational strategy and effectiveness.
The authors conclude that HR is at a crossroads, and will either have to face up to these challenges or become a marginal contributor to corporate success.
The study was carried out at the Center for Effective Organizations in the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, and was funded by the Human Resource Planning Society and the corporate sponsors of the Center for Effective Organizations.

About the Author

Edward E. Lawler III is the Director for the Center for Effective Organizations and a Distinguished Professor of Business at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California. He is the author or co-author of over 300 articles and 30 books. Susan A. Mohrman is senior research scientist at the Center for Effective Organizations at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California.

Product Details

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: Stanford Business Books; 1 edition (March 13, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804747024
• ISBN-13: 978-0804747028
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #706,011 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Edward E. Lawler III joined the faculty of Yale University after receiving his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1964. Three years later he was promoted to Associate Professor.

He moved to the University of Michigan in 1972 as Professor of Psychology and also became Program Director in the Survey Research Center at the Institute for Social Research. In 1978, he became a Professor in the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. That same year, he founded and became Director of the University's Center for Effective Organizations. He was named Professor of Research at the University of Southern California in 1982 and Distinguished Professor of Business in 1999.

Lawler has been honored as a major contributor to theory, research, and practice in the fields of human resources management, compensation, organizational development, corporate governance, and organizational effectiveness. He is the author and co-author of over thirty-eight books and more than three hundred articles, which have appeared in the Harvard Business Review, MIT-Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, USA Today, Strategy and Business, the Financial Times, and more than thirty other magazines, journals, and newspapers.

His most recent books include Rewarding Excellence (Jossey-Bass, 2000), Corporate Boards: New Strategies for Adding Value at the Top (Jossey-Bass, 2001), Organizing for High Performance (Jossey-Bass, 2001), Treat People Right (Jossey-Bass, 2003), Human Resources Business Process Outsourcing (Jossey-Bass, 2004), Achieving Strategic Excellence: An Assessment of Human Resource Organizations (Stanford Press, 2006), Built to Change (Jossey-Bass, 2006), The New American Workplace (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2006), and America at Work (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2006), Talent: Making People Your Competitive Advantage (Jossey-Bass, 2008), and Achieving Excellence in HR Management: An Assessment of Human Resource Organizations (Stanford Press, 2009) and Management Reset (Jossey-Bass, 2011).

Business Week has proclaimed Lawler one of the top six gurus in the field of management, and Human Resource Executive called him one of HR's most influential people. Workforce magazine identified him as one of the twenty-five visionaries who have shaped today's workplace over the past century. He has been a consultant to many corporations, including the majority of the Fortune 100, as well as governments at all levels.