Abstract
The organizational structure has a significant impact on how human resource management (HRM) is organized and the role it plays within companies. The project structured organization is aimed at responding to different organizational needs with distinct deliverables, which creates challenges for the HRM that relate to competence organization, trust achievement, change management and individual development. This writing represents a dissertation proposal, which is meant to identify effective human resource management in project structured organization. The challenges of the HRM in this type of organization will represent an important starting point for delineating the solutions to overcome them, reaching effective HRM for the project based organizations. For testing the theories presented in the literature review, there will be conducted a research, based on the participative observation methodology, which will allow the description and mapping of a project structured organization. The gathered results will contribute to enriching the knowledge in the field of HRM designed to fit project structured organizations.
Key words: Human resource management (HRM), project structured organization, challenges, solution, effective HRM, participative observation.
As the business world of the 21st century is becoming more and more focused on effectiveness as a means of reaching resource optimization and enhanced competitiveness, companies are approaching the project structured organization, which better responds specific goals (Wilson, 2015). The proposed dissertation will focus on the features of project structured organizations, aiming to identify its advantages and disadvantages for delineating effective human resource management strategies that would maximize the benefits of this type of organization. Therefore, the research will focus on the question how can human resource management be effectively implemented in project structured organizations for maximizing firms’ results?
The project will be structures in five chapters. These are introduction, which will define the context and the need for researching this topic, literature review, presenting the existing studies that would allow a better understanding of the examined issue, methodology, employing participative observation design, analysis and conclusions. A preview of this organization is displayed in this dissertation proposal.
Literature Review
A clear understanding of the project structured organization is required, and for this reason the dissertation will focus on providing comprehensive definitions that refers to this organization’s attributes. For defining this concept, Nagaraja (2004) focuses on the role of project manager, who has total control over the resources and departments that are part of the project. Wilson (2015) refers to the fact that the projectized organization structure is specific to companies that have many deliverables, which creates the need for operational activities to be grouped in specific projects.
This section will also need to address the role of human resource management activities in the project structured organizations. In a project – based organization, HRM faces different challenges than in other types of organizations, because the resources are organized and controlled by the project leader (Bredin, 2006; Nagaraja, 2004). The dissertation will provide a detailed attention to the challenges of HRM in a project structured organization, in order to understand how it can overcome them, through effective approaches. Bredin (2006) is a consistent source for defining the main HRM challenges in a project structured organization, which consist in defining and developing core competence, achieving mutual trust in a temporary project, facing change and supporting the individual development.
Amy Kates and Downey Kates (2012) state that not only the structure in an organization, but also the existing capabilities and the situation of the company are factors that need to be considered for effectively designing HRM strategies. For addressing the collective nature of the project structured organization, Klimoski, Dugan, Messikomer and Cioccho (2014) recommend an interplay to be applied, which would position the HRM in a multidimensional setting. Effective HRM in project – structured organizations can imply developing generalist skills or outsourcing, where the competences do not exist internally, but these strategies need to be aligned with the project manager and the general manager, which describes the multidimensional approach (Bredin, 2006).
Methodology
The study will be conducted based on a qualitative research method, namely the participative observation. This method allows the collection and interpretation of data through participating in the examined setting (Latimer, 2003). The company on which this method will be applied will be structured in a project management organization.
Analysis
The data will be gathered based on the observations made in the project based organizational environment, focusing on the interaction with project manager, workers, tasks and resources. For analyzing the gathered data, the description and mapping procedures will be used in order to identify findings regarding the effective HRM in project structured organization (Kawulich, 2005).
Conclusion
The dissertation will provide a summary of the literature findings and confront them with the results achieved through the participative observation research. Points of conflict or confirmed theory will be highlighted in this section, along with a set of recommendations for further research, based on the limitations of the study.
References
Bredin, K. (2006) Human resource management in project – based organisations: Challenges and changes. Linköping: University of Linköping.
Kates, A. & Kates. D. (2012) (Re)Designing the HR organization. Human Resource Planning. 29(2): 22 – 30.
Kavulich, B.B. (2005) Participant observation as data collection method. Forum: Qualitative Social Research. 6(2): 1 – 22.
Klimoski, R.J., Dugan, B., Messikomer, C. & Chiocchio, F. (2014) Advancing human resource project management. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Latimer, J. (2003) Advanced qualitative research for nursing. Oxford: Blackwell Science Ltd.
Nagarajan, K. (2004) Project management. New Delhi: New Age International (P) Limited Publishers.
Wilson, R. (2015) Mastering project management strategy and processes. New Jersey: Pearson Education Ltd.
