The emerging role of the human resource manager as strategic partner in South African organisations

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:South African organisations, just as in other countries, are fighting to gain acompetitive advantage over their competitors. In this struggle, humanresources have become the focus point of debate and intervention inorganisations. The task-related competencies of employees have suddenlybecome central with regard to the performance of organisations.This new-found importance with which human resources have been labeled,also has a spill-over effect on the importance of the human resources functionin organisations, especially the manager and leader thereof. The aim of thisstudy is to shed light on the strategic partnership role that senior humanresource managers currently play in South African organisations.Furthermore, a theoretical framework through which the concept of strategicpartnership can be understood and explored, is introduced.The data was collected by utilising a survey and consisted of adaptedversions of the Human Resources Role-assessment Survey (strategicpartner), the Human Resources Competencies Scale as well as scales thatmeasured the dimensions of strategic role motivation and strategic roleopportunity. The results of this study showed that on average, the senior human resource(HR) managers in South Africa rated themselves significantly higher on thestrategic partnership dimension than senior line managers rated them.Additionally, it seems that senior HR managers reported higher levels ofprofessional competencies than of business-related competencies. Asignificant positive relationship exists between professional competencies andbusiness-related competencies. There seems to be a significant positiverelationship between strategic partnership and strategic role motivation aswell as strategic partnership and strategic role opportunities within SouthAfrican organisations.Conclusions are drawn from the results and recommendations are made forfuture research.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University