Organizational Evolution and HRM: Evidence from Sweden

Abstract

In order to understand the change process of the new organizational structures in HR (see Ulrich,1997),this paper applies ecological perspective at organizational and population level suggested by Lovas & Ghoshal (2000) and provides a starting point for future research to apply what Lovas & Ghoshal (2000) called “Guided Evolution” perspective. The next objective of this paper is to check if it is possible to come up with a Key Success Factors (KSF) which would work across different business environments. it applies qualitative research technique where an interview questionnaire is prepared and four personal interviews are taken from three large Swedish companies with international scope. The data found are then compared with other secondary data to draw the final conclusion for the paper. The findings of this work suggest that, the whole change process corresponds to a “variation” cycle of the evolutionary process which should eventually move to a “selection” cycle. The choice and success of these new structures and roles are dependent on factors such as corporate strategies, adequate knowledge of HR or presence/absence of competition and finally suggest that success factors vary from environment to environment and thus it is not possible to come up with a set of Key Success Factors (KSF) which would work across cultures and business environments.

Keywords: HR Business Partner, HR Shared Service Center, Organizational Evolution, Changing Role of HR, Change Management