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Reinventing human resource management: Business partners, internal consultants and the limits to professionalization

University of Sydney, c.wright2{at}econ.usyd.edu.au

The status of human resource management (HRM) and its standing as a managerial profession has been a recurring concern for practitioners over time. In recent years, a normative discourse has developed which asserts that the path to improved status for HR `professionals' involves reinvention of their role as `business partners' and `internal consultants' promoting enterprise competitiveness. This article examines how HR managers interpret this new role and whether the internalization of this model results in an increase in professional identity. The findings suggest that while many gain greater self-esteem and organizational status from the identity and role of business partner/internal consultant, this does not equate to a broader identity as a member of an HR `profession'. Two developments are central here. First, the focus on the business partner/ internal consultancy role has served to undermine any pretence to a unitary and cohesive occupational identity, as the bifurcation between routine transactional and strategic transformational activities encourages competition within the HR profession between different sub-groupings. Second, this strategy of redefinition has reduced the entry barriers demarcating HR activities and facilitated the entry of new occupational groups and rival managerial specialisms.

Key Words: business partner • human resource management • internal consultant • occupational identity • professionalization

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