Exploring the implementation gap: organizational autonomy and line managers’ participation in human resource decision–making

ABSTRACT

This article explores the assumption that the level of human resource (HR) autonomy of an organisation influences line managers’ participation in HR decision-making, and it seeks to understand to what extent such a participation affects the effective implementation of HR practices. The results of an empirical study of HR policies and practices in three public hospitals in Pakistan reveal that greater level of HR autonomy of an organisation, with less pressure to comply with public personnel policies, leads to increased participation of middle managers in HR decision-making. This, in turn, helps to reduce the gap between the intended and implemented HR practices, which is important for human resource management (HRM) – organisational performance linkage. These findings contribute to ongoing discussions related to HRM in the public sector context and line management enactment of HR practices by highlighting the profound implications of the institutional context on the HR management of public hospitals. Additionally, this research proposes a bottom-up approach to HR practices, through its focus on the participation of managers in HR decision-making as a possible solution to better implementation of HR practices.

KEYWORDS:

• HR autonomy
• managers’ participation
• HR decision-making
• intended and implemented HR practices

Acknowledgements

The research is supported by an IRO scholarship for developing countries at KU Leuven. The data collection by the first author was supported by the FWO Flanders research Grant #K1D4419N. Support was provided by Prof. Dr. Nasira Jabeen, ex-director of the Institute of Administrative Sciences, University of Punjab, in data collection. Finally, we would like to thank the editor Jim Perry and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the previous drafts that significantly improve the quality of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In Hospital 1, besides institutional and MTI personnel, “civil servants” (named as such by the hospital) are permanent doctors recruited before 2002 through the Public Service Commission, a provincial body that follows standard public personnel policies. These civil servants are government employees, and the hospital can neither make nor implement HR policies addressing these employees, except for performance assessment. The hospital can only implement public personnel policies as outlined by the KPK Health Department. However, since there is only a very small group of civil servants (5%) in the hospital (Interview T1), we focus our analysis on the institutional and MTI employees.

2. A coding system identifies the respondents. First, the code refers to the position of the respondent (MM = middle manager, FLM = first-line manager, T = top management, HD = HR director, HA = hospital administration, PHD = Punjab Health Department). Second, the code refers to the hospitals (H1, H2, and H3), and finally, the number refers to the department in the hospital concerned.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek [K1D4419N].

Notes on contributors

Aneeqa Suhail

Aneeqa Suhail is a PhD scholar in final year at Public Governance Institute - KU Leuven. She is on IRO scholarship for developing countries. Her research interest includes HR Autonomy, Decentralisation, Human Resource Management (HRM) and Performance Linkage in the public sector.

Trui Steen

Trui Steen is a full Professor Public Governance at Public Governance Institute – KU Leuven. Her research interests include public sector professionalism, public service motivation, professional-citizen collaboration and co-production of public services, central-local government relations, and public sector innovation. She is co-chair of the IIAS study group on co-production of public services.