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Although self-management is not a new phenomenon, there is a lack of understanding about how to transform organizations towards self-managing teams (SMTs). The purpose of this paper is to propose a guiding framework for how the empowerment process can be managed.

The paper sets out 12 guidelines on how to address the transition towards SMTs based on a case study at a large Dutch healthcare organization. The lessons are drawn from observations, documents and more than 55 interviews with key informants.

This paper provides a holistic overview of lessons learned from the transformation process towards SMTs. The 12 recommendations are targeted at four stakeholder groups, namely, the management/board, HRM department, coach-managers and members of the SMTs.

The originality lies in the systematic approach including lessons learned for all levels of the organization.

Driven by the rapidly accelerating pace of technology-enabled developments within human resource management (HRM), human resource (HR) analytics is infiltrating the research and business agenda. As one of the first in its field, the purpose of this paper is to explore what the future of HR analytics might look like.

Using a sample of 20 practitioners of HR analytics, based in 11 large Dutch organizations, the authors investigated what the application, value, structure, and system support of HR analytics might look like in 2025.

The findings suggest that, by 2025, HR analytics will have become an established discipline, will have a proven impact on business outcomes, and will have a strong influence in operational and strategic decision making. Furthermore, the development of HR analytics will be characterized by integration, with data and IT infrastructure integrated across disciplines and even across organizational boundaries. Moreover, the HR analytics function may very well be subsumed in a central analytics function – transcending individual disciplines such as marketing, finance, and HRM.

The results of the research imply that HR analytics, as a separate function, department, or team, may very well cease to exist, even before it reaches maturity.

Empirical research on HR analytics is scarce, and studies on scenarios, values, and structures of expected developments in HR analytics are non-existent. This research intends to contribute to a better understanding of the development of HR analytics, to facilitate business and HR leaders in taking informed decisions on investing in the further development of the HR analytics discipline. Such investments may lead to an enhanced HR analytics capability within organizations, and cultivate the fact-based and data-driven culture that many organizations and leaders try to pursue.

The purpose of this paper is to derive a measure for the performance of human resource shared service providers (HR SSPs) and then to develop a theoretical framework that conceptualises their performance.

This conceptual paper starts from the HR shared services argument and integrates this with the knowledge‐based view of the firm and the concept of intellectual capital.

The authors recommend measuring HR SSP performance as HR value, referring to the ratio between use value and exchange value, that together reflect both transactional and transformational HR value. They argue that transactional HR value directly flows from the organisational capital in HR SSPs, whereas human and social capitals enable them to leverage their organisational capital for HR value creation. The authors argue that the human capital of HR SSPs has a direct effect on transformational HR value creation, while their social and organisational capitals positively moderate this relationship.

The suggested measure paves the way for operationalising and measuring the performance of HR shared services providers. This paper offers testable propositions for the relationships between intellectual capital and the performance of HR shared service providers. These contributions could assist future research to move beyond the descriptive nature that characterises the existing literature.

The purpose of this paper is to derive a measure for the performance of human resource shared service providers (HR SSPs) and then to develop a theoretical framework that conceptualises their performance.

This conceptual paper starts from the HR shared services argument and integrates this with the knowledge‐based view of the firm and the concept of intellectual capital.

The authors recommend measuring HR SSP performance as HR value, referring to the ratio between use value and exchange value, that together reflect both transactional and transformational HR value. They argue that transactional HR value directly flows from the organisational capital in HR SSPs, whereas human and social capitals enable them to leverage their organisational capital for HR value creation. They argue that the human capital of HR SSPs has a direct effect on transformational HR value creation, while their social and organisational capitals positively moderate this relationship.

The suggested measure paves the way for operationalising and measuring the performance of HR shared services providers. The paper offers testable propositions for the relationships between intellectual capital and the performance of HR shared service providers. These contributions could assist future research to move beyond the descriptive nature that characterises the existing literature.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the differences and similarities in the HRM frames of middle-level managers and HR professionals, and to uncover the roots and contents of (dis)agreements in the HRM frames among HR professionals and middle-level managers.

An explorative case study performed in a Dutch homecare organization explored the reasons for the different roots and dynamics of the cognitive frames of HR professionals and middle-level managers.

The research shows that these differences originate in the lack of clarity concerning the experienced philosophy and goals of HRM, leading to different client foci, in the inertia- and intuition-based execution of HRM practices and in the seemingly large distance between central and local HRM administrative functions. The alignment of HRM frames developed from being congruent in the HRM vision towards incongruence in daily HRM execution.

This research confirms that HR professionals and middle-level managers have different HRM frames that encompass knowledge, assumptions and expectations. Congruent thinking by both social groups can lead to a better HRM system and to changes in HRM processes, enabling easier progress.

The purpose of this paper is to present the concept of human resource management (HRM) frames, to identify frame domains, and to explore their role in implementing HRM innovation. HRM innovation implementation is considered through the theoretical lens of social cognitive theory, and defined as a process for achieving the appropriate and committed use of HRM innovation by targeted employees.

An explorative case study in a construction company is conducted to illustrate the role of HRM frames in the implementation of HRM innovations. Interviews are held with 21 line managers and human resource (HR) specialists, and intensive document analysis added further data. Respondents described their understanding, assumptions and expectations of a new HRM programme, which enabled analysis of the contents of interview transcripts.

Four HRM frame domains are identified: strategic motivation, essence of HRM innovation, HRM innovation‐in‐practice and ownership. Where the HRM frames are significantly different, difficulties and conflicts in HRM innovation implementation are observed. Empirical findings illustrated how the nature, value and reasons behind the HRM innovation are interpreted by HR specialists and line managers, and that incongruent frames resulted in outcomes that deviated from those expected.

This paper takes a process‐based approach and considers the implementation of HRM in organisations rather than focusing on factor‐based research into HRM practices. It shows how the implementation of HRM is constructed through social‐cognitive interpretations by organisational members.

Both for‐profit and not‐for‐profit organisations have been replacing face‐to‐face HRM activities with web‐based HRM tools, e‐HRM for short, for employees and managers since the 1990s. This paper aims to look at whether this is of benefit to an organisation.

The study was conducted in the Ministry of Internal Affairs in The Netherlands, where e‐HRM in the form of employee self‐service applications was introduced.

The study shows that individual assessment of e‐HRM applications influences HRM technical and strategic effectiveness. This is especially so in the perceived quality of the content and the structure of e‐HRM applications which have a significant and positive effect on technical and strategic HRM effectiveness.

It is difficult to form generalizations from the research into only one company.

The basic expectations are that using e‐HRM will decrease costs, will improve the HR service level and will give the HR department space to become a strategic partner. This study investigates whether this is the case.

The area on which this study concentrates has not had extensive academic research conducted into it.

Despite the growing belief that multilevel research is necessary to advance human resource management (HRM) understanding, there remains a lack of multilevel thinking – the application of principles for multilevel theory building. The purpose of this paper is to propose a systematic approach for multilevel HRM research.

The paper proposes an agenda for multilevel HRM research by addressing three obstacles (concerning questions, theories and methods) that impede advancement in this field.

The paper provides an inclusive definition of multilevel HRM research that serves to advance its use, and maps out a multilevel HRM research landscape that captures the various aspects of this concept. The paper identifies unanswered multilevel questions within 16 research domains and develops a systematic approach to tackle these research questions by invoking three relevant theories and methodologies.

Some of the identified research questions could not be answered due to limitations in mainstream multilevel theories and methodologies. In response, this paper proposes theories and methodologies that can address some of the multilevel HRM research questions identified in this paper.

The findings can help HRM academics working on cross-disciplinary and cross-level research problems with a clearly structured approach to what multilevel HRM research is and what steps should be taken in conducting such research.

The originality lies in the systematic approach that precisely describes multilevel HRM research, and addressing obstacles that inhibit rigorous and relevant multilevel HRM research by highlighting relevant research questions, theories and methodologies.

HR shared service centers (SSCs) have been claimed to innovate human resource management service delivery by centralizing resources and decentralizing control and, in doing so, create value for other business units. In response, to explain the value of HR shared services for the business units served, the purpose of this paper is to test hypotheses on the joint influence of HR SSC operational and dynamic capabilities and of control mechanism usage by the business units.

A survey methodology was applied to collect data among business unit representatives from 91 business units in 19 Dutch organizations. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling in AMOS.

This study found that the use of formal control mechanisms (e.g. contracts, service-level agreements) relates negatively with HR shared service value, but that this relationship becomes positive once mediated by informal control mechanisms (e.g. trust and shared language) and operational HR capabilities. Furthermore, it shows that the dynamic capabilities of HR SSCs relate positively to HR shared service value for the business units, but only because of their effect on operational capabilities.

Whereas previous studies into HR SSCs have examined the two antecedents independently, this study shows how organizational control and capabilities interrelate in explaining the value of HR shared services.