Human Resource Management in Project-Based Organisations: Challenges and Changes

This thesis is about human resource management (HRM) in project-based organisations. Firms have over the last decades tended to rely increasingly on project-based structures. This process of projectification implies a changed work situation for individuals in modern organisations. Researchers from the project field of research as well as from the HRM field of research have pointed to possible implications that projectification might have for HRM. This thesis explores this area through a combination of multiple, comparative, and single case studies of project-based organisations. The studies aim at identifying and analysing the changes and challenges for HRM in this particular context. The studies are presented in four separate papers. The findings suggest a number of important and empirically nested challenges related to Competence, Trust, Change, and Individuals. Moreover, the changing roles of HR departments and line managers in the overall HR organisation are discussed and analysed. The thesis proposes alternative roles for line managers, depending on the organisational context, and it also proposes two ’ideal types’ of HR-departmental structures.