Bilateral (Hong Kong): The professionalization of human resource management in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom

特许人事与发展学会（CIPD）和人力资源管理学会（IHRM）分别代表英国和香港人力资源实践的主要专业机构。在2008年至2010年期间，这两个机构都参与了对其资格、会员标准和持续人员发展证书的重大重组，以期提高人力资源管理专业的感知价值和影响力。在英国，在对人力资源的未来角色进行战略评估后，CIPD发布了一份新的职业地图，围绕10个专业能力领域、8个行为实践领域和4个专业过渡阶段（从入门级到主管级）构建。同样，在香港，人力资源管理协会推出了新的会员计划，该计划围绕知识、经验和能力的执业标准建立。与CIPD的专业地图一样，IHRM的专业标准模型提供了一个框架，帮助人力资源从业者导航职业道路，并绘制他们的发展需求。就CIPD而言，这一最新举措似乎象征着该学科在长期改革中的最新进展，即从被动的事务性支持活动转变为主动的战略功能。IHRM的动机也是类似的。此外，通过对过去两年IHRM活动和出版物的浏览，我们强烈地发现了一个受到“下一代人力资源”叙述启发的议程：的确，IHRM和CIPD在专业活动和合作项目上都有着强大且不断增长的交叉合作。然而，对于新议程的规范性内容将如何影响各级目标客户群的既定能力和工作经验，人们知之甚少。在提高人力资源从业者的理想地位的过程中，这些事务性职能会被边缘化吗？此外，新的专业标准是否有助于就什么是普遍的人力资源管理最佳实践建立更大的共识？对于一般的人力资源管理来说，人力资源实践的专业化一直是一个有争议的项目，因为它涉及到对本质上是“捕获”的管理职能的规范性制度合法性的授予，这可能会对其自身的成员基础以及其他组织同事产生重要的职业转变影响，这些同事的未来发展取决于人力资源职能能够在组织内产生的影响。因此，为了详细了解在香港和英国成为一名合格的人力资源从业者意味着什么，以及各自的专业机构在发展和维护这些理想方面所发挥的作用，本研究比较了两套专业标准的规范内容、制度影响和工作场所可信度。这些数据不仅可以及时独立地概述两国人力资源实践的现状，而且通过比较证据，还可以衡量人力资源是否正在实现超越一系列历史、文化、制度和经济因素的国际同质化的详细感觉。英国和香港团队将采用混合方法进行合作，包括分析核心文件、与两个专业机构的高级成员进行精英访谈、调查现有从业人员的态度和经验，以及旨在更深入地探讨参与者对人力资源实践的经验和期望背后的原因的后续访谈。从这些广泛的经验数据中，研究团队将能够考虑两个专业机构的规范性内容的工作场所相关性，以及在各种行业环境和不同级别的会员中。

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and the Institute of Human Resource Management (IHRM) represent the major professional institutes of human resource practice in the UK and Hong Kong respectively. Between 2008 and 2010 both bodies were involved in major restructuring of their qualifications, membership standards and continuous personnel development credentials with a view to increasing the perceived value and influence of the HRM profession. In the UK, following a strategic review leading to a vision of the future role of HR, the CIPD launched a new map of the profession built around ten professional areas of competence, eight behavioural areas of practice and four bands of professional transition, from entry-level to director. Likewise, in Hong Kong, the IHRM launched its new membership scheme which is built around the practicing standards of knowledge, experience and capability. Like the CIPD's professional map, the IHRM's professional standards model provides a framework to help navigate HR practitioners' career paths and map their development needs. In the case of the CIPD the latest move seems to symbolise the latest development in a long period of reforming the identity of the discipline away from a reactive transactional support activity into a proactive strategic function. The IHRM's motives are similar. Moreover, in scanning IHRM events and publications over the past two years strongly suggests an agenda inspired by the 'Next Generation HR' narrative: indeed, there is a strong and growing cross-collaboration between the IHRM and the CIPD in both professional events and collaborative projects. However, little is known about how the normative content of the new agenda will have to the stated abilities and workplace experiences of their targeted client base across all levels. In raising the aspired status of the HR practitioner, will those transactional functions be marginalised? In addition, will the new professional standards contribute to the establishment of a greater consensus as to what constitutes a universal best practice HRM? For HRM in general, the professionalization of HR practice has been a somewhat controversial project since it involves the granting of normative institutional legitimacy to what is essentially a 'captured' management function that could, by implication, have important career-changing implications for its own membership base and also for other organisational colleagues whose future development depends on the influence that the HR function is able to yield within organisations. Therefore, in seeking to provide a detailed insight into what it means to be a qualified HR practitioner in Hong Kong and the UK and the role that the respective professional institutes are exerting in developing and maintaining these ideals this study compares the normative content, institutional impact and workplace credibility of the two sets of professional standards arising. Not only will the data provide a timely independent overview of the current status of HR practice in both national contexts but, by comparing the evidence, it will also be possible to gauge a detailed sense of whether HR is achieving international homogeneity which overrides a range of historical, cultural, institutional and economic factors. Working collaboratively the UK and Hong Kong teams will deploy a mixed methodological approach comprising analysis of core documentation, elite interviews with senior members of the two professional institutes, survey of existing practitioners' attitudes and experiences and follow-up interviews designed to explore more deeply the explanations behind participants' experiences and expectations of HR practice. From this extensive range of empirical data the research team will be able to consider the workplace relevance of the normative content of the two professional institutes and from within a variety of industry settings and at different levels of membership.