Managing human resource management tensions in project-based organisations: Evidence from Bangalore

Abstract

We examine human resource management (HRM) in a large Bangalore project-based software company. Diverse adaptations of organisation-level HRM exist in projects, generating heterogeneous HRM practices across the organisation, resulting in management–employee tensions. Paradoxes are managed through a comprehensive, detailed and complementary set of structural and relational coping mechanisms, designed to promote employee commitment. These mechanisms were only partially successful, largely because of ongoing client interventions in project management. The motivations for and directions of client interventions are closely linked to the type of work undertaken in projects. Service market imperatives limit managers' scope to negotiate such interventions.