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Employee Relations
Attempts to advance the role of training: process and context

Jerry Hallier and Stewart Butts
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Jerry Hallier and Stewart Butts, (2000),"Attempts to advance the role of training: process and context",
Employee Relations, Vol. 22 Iss 4 pp. 375 - 402
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Attempts to advance the role Attempts to

advance the role
of training: process of training
and context
Jerry Hallier and Stewart Butts 375
University of Stirling, Stirling, UK Received February 2000
Revised/Accepted
Keywords Trainers, Roles, Status, Influence, Line management, Training April 2000
Abstract While HRM has stimulated studies assessing the extent of UK training, there has
been little sustained research into trainer roles and influence. Using semi-structured interviews
with trainers in public and private sector organizations, considers the assumptions and tactics
that trainers use to enhance their influence. Shows that, at a rudimentary level of service,
attendant approaches to build credibility with line management locks training into a subservient
position. Likewise, while shared threats can close some of the status gap between training and line
management, alliance tactics are insufficient to improve the general status of trainers. High
status training is not achieved by a progressive passage through a common sequence of mobility
stages. It develops from a supportive training culture where trainers develop new ways to assess
their organizational contribution on conventional performance criteria and from charismatic
trainers innovating training knowledge. Continually reinventing their contribution, however,
means that high status remains conditional.
Introduction
Since the mid-1980s concerns about the relationship between training and
national economic and organizational performance have brought the issue of
training to the fore in the debate about a ``human resource management
revolution'' (Ashton and Felstead, 1995). In the emphasis on continuous
development for flexible skills and on nurturing organizational cultures
responsive to changeable formal aims, training in any version of HRM was
promoted as critical to achieving both workforce commitment and hard
business success. Yet, while HRM has acted as a stimulus to studies assessing
the extent of UK training investment, interest in the activity and influence of
trainers has been less extensive. On the one hand, there has been no shortage of
prescriptions about trainers' roles and activities, but equally there have been
few empirical studies of how they set about developing their influence and
contribution to the organization.
In fact, what is known about how trainers approach their roles stems
mainly from work conducted in the 1980s. For example, Coopers and Lybrand's
(1985) study of managerial attitudes towards employee training provided
compelling, if indirect, evidence of the difficulty that trainers face in
progressing to a change-agent role given the low regard in which training was
generally held in the UK. Around the same time, Pettigrew et al. (1982)
developed a typology for describing the roles of training specialists which has
remained in use up to the present. They posited five roles performed by Employee Relations,
Vol. 22 No. 4, 2000, pp. 375-402.
training specialists, namely: # MCB University Press, 0142-5455
Employee (1) the passive provider; and
Relations (2) the provider whose roles range from course administration to running
22,4 senior management development workshops;
(3) the training manager who is in charge of a well-established training
function with several reporting specialist trainers;
376 (4) a transition role where the `òrganization'' recognises the need for
training to act as an agent of change; and
(5) the established change agent.
Since then, Sloman (1994) has refined the typology by adding the internal
training consultant to the original framework.
Research into trainer roles has not progressed much beyond the formulation
of this and similar typologies (see, for example, McLagen and McCullough,
1983; Stewart, 1996). However, recently there has been new interest shown in
the aspirations of trainers and the influence of the training function. Pettigrew
et al.'s (1982) ``role in transition'' category is currently seen as especially
important. According to Stewart et al. (1999), training, increasingly, is a
mainstay of many organizations' change interventions. Nijhof and deRik (1997)
also found that the role of change agent was chosen by the largest number of
UK trainers as their most important role. Yet, despite this talk of a higher
profile for training, there is still little hard evidence showing that large
numbers of employers accept the importance of training to organizational
success or, for that matter, that most trainers have successfully transformed
themselves into change agents (Hallier and Butts, 1999). Nevertheless, these
commentaries on the role of trainers are useful to the extent that they closely
parallel the HRM debate's wider interest in change in the personnel role
towards a more strategic involvement in organizational decision making.
Despite the fact that there has been less attention given to trainers, many of the
questions in the current debate about personnel specialists' roles could be said
to inform the type of investigations now needed to study how trainers develop
their activities and influence.
Personnel and training role frameworks

Of most interest here has been the question of whether the personnel function
should assume a more strategic role (Proctor and Currie, 1999; Ulrich, 1997).
With the rise of HRM the long-standing debate about the role of the personnel
function has taken on a new urgency over the last decade. In particular, HRM
ideas have been seen as both an opportunity for personnel specialists to extend
their strategic influence, as well as something that may undermine the very
existence of the function (Torrington, 1998). Of central concern has been the
question of whether or not the personnel function is, or should be, making
``decisions which have a major and long-term effect on the behaviour of the firm
as opposed to day-to-day operating decisions'' (Purcell, 1989, p. 67). In trying to
answer this question, both academics and practitioners have acknowledged the
existence of a range of operational and interventionary personnel roles, with Attempts to
Storey (1992) classifying these as handmaiden, regulator, adviser and advance the role
changemaker. of training
In terms of the personnel function's organizational contribution, there are
parallels apparent between Storey's roles and Pettigrew's training typology.
This coincidence is particularly noticeable in the way that personnel's roles are
constructed on the basis of practitioner intervention, and the function's level of 377
operation. Thus, at the non-strategic level, Storey's handmaiden role is non-
interventionary whereas the regulator displays some interventionary capacity.
Correspondingly, a distinction between non-intervention and intervention is
made at the strategic level between the roles of advisor and changemaker.
These classifications are also seen, like Pettigrew's training framework, as
relatively independent roles that reflect the considerable variation in
importance given to personnel issues by management. Yet, despite these role

variations, the rise in the HRM debate has meant that not all personnel roles
have been regarded as equally important.
Since the beginning of the 1990s, most attention has been given to the
``changemaker'' or strategic interventionist as the role to which personnel
should aspire. In this account, personnel should be attempting to focus on
activities that influence the long-term behaviour of the organization rather than
purely on those affecting day-to-day operations. More recently, however, this
emphasis has been questioned, with doubts being expressed about the
independence of Storey's classifications and the suggestion that, in reality, the
personnel function will adopt multiple roles that represent a blend of
operational and strategic priorities. Writers such as Wilkinson and
Marchington (1994) and Ulrich (1997) have been influential here in arguing that
instead of personnel activity reflecting a single or predominant role, it is more
likely that a range of personnel roles will surface in the same organization. In
this respect, Proctor and Currie's (1999) case research in the health service has
been especially useful in showing how the personnel function can possess a
host of possible roles that reflect a combination of innovative and regulative
priorities. Thus, there may be choices available between areas like recruitment,
assessment and reward in terms of the tactical or strategic emphasis that
personnel practitioners adopt.
Conceivably, corresponding questions are relevant to understanding the
roles of aspiring training functions. But while Pettigrew's descriptions of
trainer roles represent a useful starting point, like Storey's equivalent model,
they fail to capture the variation in experience of trainers attempting to
advance their function's role from different positions and in varying contexts.
Little account is given to how trainers set about the development of
relationships and the extent to which they are able to evolve their role through
different approaches to negotiation with the line. The typology instead posits
independent roles that say little about the aspirations and processes by which
trainers set about their role or raising the influence of their function. Indeed,
Pettigrew lumps such issues within a single role, namely the ``role in
Employee transition'', where it is assumed that attempts by trainers to increase their
Relations influence will only be salient when the organization is ready to accept training's
22,4 change agent role. The reality, however, may be that irrespective of the role, all
trainers to a greater or lesser extent may see themselves as occupying
transitional positions.
This is a crucial issue that limits the usefulness of the existing typology, not
378 least because it was Pettigrew (1985) who highlighted the general problem of
legitimising the trainer's change agent role when faced with line management
disinterest and opposition. As with personnel professionals, we cannot assume
that all trainers have to do is to decide to extend the activities of the training
function. More likely, the success or failure of such projects will depend on their
choice of relational tactics, the agenda pursued, and the assumptions that
inform the function's approach to building key relationships in the
organization. As with many personnel areas, it should also be borne in mind

that trainers cannot act independently of the managerial climate that prevails.
Thus, the tactics adopted will also have to be pursued within the resourcing
and value constraints set by the formal organization and locally by middle
managers. And in this respect, training functions may be particularly
disadvantaged. While Proctor and Currie (1999) believe that personnel
specialists can often find considerable room for manoeuvre within such broad
restraints, there are reasons to believe that this may be less possible for
trainers.
Personnel versus training authority

It is likely that more role choices are available to the personnel function because
many of its sub-areas are not only necessary organizational functions, but also
ones that possess some legal imperative, and crucially offer varying potential
to become central organizational priorities. However low their status, personnel
functions also often possess a modicum of formal authority. The source of this
authority stems from their ability, in some situations, to grant or withhold
rewards and sanctions to line managers. For example, personnel specialists
sometimes have authority over line managers in the authorisation of vacancies
and in terms of validating promotion and merit pay recommendations. Even
such modest authority is sometimes found to provide some room to operate
outside of the support of line managers. In Proctor and Currie's study,
therefore, personnel was able to live with some resentment from department
managers when some aspects of recruitment were forcibly passed to the line
organization. In contrast, training has no corresponding areas of recognised
authority. Because at a low level of status training may be seen as an
inessential activity, the very same organizational restraints facing personnel
specialists may ultimately impose greater limitations on the choice of tactics
available to trainers and on the possible outcomes. Getting things done in
training, therefore, depends mainly on securing the cooperation of others
through the building of relational power (Garavan et al., 1993). In this sense, the
foundation from which to begin evolving the influence of training may be more
fragile than is commonly the case with the personnel function. This is Attempts to
especially pertinent when training and personnel are organized as separate advance the role
functions. Conceivably, where the importance of HRM means that personnel of training
has a strategic role, a halo effect may spread to the training function. Equally,
the problems facing training may be exacerbated by a poor personnel
reputation.
In drawing these themes together, the aim of the present article is to explore 379
trainers' efforts to expand their role, and especially the relationship between
their choice of negotiating tactics and particular settings. Using the accounts of
a sample of trainers operating in varying types of organization, we consider the
assumptions they make about how change to their role is achieved and how
these guide their efforts to evolve their status in the organization and with line
managers. In the next section we present the research procedure, method and
analysis employed in the study. Thereafter, we offer findings on the

assumptions and tactics by which these trainers attempted to enhance their
power and influence. In the conclusion section we return to the issues raised at
the beginning of the article and show how our analysis refines understanding
of trainers' experiences of developing their influence and activities.
Research procedure and analysis

Fieldwork took place between March and June 1999. The research sought to
advance understanding of how organizational trainers attempt to influence the
management of training from different levels of standing and influence within
organizations. We therefore concentrated on trying to identify and explain
critical processes and contexts in which organizational trainers choose and
apply functional mobility tactics. As already noted, Pettigrew et al'.s typology
is mainly a framework of observable role content. Since their framework tends
not to focus on how particular role tactics become selected and experienced, its
role categories may have little meaning for trainers anxious to advance the
function's influence and contribution. Bearing these limitations in mind, we
consciously avoided using this or any other existing typology of training roles
to guide the analysis of our data. Instead, formulations of role influence in
training were allowed to emerge from trainers' own accounts. Our objective
was to understand the personal and living subjectivities attached to these
trainers' role orientations and the rationales behind their attempts to advance
their status and influence. While the basic aims were sketched out from issues
identified in the existing training literature, the study was essentially an
exploratory investigation that inductively allowed ideas to emerge. Our
emphasis on trainers' experiences of trying to influence their organizations'
training cultures, thus, owes much to Starkey's (1990) view that in the early
stages of a research area, and particularly ones involving complex transitions,
advances are most likely if pursued by inductive, grounded methods.
Contextualised, inductive studies are critical to the initial development of
Employee descriptive and analytical frameworks (Zuboff, 1988), after which hypotheses
Relations can be tested and refined by large-scale investigations enabling further
22,4 concepts to be developed.
Because we wanted to build a picture of the processes involved in trainers'
attempts to advance the value of training, the generalisations sought were
about theoretical propositions and not populations. The requirement was not to
380 establish a random or representative sample but rather to identify trainers who
had information about the processes under examination. The data,
consequently, were gathered on a non-probability sampling basis. To do this
trainers were contacted in a wide range of public and private organizations
based in Scotland and which reflected considerable diversity in operation and
service delivered. Trainers from 26 organizations agreed to participate in the
research. These organizations were evenly split between the public and private
sectors. The largest public sector organizations were five local authorities that
employed between 5,000 and 15,000 employees. The private sector
organizations reflected an assortment of businesses including financial
services, manufacturing and utilities employing between 500 and 5,000
workers. Informants varied in their responsibility for training. At one extreme,
trainers were responsible for the career planning and management
development while, at the other, they performed a largely co-ordinating role
where most training was devolved to line managers. Relatively large
organizations were chosen for the study because they were likely to employ
trainers within a specialist function. Trainers were usually located at corporate
or HQ level.
To explore how attempts to advance the influence of training in different
contexts were experienced by trainers, semi-structured interviews were used.
The interviews were framed by a number of core question areas (e.g. history of
the department, structure of the function, current role and training agenda,
perceived influence and status), while also encouraging individuals to raise and
explore issues critical to how they experienced attempts to advance the training
function. Interviewees expressed their own versions of what occurred and
assigned their own emphasis. This also enabled the interviewers to probe
issues that initial hunches had suggested might be important. All of the
interviews were audio taped and transcribed. The length of interviews ranged
from one to three hours, but on average lasted about 70 minutes. Anonymity
was guaranteed to interviewees and their organizations.
Before embarking on the analysis, the researchers became thoroughly
familiar with the data. This involved several readings of all interview texts,
company documents and observational notes. The audio tapes were also
listened to in order to take account of any nuances of speech, tones of voice and
other paralinguistic features. Analysis of the data adopted what Glaser and
Strauss (1967) term grounded theory. The analysis was thus cyclical in nature,
namely there was a search for meaningful themes and categories using
immersion in the data, cutting and re-arranging which was repeatedly
compared with the original textual data. Careful descriptions of the data were
made which enabled categories in which to place behaviours and processes to Attempts to
be developed. After initial organization of the data, the key themes that advance the role
emerged were interrogated for ``fit'' and interpretations refined or completely of training
reformulated where necessary. No preconceptions were imposed but through
``constant comparison'' of the data and by being alert to the possibility of
contrasts and disconfirming data, the processes by which advancement was
tackled in different contexts emerged. 381
Building value from the ground floor
Notable among our sample of organizations were training departments which
functioned at a rudimentary level of operation, influence and status. By this we
mean that they only administered the delivery of training programmes and
services. Ultimately, the way that trainers saw the problem of advancing
training in this type of organization stemmed from the fact that training was
seen as a marginalised specialist role and not always as a credible management
function. That is to say, the training function either had been set up recently
with still much to do to develop its standing with management, or,
alternatively, it had been established for some years but was tarnished by a
poor reputation or from being seen as part of a weak or discredited personnel
department. In the private sector, a typical example was the case of a diverse
and well-established retail group we call RTG. In recent years RTG had
changed its strategy in response to falling profits by moving out of some of its
established business areas in order to concentrate upon those with most
potential for growth. Historically, the company had always been hierarchically
structured and centrally controlled with few expectations of training. Hitherto,
decisions about training courses and activities had been made on an ad hoc
basis by senior management but in the new environment there were increasing
complaints from middle managers about the relevance of what was being done
and over what was really needed at lower levels. In response to these
difficulties and calls for change within management, a training manager was
recruited to take charge of training across the organization.
Trainers in this kind of organization saw the first step to advancing their
role as requiring the development of reliable course provision. The new head of
training at RTG, for example, initially saw the task of advancing the status and
credibility of the new function as one of gaining trust with divisional and
departmental managers. Essentially, establishing line management's respect
was seen to require that managers be seen as sovereign consumers of training
products. Thus, trainers consciously adopted an attendant role in which any
and all line manager demands for courses would be met. In this sense, the
preferred initial task of credibility building was to present the function as a
``training shop'' where management customers could be assured that their
requests would be fulfilled. Trainers were placed within each division as a
liaison between operations and training to collate the training requests and
help develop the training function's agenda. Response time was seen as critical
here and so the training cycle of planning and delivery was split into three
Employee periods of four months, in order to be able to speedily process management
Relations requests. Yet, in adopting this attendant role, trainers recognised that what was
22,4 being delivered fell far short of targeting training to meet organizational
priorities. The following comments from two training staff illustrate
graphically the ``can do'' and the ``customer is always right'' rationale essential
to the training shop approach:
382
We developed a system where line managers could request any training they wanted. We
went through a year of just responding to everything, which meant that we were tearing
about. And yet it could be said that we probably weren't doing the priority training for the
business. We took the stance that, if line managers wanted it, we would deliver it and then we
would slowly get to know exactly what they needed, not what the managing director thought
they needed.
We are completely customer-driven. If they want a training course that's not in the training
directory as well there is a system in place that they can request it. So we can do butchered
versions or combined versions of other courses. So if there is a course on communication and
one on assertiveness we can combine it. And we will just deliver basically what they want.
Among the public sector training staff who were attempting to improve the
standing of training in their organizations, a similar customer-oriented
approach to developing trust among operational managers was also detectable.
In some local authorities, for example, attitudes to training were seen by
trainers to be primarily influenced by the role of professional groups such as
teachers and social workers. Despite the fact that legislation imposes particular
qualifications and continuous professional development as essential to the
performance of certain jobs, the core agenda for professional training was still
seen to be set nationally by these powerful occupational groups. Moreover,
given an emphasis on delivering services rather than developing staff, there
had been limited opportunities to train manual and clerical employees. Like
RTG, this focus on local concerns was felt to limit the relevance that training
had to local authority strategy. In one local authority, for example, the focus
was upon delivering a long-standing menu of training courses, supplemented
with some new developments which indirectly reflected external challenges to
the organization.
We have a short course programme, which is not the central focus, but the bottom line is that
there is a demand for it. So we run a wide range of courses from basic management skills
through to how to run meetings, telephone skills and financial controls. Quite a few at the
moment on Best Value. Other key areas at the moment are working towards IIP. That's about
saying ``have we got the various bits and pieces in place that would be required to satisfy the
requirements?''
Despite these efforts to build credibility on the back of a response service to

middle managers, the picture in these local authorities was of a low status and
low-influence training function. In being attendants to mainly professional
concerns, moving forward was seen to be especially constrained by long
traditions of being unable to demonstrate the contribution of training to
improving public services:
Success in training is when what has been learned is actually transferred back to the work Attempts to
setting and this comes back to evaluation. I am not convinced that what we do makes much
difference, which is a very sad thing for a head of training to say. I know that it makes a advance the role
difference to individuals. I doubt much of that actually makes a change to the bottom line in of training
an organisation with umpteen layers of management and 12 different disciplines and
professions all coming together. I tend to think of it as a federation of businesses, not as one
organisation. I need to be able to prove that we are making a difference to the consumers of
the services that the council provides. I have no way of doing that at the moment. 383
Whether it be public or private sector training, a low level of organizational
credibility was frequently reflected in management acts that not only
undermined training delivery but also reinforced the marginal and subservient
status of the function. Last minute cancellations of staff attending training
courses, for example, were common. Trainers are well versed in explanations
for this, all of which serve to promote the function's marginal and subservient
position:
They're too busy. Have too much work to do. If it's the employee the excuse is ``My manager
has given me something important to do'', which is usually urgent, and if it's the manager
``They are much too busy, so and so is off sick and has been for the last six weeks''. Of course,
nobody thought to tell us until the day before because someone has just decided to open that
particular piece of mail, somebody else is off sick and they have to cover so it's almost the
employee taking responsibility for management decision because the managers, themselves,
haven't made it.
In the public sector especially, the outcome of this unequal relationship was
that trainers felt insecure much of the time and possessed a somewhat
beleaguered view of their world:
The easy option when one is looking for cuts, is the training budget. Being local government
there is always cost cutting because there is the perception that we sit in here with our feet up
on the desk, drinking tea, spending public money and generally messing around. So there is
constant pressure from the public, there's constant pressure from the Scottish Office and
Government to cut costs and we are an easy option, because there is not a public output for
training.
In both the case of RTG and these local authority examples, what these
accounts highlight is the fact that once the attendant tactic has become
embedded, it may become difficult to re-cast the essentially subservient picture
that management now has of the training function. Leduchowicz (1984) has
called this situation a role lock. This means that while the forging of a
customer-attendant relationship is widely seen by trainers as essential to
negotiating credibility from the ground floor, not least because line managers
are the primary customers for training product, the training function's
reputation can actually become tied to the delivery of courses on demand.
Critical to the role lock, here, is the fact that line managers have a limited notion
of what training should do and expect it to be confined to scheduling course
delivery. Having no real input into determining training priorities means that
this attendant tactic acts as a barrier to the type of negotiated redefinition
necessary if the function is to advance further.
Employee Legitimate extension tactics
Relations Any attempt by trainers to evolve their role and make their activities more
22,4 effective and more closely linked to delivering appropriate services was seen as
dependent not only on eliciting the co-operation of line managers, but also on
convincing them that they have new responsibilities towards developing staff.
But in trying to tackle the question of how they might break away from the
384 attendant role, trainers often faced a host of unexpected problems. Prominent
among these was the question of how long they should wait before attempting
to innovate. Trainers felt that before they could feel confident enough to launch
interventions to shift management perceptions, some considerable time had to
elapse for the basic ``shop service'' to become accepted. The assumption here
was that the function would need time for the respect for course delivery to
build up before they would appear credible enough to attempt a more
interventionary role. This reluctance to test the function's credibility too early
is once again well illustrated by the case of RTG. Here, taking the first step to
advance training beyond its conventional shop service was put off for several
years and, in representing a fairly modest initiative, reflected trainers' caution
about initiating a proactive role.
It is slow to move but it is moving. The training function for the group as a whole is very new,
it has only been on the go for about five years ± and it was only last year, that we did
supervisory development training. We had supervisors supervising 50 people and they had
no formal training.
In both private and public sector settings we also found that trainers' initial
attempts to develop a step beyond the attendant role were confined to the type
of intervention that extended the shop service already established rather than
negotiating challenges to management's existing training perceptions. These
extension efforts were characterised by unsolicited interventions, but ones in
which trainers believed that their involvement was inherently legitimate. Thus,
they highlighted glaring skills omissions which they felt managers would
readily support, or made offers of help to the line where training might solve
particular `òne-off'' problems facing individual managers. RTG's lack of formal
supervisory skills, for example, was seen as just such an issue where they
might legitimately claim to intervene. Yet, despite identifying supervisory
training as a ``safe'' issue, trainers soon found that many managers interpreted
what they were doing as something which challenged their status and
authority. Many of their supervisors had no formal training and felt threatened
and apprehensive. Nor were they convinced of the benefits that training could
deliver. Together, these worries caused some managers to become openly
resistant to the programme. With the possibility that the whole project could be
undermined, trainers were forced to take elaborate measures to alleviate these
concerns.
We sent out an information pack to the line manager, detailing all the days that the person
would be away, which they should know but occasionally didn't, and that was annoying to
them . . . We tried to pitch it in such a way that they weren't going to be asked to do anything
silly. It was all going to be applicable to the job. We would certainly devote time to listening
to them. And on a couple of occasions, because we felt that they were nervous or a little bit Attempts to
unsure as to why they were there ± they may not have had a chance to have a chat with their
line manager ± we would sit down and do one to one sessions with them. We would get the advance the role
rest of them to do an activity and the two trainers would work round them doing one to one of training
just talking about the problems and where they particularly wanted to develop over the
weeks ahead.
In the local authorities, too, trainers spoke of launching similar, but perhaps 385
less ambitious, attempts to extend training's remit around basic task
alignments. Attempts here focused on single-issue extension tactics that aimed
to systematically identify training with the needs of particular services. As
elsewhere, this basic alignment required service managers to accept increased
responsibility for the development of their staff. What was chosen as a
legitimate issue varied between different local authority training departments
and depended either on modifying popular strands from existing courses or
attempts to secure interest and support from specific service managers for a
particular intervention.
Like RTG, moving beyond the training shop approach became problematic
here because even where managers appeared broadly supportive of more
operationally-oriented training interventions, they would often be reluctant to
accept increased personal responsibility for developing their subordinates.
Typically, trainers wanted to negotiate a redefinition of their role to include
helping line managers to develop their subordinates. In practice, however,
trainers found that line managers were reluctant to co-operate with this new
alignment of their respective roles. Trainers quickly found that while, in
principle, some managers were willing to consider a more operational emphasis
to training, they were not prepared to accept any change to the established
attendant-customer relationship. An illustration of this is provided in one
authority where the head of a particular service approached the head of
training about designing and delivering a programme to solve certain
problems:
When I started saying to this person that he had a part to play in terms of setting standards
and communicating, it was a complete back-off, toys out of the cot. He said ``That's what we
employ you for''. In the past these things have happened. `Òh yes we'll come and run this
programme'', and when there was no behavioural change the head of service was able to
explain it as the trainer's fault.
The possibility of alienating managers in this way meant that negotiating a
more equal relationship was seen as a high risk strategy, especially in local
authorities. This was because the penalty for failing to satisfy managers in
these new efforts was perceived to be far greater than in most of the
corresponding private sector companies:
The line manager's support is integral because if they are not satisfied with what we do, we
are out of business.
While the attendant role is, therefore, seen by trainers as a preferred vehicle
from which to kick-start the process of building the training function's
credibility, it fails to develop management respect for trainers when they later
Employee wish to adopt a more interventionary stance. This occurs because trainers
Relations overestimate the value of a dependable service based on routine contact with
22,4 managers. They mistakenly assume that by providing a dependable,
responsive service, managers will gradually learn that their stereotypes about
the training function are unjustified. Such dependability will, they believe, then
elicit increased respect for themselves and the function and, ultimately, allow
386 the negotiation of a more substantial role.
However, for a regular contact tactic to improve inter-personal relationships
between trainers and middle managers, the very conditions of equal status, and
social and institutional support lying at the heart of trainer goals already need
to be present. Attitude change studies have routinely shown that a contact
approach to reducing the salience of stereotypical categorizations between
groups is most likely to succeed if the two groups enjoy similar status, and
where social and institutional supports are present outside of the contact
initiative (Sherif, 1966; Turner, 1981; Worchel, 1986). It is only where these
conditions apply that the parties become willing to inter-relate voluntarily on a
broader front than before and the salience of category membership perceptions
can then reduce. Without these preconditions, even in apparently legitimate
extension projects like supervisory training, managers will see trainers no
differently from before and allow them little slack to negotiate a more proactive
role. Because the attendant role remains intact even in the act of trying
something more ambitious, any doubts or mistakes associated with these
unilateral alignment initiatives will still tend to be disowned by managers as
they revert to blaming the trainers and the function.
Exploiting equal status through organizational change

The drawback of the attendant approach can be seen to essentially derive from
the difficulty that trainers face in trying to unilaterally re-align the purpose of
training. Their relationship with management remains a subservient one
because from a position of unequal status it is difficult, if not impossible, to
convince line managers that they have anything to gain from granting trainers
more trust, say or resources. In particular, managers see trainers here as a
threat which could thwart line authority with the generation of better ideas
(Garavan et al., 1993). Such ideas are seen to be in competition with line
managers' notions and values. To participate, therefore, would be to admit
some deficiency in their work or themselves.
The nature of these setbacks to negotiation are further refined by the fact
that where trainers did feel that they had made some headway beyond a
``backseat'', provider role, they had been able to exploit the external appearance
of a common goal or threat facing both line management and themselves. Thus,
it tended to be only when powerful line managers or groups could see that an
equal partnership with training could be personally beneficial that the training
function was able to exploit the chance to step out of its established role.
While these equal alliances emerged in the aftermath of organization-wide
changes and crises, the fillip to negotiate with training on specific issues was
often created by the need to mount a defensive response to new instances of line Attempts to
management vulnerability. One such example was the case of FSO, a financial advance the role
services organization, where training had remained at a routine level for many of training
years. Despite offering a popular menu of management and subordinate
courses, there had been a general acceptance that training's impact on FSO's
business was essentially marginal. At this stage, then, these trainers had made
little progress towards breaking away from the training shop approach. 387
It would often take people a long time to get on to a course, so by the time they were due to
come on it, they would have moved jobs and so somebody else would be sent. But they didn't
know why they were there, or they would have been promoted and it was no longer
considered that they were appropriate for that course.
And:
We had a supervisory programme with a total of eight days in modules where people come in
who had been supervisors in other companies and yet they would be going through the sheep
dip, spending time on the course, getting a certificate at the end, but basically repeating stuff
they already knew. So there was an awareness that we weren't identifying needs, we were
just running the courses and people would come on them because that was the way it went.
The question before us, then, is, what provided trainers with the opening to
negotiate a more interventionary role? In the wake of takeover, the organization
entered a much more competitive environment. Over the following months
trainers saw that senior management was committed to making every function
demonstrate its value. This was seen as an opportunity to enhance the training
function's centrality by building a new activity around this initiative. Senior
management's decision to use the appraisal system to assess line managers'
effectiveness in developing subordinates was seen as the key issue of common
threat and interest for both training and line managers. This increased scrutiny
of line performance provided a training issue that responded closely to the new
strategic priorities and the concerns of managers. At the same time, this type of
initiative was also seen to genuinely assist the cause of training because it
represented a goal that could not be met by line managers or trainers alone. In
recognising that to continue to deliver standardised courses would neither
serve the interests of line nor training managers, trainers suddenly found it
relatively easy to assemble a group of managers from the business as well as
HR staff and to develop support for a new and radical approach.
We stopped the machine ± we stopped running the courses. We told people why we were
doing it and then we spent that time developing how we were going to move forward towards
a consultancy approach. We put in some training on training needs analysis and started
working with the business. We built up files on dealing with departments and the interactions
we were having with our customers and generally tried to be more customer-focused. It
worked up to a point, but what tended to happen was training stopped.
This did not mean that at the beginning all line managers fully understood
their role within this new approach or were committed to making it a success.
During attempts to build their role, trainers became aware that many managers
retained their established attitudes and expectations about them.
Employee We probably spent two or three uncomfortable years doing courses and things in a more
ad hoc way. We talked to customers, organized training and tried to discover the needs across
Relations different departments in order to get some economies of scale.
22,4
What was crucial here was that the sustained support of this powerful
management group protected trainers from other managers' attempts to
undermine this new approach. This support was repaid by trainers helping to
388 convince senior levels that line managers were making progress towards
developing staff capability in line with organizational needs:
We have a training plan for the first time. At budget time last year we worked with the
business managers to identify and prioritise their key training needs. We looked to see where
there were common needs across the company and then talked to corporate management to
check that it fitted with their plans for the company.
A similar pattern of exploiting common threats was also detected in some parts
of the public sector. While the culture of local government has made change
difficult, in recent years re-structuring and new financial pressures have acted
as a stimulus to some authorities to consider ever more radical solutions.
Closely following the 1996 local government reorganization, one authority
reduced the number of its manual and clerical employees by about 10 per cent.
Despite these reductions the council remained top heavy and there was
considerable anxiety throughout middle management about the future. Given
these common threats, the head of training put together a management support
network with two other heads of service that created a broader influence base
within the organization.
We decided that we needed something that allowed us to talk to each other because normally
we only met each other during meetings. A lot of people were struggling . . . I didn't want it to
be seen as an HR thing. We would meet about once a month. Usually somebody makes a very
informal presentation so it gives us an opportunity of finding out about something that
somebody is working on and we get a better view than through the committee papers . . .
There are some people who never come and there is a sort of basic group that changes but
that has been very valuable. In fact it stopped, it just sort of fizzled out and it has been re-
started by public demand, which I think is quite good.
Such superordinate goals, thus, built common identifications that weakened the
salience and inequality of previous constructions of training. Nevertheless, it
would be wrong to conclude that all successful collaborations relied on
exploiting the personal anxieties of line managers under pressure from top
management. One training function improved its status relative to line
management by being seen to step outside its usual remit in a public role, quite
separate from the local authority. Here a training service under threat of closure
successfully organised a series of public management conferences. Ostensibly,
these were run for council staff but by marketing the conferences among local
businesses and other parts of the public sector they were able to attract
influential speakers. The ensuing publicity was so successful in raising the
profile and valuation of training that the head of personnel's offer to cut the
training budget by 50 per cent at the next budget review was rejected. The
effect of this was to create some dissonance in the received management view.
Some realignment of management's internal attitude took place because the Attempts to
longstanding attendant role was set against the current public proactivity and advance the role
success of the management conferences. Unlike the use of unilateral extension of training
tactics, therefore, the force for change here stemmed particularly from
management's voluntary participation. In choosing to participate in the
conference, managers not only did not feel threatened by this initiative, but also
the cause of their dissonance was attributed to misplaced views about the 389
training function.
Consequently, while these organizations lacked a mature development
culture, alliancing on issues of common uncertainty and threat still became
possible because these superordinate problems reduced the traditional
inequality of status between training and middle management. For these
trainers, shared threats, in particular, helped to close some of the status gap in
the established relationship with the line. Under these conditions trainers could
find a more receptive audience among managers who until then had asserted
their superiority and independence over the training function. As one senior
trainer put it:
We had a very suspicious organization. We tapped into people who we knew had the
potential to be change agents. We started talking to them about the fundamentals of their role
and that was the first time in many cases that anyone had ever said `Òh this is what your role
is, this is where you fit in''. We weren't telling them, ``this is the only way, this is the right way,
there are options''. And I think it was such a different approach. It really hit a wave of
optimism. And people were going back and doing a sales pitch for us . . . The critical mass
that has built up has given me the influence to get a senior management programme in. I
know it's devious but it works.
But while trainers felt some progress had been made, they were also well aware
that their achievements did not, by themselves, constitute a transformation of
the function's position. They acknowledged that their successes so far had only
established a few common projects from which to build their credibility. Basing
the function's mobility around single concerns was thus recognised as a fragile
foundation for advance, not least because in all of these scenarios key features
and assumptions of the training shop approach persisted in parallel with the
new initiatives. There is, therefore, a crucial limitation here; namely that
alliances of this sort may only stimulate dissonance, which elicits a change in
one aspect of management attitudes to training. Although optimistic that they
could build further, doubts about the extent of change to line attitudes were
echoed by many trainers:
It's a basic attitude towards training and development; you're part of the ivory tower that sits
up there and doesn't actually know ``what we do here''. And we are trying to get better at that
and actually know more what the business is doing and are making some efforts to do that. I
would say that people who have been pretty anti are actually coming around and there is
much more of a feeling of partnership beginning to develop.
It won't come as any great shock that whenever budgets are being looked at, or if there is a
need to cut back, the first two areas that go are marketing and training. That is always an
Employee uphill battle. By and large we have been very well supported by our executive but there are
times, when the chips are down, when it is very difficult to defend your position and we don't
Relations like that too much.
22,4
In this respect, this form of advance is best seen as a partial and possibly
tenuous adjustment to specific problems which could easily fall back once the
salience of these issues fades.
390
Maintaining and enhancing high status
We were unable to find any public sector organization among our sample
where the training department currently claims to have a key role in forming
the organization's strategy. However, there were examples of private sector
training functions where trainers felt that they occupied a key role in the
management and direction of the organization's business. Nevertheless, even
here it may still be difficult for training to maintain its standing over the long
term. Private sector businesses have the independence to decide how to deploy
their resources, though this is constrained by the need to maximise
profitability, retain the confidence of shareholders and address the concerns of
other key stakeholders. Given the requirement to be profitable it is relatively
easy to assess the effectiveness of core operational activities by the use of
management accounting systems. This is less so in the case of training where it
is difficult to establish its contribution to key financial performance criteria.
Private sector training may also be more important at certain times in an
organization's life than at others. For example, an organization with a modest
or poor performance record may decide to re-invent itself with a major
investment in products or productive processes. This frequently means
changes in the size of the workforce and the jobs they perform. If, as we have
seen, these scenarios lead to quite narrow and fragile advances, the question
arises as to what features are necessary for trainers to feel that high status has
become relatively widespread in the organization and embedded as a long-term
feature. We thus turn now to examining how trainers account for the long-term
widening of the training function's status.
Where trainers felt that they had been able to establish a widespread status
and influence, three conditions were thought to be crucial. To begin with,
establishing high status was believed to be assisted by a high-profile set of new
organizational circumstances that favours training. That is, training becomes
what Salencik and Pfeffer (1977) call a strategic contingency or, put differently,
an activity that is seen as essential for attaining organizational goals. Here,
training's new influence is seen to emerge in part as a response to new
management priorities and values which have spread to everyday routines in
the organization. Unlike the single or narrow threats examined in the previous
section, a particular training vision is sponsored by senior management and
becomes widely promoted as crucial to the success of the organization. In these
organizations much of the centrality of training was reflected in the passing
down of a common vocabulary and perspective on its role in the organization.
Support from top management was always seen as a precondition for high
status, but, more importantly, training was seen to have become a relatively Attempts to
permanent priority that was now crucial to the way the organization should advance the role
operate. Routinisation of high status was, therefore, conditional in part on of training
senior and line management's belief that a skills revolution among the
workforce was now essential to the attainment of high organizational
performance.
One example of this shift in formal values was provided by trainers in a high 391
technology manufacturing organization we call TechCo. Despite a long
tradition of business success, in recent years TechCo had started to face
increasing competition and, in particular, experience difficulties because of the
Asian ``downturn''. As a result there was an extensive re-organization and
senior management applied greater pressure to all parts of the business,
including training, to contribute more to overall success.
If you go back ten years ago, when I first joined, demands on people's time were not as great
as they are now. So the training manager at the time used to say it was the warm bath
syndrome. People used to sign up for two or three days so it was just away from the desk. It
was so relaxing to be away and meet some people you haven't seen for a while and you get a
free lunch thrown in and somebody will be telling you something that might be of interest.
In contrast, there is now a greater focus on performance and results and, in

particular, on how people spend their time. This is reflected in the attitudes of
line managers to releasing staff for training.
We publicise a three day course and half the managers were coming back saying ``can't you
put it down to two? Why is it three, why not two?''
This organization's new emphasis on developing skills for the business has
done much to bolster the position of training. It has allowed the formulation of
policies and procedures that emphasise the contribution of training to key
activities of the organization. There is also greater coherence between training
and business objectives through the use of divisional and departmental
training plans.
But however important this senior management support was to ensuring a
broad support for training issues, trainers in this type of setting were
convinced that the continuance of a high status training culture relied on two
other factors. The first was the need for trainers to continually search for ways
to visibly demonstrate how their activities contribute to the organization's core
strategy and performance. Irrespective of the type of business they were in,
trainers commonly adopted a conservative innovation strategy akin to the
equivalent strategic role among personnel specialists identified by Legge
(1978). That is, this type of innovation was conservative to the extent that it
mainly sought to assess training performance against financial performance
criteria.
Knowing the impact of training on business results, for example, was seen to
allow better decisions to be made about the investment of resources. There was
accordingly an emphasis upon continuing to demonstrate the contribution of
training to business performance. This was associated with finding more
Employee effective ways of providing the training service, such as minimising training
Relations time away from the job, as well as finding ways to provide all this with fewer
22,4 trainers. The head of training in FBG, a large and successful finance and
banking group, put it like this:
Business is all about priorities. That is the world we are in, we can give them better
information. If you were to put the spend in this direction ± the likely outcome in terms of
392 results is X ± but if you were to put it in there ± it is X plus whatever.
Trainers at FBG have devoted considerable resources to this problem and for
some interventions have been able to show impressive correlations with
business performance. Much has depended upon having precise training
targets. One of the difficulties they initially faced was how to make effective
use of the bank's existing information system. By pressing the commitment of
top management's support, trainers have been successful in getting more
sophisticated tracking systems introduced that have improved the process:

If you are talking about developing something new we can then say ``well, okay what are the
outcomes? What do you expect to see as a difference?'' and you make sure that is tracked. So
we are able to superimpose the information coming from the business in terms of results and
we will be able to use control groups and so on.
An important feature of the reciprocal relationship with line management,

therefore, can be seen in terms of how trainers develop ways in which to share
the financial responsibility for training. Because line managers remain
concerned about overhead costs for training, FBG trainers work to very
transparent targets of days for delivery and for design so that their cost
competitiveness as compared to external providers is never in question.
Through a buyer and supplier partnership, departments plan their training
needs with training staff. Given knowledge of the cost of different kinds of
courses in terms of person/days the line managers can:
Tell us roughly what they are looking to spend and we will then tell them what that would
buy them in terms of training days. Then they need to say ``well that's not enough'' and we
will tell them how much more they will need to put into the pot.
In this process, the manager's role is seen as crucial to the identification of

relevant training needs through the use of an annual performance appraisal
procedure which looks at the individual's aspirations, how their job may
change and what training is required. Indeed, managers themselves are now
appraised in terms of their performance in developing their subordinates.
If a manager didn't encourage people to do the right skills training for the group and people
couldn't do their job because they hadn't been trained to use a bit of equipment, that would
reflect in their department's performance.
Also, in working closely with line managers, the assessment of training has
improved following the introduction of a new training structure that is
supportive of the business:
The structure before was that we had a number of different training departments through the
different banks . . . We have centralised that process so that instead of being responsible for
an entire training centre my responsibilities lie with the administration of all the training Attempts to
functions of our group, the design and development of all core materials to support the
delivery people and support for the distance learning programmes. That's a massive change advance the role
in terms of how we deliver and the real driver behind that is to get closer to the customer. of training
Although training is given a high priority in FBG, it can be seen that training's
right to a key role is still in part dependent on offering ``hard'' evaluations of
their activity. Yet, however innovative such evaluation methods appear to be, 393
they nevertheless still focus on financial criteria like cost efficiency rather than
on demonstrating the unique contribution of training. The trainers in high
status functions recognised this problem and did not rely exclusively on these
financial assessments of training value. The third and final factor they
identified focused on this need to demonstrate their value in other ways. This
task was tackled by tailoring their innovations to socially reconstruct the place
of training. Thus, even where business value had become identified with the
role of training, the maintenance of this status was perceived by senior training
practitioners to also be contingent on a continual launch of initiatives which
attempted to shift the ways in which training's value was understood in the
organization. The development of training initiatives, therefore, was not merely
about providing fixed solutions of proven content, but also about attempts to
embellish and enhance the construction of key trainers' activities and skills. In
this sense, the transformation to high status and influence was always closely
linked to the perceived charisma of particular training leaders. This type of
personal charisma was seen to be enacted through the introduction of a
succession of high profile innovations which tried to influence the way the
organization operates.
At FBG, for instance, two senior trainers work as performance improvement
consultants in the business. Their task is to help determine what new products
and processes will take the business forward and to embed training in their
realisation. Practitioners here attempt to promote training not merely as a way
to improve the management of functional performance but also in terms of how
it can shape change in perceptions about the employment relationship. In this
respect, training staff have been key influencers on the way that training
delivery has changed in recent years from face-to-face to distance learning.
Given new cost and market pressures, the problem of releasing employees from
their normal jobs to go on courses became more acute. Distance learning
materials were written internally in conjunction with subject experts and they
produced over 90 workbooks covering most areas of banking as well as some
management skills. In the last three years about 35,000 workbooks have been
issued to staff. This shift has not only provided a more efficient way of
delivering training but is also seen to assist in legitimising the notion that
employees have a responsibility to develop themselves. In this sense, these
charismatic leaders of training see their role as creating a climate of change.
I think for the first time people are able to identify their needs through the performance
management system and get, if you like, an instant fix to that. Instead of requesting a course
Employee and waiting until the next one comes up they can access it immediately. They can learn in a
way that suits them best and it is working very well; people are really taking control now
Relations over their own learning for the first time.
22,4
Corresponding steps to deploy training to change the employment relationship
were also noticeable in TechCo. While the espoused corporate culture
encouraged individuals to take responsibility for their own development,
394 uncertainty about the future in recent years provided greater incentives for
employees to take this message seriously. Like the situation at FBG, trainers
have taken a leading role in the attempts to foster this new employment and
work ethos.
There's been a lot of work done on career self reliance, saying to people that there is nobody
more interested in your well-being and your development as a person or a career than
yourself. That's the big message that's been going on for a long time.
Thus, in trying to socially re-construct their contribution to the business, the

role of training continues to evolve mainly outside of conventional training
applications. There is a move away from standardising training content and an
emphasis on utilising trainers' expertise in the provision of knowledge
solutions. At this level, the trainers' expertise becomes the content of training.
Influential trainers thus believe that the source of their status cannot be
attributed solely to positive changes in training values among top
management. Rather, if high status training is to become embedded within the
organization, trainers feel that they also need to continually develop new ways
to assess their contribution on conventional criteria and to innovate through
charismatic agents of training knowledge. This emphasis on the personal
qualities of charismatic training agents is central to understanding the
influence process because any perceived dependence on their contribution
raises questions about the prospects for maintaining high status. In stressing
the personal qualities of key trainers, the notion of high value training cannot
be linked just to a stable set of tasks or training content, whatever their merits.
Indeed, where innovative training content did become accepted as a routine
part of the training scene, responsibility for its maintenance was then passed
down to less prestigious trainers. This means that for the charismatic role to
continue to be highly regarded, it needs to be regularly validated by
progressive waves of innovation. And so, in this sense, the verdict on training
always comes down to the latest project. That is, training value is always
emerging and, in being subject to the orchestration of impressions, is never
complete or fully proven.
The charismatic trainer role, therefore, echoes the role of the magician where
new miracles are expected to be regularly conjured and gifted to a delighted but
potentially sceptical audience. In the work organization, this means that any
charisma that is attributed to these special training figures is always
conditional and in the act of being demonstrated. And so, like other charismatic
figures such as football club managers, popular music or film celebrities, and
even some management consultants, the tolerances allowed for failure will be
few. Indeed, such trainers were conscious that their special gifts could easily be Attempts to
seen by management to have deserted them should they ever fail to reproduce advance the role
their earlier successes. In FBG, for example, the need to replenish these skills is of training
currently felt acutely within the training function. In needing to revitalise their
knowledge to keep up with the expectations of senior management, the most
influential trainers are now under pressure to acquire specialist qualifications
in organizational development. 395
In sum, while there is some evidence of routinization in the way that high
status training functions account for their credibility, their position is never
entirely fixed or established. Protecting their status relies on staying in control
of an unfolding dramatic performance characterised by the search for new
training commodities that are expected to add value to the business. Unlike
other established functions like accounting, therefore, there is less reliance on
the application of a staple of skills and knowledge that can be permanently

relied on to justify their worth, and more on an evolving construction of
training as a knowledge commodity. The prospect of having to continually
reinvent your contribution in this way means that high status may be seen as a
never-ending burden as well as an important objective.
Conclusion
The findings presented here advance thinking about how trainers choose and
deploy tactics to develop their influence in work organizations. But, in being
exploratory, these findings cannot offer conclusive evidence. The conclusions
accordingly take the form of propositions that have emerged from our
grounded approach. In being tentative at this stage, the interpretations
presented here then need to be studied further, leading to more systematic
testing methods and including factorial evidence from questionnaire research.
In terms of the different tactics displayed by training departments at various
levels of influence, the findings provided no indication of a stage process of
functional mobility. Where high status features were present, there were no
signs that these were attained by a progressive passage through the attendant,
extension and superordinate goal approaches. Rather, our data suggest that,
faced with different situations, trainers draw upon an array of tactical
responses to their low status. In particular, the attendant, extension and
superordinate goal tactics represent quite separate attempts to read and
transform the function's standing. What they reflect is trainers' varying
abilities to accurately read the organizational context and to choose tactics that
can influence their status. The popularity of the attendant and extension
approaches, especially, suggests that some trainers can easily fall prey to
fundamentally flawed ``theories in use''.
Moreover, the success of any tactic was not found to be just about the
soundness of trainers' approach to negotiating advances with senior and line
management, but also about their ability to read and respond appropriately to
supportive contexts. Training functions that had made either modest or
significant advances in influence only did so where there was some
Employee management mandate for narrowing the existing status gap between
Relations management and the training function. Typically, supportive climates were
22,4 created by threats to existing line management assessment or more widely to
the organization itself, which focused on the need to improve the
competitiveness of the workforce's skills.
Nevertheless, while support for training renewal was crucial to the
396 launching of innovation projects, this was insufficient by itself to advance and
sustain the respect of the function. Competitive threats that highlighted skills
and performance deficiencies provided training with the foundation for some
much needed authority, but trainers also had to win management's cooperation
for particular innovations if they were to build their credibility. Workable
influence, therefore, was ultimately reliant on engendering a line management
dependency on training practitioners, rather than on instances of vertical
authority.
The key determinant of such dependency was seen to be the emergence of
special individuals within the training function who were not only capable of
nurturing reciprocal power through appropriate horizontal exchanges with the
line, but also of continually re-charging their role as experts in the change
process. In this respect, the findings suggest that there are drawbacks to
fostering this type of dependency. Unlike other forms of expert power, the
expertise of such trainers may put the high status of the function at risk in
several ways. For example, because technical expertise and personal power
become fused together to form this version of charisma, high status is reliant on
the emergence of quite gifted individuals within the training department. It
may not always be possible to identify such individuals within the training
department or, for that matter, from the wider organization. By the same token,
the status of this expertise was found to need regular renewal. Even in
functions where training possessed some strategic status, the necessity to
update the skills of charismatic trainers quickly surfaced. This was partly
because of the perceived need to progressively innovate, but also because the
nature of this type of knowledge requires that it be shared both with line
managers and the organization. Given this need to publicly donate aspects of
their knowledge, trainers risk losing their exclusive claim to particular forms of
expertise, unless they pursue a policy of replenishment. Because such charisma
is likely to be rare, we might add that this problem will be exacerbated at times
when such trainers quit the organization. The contingent and reciprocal
features of this form of dependency, therefore, suggest that trainers' power is
less protected and re-usable than in functions like accounting, production and
engineering. In having to continually identify and replace this type of
knowledge, managerialist writers like Handy (1990) are incorrect to suggest
that all types of expert power represent power bases with inherently lasting
features.
A final issue concerns whether or not training influence is associated with
carrying multiple roles similar to those found in personnel departments. The
findings suggest that it is less feasible to argue the case for multiple role
choices in the training function. This is, in part, because training is perceived to Attempts to
be a less varied sphere of activity and not necessarily essential to the running advance the role
of the organization. Yet, ultimately, the room available for trainers to adopt a of training
multiple-role approach may be limited by the project orientation of much
training activity. The capacity for personnel functions to operate within a
multiple role agenda is premised on the on-going provision of necessary
services, some of which are capable of being raised to a strategic level of 397
importance. However, outside of routine course delivery, project work
represents the main avenue for training innovation, and this in itself provides
both advantages and disadvantages to widening the function's influence. Given
a supportive climate, the present research found that single-issue projects were
sometimes an effective means by which to widen influence. But the findings
also showed that trainers are often left with some unease that any gains made
will falter or regress once the current problem is resolved. In high status
training departments too, the contingent character of project work means that
staying successful depends on the ability of trainers to demonstrate value and
replenish their stock of projects to meet shifting management priorities. The
result is that training's role is likely to be more unified than in personnel, and
also more polarised between administrative delivery and a strategic solutions
approach.
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Abstracts from the wider Attempts to
advance the role
literature of training
`Àttempts to advance the role of training:

process and context'' 399
The following abstracts from the wider literature have been selected for their special relevance to
the preceding article. The abstracts extend the themes and discussions of the main article and act
as a guide to further reading.
Each abstract is awarded 0-3 stars for each of four features:
(1) Depth of research
(2) Value in practice

(3) Originality of thinking
(4) Readability for non-specialists.
The full text of any article may be ordered from the Anbar Library. Contact Debbie Brannan,
Anbar Library, 60/62 Toller Lane, Bradford, UK BD8 9BY. Telephone: (44) 1274 785277;
Fax: (44) 1274 785204; E-mail: dbrannan@mcb.co.uk quoting the reference number shown at the
end of the abstract.
The essence of HRD orientation: evidence from the Finnish metals

industry
Luoma, M.
Journal of European Industrial Training (UK), 1999 Vol. 23 No. 3: p. 109 (8 pages)
Asks if it is possible to classify organizations according to the approach taken to
human resource development (HRD). Develops a framework to understand this,
based on two opposing approaches to HRD: open and closed. Defines an open
approach as being one in which it is assumed that for any business strategy
there is a single, or very limited range of HRD options; defines a closed approach
as being one in which it is assumed that there are range of HRD initiatives that
are appropriate to every business strategy. Identifies four approaches to HRD
based on this analysis: needs-driven, opportunity-driven, capability-driven, and
a mixed approach. Tests out this framework by surveying the person
responsible for HRD, at 81 Finnish-based metals companies, about their
perceptions of HRD. Assesses if typical forms of HRD can be identified. Finds
that role of HRD within these organizations can be defined as needs-,
opportunity- or capability-driven but that they occurred in combination rather
than separately. Considers the practical implications of this study.
Survey/Theoretical with application in practice
Indicators: Research implications: ** Practice implications: **
Originality: ** Readability: ** Total number: ********
Reference: 28AJ723
Cost: £24 (plus VAT)
Employee The emergence of strategic training and development: the current
Relations state of play
22,4 Horwitz F M in Journal of European Industrial Training (UK), 1999 Vol. 23
No. 4/5: p. 180 (11 pages)
Examines how organizational human resource development/training needs are
shaped by organizational business strategies and the imperatives of
400 technological change and international competitive change. Identifies the
importance of strategic human resource development for human resource
management's ability to deliver improvements in productivity, product
development, market share and sales growth demanded by organizational
strategy. Despite this importance, argues that there is a lack of effective
theoretical frameworks for the contribution that strategic human resource
development makes to human resource management, a lack of evidence on
which training methodologies are most effective, and a lack of attention paid to
the practical implications of strategic human resource management/
development for organizational decision makers. Summarizes research that
backs up this assertion. Underlines the need for these frameworks and
methodologies if human resource development is to be able to take on the
strategic role of creating an environment and structure which will promote
learning within the organization. Believes that this learning is critical for
performance improvement and organizational competitiveness.
Wholly theoretical
Indicators: Research implications: *** Practice implications: ** Originality:
** Readability: ** Total number: *********
Reference: 28AR008
Stakeholder involvement in strategic HRD aligning: the impact on

HRD effectiveness
Wognum, I. and Fond Lam, J.
International Journal of Training & Development (UK) (Recent launch), Jun
2000 Vol. 4 No. 2: p. 98 (13 pages)
Describes and discusses the strategic human resource development (HRD)
aligning approach to HRD in which HRD goals and objectives are aligned with
company strategy, problems and developments and in which HRD
representatives and all relevant employees (the HRD ``stakeholders'') are closely
involved in the aligning process. Argues that by focusing on the four key
elements of strategic HRD aligning ± participation, information, formalization
(of the consultative structure and information gathering procedures) and
decision making ± HRD aligning will result in effective HRD programmes and
other learning interventions. Reports the results of a survey of the company
HRD representative, 15 participants in HRD programmes and their supervising
manager from 44 Dutch companies which examined the extent of stakeholder
involvement in the strategic HRD aligning process, the perceptions of Attempts to
respondents as to the quality of the aligning process and the HRD programme's advance the role
effectiveness (relating to learning, behaviour and results level) and the impact of training
of stakeholder involvement on the perceived (as opposed to real) effectiveness
of HRD.
Comparative/evaluation/Survey 401
Indicators: Research implications: ** Practice implications: **
Reference: 29AR639
Predictors of learning organizations: a human resource

development practitioners perspective

Griego, O.V., Geroy, G.D. and Wright, P.C.
The Learning Organization (UK), 2000 Vol 7 No 1: p. 5 (8 pages)
Reports empirical research designed to identify the practices that predict
whether an organization will achieve learning organization status. Sets out the
theoretical background to this, identifying five potential independent variables
± training and education, rewards and recognition, information flow, vision and
strategy, and individual and team development. Surveys 48 working
professionals studying for a human resource development Masters degree
programme about their organizations and the extent to which they believed it
could be termed a learning organization. Concludes that those who reported
that they received rewards and recognition on the job and belonged to
organizations that emphasized training and education were also likely to assess
their organization as a learning organization. Concludes that these two
variables are predictors of learning organizations. Discusses the practical
implications of this research.
Theoretical with application in practice
Research implications: ** Practice implications: **
Reference: 29AG961
Linking training to HR strategy

Brelade, S. and Harman, C.
Training Journal (UK), Feb 2000: p. 26 (4 pages)
Discusses the importance of integrating training and training methodology into
all areas of human resources (HR) activity, suggesting that in-house training
functions risk being outsourced if they remain separate from the HR function;
and argues that if such integration occurs at the operational, tactical and
Employee strategic level, training will come to be perceived as a core activity which brings
Relations added value to the HR function. Identifies areas of HR activity to which training
22,4 should contribute if it is to influence HR strategy; and offers suggestions as to
how training can have an influence on each function at each of the three levels.
Suggests that the development and introduction of performance management
systems offer the training professional the opportunity to influence several
402 areas of HR activity at the strategic, tactical and operational level; lists the areas
of knowledge which training professionals must understand in order to acquire
a broad view of the organization; and outlines the skills they will need to
develop to be able to contribute at a strategic level.
Journalistic
Research implications: * Practice implications: **
Originality: * Readability: ** Total number: ******
Reference: 29AJ117
Business strategy, work processes and human resource training:

are they congruent?
Valle, R., Martin, F., Romero, P.M. and Dolan, S.L.
Journal of Organizational Behaviour (UK), May 2000 Vol. 21 No. 3: p. 283
(15 pages)
Examines the relationships between training, organizational business strategies
and work processes drawing on human capital theory, the configurational
approach to training and the contingent approach to training; suggests that two
opposing training models can be identified, the mechanistic model of training
and the organic model of training; and asserts that there are distinct strategic
orientations in an organization's training policy that are coherent with the
business strategy and conditioned by the nature of the work process. Identifies
the characteristics of the mechanistic model of training and the organic model;
hypothesizes that the strategic orientation of training is related to characteristics
of the work process (that is, companies with routine work processes tend to
adopt a mechanistic model of training while companies with non-routine work
processes tend to adopt an organic model) and to the organization's business
strategy (that is, companies with a defender business strategy tend to adopt a
mechanistic model of training, companies with a prospector business strategy
tend to adopt an organic model and companies with an analyser business
strategy tend to adopt a mixed model); and tests the hypotheses against the
results of an empirical study of 65 Spanish companies in the industrial sector.
Theoretical with application in practice
Research implications: ** Practice implications: **
Originality: * Readability: * Total number: ******
Reference: 29AR047

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Employee Relations

Attempts to advance the role of training: process and context

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Attempts to advance the role Attempts to

Personnel and training role frameworks

importance given to personnel issues by management. Yet, despite these role

organization. As with many personnel areas, it should also be borne in mind

Personnel versus training authority

analysis employed in the study. Thereafter, we offer findings on the

Research procedure and analysis

Despite these efforts to build credibility on the back of a response service to

Exploiting equal status through organizational change

In contrast, there is now a greater focus on performance and results and, in

sophisticated tracking systems introduced that have improved the process:

An important feature of the reciprocal relationship with line management,

In this process, the manager's role is seen as crucial to the identification of

Thus, in trying to socially re-construct their contribution to the business, the

the application of a staple of skills and knowledge that can be permanently

``Attempts to advance the role of training:

(2) Value in practice

The essence of HRD orientation: evidence from the Finnish metals

Stakeholder involvement in strategic HRD aligning: the impact on

Predictors of learning organizations: a human resource

development practitioners perspective

Linking training to HR strategy

Business strategy, work processes and human resource training:

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