HR specialists in the spotlight: aggregating popular culture representations to highlight the underlying occupational image
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-12-2021-0529 |
| Published date | 19 October 2022 |
| Date | 19 October 2022 |
| Pages | 129-148 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
| Author | Rita Bissola,Barbara Imperatori |
HR specialists in the spotlight:
aggregating popular culture
representations to highlight the
underlying occupational image
Rita Bissola and Barbara Imperatori
Department of Economic and Business Management Sciences,
Universit
a Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy
Abstract
Purpose –This study adopts the popular culture lens to investigate the collective understanding behind the
human resources (HR) occupations.
Design/methodology/approach –The empirical study analyzes 129 characters from 87 movies, television
(TV) series, books and comics. The measurement model was tested using structural equation modeling and
cluster analysis identified five HR representations in the popular culture.
Findings –Popular culture reflects five HR representations: The Executor, the Hero, the Buddy, the Bore, and
the Good-time person. Results suggest that public opinion pays scarce attention to the so-called HR “strategic
position”while underlining the need for a more socially responsible HR approach.
Originality/value –The authors’study serves as a means for integrating past research on HR role and
reputation, occupational image, self-identity and popular media. While most scholars have addressed popular
culture as a single case and paid almost no attention to the HR domain, this article complements the literature
by offering a fruitful way to distil HR summative popular culture representations, thus advocating for both a
theoretical and a methodological contribution.
Keywords HR representations, HR occupational image, Legitimation,Occupational prestige, Popular culture,
Occupational representations
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Management studies have steadily considered popular culture as a well-established academic
practice offering the possibility of perfecting the understanding of social phenomena in
organizations, in its functioning, and among its members (Phillips and Knowles, 2012). These
studies often give rise to thorny issues which are more compelling than those common to
theory such as insane power dynamics (Rhodes and Parker, 2008), misrepresentations of
professions (Dimnik and Felton, 2006), managerial plateau in identity work (Westwood and
Johnston, 2012). These hardly make their way into mainstream literature.
Surprisingly, the HR literature adopting this perspective is still scant and restricted to the
influence of popular culture on career choices and its adoption in training practices (Carollo,
2021;Summers et al., 2014;Wright, 2018). This study contributes to this research stream by
adding original insights into the HR professional image stemming from popular culture
portraits.
Occupational
image of HR
specialists
129
© Rita Bissola and Barbara Imperatori. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is
published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce,
distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and no commercial
purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence
may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
The authors sincerely thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor, ProfessorDennis Nickson, for
the insightful comments and suggestions during the review process.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0142-5455.htm
Received 6 December 2021
Revised 3 August 2022
15 September 2022
Accepted 16 September 2022
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 44 No. 7, 2022
pp. 129-148
Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-12-2021-0529
Institutional theory suggests that popular culture affects the legitimacy judgment around
an occupation, which in turn influences occupational prestige and the way organizations
enact and develop related practices (Tost, 2011). The present study considers popular
culture as one of the influential forces of the institutional environment and it distills
the collective understanding that the media production epitomizes to identify the summative
representations behind HR occupations. The theoretical framework suggests that these
representations affect t he professional image and occ upational prestige of the HR
department, whereas the empirical study distils the summative popular culture
representation stemming from a wide corpus of media outlets. Results contribute to the
debate on the HR status and are relevant to the struggle of HR specialists to establish their
legitimacy (e.g. Guest and King, 2004;Kuipers and Giurge, 2017) and to the crucial role they
could play in the ongoing work transformation (Carnevale and Hatak, 2020;Minbaeva, 2021).
HR occupational image and legitimacy
Legitimation and occupational image have traditionally been critical issues for HR
occupations. A significant body of literature indicates a long and persistent struggle in
portraying HR as a valuable function contributing to organizational aims (Heizmann and
Fox, 2019). Research highlights that line managers agree that human capital is essential in
deploying a successful strategy. Nevertheless, they do not acknowledge the distinctive role of
the HR department in contributing to a company’s profitability (Kuipers and Giurge, 2017). It
is claimed that HR dedicates too much effort to administrative activities deemed marginal for
the organization. Consequently, HR employees are described as being merely “clerks of
work,”“handmaidens”and “administrative experts”focused on short-term, non-
interventionary, compliance-oriented activities (Reichel and Lazarova, 2013). Despite ample
research suggesting that HR specialists should mainly concentrate on becoming “advisers”,
“internal consultants”,“architects”,“business partners”,“changemakers”or “change agents”,
the HR function has largely failed in achieving these aims (Caldwell, 2011;Galang and
Osman, 2016). While HR specialists put a great deal of effort into becoming business partners,
they gave up offering a voice to employees, thus becoming “simply an agent of capital”
(Wright, 2008). Consequently, HR aspires to gain a professional status, although it is held up
to the title of the “poor cousin”among managerial professions (Kulik and Perry, 2008;Wright,
2008). The legitimacy struggle that the HR department has been experiencing becomes an
even more problematic feature, considering its nature as a staff unit. HR needs external
approval to be credible and effective, both within and outside the organization (Gibb, 2000;
Pritchard and Symon, 2011).
Meanwhile, the HR occupation is currently under discussion because of the change in the
nature of work it is undergoing. Workplace digitalization has created challenging conditions
for HR functioning (Carnevale and Hatak, 2020). HR plays a decisive role in implementing
socially sustainable solutions (Minbaeva, 2021). This could be a unique age for the HR
function to be recognized as a strategic unit, able to develop sustainable solutions to gain
legitimacy by promoting a renewed organizational setting in which workers remain at its
center (Wright, 2021).
These considerations point towards the popular representations of the HR profession
playing a relevant role in shaping external approval and informing theory about relevant
cues on ways to gain occupational prestige.
Popular culture and the work setting
Popular culture is a “form of entertainment that is mass produced or is made available to large
numbers of people”(Street, 1997, p. 7), and includes television, radio, popular music, cinema,
ER
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