Perfection of Meritocracy or Ritual of Bureaucracy? – HRM in a Management Consultancy Firm Mats Alvesson Lund University, Sweden [email protected] Dan Kärreman Lund University, Sweden [email protected] Paper presented at 2.nd International Conference on Critical Management Studies, Manchester July 2001. Abstract The paper addresses HRM systems and practices in a large multinational management consultancy company. The company invests a lot of resources in HRM tasks, and is frequently praised by employees for its accomplishments in hiring, developing and promotion in practice. HRM as a belief system and as practices then do not harmony particularly well. The paper critically interprets the meaning and the functions of the HRM system and the beliefs supporting it. The paper suggests a re-interpretation of HRM systems and practices based on a cultural- symbolic perspective. It points at a) the limits and shortcomings of HRM systems in terms of rationality, b) the significance of organizational symbolism in accounting for the role of HRM systems and practices – symbolizing rationality and commitment to people improvement as well as a highly competent work force and c) the various effects of these systems and practices on employee compliance. Introduction It is common for people with an interest in people issues in business to emphasize the crucial significance of personnel – or human resources to use the nowadays most common label. Many researchers and practitioners stress the human resources and partly overlapping elements such as corporate culture, knowledge and core competence, as universally significant (Pfeffer, 1994; Tichy et al, 1982). This claim can with greater confidence than in any other sector be made about what can be referred to as the knowledge-intensive sectors. The importance of the personnel – the organizational members – in knowledge- intensive firms is a widely emphasized. Since most, if not all, knowledge-intensive firms lack assets, others than the competences and capabilities of the work force, the personnel are truly these companies most important resource. Predictably, knowledge-intensive companies stress the importance of securing loyalty and commitment (Alvesson, 1995, 2000; Hedberg, 1990; Löwendahl, 1997; Sveiby & Risling, 1986). Today, most thinking in this matter tends to be subsumed under the HRM label, where the abbrevation HRM stand for human resource management. Human resource management is a loose concept that signifies a highly diverse set of frameworks, ideas, concepts, and practices. HRM focuses on what broadly can be described as the human side of enterprise: recruitment, training, staffing, career planning and development, compensation, and labour relations (Steffy & 1 Grimes, 1992). Most HRM thinking emanates from a managerial perspective and most, but not all, takes this perspective for granted. The common denominator lies in the object of study, rather than in theoretical elaboration, or methodological consistency. Many HRM authors al argue that human resource management is a core strategic activity, in fact as important as developing mission and strategy, and designing organizational strategy (e.g. Tichy et al, 1992:47). According to Tichy et al, human resource management consists of four key activities – selection, appraisal, rewards and development – that typically follows a cycle, the so-called “human resource cycle”. Other HRM authors, with a normative rather than rationalist interest, also or instead emphasise organizational culture and managerial philosophies as important tools for creating commitment among organizational members, which along with competence, cost effectiveness and congruence being the key watchwords for managing human resources (Beer et al, 1984) HRM is less of a particular well developed theoretical framework as a claim about changing corporate practices in dealing with personnel issues. It is not entirely clear if, and if so, to what extent, HRM represents something new and radically different (Legge, 1995). The real difference between HRM and PM is ”not what it is but who is saying it” , according to Fowler (1987, in Legge 1995). There seems to be some indications on a shift in orientation (Storey, 2001). Although HRM as a theoretical construct may be problematic – there is little of HRM theory (Schneider, 1999) – the label seems to have catch on in practice. Most organizations today claim to have human resource departments and human resources manager, thus implying that the human resources somehow is managed. We will investigate a case of a set of HRM practices that can be said to extremely ambitious and of key significance for the success of a company. In this paper we will take a close look at the HRM system at a very large international consultancy firm. This firm claims to have and use a very rational and ambitious HRM system in which people are assessed, developed and screened out so that a highly competent, motivated and wellfunctioning work force is accomplished. Promotion decisions during certain intervals is important here, as is more frequently carried out assessments of performances and development needs in connection to project work as well as various devices for developing people. People praise this system, for its usefulness for junior personnel and for its capacity to deliver an effective work force, where hierarchical position and competence is an almost perfect match. However, a closer look indicates plenty of deviations from the ideal. Even though people stress a positive view on the company’s systems and performances in terms of HRM many also express contradictory opinions and evaluations of HRM practices. The paper will point at a number of cracks in the HRM machinery, cracks indicating tendencies to breakdowns in trust and credentials, that do not lead to such consequences due to various efforts to prevent the cracks from fully materializing in people’s talk and consciousness. Consequently, the paper critically interprets the meaning and the functions of the HRM system and the beliefs supporting it. These concern a) identity-constructing functions building up self-confidence and feelings of belonging to an elite; b) the faith and pride in the company facilitated by the symbolism of the HRM systems and practices; and c) the usefulness of an ambitious HRM system in signalling to the external world the rationality of the company and the high quality of the personnel indicated by its quality- securing set of practices for processing and assessing the personnel. The value of the personnel on the consultancy service as well as the labour market is thus increased. It is argued that different actors develop different myth-preserving logics and tactics, contingent upon position and overview. 2 The paper has two ambitions. The first is to investigate and through light on HRM in an organization where the reasons for putting a lot of effort into optimizing the competence of the personnel in recruitment, assessment, development and promotion are exceptionally strong. The difficulties of optimization or even accomplishing a high level of rationality is explored. The second objective is to suggest a symbolic understanding of the workings of the HRM systems and practices. This follows fairly closely the empirical material, but should be of more general relevance for the understanding of HRM in an organization theory context. The symbolism of HRM means that it is not the functional efficiency as much as what the structures and practices symbolize in terms of the ability and competence development of the personnel, the company’s qualities viz. the client and the labour market, etc. that become significant. HRM and people processing Legge (1995) claims that HRM is in many ways a recycled version of traditional personnel management, but with emphasis on different aspects: ”the rhetoric … of HRM seeks to secure new meanings and emphases compared to the normative personnel management models” (Legge 1995:37). According to Legge, the rhetoric presents HRM as: - aimed at managers and core workers, rather than a work-force collective - connecting personnel issues with business strategy and bottom-line results - focusing management on cultural and symbolic means of persuasion Drawing mainly on the work of Foucault, Townley (1993) argues that HRM practices provide certainty and closure to the relation between employers and employees. In Foucauldian terms, HRM operates as a particular field of power-knowledge, disciplining and normalizing the employer-employee relationship. As Townley put it: “By presenting HRM as a process of power-knowledge. I am redirecting interest from the truth or falsity of discourse towards its functioning. The type of questions that are prompted in research relate to the production of knowledge and its effects. In particular, research moves away from the notion of practice as a technicist construct.” (Townley 1993:537-538) Recruitment, assessment and selection are typically viewed from two radically different point of view: the scientific selection perspective and the social process perspective (Iles & Salaman 1995) The scientific selection perspective strongly dominates the HRM literature (Steffy & Grimes 1992, Iles & Salaman 1995). It is based on the idea that recruitment, assessment and development deals with people that have stable sets of skills and capacities, and that these characteristics are possible to objectivively investigate and measure, thus making so called job performance prediction possible (Iles & Salaman 1995:219). Viewed as social process recruitment, assessment, and selection practices constitue and co-create the individual: ”One form of this social process approach simply notes the interplay between selection events, candidates’ feelings and responses, and organizational outcomes , emphasizing the mutual adjustments and ’negotiations’ that occur. But a more interesting and radical form sees the candidate and the selection decision as in various ways constructed by the process of selection and measurement. Thus assessment centres could be seen not as discovering potential, but as defining and constructing it (Iles & Salaman 1995:206, emphasis in original) 3 In this paper we will look at recruitment, assessment, and selection from a social process perspective. In this sense, we will take an interest in both the anatomy of the HRM system in our case and its outcomes, in terms of conduct and frames of references. An interpretive-cultural approach This paper adopts an interpretive line of inquiry. Our approach is thus not functionalistic – we have now intentions to primarily contribute to improved ways of dealing with personnel issues through offering improved techniques and we do not address HRM in any objectivist sense. Our version of interpretive research draws upon a cultural understanding of organizations (e.g. Alvesson, 2001a; Brown, 1995; Frost et al, 1985; Kunda, 1992; Smircich, 1983a). This does not necessarily presuppose or target ”corporate cultures” in the sense of unitary and unique set of meanings, values and symbolism corresponding to companies, but takes an interest in the level of meaning in organizations shared by smaller or larger groups and the significance of symbolism for how people communicate and make sense of their shared worlds (Smircich, 1983a, b). We use the term 'organizational culture' as a concept for a way of thinking which takes a serious interest in cultural and symbolic phenomena. This term directs the spotlight in a particular direction rather than is intended to mirror a concrete reality for possible study. We agree with Frost et al.'s (1985: 17) 'definition' of organizational culture: 'Talking about organizational culture seems to mean talking about the importance for people of symbolism - of rituals, myths, stories and legends - and about the interpretation of events, ideas, and experiences that are influenced and shaped by the groups within which they live.' We will also, however, take organizational culture to include values and assumptions about social reality, but for us values are less central and less useful than meanings and symbolism in cultural analysis. This position is in line with the view broadly shared by many modern anthropologists (especially Geertz, 1973). Culture is then understood to be a system of common symbols and meanings. It provides ‘the shared rules governing cognitive and affective aspects of membership in an organization, and the means whereby they are shaped and expressed’ (Kunda, 1992:8). Culture is not primarily 'inside' people's heads, but somewhere 'between' the heads of a group of people where symbols and meanings are publicly expressed, e.g. in work group interactions, in board meetings, in formal procedures but also in material objects. Culture then is central in governing the understanding of behavior, social events, institutions and processes. Culture is the setting in which these phenomena become comprehensible and meaningful. A symbol can be defined as an object – a word or statement, a kind of action, a procedure or a material phenomenon – that stands ambiguously for something else and/or something more than the object itself (Cohen, 1974). A symbol is rich in meaning – it condensates a more complex set of meanings in a particular object and thus communicates meaning in an economic way. Occasionally, the complexity of a symbol and the meaning it expresses calls for considerable interpretation and deciphering. People have private symbols, but in an organizational context it is collective symbolism that is of most interest. Sperber (cited by Gusfield & Michalowicz, 1984: 421) interprets as symbolic 'all activity where the means put into play seem to be clearly disproportionate to the explicit or implicit end . . . that is, all activity whose rationale escapes me'. As Gusfield and Michalowicz note, what is symbolic for one person may be non- symbolic for another. Still, we think it is wise 4 to use 'symbol' as a conceptual tool for making sense of the hidden or latent meanings of an object. The Case Excellence is a large consulting company and employing over 25 000 people worldwide. We focus on the Scandinavian subsidiary that employs approximately 700 people, but this follows the same overall philosophy and procedures as other subsidiaries. Excellence conducts management consultancy (broadly defined). They target large organizations as customers. The company has double-digit growth in sales, and has been growing at that rate for some time. Below we will specify the parts of Excellence’s HRM system – recruitment, career structure, appraisal and evaluation systems, and development. Recruitment: selectivity and standardization Almost everybody working at Excellence has an academic degree. Consultants are mainly recruited directly from the larger Swedish Universities. Degrees in business administration or engineering are mandatory. Excellence attempts to profile itself as an elitist, demanding but richly rewarding place to work. Judging from polls among Swedish business administration and engineering students, the students seem to have got the message and also decided to approve: Excellence consistently ranks high in polls over most attractive employer. Excellence is growing rapidly. It also has a rather high employee turn over, something it shares with almost everybody else in this business sector. Taken together, this means that recruitment and retention are crucial areas for Excellence. The recruitment process is, as a consequence of the large number of recruitments every year, elaborate, time-consuming and, involves to one degree or another, more or less everybody at Excellence. All employees, and even partners, are expected to take part in various recruitment efforts, such as presenting the company at Universities, interviewing job seekers, and generally looking out for people to hire. The HR department administers recruitment, but consultants decide upon who will be employed. The recruitment process is organized around two basic elements: screening and interviewing. Screening consists mainly of an evaluation of candidates qualifications. Interviewing is a somewhat more elaborate process where candidates are invited to Excellence headquarters in Stockholm and interviewed twice: once by HR personnel and once by senior consultants. The HR department has a goal of not taking longer than two weeks from first interview to final decision. Our informants indicate that they seem to meet that standard at the moment. Excellence claims that they recruit the “best people”. They can probably mobilize back up for that claim, at least in the Scandinavian context. However, not all organizational members are convinced that Excellence is capable to keep the “best people” and that they loose a large proportion of the most competent personnel. There is a general feeling that the standardized methodology and work procedures, and the standardized career paths stifle creativity and make promotion a matter of seniority rather than qualification. Excellence are currently attempting to counter this tendency. For example, they are conducting general revision of the career opportunities and career paths. They attempt to cut down on the time that it takes to make partner. They are developing schemes for profit-sharing. Finally, they are also attempting to find ways to channel entrepreneurial 5 urges among organizational members within the firm, rather than leaving them no space for such activities and, thus, passively forcing them to quit. Promotion and career structure The Firm is generally understood to be a career company. Initial advancement is expected to be swift for the individual. There are four basic levels: analyst, consultant, manager and partner. New personnel typically start as analysts. Exceptions are made for so-called “experienced hires”, employees with work experience prior their employment at Excellence, that theoretically can enter at any level. In practice, most, if not all, experienced hires enter at the consultant level. Their experience often facilitate career advancement, but some of our informants have hinted that lacking the ‘normal’ path of socialization may slow career advancement for experienced hires. Employees are expected to advance within 12-18 months as analyst and within 2-4 years as consultants. They then become “managers”, i.e. they get this title and gradually are functioning as project managers. After the manager level, advancement becomes more difficult. After 3-6 years as managers people are either put on “the partner track” or not. Far from everybody on the track do become partners. This means that only a very careful chosen few of all that starts as junior members of the firm ever makes it to the partner level. Many leave entirely based on their own choice. Those not being promoted are expected to leave the company in due course and almost everybody do. The company then works on an up-or-out-system. Appraisal and evaluation systems The employees at Excellence are under constant performance evaluation. Sometimes people in the company talk about a “feedback culture”, but evaluation and feedback is fairly strictly formalized. Evaluation is organized in two main processes. First, employees are evaluated in relation to their individual development. This process is labeled c-mapping and is carried out three to four times every year. The employee’s nearest boss, usually the project leader of the project where the employee currently works, here primarily evaluates the employee. Employees are expected to propel this process themselves to a high degree. They are expected to articulate new targets for development, after they have received the feedback from the project leader. The feedback, on the other hand, is expected to be constructive and to help the employee to identify strengths and weaknesses. The general idea is that everybody should be evaluated in similar ways and according to similar criteria. Thus, there are several tools available – policy documents, forms, and standardized software – to ensure that everybody is treated in a fair and unbiased way. You have the c-maps, which is our tool for formal feedback. Ideally you start by determining the criteria, together with your project leader. And there are five common criterias, such as creating trust, adding value, and so on. And then you typically have more specific criteria. Am I a better programmer than expected? Am I better on communicating than expected? There are standard levels. And thats well-defined in the tool, how an analyst is expected to perform, a consultant and so on. And then you pick three or four criterias and then you set the expectations: in three months you should have done this and this. And the the project leader writes a brief summary after the three months, with your contribution. Typically it also includes comments on your strengths and weaknesses,. This is put together into a file that is send to HR and stored there. And then you have the annual review, counselling, where your development plan is developed and evaluated. (Consultant) 6 Second, employees are ranked by their superiors in a process labeled banding. Banding occurs once a year. The employee is ranked in category 1, 2 or 3. Band 1 is reserved for top performers. Category 2 is regarded as acceptable performance. Band 3 is a warning signal, that you are an under-achiever and need to get your act together. Banding is important because it directly influence compensation: salary influences, career development and perks. The idea is that banding is linked to c-map information. Several good c-maps accumulate into a good (category 1) banding. As we will discuss later on, the picture is murkier and more ambiguous in practice. The banding procedure is secretive: only the employee and his or her superiors knows about one’s banding. Employees are actively discouraged to discuss their banding with each other. Development The people at Excellence have fully embraced the rather modern idea that knowledge is scarce, important and business critical. Thus, they invest a lot of money, time and other resources in the development of the individual. First, newcomers start with a three week long introduction program which typically include a trip to the US for a week at the corporate training facility and later follows other forms of training. Second, Excellence have put much effort in developing a sophisticated system for knowledge management. Apart from the databases and websites, the knowledge management systems at Excellence is organized around so-called competence groups and knowledge champions. A competence group is roughly a group of consultants, organized around a theme (for example ecommerce or performance management), that gathers regularly and exchanges knowledge and experiences about the theme. Each consultant is encouraged to take part in at least one of them (it is possible, even common, to participate in several competence groups). Competence groups make sure that the information and the cases in the databases are updated. Knowledge champions are people who are designated to systematize the knowledge yielded in projects. Third, junior consultants are always paired with a senior consultant, who operates is his or her counsellor – which is also the official title. The idea is that senior consultants shall operate as mentors and help junior consultants in their development. According to our informants, the counsellor is primarily important in making sense of the intricacies of internal politics at Excellence. In particular, the counsellor is important in the banding process since the counsellor speaks for the consultant under evaluation in the process. The counsellor is also important since he or she provides a way to shelter from exploitation from over- ambitious project managers, and also to communicate to the higher echelons of the company hierarchy. Fourth, knowledge- and information-sharing activities occur continuously at Excellence. There are seminars, work-shops, information meetings, and so on almost 24/7. Internal speakers, external speakers, customers, vendors, university professors, think-tank analysts participate regularly: everything one can image in our information-soaked era. Employees are expected to participate, and they do so willingly, since the traffic of knowledge and information emphasizes and underscores an important assumption about working at Excellence – that this is a place for those that value competence and has high ambitions. 7 The fifth, and most important ingredient, is project manpower planning taking the developmental aspect into account. When staffing projects, the individual’s development situation is carefully considered: getting juniors to work with different project managers, taking new and more demanding roles, getting options to work with things they are not that good with, etc. A system that works – members’ perception of the HRM system The general perception among organizational members at Excellence is that the HRM system delivers. In particular, two aspects are highlighted. First, there is a widespread belief that the the corporate system for selection, promotion and ranking is reliable and that the resulting hierarchy expresses valid differences in technical and managerial competence. Second, it is commonly thought that the HRM system is successful in developing individuals, someting that is believed to validated by the fact that employment at Excellence makes individuals more attractive in the labor market. In other words, HRM practices and supporting cultural orientations means quality assurence through a) effective sorting mechanisms in recruitment and promotion and b) effective people improvement. Hierarchy and differentiation as mirrors of competence and meritocracy The hierarchy at Excellence, which is fairly elaborate to begin with, is typically further elaborated to include how many years the individual have served at his or her present level. This practice is generally perceived to map competences and capacities accurately. The elaborated formal differentiation system is seen as mirror the actual competence of the employees. A M2 should deal with an M2’s stuff, or possibly an M3’s, and a C1 should deal with a C1’s stuff, or possibly a C2’s stuff. With the things they can do, as far as competence goes, they can’t move too far up the scale. And concerning competence, it is a waste of resources to move them too far down the scale as well. (manager) M2 means a manager being on her or his second year on this level, while a C1 is a consultant on his or her’s first year with this title. The labels – a function of competence level plus experience on that level – are believed to be precise indications of the competence of the persons. It should be emphasized that hierarchy is not valued for its own sake. The authoritanian aspects inherent in hierarchical arrangements is typically considered with suspicision, and several of our informants voiced concern over the hierarchy’s stifling effect on creativity. However hierarcy is valued at Excellence, not because it provides a unitary chain of command, but because it is believed to accurately express meritocracy. It is is the meritocratic value of differentiation that makes hierarchy perceived as legitimate and even necessary among organizational members. The reason why it works at Excellene is because people get promoted, not because they have been working a certain number of years at the firm, but because they are ready to take the responsibility. They have the experience and they have the competence. And, usually, you create respect in relation to the lower levels of the organization, and pay and economic compensation come with the responsibility. They are connected. As a consequence, I would say that a project hierarchy is necessary if you are going to work in a large project. It could be different if you are running a speaking partner-consulting project. So I think that if you take a look at this deliverance culture and our capacity to really deliver a product, it is related to the fact that we are good at running big projects. (partner) It is worth noting the enormous confidence in the ability to assess, produce and structure the ability of people in a formal system. Little doubt is raised whether human capacities are that 8 well ordered and possible differentiate along hierarchical lines, or that the assessments and formal differentiation structures exhibit a high degree of rationality in dealing with these capacities. The HRM system as quality proof of the personnel Several of our informants pointed out, when asked why they have applied for work at Excellence, that they believed that it would make them more attractive at the labor market and that it, at least, would look good on their CV’s to have worked at Excellence. Many, in particular at higher hierarchical levels, credited the HRM system for a very good reputation of the personnel on the labor market. Then we have that one, at least that is what we say to explain it to ourselves, our reputation is very good concerning our employees. If you have five years at Excellence on your CV, then they don’t care to look at your degree etc. They practically don’t care to look at anything at all, they just say: “Okay, here is the job if you want it”. They know that the quality of the people we hired is assured, and that we have trained and developed them. This makes our employees very attractive to everything from head-hunters or ex-employees to, well, other consultancy firms too, that know us quite well. (manager) One interviewee compares Excellence with another, medium-sized consultancy firm he worked for earlier, and emphasizes the superiority of the former in its people development and screening process, resulting in a very fine match between level and capacity of people. At Administrative Consulting, there is a hierarchy as such, but there older people, so to speak, could be in the middle of the pyramid. And there was also people who advanced in the organization, but who lacked the respect and the knowledge that they should have. So already by that time, some of the credibility of this project organization was damaged, even if there were attempts, during my time there, to professionalize this approach. There were a couple of seniors who didn’t perform very well. These people don’t exist at Excellence, or at least they are extremely rare, they just don’t stay. There is an “up-or-out”-system. It is not brutal. People are not sacked because they fail in a project. But over a longer period, in one way or another, these people disappear. (partner) To sum up: Excellence's HRM system is based on elite confirmation: a strong brand name and broad recognition of belonging to 'the best and the brightest'. The idea of an elite is justified and reinforced through up-market recruitment, relatively long periods of training, good options for competence development, cooperation with bright people, high wages and career prospects (either within or outside the company), and, perhaps most important, careful screening procedures in recruitment and promotion. In addition, the fact that even the most junior consultant sometimes works not very far from the client’s top management team. Some HRM problems at Excellence As a direct consequence of the practice of primarily recruiting people directly from university, a large proportion of the work force works as underlings, with little individual responsibility and discretion. This discrepancy is to a large extent managed through complementary HRM practices. The young and unexperienced people who forms the bulk of the large-scale projects are typically willing to subordinate themselves to the systems and structures of the work methodology. The degree of compliance called for is related to the initial uncertainty felt by newcomers. The recruitment of very young and talented people is related to hierarchy and career steps. The intake of young consultants call for relatively well structured project management and the monitoring of more qualified people, i.e. strongly 9 asymmetrical relations. Thus, a vital motive for starting and continuing working for Excellence is the career opportunities. The HRM system at Excellence operates in a manner that provides some instant gratification for often hard, routine, and repetitive work sometimes carried out in a highly formatted way and with few degrees of freedom. However, it promises stronger rewards in due course, with a promise that eventually, if you as a member work hard enough, is smart enough, and don’t make peers, superiors or customers uncomfortable, will be gratified lavishly later on: both in terms of material compensation and personal autonomy. The elite image, the campus atmosphere, and the relatively high salaries are some important ways Excellence furnish instant gratification, that in many ways offers a taste of what might come. The relatively transparent career structure provides a predictable path for the individual, which makes it possible for he or she to create checks and balances: hard work and subordination now, windfall, status and autonomy later. The constant evaluation offers possibilities for gauging how well one is doing, both for the company and for the individual. Competence groups and training programs allows for corrective action, thus making it possible for individuals to reframe their positions when evaluations are bad or career advancement has hit a speed- bump. Still, working at Excellence, at least on the junior levels, calls for quite a lot of subordination and willingness to accept long working hours and to work in a fairly hierarchical structure, in which a lot of systems regulate how things should be done. According to some interviewees this leads to a somewhat negative selectivity in terms of who stays in the company. “If one is expressing the ambition that the company will hire the best people, take them in and put them in a box telling them to do so and so. Then it is not the best people sitting in the box, but the most adaptable people.” (ex-employee) A significant problem for Excellence is to be able to attract and retain sufficient number of good people. The retainment problem escalates on a hot labour market, in which the experienced personnel are very attractive. The instrumental motives which one has relied upon may then make people inclined to go for attractive offers - in terms of financial compensation - from others. This is not necessarily only a matter of instrumental motives. As wage and other forms of compensation is seen as closely related to status and worth, willingness to go for the highest income may be a tactic of confirming and strengthening one's selfunderstanding as belonging to the elite. The HRM procedures of Excellence then makes people focused on external confirmation of one’s value – to a high degree shown through wages – and then the symbolism of the pay level become heightened, leading to a motivational logic around wage maximization, undermining corporate loyalty and intrinsic motivation (Alvesson, 2000). System failures? – cracks and discrepanices in the HRM system HRM practices at Excellence can be characterized as follows: modern, coherent, ubiquitous, sophisticated, and – in many ways – all-embracing. The ambitions are high and a substantial amount of resources are put into managing it. They are present in most work situations. As an individual, you are frequently evaluated and asked to evaluate other people. You are expected to help out in recruiting new people: making interviews and 10