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We develop empirically based insights from five case studies and argue that how actors respond to paradoxical tensions helps to explain variety and dynamism in how the HRM function is organized. It also helps to clarify why widely popular models with clearly prescribed structures take on a variety of forms in practice and are dynamic. We contribute to theorizing on the HRM function by introducing a dynamic, tension‐centered perspective, based on paradox theory, that builds on previous research on the organization of the HRM function and the challenges facing HRM practitioners working within any particular model to organize HRM work. We discuss the limitations of our study, as well as offering suggestions for future research and practical implications from paradox theory for HRM practitioners dealing with tensions in their work.

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The central challenge of management development is to control and manage the learning process of managers, focused on individual development and career success and/or reaching organisational goals. This article examines the two seemingly opposed assumptions that either management development comes with experience, job‐rotation and learning on the job or as a result of coaching, mentoring and tacit development programmes that tend to attract younger recruits. It concludes that each assumption includes a part of the truth. Thus, the job, the work environment, and the individual employee characteristics play a role. The article seeks to improve the understanding of the influence of these factors. It focuses on the interaction between developmental characteristics of the job, the learning behaviour of individuals, and the consequences of this interaction for career success of managers.

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This article describes the development of an instrument to measure the quality of managerial leaming on the job. The instrument can be used to analyse the quality of the individual leaming process on the job. The literature shows that two factors determine the quality of the leaming process; the leaming potential of the job context and the way in which the manager approaches their work. So the instrument has two components. The first component measures the four types of work experience that offer potential opportunities for individual leaming. These are Transitions, Task-related characteristics, Obstacles, and Support.The second component, the so-called learning behaviour, analyses, the way the individual approaches the potential leaming opportunities present in the job. This can also be divided into four categories: Emergent leaming, Planned leaming, Instruction oriented leaming, andMeaning oriented leaming. Based on these two components, an instrument has been developed to measure the quality of leaming on the job. This has been shown to be valid and reliable in a sample of European managers.

Despite growing interest in the concept of team work engagement (TWE), relatively little is known about the conditions that allow it to emerge. Based on the literature on work engagement and team climate, this study introduces the concept of TWE climate and examines its conceptual attributes. Based on a one-and-a-half-year qualitative investigation of eight Dutch self-steering project teams, we discovered that TWE climate comprises eight attributes, both (a) personal and (b) shared. Personal attributes include team members' commitment and drive toward the team and a personal feeling of being respected within the team. Shared attributes include a shared ability to overcome challenges and a shared sense of accomplishment, community, drive, and focus. Our findings indicate that personal and shared attributes are both critical elements of a team climate conducive to team work engagement. We conclude this paper by discussing what these findings mean for the concept of TWE climate in light of future research and practice.

In the highly competitive international consulting marketplace clients will always demand a world‐class service. A major challenge for PricewaterhouseCoopers is how to achieve the required level of international co‐ordination of the efforts of 160,000 people world‐wide without compromising responsiveness on a local scale in over 150 countries. Human resource management in general and management development in particular play an important role. A major investment is made in the development of the consultants, despite the acknowledged fact that most will leave the organization after only a few years. PwC uses a global framework of core competences as the key instrument in its development plan and every consultant is profiled according to it. Management development for partners has a more informal, self‐directed character. But the bottom line is still the optimization of international co‐ordination.