dc.description.abstract | Over the last decades, interest has increased enormously in HR Business Partnering. Recent critics
have stated that the partnering between HR and business is not clearly defined and is subject to
different expectations and interpretations. Referring to the reviewed literature for this study,
there is a lack of theoretical perspectives on partnering construction between the participants.
Taking this criticism as a starting point, this paper takes a social constructionism perspective to
explore how HR Business Partnering is constructed. The study is conducted as a single case study at
the company SKF and addresses HR Business Partnering construction. In this context, the research
problem is that the elements of relationships and cooperation between participants are unclear and
ignored within the HR restructuring project at SKF. Subsequently, the research purpose of this
paper is to study the expectations and descriptions of the participants, who are HR Business
Partners, HR Partners and Line Managers. My findings present that partnering between HR and
business is addressed on two levels. First, the organisation merely develops partnering through
structures and written documents. Secondly, participants construct partnering on an informal level
through relationships, networks and agreements. Hence, partnering construction is not only a matter
of clear defined documents, it also requires considering participant’s informal approaches in order
to improve the construction of HR Business Partnering. | sv |