Human resource department strategic role in Lithuanian enterprises

Abstract

The goal of this article is to analyse the strategic role of human resource departments in Lithuanian enterprises, to identify the factors which influence this role and its impact on organisational performance. For this purpose the scientific works of foreign and Lithuanian authors were studied and the research was conducted. The research used methodology via questionnaire with mixed (open and closedend) questions survey. The authors analyse the findings of the research conducted in 2012, the respondents of which were 160 senior managers, human resource departments’ managers and professionals in 92 Lithuanian firms. The research revealed that strategic role of human resource management depends not only on human resource managers’ involvement at board level, organizational culture but also on firm’s size, managers’ competencies, etc. The research allowed discovering that mostly big organisations have a strategic approach to human resource management. In the small organisations human resource strategic initiatives have been seen as irrelevant. The authors also found that the alignment between the organisational and human resource strategy is an important factor impacting the organisational performance and success.