Executives learn to put research on the corporate agenda

An innovative research centre where academics and executives jointly set the agenda is embarking on a new phase after a vote of confidence from its sponsors.

Set up four years ago with the help of companies such as Vodafone, the telecommunications group, RBS, the bank, and McDonald’s, the fast food chain, the Centre for Performance-led HR at Lancaster University Management School in the UK believes it has pioneered a new way to interact with business.

Paul Sparrow, director of the centre, says that companies traditionally either pay to train their executives or they absorb and implement the writings of management gurus.

At CPHR, professionals from different companies work alongside each other under academic guidance to prioritise and even conduct research themselves.

One testament to the collaboration is a series of co-written research “white papers” on talent management published last year. Alongside Martin Herd, an academic from the centre, the authors are executives from RBS, the Cabinet Office, Royal Mail and services contractor NG Bailey – none of whom are students at the school.

Paul Chesworth, human resources director of Vodafone for Europe and chairman of the centre, says CPHR was set up in response to the dominance of the US in HR research. Schools such as Cornell and Michigan, where Dave Ulrich, the pre-eminent guru, is based, set the agenda in this field but Mr Chesworth says the business world is changing faster than academics can keep up.

“The Ulrich model was about 10 years old at that time and I didn’t see too much new thinking coming from the US,” he says. “Why was it we were reliant on the thought leadership of organisations that were 5,000 miles away?”

Along with the HR directors of Royal Mail and BAE, he tempted Prof Sparrow, a leader in the field, away from Manchester Business School. Lancaster was already a leading centre for HR research, says Prof Sparrow, and was ripe for such innovation. “One of the things we do is take tablets of stone in HR, things everyone takes for granted and ... say how much do we really know about it?”

The original idea was for senior directors to identify joint issues of interest. However, the centre has evolved over time. Smaller special interest groups in areas such as employee engagement and organisation design were set up 18 months ago to cement relationships lower down the company, an acknowledgment that if a director moves on, the link to the centre could be lost.

Proof of success is that many members, such as BAE, Hanson, IBM, Legal & General, McDonald’s, Nestlé, Prudential, RBS, Sellafield, Shell and Vodafone have agreed to sign up for another three years with a £12,000 annual fee.

Trust is key, says Mr Chesworth. “It is Chatham House rules.” One presentation he gave to the organisational design sub-group compared the efficiency of different country units within Vodafone – highly sensitive information. Members must come from different industry sectors to share so openly. “It would be more difficult if O2 was sitting across the table,” admits Rob Watson from Vodafone.

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Sue Bland, of Co-operative Financial Solutions, says membership creates the space to think long-term. “It is encouraging us to think more widely,” she says.

Others value the academic independence. Dave Nuttall, from BAE Systems, says commercial networks tend to stick within safe parameters. “These guys ask paradigm-shifting questions,” he says.

Independence is vital for Prof Sparrow. Everything is recorded and can be used for published research. “We have a duty to educate the wider HR community as well as sponsors,” he says.

In return, Prof Sparrow and CPHR get fast-track research. “You have other professionals grilling them and we are recording them. You are getting very rich, qualitative data and honest insights into the reality of what is going on. We can get research access we would not have otherwise”

Prof Sparrow says the experience has helped him to understand the practicalities of management and how HR has to fight for attention as companies adapt their structures ever more quickly to cope with a fast-moving economy. “We have a much more realistic and political view of what has to happen inside organisations.”

Mr Chesworth, meanwhile, has become more academic. “In 25 years as a HR professional, I have always got on with the day job and kept abreast of what has been going on, generally through articles and conferences. I always felt I did the first better than the second. That is changing.”