Introduction

This chapter explores the devolution of routine HRM work (for example, recruitment and selection, performance management, training and development, and disciplinary and grievance activities) from the HRM function to the line manager. The devolution of HRM is now an established feature of many contemporary firms, allegedly allowing the HRM function to work more closely on what is termed ‘strategic’ tasks. However, this shift is not without its controversies some 40 years after its instigation. A psychoanalytic reading of devolution allows an interrogation of what this process means by asking what ‘role’ the line manager occupies to those they manage and why this might be problematic not simply from an organizational/ organizing perspective but also from an unconscious, affective one. Parker (2004) makes the point that there is a great deal of literature which looks at the managerial job from the ‘outside’ as well as a large body of (ghostwritten) autobiographies of heroic managers who have allegedly changed the world.