This thesis presents a study of intra-organisational legitimation of the Human Resource function in a large Australian airline. Major changes in senior management and strategy, under tumultuous circumstances for the industry and the firm, saw a repositioning of human resources in the organisation. The study draws on empirical ethnographic research conducted within a large global airline over approximately fourteen months, focusing on 2001. Using a longitudinal and processual research strategy, the study adopted enabled the close examination of the interrelationships between institutional structures and organisational action, embedded in an organisational setting. In particular, it considers the loss of legitimacy and agency of managers in a corporate human resources department and their response in re-establishing legitimacy in a new institutional context. Legitimacy implies the actions and existence of these actors and their sub-unit are both valued and considered valid by their constituencies. In the analysis of the unfolding multi-layered processes of legitimation, I employed elements of neo-institutional theory and critical realist ontology and applied this analysis to a modified conception of structuration, mapping out the HR managers' experience of the inner context and how it came to position their practices and constrain their agency. The study found that the human resource actors in the airline were able to re-form and regain the legitimacy of their sub-unit and of their major strategic initiative, by drawing on their stock of political relationships and on the plurality of logics, values and norms available within the large, diverse firm" Their reflexive awareness of their contextual positioning enabled them to alter their legitimation strategies and regain legitimacy" This thesis makes a contribution to our understanding of processes of deinstitutionalisation and legitimation and ongoing structuration in organisational settings. It also expands our conceptualisation of legitimacy, by focusing on legitimation as an act of becoming, and developing the notion of legitimacy struggles as institutional politics. Finally, the thesis contributes to critical human resource management research and our understanding of human resource managers' capacity for agency within broader institutional contexts.

This thesis presents a study of intra-organisational legitimation of the Human Resource function in a large Australian airline. Major changes in senior management and strategy, under tumultuous circumstances for the industry and the firm, saw a repositioning of human resources in the organisation. The study draws on empirical ethnographic research conducted within a large global airline over approximately fourteen months, focusing on 2001. Using a longitudinal and processual research strategy, the study adopted enabled the close examination of the interrelationships between institutional structures and organisational action, embedded in an organisational setting. In particular, it considers the loss of legitimacy and agency of managers in a corporate human resources department and their response in re-establishing legitimacy in a new institutional context. Legitimacy implies the actions and existence of these actors and their sub-unit are both valued and considered valid by their constituencies. In the analysis of the unfolding multi-layered processes of legitimation, I employed elements of neo-institutional theory and critical realist ontology and applied this analysis to a modified conception of structuration, mapping out the HR managers' experience of the inner context and how it came to position their practices and constrain their agency. The study found that the human resource actors in the airline were able to re-form and regain the legitimacy of their sub-unit and of their major strategic initiative, by drawing on their stock of political relationships and on the plurality of logics, values and norms available within the large, diverse firm" Their reflexive awareness of their contextual positioning enabled them to alter their legitimation strategies and regain legitimacy" This thesis makes a contribution to our understanding of processes of deinstitutionalisation and legitimation and ongoing structuration in organisational settings. It also expands our conceptualisation of legitimacy, by focusing on legitimation as an act of becoming, and developing the notion of legitimacy struggles as institutional politics. Finally, the thesis contributes to critical human resource management research and our understanding of human resource managers' capacity for agency within broader institutional contexts.