Structuring Shared Services: Realizing SSC Benefits Through End-Users’ Usage of an HR Portal

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to explore the use of shared services by end-users and why this may conflict with the use as intended by the shared service center (SSC) management.

Methodology/approach

By applying structuration theory, this empirical study draws on qualitative data obtained from semi-structured interviews with managers and end-users of an SSC. This SSC is part of a Dutch subsidiary of a multinational corporation that produces professional electronics for the defense and security market.

Findings

We find two main types of shared services usage by end-users which were not intended by the SSC management: avoidance and window-dressing. These forms of unintended usage were the result of contradictions in social structures related to the centralization and decentralization models as appropriated by end-users and management.

Implications

Our findings show that the benefits of shared services depends on how well contradictions in managers’ and end-users’ interpretive schemes, resources, and norms associated with centralization and decentralization models are resolved.

Originality/value

A popular argument in existing studies is that the benefit of shared services follows from the design of the SSC’s organizational structure. These studies overlook the fact that shared services are not always used as their designers intended and, therefore, that success depends on how the SSC’s organizational structure is appropriated by end-users. As such, the originality of this study is our focus on the way shared services are used by their end-users in order to explain why SSCs succeed or fail in reaping their promised benefits.

Citation

Meijerink, J., ten Kattelaar, J. and Ehrenhard, M. (2014), "Structuring Shared Services: Realizing SSC Benefits Through End-Users’ Usage of an HR Portal", Shared Services as a New Organizational Form (Advanced Series in Management, Vol. 13), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 105-131. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1877-636120140000013006