Investors in people and the standardization of professional knowledge in personnel management

Professionalization, for personnel specialists, is accomplished through the ir organizational activities, and their ability to socialize others into pa rticular ways of operating. The national people management standard, Invest ors in People (hereafter 'IiP'), has been promoted as a career vehicle for the personnel manager From interviews with professional IiP advocates in a range of research case study organizations, this article illustrates some o f the ways in which IiP implementation becomes a negotiated process, prone to the career interests of the managers concerned, and shaped by political- organizational contexts. The analysis indicates that IiP represents a codif ied body of knowledge which legitimates the personnel function and helps to make it recognizable to the rest of the organization. The role of the Trai ning and Enterprise Councils (hereafter TECs), as local regulators of the I iP standard forms part of the broader socio-political context within which organizational recognition is achieved, and as the main external point of c ontact for the IiP advocate. This leads to the conclusion that the origins of standards of best practice on which IiP is based, are themselves influen ced by a broader socio-political process.