Beyond “Hero-based” Management: Revisiting HRM Practices for Managing Collective Expertise

While expertise has been traditionally described as an individual phenomenon, some streams of research in social sciences have demonstrated its relational and collective dimensions. Given these findings, the global trend of the individualization of HRM practices, which did not preclude the specific population of “experts’”, could be antagonistic to the development of collective forms of expertise. Drawing on a case study in a large science-based company, we analyze the impact of individualized managerial practices, and in particular the dual ladder, on expert work. We show that neglecting the collective dimension of expertise could endanger critical organizational processes, such as knowledge sharing, learning, innovating, decision making and problem solving. We discuss how overcoming the limitations of “hero-based” management could open the way for the HRM function to support a collective dimension in managing expertise.