La gestion des gestionnaires de projets: Le cas de l'industrie aerospatiale au Quebec

This research focuses on the management of project managers (PMs) working in high technology organizations. In particular, it examines how these professionals are taken charge of from a human resources management (HRM) standpoint in firms within the aerospace industry in Quebec.;The review of the literature also reveals that the subject of HRM as applied to PMs is poorly documented empirically, especially on the topic of what particular challenges the project context might bring up for the HRM of PMs. There is also little told about the actors involved in supporting and contributing to meet the challenges that arise out of managing PMs.;This study sought to discern those challenges and the means put forth to address them. Also, it wanted to identify the actors of the HRM of PMs, their roles, their skills, and their relationships, among themselves and with the PMs, in order to efficiently take charge of them. This study also wanted to demonstrate the logic that ties the means put forth by the identified actors with the objectives PM-employing organizations want to reach. Finally, the study wanted to identify the impact of the HRM of PMs as it is occurring in organizations.;The Quebec aerospace sector was chosen as the field of research primarily because the success of projects in organizations of that sector, alongside regular manufacturing operations, seems to contribute to their performance. In fact, most of these organizations currently are industry leaders worldwide.;The literature in the field of project management generally depicts PMs as entrepreneurs and resource managers, managing human resources (e.g. project team members) among other things. It also defines them as single-handedly responsible for managing their own career, stress and motivation. This profile suggests that once selected and assigned to projects, PMs receive little attention in terms of HRM from the organization. It is hardly conceivable, however, that PMs would move about completely on their own within the organization, let alone that they wouldn't represent any special challenge in terms of HRM, as the ones the literature so clearly underlines for project team members.;The data that form the basis of this research were obtained through 65 semi-structured interviews with representatives of project management, HRM and upper management in eight organizations in the aerospace industry in Quebec. First, the collected data was treated case by case using the qualitative data analysis software application Atlas.ti. Subsequently, the description and interpretation of the data were developed in a transversal way to achieve a sector-wide portrait of the HRM of PMs.;The results reveal that PMs, like other human resources, do present particular HRM challenges and are actually managed as such in the organizations. PMs benefit both from traditional HRM practices (collective HRM) and from the relationship established and maintained with their immediate manager (individualized HRM). A network of actors is also involved in the HRM of PMs. Among these, the immediate manager of PMs stands out as the key HRM actor. In addition to applying HRM policies and practices to PMs, the manager of PMs, in his position of proximity with PMs, is destined to play different roles such as coach, motivator and talent agent.;This hybrid HRM of PMs provides a sense of well-being among PMs and allows organizations to retain these creators of value, it secures faithful customers (repeat business) as a consequence of the success of projects managed by those PMs, and contributes to build a pool for their future managerial elite.;Keywords : project management, human resource management, project manager, proximity management, high technology, aerospace industry, Quebec.