Edward Lawler foresaw strategic role of HR - University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business professor and director of its Center for Effective Organizations - Society for Human Resource Management: Award for Professional Excellence

HR Magazine, Sept, 1997 by Michelle Neely Martinez

Edward E. Lawler III, a professor with the University of Southern California (USC), knew decades ago what chief executive officers and human resource practitioners have only recently been coming to grips with: HR practices must be aligned with business operations.

Considered an icon in the fields of organizational development and organizational behavior, Lawler says, "There is no question that the greatest opportunity for HR people is now."

A frequent consultant to top management in Fortune 100 companies, Lawler is a professor of research at USC's Marshall School of Business and director of its Center for Effective Organizations. He says that CEOs today are looking to HR executives for ways to be highly effective in very competitive business environments. So for HR executives, "the real challenge now is taking risks to succeed and becoming even more influential within one's organization."

Lawler is a profound and provocative writer and researcher in the areas of compensation, organizational change, employee involvement and strategic human resource management. What makes his work so distinct is his knack for combining empirical rigor with practical workplace applications.

Much of Lawler's career has focused on designing effective pay systems incorporating practices such as skill-based pay, pay for performance and performance appraisals.

Employee involvement is another area in which Lawler has made major contributions. He pioneered the use of joint labor/management employee involvement committees, and conducted the first significant research on their effectiveness during the mid-1970s.

Part of his success may stem from his early ambition to become an HR practitioner. Growing up in historic Alexandria, Va. - just blocks away from SHRM headquarters - Lawler says: "My father ran state liquor stores, and I thought I'd be a good manager. I decided I wanted to be a personnel manager."

But after college and graduate school, Lawler chose academia for his career because it allowed him to express his ideas and opinions on topics that deeply interested him.

"I've always enjoyed getting people's reactions to my ideas," he says. "And being with a university has been an important career step because I work in an environment that encourages me to write."

Lawler has written 25 books and more than 200 articles. His most recent book is From the Ground Up: Six Principles for Creating New Logic Corporations (Jossey-Bass, 1996).

One of his most highly regarded articles, written in 1973 with co-author Richard Hackman, is "Effects of job redesign: A field experiment," in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology. The article, which discusses job design and employee motivation, is the most frequently cited work in the field of organizational psychology and one of the most frequently cited in all social sciences literature. This work helped define what constitutes job enrichment and prompted many organizations to change how all types of jobs are designed.

Lawler taught at the London School of Business, Yale University and the University of Michigan before joining USC in 1982. Almost 20 years ago, he founded the Center for Effective Organizations, where he oversees an active program of HR research and seminars, supported by 55 corporations. So far, he has raised more than $20 million to fund organizational research.

Asked about winning the SHRM Award for Professional Excellence, Lawler says: "I'm particularly pleased because the honor is for professional excellence and it's from an organization representing the people I've always wanted to impact and participate with. Rarely are academicians recognized by such organizations; therefore, the award is truly special."

Michelle Neely Martinez is a contributing editor for HRMagazine. She can be reached at MartinezMN@aol.com.