ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how human resource managers (HR-Managers) define and embellish ‘care’ at the workplace. It discusses the consequences for the well-being of the HR-Managers and others at the workplace as well as practical implications. HR-Managers are particularly suitable for investigating care in work organizations. The findings show that the HR-Managers’ subjective meanings of care are specifically ingrained in the organization’s hierarchy, respective power relations and their role as HR-Manager. From theoretical perspectives on care, the focus on HR-Managers is particularly interesting because care seems to be poured into the managerial role of HR professionals. The HR-Managers define the line managers, their subordinates and the employees as addresses of their caring efforts. With T. J. Watson, the historical development of the personnel occupation and the HR-Managers’ role of reconciling ‘care’ and ‘control’ can be viewed as a socio-structural response to the problem of social integration in the growing capitalist society and the need to control labor.
