he function of human resources management (HRM) has known during the past decades a great evolution, especially in the tasks that are assigned to it. Consequently, this function has become of great importance in ensuring the success of the enterprise by boosting its competitive advantages. This development is due to the great competitive pressure that the enterprises, all over the world, are facing as a result of the overwhelming globalisation phenomenon. Henceforth, besides of fulfilling the traditional tasks (human resources planning, recruitment, job analysis?etc), HRMs have to achieve some strategic goals in compliance with the enterprise strategic objectives.

As far as the Algerian economic enterprise is concerned, we can say that the HRM function, like other functions has seen an attempt to adapt itself to the new environment by the introduction of modern management techniques, the introduction and use of the technologies of information and communication? All this, drives us to raise the following question: What is the role played by HRMs in the Algerian enterprises ?

In order to answer the above question, we formulate the following hypotheses: H1: The role of HRMsin the studied enterprises is more an operational role than a strategic one.

H2: There are significant differences for the role played by the HRMsdue to the type of property.

H3: There are significant differences for the role played by the HRMsdue to the size of entreprise.

HRM has long been perceived as an isolated department fulfilling traditional or operational tasks such as recruitment, hiring, training, maintaining employees records ?etc. These day to day personal management tasks appear to have no contribution to the enterprise overall performance. The strategic role for HRMs can only be achieved by integrating the enterprise human resources with the strategic objectives of the company.

Dave Ulrich can be considered as being the first to give a strategic role to HRMs. According to him, this strategic role comprehends 4 major roles: -The role of the administrative expert, -The role of employee champion, -The role of change agent, -And the role of strategic partner.

While the first and second roles are regarded as traditional ones, the third and the fourth can be considered as strategic roles (Katharina Thill et al., 2014).

According to Ulrich model, this role is traditionally assigned to the HRM department in the enterprise. The HRMs must :

-Ensure that tasks related to HRM are performed as stipulated, -Ensure efficiency by reducing costs and improving profits, -Analyse how work overflow takes place in the enterprise, -Be aware of rethinking the modes of operation in a business adapting them to any new environment (Khalil Al Jerjawi, 2011). This role, generally, requires a team of experts specialized in leading edge solutions to human resources problems (Stephen Taylor and Carol Woodhams, 2012).

Defending employees welfare and promoting their rights, can be considered as one of the most important tasks that HRMs are expected to accomplish, because listening to the employees' concerns and trying to provide suitable solutions to the problems they raise, can only result in a win-win situation for both the employers and the employees. According to Ulrich, HRMs should do their best to promote all types of communication that give the employees the opportunity to make suggestions improving their work conditions as well as improving the product quality.

The change agent is any person or group of persons, from the company or from outside, who undertakes the tasks of implementing changes in the company. To succeed in his project, he must have "the skill and power to stimulate, facilitate and coordinate the change effort" (Lunenburg, 2010:1). As far as human resources are concerned, as the employees are always afraid of any change, HRMs must do their best to make change as swift as possible. This can only be achieved by involving them in the process of change and the creation of a new work environment for the best of both enterprise and employees.

As enterprises are facing nowadays great challenges, many academicians and experts are asking HRMs to become strategic partners. This means that human resources have to contribute to any valuecreating project in the enterprise. This contribution can be achieved by developing employees' competencies and by focusing on new strategies for recruiting and retaining employees (Lawller and Mohrman, 2003).For (Taylor and Woodhams, 2012) this strategic role allows HRMs to be more engaged with line managers to the great benefit of the enterprise.

Strategic partner

As strategic partners, HRMs can help with valuable information and suggestions in the formulation of the enterprise strategy (Strandberg, 2009). All this make (Holley, 2009) claim that this role is not only the critical element in the model but it is also a very complex one.

Given the four roles presented above, we can argue now that : II.

As mentioned before, in order to assess the Algerian HRMs strategic role, we use a questionnaire consisting of 20 items, built on the basis of the Ulrich Model principles as described above, to be responded on five-point Likert scale (1 = "strong disagreement" to 5 = "strong agreement").

The questionnaire was distributed to 35 enterprises working in different sectors and that have a specific HRM department, after a while, we received 30 usable questionnaires, a response rate of more than 85%.

ii. The limits of the study -Spatial limits: we focused our study, on purpose, to the economic enterprises working in Setif and Bordj Bou Arreridj districts, for the following reasons: ? To Limit the field of study to avoid variations due to the site; ? These two districts contain large number of economic companies working in many different sectors. -Temporal limits: The time domain for this study was the starting of field work until the completion of data collection, analysis, results interpretation and investigation of the answers to the posed questions to accept or refute the different hypotheses of the study. In general, this period lasted more than six months. From16 march 2015 to 13 September 2015.

iii. The Questionnaire -Measure: As mentioned above and because the nature of the questionnaire items (opinion closed questions rather than information gathering questions), a five point Likert-scale was used to collect responses; (from 1 = "strongly disagree", to 5 = "strongly agree"). In order to test the ability of our questionnaire to achieve the objectives assigned to it in addition to the clarity of its items and vocabulary, we used the Kendall's Tau b correlation coefficient, which value lies in the range of -1 and +1, to find out the correlation between each item with the axis that belongs to it. The results are shown in the following tables: From the results in the table above, we can say that there is a positive correlation between variables and as the p value for all the tests is less than the critical value of 5%, we accept the alternative hypothesis, which means that there is some association between the variables under study.

v. Testing the Reliability of the questionnaire After testing the validity of the questionnaire, the next step is to assess its internal consistency, i.e. the degree to which all the items in the questionnaire measure the same concept. For this purpose, we use Cronbach's Alpha coefficient which lies from 0 to 1. And a high value of this coefficient indicates that the items are correlated to each other. using the SPSS package, we get the results shown in the next table. It is clear from Table 3 that the number of private enterprises in the sample amounted to 11 enterprises i.e. 36.7% of the total enterprises in the study, while the number of SOE's amounted to 19 enterprises i.e. of 63.3% of the total sample.

As noted above, our sample includes large and small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) which are defined by the Algerian legislature as enterprises producing goods and/or services that employ less than 250 workers and with a total annual sales not more than 2 Billions AD, approximatively less than 20 Million Euros, (Benzazoua Bouazza, 2015). Source: SPSS output Table 4 shows that 18 companies at a rate of 60% of the enterprises studied are SMEs, this is in part due to the high prevalence of this type of companies in various sectors of the Algerian economy because of the advantages awarded to them by the Algerian authorities. We also note from the above table that the 12 companies which represent 40% of the enterprises under study are the large enterprises.

Since the main objective of our study is an attempt to assess HRMs role in the Algerian Enterprise and after analyzing the characteristics of our sample of enterprises, we turn now our attention towards analyzing the four roles, as suggested by Ulrich's Model and as described above, one by one.

Table 6 contains contains some descriptive that we are going to use to analyse the secondof the four strategic roles of HRMs, that it is the role of the Employee Champion, which we measured with the following four items: Table 5 contains contains some descriptive statistics which help to analyse the first of the four strategic roles of HRMs, it is the role of the administrative expert, which was measured by five items:

? The HRMs ''Find solutions to the problems of human resources'' in entreprise under study, where the mean of this item reached (4.10) with a P value of (0.000). Which meansthat it is very significant. ? The HRMs ''Do a search to provide feasible alternatives for supervisors'' in the entreprises under study, where the mean of this item reached (3.47) with a level of significance is a bit low. ? The HRMs ''Propose best practices for supervisors'' in the entreprises under study, where the mean of this item reached (3.87) with a (0.000) P value. Which means that it is very significant.

? The HRMs ''Adapt of human resources programs to the needs of the institution'' in the entreprises under study, where the mean of this item reached (4.53) with aP value of (0.000). Which meansthat it is very significant. ? The HRMs ''Elaborate general policy of human resource disciplines'' in the entreprises under study, and the mean of this item reached (3.93) a (0.000) P value. Which means that it is very significant. ? Due to the above results, we find that the mean for the whole role (4.00) with a standard deviation of (0.73) and, consequently, a Pvalue of (0.000) is very significant. Which means that the role of the administrative expert, was practiced a high level in the institutions under study.

? The HRMs fulfill the task of ''representation of human resources'' in entreprises under study. The mean for this item is (3.70) with a standard deviation of about (1.18), suggesting a very high level of significance. This means that the respondents do agree that they are representing the employees in our sample of entreprises.

? The HRMs promote ''Diversity management and the provision of mutual respect'' in entreprises under study.The mean for this item is (4.00) with a standard deviation of (1.05), suggesting a very high level of significance. This means that the respondents do promote diversity management and mutual respect in our sample of entreprises. ? The HRMs ''Discuss the diverse opinions of human resources'' in entreprise under study.The mean for this item is (3.60) with a standard deviation of (1.10), suggesting a very high level of significance. This means that the respondents in our sample agree that they are ready to listen and discuss their employees' opinions and suggestions. ? The HRMs ''Participation of work problems with human resources'' in entreprise under study. The mean for this item is (3.50) with a standard deviation of (1.22), suggesting a moderate level of significance. This means that some of the respondents in our sample recognize that they do not often promote the participation of employees in resolving work problems. ? Concerning the whole role of Employee Champion, the mean for this item is (3.70) with a standard deviation of (0.76), suggesting a very high level of significance. This means the role of employee champion is well practiced in our sample of enterprises.

Table 7 contains some descriptive statistics relatedto the third role from the roles of HR manager, it is the role of the change agent, which was measured by five items; Where reached the mean for this role (3.78) with std deviation (0.835), and significant estimited by (0.000), and It is less than tabular value (0.05); Which means that the role of the administrative expert, was practiced a high level in the institutions under study, and this is due to the following factors:

? The HRMs do the ''Diagnosing of organizational problems'' in entreprise under study. The mean of this item is (3.67) with a standard deviation of (1.06), suggesting avery high significance.This means that the HRMs in our sample agree that they do the diagnostic of organizational problems.

? The HRMs ''Propose appropriate solutions to these problems to management'' in entreprise under study.The mean for this item is (3.90) with a standard deviation of (0. 995)and a very high level of significance. This leads us to conclude that HRMs in our sample do propose solutions to resolve organisational problems.

? The HRMs ''Assist management in the implementation of these solutions" in entreprise under study. The mean for this item is (3.73) with a standard deviation of (1.08) and a very high level of significance. This means that HRMs in our sample do assist top management in the implementation of the solutions they suggested.

? The HRMs ''Help in the development of the enterprise and its resources'' in entreprise under study. The mean for this item is (3.97) with a standard deviation of (1.06) suggesting a very high level of significance. This means that HRMs in our sample do help in the the development of the enterprise and its resources. ? The HRMs use ''Management of change for the purpose of the success of the process of change'' in the entreprises under study. The mean for this item is (3.70) with a standard deviation of (1.05) suggesting a very high level of significance. This means that HRMs in our sample use Management of change for the purpose of the success of the process of change. ? Concerning the whole role of change agent, the mean for this item is (3.78) with a standard deviation of (0.76), suggesting a very high level of significance. This means the role of change agent is well practiced in our sample of enterprises. ? The HRMs ''Suggests paths to maintain at the same time the interests of the institution and the interests of workers'' in entreprise under study. The mean for this item is (3.80) with a standard deviation of (1.40) suggesting a very high level of significance. This means that HRMs in our sample of enterprises do suggest solutions that preserve both enterprises and workers interests.

? Concerning the role of strategic partner as a whole, the mean for this item is (3.48) with a standard deviation of (1.16), suggesting that the sample mean for this item is significant (P-value <0.05). This means the role of strategic partner is well practiced in our sample of enterprises.

The main question that one may ask at this level is: Do the roles accomplished by HRMs differ depending on the type of property and the size of the enterprises they work in? To answer this question, we use the t-test. iv. Testing for differences according to the type of property: Here we are going to answer the question: Is the role of HRMs different in SOEs from the role of their counterparts in private enterprises? From the above Table, we can see that t statistic value is (t=3.085) with a high level of significancethis means that there is a statistically significant difference for the role of HRMs depending on the type of property.And as the mean for SOEs is greater than the mean for private enterprises, we can conclude that the strategic role of HRMs is better practiced in SOEs than in the private ones. This may be due to the fact that the employment in the public institutions is entrusted to specialists and done on the basis of laws that are clear, unlike private institutions where employement is handled by the owner, who is usually the manager.

v. Testing for differences to the role of the HRMs according to the size of the enterprises With reference to the table10, we can see that t statistic value is (t=1.067) with a low level of significancethis means that, statistically speaking, we can say that there no significant difference for the role of HRMs depending on the enterprises size ; Meaning thatthefulfillment of the strategic role of the HRMsdoes not depend on the enterprises size.

The Results Analysis a) Hypothesis test?ng: Here each hypothesis is restated and tested i. The first hypothesis:The role of HRMs in the studied institutions is more an operational role than a strategic one. The above results show the HRMs in institutions under study practice both operational and strategic roles, whereas the mean for the former is 3.85, which means that the HRMs do practicethe roles ofadministrative expert and employee champion,we note from the same results that the mean of the strategic ii. The second hypothesis: There is significant differences for the role played by the HRMsdue to the type of the the property.

role is only 3.63, which means that some of HRMs in our sample of enterprises do not playthe roles of agent of change and strategic partner. Thus we accept the hypothesis which states that: The role of HRMs in the studied institutions is more an operational role than a strategic one.