The project manager and the organisation's long-term competence goal

•We define HRM competence management practices in the project context.•We examine the PMs' degree of involvement in HRM competence management practices.•Current degree of PM involvement in HRM competence management practices is low.•Increased PM involvement leads to better fulfilment of long-term competence goal.•There is a need for a change in the PM role and responsibilities.

This paper presents empirical results from a study that aims to increase our understanding of the project manager's involvement in competence management in larger Swedish project-oriented organisations. Projects are today the predominant way of performing work. Organisations are also paying more attention to competence as competitive advantage. However, the logical interrelated connection between these two fields is still not understood.This study adopted a post-positivistic perspective starting with a qualitative step with in-depth interviews followed by a quantitative web survey.The major contributions are the framework that constitutes human resource management (HRM) competence management practices related to projects followed by the importance of project managers' involvement in the company's long-term goal in terms of competence.For researchers, these findings contribute to integrating project management into the HRM field. For practitioners, there is a need to review the project manager's participation in competence management.