书所研究的部门经理是指除了人力资源经理以外，在企业中承担某一方面管理职能，并需要管理一个团队的负责人。如生产经理、研发经理、销售经理等。部门经理是员工的直接管理者，员工的积极性能否被调动起来，员工的绩效如何，和部门经理的管理水平有着直接的联系。本书之所以研究部门经理的人力资源管理职责，是因为在企业实践中，人力资源部门一般负责人力资源政策、制度的制定与推行，HR具体工作很大程度上需要其他部门经理去组织实施。也就是说，部门经理既是部门的业务经理，通过做好统筹规划，确保部门的绩效目标得以完成，同时又要扮演"人力资源经理"的角色，承担一些人力资源管理的职责，如参与部门人员的面试、制定部门培训计划、实施部门的绩效考核，进行绩效面谈等。(The department managers it studies refer to those who assume management responsibilities in certain aspect and who need to be in charge of a team other than human resource managers,such as production manager, R&D manager and sales manager, etc.Department managers are direct supervisors of the staff and their level of management is directly related to whether staff's enthusiasm can be sparkled and whether or not staff's performance is good.It studies human resource management responsibilities of department managers because in enterprise practice, HR department is usually responsible for making and implementing policies and institutions, while HR will assign most of the specific tasks to department managers.That is, a department manager not only serves as the business manager of the department who should ensure that performance goal of the department is achieved through overall planning, but also acts as "the HR manager" and assumes certain HR management responsibilities, such as interviewing candidates for the department, making department training plan, carrying out the department's performance evaluation and making performance interviews, etc.)