Purpose: This article seeks to discuss the role that line managers take up concerning human resource management issues among Greek firms and to propose ways for enhancing the synergistic relationship between human resource (HR) and line managers. Design/methodology/approach: It presents the trends of line management involvement in Greek firms, from 1993-2003, based on the CRANET survey. The survey results are enhanced by qualitative data from focus groups. Findings: Findings show that during the past ten years there has been an increasing tendency for collaboration, with the main responsibility increasingly falling on the HR department. Moreover, the main obstacles to this collaboration are presented. Research limitations/implications: The main research limitation is the limited data that the CRANET questionnaire provides on the issue of HR-line management partnership. However, the focus groups enrich the survey data with qualitative results. Implications for practice derive from the qualitative results. Originality/value: The value of this paper is mainly to line managers that are involved in human resource management activities, since the difficulties that occur from this partnership are discussed. (Contains 5 figures.)