99 research outputs found

    Shut the fridge door! HRM alignment, job redesign and energy performance

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    Anchored within the strategic HRM and alignment literature, and drawing on efficiency and legitimacy perspectives of organisational behaviour, we investigated a Human Resource Management (HRM) intervention targeted at energy reduction goals in a large multinational retailer. The HRM intervention was focused on embedding the environmental and economic performance goals of the firm within the workplace through redesigning the job so that energy tasks were aligned with training and performance management systems, as well as organisational performance goals. Using a randomised control trial design, we tracked changes in energy behaviours and energy consumption in 769 retail stores (685 in the intervention condition, 84 in the control condition). The findings provide evidence that changing the alignment of HRM practices can influence both worker behaviour and organisational outcomes, including environmental outcomes. This work contributes to debates concerning the impact of HRM alignment to both the work and organisational performance context

    Towards an understanding of configurational and national influences on international integration in the HR function in MNCs

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    The human resource (HR) function plays a critical role in how multinational companies (MNCs) centralise decision-making or coordinate and exploit expertise internationally. However, there has been limited attention on the extent to which the HR function in MNCs is integrated internationally and the influencing factors behind this. Using nationally representative, cross-country comparative data, this paper identifies the degree to which internationally integrated HR functions exist and test the extent to which this is shaped by the strategy, structure and nationality of the MNC. We demonstrate the multidimensionality of an internationally integrated HR function; with the structural configuration, level of inter-dependencies between MNC operations and country of origin each partially impacting its nature. A key implication concerns the need to move beyond solely focusing on either nationality as per institutionalist theory, or corporate strategy and structure as characterised in the strategic international HRM literature, towards an integrated explanation that incorporates both sets of factors

    Sustaining and Embedding:A Strategic and Dynamic Approach to Workplace Wellbeing

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    Much research on practices to improve workplace health and wellbeing focuses on specific ‘interventions’ or combinations of ‘interventions’. In this stream of research, an intervention is a specific and discrete organisational action mandated by management with a planned and specific target. However, organisations typically can and do adopt multiple workplace health and wellbeing practices in a strategic and evolving programme. In the current chapter, we outline a model of how organisations sustain, embed and change patterns of workplace health and wellbeing practices over the longer term in coherent and strategic programmes. We suggest that this adaption of programmes is especially relevant in the current turbulent era we find ourselves in, post-Covid

    International human resource management in multinational companies: Global norm making within strategic action fields

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    The formation of global norms that affect work is a crucial element to how multinational companies (MNCs) achieve a degree of HR integration internationally. We establish a ‘strategic action fields’ framework to guide research into global norm-making in MNCs in general and for analysing the work of those that we term ‘globalising actors’—those who are active in globalising a firm's management of its human resources—in particular. We position our framework with relation to existing research in international human resource management, and show how the field can benefit from achieving an approach to global norm-making that is contextualised, personalised and contested

    Using HPWP to drive towards growth: the impact of occupational health and safety leadership

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    In recent years, investigations into several major industrial accidents, for example the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, the Chernobyl disaster, and the King’s Cross fire, have prompted a growing concern among scholars to derive new models and approaches to the management of occupational risks to health and safety (Nunez and Villanueva, 2011; O’Dea and Flin, 2003). Occupational accidents and injuries are generally known to provoke a broad range of negative consequences on the performance of an organization. They can cause significant losses to an organization’s human capital, generate huge costs due to losses in labour productivity, damage workplace equipment and decrease the organization’s corporate reputation (O’Dea and Flin, 2003; FernĂĄndez-Muñiz et al., 2007; Ring, 2011). Moreover, unsafe working conditions may undermine employees’ commitment to the organization, increase the likelihood for workplace conflicts and stifle the organization’s potential for growth and competitiveness (FernĂĄndez-Muñiz et al., 2009). As a result, occupational health and safety (OHS) matters are given high priority among scholars, managers and regulators

    Global norm-making processes in contemporary multinationals

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    This paper contextualises and analyses global norm-making concerning the nature of work within multinational companies. We develop a framework for analysing the relations between formal and informal elements of global norm-making, stressing dynamic interdependencies between formality and informality on four dimensions: the codification of norms; enforcement mechanisms; the use of “platforms”; and aggregation with wider contexts. We investigate four cases of transnational norm-making spaces across two multinationals, and analyse how these interdependencies work, both for norms and practices that emanate from the upper levels of corporate hierarchies, and those developed at lower levels among global operational teams

    Forgotten globalizing actors: towards an understanding of the range of individuals involved in global norm formation in multinational companies

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    While there is substantial literature on global mobility, roles in the global integration of multinationals are not limited to internationally mobile staff. We focus on ‘globalizing actors’, defined as those within multinationals who are involved in global norm-making. Using interview-based qualitative data, we categorize individuals’ involvement in global norm-making according to the function within norm formation in which they are involved, their source of influence, and their geographical and organizational reach. We identify nine distinct types of globalizing actors. We demonstrate that many individuals play important roles in global norm-making without having formal hierarchical authority or being globally mobile. Our approach draws attention to the ways in which many globalizing actors use ‘social skill’ to further their aims. Our categorization of such ‘forgotten globalizing actors’ facilitates future research by allowing a fuller understanding of the ways in which individuals across multinationals contribute to global integration

    Implementing practices focused on workplace health and psychological wellbeing: A systematic review

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    Rationale: Workplace health and wellbeing practices (WHWPs) often fail to improve psychological health or wellbeing because of implementation failure. Thus, implementation should be evaluated to improve the effectiveness of WHWPs.  Objective: We conducted a systematic review to identify critical success factors for WHWP implementation and gaps in the evidence. Doing so provides a platform for future theoretical development.  Methods: We reviewed 74 separate studies that assessed the implementation of WHWPs and their effects on psychological health or psychological wellbeing. Most studies were from advanced industrial Western democracies (71). Intervention types included primary (e.g., work redesign, 37 studies; and health behavior change, 8 studies), secondary (e.g., mindfulness training, 11 studies), tertiary (e.g., focused on rehabilitation, 9 studies), and multifocal (e.g., including components of primary and secondary, 9 studies).  Results: Tangible changes preceded improvements in health and wellbeing, indicating intervention success cannot be attributed to non-specific factors. Some interventions had beneficial effects through mechanisms not planned as part of the intervention. Three factors were associated with successful WHWP implementation: continuation, learning, and effective governance.  Conclusions: The review indicates future research could focus on how organizations manage conflict between WHWP implementation and existing organizational processes, and the dynamic nature of organizational contexts that affect and are affected by WHWP implementation. This systematic review is registered [PROSPERO: the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews ID: CRD42019119656]

    Authenticity in the Pursuit of Mutuality During Crisis

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    Employee wellbeing activities constitute a space for organisations to realise a shared agenda with employees, and therefore a means to pursue mutuality. The pursuit of mutuality draws on assumptions of reciprocity in social exchange theory (SET) but is dynamic and put under pressure by external shocks. The first UK COVID-19 lockdown provided the setting to explore how organisations addressed employee wellbeing concerns under conditions of crisis. Using qualitative data from five organisations, we identify authenticity-building, which is the constellation of past and present activities through which organisations channel efforts to be authentic in their concern for employees. Attributions of authenticity emerge as fundamental to authenticity-building, while authenticity-work (the organisation noticing, understanding and acting on shifts in interests) is enabled by dialogic processes. Authenticity-building shifts the quality of the exchange relationship to allow for mutual benefits and is therefore, a vital and dynamic component of mutuality. Our findings contribute to the mutuality literature by providing a theoretically-embedded extension of SET and show how organisations may become more (or less) authentic within the context of the employment relationship. We highlight the complexity of organisational endeavour for mutuality and show how mutuality need not be compromised during external shocks
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