Green (environmental) HRM: Aligning ideals with appropriate practices

Abstract Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore how Green (environmental) Human Resource Management (GHRM) policies can elicit green employee behaviours. This study explores the role of sustainability advocates, who are leaders and managers in pursuit of their firm’s environmental agenda, in the design and delivery of GHRM policies, communication, recruitment and selection, training, rewards and incentives. Design/methodology/approach – In this qualitative study, eighteen semi-structured interviews with sustainability advocates in European firms were conducted and analysed. Findings – GHRM practices are not in themselves peripheral, intermediate or embedded but shaped by contextual situations. Sustainability advocates intentions do not seem to match GHRM policy design, i.e. they try to elicit value-based behaviours by using self-interest-based approaches, leading to misalignments between the attitudes and behaviours policies attempt to elicit, and the type of behaviours they elicit in practice. Research implications/limitations – This study explores GHRM practice implementation experienced by leaders and managers. Further research on the role of the HR function and recipients of GHRM is needed. Practical implications – Practitioners need to be aware that organisational incentives (GHRM policies) that reflect self-interest can lead to self-interest based behaviour and may be short-lived. A careful consideration of contextual factors will inform the selection of suitable GHRM policies. Training completion rates seem an unsuitable metric for senior management bonuses. Originality/value –This paper investigates the design and implementation stage of GHRM, leading to an identification of GHRM policies as peripheral, intermediate or embedded. This creates an in-depth knowledge on the efficacy of GHRM policies and their relation to the environment. Keywords - Green HRM, Corporate Environmental Sustainability, Corporate Social Responsibility, Organisational Behaviour Paper type - Research articl

Evaluating student learning gain: What is the impact upon student learning resulting from the move to online teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic?

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the resulting enforced national lockdowns, universities across Europe and Asia have had to replace face-to-face teaching with online alternatives. With the ongoing marketisation of Higher Education, students are now seeking assurances regarding the value for money of their course given the changes in delivery methods. Understanding the learning that students perceive that they have received from their course is now of great significance. This paper used a model for evaluating student learning gain which considered student learning in two distinct dimensions, 1) explicit knowledge gained (distance travelled) which relates to codifiable models and theories, and 2) tacit understanding (journey travelled) relating to practical skills and know-how taught. This mono-method research used self-reflective surveys to collect ordinal (ranked) data from student participants. The students themselves were in their final year, and studied an Organisational Leadership module as part of an undergraduate business studies degree course at a UK university. The research in this study collected data in 2019 (before the Covid-19 pandemic) and again in 2021 (during the Covid-19 pandemic) for a subsequent cohort of students. Through the application of both sets of data, a comparison has been possible between how students perceived their learning to have changed due to the alternative educational delivery method being offered. Students were selected using a non-probability volunteer-based sampling method, and the study was completed with ethical approval from Bournemouth University (Ref 30119). Students in both cohorts were asked to respond to a series of questions, with their responses being ranked using the following linguistic labels 1) No Change; 2) Minor Improvement; 3) Moderate Improvement; 4) Significant Improvement; and 5) Exceptional Improvement. Using these options, students were asked to consider how their understanding of the Organisational Leadership subject area had changed from studying the module. Analysis of the data was undertaken using a frequency analysis method to determine the number of students who considered that their learning had improve significantly or exceptionally. By undertaking a comparison of these frequency results across the two cohorts of students, it was possible to review how the perceived student learning had changed due to the introduction of the online teaching. The results from this study are quite revealing, and the lessons that can be learnt have much wider implications for the Higher Education sector across the globe, and address the value for money question being asked currently being asked by university students

Managing talent across advanced and emerging economies: HR issues and challenges in a Sino-German strategic collaboration

The human resource (HR) practices involved in global talent management continue to advance and evolve. A majority of talent management commentary is from multinational corporation (MNC) perspectives. However, the less commented small-to-medium-sized enterprise (SME) also confronts challenges grounded in economic (i.e. resources, finance), organisational (i.e. size, scope and structure) and consequent behavioural rationales (i.e. mindsets and stances). This paper establishes and examines a number of propositions which consider how these factors impact on an advanced economy SME’s talent management in emerging economy collaborations. An interpretive qualitative methodology is employed using interviews conducted within two cases – SME and an MNC comparator case. The SME case is used as the driving force of the paper and its theoretical focus and findings. The MNC is used to develop issues as a comparator case. The findings show SME economic and organisational drivers producing behavioural dynamics in relation to mimesis of planned actions yet informal serendipitous responses in reality; a predilection for the proximate and familiar; design configurations of short-term expatriate visits and inpatriates; cumulating in ongoing inpatriate acculturisation and re-acculturation oscillation. Consequently, the implication is that the SME needs a HR practices encompassing resignation to the situation, flexibility and resilience in order to survive and progress

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

An exploration of the role of Green (environmental) Human Resource Management in eliciting employee green behaviours

There is limited empirical evidence on the implementation and embeddedness of Green (environmental) Human Resource Management (GHRM). Existing studies in this area find that GHRM can influence employee green behaviours. It is nominated by a focus on outcomes such as job satisfaction, environmental performance and firm performance. However, research adopting a normative view on aligning practices with values and considering environmental betterment is still in its nascent phase. Chapter 2 (Paper One) presents a study that explores how GHRM can elicit green employee behaviours from the perspective of environmental sustainability advocates, whose role is to drive the sustainability agenda through the firm. GHRM policies such as communication, recruitment and selection, environmental training, rewards, and incentives are explored empirically. Data were collected by interviewing eighteen sustainability advocates from European firms. Applying the model of Pandey et al.’s embeddedness of Corporate Social Responsibility helped to reveal a misalignment between sustainability advocates intentions and implementation of GHRM. A practical contribution of this study is that practitioners need to be aware that incentives might override values-based communication approaches and elicit self-interest-based behaviours, which are not sustainable over time. Chapter 3 (Paper 2) intensifies focus on a context rich in environmental practices by exploring GHRM implementation in a green firm. This ‘green’ context promises fertile ground for exploring value-based behaviours, which, according to the motivation literature, promise longer-lasting effects. The five green behaviours avoiding harm, conserving, working sustainably, taking action and influencing others are explored against the backdrop of GHRM. Findings suggest that participants are predominantly occupied with creating practices that influence others and take action. Distinct organisational and individual features that contribute and detract from environmental practice are identified. This research further stipulates that GHRM may have indirect effects on the green behaviours of external stakeholders. Chapter 4 (Paper 3) is a sister publication to paper 2 and explores data-mergent themes in the same research setting in more depth. The standalone paper investigates the reframing of implicit and explicit CSR and intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in times of change against the backdrop of GHRM. Data reveal that extensive work towards the introjected, integrated and identified types of extrinsic motivation might reveal long-lasting benefits for green behaviour adoption if personality traits such as curiosity and constant questioning of own and others’ decisions is fostered in employees through GHRM. Within the reframing of CSR communication from implicit to explicit CSR has not shown any trade-offs at the time of data collection because the firms environmental values serve as a gatekeeper to either adopt an open or a closed system to behaviours change. However, increased attention to establishing metrics and measurable activities might lead to a crowding-out effect of intrinsic motivation in the long-run

Evaluating Student Learning Gain: A Study to Consider How Teaching Online During the Covid-19 Pandemic Affected Student Learning.

Universities have had to replace in-person teaching with online alternatives. With the ongoing marketization of Higher Education, it is important to understand how this change in delivery may have impacted upon student learning. To assess student learning, this paper used a model for evaluating learning gain, which considered student learning in the form of explicit knowledge gained (distance travelled), which relates to codifiable models and theories, and tacit understanding (journey travelled), which relates to practical skills and know-how. Self-reflective surveys were used to collect learning gain data from final year students studying an organisational leadership module as part of an undergraduate business studies degree course at a UK university. The research collected data in 2019 (before the Covid-19 pandemic) for a cohort of students, and again in 2021 (during the Covid-19 pandemic) for the subsequent cohort of students. Through an analysis of both sets of data, a comparison has been possible between how students perceived their learning to have changed due to the alternative online educational delivery method being offered. Whereas a decrease in reported learning was expected from the online teaching, this was not always the case, and predominantly females appear to have particularly valued the educational experience offered by the online learning delivery

In pursuit of happiness: A sociological examination of employee identifications amongst a ‘happy’ call-centre workforce

While psychologists and economists have concerned themselves with employee happiness and well-being, critical organizational theorists have rarely examined employees’ positive responses at work. To explain why call-centre employees in our study responded positively to their organization we adopt a relational sociological approach to examine employee happiness and well-being. This approach emphasizes two main features: firstly, it is sensitive to the interaction of management practices and employee agency in how ‘happiness’ is constructed and interpreted in organizations, including an assessment of power relations; secondly, this approach acknowledges the importance of the wider external context in explanations of why organizations pursue happiness. This article applies these sociological insights to the organizational identifications literature to assess the mechanisms of employee identifications. In this case, there are three mechanisms of identification, a) the organizational value system; b) social relations at work including interactions between employees, the owners and their clients and c) the nature of work. Significantly, these three features converged to produce overlapping and mutually reinforcing identifications