Re­se­arch Aims

What is the aim of a “Common-​Good HRM” re­se­arch agen­da?

Re­cent­ly, due to the in­crea­sin­gly ap­pa­rent moral li­mits of the mar­ket, and mo­dels of glo­bal go­ver­nan­ce, ex­po­sed again by re­cur­ring cri­sis, scholars from the dis­tinct but com­ple­men­ta­ry streams of vir­tue ethics and in­sti­tu­tio­nal eco­no­mics have re­ne­wed in­te­rest in a “Com­mons Pa­ra­digm” and the need to in­crea­se awa­ren­ess of the “Lan­guage of the Com­mons”. Drawing on li­te­ra­tu­re from busi­ness ethics (the Common-​good of the Firm), in­sti­tu­tio­nal eco­no­mics (In­sti­tu­ti­ons of Collec­ti­ve Ac­tion, Eco­no­mics of Con­ven­ti­ons), and streng­t­he­ned by Cri­ti­cal Theo­ry, the heart of our re­se­arch is mo­ti­va­ted by the am­bi­tious aim of shif­ting the pur­po­se of busi­ness and HRM to­wards the goals of so­cie­tal trans­for­ma­ti­on and human eman­ci­pa­ti­on, which in turn, ide­al­ly acts as a dri­ver for an eco­lo­gi­cal tran­si­ti­on.

Due to a cur­rent lack of agree­ment on con­cep­tua­liza­ti­on, a clear stra­te­gic plan as how to ope­ra­tio­na­li­ze Sus­tain­able HRM has yet to emer­ge. Spe­ci­fi­cal­ly we aim the­re­fo­re to de­ve­lop a new “Common-​Good HRM” pa­ra­digm (in­clu­ding a dis­tinct de­fi­ni­ti­on, cha­rac­te­ris­tics and an ope­ra­tio­nal frame­work), to help or­ga­niza­ti­ons and fu­ture scholars over­co­me in­sti­tu­tio­nal bias, asym­me­tries of value and to con­tri­bu­te more to the common-​good. Our re­se­arch fo­cu­ses on but is not li­mi­ted to ad­dres­sing the fol­lo­wing ques­ti­ons, na­me­ly:

1. How sui­ta­ble are cur­rent “business-​sustainability” HRM mo­dels in ad­dres­sing the “Grand Chal­len­ges of our time and in achie­ving the ob­jec­ti­ves of the UNOs Sus­tain­able De­ve­lo­p­ment goals?

2. To what ex­tend would a more in­clu­si­ve, bottom-​up, “Common-​Good HRM” model offer a bet­ter al­ter­na­ti­ve to top-​down mo­dels of glo­bal go­ver­nan­ce?

3. What con­tri­bu­ti­on can a Common-​Good HRM ap­proach make to work­place de­mo­cra­cy and em­ployee en­ga­ge­ment?

4. What are the ope­ra­tio­nal im­pli­ca­ti­ons for HRM po­li­cy, stra­te­gies and prac­ti­ces in in­tro­du­cing a more collec­ti­vist, action-​based “Common-​Good HRM” per­spec­ti­ve?

5. What is the role of or­ga­niza­tio­nal struc­tu­re and con­text, lo­ca­li­zed frames of re­fe­rence and es­tab­lished labour-​conventions in the im­ple­men­ta­ti­on and ac­cep­t­ance of a pa­ra­digm shift to­wards the common-​good?

6. How im­portant are em­ployee per­cep­ti­ons, be­liefs and mo­ti­va­tions?

7. From a common-​good per­spec­ti­ve, how does the rise of Digital-​Capitalism and the Plat­form Eco­no­my re­p­re­sent a par­ti­cu­lar th­re­at to the aim of Sus­tain­able HRM?

8. How can a re­li­a­ble in­stru­ment be de­ve­lo­ped to cap­tu­re, me­a­su­re and eva­lua­te the common-​good ef­fec­ti­ve­n­ess of this new pa­ra­digm as a tool for fu­ture Sus­tain­able HRM scholars?

9. How can the new in­sights gai­ned from our re­se­arch be uti­li­zed to help to en­han­ce our pro­fes­sio­nal re­fle­xi­vi­ty, bridge the gro­wing theo­ry to prac­ti­ce gap and po­si­tive­ly im­pact our tea­ching and the stu­dent lear­ning ex­pe­ri­ence?