Empowering People – Transforming Organizations – Uniting Society

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Overview of Research at the Institute of HRM

Since 2011, our research focuses on Sustainable HRM (Cohen et al 2012, Ehnert et al. 2016). In this broad area, our faculty has developed a new stream of scholarly and applied research on Green HRM (https://www.wu.ac.at/persm/green-hrm/). This started with the first Special Issue dedicated to Green HRM published in the German Journal of HRM (Muller-Camen, Jackson, Jabbour and Renwick 2011). The editorial by Jackson et al. (2011) in particular became a major reference of the field. Since then several journal articles (e.g. Baldassari et al. 2023, Haddock et.al 2016, Jiang et al. 2023) co-authored by members of the Institute were published in leading international journals and magazines for HRM professionals. A major boost for the research was a grant of the National Science Foundation of Austria (FWF) for the project “Comparative Green HRM”. That large international research project was conducted on three continents between 2018 and 2022 together with faculty of the University of Augsburg and collaborators in USA and China. So far, three doctoral dissertations (Baldassari 2021, Obereder 2020, Thiele 2022), two journal articles (Baldassari et al. 2023, Jiang et al. 2022) and several conference presentations (e.g. Muller-Camen et al. 2022) resulted from the research, while others are currently advanced by our faculty

Besides Green HRM, Socially Responsible  Sustainable HRM was also a focus of research. As almost all Sustainability (or CSR and ESG) reports contain information about how employees are treated by the employer, we studied the content of these reports (eg. Mariappanader 2022, Parsa et al 2018). Meanwhile, we also developed an interest in diversity management and discrimination. Our major publication in this field was dedicated to problems of diversity in multicultural teams (Hajro et al. 2017). Furthermore, we also researched the management of older workers (Flynn et al. 2013, Schroder et al.2014). Currently issues of discrimination in the workplace play a substantial role in the research and teaching about anti-Semitism at work led by Prof. Yochanan Altman (https://www.wu.ac.at/en/antisemitismatwork/). A Special Issue on this topic is developed by members of the institute (Altman et al. 2023). Furthermore, our faculty is involved in a research initiative which systematically analyzes problems of migration, business and society, initiated by Prof. Hajro and her collaborators (https://www.migrationbusinesssociety.net/). Numerous journal publications (eg. Hajro et al. 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023) are results from this project. Finally, a research project initially developed by junior colleagues of the Institute led to a major publication on professionalization in CSR (Benzinger and Muller-Camen 2023),  and one more doctoral dissertation (Maurer 2020) resulted from research about Socially Responsible HRM topics.

More recently, we have started research on paradigm shifts within management science and developed a new agenda for studying management of people in organizations called “Common Good HRM” (https://www.wu.ac.at/persm/common-good-hrm/ ). Common Good HRM (Aust et al. 2020) emerged from the observation, resulting from the analysis of ESG reports, that large corporations communicated about employee-friendly best HRM practices (socially responsible HRM), but that there was not a strong ambition to use HR function to solve the major problems the world is facing. Instead of being outside-in, HR is still mainly focused on an inside-out orientation. We initially focused on HRM practices in alternative organizations such as democratic firms (e.g. Riess 2020) and those active in the Economy of Communion and the Common Good movements (eg. Muller-Camen and Camen 2018). In our newest research endeavor, we are using capability and resonance theory to conceptually develop the notion of Common Good HRM (Matthews and Muller-Camen 2022). Moreover, we co-edit a special issue on SDGs and Common Good HRM (Aust et al. 2022) and organize an conference on “Striving for Impact: Sustainable HRM for the Common-Good” (https://www.wu.ac.at/fileadmin/wu/d/i/persm/PDF-Files/Call_for_Papers_Common_Good_HRM.pdf ) to be held online in March 2023.

References

Altman, Y., Cohen, F. & Lemanski, M.K. (2023) Call for Papers: Antisemitism and the Workplace: Opening the Black Box", Frontiers in Psychology, forthcoming.

Aust, I., Matthews, B., Muller-Camen, M. (2020). Common Good HRM: A paradigm shift in Sustainable HRM? Human Resource Management Review, 30, 3, 100705 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2019.100705 .

Baldassari, P. (2021). Sustainable Human Resource Management: Global Context and Practices (doctoral dissertation). WU Vienna.

Baldassari, P., Eberhard, S., Jiang, J., Müller-Camen, M., Obereder, L., Schiffinger, M., & Thiele, R. (2023). Looking up and fitting in: Team leaders’ and members’ behavior and attitudes toward the environment in a MNC. Human Resource Management, 62, 267-282, https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.22163

Benzinger, D., & Muller-Camen, M. (2022). Professionalization and Corporate Social Responsibility: A Comparative Study on German and US Job Requirements in CSR. Work, Employment and Society, https://doi.org/10.1177/09500170211054368

Cohen, E, Taylor, S., & Muller-Camen, M. (2012). HRM’s Role in Corporate Social and Environmental Sustainability, SHRM Foundation’s Effective Practice Guidelines Series, 55pp.

Collien, I., Sieben, B., & Muller-Camen, M. (2016). Age work in organizations: Maintaining and disrupting institutionalized understandings of higher age. British Journal of Management, 27, 778–795 DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12198

Ehnert, I., Parsa, S., Roper, I., Wagner, M. & Muller-Camen, M. (2016). Reporting on sustainability and HRM: a comparative study of sustainability reporting practices by the world's largest companies. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 27(1), 88-108, DOI: 10.1080/09585192.2015.1024157

Flynn, M., Upchurch, M., Muller-Camen, M. & Schroder, H. (2013). Trade Union Responses to Ageing Workforces in the UK and Germany, Human Relations, 66(1), 45–64, DOI: 10.1177/0018726712464801.

Haddock-Millar, J., Sanyal, C., Muller-Camen, M. (2016). Green Human Resource Management: a Comparative Study of a US MNC. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 27(2), 192-211. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2015.1052087

Hajro, A., Brewster, C., Haak-Saheem, W., & Morley, M. J. (2022). Global migration: Implications for international business scholarship. Journal of International Business Studies, 1-17.

Hajro, A., Caprar, D. V., Zikic, J., & Stahl, G. K. (2021). Global migrants: Understanding the implications for international business and management. Journal of World Business, 56(2), 101192.

Hajro, A., Gibson, C. B., & Pudelko, M. (2017). Knowledge exchange processes in multicultural teams: Linking organizational diversity climates to teams’ effectiveness. Academy of Management Journal, 60(1), 345-372.

Hajro, A., Stahl, G. K., Clegg, C. C., & Lazarova, M. B. (2019). Acculturation, coping, and integration success of international skilled migrants: An integrative review and multilevel framework. Human Resource Management Journal, 29(3), 328-352.

Hajro, A., Žilinskaitė, M., & Baldassari, P. (2022). Addressing the elephant in the room: Global migration and its implications for business school teaching. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 21(1), 101-120.

Hajro, A., Zilinskaite, M., Gibson, C., Baldassari, P., Franklin, K., Mayrhofer, W., ... & Brannen, M. Y. (2023). Movement of people across borders: expanding our horizon toward practice-informed transdisciplinary research to meet the current challenges in migration, business and society. Academy of Management Discoveries, in print.

Jackson, S., Renwick, D., Jabbour, C., & Muller-Camen, M. (2011). State-of-the-Art and Future Direc­tions for Green Human Resource Management: Introduction to the Special Issue. Zeitschrift für Personalforschung, 25(2), 99-116, DOI 10.1688/1862-0000_ZfP_2011_02_Jackson.

Jiang , Y., Jackson, S. E., Shim, H., Budhwar, P., Renwick, D. W., Jabbour, C. J. C., Jabbour, A.B., Tang, G., Muller-Camen, M., Wagner, M. & Kim, A. (2022). Culture as context: a five-country study of discretionary green workplace behavior. Organization & Environment, 35, 4, 499-522. https://doi.org/10.1177/10860266221104039

Mariappanadar, S., Maurer, I., Kramar, R., & Muller-Camen, M. (2022). Is it a sententious claim? An examination of the quality of occupational health, safety and well-being disclosures in global reporting initiative reports across industries and countries. International Business Review, 31, 2,  101922 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ibusrev.2021.101922

Matthews, B., & Muller-Camen, M. (2022). Employee Capabilities, Workplace Resonance, and Common-Good HRM. Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2022, No. 1, p. 13376).

Muller-Camen, M. & Camen, J. (2018). Sonnentor and the Economy of the Common Good In E. O'Higgins  and L. Zsolnai (Eds.), Progressive Business Models: Creating Sustainable and Pro-social enterprise (pp. 123-142). Palgrave MacMillan.

Müller-Camen, M., Lemanski, M.K., & Eberhard, S. (2022). Green Human Resource Management in Multinational Corporations. Presented at 8th Annual International Academic AIB-CEE Chapter Conference on Knowledge and Sustainability in International Business, Zagreb, Croatia.

Obereder, L,. (2020). Green Human Resource Management in Context: Investigating Practices from a Comparative Perspective (doctoral dissertation). WU Vienna.

Parsa, S., Roper, I., Muller-Camen, M., & Szegitvari, E. (2018). Have labour and human rights disclosures enhanced corporate accountability? Accounting Forum, 42,47-64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.accfor.2018.01.001

Renwick, D., Jabbour, C.J.C., Muller-Camen, M., Redman, T., & Wilkinson, A. (2016). Contemporary developments in Green (environmental) HRM scholarship (editorial of SI Green HRM), International Journal of Human Resource Management, 27(2), 1-17. DOI 10.1080/09585192.2015.1105844.

Schroder, H., Muller-Camen, M., & Flynn, M. (2014). The Management of an Ageing Workforce: Organizational Policies in Germany and Britain. Human Resource Management Journal, 24(4), 394–409, DOI: 10.1111/1748-8583.12043.

Thiele, R. (2022). Studies on Green HRM and Green OB : Pro-Environmental Attitudes, Behaviors & Dynamics (doctoral dissertation). WU Vienna.