Human Resource Management and Organizational Psychology Research Group

"Who we are - the HRM + OP group in short"

The HRM + Organizational Psychology research group is a platform for publication cooperation and for developing and strengthening networks across universities and the HR-professional community. Coming from diverse research backgrounds, with a IOA weighting in, the members share an interest in phenomena within and around Human Resource Management + Organizational Psychology.
 
While we are of a highly diverse set of theoretical creeds, the majority shares an interpretivist approach and a broadly social constructivist stance. We tend to have a qualitative methodological approach in common: ethnography, interviews, observations, case studies etc. while being open to other views and approaches.

We see ourselves broadly as "critical management" scholars who encompass CMS points of view as well as other critical views based on for instance Actor Network Theory, Science and Technology Studies, Narrative Theory, Critical Realism, Institutional Theory and Sensemaking. Anchored in the Department of Organization, a cornerstone in our approach is to bring HRM-studies closer to "The organization" both empirically as well as theoretically.
 

Current members of the network

(Elisabeth) Naima Mikkelsen
Anna-Karen Hüske
Bontu L. Gutschke
Lotte Fredslund-Hansen
Christian Dyrlund Wåhlin-Jacobsen
Dea Sommer
Emil Husted
Frank Meyer
Frans Bévort
Henrik Holt Larsen
Iben Sandal Stjerne
Ignacio Duran Pinochet
Jacobo Ramirez
Jannick Friis Christensen
Johan Simonsen Abildgaard
Kathrine Solgaard Sørensen
Lotte Holck
Maria Wengler
Marie Arnbak-Hartzberg
Michael Pedersen
Miguel Morrilas
Minna Paunova
Morten Thanning Vendelø
Nicole Ferry
Niels Åkerstrøm Andersen
Peter Holdt Christensen
Rikke Kristine Nielsen
Sara Louise Muhr
Sidsel Hove
Thomas Burø
Thomas Duus Henriksen

"What we do - current research themes/areas of interest within the HRM-group":

•    Conflict in organizations (Prison work)
•    Diversity management (The Police force, Service Work, Knowledge Work)
•    Workers’ well-being and Stress (Knowledge workers, Prison work)
•    Careers and aesthetic labor (Film Industry, Music industry)
•    Identity and work life (Public Schools, Music industry, Consultants)
•    Virtual management
•    HRM as a profession (Cranet-project)
•    (Human Resource) Management in professional organizations (Universities, PSF's)
•    And much more…


"Our mission – inducing a healthy dose of critical (self-) reflection into HRM-research and practice"

Human Resource Management is a contested field of research because of its close historic affiliation with managerial ideology and its practical ambition to inform a particular profession and managerial discipline. While the HRM-research group relates to and interacts with HR-practices and practitioners, we always aspire to induce a healthy dose of critical (self-) reflection. We think HRM deserves critical scrutiny by research, which does not simply confirm the assumptions of practitioners and mainstream HRM-research.

Offering alternative observations, views and interpretations of the complex relations and interactions between HRM-practices and their wider organizational and social contexts, we suggest that many more actors and interests than HR professionals are involved in successful HRM, management and mission statements. Acknowledging this complexity, we believe HRM may become much more robust both as a practical and as a scientific discipline.

Activities

Several members of the HRM-research group regularly teach at the graduate programs and post-experience (diploma, MBA, MPG, etc.) in Human Resource Management at CBS.

We are engaged in the Cranet-project (www.cranet.dk), which researches and compares HR practices across Europe. Each year results from the project serve as the outset of a large, and growing, HRM-conference at CBS. The theme of 2016 was: HRM and Performance Management (www.cranet.dk and www.cranet.org)

We host a special issue in Ephemera under the headline: "Managing the Human", which calls for diverse, empirically driven, engaged and critical HRM studies, in order to bridge the current gap in HRM between theory and practice.

We cooperate with the Danish HRM-association (NOCA), the Confederation of Danish Industry (DI) and the (Danish) National Research Center for the Working Environment (NFA).

We regularly organize seminars with international research-collaborators:

•    Bruce Kaufman, Professor at Georgia State University, spring 2015
•    Renate Ortlieb, Professor at Graz University, winter 2016
•    Denise Rousseau, Professor at Carnegie-Mellon University, autumn 2016

Reaching out

Another focus is to create better relations and more contacts to the HRM-community outside the research world. The aim is to communicate our own results and views while at the same time gain insights and possibly access to study the HRM-phenomenon in organizations.
We also want to engage with scholars at CBS or from other research institutions for collaboration and mutual inspiration.

Contact

If you want to meet us or know more about the group, contact Frans Bévort (fb.ioa@cbs.dk) or Sara Louise Muhr (slm.ioa@cbs.dk) for further information.