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Frans Be­vort

Associate Professor

Subjects
HR Collaboration Job market Identity Leadership Artificial intelligence

Primary research areas

Con­tex­tu­al stud­ies of HRM-prac­tice and the de­vel­op­ment of the HR pro­fes­sion
I re­search HRM as al­ways em­bed­ded in in­sti­tu­tion­al con­texts. HRM is prac­ticed dif­fer­ently in the US than in Nor­d­ic coun­tries. This is im­port­ant not just as a re­search top­ic but as an ex­plan­a­tion of why some HRM-as­sump­tions don’t fit in some con­texts. This leads to the need for HR-pro­fes­sion­als to re­flect upon their as­sump­tions.
Man­aging and or­gan­iz­ing pro­fes­sion­al work (in the age og AI)
I do re­search into the way pro­fes­sion­als trans­ition from non-spe­cial­ist to spe­cial­ist or from one pro­fes­sion­al/oc­cu­pa­tion to an­oth­er. This in­volves a struggle to de­vel­op a vi­able pro­fes­sion­al iden­tity. The way work is or­gan­ized and man­aged is a strong factor in this pro­cess and AI is a nov­el and po­ten­tially dis­rupt­ive factor in the pro­cess
How man­agers be­come man­agers
Fol­low­ing my in­terest in pro­fes­sion­al work, I see the pro­cess of be­com­ing a man­ager as a pro­cess of em­bra­cing the pro­fes­sion­al iden­ity as man­ager. The pro­cess when a spe­cial­ist de­vel­ops an iden­tity as a man­ager is a highly in­ter­ac­tion­al pro­cess in­volving ten­sions, para­doxes and dif­fer­ent of­ten con­flict­ing lo­gics

I study how people make sense of their in­sti­tu­tion­al con­text in or­gan­iz­a­tions and how this af­fects their be­ha­vi­or and op­por­tun­it­ies to cre­ate bet­ter work, col­lab­or­a­tion and busi­ness

I want to inspire organizations to create better and more productive by understanding and seeing the tensions and opportunities in different logics present 

I want to specifically contribute to making the HR-profession able to use the position it has to develop the human organization 

I want to help making management of people a proper profession 

I find that organizations often underestimate the importance of managing people and this to all sorts of problems like toxic work environments, stressful and psychological unsafe workplaces as well as underutilization of human potential 

My vision is that organizations and HR-professionals become much better at creating productive and innovative organizations with high levels og human development and well-being 

I am a researcher who many years ago used to be a (HR-) manager. The transition from one kind of professional to another has been a central theme in my research.  I did not enter research to become a glorified academic practitioner. I am a proper researcher who likes to do proper research.  

On the other hand, having been on “the other side” makes me have a fundamental respect for the complexity that practitioners face every day. This is also why I love doing executive research, doing podcasts for Børsen about management dilemmas, or developing a paradox management tool for managers. 

From working as an HRM-practitioner to researching HRM, is a case in poring. I think HR-students find my approach rather academic, and this on purpose. We cannot learn students to do HRM, but we can learn to think more analytically about HRM. And this is important because this makes them much more confident and grounded when they enter the world with a view to changing it. 

My interest in how the implementation of AI changes professional work and identities has a similar grounding. AI will come to meddle with the basic knowledge we use to  build our identities, and therefore, we have to know how to remain in the driver's seat. 

Publications

See all publications

30 January 2025

Lederens dilemma. E38.

Hvordan håndterer jeg min medarbejders seksuelle præference?

Pernille Vastrup

Julie Kristine Strange

Frans Be­vort, Associate Professor

Nikolaj Sommer
Go to publication

2025

The Nordic Model of HRM From 1995–2021

A Case of ‘Bounded Change’?

Paul N. Gooderham

Karen Modesta Olsen

Adam Smale

Frans Be­vort, Associate Professor

Arney Einarsdottir
Go to publication

2025

Sometimes Collaboration is the Better Strategy

Institutional Context and the Calculative and Collaborative HRM-performance Relationship in the Nordics, 1999–2021

Arney Einarsdottir

Frans Be­vort, Associate Professor

Marian Rizov

Adam Smale

Stefan Tengblad
Go to publication

Recent research projects

Pre­gAI – im­ple­men­ter­ing af AI-støt­tet triage af gravide der ringer til akut-tele­fon

Every year, thou­sands of preg­nant wo­men and new moth­ers con­tact the health­care sys­tem with everything from harm­less symp­toms to life-threat­en­ing con­di­tions. It is a com­plex task to en­sure that these wo­men are re­ferred to the right com­pet­ent treat­ment in the health­care sys­tem, es­pe­cially when the lan­guage is lim­ited, or the wo­man's symp­toms are ac­tu­ally about something oth­er than preg­nancy or child­birth, such as ap­pen­di­cit­is or breath­ing prob­lems.

Now a new pro­ject – Pre­gAI – will de­vel­op an AI solu­tion that will en­sure that wo­men re­ceive more pre­cise and ef­fect­ive help when they con­tact the health­care sys­tem, even when they have dif­fi­culty ex­plain­ing their symp­toms in Dan­ish. In­nov­a­tion Fund Den­mark is sup­port­ing the pro­ject with 9 mil­lion kron­er.

In­nov­a­tion found­a­tion Den­mark

New ways to im­ple­ment psychoso­cial work en­vir­on­ment in­ter­ven­tions

The pro­ject aims to in­vest­ig­ate how a stra­tegic fo­cus on psychoso­cial work­ing en­vir­on­ment or well-be­ing can af­fect the com­pany's con­di­tions for ef­fect­ively im­ple­ment­ing or­gan­iz­a­tion­al work­ing en­vir­on­ment meas­ures and in the long term re­du­cing sick leave and em­ploy­ee turnover. The pro­ject's am­bi­tion is to con­trib­ute to cre­at­ing know­ledge about how the im­ple­ment­a­tion of pre­vent­ive work­ing en­vir­on­ment meas­ures can con­trib­ute to re­tain­ing em­ploy­ees in work, and which or­gan­iz­a­tion­al factors en­able a bal­ance between sim­ul­tan­eous stra­tegic ob­ject­ives on psychoso­cial work­ing en­vir­on­ment and per­form­ance. It is en­vis­aged that the know­ledge ob­tained can be used to sup­port com­pan­ies' work­ing en­vir­on­ment ef­forts.

Fun­der: Tryg fonden

In­vest­ig­at­ing the dis­tinct­ive fea­tures and re­si­li­ence of hu­man re­source man­age­ment in the Nor­d­ic coun­tries: A lon­git­ud­in­al and cross-na­tion­al study

How ef­fect­ively in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions func­tion at the na­tion­al (macro) level, and hu­man re­source man­age­ment (HRM) at the or­gan­iz­a­tion­al (meso-) level, af­fect the work­ing lives and well­being of mil­lions of people in the Nor­d­ic coun­tries. In this pro­ject, the fo­cus is on com­par­at­ive HRM, i.e. how hu­man re­sources are man­aged in dif­fer­ent kinds of or­gan­iz­a­tions in the Nor­d­ic coun­tries, and how HRM prac­tices are be­ing shaped by the macro in­sti­tu­tion­al con­text in­clud­ing, among oth­er things, la­bour law, col­lect­ive agree­ments, and oth­er coun­try-spe­cif­ic ar­range­ments (Brew­ster et al 2016). Whilst the ‘Nor­d­ic mod­el’ of HRM – char­ac­ter­ized by an agile and col­lab­or­at­ive philo­sophy between state-in­dustry-la­bour – has at­trac­ted in­creas­ing in­ter­na­tion­al at­ten­tion, there are still im­port­ant ques­tions con­cern­ing what the dis­tinct­ive fea­tures of ‘Nor­d­ic’ in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions and HRM are, wheth­er dif­fer­ences between Sweden and the oth­er Nor­d­ic coun­tries are dis­ap­pear­ing or in­creas­ing, and what his­tor­ic­al trends sug­gest will be the Nor­d­ic mod­el in the fu­ture (see An­der­sen & Häll­stén, 2016; Bé­vort & Einarsdot­tir, 2021; Kristensen & Lilja, 2011; Lindeberg et al, 2013). The Nor­d­ic mod­el – if it con­tin­ues to evolve – could have much to of­fer, both to the Nor­d­ic re­gion and also oth­er parts of the world as a role-mod­el and source of in­spir­a­tion.

Fun­der: Riks­bankens Ju­bileums­fond

Links

The Cranet-sur­vey – the largest and old­est HRM-sur­vey world wide
I have been main part­ner for the Cranet-sur­vey in Den­mark since 2014 and in 2021. The next sur­vey will take place in the Spring 2026. The link is to the in­ter­na­tion­al hom page of the Cranet net­work. Se more about the net­work here:
Link to Cranet
Link to the PnO-re­search group at De­part­ment of or­gan­iz­a­tion, CBS,
This is the re­search group at CBS I be­long to. A thriv­ing re­search team who strives to be home for man and more young schol­ars.

“At PnO, we ex­plore the hu­man side of or­gan­iz­a­tions. Our mis­sion is to pro­duce ori­gin­al, prac­tice-ori­ented re­search that speaks dir­ectly to today’s or­gan­iz­a­tion­al chal­lenges. By stay­ing close to every­day chal­lenges and ex­per­i­ences in or­gan­iz­a­tions, we aim to cre­ate know­ledge that not only deep­ens aca­dem­ic un­der­stand­ing but also has a mean­ing­ful so­ci­et­al im­pact and drives change.”

See the full pur­pose on the page.
Link to PNO
Stand­ing HRM-track at the Nor­d­ic Academy of Man­age­ment
To­geth­er with Stefan Tengblad, Gothen­burg Uni­ver­sity and Liisa Mäkelä, Uni­ver­sity og Was­aa, I am lead­ing a stand­ing HRM-track at the Nor­d­ic Academy of Man­age­ment. We had a full track at the con­fer­ence in Reyk­javik in 2024 and a ses­sion in June at Gothen­burg Uni­ver­sity and a PhD-course sup­por­ted by the NAM.
https://nordicacademy.org/
Leder­ens Di­lemma, pod­cast on Børsen
I have had the pleas­ure of con­trib­ut­ing to the Leder­ens di­lemma (The di­lemma of the man­ager) pod­cast eight times and it has been both in­spir­ing and fun to par­ti­cip­ate.

The format is like the talk-show at the Dan­ish Pub­lic Ra­dio known as “Sara and the mono­poly” where real world di­lem­mas are dis­cussed by seasoned bosses and a man­age­ment re­search­er. I had the lat­ter role. I would not mind do­ing sim­il­ar tasks in the fu­ture

How­ever, the pod­casts are in Dan­ish.
https://borsen.dk/service/podcasts/lederens-dilemma

Outside activities

PHD-course in Con­tem­por­ary HRM RE­Search from a Nor­d­ic per­spect­ive , 2024 -

This PhD-course runs every second year at the Uni­ver­sity of Gothen­burg. I have been a fac­ulty and part of the core group in 2024 and 2026. My role is both be­ing a teach­er with my own ses­sion and present­a­tion. I am also su­per­vising the PhD-stu­dents to­geth­er with the tw oth­er core fac­ulty.