Explore our knowledge

Frans Be­vort

Associate Professor

Emner
HR Samarbejde Kunstig intelligens Ledelse Identitet Arbejdsmarked

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/UK 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. The HR-profession is in many ways an aspirational profession. Not quite there. However, HRM, or the human organization, will be more important in a world where the interface and collaborative roles between technology and people becomes contested and almost ubiquitous.

Managing and organizing professional work (in the age of AI)

I do research into the way professionals transition from non-specialist (or generalist within their profession) to specialist roles (e.g manager) 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. AI is to a still more evident extent, an epistemic technology, not just information technology but knowledge (or expertise) technology, which underlines how disruptive AI is/will be to professionel work, decisions and identities.

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 identity 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, specifically, to 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 leads to all sorts of problems, like toxic work environments, stressful and psychological unsafe workplaces as well as gross underutilization of human potential 

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

I am a researcher who used, many years ago, 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”, inspires in me a fundamental respect for the complexity that practitioners face every day. This is also why I love e.g. doing executive education, 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 point of my impact profile. I think HR-students might find my approach somewhat academic, and this on purpose. We cannot learn students to do HRM at CBS, but we can teach them 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 developing and 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 professional knowledge and tasks we use to  build our identities, and therefore, we have to know how to remain in the driver's seat. 

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–present

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.