Beviljade planeringsbidrag

Frilansarbete på en postindustriell arbetsmarknad: På spaning efter hållbart arbete i det nya arbetslivet

Maria Norbäck, Företagsekonomiska institutionen vid Handelshögskolan vid Göteborgs Universitet

The study aims to investigate how the work life of creative freelance professionals in the post-industrial labour market is organised, in the pursuit of sustainable work arrangements for this growing type of work. In the post-industrial, “new”economy fueled by digitalisation, globalisation, and increased shareholder focus (Styhre, 2017) there is an ongoing shift from a previous system where labour was organised in hierarchies, towards a system where labour is increasingly organized through market mechanisms. This means that major corporations to a lesser degree offer stable and predictable “career jobs” (Cappelli, 1999), and that labour markets increasingly are becoming external (O’Mahoney & Bechky, 2006). There is thus a rise in the type of marketised work (Bonet et al, 2013) where professionals, who would previously been employed long term, now work as free agents by serving a number of clients on short-term contracts. A recent report (Spasova et al., 2017) states that 12% of the total work force in the EU are self-employed professionals, an increase with 45% from 2004 and a quarter of all workers in the creative industries are freelancers and self-employed (Leighton, 2013).

This research project takes as a starting point the complex relationships of creative freelancers, intermediaries and clients/buying organisations that together organise the freelance labour market in the creative industries. The focus is on if, and is so how, such organising can institutionalise new actors and arrangements that may make freelance work less insecure and more sustainable for the working individual. There is also a need for a better understanding of the digitalisation of this work and the role new technologies play for how the work and the labour market is organised (Bergström & Garsten, 2007).

Private organizations’ role in the inclusion of highly educated migrants on the labour market

Viktor Vesterberg, institutionen för samhälls-och välfärdsstudier, ISV, Linköpings universitet och Laurence Romani, Department of Management and Organization, Handelshögskolan i Stockholm

The planned research initiatives aim to investigate the active role of private organizations and HR-professionals in the inclusion of skilled migrants in Nordic workplaces. After the 2015 migration wave, there is much energy and many private organizations’ initiatives working to enhance and facilitate the inclusion of migrants in the labour market. In addition, there is an actual need for highly educated employees in the Swedish as well as Nordic job markets (Almérus et al., 2016). However, Nordic national statistics show similar trends as in other OECD countries, that highly educated foreign-born residents have higher unemployment rates than local born and similarly educated citizens (OECD, 2015).

The aim of this proposed research project will be to investigate why, despite many companies being active in specific integration programs, and their need of educated talents, skilled migrants’ inclusion in the labour market remains sub-optimal. To address this puzzle, the researchers want to investigate the role played by employers in this situation, and especially, how HR-professional reason about and construct the employability of skilled migrants within these specific integration initiatives. A common initiative shared across Nordic countries is the use of work placement (internship) as a form of entry of skilled migrants into organizations. The main research question will interrogate how skilled migrants’ employability is constructed in private organizations, within the framework of these initiatives.

Automated recruitment and the growth of a matching industry

Lars Walter, Företagsekonomiska institutionen, Handelshögskolan vid Göteborgs universitet

Ongoing structural changes in the Swedish labor market have affected the way labor exchange are organized. The number of labor market intermediaries are growing and are developing in to matching industry in its own right (Garsten et al. 2011; Bergström et al. 2008; Walter, 2007. At the same time new ICT’s and automation technologies are introduced and utilized in the provision of matching service (Maurer & Cook, 2011; Simón and Esteves, 2015). The concept of matching, and matching industry, is here understood and used in a broad sense and as an umbrella term to include all types of activities involved in the organization and coordination of labor exchange, such as recruitment, search, job coaching. Together these changes constitute a profound change of the Swedish labor market.

The aim of this research is to investigate how matching unfolds in a variety of intermediaries and how these practices are organized in light of structural changes and increasing automation. A particular focus will be on how such matching practices effects the way the Swedish labor market is organized and, especially, the implications for the jobseekers that populates this market place and the organizations looking to employee them.

Skilled Migrants' Career Transition and Integration: The role of Strategic HRM

Många av de nyanlända som kommer till Sverige har högskoleutbildning och flera års arbetslivserfarenhet. De bildar tillsammans en resurs och pool av talanger. Om dessa individer kan komma i arbete kommer de att ge ett positivt bidrag till samhällsekonomin och värdefull kompetensförsörjning till organisationer och företag. Att integrera nykomlingar till arbetsmarknaden är utmaning för nationella och regionala myndigheter, svenska organisationer men även för nykomlingarna själva. Ali Dehghanpour Farashah och Tomas Blomquist verksamma vid Umeå universitet har tilldelades ett planeringsbidrag 2016 från Centrum för Global HRM. Stödet gäller projektet “Career transition and integration of skilled newcomers”. Projektet vill identifiera de viktigaste faktorerna för karriär integration på den svenska arbetsmarknaden. Tillvägagångssätt ska täcka flera nivåer och studien kommer att se på nationella, organisatoriska och individuella faktorer som påverkar integrationen.

Medverkande i projektet: Ali Dehghanpour, Umeå universitet

Fackliga och arbetsrättsliga konflikter kring övervakning och eHRM

Employees have always been monitored and under surveillance during work. With the digitalization, the practices of monitoring and control have expanded in such a way that it is not only the worker’s performance, but also her or his personal preferences and attitudes that are now being governed. For example, employers’ information searches on social network sites mean that (irrelevant) private information comes to influence employment, work conditions and social relations at the workplace. It has the potential to expand the demand for loyalty between employee and employer, leaving less freedom for the employee to express attitudes, or engage in free time activities, in ways that may clash with values of the employer or the organization. There are yet very few critical studies within the e-HRM field, leaving issues of “the domination and control of employees” understudied in relation to effects of e-HRM. The aim of this project is therefore to provide a critical study of e-HRM and workplace surveillance by examine employees’, legal instances’ and unions’ perception, legitimization and opposition to e-HRM and workplace surveillance.

Medverkande i projektet: Christel Backman, Göteborgs universitet

Anställningsbarhet i en global värld – psykologiska och intersektionella perspektiv

Medverkande i projektet: Hanna Li Kusterer, Högskolan i Gävle

Tillgänglighet och gränshantering i det digitala arbetslivet

Den digitala teknologins intåg i arbetslivet har inneburit påtagliga förändringar beträffande arbetsvillkor och relation mellan arbetstagare och arbetsgivare. Gränsen mellan arbete och fritid, som tidigare var tydlig och allmän, har blivit diffus och individuell. De otydligare gränserna mellan arbete och privatliv, liksom det gränslösa arbetet i sig, kan bidra till stress. Samtidigt som tekniken ger en rad nya möjligheter uppstår frågan om hur förutsättningarna för ett hållbart arbetsliv påverkas. Studien tar sikte på arbetslivets digitalisering relaterad till hållbarhet och psykosocial arbetsmiljö från ett HR-perspektiv. Vilka praktiker används inom HR för att skapa ett hållbart arbetsliv när arbetet blir gränslöst?
Medverkande i projektet:
Nanna Gillberg, Göteborgs universitet

Ledarskap och följarskap i labbet

Ledarskap kan vara ett svårfångat begrepp, vilket är en svårighet vid ledarskapsutbildning och –träning. Hur kan vi träna någonting som vi har svårt att säga vad det är? I det här projektet kommer vi att utgå från en del av ledarskapet som är konkret: ledar- och följarbeteende. Vi kommer att arbeta med videoanalys av riktiga möten och kategorisera olika typer av ledar- och följarbeteende, vilket analyseras i relation till enkätresultat för mötesdeltagarna samt expertrankning av cheferna. Projektets bidrag är att analysera förutsättningar för effektivt ledarskap/följarskap och att utveckla kodning samt metoder som kan användas för att stödja reflektion kring ledar-/följarbeteende.
 

Medverkande i projektet:
Thomas Andersson, Högskolan i Skövde
Celeste Wilderom, Universitetet i Twente

The aesthetics of employee branding: The socio-materialities of office architecture and employees in interaction

Our research builds on the growing importance of corporate branding in HRM, which includes the use of branding techniques to develop and reposition the corporate brand’s relationship to current and prospective employees. One facet of such branding techniques concerns office space, tailored to appear as a living space incorporating leisurely, homely and playful elements, aligned with the brand. We engage with this trend by highlighting its aesthetic and socio-material dimensions and by investigating the nature of employee interactions with, and responses to, branded office architecture and interior design. Our focus is sensory, affective and embodied dimensions of an employee-brand-fit through office design.

Medverkande i projektet:
Viktorija Kalonaityte, Anna Alexandersson, Charlotta Karlsdóttir & Monika Müller, Linnéuniversitetet

Managing human resources to stay competitive in the global marketplace: The importance of leaders and leader behaviors for positive employee and organizational outcomes

Today’s organizational leaders manage an increasingly heterogeneous workforce where organizations cross geographic boundaries and job security is a thing of the past. Instead of job security, organizations provide Human Resource (HR) benefits to motivate employees and to reap positive organizational and employee outcomes in order to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. One such benefit is family-friendly support. Given that the need for family support tend to be varied due to employee life cycle and family situation, oftentimes these polices are provided in an individualized manner, where each employee’s need is considered. Accordingly, the proposed research consists of quantitative and qualitative studies aimed at uncovering the role of the leader in the work-family interface. We acknowledge that both employees and leaders value both work and family domains, and the support provided to employees in need of balance depends both on employees’ work-family interface but also of the work-family interface of their manager.
Medverkande i projektet:
Jessica Bagger, Department of Business Administration, University of Gothenburg
Andrew Li, Department of Management, Marketing, and General Business College of Business West Texas A&M University, USA
Rebecka Arman, Department of Business Administration, University of Gothenburg

The Organization of Cultural Brokerage: Human Resource Practices in Public Healthcare Organizations

Cultural brokerage is a method applied in the European multicultural societies with the purpose to improve the accessibility of public organizations and institutions to the groups of immigrants. In particular, it is explicated in a number of studies that the role of cultural brokers in organizing the transcultural exchanges is becoming increasingly more important to human resource management in public sector organizations. This new space of cultural brokerage can be seen as a consequence of globalization that becomes increasingly more evident in what used to be a nation based public sector, stressing that it is of crucial importance to create and adapt institutional conditions for making use of the competences it demands. The overarching question in this project is in what way HR contributes in the organization of this space of cultural brokerage in different types of healthcare organizations. The study includes two cases of the organization of cultural brokerage - in the maternity care and in the primary healthcare organizations.
Medverkande i projektet:
Zaira Jagudina, Department of Sociology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg
Bertil Rolandsson, Department of Sociology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg
Birgitta Jordansson, Department of Sociology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg

Mitigating for the Penrose Effect in International Subsidiary Development

The contemporary IB literature has paid extensive attention to the ability of Multinational Corporations (MNCs) and their subsidiaries to generate, disperse and absorb, inter alia, technological competence, knowledge, or routines, practices and policies. However, less direct attention has been paid to the ability of MNCs to generate, disperse and/or absorb the [local] managerial capacity that many times is needed for [local] subsidiary growth. The research questions below will be studied from both the perspective of Swedish MNCs operating in emerging markets, and emerging market MNCs operating in Sweden:

• How do MNCs actively manage the interdependence between managerial resource development and deployment, and strategic firm choices in general?
• How does the quality and composition of managerial resources influence the speed by which new foreign operations develop firm-specific managerial resources?
• What are the dynamics of the temporal managerial resource deployment and development in foreign operations?

Medverkande i projektet:
Ramsin Yakob, Vikarierande Lektor, Handelshögskolan vid Göteborgs Universitet, FEK, Management & Organisation och Lektor, Linköpings Universitet, Ekonomi och Industriell Utveckling
Lektor. Ek. Dr. Karin Bredin, Institutionen för Ekonomi och Industriell Utveckling, Linköpings Universitet
Lektor. Ek. Dr. Cecilia Enberg, Institutionen för Ekonomi och Industriell Utveckling, Linköpings Universitet

Globalization and human resource management in the ‘big four’ auditing firms

One of the most worn out clichés of management speak today is the idea that ‘people are our most important resource’. In some firms, however, the cliché remains an important truth. In professional services, the people are often truly the most important resource. In such a context, the management of human resources becomes of core importance. This project sets out to contribute to the evolving understanding of global HRM practices by (i) mapping the HRM practices employed in the ‘Big Four’ global accounting and auditing firms, and (ii) discussing and problematizing the role HRM practices serve in the value production processes in these firms.
Medverkande i projektet:
Johan Alvehus, Institutionen för Service Management, Lunds universitet
Pernilla Broberg, Ek. Dr., Högskolan i Kristianstad

Expertfunktioner och linjechefer i samspel: om professionalisering, genus och utveckling av hållbara yrkesroller i offentliga verksamheter

Den offentliga sektorns rekrytering av chefer och expertfunktioner är av avgörande betydelse för dess framtid, och inte sällan ges bilden av ett allt ökande behov av kompetent personal över lag i organisationerna. Samtidigt är omsättningen på kommunala chefer hög inom många verksamheter och det kommunala chefskapet betraktas inte sällan som svårt. Motsvarande data kring expertfunktioner inom offentliga verksamheter saknas. Projektet ska bidra empiriskt med bilder över hur roller som chef och expert kan se ut och hur rollerna och samspelet mellan rollerna har utvecklats. Detta för att möjliggöra dels medveten modifiering, dels rimliga förväntningar. Teoretiskt förväntas resultaten av projektet kunna bidra till ökade kunskaper kring professionalisering av chefs- och expertroller (”a new professionalism”). Genom att studera två yrkesgrupper – chef och expert – förväntas resultaten bidra till kunskap om hur grupper professionaliseras i relation till varandra. Projektet förväntas även bidra med kunskap om hur genus på en yrkesnivå är inlemmad i gruppers professionaliseringsprocesser.
Medverkande i projektet:
Anna Cregård, Förvaltningshögskolan, Göteborgs universitet
Tina Forsberg Kankkunen, Sociologiska institutionen, Stockholms universitet