The HR ecosystem: Emerging trends and a future research agenda

Human resource leaders are experimenting with new approaches to organizing and utilizing workers that are not limited to the traditional boundaries of the firm, but rather expand to an ecosystem of work and organization. This special issue introduction article introduces a set of papers from management scholars discussing the ecosystem of work and organization and offers a roadmap for future research on HR ecosystems. An ecosystem perspective invites us to rethink our current frameworks to better link theory to practice. It also challenges us to shift our level of analysis from the organization to the ecosystem, asking: how is work organized and conducted within this complex and evolving context? These papers uncover trends related to (1) technological mediation, (2) impermanence and adaptation, and (3) shared governance. Our hope is that by framing these trends found within the research in this special issue that scholars will be provided a better road map in moving forward with their own research on the role of HR within the ecosystem of work and organization.     

Employee lactation: A review and recommendations for research,practice, and policy

Recent social justice movements call for an increased focus on workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion. Given the large proportion of working mothers who return to work after having a baby, research about lactation, work, and human resources issues is sorely needed to increase knowledge and understanding of working and lactating mothers' needs so that they feel welcome, respected, and supported in the workplace. For mothers who feed their baby breastmilk, concurrently managing work responsibilities and lactation demands can be a substantial source of employee stress and can create work-family conflict. Research on workplace lactation across a variety of disciplines has increased over the past decade. As attention to lactation is slowly increasing in the management and organizational behavior literature, synthesizing research from other domains into the organizational and managerial sciences is a critical precursor to facilitating future research in the field as well as translating that research into meaningful action in organizations. We contribute to filling this gap, by reviewing and coalescing research across relevant domains, grounding it in extant theory, and offering a conceptual model suggesting the critical antecedents that facilitate employee lactation behaviors, and the work-related moderators that meaningfully impact those relationships. Finally, we offer recommendations to guide future research both methodologically and substantively so as to advance management theory and research surrounding employee lactation at work, and offer practical implications for organizations as well as for public policy.     

Two decades of XBRL: a science mapping of research trends and future research agenda

eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is a software standard of significant importance in the current shift in financial reporting. This new standard is representative of the dramatic developments in how financial information is presented and reported. Over the past 20 years (2000–2020), we have witnessed how information systems and technology advancement have continued to shape current practices in accounting, which has resulted in an increasing trend toward Internet reporting, and thus the XBRL adoption. This study investigates the current trends and various characteristics of worldwide research on XBRL using bibliometric analysis, subsequently presenting a plausible future research direction. The Scopus database was searched for articles indexed under the terms “XBRL*” or “Digital Financial Reporting*” or “Internet Financial Reporting*” or “Web financial reporting*”, which yielded a total of 661 documents from the years 2000–2020. We analysed a total of 621 documents as our final sample after excluding those not related to the interest of the study. Our analysis discovered six (6) main research clusters related to XBRL, which are financial reporting, development of XBRL, decision making, XBRL adoption, corporate governance and disclosure, and financial analytics. We also proposed a future research direction within XBRL-related research.

     

Human resource management research and practice in Asia: Past,present and future

The continuing emergence of Asia as a critically important continent for the foreseeable future has renewed interest in understanding theory and practice in this region. This special issue was designed to shed light on human resource management (HRM) issues in this region, and to help guide future research in and on this region. In this introductory article, we first analyze the growth of HRM scholarship in Asia, by examining the research published over the last twenty-five years. We then describe the genesis of this special issue, and summarize the key themes emerging from the review articles in the issue. These include: psychological contract; work-life interface; corporate social responsibility; multinational corporations and their subsidiaries; the challenges of global talent management; convergence-divergence; state socialism to post-state socialism; and incorporating the context. We further offer suggestions for future research by proposing critical topics and emerging themes, including: employee voice; diversity and inclusion; employee well-being and resilience; preparing and responding to crises; and green human resource management. We conclude by offering theoretical perspectives and highlighting key recent developments which are likely to impact future practice, and should be addressed by scholars.     

Training trends: Macro,micro, and policy issues

The scope of the training enterprise is vast, the field is dynamic, and multi-level issues confront training researchers. After identifying three “mega trends” – globalization, technology, and demographic changes - this paper reviews training trends at the macro level, the micro level, and emerging policy issues and links each one to the mega trends. The macro-level trends - increasing demands for personal and professional development by job seekers and employees, the effects of digital technology on work, structural changes in labor markets, increasing training opportunities for non-standard workers, and training as an important aspect of an employer's brand - reflect broad trends in the economy. Micro-level trends - better understanding of requirements for effective learning; use of short, digital lessons; and options for optimizing learning and preventing skill and knowledge decay - each focus on improving the quality of training. Policy issues - training needs in small and medium-sized enterprises, the need for “middle skills”, and vocational education - raise vexing issues for all stakeholders. Together, macro, micro, and policy issues reflect ongoing challenges for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers everywhere.     

Contextualizing employment outcomes in family business research: current findings and future research avenues

Management Review Quarterly - The empirical evidence of family business phenomenon in terms of employment outcomes is contradictory highlighting the micro–macro gap in the existing research....     

Work-home interface in a cross-cultural context: a framework for future research and practice

Abstract

With dual-income families on the increase, combining work and family obligations is a daily reality for many individuals. Unsatisfactory combinations of work and home duties can result in various unfavourable individual and organisational outcomes. Therefore, its proper understanding is essential in order to create adequate recommendations for interventions and prevention. There is a need for the development of theoretical frameworks that take cultural context into account in relation to work-home interface (WHI). In this paper a new framework is proposed; ‘the pyramid of intersecting domains of WHI’ that incorporates cultural context and other important work-life interface aspects. It builds on empirical findings of the intersectionality and work/family border theories. The pyramid consists of the following domains: the domain of work and home characteristics, the roles domain and the cultural domain, which intersect to determine the fourth side of the pyramid, that is, the observed WHI. Based on the pyramid several research propositions can be formulated. Implications for researchers and HR professionals are provided.     

The family in the center of international assignments: a systematic review and future research agenda

Over the past 30 years, the number of studies investigating the family interface of international assignments has risen substantially. While alternative forms of international assignments have been gaining importance, this article focuses specifically on the family interface of traditional organization assigned expatriation as the most prominent and most researched form of global work. Thus far, research has investigated a broad array of topics ranging from the family’s willingness to relocate over family adjustment to work-family balance and utilized a large variety of theoretical foundations. Given this variety in the literature, the field is fragmented and lacks a consistent theoretical argumentation. As a first step to provide some organization, we synthesize the family expatriation literature by developing a comprehensive multi-level framework of the determinants and dimensions of family outcomes. To achieve this objective, we critically assess publications between 1985 and 2017 in peer-viewed international journals, examine theoretical foundations and review the extant literature based on our framework. With this we uncover similarities and inconsistencies in the field, which allows us to deduce an agenda for future research and offer recommendations for practice.     

Balancing family and work: The effect of cash benefits for working mothers

The aim of this paper is to measure the potential effect of a family policy introduced in Spain in 2003 that provides working mothers with a monthly cash benefit of 100 euros per child aged under 3 years. We explore the effect of the policy on eligible women's labour market participation. In the tradition of the policy evaluation literature we use a difference-in-differences-in-differences (DDD) estimation approach. Our results support a small but significant positive effect of the policy. We find that since the implementation of the policy the labour market participation rate for mothers of children aged under 3 has risen by 3 percentage points compared to the rate for non-policy-eligible females. This represents 5% of their average labour market participation in 2002, the year before the policy was implemented. This overall policy effect is dominated by the effect of the policy among high school educated females.     

Interregnum and Critical Management Studies: The possible end of meaningful work

We are now witnessing the first generation born into liquid modernity – the millennials – for whom being primarily called on by society as consumers and experiencing the deepened significance and logic of life as a lottery (Bauman and Mauro, 2016) is natural (yet uncomfortable). The main point made is that the first ‘solid’ (sic!) generation of liquid consumers that Bauman wrote so vividly about is set to embark on adult life and enter organizations en masse as managers and workers. It is argued that the entry of the millennials further intensifies the ongoing subsidiarization process that is already taking place in organizations and means that the individualization of collective organizational problems will be even more concealed and difficult to detect. In relation to the millennials entering organizations, it is further argued that it is essential that Critical Management Studies (CMS) takes heed of the challenges that the entry of the millennials carry with them. A Baumanian framework informs us that this can only be done by avoiding nostalgia – going back-to-the-future.     

Digital transformation: a review,synthesis and opportunities for future research

Management Review Quarterly - In the last years, scholarly attention was on a steady rise leading to a significant increase in the number of papers addressing different technological and...     

Surveying transitional experience and subjective well-being: Income, work, family

This paper reviews subjective well-being studies on income, work and family life with particular attention to transition countries. The main differences in conclusions for two types of economic systems seem to be the result of uncertainty and fast changing conditions and their effect on the perception of subjective economic conditions and on expectations formation. The terms ‘happiness’ and ‘life satisfaction’ should be distinguished when evaluating the success of socio-economic policies or of a transformation period as well as when predicting the reaction of economic systems to shocks/crisis. A short summary for more than 70 studies involving subjective well-being and attitudes indicators on data from the economies in transition is included.     

The use of biodata for employee selection: Past research and future directions

Although biodata has been shown to be one of the best predictors of employee performance and turnover, a number of important issues remain unresolved (e.g., how broadly or narrowly should biodata be defined?). This paper has three main objectives. The first objective is to provide a selective but representative review of the research that has been conducted on the use of biodata for employee selection. The second objective is to constructively critique this research. This critique is intended to highlight deficiencies of this research that may limit the conclusions that should be drawn. The paper's third objective is to stimulate important future research on biodata that avoids the limitations of past research.     

Servant leadership,organizational identification,and work‐to‐family enrichment: The moderating role of work climate for sharing family concerns

The present study investigates the impact of servant leadership as perceived by followers on their work‐to‐family enrichment (WFE) by focusing on the mediating role of organizational identification and the moderating role of work climate for sharing family concerns. The results from a field survey of 230 married managers in China provide full support for our hypotheses, indicating that perceived servant leadership is positively related to WFE; this relationship is also mediated by organizational identification. In addition, work climate for sharing family concerns attenuates the effects of servant leadership on organizational identification and WFE. The theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are discussed. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Advancing the field of employee assistance programs research and practice: A systematic review of quantitative studies and future research agenda

The COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated the critical role of organizational support for the workforce. An employee assistance program (EAP) represents an inclusive strategy which organizations adopt to provide supportive and empathic care to help employees overcome undesirable situations. To date, we have limited knowledge of what EAP issues have been researched from the human resource management (HRM) perspective and what theoretical underpinning these studies have used. This article systematically reviews quantitative empirical studies on EAPs. Drawing upon 115 articles from 72 journals across 40 years (1981–2020), we trace the evolutionary trend of the construct of EAP and shed light on the internal link of EAP with HRM. After summarizing research themes, methods, theories, and approaches to the evaluation of EAPs, we identify pitfalls in the current research and contribute to extending the field by proposing several research agendas for future investigation.     

The employment interview: A review of current studies and directions for future research

The employment interview continues to be a prevalent device used by organizations and a popular topic of study among researchers. In fact, over 100 new articles have been published since Posthuma, Morgeson and Campion's [Posthuma, R. A., Morgeson, F. P., & Campion, M. A. (2002). Beyond employment interview validity: A comprehensive narrative review of recent research and trends over time. Personnel Psychology, 55, 1–81] review that are selectively examined and critiqued. During this timeframe, three main areas that have received considerable research attention are discussed: (1) understanding why “structured” interviews predict, (2) examining the constructs interviews may measure, and (3) investigating the applicant and interview factors that may affect the interview process. Despite advances made in our knowledge of employment interviews, numerous ideas for future research are advanced. Three key areas that deserve immediate research attention are: (1) establishing a common model and measurement of interview structure, (2) focusing on what constructs could be or are best measured, and (3) formulating consistent definitions, labeling and measurement of applicant factors. In this way, employment interview research can be advanced.     

A review of job embeddedness: Conceptual,measurement issues,and directions for future research

Job embeddedness (JE) theory is a relatively new perspective in turnover research. Although theoretical and empirical implications are encouraging, the construct of JE is still under development. In this paper, we identify five conceptualization and measurement issues warranting additional discussion and research. These are: (1) the composite measure vs. the global measure, (2) conceptual and measurement problems of community embeddedness, (3) conceptual and measurement problems associated with links, (4) discriminant validity issues and (5) the cultural boundaries of JE. For each issue, we discuss our concerns and suggest future research directions.