Comparative Human Resource Management Contextual Insights from an International Research Collaboration

Context is increasingly recognised as a critical explanatory variable in accounting for commonalities and differences in human resource management. Giving expression to it in research models holds the prospect of enhancing theory development, deepening our appreciation of embedded practices in diverse territories, and opening up new lines of enquiry. However, contextualisation presents a significant research challenge and increasingly, international academic research networks that bring together scholars from different countries in the co-production of knowledge represent a key approach to rising to this challenge.

This volume documents aspects of the development of one such network, namely the Cranet Network on International Human Resource Management, and presents a series of recent contributions from the network. The chapters highlight, inter alia, the limits to convergence in human resource management as a result of contextual determinism, the role of institutional actors, markets, and work regulation in accounting for variations in practices, the contextual specificities and dynamics at play in transition economies, along with key methodological challenges that arise when seeking to build cumulative comparative knowledge via network collaborations of this nature.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of International Studies of Management & Organization.

1. The Anatomy of an International Research Collaboration: Building Cumulative Comparative Knowledge in Human Resource Management

Michael J. Morley and Noreen Heraty

2. Context and HRM: Theory, Evidence, and Proposals

Wolfgang Mayrhofer, Paul N. Gooderham and Chris Brewster

3. A Comparative Study of Trade Union Influence over HRM Practices in Spanish and Brazilian Firms: The Role of Industrial Relations Systems and Their Historical Evolution

Wilson Aparecido Costa de Amorim, Andre Luiz Fischer and Jordi Trullen

4. The Antecedents of Comparative Differences in Union Presence and Engagement: Evidence from Coordinated and Liberal Market Contexts

Michael Brookes, Geoffrey Wood and Chris Brewster

5. Understanding Financial Participation across Market Economies

Elaine Farndale, J. Ryan Lamare, Maja Vidović and Amar S. Chauhan

6. Contemporary Human Resource Management Practices in Russia: Flexibility under Uncertainty

Veronika Kabalina, Olga Zelenova and Kira Reshetnikova

7. The Cranet Survey: Improving on a Challenged Research-Practice?

Jesper Christensen, Frans Bévort and Erling Rasmussen

Michael J. Morley is Professor of Management at the Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, Ireland. His research interests encompass international, comparative, and cross-cultural human resource management.

Noreen Heraty is Senior Lecturer and Director of the MSc in Human Resource Management at the Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, Ireland. Her research interests include international human resource management and development, ageism in the workplace, and psychological contract breach.