Damian Grimshaw

Recent research has underlined the growing importance of sustainability in HRM policy and practice, taking into account long‐term multi‐stakeholder goals. However, few studies have specified the drivers and outcomes of sustainable HRM practices, nor the contradictions that arise when managers attempt to satisfy the demands of both internal and external stakeholders. Drawing on in‐depth case studies of the UK public sector, we distinguish between the institutional sustainability logics of (i) viability (concerned with necessary resources and capacities to deliver) and (ii) legitimacy (concerned with satisfying social and moral demands for fair and consistent HR practices) and explore how these two logics interact through positive and negative feedback loops. Our findings show that across an increasingly complex HRM eco‐system, the tensions between viability and legitimacy are increasingly addressed through a focus on building individual human capital and personal wellbeing rather than protecting job security and the collective ‘common good’.

This article contributes to discussions about the future of work by providing a systematic review of the broad yet fragmented management literature on how skills are changing with digital technologies (DTs). Our aim was to understand the nature of scholarly engagement with this relationship to inform a future research agenda. Our systematic review identified 225 original empirical articles that explicitly examined skills and DTs. We highlight the diverse categories of context, mechanisms, and outcomes in the form of an analytical matrix, guided by an organizational conceptualization of skill that spans positivist and social constructivist approaches. Our analysis generates four theoretical framings of how skills are changing with DTs: market shift , control shift , recombination , and imbrication . These framings are derived from two analytical dimensions of skill change: transactional versus transformational and objective versus relational. We interrogate the fit between each theoretical framing and the affordances of DTs, bringing to light how skill change with DTs is entangled with shifting temporal dimensions and a rich variety of interactions and interdependencies. Our theoretical framings, analytical dimensions, and insights into the relationship between skill change and DTs provide the basis for a more coherent management research agenda.

This chapter interrogates the diverse patterns of unpaid labour in food delivery platform work. It argues that no simple correspondence exists between unpaid labour and platform work. Platforms’ socio-technical strategies of labour governance steer unpaid labour differently by enabling or constraining key aspects of worker autonomy. Moreover, platform reliance on self-employment exacerbates unpaid labour in comparison to the use of employee status. The chapter establishes that there are ‘open’ and ‘closed’ regimes of governance. Combined with a relatively open worker regime, self-employed workers experience diminished market shelter and can be easily replaced in a relatively overcrowded sector that requires few skills. Conversely, the use of the employee form can mitigate unpaid labour within relatively closed regimes, although it cannot eliminate it completely. Unpaid labour persists under an hourlypaid system since the worker is subordinated to work faster (work intensification) and is also subject to short-term changes in working time arrangements.

Reflecting on the challenges arising from new digital technologies and from climate change, this chapter reviews what the research tells us about the changing patterns of low pay and the consequences for low-paid workers. Its focus is international and as such covers a wide range of social, economic, and organisational contexts. The analysis of low pay is informed by the ‘new labour market segmentation approach’, which highlights how employer practices, labour market power imbalances, gender inequalities, and labour institutions shape the risks and opportunities facing low-paid workers in a context of disruptive transformation. The review of digital technology research questions the presumed skill and routine bias of new technologies, highlighting instead examples of new segments of routinised, low-paid work and a deterioration of working conditions, albeit with some evidence of positive change driven by collective voice and institutional reform. The review of climate change research emphasises the consequences for low-paid workers of transitions out of polluting industries, the high risk of suffering heat stress among low-paid people working outdoors, and the problem of climate migration facing many workers in vulnerable locations in low-income countries. A final section draws together the findings and considers lessons for policy and practice.

This chapter argues that different combinations of unions’ power resources, which vary among countries and over time, influence the uplifting and sustaining of a statutory minimum wage at a decent level. It develops an analytical framework to investigate how trade unions influence the minimum wage and applies this to four high-income countries – France, Germany, the UK, and the United States. The comparative evidence demonstrates that complex interactions among combinations of power resources shape the process and outcomes of minimum wage fixing, confirming the utility of the power resources framework. Further, they highlight the specific role of ideational power resources in diffusing norms around decent or living wages, and the importance of broad coalitions of social actors interested in rooting out wage exploitation. The framework also highlights contradictory challenges facing unions. In particular, while unions may enjoy success in uprating minimum wages, there is limited evidence that this converts into a strengthening of associational power resources. Also, potential complementarities between decent levels of minimum wages and collective bargaining success reflect gains in institutional power resources, but these can also be undermined in situations where the institutional legitimacy of minimum wages predominates the political landscape and weakens the capacities for broader solidaristic actions on pay.

Thoroughly revised and updated to include contemporary terms that have gained importance such as furlough, unconscious bias, platform work, and Great Resignation, this second edition of the Encyclopedia of Human Resource Management is an authoritative and comprehensive reference resource comprising almost 400 entries on core HR areas and concepts.

Thoroughly revised and updated to include contemporary terms that have gained importance such as furlough, unconscious bias, platform work, and Great Resignation, this second edition of the Encyclopedia of Human Resource Management is an authoritative and comprehensive reference resource comprising almost 400 entries on core HR areas and concepts.

Mick Marchington's highly innovative research and writings on ‘Fragmenting Work’ have transformed our understanding of organisations, human resource management (HRM) and the world of work. He led a series of in‐depth case studies of networked organisations—including airport operations, supply chains, multi‐client call centres, public‐private partnerships and information technology outsourcing—and argued for the significance of inter‐organisational networks in directly informing HRM theory and also shaping HRM practice. The resulting highly cited body of published work captured and further developed Mick's intellectual interests in pluralism and complexity in relation to HRM theory. In this article, we reflect on Mick's theoretical contributions and also consider how core theoretical insights derived from the Fragmenting Work research programme can be applied to new questions about the future of work concerning digital platforms, career ladders and global supply chains.

Against the backdrop of the fourth industrial revolution, this paper examines the emergence of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) as one of the new technologies that are shaping the future of work and reconfiguring sectoral business and innovation systems and models. It discusses how the institutional context can potentially mediate the digital transformation of services, how RPA affects workers’ employment and skills, and how it alters inter-organisational relationships and capabilities. Bringing together different strands of academic literature on employment studies, innovation, and technology studies, it deploys a comparative institutional perspective to explore the potential effects of RPA and illustrates their plausibility through mini case studies from knowledge-intensive business services

The COVID-19 outbreak and resultant economic crisis has led to governments in Europe taking extraordinary action to support citizens. Bodies such as the International Labour Organisation (ILO) recommend such measures should include targeted support for the most affected population groups. Women form one of these groups, with disproportionate impacts on their employment and economic resources already documented. Although the disruption brought about by the COVID-19 crisis has the potential to reshape gender relations for everyone’s benefit, there are concerns that the crisis will exacerbate underlying gender inequalities. Though these impacts are likely to be felt globally, public policy has the potential to mitigate them and to ensure a gender-sensitive recovery from the crisis. This paper introduces a gendered lens on the employment and social policies European countries have established since the crisis, with a brief comparative analysis of short-time working schemes in four countries – Germany, Italy, Norway, and the UK. Ongoing research seeks to extend the comparative, gendered analysis of the design, access and impacts of COVID-19 employment and social policies across Europe.