The norm of norms in HRM research: A review and suggestions for future studies

Christensen, Jannick Friis; Guschke, Bontu Lucie; Storm, Kai Inga Liehr; Muhr, Sara Louise

doi:10.1016/j.hrmr.2021.100859

Cited by 8 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 161 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Similarly, Biswas, Makel andAndresen (2022), andMello, Suutari andDickmann (2022) called for social support to individual families to enhance workers performance. Christensen, Guschke, Storm and Muhr (2021), noted the roles which norms play in performance hence advocated for a suitable blend that supported organisational objectives.…”

Section: Why Should We Manage the People?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing People: Accomplishing More with Less Effort

2022

EJBM

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

People management is the management of Human Resources in the organisations. The purpose of HRM is fundamentally to maximise the output of the organisation by augmenting the effectiveness of its employees. Employees are an essential factor of achieving competitive advantage in organisations. Advancement in technology has left a paltry room to maneuver in the quest to differentiate products or services hence the focus on people based strategies. A number of studies have attempted to address a question of people management as a vital tool to accomplishing more with less effort. Nevertheless, most studies tended to be skewed towards specific areas leaving out a wealth of aspects critical to the subject. Accordingly, this study attempted to address the topic of people management using the 5W and 1H as an all-encompassing approach to achieving more with less effort in people management. This study is aimed at ascertaining essential elements in people management to achieve, augment and sustain employee output with less effort.A narrative review of literature was used in this study to get insights of the subject under investigation. A narrative review was used to fully explain concepts related to the subject and how they augment with the current study. A total of 38 journal articles on people management were reviewed, particularly from Elsevier, Science Direct and JSTOR.The study revealed that people management focus at all levels of HR in organisations. Behaviours, values, norms and habits should resonate with the organisation's goals. Formal structural set up in organisations facilitated good leadership practices, for continuous and timely management of behaviours, habits, aptitudes and team effort. Further, the implementation of management systems, processes and principles which if intertwined with a suitable strategy enhance efficiency output and competitive advantage of the organisation.The study concludes that a sustained blend of appropriate human resource processes, strategies and leadership styles sprout a culture that differentiate

show abstract

Section: Why Should We Manage the People?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing People: Accomplishing More with Less Effort

2022

EJBM

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The second, and related, reason is that a critical inquiry into the performative effects of norms enables a shift in the level of intervention from individual to organizational bias. By not questioning individual subjects and their (non)conformity to an existing norm, but instead focusing on the norms themselves, their reproduction, and their performative effects moves attention to the level of organizational practices, processes, and structures (Christensen et al 2021). From that perspective, it thus becomes possible to focus on organizational biases and their reproduction within normative practices, processes, and structures.…”

Section: Design Thinking and Norm Critiquementioning

confidence: 99%

From individual to organisational bias

Guschke¹,

Christensen

2021

KKF

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

It is generally accepted in organisation and management studies that individuals are implicitly biased, and that biased behaviour has organisational consequences for diversity, equality and inclusion. Existing bias interventions are found not to lead to significant changes in terms of eliminating individual bias, reducing discrimination or increasing the numbers of underrepresented minorities in organisations. This article links that absence of positive change to a lack of engagement with the structural-organisational contexts, processes and practices that reproduce bias. We identify three concrete shortcomings in the literature: that interventions are 1) largely ignorant of broader societal power structures, 2) detached from specific organisational contexts and 3) decoupled from concrete organisational action. By combining insights from unconscious bias research with norm critique and design thinking, we develop a proposition for a new intervention model that forgoes the individualisation of unconscious bias and extends to a structural understanding of bias as embedded in organisational norms. The article draws on data from an action research project which included a workshop series developed and organised in three Scandinavian countries over the course of one year. The data provides the basis for an empirically grounded conceptualisation of the organisational bias intervention advanced by the authors.

show abstract

“…If despite the threats outlined above one decides to speak up, inevitably breaking with several of the expectations linked to the request of speaking up, the norm-breaking does not go unpunished (cf. J. F. Christensen et al, 2021). My research thus points to how norms are often only recognizable when they are broken as their reproduction is enforced through repercussions for those who deviate (cf.…”

Section: The Fear Of Becoming the Troublemakermentioning

confidence: 84%

“…Kenny, 2012), for living up to normative expectations and punishments for breaking them, where punishment often remains implicit (cf. J. F. Christensen et al, 2021). According to Fleming and Spicer (2014, p. 261), active consent is not forced from organizational members, as would be needed within coercive and manipulative frames of power, but instead established "by enlisting and accentuating moments of self-determination, reputational self-management, and trust to further certain interests" (see also S. Clegg & Courpasson, 2004;Reed, 2012;Romme, 1999).…”

Section: Formal and Informal Organizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Throughout my time as a PhD fellow, I managed to write four articles and one book chapter. Three articles were published in 2021, one in Ephemera on sexual harassment in the university and the military context with Beate Sløk-Andersen (Guschke & Sløk-Andersen, 2022), and two on norms and norm critique -topics that I have been exploring and working with closely wherefore they are important part also of my dissertation -in Women, Gender and Research with Jannick Friis Christensen and Human Resource Management Review with Jannick Friis Christensen, Kai Inga Liehr Storm, and Sara Louise Muhr (J. F. Christensen et al, 2021;. This year, in 2022, an article I wrote together with Sine Nørholm Just and Sara Louise Muhr on sexual harassment and gender discrimination was published in Gender, Work and Organization (Guschke, Just, et al, 2022) as well as a book chapter with Jannick Friis Christensen and Thomas Burø on Sara Ahmed's work on affect and her influence on organization studies (Guschke, Christensen, et al, 2022) -maybe unsurprisingly, an influence she has also had on my research.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Persistence of Sexism and Racism at Universities: Exploring the Imperceptibility and Unspeakability of Workplace Harassment and Discrimination in Academia

Guschke¹

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This PhD dissertation investigates the reproduction of sexist and racist harassment and discrimination in workplaces at Danish universities. It contributes to feminist organization studies by exploring: (1) How does the dis/organization of Danish universities enable the reproduction of inequalities, specifically in form of sexist and racist harassment and discrimination? (2) What allows sexist and racist workplace harassment and discrimination to be reproduced both on an institutional-structural and an interactional-individual level? (3) How are sexist and racist harassment and discrimination reproduced intersectionally, and what is distinct in how they are reproduced? Data from the Danish university context provides the empirical basis for the study. The author conducted in-depth interviews with academic faculty at all eight Danish universities. Interviewees were not required to have personal experiences with harassment and discrimination. An approach of anti-narrative research operationalized through embodied queer listening was developed and used in both data generation and analysis to methodologically acknowledge and engage with the interviewees’ vulnerabilities as well as autonomy in relation to organizational norms and power structures. It further allowed engaging with both discursive and affective aspects of data generation and analysis. The findings of the study are structured in six analytical chapters. These outline (I) contextual mechanisms within the Danish academic system that facilitate harassment and discrimination, (II) the unspeakability of racism when speaking of harassment and discrimination, (III) the imperceptibility of harassment, that is, how harassment often becomes affectively noticed before becoming named as such, (IV) ten (de)legitimization strategies that allow harassment and discrimination to persist, (V) expectations in how to speak up about harassment experiences, and finally (VI) insights on the reporting process and its challenges. The dissertation contributes to research on harassment and discrimination within feminist organization studies, developing both theoretical and empirical insights. Overall, it maintains and details how harassment and discrimination are reproduced in a context of in/formality leading to a reproduction of inequality underneath a layer of unspeakability which leads to a lack of responsibility. Finally, implications for organizational practice are discussed, suggesting that organizations need to recognize anti-harassment and anti-discrimination as ongoing, relational organizational practices rather than a goal to be achieved, respond with autonomy-fostering care to the vulnerability involved in harassment experiences, and be able to ‘stay with the trouble’ in addressing the affective ambiguities of harassment and discrimination.

show abstract

The norm of norms in HRM research: A review and suggestions for future studies

Cited by 8 publications

References 161 publications

Managing People: Accomplishing More with Less Effort

Managing People: Accomplishing More with Less Effort

From individual to organisational bias

The Persistence of Sexism and Racism at Universities: Exploring the Imperceptibility and Unspeakability of Workplace Harassment and Discrimination in Academia

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About