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Purpose — This paper explores the field of ethical conflicts of human resource (HR) managers in Slovenian organizations: unfair payments, extreme differences in rewards, not respecting employees’ rights, discrimination; using over excessive disciplinary power, not paying social contributions, and engaging in manipulations, among others. The main attention is paid to the implementation of employees’ rights and the factors that affect the process of the implementation of employees’ rights.Design/methodology/approach — We applied an ABC (antecedents — behavior — consequences) analysis of ethical organizational behavior. The survey encompasses 73 HR managers of Slovenian companies.Findings — HR managers perceive their role in an organization as being caught in a specific position in relation to senior management and employees. The study shows that in organizations where the “soft” and “combined” model of human resource management (HRM) is developed, the implementation of employees’ rights is more strongly realized.Research limitations — The sample size is one of the chapter’s limitations. The other is the use of quantitative statistical approach without applying other methods. In the future it should be accompanied with qualitative techniques by which dishonesty would be more directly linked to the violation of employees’ rights.Practical implications — Professional education can (1) form a solid system of professional values that can help to prioritize expectations and demands in the work place and (2) equip HR managers with competencies to solve ethical issues and to engage in ethical behavior.Social implications/value — The results show that first of all, HR managers are responsible in their role (responsibility of the role in developing the model of HRM which facilitates the implementation of employees’ rights) and only secondly, comes the responsibility of HR managers in an active sense of responsibility (responsibility as a virtue).

Using legitimacy and impression management theories, this study examines whether there is evidence of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) decoupling by critically analysing the cases of three Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) 350 airline companies (British Airways, WizAir, and Easyjet). The study focusses on three CSR aspects: community, customer, and employee support.

Using the case study method, the authors critically analysed the content of the three companies' websites and verified Twitter accounts between March 2020 and August 2020. The authors also reviewed news media sources tied explicitly to COVID-19 and the airline industry.

The study finds evidence of CSR decoupling due to inconsistencies between the three airline companies' communication about the companies' commitment to customers' health and safety and their actions. The study also uncovers that the three airline companies have violated employee rights by imposing unjustifiable and excessive redundancies and pay cuts, freezing planned pay rises, forcing unpaid leaves, and in some cases, suspending free meals during the crew shifts and exploiting the financial pressure and lack of jobs resulting from the pandemic by offering employees inferior contracts.

This paper responds to He and Harris's (2020) call for research to explore the impact of the global pandemic on CSR practices and Crane and Matten's (2020) call for research investigating how specific stakeholders get unvalued during the pandemic. The authors' study argues that the social responsibility of organisations, especially during crises, should not only focus on voluntary and charitable deeds but also on supporting employees, putting employees' well-being at the forefront of employees' operations, and maintaining credibility and sincerity in employees' communication and actions.

The findings in this paper provide insights and policy implications for managers, stakeholders, and regulators. The paper sheds light on violations of employee rights, indicating that employees in the airline sector are amongst the under-appreciated stakeholders during the pandemic. Such knowledge is essential for practitioners and policymakers who are charting paths forward to address the needs of vulnerable categories of employees. The paper also elucidates the impact of CSR decoupling on an organisation's legitimacy and the significance of maintaining credibility in CSR communications and actions, especially during a crisis.

Although exploring and analysing CSR practices in organisations has already attracted considerable interest in recent years, there is minimal knowledge about organisations' genuine commitment to CSR during the pandemic, and there is a dearth of relevant studies in the aviation industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study addresses this gap by exploring the CSR practices of three airline companies and the companies' genuine commitment to CSR during the pandemic.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

During moments of crisis, it is essential that companies not only look to promote sustainable proceedings to their stakeholders but also enact it, especially ensuring employee rights are maintained and providing support to reduce the chances of CSR decoupling.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

This paper examines relationship between bargaining powers of creditors as well as employees and financial leverage across countries. The purpose of this paper is to explore roles of creditors and employees in capital structure decisions under different legal and political regimes across countries.

Using country‐level creditor rights index and labor rights index as a proxy for bargaining powers of creditors and employees, respectively, the author addresses the interaction between creditors as well as employees and shareholders. The paper tests the impact of employee rights and creditor rights on capital structure across countries.

The author finds a positive relationship between employee rights and firms' use of debt and a negative relationship between creditor rights and firm debt ratio.

The paper provides a new perspective to interpret international variation in financial leverage in the world. The results obtained from this paper help us to understand financial leverage in different countries with various corporate governance mechanisms.

This paper takes all stakeholders into account when studying agency problems; it explores the role of creditors and employees in financing decision making under various corporate governance patterns and political and legal systems across countries.

“As employee attitudes and actions reflect the increased public concern with social and environmental problems and the proper role of the corporation in p articipating in their solution, traditional doctrines of the employee's duties of loyalty and obedience and the employer's right of discharge will undergo increasing change…. The real question is to establish civilised parameters of permissible conduct that will not keep employees from expressing themselves… and at the same time will not introduce elements of breach of confidentiality and impairment of loyalty that will materially impair the functioning of the corporation itself. A balancing of interests, not a blind reiteration of traditional doctrines is required”.

Research in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a trending topic in recent years. Research that is often done is related to CSR disclosure, mostly for large companies. Likewise, the current standards and guidelines ignore micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). On the other hand, the MSME business sector in the world also impacts the economy, social, and environment, so CSR is needed. CSR activities and reporting cannot be separated from the concept of materiality due to a large amount of leeway in management’s discretion regarding topics and aspects. The purpose of this study is to analyze the issue of MSMEs materiality. The samples collected were 33 MSMEs. The research results show that the material issues for both sectors are similar, which are customer care and satisfaction (profit), employee rights, training and development (people), electricity consumption, and waste management (planet). The concept of materiality is expected to play an important role in MSMEs as a CSR strategy so that MSMEs can apply it to their business practices. Thus, MSMEs pay attention to profit, social, and environment, which is interpreted simply. The management of MSMEs can use this result to formulate CSR’s business strategies and apply them to their business practices. Thus, MSMEs can play a role in sustainability, which is expected to improve financial performance.

This paper aims to provide an examination of the position employees find themselves during corporate insolvencies. The paper examines employees' rights under insolvency procedures such as administration, company voluntary arrangements (CVA), administrative receivership, pre-packs and liquidation, to establish whether the rescue goal can be affected by employees' claims. Priorities in liquidation are also widely examined to establish the status of employees under this procedure and their entitlements.

Legal analysis.

The law offers more protection to employees than unsecured creditors. In comparison to unsecured creditors and even floating charge security holders, employment claims stand in a highly enviable position during insolvency.

The paper offers a wholesale assessment of the rights of employees during insolvency. There is a lacuna in research literature that addresses the issue of employment rights during insolvency.

The article addresses the tension between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the right to work in times of the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, it explores the operation of corporations in adopting policies of mandatory vaccination and the role of the courts regarding these CSR patterns.

The article examines court case studies of CSR practices regarding unvaccinated employees during the COVID-19 pandemic in Israel and the United States.

The findings show that the Israeli system adopted the regulating for individual discretionary CSR approach, whereas the American system adopted the regulating for ethical-public CSR approach. Adopting the latter infringes upon the right to work of unvaccinated employees. While in Israel, the possibility of compelling employees to vaccinate is denied, in the American model, mandatory vaccination is possible. As opposed to the American model, in the Israeli model, there is an obligation to consider proportionate measures to isolate the employees while allowing them to continue working.

The article introduces two possible notions of regulating CSR in times of the pandemic – regulating for individual discretionary CSR which is labor-oriented and regulating for ethical-public CSR which is focused on public aspects. While the former posits that corporations should advance individual interests of employees and their right to work, the latter claims that corporations should advance the public interest in health. Following the problems resulting from the Israeli and American cases, the article draws on the lines for a suggested approach that courts should embrace.

Human resource management in the public sector does not take place in a vacuum. It is carried out within a regulatory framework of laws, rules and regulations. Recent times have witnessed commendable efforts by many African countries to embrace democratic governance with its trappings of constitutionalism, which requires that the behaviour of politicians, public officials, public institutions and citizens should conform to the strictures of the Constitution of the land. This study examines the Fourth Republican Constitution of Ghana and identifies constitutional provisions or prescriptions which have some relevance for human resource management in the Ghanaian public sector. Constitutional provisions identified in this regard deal with the following issues: human resource management policy, laws, rules and regulations, recruitment and selection, equal employment opportunity, employee rights and welfare, compensation and benefits, state of the economy, human resource development, work environment, Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), decentralisation and ethical issues. The paper discusses the relevance and implications of issues raised and concludes that the Fourth Republican Constitution contains important provisions which make for sound human resource management in the Ghanaian public sector.

This study aims to analyze the effect the liberalization of industrial relations in Germany has had on trade unions’ influence on companies’ decisions. Particular attention is given to European measures of flexibilizing company law and how they affect industrial relations in Germany.

After presenting a theoretical basis regarding industrial relations and corporate governance, the paper then demonstrates, via a case study, the effects of the flexible European company law. It examines the strategic avoidance of trade union activity at SAP, a case that ended up before the European Court of Justice.

The flexibility of European company law allows companies to limit the influence of trade unions on company decisions. Limiting trade unions' internal participation weakens their position overall. Precautionary measures to protect employees’ rights help to reduce the dangers of this process.

The influence of European law brings a new perspective to the transformation of the German industrial relations model. The analysis of the strategy of using the legal type of the European company (Societas Europaea) to limit the internal activity of trade unions demonstrates the connection between institutional settings and corporate governance.