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HRM decentralization and devolution have been highlighted as key HRM processes in organizations’ quest for increased flexibility. Although they have been extensively studied in the MNC and International HRM literature, they have mainly been examined on a separate basis, and their definition and operationalization have often been confused. Thus, we first clarify the difference between the two concepts by refining the definitions by Hoogendoorn and Brewster (1992), and then empirically examine how they are related.

The relationship between HRM decentralization and devolution is examined by means of a survey in a large multi-country sample of multi-unit organizations.

Regarding our clarification objective, we contend that devolution has to do with who takes responsibilities for HRM (i.e. line managers or HRM professionals) while decentralization refers to where HRM responsibilities are allocated (i.e. headquarters or increasingly local units). Regarding the relationship between the two concepts, the results show that higher levels of HRM decentralization are related to higher levels of devolution, but this association is attenuated in organizations with more powerful HRM departments.

The study contributes to theory and practice by disentangling, at the conceptual, operational, empirical and practical levels, two different but related HRM decisions (how much to devolve and how much to decentralize HRM) that organizations must make to efficiently cope with the characteristics of their own structure and competitive environment. It highlights the role of the relative power of HRM departments in how HRM responsibilities are ultimately distributed across the organization.

This paper critically evaluates potential barriers to employment opportunities for ethnic minority (EM) individuals in Scottish Local Authorities – both in terms of access to job and development opportunities. It provides a fundamental discussion of concepts around race and ethnicity, and the levels of social injustice, with an explicit focus on institutional racialisation, discrimination and segregation. The paper explores organisational approaches towards recruitment, including positive action and workforce development.

This paper adopts a subjectivist (ontology) and interpretivist (epistemology) stance, based on a small-scale, in-depth investigation. The data have been gathered through semi-structured interviews with equality diversity and inclusion (EDI) officers in four Scottish Local Authorities, utilising thematic analysis.

The finding suggests that participating local authorities have a long way to go to ensure the elimination of barriers to employment for EM people. This is largely based on concerns around limitations in the application of positive action and elimination of disadvantages in recruitment and access to career and development opportunities?

The paper aims to contribute by exploring the availability of employment opportunities for EMs through the eyes of EDI Officers in four local authorities. Their thorough understanding, over- and insight into potential equality issues from an employment perspective are invaluable, focussing on more tangible organisational issues and approaches.

Talent management is conducted to maximize an organization's overall performance and efficiency which helps to serve as a competitive advantage. Human resource management is a concept which includes human-related activities, but talent management is a strategy which helps to get new talent, develop their skill sets and provide better employee engagement and experience to retain the top potential employees in an organization. Improvement in recruiting and retention of a workforce results from a well-executed talent acquisition approach. In the 21st century, employee retention has become a primary concern for the organizations specially with work from home and hybrid models.

The workforce for tomorrow is going to be very different from what it has been. Technology is transforming the way people work within organizations. The workplace is rapidly evolving in terms of people and processes and is going through a lot of technological changes. The terminologies such as automation, artificial intelligence, augmented reality and block chain technologies are slowly becoming part of the workplace and everyday activities of the organization.

The challenges are many and especially post-pandemic organizations are going through some major changes such as a mindset shift of employees to take up more remote working opportunities, building virtual teams, increase in the gig economy workers (contractual workers) and a diverse workforce which makes it even more challenging for the organization to manage and retain talent.

The purpose of this multi-voiced paper is to propose a prosocial paradigm for the field of performance management and management control systems. This new paradigm suggests cultivating prosocial behaviour and prosocial groups in organizations to simultaneously achieve the objectives of economic performance and sustainability.

The authors share a common concern about the future of humanity and nature. They challenge the influential assumption of economic man from neoclassical economic theory and build on evolutionary science and the core design principles of prosocial groups to develop a prosocial paradigm.

Findings are based on the premise of the prosocial paradigm that self-interested behaviour may outperform prosocial behaviour within a group but that prosocial groups outperform groups dominated by self-interest. The authors explore various dimensions of performance management from the prosocial perspective in the private and public sectors.

The authors call for theoretical, conceptual and empirical research that explores the prosocial paradigm. They invite any approach, including positivist, interpretive and critical research, as well as those using qualitative, quantitative and interventionist methods.

This paper offers implications from the prosocial paradigm for practitioners, particularly for executives and managers, policymakers and educators.

Adoption of the prosocial paradigm in research and practice shapes what the authors call the prosocial market economy. This is an aspired cultural evolution that functions with market competition yet systematically strengthens prosociality as a cultural norm in organizations, markets and society at large.

The purpose of this study is to estimate the effects of gender composition in the workplace on employee job satisfaction and commitment.

The data were collected on both the organizational and employee levels at three different points in time in organizations with more than 70 employees. Multi-level mixed-effects ordered logistics regressions were used to account for the multi-level nature of the data and the ordered nature of the dependent variables.

Employees in gender-balanced workplaces show higher levels of job satisfaction and commitment than those in female-dominated or male-dominated workplaces. The relationship is also based on the gender of the individual, as men show a significantly lower level of both job satisfaction and commitment when working in male-dominated workplaces than others, while for women, the effect is only significant for commitment.

Aiming for a balance in the gender composition of the workplace may improve employee attitudes, especially for men. The results also indicate that further research is warranted into why job satisfaction and commitment are significantly lower among men in male-dominated workplaces.

The relationship between gender and job satisfaction and commitment is well established, but less is known about the effects of gender composition on job satisfaction and commitment. Previous papers have focused on job satisfaction. This paper extends prior studies by estimating the effects of gender composition on both job satisfaction and commitment using multi-level regressions on a rich dataset.

With the recent proliferation of AI, organisations are transforming not only their organisational design but also the input and output operational processes of the hiring process. The purpose of this paper is to explore the organisational and operational dimensions resulting from the deployment of AI during talent acquisition process.

The authors conducted semi-structured interviews and meetings with human resources (HRs) professionals, recruiters and AI hiring platform providers in Sweden. Using an inductive data analysis rooted in the principles of grounded theory, the study uncovered four aggregate dimensions critical to understanding the role of AI in talent acquisition.

With insights from algorithmic management and ambidexterity theory, the study presents a comprehensive theoretical framework that highlights four aggregate dimensions describing AI’s transformative role in talent recruitment. The results provide a cautionary perspective, advising against an excessive emphasis on operational performance driven solely by algorithmic management.

The study is limited in scope and subject to several constraints. Firstly, the sample size and diversity are restricted, as the findings are based on a limited number of semi-structured interviews and meetings with HRs professionals, recruiters, and AI hiring platform providers. Secondly, the rapid evolution of AI technologies means that the study’s findings may quickly become outdated as new advancements and applications emerge.

The results provide managers with actionable information that can lead to more precise and strategic management practices, ultimately contributing to improved organizational performance and outcomes. Plus, enhancing their ability to make informed decisions, optimize processes and address challenges effectively.

The results signal both positive and negative impacts on employment opportunities. On the positive side, AI can streamline recruitment processes, making it easier for qualified candidates to be identified and hired quickly. However, AI systems can also perpetuate existing biases present in the data they are trained on, leading to unfair hiring practices where certain groups are systematically disadvantaged.

By examining the balance between transactional efficiency and relational engagement, the research addresses a crucial trade-off that organizations face when implementing AI in recruitment. The originality lies in its critique of the prevailing emphasis on e-recruiting.

The recruitment of undergraduate students within English universities is of vital importance to both the academic success and the financial stability of the organisation. Despite the primacy of the task, there has been a dearth of research looking at related performance and how to ensure that the process is optimised. The purpose of this study was to investigate the degree of variation both within a university and between different universities. The reliance that individual programmes and/or universities place on the Clearing process is key; given its uncertainty, resource demands and timing shortly before students take up their places.

The Nomogramma di Gandy diagrammatical approach utilises readily available data to analyse universities’ performance in recruiting students to different programmes, and the degree to which they each rely of the Clearing process. Inter-university performance was investigated on a whole-student intake basis for a sample of English universities, representative of type and region.

The study found that there were disparate patterns for the many programmes within the pilot university and also disparate patterns between different types of universities across England. Accordingly, universities should internally benchmark their programmes to inform both strategic and tactical decision-making. Similarly, Universities and Colleges Admissions Service benchmarking inter-university patterns could inform the overall sector.

The approach and findings provide lessons for analysing student recruitment which could be critical to universities’ academic and financial health, in an increasingly competitive environment.

This research aimed to explore the commonalities and differences in the type of information provided on corporate websites in relation to their employment brand equity.

Mixed methods of content analysis, ANOVA and regression analyses were employed to answer the research questions. The data were collected from multiple sources, including the websites of a sample of forty companies listed as the US Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work in 2012 and information presented on Fortune’s website as well.

Employment brand equity hardly showed any significant impact on either company’s job growth or reputation in the ranking as an “employer of choice”.

The results indicated some practices to make a company’s employment brand outstanding and how its web presence reflected its “brand” and presence for potential employees. They are useful for HR practitioners concerned with building an employee brand. For example, the more highly ranked companies in the Fortune 100 tend to provide more forms of online support related to employment opportunities.

Using brand equity theory from the marketing arena and applying this within the human resources management area, this study suggests that “employment brand equity” became a major factor that many companies and organizations should focus on to enhance their standing with job seekers, particularly talented ones. Nearly a decade before the COVID-19 pandemic, the best companies to work for in the US had paid attention to digitalization via websites and social media, to attract talent (and support employees).

The purpose of this study is to examine the recruitment practice of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Czech Republic to learn whether it encourages or discourages former offenders from attempting to attain work after release.

A qualitative approach was taken to understand the perspective of SME company owners and decision-makers within the Czech Republic. In all, 25 semi-structured interviews were conducted which examined the current recruitment practice and individual attitudes towards employing former offenders.

Through a change of employer perception, working with support agencies and amending recruitment practice, opportunities can be created for former offenders in the workplace to assist their rehabilitation. This would assist with overcoming employer attitudes which have little sense of responsibility to helping former offenders with reintegration through employment. Recruitment practices focus heavily on past accomplishments and the existence of a criminal record which can disincentivise former offenders from applying for work because of their stigmatised identity. Prior experience with offenders can lead to a change of attitude and offers a vector for changing employer attitudes. In combination with linkage to agencies which work with former offenders, small businesses could amend their recruitment practice and provide support for former offenders on their rehabilitation journey.

This study is based on a limited sample size, only 25 responses, and the need for translation from English to Czech could have led to a loss of nuance in the responses gathered. With asynchronous interviews also being used, some brief responses limited the insight which could have been gained.

The findings of this study highlight areas of practice which can be amended to better attract former offenders, being future-focused rather than past-focused.

Enhancing employment opportunities for former offenders would be a major enhancer for their reintegration efforts and lower the associated social costs to society.

Prior research has been conducted into the offender experience, with recruiter/owner receiving far less attention. Most prior studies have been quantitative in nature, with few using a qualitative approach.

The aim of this study is to explore employees’ perceptions of the role of human resources (HR) departments in Jordanian organisations and the reasons behind these perceptions.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 employees who work at different organisations in various industrial sectors in Jordan.

Employees perceive HR roles as: providing transactional services (traditional); working as business partners to facilitate other departments’ roles (limited). Perceptions of HR professionals and the role of HR departments were generally negative, due to: societal-cultural norms and stereotypes of HR departments and HR professionals; the role of Wasta (a localised form of favouritism) in affecting HR practices; employees’ personal experiences with HR departments and HR professionals at their workplace; and the non-availability of human resources management (HRM) degrees in Jordan.

Limited research has explored varying perceptions about HR departments and their impacts on business contexts in emerging markets, including Jordan. This research is unique as it identifies the reasons behind common misconceptions of HR roles in Jordanian organisations. It extends beyond existing literature by integrating employees’ perceptions of the role of the HR departments to understand the consequences for HR practices’ operational effectiveness. It also pioneers consideration of societal culture in shaping these perceptions, which helps us build theories for future testing and generalisation purposes in other contexts with cultural commonalities. This study also highlights the current state of HRM development in Jordan, which helps in setting the agenda for future research in the country and the Middle East and North Africa region.