The Employment Relations and Human Resource Management Faculty Research Group conducts research on and teaching in the institutional and strategic context of work and employment. Members of the faculty group draw on the fields of economics, law, political science, psychology, and sociology to conduct theory-driven and applied research in a diverse range of industry and workplace settings. Reflecting the international orientation of our research, group members have expertise in the context and practice of ER and HRM in a range of countries spanning Europe, Africa, North America, and Asia.
Research areas include:
- Teams, work organization, and employee participation
- Performance management and pay for performance
- Conflict management and dispute resolution
- Leadership differentiation and emergence
- Corporate social responsibility and global labour standards
- Human resource management in global value chains
- Workplace and industrial democracy
- Labour market institutions and job quality
- International labour migration
Group members’ research has been funded by a variety of international funding bodies, and has produced high impact studies aimed at improving the quality and effectiveness of management practice as well as public policies that influence dynamics of power and conflict in organizations. Examples of recent projects include a study of the implementation of pay for performance in the Royal Mail, an analysis of the impact of organizational restructuring on job quality in European telecommunications firms, a longitudinal study of the relationship between union membership and charitable giving, and a study of worker perceptions of representation and rights in Germany and the USA.
History of the faculty group
The faculty group was officially founded as the Department of Industrial Relations in 1962, by Ben Roberts, however more than a century ago, two of LSE's founders, Beatrice and Sidney Webb, pioneered the first great social science studies of the labour and management problems of their day. They did so in the belief that efficient management and social justice went hand in hand. These two principles lie at the heart of the Faculty Group's discipline. Modern 'high performance work systems' function best when employees believe they are being treated fairly.