HRM in recession: restructuring and alternatives to downsizing in times of crisis; Dr Stewart Johnstone, Work, Employment & Organisation Seminar
Event Date: 16 February 2022
Speaker: Dr Stewart Johnstone
Time: 2-3pm
Location: This event will be held on Zoom. Please email sbs-weo@strath.ac.uk for details.
Abstract: In just over a decade two global crises have plunged many national economies into deep recession. While the management of HR during economic downturns has received modest attention in HRM scholarship, the global impact of COVID-19 on employment adds impetus to the debate. Drawing upon 56 in-depth interviews, the study presents three context sensitive in-depth case studies of recessionary responses in British manufacturing firms and explores how and why they responded as they did. While it is often assumed that firms in institutionally permissive liberal market economies will downsize in times of economic distress, the cases demonstrate how each organisation implemented measures to mitigate redundancies as part of a broader restructuring process but took different paths with different consequences. Finally, it highlights the value of contextualised HRM studies, but also warns against institutional determinism and stresses the importance of local contingencies and actor agency in shaping organisational responses to recession.
Published: 16 February 2022
