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*International Journal of Human Resource Management*

* Special Issue Call for Papers*

*Special Issue Topic: Understanding Strategic Human Resource Management in
the Context of the Global South*

*Guest Editors*

Aneeqa Suhail, Tilburg University, The Netherlands.

Michel Hermans, IAE Business School - Universidad Austral, Argentina.

Samuel Aryee, University of Surrey, UK.

*Summary*

This special issue aims to uncover HRM challenges, particularities,
innovations, and outcomes in the Global South to inform the SHRM debate.
Accordingly, we call for empirical and conceptual papers that:

i) Unravel contextual factors that shape the form and
functioning of HR systems.

ii) Contribute to SHRM theory development by identifying
contextually informed mechanisms through which HR systems influence
stakeholder outcomes.

*Keywords:* Strategic HRM, Contextual Factors, Labor Market Dynamics,
Employee-Organization Relationship, Global South

*Link to IJHRM’s dedicated website*: please, click here
<https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/understanding-strategic-human-resource-management-global-south/?utm_source=TFO&utm_medium=cms&utm_campaign=JPG15743>

*Rationale of Special Issue*

Firms around the world increasingly face context-related Strategic human
resource management (SHRM) challenges that are more manifest and acute in
the Global South. Examples include the influence of religion or worldviews
on workforce management, higher volatility in capital and labor markets
causing intermittent talent shortages and oversupply, institutional voids
surrounding informal and gig work, and growing inequality in the
distribution of skills, job stability, income, and opportunity.
Organizational responses to these challenges typically involve flexibility
in and alternative approaches to SHRM. The general dynamics of global
economic integration driven specifically by migration, foreign direct
investment from non-traditional countries (e.g., Brazil, China, and India),
the emergence of global value chains, and technology-mediated geographical
distribution of goods and services have implications for the strategic
management of organizational workforces across the globe. Consequently,
understanding how and why organizations in the Global South manage their
employees will provide SHRM scholars an opportunity to not only test the
limits of Western-inspired HRM models but also the development and testing
of contextually informed theory.

Defined as "the pattern of planned human resource deployments and
activities intended to enable the firm to achieve its goals" (Wright &
McMahan, 1992: 298), SHRM research has repeatedly been criticized for its
failure to account for context (Batt & Banerjee, 2012; Brewster, 2007;
Mayrhofer et al., 2019). Notwithstanding the contextual embeddedness of
early SHRM models (e.g., Beer et al., 1984), researchers have predominantly
focused on unraveling the mechanisms inside the 'black box' (Becker &
Huselid, 2006; Jiang et al., 2013; Jiang and Messersmith, 2018; Wright &
Nishii, 2013) paying little attention to how, why, and when contextual
influences impact these mechanisms. However, over the past decade,
researchers have made significant progress in bridging SHRM research with
the context-centric fields of international and comparative HRM (Batt &
Hermans, 2012; Paauwe & Farndale, 2017). Building on cross-cultural (e.g.,
Dastmalchian et al., 2020) and comparative institutional perspectives (e.g.
(Edwards et al., 2016; Farndale et al., 2017), researchers increasingly
examine the role of context in understanding patterns of planned HR
deployments, the associated activities, and the resulting outcomes. Within
this stream, the majority of studies have been conducted in WEIRD (Western,
Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) countries (Mayrhofer et al.,
2019), leaving unanswered important questions regarding the nature and
functioning of HR systems and their outcomes in the Global South (Cooke,
2019; Hermans, 2018).

We advance the view that focusing on workforce management in the Global
South will highlight the limits of WEIRD country-informed approaches to
SHRM and provide an opportunity to uncover alternative approaches to people
management that are attuned to contextual conditions. The term Global South
originally referred to economically disadvantaged nations with a colonial
past. It has since been used to describe alternatives and responses to
neo-liberal global capitalism (for an overview of definitions, see (Kloß,
2017; Mahler, 2017) as reflected in the literature on varieties of
capitalism (Fainshmidt et al., 2016; Witt et al., 2018) and critical
management studies (Alvesson et al., 2009; Jayawardena, 2021). Prior
special issues of IJHRM identified particularities of HRM in Asia (Rowley
et al., 2016), Africa (Kamoche, et al., 2012), the Middle East (Afiouni et
al., 2013), India (Jain et al., 2012), and Latin America (Elvira & Davila,
2005). Although these comparative studies represented important progress
towards understanding SHRM in specific geographic regions, they were less
concerned with providing a holistic understanding of the nature of
workforce management (Cooke et al., 2017), hybridization of different
approaches (Su & Wright, 2012) or with how and why workforce management
shapes cognitions, attitudes and behavior (Johns, 2018). By contrast, a
contextual approach to SHRM, informed by the Global South, requires
researchers to 'formally specify what is special, distinct, or even unique
about situations' (Johns, 2018:24). This approach allows for enhanced
understanding of different realities that both local and internationally
operating firms need to manage, as well as learning to cope with challenges
typically associated with the Global South but that have now become
relevant to WEIRD countries as well (Cooke, 2019).

*Aims/Objectives of **Special Issue*

The SI seeks to provide a forum for researchers to re-assess the nature and
contextual influences on the functioning of HR systems. Drawing on
comparative HRM research that examines how the socio-economic history,
geography, worldviews, ideologies, and institutions inform HRM, the
overarching objective of the SI is to address the question of how these
differences affect HRM systems and stakeholders' outcomes. This SI
represents an exceptional opportunity for researchers from underrepresented
countries in the global debate on SHRM, as well as those who seek to share
knowledge and insights based on less frequently applied research
methodologies (e.g., ethnographies, phenomenological approaches, Delphi
studies) and theoretical perspectives (e.g., indigenous). Manuscripts
discussing case studies in the Global South or a cross-country/region
comparison that involves countries from south-south or south-north are
especially welcome. In sum, the SI provides a forum to bring together
research that addresses SHRM issues in the Global South such as:

- What factors shape the adoption of HR systems?
- What are the forms and nature of HR systems?
- How do contextual factors shape the dynamics of HR system
implementation?
- What processes underlie the relationship between HR systems and
stakeholder outcomes?

*Potential Themes for the Special Issue*

Contributions should facilitate an in-depth understanding of the origins of
specific approaches to SHRM and how they compare to approaches that are
prevalent in WEIRD countries. Empirical papers may draw on quantitative,
qualitative or mixed methods, but should enrich or develop theory and
consequently, redirect or re-energize the field through addressing new or
novel questions. Below are broad themes and indicative topics.

*Factors that Shape the Adoption of HR Systems*

- How do culture, religion, and worldviews inform SHRM in the Global
South?
- How do the centrality of natural resources to the economy and the
cyclicity of commodity prices affect people's management?
- How does the concentration of firm ownership (in families, Royalty,
ethnic groups, or the State) shape people management?
- What are the implications of structural oversupply of labor (as
evidenced in unemployment rates), informal labor, migration, and
subsistence entrepreneurship for people management?

*Forms and Nature of HR Systems*

- How does the content of local (native, indigenous) HR systems evolve
as a consequence of exposure to global competition?
- What are the effects of implementing labor codes by MNEs or within
global value chains for employees in the Global South?

*Dynamics of HR Systems Implementation*

- To what extent are HR departments professionalized? What role (if any)
do international certifications of HR professionals play?
- How do stakeholders perceive the effectiveness of HR departments and
what factors shape their perceptions and outcomes?
- What is the nature of the interaction between HR departments and line
managers (collaboration, cooperation, conflict) in the implementation of HR
practices and how do we account for it?
- How strategic is the adoption of technology in HR functions and what
are the driving factors in the Global South?

*Processes and Stakeholder Outcomes*

- What attributions do employees make to their organizations' adoption
of HR practices and their experiences of these practices?
- What are the payoffs of investment in human capital in the Global
South?

*Submission deadline and Instructions*

The full paper submission deadline is *February 26th, 2024*. The expected
date for special issue publication will be the end of 2025. Authors of
prospective papers are welcome to discuss their ideas with any of the guest
editors in advance. Please contact Aneeqa Suhail at
[log in to unmask], Michel Hermans at [log in to unmask] and
Samuel Aryee at [log in to unmask]

For papers to be considered for this special issue, at the time of the
submission to IJHRM, authors must select "yes" to the special issue
question, select which special issue the submission is for, and also state
the name of this special issue: "*Understanding Strategic Human Resource
Management in the Context of the Global South*" in the cover letter to the
editor. All papers will go through a double-blind review using similar
criteria to those for any paper submitted to IJHRM. For additional
guidelines with respect to formatting and so on, please consult '*Instructions
for Authors'* on the IJHRM's website:
https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/understanding-strategic-human-resource-management-global-south/?utm_source=TFO&utm_medium=cms&utm_campaign=JPG15743

*References*

Afiouni, F., Ruël, H., & Schuler, R. (2013). HRM in the Middle East: Toward
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Alvesson, M., Bridgman, T., & Willmott, H. (Eds.). (2009). *The Oxford
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Batt, R., & Banerjee, M. (2012). The scope and trajectory of strategic HR
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Batt, R., & Hermans, M. (2012). Global Human Resource Management: Bridging
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Cooke, F. (2019). *Human resource management in developing countries*. SAGE
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Dastmalchian, A., Bacon, N., McNeil, N., Steinke, C., Blyton, P., Satish
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97-110). Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley.

*Michel Hermans, PhD*

Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

IAE Business School – Universidad Austral, Argentina

www.iae.edu.ar

T: +54 (0) 230 481000 ext. 1325

E: [log in to unmask]

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