Call for Papers (Past)
Workplace inclusion aims at developing organizational cultures that are fair, embrace diverse perspectives, and allow people to bring their authentic selves to work (Mor Barak & Daya, 2014; Shore et al., 2018). It is often considered a branch or extension of diversity management that promises a route to manage workforce diversity effectively, thereby enhancing individuals’ well-being, innovation processes, and organizational performance (Nishii, 2013; Chung, 2020). For people and organizations who work across national borders, inclusion is particularly important and challenging simultaneously (Ortlieb & Sieben, 2014; Thomason & Gibson 2024) as international work needs to consider various context-specific understandings and conditions of diversity and inclusion. However, current theorizing and evidence on workplace inclusion in the global context is still limited (Fitzsimmons et al., 2023).
This stream invites contributions that generate theoretical insights, empirical findings, and evidence- based recommendations on how global workers (e.g., migrant workers, remote workers, and expatriates), global organizations (e.g., multinational companies, born global companies or international mergers and acquisitions) and other stakeholders (e.g., policy-makers, diversity agents, and diverse and historically marginalized employees in global organizations) experience and may tackle the challenges arising from fostering workplace inclusion across different country contexts.
We see a comprehensive and complex set of trends that are relevant for global workplace inclusion that may frame the submissions to the stream:
1) Technology
Technological progress facilitates unprecedented connectivity, allowing for virtual collaborations and transcending physical boundaries for those who share access to the required technology. The substantial increase in remote work is giving rise to new flexible workspaces that facilitate international interactions and labor mobility without the physical constraints of traditional travel or migration. This evolution reshapes the traditional understanding of workplace interactions and challenges established inclusion concepts that tend to assume inclusion to happen in a stable physical context (Biejer et al., 2024).
2) Migration
The importance of migration––movement patterns by human bodies within countries and across national borders––for inclusion demands in organizations cannot be overstated. Ongoing global migrations bring diverse talents together, presenting both opportunities and challenges in fostering an inclusive workplace. Yet, while poverty, conflicts, and climate change are generating new patterns of global migration (Boas et al., 2022), national borders are being strengthened and enforced to control the mobility of human bodies (Nail et al., 2022). These developments raise critical questions about the scope and essence of inclusion and the implications to create a truly inclusive global workplace that serve the human potential.
3) Global inequality
Despite global crises and seemingly increasing geopolitical tensions, global flows of trade, capital, information, and work continue to grow (Altman & Bastian, 2023). At the
same time, inequalities between wealthier and poorer countries, and within countries are increasing (Ma et al., 2022). Multinational companies (MNCs) are drivers of and subjects to this trend as they operate in various contexts characterized by different levels and different dimensions of equality. Tackling inequalities across countries and fostering global equality standards, some MNCs have started to implement global diversity and inclusion initiatives (Bader et al, 2022). Using their role as global change agents (Koveshnikov et al 2019), MNCs have the opportunity to raise the bar for workforce inclusion, yet, ethical implications, effective implementation strategies and global employee reactions are still only marginally understood.
Building on these trends, this stream invites scholarly contributions related but not limited to the following questions:
How can global workplace inclusion be conceptualized and measured?
How can global inclusion initiatives be evaluated and monitored?
What is the role of technology in creating inclusive global workplaces?
How can global organizations and leaders manage inclusion in virtual spaces?
How are different groups of global workers affected differently by organizational initiatives?
In the context of increased worker mobility, how can organizations foster inclusion on a global
level?
How does intersectionality play out in global workers’ inclusion-exclusion experiences?
How does the politicized nature of migration affect inclusion of global workers?
How are different groups of global workers affected differently by political decisions and
discourses?
What can theorizing on global workplace inclusion learn from related disciplines?
How can comparative empirical work advance theorizing on workplace inclusion?
How can global organizations facilitate inclusion across national borders?
How can local contexts benefit from advances in global workplace inclusion across the home
and host countries of MNCs?
How do actors within MNCs and other relevant stakeholder groups make sense of and
negotiate inclusion in light of global inequality?
Which ethical considerations arise when MNCs implement inclusion initiatives?
Submission deadline: 16th February 2024
Submission requirements: extended abstracts (5 pages) or full paper; Manuscripts must be submitted through the EDI website only; All submissions will be subjected to peer review organized by stream chairs with two referees for each;To be considered for the best paper nominations, full papers have to be submitted (via email to l.j.knappert@vu.nl) no later than March 15, 2024.
To download the Call for Papers document and find out how to submit, please click here; More information about 17th EDI Conference, please click here.
This Small Group Meeting seeks to shed light on key topics grouped into four main themes that target pressing issues around forced migration and displacement from a Work and Organizational Psychology perspective. Given the array of topics that need to be unpacked, we seek to bring in an interdisciplinary group of people addressing the four strands and their underlying questions. We specifically aim to develop conceptual, empirical, and methodological advances in our understanding of forced migration and displacement through the following questions (being exemplary but far from exhaustive):
Theme 1 : Which Topics Should WOP Address With Regards to People From a Forced Migration or Displacement Background?
What are the current and upcoming challenges that we face in regards to people forcibly leaving their countries of origin (e.g., due to climate change, natural disasters, technology) and how can we tackle these challenges?
Which conversations are not yet taken but need to be – not only in regards to psychological processes but also when it comes to the broader context and society (e.g., vulnerability, power structures, inequality, illegal practice and dignity, dynamics, context)?
What are the challenges and potentials of decolonization and how can we bring de-colonial, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist critiques and discourses into the conversation on refugee resettlement and integration?
What are the future research and practice directions for WOP in addressing the above mentioned issues and challenges?
Theme 2 : What is the Underlying Aim of Studying People from a Forced Migration and Displacement Background in WOP? Why, for What and for Whom are We Studying Them?
What is successful integration of people from a forced migration and displacement background from the perspectives of different stakeholders?
What constitutes a positive/sustainable career for people from a forced migration and displacement background and how can they find decent and meaningful work?
How do people from a forced migration and displacement background experience their labour market integration? What are the processes and mechanisms that contribute to or ameliorate successful integration of people from a forced migration and displacement background?
What policies strategies and/or practices can be employed at different levels (i.e., micro, meso and/or macro levels) to stimulate successful work integration and prevent entrapment in menial work?
Theme 3 : What are the Different Stakeholder Groups/Perspectives/System(s) That We Need to Study?
What are the different perspectives and interests of stakeholders in forced migration and displacement (e.g., refugees, other forced migrant groups, receiving country nationals, home country nationals, employers, HR policies, policy makers, service providers), how can we understand these different perspectives and interests of the stakeholders, and what are the factors we need to study for this (e.g., culture)?
Who are the different types of migrants from a forced migration and displacement background (e.g., trafficked individuals, refugees, economic refugees)? How are the different groups perceived and treated and what role do academics play in this debate?
Which consequences (e.g., spill-over effects) may arise for people working in the forced migration and displacement space (e.g., social workers) in diverse areas of life?
What are the manifold/multi-level (individual, family/friends/social environment, organizational, societal) processes involved in the resettlement and integration of people from a forced migration and displacement background?
Theme 4 : Which Theoretical Fields Could We Draw From Building Our Work on Forced Migration and Displacement in WOP?
What challenges are common to people from a forced migration and displacement background and voluntary migrants? How can research on these different groups inform each other?
Which theoretical intersections need to join forces to inform scholarship and practice regarding forced migration and displacement (e.g., work, health, social, and clinical psychology, or history)?
Which (psychological) consequences for work and integration span forced migration and displacement (e.g., trauma) and how can we draw on different theoretical lenses to understand the consequences and build targeted interventions?
Submission deadline: 31st January 2024
To download the Call for Papers document and find out how to submit, please click here
Possible research questions for the SI include, but are not limited to the following:
How to theorize and systematize different approaches towards boundaries? How do different onto-epistemological stances impact our understanding of boundaries and boundary drawing?
How do different kinds of boundaries (e.g., related to gender, ethnicity, class) intersect to (re)produce inequalities and what are the possibilities for resistance moments to work across such boundaries?
How do HR policies and diversity management practices draw, negotiate or reinforce boundaries around and across workplaces?
How can boundary drawing act as a tool of management, its governmentality and relation to normative control?
What kinds of internal and external boundaries are just and/or desirable in organizations?
Under what circumstances does resistance to exclusionary boundary drawing create new classes of excluded groups and new minorities?
Can leadership play a role in challenging exclusionary boundaries and promoting equality, and if so, what kinds of leadership?
How does micro-level boundary drawing at the level of everyday practice relate to macro-level boundaries, such as the militarized borders of sovereign states or the structural borders between social categories?
What are the political stakes around recent discourses challenging inclusion and re- establishing boundaries that appeared to have become more fluid, such as right- wing nationalism, anti-feminist discourses, discourses against trans-rights or discourses challenging so-called wokeness?
How do wider social discourses and ideologies such as neoliberalism, consumerism and meritocracy impact on organizational practices aimed at upholding or removing exclusionary boundaries?
How are (e.g., global or historic) boundaries (re-)drawn by management to exploit different groups of workers?
What are the political stakes around recent discourses of inclusion, in terms of “inclusion IN what” and “inclusion FOR what ends”? On what implicit and explicit forms of boundary drawing do these discourses rely on?
How are boundaries between human and non-human actors drawn, and what are the political stakes of resulting distinctions (e.g., culture-nature, human-machine)?
What are the forms of innovative engaged methods to study boundary drawing and its intersection with inclusion/exclusion dynamics in and around organizations?
What are positive effects of boundary drawing? Do inclusionary forms of boundary
drawing show inherently different qualities than exclusionary forms?
Submission deadline: 31st August 2023
To download the Call for Papers document and find out how to submit, please click here