TY - JOUR
T1 - Employee representatives and a good working life
T2 - Achieving social and communicative sustainability for hrm
AU - Koinig, Isabell
AU - Weder, Franzisca
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2021/7/2
Y1 - 2021/7/2
N2 - This article examines the role of employee representatives, who support HRM in positioning itself and the organization as “socially responsible”. Based on a constructivist understanding of organizational communication, employee representatives are examined as previously unrecognized entities that are responsible—and also essential—for guaranteeing a good working life, which also originates through communication. The article provides an overview of existing studies on employee representatives and their positions in companies and tries to bridge the gaps among organizational communication, CSR communication, and management theory by redesigning the role of employee representatives—who have received limited academic attention to date—as communicators. The insights from an international comparative study confirm that employee representatives perceive themselves not only as a “grief box” or “control body” of management, but also as a responsible agent and “medium” for the realization of social and communicative sustainability. This not only opens up new research perspectives, but also highlights the need to conceptually deal and theoretically discuss employee representatives and their roles in internal communication processes from the perspectives of organizational communication, HRM, CSR, and sustainability.
AB - This article examines the role of employee representatives, who support HRM in positioning itself and the organization as “socially responsible”. Based on a constructivist understanding of organizational communication, employee representatives are examined as previously unrecognized entities that are responsible—and also essential—for guaranteeing a good working life, which also originates through communication. The article provides an overview of existing studies on employee representatives and their positions in companies and tries to bridge the gaps among organizational communication, CSR communication, and management theory by redesigning the role of employee representatives—who have received limited academic attention to date—as communicators. The insights from an international comparative study confirm that employee representatives perceive themselves not only as a “grief box” or “control body” of management, but also as a responsible agent and “medium” for the realization of social and communicative sustainability. This not only opens up new research perspectives, but also highlights the need to conceptually deal and theoretically discuss employee representatives and their roles in internal communication processes from the perspectives of organizational communication, HRM, CSR, and sustainability.
KW - Corporate responsibility
KW - Employee representatives
KW - Good working life
KW - HRM
KW - Role models
KW - SRHRM
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85109862649&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/su13147537
DO - 10.3390/su13147537
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85109862649
SN - 2071-1050
VL - 13
JO - Sustainability (Switzerland)
JF - Sustainability (Switzerland)
IS - 14
M1 - 7537
ER -