Research Projects

Our Ongoing Research Projects

Affinity Groups (Employee Resource Groups): structuring, functioning and role in organizations

As the workplaces have become more heterogeneous, studies based upon different ontologies and epistemologies, have addressed the implications of individuals of different genders (Anisman-Razin, Kark,, & Saguy, 2018), ethnicities (Van Laer, K& Janssens, 2011), sexual orientations (Bosson, Weaver, Caswell, & Burnaford, 2012), religions (Mackey, Silver, Rios, Cowgill, & Hood, 2020), cultures (Molina; James 2016) sharing the same organizational space. Diversity of the workforce has also occupied a privileged space in the companies' agendas for they have been under pressure of social movements (Jasper, 2017), consumers’ demands (McDonnell, & King, 2013) and new equal-rights laws (Buchter, 2020), so they have responded strategically adopting diversity policies and practices, which include strict code of ethics to punish any kind of abusive or discriminatory behavior, quotas, training, internal communication, channels for reporting abuse and attacks, as well as the structuring and functioning of Affinity groups (AG), which is the object of this research (Van Aken, Monetta & Scott, 1994). But, to what extent collectives effectively act in the fight against inequalities, in the promotion of diversity and contribute to the inclusion of minority groups in the work environment? This is our research question.

Participants:

Helio Arthur Irigaray (FGV EBAPE)

Fabricio Stocker (FGV EBAPE)

Rafael Cuba Mancebo (PUC-Rio)

Daniel Adorno (FGV EBAPE)

Maiara Rodrigues (FGV EBAPE)

Digital Sherazades and Employer Branding: storytelling in the workplace

In today’s globally and virtually connected modern economy, a firm’s success depends a great deal on its reputation and image with stakeholders both within and outside the organization. Correspondingly, managing an employer brand is crucial for attracting, developing, and retaining a workforce that yields firm competitive advantage. Given the broad potential implications for talent management, this narrow focus leaves us with an incomplete picture of how employer branding fits into the overall human resource management system and strategy within the firm. Hence, although widely acknowledged as a key concern for organizational leadership, knowledge remains sparse for how employer branding can be leveraged to achieve myriad organizational goals. The objective of this research was to investigate how common the practice of storytelling is in the production of personal profiles on LinkedIn, as well as whether it is perceived, and eventually valued by the professionals responsible for the recruitment and selection processes.

Participant

Hélio Arthur Irigaray (FGV EBAPE)
Fabricio Stocker (FGV)

Efeito da marca pessoal nas intenções de contratação

On digital platforms, such as social media, professionals of all ages and expertise create, post, share, and interact with others hoping to build their person brands and benefit from them (Smith and Fischer 2021). Extant research on this topic shows the relevance and meaningfulness of storytelling as a discursive strategy in building person brands (e.g., Ganassali and Matysiewicz 2020; Gorbatov, Khapova and Lysova 2018; Jacobson 2020). In this vein, previous studies have focused on the individual as a producer of professional narratives or as an enunciator but neglected the role of the audience as consumers, or as enunciatees. That said, little is known about desirable outcomes of person brand efforts from the audience-consumer’s perspective, which is believed to be attention, interest, and engagement (Parmentier and Fischer 2021) to thereby gain employment opportunities and career-related benefits (Fournier and Eckhardt 2019).

Participant:

Helio Arthur Irigaray (FGV EBAPE)
Vitor Moura Lima (Audencia Business School, França)
Carlos Lourenço (FGV EAESP)
Fabrício Stocker (FGV).

People management and project team performance in humanitarian operations

The way that each (local and organizational) culture addresses discrimination and prejudice against women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ individuals, or foreigners, for instance, implies on a greater cost for professionals with a certain set of traits to perform their duties (Queiroz; Rego: Irigaray, 2014). We have also noticed that permanent organizations are functionally restructuring themselves into temporary organizations, in order to better achieve strategic and economic goals (Dasí; Pedersen; Lopes Barakat & Rangel Alves, 2021). In fact, a temporary organization (TO) is that which aims to form a team of qualified professionals in order to achieve a never attained goal in a given timeframe, and then dissolve. Therefore, it is possible to understand a project as a TO (Jacobsson; Lundin & Söderholm, 2015). Such structures, however, are not loose on the management work field; they permeate the intermediate lines of the permanent organizations, inheriting their governance mechanisms and human resources (Jacobsson & Söderholm, 2020). If the local social culture and workforce heterogeneity influence the culture of permanent organizations, how do they impact the temporary organizations and the execution of a project? This is our research question.

Participants

Helio Arthur Irigaray (FGV EBAPE)
Gazi Islam (Grenoble Ecole de Management)
Fabricio Stocker (FGV)
Renata Anderson (Health In Harmony – EUA)

Stakeholder Engagement and Corporate Social (I)responsibility

Despite the literature on stakeholder engagement states that cooperative relationships can be achieved through engagement this, there is no clear evidence to support the idea that higher levels of stakeholder engagement have a positive effect on the company's performance. This study aims to address that gap by analyzing the different engagement strategies and understanding how different nuances of stakeholder-organization relationships affect the quality of the engagement and its impact on firm performance over time.

Participantes

Fabricio Stocker (FGV)
Hélio Arthur Irigaray (FGV EBAPE)
Flavio Carvalho de Vasconcelos (FGV EBAPE)
Rajiv Maher (EGADE - Monterrey Business School)

Stakeholder synergy and corporate performance: analysis from the sustainability business index?

The debate on organizational performance models and their respective assessment tools has pointed to the need to integrate and propose more robust and comprehensive measurement indicators (Min and Oh, 2020). It is possible to verify the growing concern with the analysis of multiple factors that influence performance, such as strategy, organizational resources and capacities, corporate social responsibility and the company's relationships with its different groups of stakeholders (Gieske et al., 2020). The goal of this research is to analyze the relationship between stakeholder management and organizational actions for stakeholder synergy in ESG performance.