Prof. Kerstin Alfes has received the 2020 Best Article Award and 2021 Scholarly Impact Award from the Human Resource Management Review.
Two of the numerous research papers published by Professor of Organisation and Human Resource Management Kerstin Alfes were rewarded by the Human Resource Management Review (HRMR):
- The Best Article Award recipient was chosen from all the articles published in print by Human Resource Management Review in 2020. The winning paper, titled ’Welcome to the bright side: Why, how, and when overqualification enhances performance’, was co-authored with Professor Hans van Dijk (Tilburg University) and Dr Amanda Shantz (University of Greenwich Business School). “A commonly held assumption is that it is unwise to hire overqualified workers - they have poorer job attitudes and will quickly leave their role when an opportunity that suits their qualification becomes available,” commented the authors. “Using theories from one field to shed light on another enabled us to explain why, how and when overqualification is beneficial for individual and workgroup performance. We hope that the model that we offer on the Relational Effects of Overqualification on Performance (REOP) not only inspires new research but has real practical consequences for organizations in hiring and managing overqualified employees and the diverse teams in which they work.”
- The Scholarly Impact Award is given to the article published in print over the previous five calendar years that has had the greatest impact on the field. The winning paper, titled ‘The mismanaged soul: Existential labour and the erosion of meaningful work’, was co-authored with Professor Catherine Bailey (University of Sussex), Dr Adrian Madden (University of Greenwich Business School), Dr Amanda Shantz (University of Greenwich Business School) and Emma Soane (London School of Economics). “The topic of meaningful work is one that has come very much to the fore in recent years, and the upheavals caused by the pandemic have lent further impetus to research in the field as many individuals and scholars have paused to consider what work means”, commented the authors. “Our paper contributes to these debates by drawing attention to the ‘dark side’ and what can go wrong when organizations try to manipulate people’s sense of meaning, leading them to express a ‘false front’ at work, which we have termed ‘existential labour’.”
“I am obviously delighted about both rewards and I am proud to have worked with two incredible teams of co-authors,” added Kerstin Alfes, who is the Academic Director of the MBA in International Management and the LGBT+ Leadership programme, and holds the Chair of Organisation and Human Resource Management at the Berlin campus. “Both awards are a recognition of the research that we have done on employees' experiences of more challenging aspects of their jobs, and I hope that our papers will motivate other scholars to build on our work and continue our line of research.”
To celebrate the achievement, HRMR has made the articles freely available for download for the next year.
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