PhD defence of Daina Konter on Friday 24 January 2014

Time and location

The PhD defence will take place in the Senate Hall of Erasmus University Rotterdam and will start at 11.30 hrs.

About Daina Konter

Daina Konter (Leiderdorp, the Netherlands,1975) received her Masters of Science degree in Business Economics 'Economics of Management and Organisation' at Erasmus School of Economics (Erasmus University Rotterdam) in 2000. During her study she worked as a student assistant at the department of Business Economics.

Due to her study as well as her work for the department she became enthusiastic about researching. She pursued her fascination with the topic Human Resource Management (HRM) and performance. While completing her PhD, the focus of her research switched from an investigation of time lagged effectiveness to the (institutional) context of HRM. The increased global connectivity urges us to look across borders. International research represents a challenging undertaking. This kind of large-scale research therefore benefits from partnership between researchers and practitioners. A partner was found in the IBM Business Consulting Services, Human Capital Management Practice. IBM regularly collects benchmarking information.

Daina has presented papers at various international conferences, including the Academy of Management and the International Conferences of the Dutch HRM network. She has also been involved in thesis supervision at both graduate and undergraduate level and has taught courses on organisation, human resource management and consultancy. Daina currently works as a business consultant to the Deputy Secretary General at the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.

Abstract of 'Crossing borders with HRM: An inquiry of the influence of contextual differences in the adoption and effectiveness of HRM'

The increased global connectivity urges us to look across borders, for previous boundaries may have been broken down or on the contrary have become more visible.

In this thesis we explore what it means to cross borders with human resource management (HRM). Many believe in the virtues of the American way of doing business, but does this also mean that the American way of doing business is applicable in other countries? Human resource studies furthermore started in the manufacturing sector, while considerable differences can be expected for other sectors like the service sector. By moving research from Anglo-American countries and the manufacturing sector to a broader context, national and sector borders are crossed. On both the national and the sector level formal institutions have a crucial role in the adoption and effectiveness of HR practices. We have examined whether organisations across different institutional contexts embrace different ways of managing human resources and whether different results can be achieved. Even though our research provides support for the relevance of a fit of HRM with its context, the importance of best practices can not be discarded. Both aspects are important to consider in future research when studying HRM and performance in a globalising world. By providing useful insights for practitioners this research can finally also crossover from academia back to practice.