Editorial: Scholar-stakeholder collaboration for rigorous and relevant HRM research—Possible contributions and key requirements of collaborative studies in HRM

Abstract

Human Resource Management research is striving to develop rigorous and actionable knowledge for today’s social and environmental global challenges. For years, academic-stakeholder collaborative knowledge creation processes have been considered as potentially rewarding ways to achieve this objective. However, applications of collaborative HRM research are still relatively sparse, as HR scholars tend to engage with more traditional processes of knowledge creation. The aim of this editorial is to foster more widespread conduct of collaborative HRM research in the future. Drawing on Habermas, whose ideas on human knowledge are considered to be at the core of the epistemology of collaborative management research, we first highlight three avenues for collaborative HRM research that addresses our technical, practical and emancipatory knowledge-constitutive interests. For each of them, we highlight key theoretical assumptions and risks. Thereafter, we describe two key requirements for rigour and relevance in the context of any collaborative HRM study. Finally, we present the papers included in this special section and discuss their implications for HRM research.