Employee Representatives and a Good Working Life: Achieving Social and Communicative Sustainability for HRM

Isabell Koinig and Franzisca Weder
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Isabell Koinig: Department of Media and Communication Studies, University of Klagenfurt, 9020 Klagenfurt, Austria
Franzisca Weder: School of Communication and Arts, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 14, 1-19

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: good working life; employee representatives; corporate responsibility; role models; HRM; SRHRM (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:14:p:7537-:d:589355

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