Profile
This chair is specialized in research about work, human resources, and the organization…
Research is rooted in the social sciences, interdisciplinary and internationally oriented. Its output is theoretically and methodically multiparadigmatic embedded in the philosophy of critical management research. Our critical and politically-oriented approach draws attention to organizations with a plurality of interest and hegemonic structures, in which individual and collective actors seek to assert their interests, as well as discourses and discursive practices. From this perspective, “personnel”, human resource strategies, practices and structures are byproducts taking recourse from social structures. Interests and resources of various stakeholders, conflicts and power effects of management practices are just as central categories of analysis, such as the efficiency and effectiveness of practices and concepts of human resource management.
We focus on features of work and working conditions (e.g. emotion work, service work), on human resource policies and practices (e.g. retention of specialists and executives, employment of migrants, age management) and with processes and structures of the organization in their context of social phenomena and institutions (e.g., worker participation, diversity, equality/equity and inclusion).
Recent publications
(see more on the pages of team members and research projects)
Bernauer, V., Joecks, J., Reimer, T., & Tamm, G. (2026). Using or concealing gay identity at work: A typology of gay leaders’ career strategies. German Journal of Human Resource Management. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/23970022251410919
Friess, W. (2025). Diversity Management an der Hochschule. Eine Dispositivanalyse zu Herstellungsprozessen von Vielfalt. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839419144
Kornau, A. (2025). Diversity Coaching!? Eine begrifflich-konzeptionelle Annäherung anhand einer systematischen Literaturanalyse. Organisationsberatung, Supervision, Coaching, 32, 7-24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11613-024-00923-w
Entries in J. Helms Mills, A. J. Mills, K. S. Williams, & R. Bendl (Eds.) (2025). Elgar Encyclopedia on Gender and Management. Elgar. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781803922065:
- Bernauer, V. S., & Deal, N. M. (2025). Gender research on airlines (pp. 206-207).
- Deal, N. M., & Bernauer, V. S. (2025). Albert J. Mills and Jean Helms Mills (pp. 29-30).
- Kornau, A. (2025). Gender in alternative organizations (pp.198-200).
- Sieben, B., Bernauer, V. S., & Haunschild, A. (2025). Gendered class work (pp. 216-17).
Bernauer, V. S., & Kornau, A. (2024). E-voice in the digitalised workplace. Insights from an alternative organisation. Human Resource Management Journal, 34(2), 369–385. https://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12460
Kornau, A., Knappert, L., Tatli, A., & Sieben, B. (2023). Contested fields of equality, diversity and inclusion at work: An institutional work lens on power relations and actors’ strategies in Germany and Turkey. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 34(12), 2481–2515. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2022.2086014
Knappert, L., Ortlieb, R., Kornau, A., Maletzky de García, M., van Dyke, H. (2023). The ecosystem of managing refugee employment: Complementarity and its microfoundations. Academy of Management Discoveries, 9(3), 339–362. https://doi.org/10.5465/amd.2020.0157
Bernauer, V. S., Sieben, B., & Haunschild, A. (2023). “You can call me Susan!” Doing gendered-class work in luxury service encounters. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 42(4), 494–511. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-10-2021-0272
Presentations at (inter)national conferences
We do research as part of an international network and regularly attend national and international conferences. You can find out more here.
Academic events
Here you find documentations and links to conferences, workshops and further events that have been (co-)organized by Barbara Sieben and her team.