Call for Applications
2nd Spring School of the German Industrial Relations Association (GIRA):
"Looking Outwards, Looking Inwards:
Industrial Relations Research between Politics and Organizations"
March 17–22, 2013
Freie Universität Berlin
in cooperation with
the Industrial and Labor Relations School of Cornell University
The second GIRA spring school aims to provide relevant training in theory and methods for doctoral students and young scientists working in the disciplines of industrial relations, business studies, economics, sociology, political science, and labor law.
Industrial relations faces a paradoxical situation: while changes in technology and globalization have led to a massive reorganization of work and associated growth in inequality, the study of employment relations has been increasingly fragmented and sometimes marginalized within universities. Today, labor scholars are a scattered minority in departments of political science, sociology, business, economics and law. Doctoral and post-doctoral students face inward looking pressures to make their work relevant within their own separate disciplines, but also needing to look outwards toward parallel fields to grasp new and complex political, legal and organizational interdependencies. Moreover, their scholarship must increasingly consider the international and comparative dimensions of labor-management interaction. The growth of global value chains means that work is increasingly interdependent in ways that cut across national boundaries, and raise challenges to understand the institutional diversity of labor regulation and how companies cope with this-through corporate social responsibility measures or international framework agreements with social partners.
The motto "looking outwards, looking inwards" expresses our aim of supporting young scholars to look within and beyond their native disciplines, as well as understanding the complex global links between what happens within firms, production networks, and beyond them in the realm of politics. Bringing together with leading experts from the Free University Berlin and Cornell University, the Spring School hosts a multi-disciplinary and international series of presentations and forum for work of young scholars in the following areas of research:
·Labor relations in Multinational Corporations and Global Production Networks
·International labor standards: multi-level-governance, regulation and corporate social responsibility
·Trade unions globalizing labor relations and labor law protection
·Trade union revitalization
·Labor in temporary organizations
FU Berlin team: Michael Fichter (Politics), Gregory Jackson (Management/Sociology), Claudia Schubert (Law), and Jörg Sydow (Management) in cooperation with Anke Hassel (Hertie School of Governance)
Cornell team: Susan Christophson (Economic Geography), Alex Covin (Law), and Sarosh Kuruvilla (Industrial Relations)
Applications are invited from doctoral and post-doctoral researchers working on employment relations in any of the above disciplines. The working language will be English and applications are also welcome from scholars outside Germany. The deadline for applications is 15 November 2012. Participants will be expected to make a contribution of 150 Euro as a workshop fee, but may apply for a grant scheme for travel and local accommodation funded by GIRA, the FU Berlin, and Cornell University. Applications should include a CV and one page abstract on proposed topic of presentation at the Spring School.
Please send applications to Prof. Dr. Jörg Sydow, School of Business & Economics, Freie Universität Berlin, Boltzmannstr. 20, 14195 Berlin, Germany or via email joerg.sydow@fu-berlin.de