Research projects

There is a fast-growing group of workers experiencing precarious working conditions, including the violation of human rights such as forced labour in terms of working hours, unsafe working conditions, poorly or unpaid work. Spain and Portugal are among the European countries accused by the United Nations of exposing workers to grave exploitation. Partially responsible for this situation are national and international supply chains for this situation because driven by low-cost goals. However, policymakers and researchers have often forgotten this perspective. The aim of this research is to analyse whether focal firms facing allegations of human rights violations connected to their supply chains take responsibility for them and enact corrective actions and, whether the country’s regulation on supply chain due diligence on corporate sustainability has any effect. We take a multidisciplinary perspective including human resource management, policy making and supply chains to identify possible actions enacted by firms and the related legal incentives to improve working conditions in supply chains benefiting workers and the Spanish and European socioeconomic context.

It aims to empirically investigate the implications of supply chain due diligence regulation and public scrutiny on (ir)responsible practices related to working conditions. Specifically, this project aims to find mitigation levers to manage the ever-prevalence issue and societal concern of worker exploitation in supply chains in the form of regulation and public scrutiny. The ExpWork project has two highly innovative components. From one side we consider the role of national and international supply chain due diligence regulations in combination with public scrutiny as reinforcing levers to reduce worker exploitation.

On the other side, we address possible response strategies of companies that have detected cases of worker exploitation in their supply chain. The efficacy of supply chain due diligence regulations is currently debated due to a lack of enforcement mechanisms and due to difficulties that companies are facing in implementing effective sustainable supply chain management practices along their supply chains. We consider public scrutiny to foster the efficacy of regulations as this might damage the company's reputation. We refer to public scrutiny as the accusation and critical assessment of irresponsible practices of worker exploitation known by the general public.

On the other side, we investigate the efficacy of sustainable and disclosure practices put in place by companies in their supply chains as responses to regulations and public scrutiny on working conditions and possible facilitators and barriers to the effectiveness of such strategies. This project will take a multidisciplinary perspective considering both supply chain management and business ethics implications and combining quantitative and qualitative methodologies to analyze the research problem. The researchers leading this project provide the multi-disciplinary knowledge needed to address the implications of worker exploitation in supply chains combining both management and business ethics perspectives.

This project is made in response to the European Agency for Safety and Health at the Workplace (EU-OSHA) tender for ‘Supporting compliance and better OSH practice through lever-age in market-based initiatives. Our project provides both an overview and in-depth case studies of market leverage initiatives in the construction and agri-food sectors, as well as an analytical part that will uncover factors that influences market leverage of OSH in supply chains such as regulation, market incentives, societal norms, business cases.

The aim of this research project is to analyse the working conditions in the digital last mile delivery industry in Spain to determine its impact on workers’ occupational health and safety. In doing so we contribute to the definition of new forms of work in the digital service industry taking into consideration occupational health and safety aspects to protect workers as well as benefit the Spanish socio-economic context.

The CrowdWork project aims to empirically investigate the implications of crowdsourced workforce in the last mile delivery industry for organisational efficiency (from the organisational perspective) and occupational health and safety (from the workers perspective).

Talent management (TM), typically understood as the set of activities and processes that involve the systematic attraction, identification, development, engagement, retention, and deployment of those talents which are of particular value to an organisation to create sustainable strategic success has become a critical issue in current organizations. Rapid technological change coupled with broader socioeconomic and demographic trends have created an increasing need for companies to face fierce competition in attracting, developing, and retaining the best talent. Despite the internationalization of TM ideas, its main principles and exemplary cases remain Anglo-Saxon, and little is known about how such ideas translate in other contextual settings. As such, this project pursues the following research goals:

1. Improve our understanding of talent management (TM) strategies adopted by large Spanish organizations. Specifically, what practices do these organizations implement to attract, develop, and retain their talent?
2. Analyze in further depth the TM strategies in place in two critical industries of the Spanish economy: hospitality and automotive.
3. Explore the barriers and facilitators, at a workplace level, concerning the effective implementation of TM practices.

In the first stage, the project will collect data from a stratified and representative sample of large Spanish organizations (with more than 250 employees) on the TM policies and practices that are in place in their organizations, as well as how the COVID19 pandemic has impacted them. The second stage of the project will carry out comparative case studies to capture the rich and complex realities about which we are enquiring. Cases will be equally drawn from the hospitality and automotive industries, both critical in the Spanish economy.

Finally, in the last stage of the project, we will design a multi-level model of effective TM practices implementation, which can be tested in a selected number of firms in the hospitality or automotive industries. Data will be collected both at the individual and group level, asking employees and middle managers. Through these actions we intend to map the reality of TM practice in large Spanish firms and critical industries, as well as to understand key success factors in putting TM strategies to work.