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Successful work-life integration of international migrants – advancing HRM strategies and organizational practices to address skilled labor shortages

The purpose of this project is to answer numerous calls to research for addressing gaps in the study of how host country employment and successful work-life integration for different types of international migrants (IMs) can be influenced by meso-organizational antecedents that are mandated or restricted by labor market policies within the specific contextual setting of Denmark. International migrants (IMs) are a heterogenous minority (Binggeli et al., 2013) of individuals who changed their place of habitual residence by crossing international borders at their own expense and risk, either legally or illegally, either on their own free volition (pursuing economic opportunities, family reunification, education) or due to involuntary displacement (evading armed conflicts, natural disasters), with an intent to remain abroad either indefinitely or permanently (Hajro et al., 2019; McNulty & Brewster, 2017; Tharenou, 2015), profoundly affecting their personal and professional life (Fang et al., 2009; Zikic et al., 2010), and excluding brief international travels for recreational purposes, business meetings or medical treatment, i.e. tourism (Carling, 2021; IOM, 2019). IMs worldwide reached 272 mil. in 2019 (3.54% of world population), with 245 mil. in working age and 169 mil. in the labor force (4.88% of world labor force)(ILO, 2021; UNDESA, 2022; World Bank, 2022a, 2022b). Approximately 1 in 3 IMs worldwide has attained a tertiary education, and 2 in 5 of those in OECD member states, accounting for 18% of university graduates in these states (d’Aiglepierre et al., 2020; Eurostat, 2021; OECD, 2021a, 2021b; Woetzel et al., 2016). Organizations are key stakeholders that may be a crucial for IMs’ work-life integration (Platonova et al., 2013; van Riemsdijk & Basford, 2021; Wittek, 2019), whereas IMs may be crucial to organizations given reports of growing talent shortages (Manpower Group, 2022; UNDESA, 2017), yet academic research has thus far neglected meso-organizational antecedents post organizational entry, bringing “insufficient attention to the positive role that the […] employer might play in facilitating a successful adjustment” (Tharenou & Kulik, 2020, p. 1167), depriving HR practitioners of insights on best practices. Thus, a key expected outcome would be identifying best organizational practices that HR practitioners and labor market intermediaries can implement as to ensure IM employees’ well-being, thus, attracting and retaining more foreign-born skilled workers amidst global talent shortages and leveraging their abilities to their full potential. Three mutually related research questions are described, each belonging to a specific work package that will produce a manuscript to be published in a peer-reviewed outlet. These progress from an exploratory to a descripto-explanatory research approach, from performing semi-structured interviews with IM employees, organizations employing IMs, and agencies assisting IMs’ employment for a qualitative analysis to designing and distributing a questionnaire among a quota of 400-500 IM employees for a detailed quantitative analysis.

 

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Aleksandar Evgeniev Kolev

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Sidst opdateret: 21.04.2023