HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL SPECIAL ISSUE CALL FOR PAPERS
New Vistas for Human Resource Management Research in the Global South
Guest Editors
• Ajnesh Prasad, Audencia Business School, France
• Martyna Śliwa, University of Bath, UK
• Amon Barros, FGV EAESP, Brazil
• Ghazal Zulfiqar, Lahore University of Management Sciences, Pakistan
HRMJ Editor: Jeoung Yul Lee, EMLYON Business School, France
Important dates
• Submission Deadline: 31 December 2026
• First Round of Reviews: 30 April 2027
• Expected Publication: March 2029
Please note, accepted papers will be published online on a rolling basis. All papers that meet the necessary quality for the HRMJ will be published in the special issue.
Objective and Overview
Academic knowledge production from and about the Global South has historically been positioned at the periphery of academic discourse (Connell, 2007). The scholarly disciplines of management and organization studies in general and human resource management (HRM) in particular reflect no difference (Vincent et al., 2020). 'Epistemic coloniality' engendered by Euro-American scholarly hegemony is pervasive (Alcadipani et al. 2012, p. 133), and obscures local realities and cultural specificities of under-researched geographical sites (Wanderley and Barros, 2019). As such, much of what we 'know' in HRM, including its concepts, frameworks, and theories, has been undergirded by certain Western-centric assumptions. The direction of knowledge flows is asymmetrical and influences how knowledges are constructed and legitimated (Üsdiken et al., 2025). Constructing disciplinary knowledge based on such assumptions poses significant epistemological consequences, including imbuing knowledge with cultural ethnocentrism and limiting our understanding of the scope, nuances, and idiosyncrasies of HRM phenomena (Vincent et al., 2020).
Recently, there has been increasing recognition of the importance of advancing management and organizational research from and about the Global South (Doshi et al., 2026; Morris et al., 2023; Zulfiqar and Prasad, 2022). While there is some encouraging evidence of growing interest among scholars in the practices of managing people in the Global South (e.g., Ahmed, 2024; Doshi et al., 2026; Zulfiqar and Prasad, 2021), the field has only begun to realize its full potential (Morris et al., 2023). Indeed, institutional configurations in the Global South, particularly its embedded systems of inequality and informality, influence all dimensions of HRM policy and practice-from recruitment and compensation (Ahmed, 2024) to employee voice (Fernando, 2017), leadership (Case and Śliwa, 2020), and diversity and inclusion initiatives (Umeh et al., 2023)-though they remain largely under-theorized (De Klerk and Verreynne, 2017; Georgiadou and Syed, 2021; Zulfiqar et al., 2025). Empirical HRM research from and about the Global South can enrich extant managerial knowledge by illuminating how things are done in 'Other' contexts (Case and Śliwa, 2020; Doshi et al., 2026; Umeh et al., 2023).
By the Global South, we refer to the 'multi-sited geography of absences and a widely dispersed dependency and inequality' (Pinheiro, 2024, p. 7). Taking our analytical departure from this definition, in this special issue we are particularly interested in the study of those nations that were/are marked by colonial legacies that resulted in, to adopt Andre Gunder Frank's (1967) sociologist framework, core-periphery relations (see also Wanderley et al., 2021). While setting such parameters may be reductionist in not accounting for all populations living under marginalized conditions, this special issue is interested in examining those geographical sites that have been chronically understudied in HRM research. A review of HRM-relevant work on the Global South identifies two opportunities for HRM scholarship: (1) critically auditing Western-centric assumptions embedded in HRM constructs and measures, and (2) developing context-grounded HRM theories that explain variation in HRM systems and worker outcomes across diverse Global South settings.
Expected Contributions
This special issue invites submissions that will lead to a deeper understanding of how HRM policies and practices manifest in Global South geographical contexts. To this end, we particularly welcome submissions aligned with the following themes.
Critiquing existing HRM knowledge claims
Management research on Global South contexts reveals pervasive Western-centric biases. Indeed, scholars have highlighted that empirical studies often marginalize the specificities of work, institutions, and HRM practices that exist outside of the Global North (Doshi et al., 2026; Zulfiqar and Prasad, 2022). Consider, for example, the case of institutional voids, which refer to Global South contexts in which firms operate in an "absence of specialized intermediaries, regulatory systems, and contract-enforcing mechanisms" (Khanna et al., 2005, p. 63). In revisiting the concept, Nason and Bothello (2023) illustrate how such an idea is foregrounded in epistemological claims that are ethnocentric insofar as the absence to which institutional voids allude are found only when compared to institutional arrangements present in the Global North-institutional arrangements that prioritize specific elements related to the rule of law, while ignoring or delegitimating those characteristics that define contexts in the Global South (Fernando, 2017; Georgiadou and Syed, 2021; Hennekam et al., 2017).
Another crucial element of Global South contexts is the centrality of the informal economy for understanding prevailing employment conditions and the ways people are managed (Doshi et al., 2026). Abid and colleagues (2023) highlight the shortcomings in the way the 'informal economy' is conceptualized of in scholarship originating from the Global North. Often oversimplified in the literature as merely illegal but legitimate (Webb et al., 2009), the authors used the Pakistani context to illustrate how the informal economy is a space made tenable only through a set of moral evocations from its participants. In doing so, they deepen and nuance the understanding of the informal economy by identifying the mechanisms that allow for its legitimacy to be sustained (Abid et al., 2023). Ahmed (2023) shows how the idea of an ideal worker shifts between geographies, often under the oversight of Global North firms that, arguably, expect workers to be employed and managed according to different rules depending on the context. These lines of inquiry underscore the urgent need to develop context-specific knowledge about how HRM practices and policies unfold in the Global South.
Developing new, context-specific knowledge claims
Theoretical frameworks from the Global South offer novel lenses for exploring HRM phenomena. For instance, Yousfi (2021) utilizes the concept of 'Fahlawa' to describe the process of resistance to opaque organizational practices, inviting scholars to theorize agency and discretion under extreme resource constraints. Mohnot et al. (2021) theorize a 'matrix-of-praxis' through their study of the Marwari business community in India whose daily business practices represent a multifaceted integration of family, business, and religious considerations.
In her study of gold-backed lending in South Asia, Zulfiqar (2022) highlights the significance of gendered assets (i.e., gold jewelry) in navigating precarious labor markets. Her study captures how the very transactions that liberal feminists traditionally view as disempowering are understood differently by South Asian women who use gold to meet household needs in the face of weak HRM policies and declining wages. In a study on end-of-life care in Kerala, India, Vijay, Monin, and Kulkarni (2023) show how similar dynamics related to collective/community actions fill the infrastructural voids usually managed by the state.
The Special Issue
The aforementioned studies provide illustrative examples of how certain HRM ideas, concepts, and theories can acquire different meanings when revisited from the Global South. Yet, too many scholars in the field continue to build HRM knowledge in ways devoid of spatio-temporal considerations. This constitutes a form of epistemological colonization; when knowledge derived in the Global North does not fit the Global South, the realities, the idiosyncrasies, and the dynamics of the latter are either negated or dismissed as aberrations. In short, the tacit normalization of the Global North that is inscribed into much of HRM leads to the concomitant relegation and even devaluation of the Global South. We welcome designs that connect micro-HRM practices to meso- and macro-conditions, and we encourage co-designed research that prioritizes participant sovereignty (Haar, 2025).
Ultimately, the aim of this special issue is to offer space to deepen engagements between the discipline of HRM and the Global South. We are particularly interested in rich empirical studies on HRM in Global South contexts, while moving beyond the Global North as reference points for what ought to be considered normal, correct, or ideal. This special issue is intended to catalyze future research on understudied geographical sites and to open up new vistas for knowledge production in HRM.
Scope and Research Questions
We welcome submissions focused on advancing management and organizational knowledge through the study of HRM in the Global South. The following provides an illustrative but non-exhaustive list of research questions that align with the scope of this special issue. We encourage conceptual, empirical, and methodological submissions on topics not mentioned below but which broadly relate to the theme of the special issue.
Contexts
How can empirical studies in the Global South enrich extant understandings of HRM phenomena? How do HRM processes enact within the diverse and complex institutional environments of the Global South? How could comparative studies of HRM phenomena in different Global South contexts reveal which institutional mechanisms enable or constrain them? What is the role of local culture embeddedness in maintaining certain HRM configurations? What are the risks associated with the temptation in HRM research to represent the Global South as a monolithic geographical entity, and how might we avoid them? What is the impact of migration from Global South to Global North and from Global North to Global South contexts for the relevance and efficacy of different HRM policies and practices?
Theories
How can HRM research in the Global South inductively advance or develop new organizational theories? How might we interrogate or apply established HRM theories and concepts developed in the Global North to Global South contexts to assess their cross-cultural and cross-geographical applicability? Specifically, in this vein, how might prevailing HRM theories and concepts be critically examined in the Global South? What new knowledge might emerge from studying organizations in the Global South that has not yet been identified in the existing HRM literature? What is the role of 'local' or Indigenous theories in making sense of how HRM phenomena unfold in the Global South?
Methods
How would methods need to be reimagined to study HRM in the Global South to avoid the Western-centric logic and assumptions? How might methodological approaches that have been un(der)-utilized in HRM (e.g., Indigenous ways of knowing) be leveraged to render organizational realities in the Global South more intelligible? Do the prevailing demands for methodological 'rigor' in HRM scholarship undermine the possibilities for empirical research in the Global South? Does the field need to abandon certain ontological and epistemological assumptions underlying existing methodologies in order to accurately reflect the conditions of the Global South? What is the role and what are the challenges in using secondary data, documentary records, and archives in producing HRM research about the Global South?
Ethics
What are the ethical considerations that HRM scholars ought to account for when conducting research in the Global South (e.g., adopting etic versus emic perspectives)? How do scholars based in the Global North avoid (mis)appropriating or misrepresenting the Global South? What ought to be the role of Global South–North academic collaborations when conducting HRM research in Global South contexts? What are the ethical responsibilities HRM scholars have towards research participants from the Global South, and how might these differ in relation to the ethical responsibilities they have towards participants from the Global North?
Submission Process
Full papers should be submitted between 1 December 2026 and 31 December 2026 at https://wiley.atyponrex.com/journal/HRMJ. Please select the 'Special Issue Article' as the article type on submission. On the Additional Information page during submission, select 'Yes, this is for a Special Issue' and select "New Vistas for Human Resource Management Research in the Global South" from the dropdown list. Please note that papers may not be submitted until 1 December 2026.
Editorial enquiries related to the call for papers should be directed to: Ajnesh Prasad (aprasad@audencia.com), Martyna Śliwa (ms4519@bath.ac.uk), Amon Barros (amon.barros@fgv.br), or Ghazal Zulfiqar (ghazal.zulfiqar@lums.edu.pk).
Technical enquiries related to the online submission process should be directed to: HRMJ.journal@wiley.com.
Paper Development Workshops
To support authors, we will organize virtual (or in-person) Paper Development Workshops (PDWs) aimed at fostering rigorous research and facilitating collaborative dialogue. Workshops will be announced in early autumn 2026. Please note that participation in a PDW(s) is neither a prerequisite for submission nor a guarantee of acceptance for the special issue.
References
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Jeoung Yul Lee, PhD
Professor, emlyon business school, Lyon, France
Associate Editor, Human Resource Management Journal (ABS 4*)
Consulting Editor, Journal of International Business Studies (ABS 4*; FT50; UTD24)
Lead Guest Editor, Journal of International Business Studies Special Issue on Microfoundations of IB: Integrating Insights from HRM and OB
Associate Editor, Journal of Business Research (ABS 3)
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