Innovative Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior Responses in Crises

This chapter explores the contemporary business environment within which businesses operate today. The innovative human resource management (HRM) and organizational behavior (OB) responses to cope, survive, and grow within the environment are also evaluated. More specifically, crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, are addressed, as well as ongoing changes within economic, legal-political, sociocultural, natural, and other environmental dimensions that require organizational responses for business continuity. From a research perspective, exploring the innovative responses of organizations to organizational crises is important to advance scholarship and narrow research-practice gaps in this area. Several research studies have emerged on the impact of crises such as the current pandemic on employees and organizations. There have been suggestions that specific HRM and OB responses, such as building resilience, training and development, creative hiring/promotion/rewards practices within resource constraints, employee downsizing/rightsizing/reorganizing, transformational leadership, and adjustments in the nature/type of work are important to navigate the uncertainties of organizational crises. These suggestions and the implications of such responses are explored in the literature. Research gaps are also identified and outlined.