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Xavier BAETEN
Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School, Belgium

Conny Herbert ANTONI
University of Trier, Germany

Rosemary LUCAS
Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, U.K.

Stephen PERKINS
Business School, University of Bedfordshire, U.K.

Matti VARTIAINEN
Work Psychology and Leadership - Department of Industrial Engineering and Management -
Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
 

Never before, organisations have faced so many challenges simultaneously which might have an impact on their reward strategies and systems. The financial crisis has given birth to heated debates about the so-called ‘bonus culture’ leading to over-risky behaviour in the banking sector. In the same vein, executive remuneration has come under increased public scrutiny and regulators, both on a local and a European level have undertaken actions. Still, the question of what a pay system driving long-term sustainable value creation should look like remains largely unanswered. The same holds for the behavioural impact and the design of variable pay systems. Furthermore, the fairness issue is gaining importance. Imposing pay caps and ratios for pay dispersion between top management and ‘average’ workers are taken into consideration by a number of regulators. Also related to fairness is the issue of gender-related disparities in total rewards. At the same time, labour market evolutions (e.g., greying of the population) challenge firms to develop reward systems that motivate starters as well as people aged over 60. This might renew interest in flexible reward systems and a need to at least put a critical eye on a number of settled reward practices. It should also be taken into account that organisations will be confronted with a structural scarcity on the labour market leading to additional (upward) pressure on base and variable pay and a need to develop ‘creative’ employee benefits. In any case, firms will have to carefully think about their ‘employee value proposition’ and reward strategy.
All these evolutions are taking place in an economic environment which is (still) uncertain and which necessitates firms to pay additional attention to their labour costs and the evolutions in it. Also, because of the most limited pay envelopes, there is a need for more differentiation between low and high performers, which puts additional pressure on performance management systems.

Needless to say that, more than ever, there is a strong need for practice-relevant academic research in the field of reward management in order to help firms face the challenges in their economic, social, environmental and regulatory business contexts.

This conference focuses on recent relevant academic research in the field of reward management. It also wants to function as a bridge between academics and practitioners. In this respect, a number of reward professionals will also be invited to exchange ideas in order to stimulate the dialogue between research and practice.
 

The conference brings together both researchers and practitioners in the field of reward systems: researchers from universities, business schools and other research institutions, human resources professionals from companies, consulting firms, and general managers responsible for developing reward strategies, systems and their implementation in companies, and reward system experts from employers’ and employees’ associations.

The papers presented in this conference are expected to fit broadly – but not exclusively – into one of the following categories:

• Reward systems within their business context (e.g., culture, organizational strategies, structure, etc.)
• Aligning rewarding with the other HR instruments
• Rewarding in the context of the changing labour market
• Total rewards
• Reward strategies
• Roles, perspectives and interests of the different stakeholders (e.g., employees, unions)
• Reward models in unionised settings
• Reward governance (e.g., remuneration committees)
• Reward management in specific sectors (e.g., public sector, third sector, small and medium-sized workplaces)
• Rewarding specific employee groups (e.g., executive remuneration, salesforce remuneration, blue and white collars, knowledge workers)
• Rewarding in global contexts
• Performance-related pay
• Collective rewarding
• Competence-based pay
• Employee benefits
• Flexible rewards
• Measuring and evaluating reward systems
• Nonfinancial rewards
• Employee and line management participation in implementation of reward systems
• What makes reward policies and systems effective
• Communication on rewarding

Abstracts have been peer-reviewed.

At authors’ request, papers could be considered for publication in a special volume of a major journal or book series.

Authors of selected conference papers will be either invited  to submit to a special issue of Human Resource Management Review on "Pay Systems in Organizations" guest-edited by Nina Gupta (University of Arkansas, USA) and Jason D. Shaw (University of Minnesota) or to a peer reviewed book on "Reward Management in Turbulent Times" edited by members of the organizing committee.

 
PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SEE DETAILS OF THE PARALLEL SESSIONS

This year, the following two papers have been selected :

“The Role of Perceived Employer Obligations in the Interpretation of – and Reaction to – Expatriate Compensation Practices”
Written and presented by
Christelle TORNIKOSKI

and to :

“Towards  a Behavioural Agency Theory : New Micro-foundations for Theorising about Senior Executive Reward”
Written and presented by
Alexander PEPPER & Julie GORE