Research Kim De Meulenaere

Abstract

There has been a growing emphasis on the significance of big data and business analytics. Academic institutions use large volumes of data to effectively address research questions that generate and capture value for individuals, businesses, communities, and governments. The Orbis Global and Belfirst data warehouses, encompassing financial, accounting, social balance and governance data, allow scholars to explore the promise and opportunities for new theories and practices resulting in topnotch research. The Orbis Global and Bel-first databases are used as the primary data in our field. When investigating firm behaviors and actions, scholars always need basic knowledge about their financial figures (profitability, growth, assets, liabilities, etc.). Therefore, these Orbis Global and Belfirst databases are always used as the primary data source to which scholars add more specific data (survey-based data, data collected from more specific databases such as investors data). The funding proposal seeks to address an urgent issue: the significant price hikes of these data warehouses. The requested funding would serve as a bridging budget, providing a temporary solution while a more sustainable long-term financing strategy is being developed. Several research groups in the field of business and economics cannot continue doing the research they are currently doing if they no longer have access to these databases. These databases function as essential tools and instruments.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Paeleman Ine
• Co-promoter: Deloof Marc
• Co-promoter: De Meulenaere Kim
• Co-promoter: Hardies Kris
• Co-promoter: Jorissen Ann
• Co-promoter: Van Caneghem Tom
• Co-promoter: Vujić Sunčica

Research team(s)

• Accountancy and Finance

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Workplaces have never been more diverse in terms of age, gender, race and other demographics. To successfully manage and leverage this diversity, inclusive leadership is considered essential. Inclusive leadership involves leaders' words and deeds that make all members feel that they belong, while they can also be their unique selves. Prior research has been almost exclusively positive on the effects of inclusive leadership, both in theory and empirical evidence. However, two recent studies that link inclusive leadership to lower levels of ambition and creativity seem to indicate that there is a potential dark side to inclusive leadership that has yet to be uncovered. This project is dedicated to unravel the positive and negative implications of inclusive leadership in three steps. First, we develop a theoretical framework on the competing effects of inclusive leadership. Second, we introduce the conceptual difference between diversity-aware and diversity-blind inclusive leadership and provide theory and empirical evidence on their differential effects. Third, we go beyond studying how inclusive leadership affects 'the average employee' like in prior research, by examining how minority and majority members react differently to inclusive leadership. The ultimate goal is to understand when, how, and for whom inclusive leadership affects two types of employee behavior - citizenship and withdrawal behavior - that respectively help and hurt firms to leverage diversity.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: De Meulenaere Kim

Research team(s)

• Management

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

For firms to remain productive and competitive, diversity and inclusion (D&I) is crucial as it allows for informational synergies between diverse members. The novel concept of D&I branding – firms' public broadcasting of how they value D&I – has been considered a valuable approach to attract and retain diversity and, ultimately, stimulate firm performance. But the state-of-the-art research has established little comprehensive theorizing and empirical evidence of the success of D&I branding. The present project addresses three fundamental research gaps. First, the concept of D&I branding is so novel that there is no validated metric yet assessing firms' D&I branding intensity. By developing and introducing a composite D&I branding measure to the literature, this project improves the conceptual clarity, measurement, and empirical testing of D&I branding. Second, the limited research has revealed competing findings on the success of D&I initiatives, calling for research on moderators. Building on the signaling theory, this project examines how the impact of D&I branding on diversity attraction and retention is moderated by factors related to the authenticity of firms' D&I branding. Third, it has not been studied if and under which contingencies D&I branding will stimulate firm performance through attracting and retaining diversity. Doing so, this project aims to uncover the overall implications of D&I branding, which has important implications for both theory and practice.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: De Meulenaere Kim
• Fellow: De Boom Laura

Research team(s)

• Management

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Healthcare services such as acute care hospitals are confronted with challenges to attract and retain nurses in order provide high quality of care and a safe environment for patients. Currently, the nursing profession is considered as a bottleneck profession. Balance Nursing Teams or BNuT is a software-as-a-service (SAAS) which allows informed strategic, tactical, and operational decision-making by using relevant and available data on nursing teams and their patients. The aim of BNuT is to align team composition (numbers, skill mix, qualifications, and competencies) with components of team capacity, reliability, and efficiency to guarantee desirable team and patient outcomes. This PhD-project will examine how nursing team should be composed and has three research objectives: the relationships between team composition on the one hand and the other key capacity and efficient and reliable performance factors and how do they jointly impact nursing care team outcomes; identify the key parameters within the BNuT database to explain differences in team and patient outcomes and how to utilize knowledge on key concepts and parameters to improve nursing teams over time. The study sample contains 12 acute care hospitals that are using the BNuT system. For each hospital 8 nursing units have been selected such as medical or surgical nursing units, combined medical and surgical nursing units and geriatric nursing units. BNuT implementation started in four hospitals in February 2021. This means the PhD applicant will use the existing dataset together collected data up to October 30th, 2024 to achieve a dataset with a duration of at least two years. To our knowledge, the proposed project's aim is new, innovative and neither studied nor implemented in practice nationally or internationally. Our findings will provide a better insight for decision makers in healthcare organizations as well as policy makers to understand how to put in place resources to achieve desirable outcomes in healthcare. By examining a wide variety of compositional characteristics as well as key team-level context factors using data mining and scenario analyses, we can create a better theoretical understanding of what constitutes an optimal nursing team composition.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Van Bogaert Peter
• Co-promoter: De Meulenaere Kim
• Co-promoter: Willem Lander
• Fellow: Vleminckx Senne

Research team(s)

• Centre for Research and Innovation in Care (CRIC)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

It has long been recognized that organizations can reap the productive informational benefits of workforce diversity if they can effectively manage their diverse employees. In this project, we want to contribute to the limited research on diversity and inclusion management – that is, all management activities of firms that ensure the diverse perspectives of employees are being valued and used and that everyone feels involved in the firm. We do so by exploring (1) the mechanisms underlying the effects of D&I management on proximal workplace outcomes such as perceived discrimination and inclusion and (2) the moderating factors that influence these mechanisms and, in turn, determine when the impact of D&I management initiatives on these proximal outcomes is positive and helps firm performance. The main goal of this project is to unravel how and when D&I management affects firm performance.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: De Meulenaere Kim
• Fellow: De Boom Laura

Research team(s)

• Management

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Organizational workforces have never been more diverse in terms of age, gender, race, ethnicity, migration background and other demographics. Because differences influence how employees interact and perform, workforce diversity is one of the most topical and important challenges facing organizations today. Knowledge on how firms can productively deal with workforce diversity is fundamental for the future prosperity of firms and economies overall. Our present challenging context makes successfully managed workplace diversity even more important than ever, as organizations that can use diversity as enabler of firm performance will likely emerge stronger from the ongoing pandemic crisis. Data is needed in order to study diversity and inclusion in organizations and the successful management thereof. This BOF Small Project (Klein Project) implies the start of a large-scale longitudinal, multi-source data collection of Belgian organizations, based on four data sources: (1) organization- and employee-level data from SDWorx; (2) financial information retrieved from the annual reports published in Bel-first; (3) questionnaire data from HR directors; and (4) a website-based content analysis. By updating the data annually, I will build a longitudinal, multi-source (employee-, manager-, and organizational-level) data warehouse of 2,500 organizations that allows for future research projects on a broad range of study questions that also go beyond the focus on diversity and inclusion.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: De Meulenaere Kim

Research team(s)

• Management

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

Organizations are challenged by radical changes in their demographic landscape. Because populations are ageing and people retire later, workforce age diversity is higher than ever and still on the rise. Never before had so many different ages worked together, all with other values, needs, knowledge and experience. What are the implications of workforce age diversity and how can firms manage them? This is the encompassing question guiding this project, as productively dealing with age-diverse workforces is necessary for the future prosperity of firms and economies overall. Thus far, research has established that workforce age diversity can have both positive and negative effects on firm performance. However, there is little understanding of how and when the opposite effects come about. As a result, it is unclear how firms can capitalize on the benefits and avoid the drawbacks of age diversity. We take four steps to better understand the implications and successful management of organizational age diversity. First, we uncover the key intergenerational mechanisms underlying the performance effects of age diversity. Second, we examine the multilevel effects of workforce age diversity, proposing the effects depend on firms' work structure (who works with whom?). Third, we investigate how employees' perceptions of age diversity influence these effects. Fourth, we study the success of age-inclusive management in managing workforce age diversity.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Boone Christophe
• Fellow: De Meulenaere Kim

Research team(s)

• Management

Project type(s)

• Research Project