Leadership & Human Resources

Public personnel systems have several special characteristics, such as permanent, career-oriented forms of employment or qualification- and seniority-based recruitment and promotion processes, which make up the strongly legalistic and value-oriented model employer state. Prof. Dr. Adrian Ritz's research focuses on the changing characteristics of public personnel systems, such as shifting employer roles and interests, work values and their connection to personnel policy reforms. Prof. Dr. Adrian Ritz's team is also increasingly researching the connection between changes in public HR policy in the course of digitalization and an increasingly flexible working world under the influence of Work 4.0, New Work, de-hierarchization and self-organization. In addition, there are questions of comparing public personnel systems from an international perspective and changing leadership development.

The aim of Cyrill Kalbermatten's research project on change is to analyze the challenges of implementing a new professional mandate in the public education system. The subject of the study is factors at the individual and organizational level that promote or, in the sense of “resistance to change”, reduce the approval of a reform process among the actors involved.

In view of the shortage of labour on the labour markets and the frequent lack of competitiveness of public employers compared to private-sector and non-profit organizations, the question of the attractiveness of public administrations as employers for attracting talent is of interest. Prof. Dr. Adrian Ritz and his team are researching the attractiveness characteristics of public organizations, the attractiveness of politics as a specific characteristic, the ability to influence and shape employer attractiveness, but also the effects on the labor market, in comparison to private and non-profit organizations and corresponding processes such as employer branding.

The majority of public organizations are very personnel-intensive. Organizational performance is significantly influenced by the performance, commitment and engagement of employees. The analysis of the causes, types and effects of motivation in the public sector is central to the research of Prof. Dr. Adrian Ritz and his team, particularly when it comes to understanding employee behavior and performance. This is also related to the often-mentioned “meaning” of public work, which underlies the research field of prosocial motivation or public service motivation. In doing so, we comparatively analyze the different types of motivation, critical perspectives on the relationship between motivation and performance, cultural influences, but also negative consequences such as destructive behavior or burnout or stress due to overcommitment.

Leadership in public organizations is a central subject of investigation when it comes to the performance and culture of public administrations. Particularly in the wake of the management reforms in the public sector in the 1990s, a return to the role of managers was called for in order to change and further develop public organizations in line with organizational values. In this context, Prof. Dr. Adrian Ritz and his team are interested in the specifics of leadership actions in contradictory situations, different leadership styles and their effects, the role of formal and informal elements of leadership, the development of talent and management trainees, the ability to influence leadership skills through training and the role of leadership in cultural change. In the context of digitalization and the world of work 4.0 (New Work), the latter leads to new research questions about the potential of de-hierarchized, shared leadership or self-organization.

Diversity, representation and inclusion are central thrusts of personnel policy and strategic personnel management in public organizations, especially in multicultural Switzerland. The research of Prof. Dr. Adrian Ritz deals with the different approaches of diversity management and managing diversity, which aim to avoid inequalities and discrimination on the one hand and to exploit the advantages of an organization by legitimizing and appreciating differences on the other. In their research at the KPM, Prof. Dr. Adrian Ritz's team is investigating questions about the positive and negative effects of diversity and the impact of management measures, as well as the active and passive representation of different groups of people in the administration. The role of managers in connection with diversity and diversity effects and the role of cultural contexts such as language diversity are also being researched.

Despite the abatement of New Public Management reforms, results and impact orientation are central components of today's political-administrative management models and are widespread both nationally and internationally. They characterize the implementation of goal-setting research in management theory. From a research perspective, Prof. Dr. Adrian Ritz is interested in whether and how performance information and corresponding control mechanisms are used or function. Furthermore, questions arise as to sector differences in the use of performance management systems and performance information and what the influencing factors are at individual, team and organizational level that affect the efficiency and effectiveness of public administrations.