XLRI Xavier School of Management, in collaboration with Leeds University Business School, Leeds, UK, and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), New Delhi, India, commemorated 75 years of labour and industrial relations research with a two-day conference at XLRI in Jamshedpur from January 8-9.
The conference, themed "Changing World of Labour and Work in the Global South," brought together 60 delegates from diverse disciplines across 40 institutions in 10 countries, including the US, UK, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, and Switzerland. The event featured 42 research papers presented in 12 parallel sessions chaired by experts from different nations.
Keynote speeches by Prof. Mark Stuart (Leeds University Business School) and Mr. Amitav Mukherjee (CHRO of ITC Ltd.) enriched the discourse. Additionally, two workshops on academic writing facilitated interaction with top-ranked journal editors.
Prof. Santanu Sarkar, chairperson of the conference and XLRI professor of labor relations, expressed pride in this groundbreaking event. Sarkar highlighted a year of meticulous planning, from submission reviews to scholarly presentations, emphasizing the conference's unique role in fostering global scholarly exchange.
The conference addressed crucial issues such as the employment and labour market impacts of global crises, technology innovation, gender equality, labor movements, pandemic effects in the Global South, and more. Prof. Sarkar, alongside Prof. Andy Charlwood and colleagues from various continents, spearheaded efforts to explore these topics, making the conference a platform for diverse thoughts and ideas.