Mevan Jayasinghe
Associate Professor; Associate Director of Outreach, Director of Professional Development and Labor Education Programs in the School of Human Resources and Labor Relations | Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI, UNITED STATES
Mevan Jayasinghe conducts international research on the effectiveness of human resource mgmt & corporate social responsibility strategies.
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Biography
Mevan Jayasinghe is an Associate Professor in the School of Human Resources and Labor Relations at Michigan State University. He also serves as the Associate Director of Outreach and Director for Professional Development and Labor Education Programs. He received his PhD in Business (Management and Human Resources) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2013.
Professor Jayasinghe conducts international research on the effectiveness of human resource and corporate social responsibility investments and on disparities in job quality (pay, safety, employment discrimination) across countries. His most recent work, centered in the context of global supply chains and using data from emerging economies such as Sri Lanka, examines the discretionary human resource investments made by supplier firms (e.g. voluntary labor codes & certifications) and the impact of these investments on business performance and working conditions. He has published his work in leading scholarly journals, such as the Academy of Management Journal, the Journal of Applied Psychology, the Journal of Management, the Journal of Organizational Behavior, and the British Journal of Industrial Relations. His research has been recognized by the International HRM Scholarly Research Award from the Academy of Management in both 2015 and 2020 and the Best Dissertation Award from the Industry Studies Association in 2013.
Professor Jayasinghe teaches the graduate-level negotiation and conflict resolution course and the undergraduate capstone course in human capital and society. In 2021, he provided leadership in developing the MSU Human Capital Talent Partnership program, which offers Human Capital and Society undergraduate students practical project experiences solving actual organizational challenges and helps create a talent pipeline for participating organizations.
Industry Expertise (1)
Human Resources
Areas of Expertise (11)
Strategic Human Resource Management
Human Resources in the Apparel Manufacturing Industry
Corporate Social Responsibility and Labor Standards in Global Supply Chains
Social Compliance in Global Supply Chains
Job Quality
Human Capital
Employment Discrimination
High Performance Work Systems
Negotiation and Conflict Resolution
Human Resource Strategies and Systems
International/Cross-cultural Human Resource Management
Accomplishments (2)
Academy of Management International Human Resource Management Scholarly Research Award
2015, 2020
Industry Studies Association Best Dissertation Award
2013
Education (3)
University of Wisconsin-Madison: Ph.D., Management and Human Resources 2013
Lafayette College: B.S., Biology 2008
Lafayette College: B.A., Economics and Business 2008
Affiliations (3)
- Member : Labor and Employment Relations Association, 2013 - Present
- Member : Industry Studies Association, 2011 - Present
- Member : Academy of Management, 2008 - Present
Links (3)
Research Grants (2)
The Impact of Socially-Responsible Employment Practices on the Retention of Human Capital within Export Agriculture and Export Apparel Industries in Asia
Michigan State University Dr. Delia Koo Global Faculty Endowment $2,500
2018, Principal Investigator
The adoption of human resource practices in emerging economy smallholder agriculture: Understanding implications for employers and workers
Michigan State University Dr. Delia Koo Global Faculty Endowment $5,000
2015, Principal Investigator
Journal Articles (2)
The Impact of Suppliers’ Adoption of Voluntary Labour Codes/Certifications on Job Quality in Global Supply Chains: The Sri Lankan Case of Garments without Guilt
British Journal of Industrial RelationsMevan Jayasinghe, Larry W. (Chip) Hunter
2020 Codes of conduct and certifications on labour standards are designed to distinguish export manufacturing suppliers offering higher quality jobs from those offering poor quality jobs. However, previous research suggests that such codes/certifications have a limited impact on job quality. These studies do not differentiate between ‘compliance-based codes of conduct’ that retailers enforce on suppliers and ‘voluntary labour codes/certifications’ that suppliers adopt at their discretion. We examine the relationship between suppliers’ adoption of the Garments without Guilt (GwG) voluntary labour code/certification and job quality using fieldwork and longitudinal data on Sri Lankan export apparel suppliers. We find that GwG adoption is associated with higher base pay and safer work, while base pay is lower for GwG adopters that are simultaneously subject to retailers’ enforcement of compliance-based codes.
The Operational and Signaling Benefits of Voluntary Labor Code Adoption: Reconceptualizing the Scope of Human Resource Management in Emerging Economies
Academy of Management JournalMevan Jayasinghe
2016 Labor codes have been voluntarily adopted and used by manufacturers in emerging economies for the past two decades as a means of ensuring minimally acceptable or core labor standards for workers. However, far too little is known of the potential benefits from the voluntary adoption of labor codes to the manufacturer, and prior human resource management research has been virtually silent on the business implications of their use for emerging economy manufacturers participating in global supply chains. Drawing on previous work across multiple disciplines and proposing a framework that extends human resource management theory more explicitly and rigorously to the context of emerging economy manufacturing, I theorize and demonstrate that the voluntary adoption of a labor code can constitute an effective human resource investment in emerging economies in improving establishment-level employee outcomes and operational and financial performance. The hypotheses are tested using longitudinal data on a sample of apparel manufacturing plants in Sri Lanka. Implications of this study include providing insight into how to expand the scope and relevance of human resource management theory to better understand research and practice in emerging economies.
