Elaine Farndale named next director of School of Labor and Employment Relations

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Elaine Farndale, professor of human resource management and current associate director of the Penn State School of Labor and Employment Relations (LER), will become director of the school effective July 1.

“I am thrilled that Dr. Farndale has agreed to become the School of Labor and Employment Relations’ next director,” said Clarence Lang, the Susan Welch Dean of the Penn State College of the Liberal Arts. “Her scholarly acumen, combination of academic and professional experience, and rapport with colleagues, students, and faculty position her well to guide the school and further raise its status.”

Farndale has been a member of the LER faculty since 2009 and currently serves as the school’s associate director and graduate program director. She also served as LER’s interim director from January to July 2020. Prior to joining Penn State, Farndale was an assistant professor of human resource studies at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and spent part of her career in the human resource profession as well.

Farndale’s research focuses on international and comparative human resource management (HRM); the credibility, professionalism, and roles of human resource departments; and HRM and organizational and employee outcomes. She is the founder and director of Penn State’s Center for International Human Resource Studies, a research-focused initiative that encourages human research scholarly research and engagement with the practitioner community.

Farndale has published almost 50 peer-reviewed articles and contributed to 24 books. She is the co-author/co-editor of four books, including "Strategy, HRM, and Performance, published by Oxford University Press. She has been co-editor-in-chief for Human Resource Management Journal since 2016, and previously served as associate editor of Human Resource Management and the International Journal of Human Resource Management. Farndale also is a two-time recipient of the International Human Resource Scholarly Research Award from the Human Resources Division of Academy of Management, having received the award in 2010 and 2018.

“I’m excited for the opportunity that my colleagues have given to me to continue to build the strong reputation of the School of Labor and Employment Relations,” said Farndale. “We’re an ambitious unit, with many ongoing initiatives in research, teaching and outreach, and I look forward to serving my colleagues and our students well in helping us all achieve our goals. The School of LER is a true community of faculty, staff, students and alumni to which I look forward to contributing further.”

Farndale succeeds Paul Clark, professor of labor and employment relations, who plans to continue teaching and conducting research after serving as the school’s director for 20 years.

Farndale received her doctorate in human resource management from the Cranfield School of Management, her master’s in personnel management from Kingston University, and her bachelor’s in French and modern Dutch studies from the University of Hull, all in the United Kingdom.

The School of Labor and Employment Relations seeks to make workplaces, organizations and communities better by promoting excellence in teaching, research and outreach in the fields of human resource management, labor and employment relations, and organizational leadership. The school is committed to achieving this mission by strategically enhancing understanding of these topics domestically and globally.

LER embraces a multi-stakeholder perspective that includes workers, employers, unions and government. The school offers residential and online undergraduate and graduate degrees in labor and human resources, human resources and employment relations, labor and global workers’ rights, and organizational leadership; it also offers three different integrated undergraduate-graduate paths. The school also houses the Center for Global Worker Rights, as well as outreach activities through The LABOR School and the Center for Workplace Performance.