Taking stock and setting directions on timely organizational phenomena: Artificial intelligence, indigeneity, precarious work, and multi-level theorizing

This inaugural critical reviews special issue marks a deliberate step in renewing what Human Relations has always stood for: a broad, rigorous, and human-centered conversation about work and organizing. Our aim with this special issue is therefore twofold: to take stock and to set direction. By curating critical, integrative reviews on select but timely topics, we map the evolution of debates, clarify where concepts and methods need to realign, and chart agendas that advance our understanding of the human side of organizational life. The four articles featured in this inaugural issue exemplify the intellectual breadth and critical depth that define Human Relations. Each engages a core tension of contemporary organizing; how multilevel systems interact in strategic human resource management; how colonial legacies shape Indigenous experiences of work; how precarity redefines the meaning and politics of labor; and how algorithmic technologies transform the inequalities embedded in hiring and organizational life. Read collectively, these contributions illuminate the diversity of themes, methods, and theoretical traditions that animate our journal, while also revealing a shared pursuit: understanding what it means to be human in the evolving relations of work, organization, and society.