Dr Valentina Paolucci

School of Business

Lecturer/Assistant Professor

311
(01) 474 7537

Biography

Dr. Valentina Paolucci is an Assistant Professor in Management, Organizational Behavior, and Human Resource Management. Prior to her role at Maynooth, she served as an Assistant Professor in Employment Relations at UCD from 2017 to 2021. Dr. Paolucci has held visiting positions at KU Leuven in Belgium, under the mentorship of Professor Valeria Pulignano, as well as at FAOS at the University of Copenhagen. Her research has gained recognition and has been published in leading academic journals, including Human Relations, Human Resource Management Journal, and the European Journal of Industrial Relations. Dr. Paolucci earned her PhD in Comparative Employment Relations from the Warwick Business School in the United Kingdom. Her research interests lie in the area of trade union revitalisation, labour market flexibility, precarious work, and collective bargaining in multinationals.

Research Interests

Dr Paolucci's research interests encompass several areas, including comparative labor market policies, the transformation of work and employment, and Human Resource Management (HRM) practices within multinational organizations. Specifically, her research focuses on the role of a key formal institution in industrial relations – collective bargaining. She investigates how collective bargaining contributes to improving working conditions for employees across various EU countries, in particular, Ireland, Italy, Denmark, and the UK. Dr Paolucci's interests also lie in the area of international human resource management. Her work explores the ways in which contextual factors enable or constrain the autonomy of local HR managers. These contextual factors may include, labour market institutions, the degree of global competition, levels of international integration, characteristics of product markets, growth models, capital structures, and skills composition. Her research sheds light on how these factors influence the decision-making processes of local HR managers and trade unions when it comes to shaping employment policies within and across multinationals. 

Research Projects

Title Role Description Start date End date Amount
- Comparisons in decentralised bargaining: towards new relations between trade unions and works councils Principle Investigator Ireland The project CODEBAR – Comparisons in decentralised bargaining: towards new configurations between trade unions and works councils? - will address, from a multidisciplinary and multi-level governance perspective, the social partners’ response to downward pressures on the locus of collective bargaining and the subsequent increasing involvement of workplace bodies of employee representation in eight EU Member States: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, Ireland (and a Eastern European and Scandinavian country). CODEBAR will address also the strategic actions of - and new relationships between - trade unions and works councils (or other workplace bodies of employee representation) regarding partnerships - or conflicts - in company bargaining on terms and conditions of employment in these six countries. The project will disseminate the results of these analyses among social partners and policy makers at EU, national, sector and company level to stimulate information exchange and social dialogue on company bargaining and on (innovative) partnership co-operations between trade unions and works councils or other workplace bodies of employee representation. 01/09/2020 01/09/2022 29039

Book Chapter

Year Publication
2019 Aurora Trif, Valentina Paolucci (2019) 'Employee Relations in Context: Globalization, Uncertainties, and Dynamics of Change' In: International Comparative Employee Relations. Cheltenham : Edward Elgar. [Link] [Full-Text]
2019 Valentina Paolucci; Aurora Trif (2019) 'From legal support to frontal assault on collective bargaining in Romania: a story of two tales since 2000' In: Collective Bargaining in Europe: Towards an endgame. [Link]
2023 Mia Rönnmar, Marcus Kahmann, Andrea Iossa, Jan Czarzasty, Valentina Paolucci (2023) 'Trade Union Participation and Influence in Decentralised Collective Bargaining' In: Pathways in Decentralised Collective Bargaining in Europe. Amsterdam : Amsterdam University Press. [Link] [DOI]
2023 Valentina Paolucci 1 , Jan Czarzasty 2 , Ana Belén Muñoz Ruiz 3 , Nuria Ramos Martín (2023) 'Decentralisation of Collective Bargaining in the Retail Sector' In: Pathways in Decentralised Collective Bargaining in Europe. Amsterdam : Amsterdam University Press. [Link] [DOI]

Peer Reviewed Journal

Year Publication
2021 Trif A.; Paolucci V.; Kahancová M.; Koukiadaki A. (2021) 'Power resources and successful trade union actions that address precarity in adverse contexts: The case of Central and Eastern Europe'. Human Relations, . [DOI] [Full-Text]
2020 Valentina Paolucci; Paul Marginson (2020) 'Collective bargaining towards mutual flexibility and security goals in large internationalised companies—why do institutions (still) matter?'. INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS JOURNAL, . [Link] [DOI] [Full-Text]
2020 Valentina Paolucci; Manuela Galetto (2020) 'The collective bargaining of flexicurity: A case for sector‐level analysis? The Italian chemical and metalworking sectors compared'. Human Resource Management Journal, . [Link] [DOI] [Full-Text]
2017 Valentina Paolucci (2017) 'The role of collective bargaining in addressing flexibility and security'. European Journal of Industrial Relations, . [Link] [DOI] [Full-Text]

Published Report

Year Publication
2023 Valentina Paolucci; William K. Roche; Tom Gormley (2023) Decentralised Collective Bargaining in Ireland. . [Link] [Full-Text]

Conference Publication

Year Publication
2023 Valentina Paolucci; William K. Roche (2023) Industrial Relations in Europe Conference (IREC) Decentralised Collective Bargaining: The Strategies of Irish Unions
2022 Aurora Trif ; Valentina Paolucci (2022) International Labour Process Congress ILPC Beyond national institutions: accounting for union success in addressing precarity in Central and Eastern Europe
2021 Valentina Paolucci; William K. Roche; Tom Gormley (2021) nternational Labour and Employment Relations Association (ILERA) Strategies and practises of trade unions in (regulating) decentralised bargaining in Ireland.​
2021 Valentina Paolucci; William K. Roche; Tom Gormley (2021) ADAPT Conference The strategies of Irish trade unions in decentralised bargaining
2018 Valentina Paolucci; Paul Marginson (2018) Labor and Employment Relations Associations (LERA) Collective bargaining towards mutual flexibility and security goals in large internationalised companies
2018 Aurora Trif; Valentina Paolucci (2018) Work Employment and Society Conference (WES) Beyond institutional convergence and structural divergence: trade unions responses to precarious work in Eastern Europe
2017 Valentina Paolucci; Manuela Galetto (2017) Society for Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) Collective bargaining and flexicurity: A case for sectoral level research?
2016 Valentina Paolucci (2016) International Labour and Employment Relations Association (ILERA) Engaging with flexibility and security at firm-level: A comparison across chemicals and pharmaceuticals in Italy and Denmark
2015 Valentina Paolucci (2015) Industrial Relations in Europe Conference (IREC) Flexibility and security in sector-level collective bargaining: A comparative institutional analysis between Italy, Denmark and the UK
2014 Valentina Paolucci (2014) Industrial Relations in Europe Conference (IREC) The role of collective bargaining over flexibility and security: A comparative institutional analysis between Italy and Denmark
2013 Valentina Paolucci (2013) Work Employment and Society Conference (WES) The role of collective bargaining over flexibility and security: A comparative institutional analysis between Italy and the UK
2012 Valentina Paolucci (2012) European Doctoral Conference on Labour Studies The role of firms into the flexicurity debate. A comparative institutional analysis between Italy, Denmark and the UK
Certain data included herein are derived from the © Web of Science (2023) of Clarivate. All rights reserved.

Professional Associations

Description Function From / To
Irish Association of Industrial Relations Board member -

Honors and Awards

Date Title Awarding Body
13/07/2016 SAGE Best Paper Prize ILERA Conference
08/12/2011 MSc HRM 2011, MERC Partners Award Recipient M. Smurfit Business School (UCD College of Business)
08/12/2011 Honour Degree M. Smurfit Business School (UCD College of Business)
17/03/2009 Cum Laude MA Degree (Political Science) University of Bologna

Employment

Employer Position From / To
Maynooth University Faculty of Social Sciences Assistant Professor 12/06/2021 -
University College Dublin Assistant Professor in Employment Relations 17/11/2017 - 20/06/2021

Education

Start date Institution Qualification Subject
Warwick Business School Doctor of Philosophy Comparative Employment Relations
M. Smurfit Graduate Business School (UCD) MSc Human Resource Management and Employment Relations Employment Relations and HRM
University of Bologna MA International Relations International Relations and Political Science
University of Bologna BA International Relations and Political Science International Relations and Political Science

Languages

Language Reading Writing Speaking
Italian Fluent Fluent Fluent
English Fluent Fluent Fluent
Spanish Fluent Functional Fluent
French Fluent Functional Functional

Teaching Interests

Dr Valentina Paolucci has taught in the broad areas of Comparative Employment Relations and Human Resource Management. She coordinates an undergraduate module titled Negotiation and Dispute Resolution (MN317). 

External Collaborators

Name Role Country
Aurora Trif Co-PI in a comparative project investigating the responses of managers in unitarist organisations to collective conflict. Ireland
William K. Roche Mentor in an international project (CODEBAR) funded by the EU Commission Ireland