Markus Helfen

Markus Helfen is a Senior Research Fellow at the Hertie School’s Department of Public Policy, leading the project “Humans in digital logistics (HuLog),” funded by the European Union and international research councils. Previously, he held professorial roles at the University of Innsbruck (Austria) and Freie Universität Berlin, and continues as a Private Lecturer at the latter. His research focuses on organization theory, human resource management (HRM), and employment relations, emphasizing collective action, institutional work, and sustainability in global supply chains and interorganizational networks.

• Roles: Senior Research Fellow (Hertie School), Visiting Professor (Freie Universität Berlin), Private Lecturer.
• Key Projects: HuLog (humanization of logistics work in digital transformation).
• Editorial Roles: Associate Editor of Research in the Sociology of Work, advisory boards for German Journal of Human Resource Management and Industrielle Beziehungen.
• Research Themes: Global labor standards, multi-employer work arrangements, meta-organizing, industrial relations in service delivery networks.

His work bridges academia and policy, addressing challenges in digitalization, global value chains, and sustainable work practices. He contributes to transnational labor governance through studies on framework agreements and institutional adaptations in fluid organizational forms.