”Everyone clapped because they were expected to”, is the title of the C-essay which won the 2019 Essay Award presented by the Region West HR Association. The authors are Emma Hammarberg and Fanny Olsson, who studied the Human Resource Management and Working Life programme at Karlstad Business School.
The winning essay in HR studies centres on organisation culture and loyalty. The jury’s citation was, among other things, that the essay is valuable for the HR profession. The authors Emma Hammarberg and Fanny Olsson, however, did not even know that they had been nominated.
”It was our co-examiner Ann Bergman and supervisor Jonas Axelsson who nominated us. We were only told that we had won so we were spared the dreadful waiting,” says Fanny Olsson.
The award ceremony took place in Gothenburg earlier in November and the authors had the opportunity to present their essay to an audience.
”We were terribly nervous but as soon as we started we relaxed. Then it was fun. Everyone present was really interested in listening to our presentation of the essay. It was a great context to be in,” says Emma Hammarberg.
The prize was SEK 5000, a gift card and free membership in the Region West HR Association. Emma and Fanny both think that organisation culture and loyalty is a field many can relate to, which made it a natural choice for them.
”From the beginning we didn’t know what topic to study, but when we started discussing it, we realised that we talk a lot about organisation culture with each other and with friends when job seeking is a conversation topic. Most people have a lot to say about organisation culture. Then we had the idea of linking it to loyalty,” says Emma.
Pleasure of essay Writing
The authors don’t agree with the idea that essay writing is boring and difficult.
“It was fun to write! Emma and I experienced the best part of our student days when we worked on it. If you choose a topic you can relate to it is great,” says Fanny.
“We enjoyed it a lot all the way. It helped that we were well matched and complemented each other in the writing. Perhaps we should have had a prize for the best cooperation”, says Emma.
Presently Fanny is working as an HR generalist and Emma is studying a Master’s program in Work Science at Gothenburg University.
