Michelle Brown

Michelle Brown is Professor in Human Resource Management and Area Head in Human Resource Management in the Department of Management and Marketing within the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Melbourne. She also serves as Director of the Melbourne HRM Unit. Brown earned her Bachelor of Commerce with Honours and Master of Arts from the University of Melbourne, followed by a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her career at the University of Melbourne includes progression to full professorship, with research contributions spanning performance management systems, employee compensation, employee share ownership, and pay transparency.

Professor Brown's research examines employee reactions to performance feedback, including the negative implications for wellbeing and the outcomes of linking performance ratings to pay for individuals, teams, and HR functions. She investigates pay communications, organizational responses to breaches of pay discussion policies, and the influence of gender in pay information exchanges. Employing methods such as survey data, experimental studies, and qualitative approaches, her work addresses fairness uncertainty in bonus disclosures and performance appraisal cynicism among managers from a job demands-resources perspective. Key publications include the book Managing Employee Performance and Reward: Concepts, Practices, Strategies (Cambridge University Press, 2015); Generations at Work: Are There Differences and Do They Matter? (The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 2011, 688 citations); Organizational Change Cynicism: The Role of Employee Involvement (Human Resource Management, 2008, 616 citations); Consequences of the Performance Appraisal Experience (Personnel Review, 2010, 579 citations); Performance Appraisal Systems: Determinants and Change (British Journal of Industrial Relations, 2005, 392 citations); and Knowledge Workers: What Keeps Them Committed, What Turns Them Away (Work, Employment and Society, 2007, 306 citations). Recent articles feature Pay Information Disclosure: Review and Recommendations for Research Spanning the Pay Secrecy–Pay Transparency Continuum (Journal of Management) and Fairness Uncertainty and Pay Information Exchange: Why and When Employees Disclose Bonus Pay to Pay Information Websites (Journal of Organizational Behavior, 2023). She edited Paying for Performance: An International Comparison. Brown's scholarship has advanced understanding of HR practices' impacts on employee attitudes and organizational dynamics.

Professional Email: brownm@unimelb.edu.au