Victor Devinatz

Biography

Dr. Victor G. Devinatz is Distinguished Professor of Management and the Hobart and Marian Gardner Hinderliter Endowed Professor (2014-2015) in the Department of Management and Quantitative Methods at Illinois State University where he teaches courses in labor relations, human resource management and conflict management/dispute resolution. He is nationally recognized for his expertise in qualitative research in a wide variety of labor relations and employment relations topics where he utilizes ethnographic, oral history and archival research methodologies.

In 2003, Dr. Devinatz was a recipient of a Merl E. Reed Research Fellowship in Southern Labor History. In addition, in 2005, Dr. Devinatz won the Illinois State University Outstanding Researcher Award. In 2004 and 1999, he was named a Caterpillar Faculty Scholar; he received the College of Business Research Award in 2010, 2003 and 1997 and was the recipient of a University Research Initiative Award in 1994.

In a widely distributed Associated Press article in March 1999, Dr. Devinatz’s scholarly book, High-Tech Betrayal: Working and Organizing on the Shop Floor (Michigan State University Press, 1999), was recognized as the first industrial ethnography to chronicle assembly work in a high-tech environment, specifically that of a low-wage medical electronics factory. In addition, Dr. Devinatz has published (or are forthcoming) over 125 journal articles, chapters in edited volumes and essays in specialized encyclopedias. In academic journals, he has published 90 articles in outlets such as Advances in Industrial and Labor Relations, Labour/Le Travail, Labor History, Industrial Relations, Science & Society, Journal of Labor Research, Labor Studies Journal, Journal of Collective Negotiations in the Public Sector, and Labor Law Journal, among others. Dr. Devinatz’s articles also have appeared in Encyclopedia of U.S. Labor and Working Class History, Work in America: An Encyclopedia of History, Policy and Society; The Encyclopedia of Strikes in American History, The Encyclopedia of the Great Black Migration, and Encyclopedia of Europe: 1914-2004, among other scholarly encyclopedias. He also has published op-ed articles that have appeared in the Chicago Tribune and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Dr. Devinatz’s comments concerning current labor relations issues have been cited in articles in a number of international and national news publications including The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), Asia Times, Toronto Globe and Mail, USA Today, the Bureau of National Affairs Daily Labor Report, Bureau of National Affairs Employment Discrimination Report, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Detroit News and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He currently is the Editor of Labor Studies Journal as well as the Editor of the Perspectives Section in Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal. Dr. Devinatz currently writes a periodic labor column for StreetWise, a Chicago-based newspaper. Two of his StreetWise articles, “Why We Need Unemployed Man Now More Than Ever” and “The Sharing Economy and Its Discontents,” have been picked up by the International Network of Street Papers. In 2015, Dr. Devinatz became a certified mediator through the Center for Conflict Resolution in Chicago.