Dr. Dionne Pohler PhD

Dionne is an associate professor at the Edwards School of Business at the University of Saskatchewan and the Co-operative Retailing System Chair in Co-operative Governance. Previously, Dionne was an assistant professor at the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources at the University of Toronto. Her research in employment relations and human resource management has included comparing the processes of HR professionalization in Canada and the USA, and exploring the impact of relationships among strategy, HR, unions, and employee voice and involvement on individuals and organizations. More recent research includes projects on compensation/HR systems and inequality, and organizational implementation of and compliance with labour and employment policy.

Dionne's major research projects with the Centre for the Study of Co-operatives focus on understanding the socio-political economy of organizational governance, particularly in the Canadian credit union system, and developing a co-operative model of economic and social development in Western Canadian rural and Aboriginal communities as one of the co-investigators on the Co-operative Innovation Project. This project required extensive community outreach and engagement, and the research results led in 2016 to the creation of a non-profit organization — Co-operatives First — dedicated to working with rural and Aboriginal communities to address the needs identified by these community members.