CONARH 2026 (52ª edição ABRH)
“Brasil Global: o futuro da gestão é humano”
The 52nd CONARH turned São Paulo Expo into a 'Cidade do RH' on August 18–20: ~40,000 participants, 120+ speakers, ~320 exhibitors. AI was the word that crossed virtually every conversation — recruiting, payroll, employee experience — while the counter-message was that the more technology advances, the more the debate returns to what will keep depending on people. The edition debuted the Arena IA, the first-ever Arena Agro (people management in agribusiness) and the Festival do Trabalho, closing with Richard Barrett's first CONARH talk on Brazilian culture as a competitive advantage.
The largest HR gathering in Latin America — over 120 speakers and 100+ talks across six content stages. A key stage to bring self-management and the Semco story to the Brazilian corporate audience.
The largest HR gathering in Latin America and the definitive read on where Brazilian people-management is heading — this year explicitly framed around “the future of management is human.” Mine the human-vs-AI tension and the “future of work” positioning as the exact wedge for self-management, trust and decentralization narratives with CHRO-level buyers.
The live tensions on stage — the questions worth walking in with a view on.
Recent papers from the Research Radar (top universities, last weeks) — evidence to carry into the room.
When Is It Fairer to Allocate Resources for Training to Lower Performing Versus Higher Performing Employees?
Journal of Accounting Research — The University of Texas at Austin, Emory University
Managers splitting scarce training budgets face a fairness trap that depends on context, not on the allocation itself. In an interactive experiment, employees judged the same decision by the prevailing norm: where egalitarian norms dominated, as when people had little control over their tasks, lower performers treated training as their due and reacted badly when it went to top performers, while meritocratic norms reversed the reaction. For consultants: before advising where development money goes, read which fairness norm the environment has installed, because task autonomy shifts the norm itself.
Can Nonprofits Gain an Advantage in Employee Retention Through Management Practices? A Comparative Lens for Managing Nonprofit Versus for‐Profit Employees
Personnel Psychology — Chinese University of Hong Kong, University of Florida
Nonprofits may hold a structural retention edge over for-profits, but only when they install employee-centered management practices: benefits, participation and training. Across four studies, including archival Statistics Canada survey data, nonprofit employees rated their organizations more positively than for-profit employees did when the organization implemented more of these practices, consistent with the theory that mission-driven settings convert them into firm-specific attachment. For consultants: participation and training are not generic retention levers; their pull depends on the kind of organization that hosts them, so calibrate the retention playbook to sector before copying it across clients.
Odd One Out: A Configural Perspective on Team Mental Models
Small Group Research — Erasmus University Rotterdam, Film Independent
Cognitive isolation, where one team member holds a task mental model dissimilar from everyone else's, undermined performance in a study of 79 student teams running a business simulation, but only when member epistemic motivation was low. Average alignment can mask a single outlier whose divergent understanding drags results. For consultants: when diagnosing a struggling self-managed team, look for the odd one out in how members understand the task, not just overall agreement.
Shows from our directory that live on this event's themes — with weekly episode briefs.
Prep from the archive — articles on the themes this event lives in.
AI Is Coming for Your Org Chart, Not Just Your Jobs
AI is set to reshape headcount and management structure at least as much as individual roles. The firms that win will pair targete…
AI Is Eating Entry-Level Work. Rebuild the On-Ramps
AI is hollowing out the first rung of the career ladder, and the damage is landing on early-career workers. Firms that want a futu…
AI Is Eating the First Rung of the Ladder. Redesign Work to Learn
AI is hollowing out entry-level work where people learn the basics. Firms that deliberately re-bundle workflows so juniors still p…
AI Is Erasing Entry-Level Work. Build a New On-Ramp
AI is hollowing out the first rung of the career ladder, where novices used to learn by doing. Firms that do not redesign work and…
