Professor Hills' research and teaching have taken him to Europe, Russia, China, Japan, southern Africa and most of Latin America. He completed a comparative study of labor markets in South Africa, Mexico and Poland for the book Labour Relations in South Africa and is co-author of Cases in International Business: A Focus on Emerging Markets. He is author of the book Employment Relations and the Social Sciences, a synthesis of the variety of ways that social scientists have contributed to labor relations theory. He has had a long-standing interest in China, publishing (with B. Fleisher) "Education and Regional Economic Development in China: The case of Shanghai," (Comparative Economic Studies).

He initiated and has taught regularly an import/export course for honors undergraduates in conjunction with the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Each year he accompanies MBA students on a field study to a different "emerging market." Students visit companies and write cases based on their experience. He is past president of the International Division of the Industrial Relations Research Association and a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honorary society. He is a former Peace Corps volunteer to Venezuela (1965-57) and coordinator for the Fisher College Peace Corps MBA program.