Showing papers in "Human Relations in 2006"

Perceived external prestige and internal respect: New insights into the organizational identification process

Abstract: The group engagement model (Tyler & Blader, 2003) suggests that identification with one's organization is based not only on the individual's evaluation of the status of the organization (i.e. perceived external prestige), but also the individual's evaluation of their own status within the organization (i.e. perceived internal respect). Using data drawn from three different sources (subordinates, supervisors, and company records), results from a sample of healthcare employees (n = 205) provide support for the core relationships proposed in the group engagement model and extend the model by showing that prestige and respect have different antecedents. The perceived status of the organization's employees, the organization's perceived success in achieving its goals, the visibility of the organization, and the status level of the individual employee were all associated with perceived external prestige. The results also indicate that visibility within the organization, perceived opportunities for growth, and pa...

The contested space of multinationals: Varieties of institutionalism, varieties of capitalism

Abstract: The article argues that institutionalist theory applied to multinationals focuses on the issue of ‘institutional duality’, that is, that within multinationals, actors are pressured to conform to the expectations of their home context whilst also being subjected to the transfer of practices from the home context of the MNC itself. This institutional duality leads to conflicts that can be labelled as forms of ‘micro-politics’. The head office managers transfer practices, people and resources to subsidiaries in order to maintain control and achieve their objectives. Local subsidiaries have differential capacities to resist these transfers or to develop them in their own interests depending on their institutional context. The article distinguishes institutional contexts that produce ‘Boy Scout’ subsidiaries, doing what they are told and consequently allowing locally distinctive capabilities to be undermined and those that produce ‘subversive strategists’ which look to deepen their connection with the local co...

Action research: Explaining the diversity

Abstract: For nearly 70 years scholars have been discussing the characteristics of action research and it is apparent that there is an increasingly wide range of forms that action research takes in practice. Here we argue that such diversity is not haphazard and that we must be cautious about developing all-embracing standards to differentiate the ‘good’ from the ‘bad’. Rather this diversity is inspired by different philosophical stances, which usually remain tacit in published accounts thereby fuelling ambiguity and controversy about what action research should entail in practice and as to its ‘scientific’ status. The aim of this article is to explain the apparent diversity of action research in the organization studies domain, by clarifying how variable philosophical assumptions systematically lead to the constitution of distinctive forms of action research with their attendant conceptions of social science. This diversity is illustrated, with examples from the relevant literature, in terms of variation in: the a...

The role of networks of practice, value sharing, and operational proximity in knowledge flows between professional groups

Abstract: This article investigates the process of knowledge sharing between individuals in different professional groups. Through an ethnographic study in a hospital unit, we examine the individuals’ involvement in networks of practice, their sharing of organizational values, and their operational proximity. Recent attention to networks of practice has led to a view of organizations as crossroads of networks; accordingly, boundary relations between different networks of practice are of core relevance to ensure knowledge diffusion in organizations, but empirical evidence is still lacking. Our grounded theory supports the idea that working side-by-side and having common organizational values are important bases for knowledge transfer between professional groups which belong to different networks of practice. Boundary knowledge transfer evokes new kinds of organizational citizenship behaviours. Professionals who initiate the transfer exhibit extra-role behaviours which, in turn, require the recipient to perform extra...

Abusive supervision and subordinate problem drinking: Taking resistance, stress and subordinate personality into account

Abstract: We test hypotheses derived from two alternative perspectives regarding the association between supervisory abuse and subordinate problem drinking. Drawing from the employee resistance literature, we examine the degree to which such an association may be sensitive to variation in subordinate personality. Drawing from the stress literature, we examine the degree to which this association may be mediated by somatic stress. Multi-source data from 1473 blue-collar workers employed in 55 work units, indicates that while the main effect of abusive supervision on problem drinking is attenuated under conditions of high subordinate conscientiousness and agreeableness (consistent with a resistance-based explanation), the main effect is not mediated by somatic stress.

Guess who's coming to dinner? Structures and uses of liminality in strategic management consultancy

Abstract: Organizational studies have recently drawn our attention to the importance of liminality in our working lives. This transitional timespace is characteristic of precarious or mobile employment such as temporary, project and consulting work especially. It is understood as a fluid and largely unstructured space where normal order is suspended and which is experienced as both unsettling and creative. This article critically explores liminality through a detailed study of the neglected activities of business dinners and back-stage management consultancy. We argue that liminality can in fact be a highly and multi-structured, comfortable and strategic or tactical space. We find that the use of wider norms and routines of eating and socializing as well as of hierarchical patterns of working and of exclusion and inclusion shape the experience and outcomes of liminality. Moreover, we highlight how the context of liminality is sustained by highly structured organizational activities in the production of domestic and...

On the edge of identity: Boundary dynamics at the interface of individual and organizational identities

Abstract: Organizational members are often faced with tremendous demands on their individual identities that affect their performance at work and their well-being as individuals.Previous research has been limited, however, by typically studying identity at either the individual or the organizational level. We therefore introduce a boundary approach that simultaneously examines identities across levels in order to better understand these identity demands. Specifically, we examine boundary dynamics that are negotiated at the interface of individual and organizational identities. We introduce the identity boundary dynamics of identity intrusion, distance and balance as different manifestations of identity boundary (in)congruence, both within and between individuals and organizations. Finally, we outline propositions that suggest boundary dynamics as a source of identity change.

Understanding the relationship between individualism–collectivism and team performance through an integration of social identity theory and the social relations model

Abstract: In studying the relationship between individualism–collectivism and team performance, empirical research has shown that individualistic team members exert a negative influence on team performance. However, theoretical understanding of why this relationship exists is lacking. Addressing this gap in the literature, this research proposes a theoretical model of the relationship between individualism–collectivism and team performance by integrating two previously distinct theories, social identity theory and the social relations model. Drawing upon these theories, we propose that team identification, meta-perception accuracy, and team identity will mediate the relationship between individualism–collectivism and team performance. Further, we posit that task interdependence will moderate the relationship between individualism–collectivism and team identifi-cation. In developing our work, we formulate testable propositions which are aligned with the specific relationships shown in our model. After presenting our...

The ambivalence of professional identity: On cynicism and jouissance in audit firms

Abstract: This article explores how identity is self-managed in professional services firms, illustrated by the Big Four audit firms. We examine both identification and distancing processes with several identity attributes of professionalism, viewed here as outcomes of technologies of the self. We argue that the ambivalence inherent in these attributes enables auditors to more or less cynically distance themselves from the regulatory structures of their environment, forming jouissance with rules and regulation. The study, empirical in nature, contributes to an understanding of the mutual constitution of power and identity in the area of employee resistance to organizational control. As distancing from the organizational culture and the professional ideology appears to be more symbolic of individual agency than truly harmful, we conclude that jouissance may potentially enhance the firms’ performance in the short term. Yet, prolonged cynical attitudes may transform professionals into ‘compliant’ employees, who may no...

Conflict, ambivalence, and the contested purpose of public organizations

Abstract: This article argues that public organizations are inherently more complex than private ones. Their complexity derives from two sources. The public sphere is the site for the continuous contestation of public purposes and this means that questions regarding values and policies saturate all public organizations, particularly at the point of delivery. Second, because government partly acts as the receptacle for the alienated subjectivity of citizens, public organizations have to contain much of what is disowned by the society in which they are situated. It follows that the fate of the public official, sometimes referred to as the ‘street-level bureaucrat’, is to have to contain the unresolved (and often partially suppressed) value conflicts and moral ambivalence of society. Such a perspective has implications for all of those who, in their different roles, seek to bring about change or development in public organizations. Psychoanalytic approaches to organizational consultation have not adequately understood...

Gender as multiplicity: Desire, displacement, difference and dispersion

Abstract: This article argues that although gender is no longer widely considered to be a property of individuals, the alternative of viewing it in terms of performativity, where it is the outcome of linguistic and social performances, unnecessarily limits the possibilities of thinking of gender as a form of multiplicity that is both internally and externally differentiated. Any attempt to move beyond binary thinking in gender relations initiates a consideration of multiplicity, and the way in which multiplicity is conceptualized exerts a critical influence on the possibilities that are opened up. This article interrogates existing understandings of multiplicity and finds three actual or possible types - multiplicities of the same, characteristic of feminist approaches which we critique through a reconceptualization of desire; multiplicities of the third, characterized by anthropological, transgender and queer theory approaches; and multiplicities of difference and dispersion, typified by the rhizomatics and fluid ...

Social capital and political bias in knowledge sharing: An exploratory study

Abstract: The benefits of social capital for the sharing of knowledge are frequently emphasized in the literature. However, a few authors have also begun to draw our attention towards the drawbacks of social capital for the working of organizations. In particular, instrumental social capital - as opposed to consummatory social capital - is seen as linked to power relations, which can inhibit the sharing of knowledge. To contribute to this debate on the role of social capital, we carried out a qualitative study in two Belgian companies. Our findings reveal that social capital generally tends to enhance the sharing of knowledge but that in its instrumental form it reflects opportunistic and political objectives, and promotes a highly selective form of knowledge sharing.

Beyond dependence: An identity approach to social power and domination

Abstract: This article outlines a new approach to the social psychology of power. Specifically, it challenges the currently influential conflictoriented dependence analysis, in which power operates as an almost exclusively repressive force. Drawing on relevant work from other social science disciplines, the article presents an identity model of power, in which both consensus and conflict play important roles. The model theorizes power as a productive as well as repressive force, and differentiates between social power toachieve desired outcomes and social power overothers (domination). The implications of the model for two classic issues in the power literature are considered: the relationship between power and status, and challenges to power (resistance and social change). The model's empirical potential is also discussed.

Subsidiary responses to institutional duality: Collective representation practices of US multinationals in Britain and Germany

Abstract: New institutionalist studies of human resource management in multinational companies argue that subsidiaries are faced with institutional duality-pressures to conform to parent company practices and to the local institutional environment in which they are based. To date, they have concentrated on how subsidiaries respond to parent company pressures. This article considers how subsidiary management responds to both parent company demands and host country pressures in trying to reconcile the challenges of institutional duality. It focuses on how such responses are shaped by the interdependence of subsidiary management with the parent company and the local environment. It does so by comparing case study evidence of collective representation practices in US-owned subsidiaries in Britain and Germany.

Social networks and the psychological contract: Structural holes, cohesive ties, and beliefs regarding employer obligations

Abstract: This study examined the relationship between employees' social network positions and their psychological contract beliefs. In particular, it investigated the relationship of employee advice and friendship ties with their employer's relational (long-term, non-monetizable), balanced (performance-related), and transactional (short-term, monetizable) obligations to them. Data obtained from a start-up research firm showed that employees brokering structural holes in the advice network believed the firm had greater balanced and transactional obligations to them. Employees with cohesive ties in the friendship network also believed that the firm owed them more balanced and transactional obligations. Neither structural holes nor cohesion were related to relational obligations. This study develops implications for psychological contracts and social networks research.

Rethinking job characteristics in work stress research

Abstract: In work stress research, consistent relationships between job characteristics and strain have not been established across methods for assessing job characteristics. By examining the methods used to assess job characteristics in work stress research, I argue that this is because different methods are assessing interrelated, yet distinct, facets of job characteristics: latent, perceived and enacted facets. The article discusses the implications for work stress research of differentiating these facets of job characteristics.

National embeddedness and calculative human resource management in US subsidiaries in Europe and Australia

Abstract: This article presents a study of the degree to which national institutional settings impact on the application of management practices in foreign subsidiaries of multinational companies. Applying the national business systems approach our study centres on the use of calculative human resource management (HRM) practices by subsidiaries of US multinational companies in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Denmark/Norway and Australia, respectively, in comparison with these countries’ indigenous firms.The analysis indicates that while US subsidiaries adapt to the local setting in terms of applying calculative HRM practices, they also diverge from indigenous firm practices.

Organizational discourse and subjectivity : Subjectification during processes of recruitment

Abstract: This article seeks to contribute to the debate on the relationship between organizational discourses and subjectivity, revolving around whether organizational discourses determine individual subjectivity and the extent to which there is room for human agency. It does so by providing empirical illustrations of how organizational discourses constitute subjectivity during processes of recruitment in a large American consultancy firm operating in Sweden. The analysis illustrates how interviewers, by various discursive moves, initiate, support, control and follow up candidates’ decision to join the company, as if it was an independent choice to join. Findings suggest that to the extent that subjectification takes place during the recruitment process it is dependent on the candidate’s use and acceptance of organizational discourses as expressions of their own motives for working at the company. These findings have implications for the understanding of the relationship between organizational discourses and indiv...

The dynamics of employee relationships in an ethnically diverse workforce

Abstract: This article explores and analyses the dynamics of workplace relationships in an organization characterized by a highly ethnically diverse workforce. The specific objectives are: 1) to understand the factors that are contributing to high levels of ethnic diversity; 2) to uncover the ways in which such diversity is manifested in an organizational setting; and 3) to explore the ramifications that this diversity and its manifestations may have for individuals and groups of employees on the one hand and for relations between management and groups of employees on the other. The article concludes by discussing the implications that such ethnic diversity may have for extant research and conceptualization of ethnic minorities in the workplace.

Managing incidents of work-family conflict: A decision-making perspective

Abstract: The present study proposed a decision process that people follow in incidents of work-family conflict and offered an initial test of factors that may influence their decisions. It distinguished between decisions regarding the mobilization of social support to avoid conflict and decisions regarding participation in a work and/or family activity if the conflict was not avoided. According to analyses of critical incidents provided by managers and professionals employed in full-time jobs, decisions were influenced by internal cues reflecting the individual’s priorities in the conflict situation, role sender cues reflecting the priorities of involved parties in the individual’s work and family roles, and role activity cues reflecting characteristics of the specific activities in conflict. Moreover, our findings suggest that the utilization of these cues often represents an attempt to preserve positive relationships with important role senders in the work and family domains.

Streams of inconsistent institutional influences: Middle managers as carriers of multiple identities

Abstract: Conceiving institutional effects as occurring within the boundaries of predefined institutional environments, spaces or fields leaves little leeway for understanding transnational phenomena of interaction, competition and overlapping jurisdiction of ideas, norms and regulations of multiple origin. I propose here the metaphor of intersecting institutional streams, which influence social actors due to their different origin, strength and fluidity. Thanks to a new understanding of the interaction between roles, institutionalized identities and the self, I refer to individuals not as cultural and institutional dopes, but as able, in varying degrees, to participate in multiple cultural traditions and to maintain distinctive and inconsistent action frames. I collected quantitative information on 418 Italian middle managers, working for local and international firms in Italy, and qualitative information on 113 of them. The majority in international firms enacted Anglo-Saxon identities, and more so in US and Brit...

The role of multinational corporations in transnational institution building: A policy network perspective

Abstract: In this article, we provide a critique and re-specification of international business and institutional literature related to the interactions of multinational corporations (MNCs) and institutions. Drawing from research in economic sociology and political economy, we offer a novel perspective on MNCs’ influence on transnational institution building. We argue that MNCs seek to influence institutional development by creating or participating in policy networks within transnational social and economic systems. We describe different types of policy networks, the relative position that MNCs occupy within them, and the power MNCs yield by virtue of their position and influence within those networks. We provide examples to illustrate how MNCs exploit these network relationships to influence emergent institutions and to advance convergence in institutional policies. The policy network perspective is an effective and useful mode of analysis to understand the range of interactions among MNCs and the institutional f...

The ethnonarrative approach

Abstract: While much research within narrative theory has focused on discourse in organizations, context should be a central focus because it is material in the production of meaning. In this article, I suggest an ethnonarrative approach that seeks to combine ethnographic methods and narrative methods in conducting hermeneutic analyses of narratives and stories, shifting not only between texts and contexts, but texts within a context of construction. Narrative research relies on analysis of various texts and often ignores context, while ethnographic methods are especially attuned to making observations and interpretations regarding the context in which texts are produced. The ethnonarrative approach highlights the multiple materials at play in narrative construction and attempts to demonstrate contextual influence on meaning making. The ethnonarrative approach is distinguished by a focus on the context of construction, the endosymbiotic relationship between text/context, and the social act as the level of analysis.

Owners or traders? Conceptualizations of institutional investors and their relationship with corporate managers

Abstract: We draw on a series of in-depth interviews with senior managers from institutional investors and large listed corporations to explore how different conceptualizations of institutional investors, their role in the corporate governance process, and their interactions with corporate management, are reflected in the accounts of the actors concerned. We find that the conceptualizations in terms of ownership and agency that dominate both academic and popular discourses are marginal to the actors’ accounts. Rather, both fund managers and company managers conceptualize institutional investors primarily as financial traders who happen, as a result of their trading, to control key resources, but whose interests are effectively divorced from those of long-term share owners. Our analysis suggests that far from being mitigated by the large share blocks of institutional investors, as some commentators have suggested, the separation of ownership from control has been compounded in the UK by a separation of accountability from responsibility, with the interests of the institutions holding managers accountable being quite different from those of the owner-beneficiaries to whom they feel responsible. This raises significant challenges for corporate governance policy as well as new issues for research into the governance process.

Choice is yours: A psychodynamic exploration of health policymaking and its consequences for the English National Health Service

Abstract: Patient choice is at the forefront of the debate about the future of healthcare provision in many industrialized countries. It is argued that understanding the complexities and the multiple consequences involved in implementing individual patient choice in public health systems calls for an analytic framework extending beyond economic determinism and positivist social science paradigms. This study applies psychoanalytic concepts to illuminate policy dynamics and limitations, using the example of patient choice in the English NHS. It separates declared from unexpressed policy goals theorizing on the role of imaginary institutions and their defensive and less obvious functions in society, and reflects on the implications of policies that are formulated at a distance from operational reality on healthcare organizations. By focusing on the deeper primitive anxieties that are evoked and enacted in patient–doctor interactions, this article examines opportunities and limitations involved in developing individual...

Factors in team effectiveness: Cognitive and demographic similarities of software development team members

Abstract: The benefits of teams and teamwork are popular and propounded in management discourse. The use of this lexicon is based on beliefs in the resultant mutual gains for both organizations and individuals. Yet, are all teams, irrespective of the characteristics of membership composition, the same in terms of such beneficial outcomes? This study investigates the importance of team member characteristics, particularly cognitive and demographic, on team effectiveness and which characteristics matter more in team activities, especially where labour turnover is high, such as in software development. The Shared Mental Model is outlined and used as the representative construct for cognitive similarities; while age, tenure and gender are the demographic aspects used. From the relevant literature we develop a hypothesis and subject it to a range of tests based on empirical fieldwork using software development teams in South Korea. Our analysis shows that team effectiveness is more influenced by cognitive than demograph...

Compassion at the counter: Service providers and bereaved consumers

Abstract: Although the emotional labour required of service providers has received considerable research attention, few studies have examined service workers’ experiences of emotionally charged service encounters. In this article we review literature on emotion management and compassion in the workplace. We then describe a qualitative study which examined the service encounter occurring when bereaved Irish consumers contacted their local newspaper to place In Memoriam notices on the anniversary of a close family member’s death. We suggest that these newspaper employees engaged in philanthropic emotion management when dealing with bereaved customers, and we locate this within the broader context of compassion as interpersonal work and as organizational accomplishment. We also suggest that compassion in organizations is not amenable to managerial systematization and control.

Transnational institution building and the multinational corporation: An emerging field of research

Abstract: Since the 1980s, the international business and management field has produced a large amount of analysis and research on the multinational corporation (MNC) as an organization. Particularly influential has been the work of Prahalad, Doz and Bartlett (see particularly Doz et al., 1981; Bartlett, 1986; Prahalad & Doz, 1987) who, drawing on contingency theory, developed the integration-responsiveness framework to depict the different environmental forces exerting conflicting demands on MNCs. This literature is concerned, for example, with how organizations respond to task-related demands by centralizing or decentralizing activities. However, the analysis of environmental forces is restricted to the task or technical environment and the effects it has on the structuring of organizations. In contrast to this by and large more strategy-oriented literature, MNCs have not received sustained attention from other organization theorists (see for exceptions, Rosenzweig & Singh, 1991; Morgan et al., 2001, 2005; Westney & Zaheer, 2001; Ghoshal & Westney, 2005). This is surprising; after all, it would seem that MNCs offer great potential for developing and testing organization theories (Evans, 1981) and research on the organizational aspects of MNCs could be enriched by the insights of organization theorists (Ghoshal & Westney, 2005). These arguments apply especially to the different strands of institutional theory which emphasize the relationships between organizations and their institutional environments, namely new institutionalism (Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Powell & DiMaggio, 1991; Scott,

A model of political leadership

Abstract: In this article we develop a model of political leadership. In doing so, we analyse the challenges facing political leaders in local government in England and Wales. We use this analysis as a basis for broader theorizing: about leadership at other levels of government, and in other countries. The scope for applying extant accounts of leadership in these domains can be enhanced by considering the relational complexities that characterize the environment within which political leaders act; by doing so we offer an agenda for research. We describe the context for political leaders in terms of figurational sociology, where figurations denote interdependent networks of social relations. These take shape in different arenas of action, and are partly influenced by the different roles that political leaders undertake. These figurations are also constituted differently given the diversity inherent in the context for enacting political leadership. We propose a conceptual model that serves both as a heuristic framewo...

Leader framing and follower sensemaking Response to downsizing in the brave new workplace

Abstract: Alternative workplaces are increasingly prevalent, combining flexible work practices, open landscape settings and a variety of acceptable working locations, especially for technology-enabled workers. In this article we examine the sensemaking response of technology-enabled, nomadic workers to the firm’s downsizing event at Telenor, Norway’s premier telecom company, in late 2002. We find two opposite interpretations of the firm’s employee database efforts and project-based structure emerge after the downsizing event. Our findings suggest the lack of geosocial boundaries in the organization influences sensemaking. Nomadic workers adopt frames that drive their interpretations and actions idiosyncratically. We suggest further research is needed to understand the influence of alternative work-places on patterns of behavior and human processes.