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Showing papers in "Human Relations in 2018"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Evidence is found that mothers using flexitime and with access to teleworking are less likely to reduce their working hours after childbirth, which contributes to the understanding of flexible working not only as a tool for work–life balance, but also as atool to enhance and maintain individuals’ work capacities in periods of increased family demands.
Abstract: This article sets out to investigate how flexitime and teleworking can help women maintain their careers after childbirth. Despite the increased number of women in the labour market in the UK, many significantly reduce their working hours or leave the labour market altogether after childbirth. Based on border and boundary management theories, we expect flexitime and teleworking can help mothers stay employed and maintain their working hours. We explore the UK case, where the right to request flexible working has been expanded quickly as a way to address work-life balance issues. The dataset used is Understanding Society (2009-2014), a large household panel survey with data on flexible work. We find some suggestive evidence that flexible working can help women stay in employment after the birth of their first child. More evidence is found that mothers using flexitime and with access to teleworking are less likely to reduce their working hours after childbirth. This contributes to our understanding of flexible working not only as a tool for work-life balance, but also as a tool to enhance and maintain individuals' work capacities in periods of increased family demands. This has major implications for supporting mothers' careers and enhancing gender equality in the labour market.

144 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyzed the representational thresholds that facilitate women's leadership in the area of corporate social responsibility and evaluated the ability of women to impact firm outcomes based on their numerical representation on the board of directors.
Abstract: Do women board directors change how companies do business? Firms face growing pressure to appoint more women to their boards of directors, yet little is known about the factors that enable female directors to impact their organizations. This study analyzes the representational thresholds that facilitate women’s leadership in the area of corporate social responsibility. We test the predictions of token theory and critical mass theory to evaluate the ability of women to impact firm outcomes based on their numerical representation on the board of directors. Our analysis focuses on board composition and organizational outcomes in the Fortune 500 from 2001 to 2010. Our findings challenge the theoretical assumptions that solo and token women are unable to exert significant influence over their organizations, and underscore the importance of board diversity for today’s firms.

114 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a framework for conceptualizing flexible careers is presented, focusing on the conditions, including the institutional arrangements and the organizational policies and practicability of flexible careers, that are necessary and sufficient for a flexible career.
Abstract: This introductory article sets out a framework for conceptualizing flexible careers. We focus on the conditions, including the institutional arrangements and the organizational policies and practic...

99 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that corporate social responsibility is a strategy that enables multinational corporations to profit from social responsibility, and they provide a critical analysis of the politics of Corporate Social Responsibility.
Abstract: In this article, I provide a critical analysis of the politics of corporate social responsibility. I argue that corporate social responsibility is a strategy that enables multinational corporations...

98 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Hadar Elraz1
TL;DR: In this article, the identity is constructed for individuals with mental health conditions in the workplace, with a particular regard to how MHCs are discursively situated, constructed and...
Abstract: This article asks how identity is constructed for individuals with mental health conditions (MHCs) in the workplace. It takes especial regard to how MHCs are discursively situated, constructed and ...

89 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors studied how age, career self-management and organizational career management factors interactively influence career satisfaction, integrating conservation of resources (COR) and socioemotional selectivity (SES) theories.
Abstract: The contemporary career literature or ‘new career’ theory emphasizes the importance of individual agentic career management processes in which individuals manage their careers to achieve career satisfaction by flexibly adjusting to the dynamic environment. There is limited research, however, on how individuals strategize their careers as they age, by utilizing or balancing organizational career management factors, including developmental human resource (HR) practices and organizational support. This study, therefore, documents how age, career self-management and organizational career management factors interactively influence career satisfaction, integrating conservation of resources (COR) and socioemotional selectivity (SES) theories. Using time-lagged data collected from 364 Japanese employees, the results supported the predicted three-way interaction effects. For young employees, the positive relationship between career self-management and satisfaction was stronger when developmental HR practices and o...

78 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the contemporary conditions of neoliberal governmentality and the emerging "gig economy", standard employment relationships appear to be giving way to precarious work as discussed by the authors, and this article examines the...
Abstract: In the contemporary conditions of neoliberal governmentality, and the emerging ‘gig economy,’ standard employment relationships appear to be giving way to precarious work. This article examines the...

72 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The informal nature of creative work is routinely acknowledged in the studies of creative labour as mentioned in this paper, however, informality of creative works has been so far treated dualistically: firstly, as the inform...
Abstract: The informal nature of creative work is routinely acknowledged in the studies of creative labour. However, informality of creative work has been so far treated dualistically: firstly, as the inform...

58 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The role that sourcing agents, autonomous peripheral actors located in developing economies, play in the governance of working conditions in global supply chains has been greatly underexplored in this paper.
Abstract: The role that sourcing agents, autonomous peripheral actors located in developing economies, play in the governance of working conditions in global supply chains has been greatly underexplored in t...

52 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the role of servant leadership, a leadership style emphasizing serving others, in promoting frontline employees' service performance was demonstrated, however, it is unclear how to measure the effectiveness of this style.
Abstract: Previous research has demonstrated the role of servant leadership, a leadership style emphasizing serving others, in promoting frontline employees’ service performance. It is unclear, however, how ...

50 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors use a social exchange framework to find out whether individuals with callings perform better than those without, why or why not, and propose an inte...
Abstract: Do individuals with callings perform better than those without? Why or why not? There are not clear answers to these questions in the literature. Using a social exchange framework, we posit an inte...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The role of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in the governance of global supply chains is typically neglected or simply dismissed as ineffective as discussed by the authors, which is understandable as global supply...
Abstract: The role of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in the governance of global supply chains is typically neglected or simply dismissed as ineffective. This is understandable as global supply ...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate the relationship between shared and hierarchical leadership in meeting interactions in a Danish municipality attempting to implement shared leadership, and highlight discursive devices such as bookending, including the creation of authoritative texts, which render the shared-and hierarchical leadership configuration an ambiguous space that requires interrogating the nature of leadership attributions.
Abstract: How does organizing proceed when leadership is both shared and hierarchical? Who sets the context, how and when do people share influence, and who produces authoritative texts for going forward? Using the lens of authoring claims and grants (Taylor and Van Every, 2014), we display the complex relationship between shared and hierarchical leadership in meeting interactions in a Danish municipality attempting to implement shared leadership. Our findings suggest that issues of time and timing are fundamental to understanding their interrelationship. We highlight discursive devices such as ‘bookending,’ including the creation of authoritative texts, which render the shared and hierarchical leadership configuration an ambiguous space that requires interrogating the nature of leadership attributions. Finally, we demonstrate the relevance of leadership as a concept for both hierarchical and shared decision-making situations.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors investigate how affective, normative and continuance commitment mindsets combine within the three-component model, and propose a person-centered profile approach to investigate how the affective and normative commitment mindets combine.
Abstract: Researchers have recently begun to take a person-centered (profile) approach to investigate how the affective, normative and continuance commitment mindsets combine within the three-component model...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors introduce democracy democratically to people who are not sure they want it, through a three-year experiment in seeking to implement a democratically elected government in the US.
Abstract: ‘How do we introduce democracy democratically to people who are not sure they want it?’ This question was posed to us at the outset of what became a three-year experiment in seeking to implement mo...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the mediating roles of perceived demands abilities (D-A) fit and personorganization (P-O) fit in the relationships between passion and job engagement were investigated.
Abstract: While anecdotal industry evidence indicates that passionate workers are engaged workers, research has yet to understand how and when job passion and engagement are related. To answer the how question, we draw from person-environment fit theory to test, and find support for, the mediating roles of perceived demands–abilities (D–A) fit and person–organization (P–O) fit in the relationships between passion and job engagement, and between passion and organizational engagement, respectively. Also, because the obsessive form of passion is contingency-driven, we answer the when question by adopting a target-similarity approach to test the contingent role of multi-foci trust in the obsessive passion-to-engagement relationships. We found that when obsessively passionate workers trust their organization, they report greater levels of organizational engagement (because of increased P–O fit). In contrast, when these workers trust both their co-workers and supervisor simultaneously, they report greater levels of job e...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the challenge faced by an increasing number of professionals, who must quickly get to grips with new assignments while displaying their expertise and credibility simultaneously, in order to learn and build credibility simultaneously.
Abstract: How does one learn and build credibility simultaneously? Such is the challenge faced by an increasing number of professionals, who must quickly get to grips with new assignments while displaying su...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the process of achieving a part-time i-deal, drawing on interviews with 39 full-time professionals in two organizations, each located in the UK and the Netherlands.
Abstract: For professionals working in demanding environments, the negotiation of part-time or workload reduction idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) may be challenging, with negative consequences for career progression. Yet there are few studies of part-time i-deals specifically, or empirical studies of their development process. This article examines the process of achieving a part-time i-deal, drawing on interviews with 39 part-time professionals in two organizations, each located in the UK and the Netherlands. The article makes two contributions to i-deal theory: first, it defines the four elements of a new category of ‘reduced time and workload’ i-deal for professionals (perceived suitability of the work, schedule, workload, and career impact); and second, it refines Rousseau’s model of the development process, by adding an initial ‘private consideration’ of options stage, where the feasibility of working part-time is evaluated against alternatives including remaining full-time, or leaving the organization. Third, i...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate how dominant academic discourses either constitute or deny potential paradoxes of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and show that potential CSR paradoxes are primarily talked into nonexistence.
Abstract: Organizations can be understood as sites of persistent tensions between equally legitimate claims. In other words, organizations may be paradoxical. However, paradoxes do not pre-exist as a matter of fact. This article investigates how dominant academic discourses either constitute or deny potential paradoxes of Corporate Social Responsibility. It follows the theoretical perspective of CCO – Communication Constitutes Organizations and, more specifically, a ventriloqual approach. Academics are like ventriloquists, they breath life into dummies who establish theoretical figures that may or may not support paradoxical thinking in organizational research. The qualitative meta-analysis shows that potential Corporate Social Responsibility paradoxes are primarily talked into nonexistence. Managerial ventriloquists reject Corporate Social Responsibility tensions in the interests of organizational consistency and harmony. Critical ventriloquists accept tensions, but assume their causes lie in gaps between rhetoric...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used the NUI Galway Millennium Fund to support the work of the authors of this paper, which was supported by funding from Harvard University, JE Safra Centre for Ethics and NUI Ireland.
Abstract: This research was supported by funding from Harvard University, JE Safra Centre for Ethics and NUI Galway Millennium Fund.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the question of whether and how supervisor-subordinate congruence in moral identity affects the emergence of supervisor ethical leadership behavior and find that the less aligned a supervisor's moral identity was with a subordinate's, the more negative sentiments the supervisor held toward the subordinate, which, in turn, influenced the supervisor's ethical leadership behaviour.
Abstract: Ethical leadership exerts a powerful influence on employees, and most studies share a basic premise that leaders display the same level of ethical leadership to all subordinates. However, we challenge this assumption and suggest that subordinates’ characteristics and supervisors’ characteristics may jointly influence supervisor ethical leadership behavior. Drawing upon research on person–supervisor fit and moral identity, we explore the questions of whether and how supervisor–subordinate (in)congruence in moral identity affects the emergence of supervisor ethical leadership behavior. Using multi-level and multi-source data, the results of cross-level polynomial regressions revealed that the less aligned a supervisor’s moral identity was with a subordinate’s, the more negative sentiments the supervisor held toward the subordinate, which, in turn, influenced the supervisor’s ethical leadership behavior. We also argue that not all types of congruence are alike. Our results confirmed that supervisor negative ...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that full-time stand-up comedians engage in "pecuniary" forms of emotion management in an occupational field where social networks and professional relationships play a prominent role.
Abstract: Freelance creative work is a labour of love where opportunities for self-expression are combined with exploitative working conditions. This article explores this dynamic by showing how a group of freelance creative labourers navigate employment while coping with the pressures associated with economic precarity. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, we argue that full-time stand-up comedians engage in ‘pecuniary’ forms of emotion management in an occupational field where social networks and professional relationships play a prominent role. First, comedians project an image of positivity to demonstrate a willingness to work for little or no pay in order to curry favour with comedy club promoters. Second, comedians suppress feelings of anxiety and frustration that arise from financial insecurity in order to keep their relationships with promoters on an even keel – even when the rate of pay and promptness of remuneration fall below acceptable standards. Our study thus has implications for other creative sectors in which precarity is the norm, since it suggests that emotional labour is a resource not only for engaging with customers and clients but also for engaging with multiple employers, negotiating pay and dealing with conditions of insecurity in freelance settings – often with unintended, paradoxical, results.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the role of brokers and boundary workers in mediating social relations across global supply chains is discussed and four approaches that lie on a spectrum from structural perspectives focused on brokers who link otherwise unconnected actors to more constructivist ones focused on boundary workers performing translation work between domains.
Abstract: Global supply chains are not just instruments for the exchange of economic goods and flow of capital across borders. They also connect people in unprecedented ways across social and cultural boundaries and have created new, interrelated webs of social relationships that are socially embedded. However, most of the existing theories of work are mainly based at the level of the corporation, not on the network of relations that interlink them, and how this may impact on work and employment relations. We argue that this web of relations should not just be seen in economic, but also social terms, and that the former are embedded and enabled by the latter. This article argues for the value of focusing on the role of brokers and boundary workers in mediating social relations across global supply chains. It develops four approaches that lie on a spectrum from structural perspectives focused on brokers who link otherwise unconnected actors to more constructivist ones focused on boundary workers performing translation work between domains.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors found that underemployment is most common in female-dominated occupations, the public sector, and small organisations, and that women are more likely to perform in these jobs than men.
Abstract: This paper argues that gender segregation influences patterns of underemployment and the relationships that underemployment has with the subjective well-being of men and women. Previous studies have paid little attention to how gender segregation shapes underemployment, an increasingly prominent feature of the UK and European labour markets since the economic crisis of 2008. Using data from the UK Annual Population Surveys, this paper examines time-related underemployment: people working part-time because they cannot find a full-time job. The paper asks whether there are gender differences in underemployment trends and in the links between underemployment and subjective well-being. The results suggest that the probability of underemployment is growing at a faster rate among women rather than men and that underemployment is most common in the jobs that women are more likely to perform, namely in female-dominated occupations, the public sector, and small organisations. Underemployment is least common in male-dominated occupations and industries and in the private sector. Moreover, for employees with longer tenures, underemployment has more negative relationships with the subjective well-being of women than with that of men. These findings imply that gender segregation in labour markets is a crucial factor to consider when researching underemployment and its consequences.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors found that vets often struggle with the divergence between the precise and unambiguous knowledge underlying the training and the unpredictability and imprecision of their everyday practices, and that they often turn these unrealistic ideals of expertise back in on themselves, thus generating doubt and insecurity.
Abstract: Is vetting a craft that must be learned owing to the limitations of scientific discipline, or simply a question of practice makes perfect? This question arose from our empirical research on veterinary surgeons (vets), who we found were often struggling with the divergence between the precise and unambiguous knowledge underlying the training and the unpredictability and imprecision of their everyday practices. These are comparatively underexplored issues insofar as the literature on vets tends to be descriptive and statistical, focusing primarily on clinical matters and associated human-animal interactions. Our cliche title has a question mark because while many vets remain embedded in the disciplined ‘certainties’ and causal regularities within their training, in practice this ordered world is rarely realized, and they are faced with indeterminacy where the ‘perfect’ solution eludes them. Vets often turn these unrealistic ideals of expertise back in on themselves, thus generating doubt and insecurity for ...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the formation of work identities in times of financial crisis and extreme austerity is explored, and the authors build upon prior studies of liminality, a state of in-betweenness and ambiguity, and explore how individuals, whose employment opportunities and career paths have been disrupted, construct their work/professional identities.
Abstract: This article explores the formation of work identities in times of financial crisis and extreme austerity. In particular, we build upon prior studies of liminality, a state of in-betweenness and ambiguity, and explore how individuals, whose employment opportunities and career paths have been disrupted, construct their work/professional identities. The study draws on 39 semi-structured interviews conducted in Greece, where high levels of unemployment and economic stagnation prevail. Persistent crisis and austerity have prompted extended periods of instability and unpredictability during which the unemployed narratively (re)construct their past, present and future work selves. We propose that frequent job changes and persistent lack of work are not linear experiences but, instead, require multiple and, at times, ambiguous, fluid and incomplete identifications. These identifications include attempts to re-affirm prior stable professional identities, to institute new, yet still unidentified, careers or to ena...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors see cosmopolitan identity formation as an individual endeavour of developing a stance of openness, and transcending discourses of national and other cultural identities, and see it as a personal endeavor.
Abstract: Current literature tends to see cosmopolitan identity formation as an individual endeavour of developing a stance of openness, and transcending discourses of national and other cultural identities....

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the role of a network of corporate, state, multilateral and civil society actors who serve as intermediaries in GPN governance, and reveal the gendered dimensions of GPN restructuring.
Abstract: This article locates the reorganization of work relations in the apparel sector in Pakistan, after the end of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) quota regime, within the context of a global production network (GPN). We examine the role of a network of corporate, state, multilateral and civil society actors who serve as intermediaries in GPN governance. These intermediaries transmit and translate competitive pressures and invoke varied, sometimes contradictory, imaginaries in their efforts to realign and stabilize the GPN. We analyse the post-MFA restructuring of Pakistan’s apparel sector, which dramatically increased price competition and precipitated a contested adjustment process among Pakistani and global actors with divergent priorities and resources. These intermediaries converged on a ‘solution’ that combined and enacted imaginaries of modernization, competitiveness, professional management and female empowerment, while also emphasizing low costs and female docility. We highlight the intersection of economic, political and cultural dynamics of GPNs, and reveal the gendered dimensions of GPN restructuring. We theorize the role of these actors as a transnational managerial elite in GPN governance, who led a restructuring process that preserved the hegemonic stability of the GPN and protected the interests of western branded apparel companies and consumers, but did not necessarily serve the interests of workers.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Despite abundant scholarship addressed to gender equity in leadership, much leadership literature remains invested in gender binaries as mentioned in this paper, and many of these metrics of leadership are especially dependent on gender opp....
Abstract: Despite abundant scholarship addressed to gender equity in leadership, much leadership literature remains invested in gender binaries. Metaphors of leadership are especially dependent on gender opp...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In today's competitive landscape, employees increasingly negotiate idiosyncratic deals (i-deals), referring to personalized work arrangements that address recipients' unique work needs and preferen... as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In today’s competitive landscape, employees increasingly negotiate idiosyncratic deals (i-deals), referring to personalized work arrangements that address recipients’ unique work needs and preferen...