Business Commons^™

A Field Study: Managers’ Work Behavioral Styles, Thomas G. Henkel

Tom G. Henkel

Over the years, personality assessment tests have allowed employers and managers to discover the personal types regarding strengths and weaknesses of their employees and themselves. This includes how they process and organize information, make decisions, and interact with team members and other stakeholders (PMBOK, 2017). The present research study explored the applicable work behavioral styles of experienced managers attending an advanced leadership educational program. Seven hundred and fifty-three experienced managers agreed to reveal their results, and descriptive statistics were conducted to determine their behavioral work styles. The results may provide a better understanding of managers’ behavioral work styles, which characterize …

A Profile Of Project Manager Work Engagement: A Field Survey, Thomas G. Henkel, James W. Marion Jr, Debra T. Bourdeau

Tom G. Henkel

Engaged employees are those who are involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to their work and who are most likely to drive innovation, generate new ideas, have a sense of connection with their work activities, and are involved with the demands of their job (Gallup, 2013). Nowhere is the concept of employee engagement more important than with managing an organization’s projects. Ensuring a project manager is emotionally engaged with his or her work is crucial for project success to meet greater challenges in today's 21st-century global marketplace. In this research study, project managers were asked to respond to an employee …

A Profile Of Project Manager Work Engagement: A Field Survey, Thomas G. Henkel, James W. Marion Jr

Tom G. Henkel

Engaged employees are those who are involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to their work. Engaged employees also are those who are most likely to drive innovation, generate new ideas, have a sense of connection with their work activities, and are involved with the demands of their job (Gallup, 2013). Nowhere is the concept of employee engagement more important than with managing an organization’s projects. Ensuring a project manager is emotionally engaged with his or her work is crucial for project success to meet greater challenges in today's 21st century global marketplace. In this research study, project managers were asked …

Needs-Based Training And Online Resource For Managers Of Rural Festivals, Fairs, And Events, Eric D. Olson, Lakshman Rajagopal

Eric D. Olson

Festivals, fairs, and events (FFEs) provide rural communities with economic and noneconomic benefits. For the project described in this article, we conducted a needs assessment of Iowa FFE managers by surveying them about the challenges they face in event management and then used the results of the assessment as the basis for training sessions provided to rural FFE managers in five areas of the state and development of an associated event management resource. The resource can be used by Extension and outreach offices to provide local FFE managers guidance on managing FFEs. We discuss broader implications for Extension as well.

Glossary Of Terms: European Platform Tackling Undeclared Work, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

Explaining And Tackling Under-Declared Employment In Fyr Macedonia: The Employers Perspective, Colin C. Williams, Slavko Bezeredi

Colin C Williams

Tackling Under-Declared Employment In The European Union: Input Paper To Thematic Discussion Of European Platform Tackling Undeclared Work, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

Evaluating Policy Approaches Towards Undeclared Work: Some Lessons From Fyr Of Macedonia, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

Evaluating Competing Perspectives Towards Undeclared Work: Some Lessons From Bulgaria, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

Workplace Dignity In A Total Institution: Examining The Experiences Of Foxconn’S Migrant Workforce, Kristen Lucas, Dongjing Kang, Zhou Li

Kristen Lucas

In 2010, a cluster of suicides at the electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn Technology Group sparked worldwide outcry about working conditions at its factories in China. Within a few short months, 14 young migrant workers jumped to their deaths from buildings on the Foxconn campus, an all-encompassing compound where they had worked, eaten, and slept. Even though the language of workplace dignity was invoked in official responses from Foxconn and its business partner Apple, neither of these parties directly examined workers’ dignity in their ensuing audits. Based on our analysis of media accounts of life at Foxconn, we argue that its …

Blue-Collar Discourses Of Workplace Dignity: Using Outgroup Comparisons To Construct Positive Identities, Kristen Lucas

Kristen Lucas

People generally possess a strong desire to construct positive, dignified work identities. However, this goal may be more challenging for some people, such as blue-collar workers, whose occupations may not offer qualities typically associated with workplace dignity. Interviews with 37 people from a blue-collar mining community reveal three central identity discourses about workplace dignity: All jobs are important and valuable; dignity is located in the quality of the job performed; and dignity emerges from the way people treat and are treated by others. Participants communicated these themes by backgrounding their own occupations and drawing comparisons between two outgroups, low-status, low-paid …

Political Alignments In Organizations: Contextualization, Mobilization, And Coordination, Samuel B. Bacharach, Edward J. Lawler

Edward J Lawler

This chapter develops a framework for conceptualizing and analyzing enduring political alignments in organizations. We address the following key questions: (a) What processes promote political alignments, in particular ones that are likely to be recognized and identifiable by members of an organization? and (b) What are the major forms of political alignment? Repeated coalitions among the same actors are the central mechanism that generates enduring, identifiable political alignments. The power relations within and between coalitions determine the nature of the political alignments. Overall, political alignments are construed as microinstitutions that generate coordinated efforts to influence organizational strategy, policies, and practices.

Relational Cohesion Model Of Organizational Commitment, Jeongkoo Yoon, Edward J. Lawler

Edward J Lawler

[Excerpt] This chapter reviews the research program of relational cohesion theory (RCT) (Lawler & Yoon, 1993, 1996, 1998; Lawler et al., 2000; Thye et al., 2002) and uses it to develop a model of organizational commitment. Broadly, relational cohesion theory (RCT) has attempted to understand conditions and processes that promote an expressive relation in social exchange; an expressive relation is indicated by relational cohesion, that is, the degree to which exchange partners perceive their relationship as a unifying object having its own value. The research program argues that such relational cohesion is a proximal cause of various forms of behavioral …

Bringing Emotions Into Social Exchange Theory, Edward J. Lawler, Shane R. Thye

Edward J Lawler

We analyze and review how research on emotion and emotional phenomena can elaborate and improve contemporary social exchange theory. After identifying six approaches from the psychology and sociology of emotion, we illustrate how these ideas bear on the context, process, and outcome of exchange in networks and groups. The paper reviews the current state of the field, develops testable hypotheses for empirical study, and provides specific suggestions for developing links between theories of emotion and theories of exchange.

The Theory Of Relational Cohesion: Review Of A Research Program, Shane R. Thye, Jeongkoo Yoon, Edward J. Lawler

Edward J Lawler

In this paper we analyze and review the theory of relational cohesion and attendant program of research. Since the early 1990s, the theory has evolved to answer a number of basic questions regarding cohesion and commitment in social exchange relations. Drawing from the sociology of emotion and modem theories of social identity, the theory asserts that joint activity in the form of frequent exchange unleashes positive emotions and perceptions of relational cohesion. In turn, relational cohesion is predicted to be the primary cause of commitment behavior in a range of situations. Here we outline the theory of relational cohesion, tracing …

Organizational Performance In Services, Rosemary Batt, Virginia Doellgast

Virginia Doellgast

The question of performance in service activities and occupations is important for several reasons. First, over two-thirds of employment in advanced economies is in service activities. Second, productivity growth in services is historically low, lagging far behind manufacturing, and as a result, wages in production-level service jobs remain low. In addition, labor costs in service activities are often over 50% of total costs, whereas in manufacturing they have fallen to less than 25% of costs. This raises the question of whether management practices that have improved performance in manufacturing, such as investment in the skills and training of the workforce, …

Metatheory And Friendly Competition In Theory Growth: The Case Of Power Processes In Bargaining, Edward J. Lawler, Rebecca Ford

Edward J Lawler

[Excerpt] This paper analyzes the theoretical development taking place in a program of research on power processes in bargaining (see Bacharach and Lawler 1976, 1980, 1981a, 1981b; Lawler and Bacharach 1976, 1979, 1987; Lawler, Ford, and Blegen 1988; Lawler and Yoon 1990; Lawler 1986, 1992). The theoretical program takes as its starting point a situation where individuals, groups, organizations, or even societies with conflicting interests voluntarily enter into explicit bargaining. Explicit (as opposed to tacit) bargaining assumes the mutual acknowledgment of negotiations, conflicting issues along which compromise is possible, and open lines of communication through which parties can exchange offers …

Power Dependence And Power Paradoxes In Bargaining, Samuel B. Bacharach, Edward J. Lawler

Edward J Lawler

[Excerpt] What this article (and our larger program of work) is designed to demonstrate is that these very simple ideas represent a particularly suitable starting point for understanding the power struggle between parties who regularly engage in negotiation. Specifically, in this article we show that the approach contains certain paradoxes regarding the acquisition and use of power in an ongoing bargaining relationship. The dependence framework treats the ongoing relationship as a power struggle in which each party tries to maneuver itself into a favorable power position.

Introduction To A Special Issue On Inequality In The Workplace (“What Works?), Pamela S. Tolbert, Emilio J. Castilla

Pamela S Tolbert

[Excerpt] While overt expressions of racial and gender bias in U.S. workplaces have declined markedly since the passage of the original Civil Rights Act and the creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission a half century ago (Eagly and Chaiken 1993; Schuman, Steeh, Bobo, and Krysan 1997; Dobbin 2009), a steady stream of research indicates that powerful, if more covert forms of bias persist in contemporary workplaces (Greenwald and Banaji 1995; Pager, Western, and Bonikowski 2009; England 2010; Heilman 2012). In line with this research, high rates of individual and class-based lawsuits alleging racial and gender discrimination suggest that many …

Tackling The Urban Informal Economy: Some Lessons From A Study Of Europe’S Urban Population, Colin C. Williams, Ioana Horodnic

Colin C Williams

Tackling The Participation Of Europe’S Rural Population In The Shadow Economy, Colin C. Williams, Ioana Horodnic

Colin C Williams

Workplace Incivility And Bullying In The Library: Perception Or Reality?, Shin Freedman, Dawn L. Vreven

Shin Freedman

Introduction: Bringing Jobs Back In: Toward A New Multi-Level Approach To The Study Of Work And Organizations, M. Diane Burton, Lisa E. Cohen, Michael Lounsbury

M. Diane Burton

In this paper, we call for renewed attention to the structure and structuring of work within and between organizations. We argue that a multi-level approach, with jobs as a core analytic construct, is a way to draw connections among economic sociology, organizational sociology, the sociology of work and occupations, labor studies and stratification and address the important problems of both increasing inequality and declining economic productivity.

Domesticating The Diaspora: Memory And The Life Of Sister Katie, Caroline Waldron Merithew

Caroline Merithew

Three shrines in Illinois honor heroes of the working class: one for the legendary Mother Jones; one for the Virden martyrs, who died for coal mining unionism, and whose memory is kept alive by labor organizers around the world; and one for Catherine (Katie) Bianco DeRorre. Katie's monument, unlike the others, draws few visitors today. But when it was dedicated in 1961, men and women — on the floor of the U.S. Congress, in the neighborhood where Katie grew up, at American universities, in union halls, on the streets of New York City, and in Milan — took notice and …

The Impact Of Family Economic Structure On Dual-Earners’ Career And Family Satisfaction, Ronit Waismel-Manor, Asaf Levanon, Pamela S. Tolbert

Pamela S Tolbert

The present study builds on the explanatory power of the “doing gender” perspective to understand the effects of family economic structure on the family and career satisfaction of husbands and wives. Using data from a two-panel, couple-level survey of full-time employed middle-class families in the Northeastern United States, we find that when wives’ earnings increase relative to their husbands’, their career satisfaction significantly increases whereas their husbands’ is significantly depressed. In contrast, family economic structure has little effect on women’ and men’s level of family satisfaction, although we find a significant reduction in family satisfaction among couples who have recently …

Empathy Gaps Between Helpers And Help-Seekers: Implications For Cooperation, Vanessa K. Bohns, Francis J. Flynn

Vanessa K. Bohns

Help-seekers and potential helpers often experience an “empathy gap” – an inability to understand each other’s unique perspectives. Both parties are concerned about their reputation, self-esteem, and relationships, but these concerns differ in ways that lead to misinterpretation of the other party’s actions, and, in turn, missed opportunities for cooperation. In this article, we review research that describes the role-specific concerns of helpers and help-seekers. We then review studies of emotional perspective-taking, which can help explain why help-seekers and helpers often experience empathy gaps. We go on to discuss recent work that illustrates the consequences of empathy gaps between helpers …

Guilt By Design: Structuring Organizations To Elicit Guilt As An Affective Reaction To Failure, Vanessa K. Bohns, Francis K. Flynn

Vanessa K. Bohns

In this article, we outline a model of how organizations can effectively shape employees’ affective reactions to failure. We do not suggest that organizations eliminate the experience of negative affect following performance failures—instead, we propose that they encourage a more constructive form of negative affect (guilt) instead of a destructive one (shame). We argue that guilt responses prompt employees to take corrective action in response to mistakes, while shame responses are likely to elicit more detrimental effects of negative affect. Further, we suggest that organizations can play a role in influencing employees’ discrete emotional reactions to the benefit of both …

Underestimating Our Influence Over Others At Work, Vanessa K. Bohns, Francis J. Flynn

Vanessa K. Bohns

Employees at all organizational levels have influence over their subordinates, their colleagues, and even their bosses. But are they aware of this influence? We present evidence suggesting that employees are constrained by cognitive biases that lead them to underestimate their influence over others in the workplace. As a result of this underestimation of influence, employees may be reluctant to spearhead organizational change, discount their own role in subordinates’ performance failures, and fail to speak up in the face of wrongdoing. In addition to reviewing evidence for this bias, we propose five moderators that, when present, may reverse or attenuate the …

Unpacking Unintended Consequences In Planned Organizationalchanges: A Process Model, Guowei Jian

Guowei Jian

The author develops a process model of the unintended consequences in planned organizational change that draws on the structuration, organizational change, and organizational tension literatures. The model depicts the communicative actions of both senior management and employees and reveals the dynamic through which unintended consequences unfold. The model extends theoretical understandings of planned organizational change and discusses how future research can build a dialectic and dialogic model of planned change focused on employee participation. The author illustrates the model with a case study of organizational change and its unintended consequences. The article concludes with insights on change management for practitioners …

Where Do I Stand? The Interaction Of Leader–Member Exchange And Performance Ratings, Hassan Baker, Guowei Jian, Gail Fairhurst

Guowei Jian

The congruence model of leader–member exchange (LMX) quality predicts that agreement between leader and members regarding relationship quality is associated with follower performance. However, questions remain over how cultural relational norms influence congruence. This study, based on a government-linked international joint venture in Malaysia, investigates cultural relational norms in relation to leader–member agreement on relational quality and leader evaluation of member performance. Our findings revealed that LMX quality agreement was related to in-role and extra-role performance among dyadic relationships conforming to Malaysian cultural norms. This study contributes to understanding how cultural relational norms provide conditions to the congruence model of …