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A new issue of Human Relations is available online: Human Relations August 2017; 70(8).
You might also like to take a look at recent issues: July 2017 70(7); June 2017 70(6); May 2017 70(5).
We hope you enjoy reading these articles.
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AUGUST ISSUE ARTICLES
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A metatheoretical framework of diversity in teams
Margarita Mayo, Maria Kakarika, Charalampos Mainemelis, Nicolas Till Deuschel
Human Relations, 70(8): 911‒939, First published date: December-21-2016, DOI 10.1177/0018726716679246
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726716679246
Abstract
In the last 22 years, research on diversity in teams has been propelled by information processing and social categorization theories, and more recently, by theories of disparity/(in)justice and access to external networks. These theories stress different diversity processes, treating team diversity respectively as variety of information, as separation, as disparity, and as variety of access. We appraise this literature by identifying major problems in the way these four foundational theories are used either alone or in combination, arguing that the related theoretical models are inherently incomplete and static. In an attempt to resolve these problems, we introduce a metatheoretical framework that relates these four foundational theories according to the metadimensions of group boundary and diversity mindset. We also propose a metatheoretical model that identifies interactions among the four diversity processes and specifies diversity response patterns to team success or failure over time. Our metatheoretical approach resolves significant omissions in the literature and penetrates into the dynamic nature of team diversity in more complex, temporally sensitive and synthetic ways.
Keywords: diversity, external networks teams, information processing, justice, social categorization
Identity regulation, identity work and phronesis
Thibaut Bardon, Andrew D Brown and Stéphan Pezé
Human Relations, 70(8): 940‒965; First published date: January-06-2017, DOI 10.1177/0018726716680724
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726716680724
Abstract
How do corporations attempt to regulate the ways middle managers draw on discourses centred on 'effectiveness' and 'ethics' in their identity work, and how do these individuals respond? We analyse the discursive struggle over what it meant to be a competent manager at Disneyland, where middle managers were encouraged to construe their selves in ways that emphasized 'being effective' over 'being ethical', and managers responded with identity work that positioned them as searching for the practical wisdom (phronesis) to make decisions that were both effective and moral. The theoretical contribution we make is twofold. First, we analyse processes of identity regulation and identity work at Disneyland, highlighting divergences between corporate injunctions and middle managers' appropriations of them, regarding what it meant to be a practically wise manager. Second, we discuss a phronetic identity narrative template, contestable both by organizations and managers, in which people are positioned as questing for the practical wisdom to make decisions that are both moral and effective, and phronesis as an image by which scholars may analyse identities and identity work. This leads us to a more nuanced understanding of middle manager identities and the scope they have to constitute their selves as moral agents.
Keywords: Disneyland, effectiveness, ethics, middle managers, phronesis
Using kaizen to improve employee well-being: Results from two organizational intervention studies
Ulrica von Thiele Schwarz, Karina M Nielsen, Terese Stenfors-Hayes and Henna Hasson
Human Relations, 70(8): 966‒993 First published date: December-01-2016 DOI 10.1177/0018726716677071
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726716677071
Abstract
Participatory intervention approaches that are embedded in existing organizational structures may improve the efficiency and effectiveness of organizational interventions, but concrete tools are lacking. In the present article, we use a realist evaluation approach to explore the role of kaizen, a lean tool for participatory continuous improvement, in improving employee well-being in two cluster-randomized, controlled participatory intervention studies. Case 1 is from the Danish Postal Service, where kaizen boards were used to implement action plans. The results of multi-group structural equation modeling showed that kaizen served as a mechanism that increased the level of awareness of and capacity to manage psychosocial issues, which, in turn, predicted increased job satisfaction and mental health. Case 2 is from a regional hospital in Sweden that integrated occupational health processes with a pre-existing kaizen system. Multi-group structural equation modeling revealed that, in the intervention group, kaizen work predicted better integration of organizational and employee objectives after 12 months, which, in turn, predicted increased job satisfaction and decreased discomfort at 24 months. The findings suggest that participatory and structured problem-solving approaches that are familiar and visual to employees can facilitate organizational interventions.
Keywords: distributed cognitions, lean, mental health, participatory interventions, psychosocial risk management, work environment
Evaluation of an organizational health intervention for low-skilled workers and immigrants
Christine Busch, Tobias Koch, Julia Clasen, Eva Winkler and Julia Vowinkel
Human Relations, 70(8): 994‒1016 First published date: January-25-2017 10.1177/0018726716682308
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726716682308
Abstract
We conducted this realist evaluation study of an organizational health intervention involving 421 low-skilled workers (50% female), half of whom were immigrants, in three companies over six months. Non-profit agencies implemented peer-mentoring and taught peer-mentors and line managers how to enhance social support in order to improve workers' work situation in a participative way. We formulated five mechanisms of change: the company management encouragement mechanism, the role model mechanism, the peer-mentor support mechanism, the line manager support mechanism, and the participative work improvement mechanism. We combined realist evaluation with a quasi-experimental design and process evaluation in a multi-methods approach. Results of multiple group latent change models and qualitative research showed that intervention-group workers perceived increases in peer-mentor support but not in line manager support. Peer-mentors managed to initiate high-quality improvements at work. Intervention-group workers showed significant reductions in blood pressure. Control-group workers experienced more psychosomatic complaints over time in significant contrast to intervention-group workers. Our results suggest that peer-mentoring offers an effective way for low-skilled workers and immigrants to achieve better health. To improve such health effects, a greater focus on line managers' work situations is needed to help them provide support.
Keywords: job stress intervention, line manager training, low-skilled workers, multi-methods approach, occupational health intervention, organizational health intervention, peer-mentoring, realist evaluation, social support
Does employees' subjective well-being affect workplace performance?
Alex Bryson, John Forth, Lucy Stokes
Human Relations, 70(8): 911‒939 First published date: December-21-2016 DOI: 10.1177/0018726716679246
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726716679246
Abstract
This article uses linked employer–employee data to investigate the relationship between employees' subjective well-being and workplace performance in Britain. The analyses show a clear, positive and statistically significant relationship between the average level of job satisfaction at the workplace and workplace performance. The relationship is present in both cross-sectional and panel analyses and is robust to various estimation methods and model specifications. In contrast, we find no association between levels of job-related affect and workplace performance. Ours is the first study of its kind for Britain to use nationally representative data and it provides novel findings regarding the importance of worker job satisfaction in explaining workplace performance. The findings suggest that there is a prima facie case for employers to maintain and raise levels of job satisfaction among their employees. They also indicate that initiatives to raise aggregate job satisfaction should feature in policy discussions around how to improve levels of productivity and growth.
Keywords: job satisfaction, job/employee attitudes, job-related affect, subjective well-being, workplace performance
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FREE ACCESS FEATURED ARTICLE FOR JULY
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Free access until 31 July 2017:
When the 'unorganizable' organize: The collective mobilization of migrant domestic workers in London
Zhe Jiang and Marek Korczynski
Human Relations 69(3): 813‒838 First published date: January-14-2016 10.1177/0018726715600229
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726715600229
Abstract
The collective mobilization of migrant workers is an important issue for analysis. Three key barriers to the mobilization of migrant workers have been identified – employment conditions, which tend to prevent migrant workers coming together; the framings held by migrant workers, which marginalize an understanding of their position as that of exploited workers; and the issue of the sustainability of any mobilization. The article examines migrant domestic workers as a case in which collective mobilization appears highly unlikely. The article uses the social movement approach as a meta-theoretical framing to explore the collective mobilization of migrant domestic workers in London. As such, it analyses how the 'unorganizable' organize. We show that mobilization changed the framing of migrant domestic workers from 'labourers of love' to workers with rights. It was able to do this because it addressed the three barriers to mobilization: by creating a space for the development of communities of coping among migrant workers; by using politicized learning; and by using participative democracy and collective leadership development, tied to links with formal organizations. The article argues for the importance of social scientists examining the creative processes by which migrant workers move towards collective mobilization, and for the utility of a social movement approach in this process.
Keywords: collective mobilization, communities of coping, domestic work, migrant workers, social movement, unorganizable
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HUMAN RELATIONS WORKSHOP
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Can, and should, social science contribute to better quality jobs?
A 70-year retrospect and prospect
Tuesday 10 Oct 2017 at The British Academy, London SW1Y 5AH
Organizer: Prof. Paul K Edwards, former Editor-in-Chief, Human Relations
This year Human Relations celebrates its 70th Anniversary! As part of our celebrations, Human Relations will be running a workshop that will interest scholars of work and employment, policy makers in employers' organizations and trade unions, public officials, and researchers in research institutes with an interest in work and the labour market. It is intended to be an engaged conversation among experts. Numbers will be restricted.
There will four short (15 minute) presentations by experts in the field, taking specific examples to address some of the above questions, six short presentations from other participants on different aspects of work then space for questions and discussion, all leading up to a concluding round table of experts. [Read more]
To book your place at this event, please contact Claire Castle no later than 5 September 2017.
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RECENT ONLINE FIRST PREVIEW ARTICLES
Access all OnlineFirst articles here: http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/recent
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Occupational limbo, transitional liminality and permanent liminality: New conceptual distinctions
Matthew Bamber, Jacquelyn Allen-Collinson, John McCormack
Human Relations, DOI: 10.1177/0018726717706535. First published date: June-12-2017.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717706535
Abstract
This article contributes new theoretical perspectives and empirical findings to the conceptualization of occupational liminality. Here, we posit 'occupational limbo' as a state distinct from both transitional and permanent liminality; an important analytic distinction in better understanding occupational experiences. In its anthropological sense, liminality refers to a state of being betwixt and between; it is temporary and transitional. Permanent liminality refers to a state of being neither-this-nor-that, or both-this-and-that. We extend this framework in proposing a conceptualization of occupational limbo as always-this-and-never-that, where this is less desirable than that. Based on interviews with 51 teaching-only staff at 20 research-intensive 'Russell Group' universities in the United Kingdom, the findings highlight some challenging occupational experiences. Interviewees reported feeling 'locked-in' to an uncomfortable state by a set of structural and social barriers often perceived as insurmountable. Teaching-only staff were found to engage in negative and often self-depreciatory identity talk that highlighted a felt inability to cross the līmen to the elevated status of 'proper academics'. The research findings and the new conceptual framework provide analytic insights with wider application to other occupational spheres, and can thus enhance the understanding not just of teaching-only staff and academics, but also of other workers and managers.
Keywords: academic careers, limbo, organizational theory, liminality, work environment
The sound of silence: Measuring suffering at work
Florence Allard-Poesi and Sandrine Hollet-Haudebert
Human Relations, first published: June-05-2017, DOI: 10.1177/0018726717703449
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717703449
Abstract
What realities do questionnaires and surveys, designed to measure stress and suffering at work, bring to light? What realities do they conceal? In this research, we consider self-assessment scales and questionnaires as techniques of visibility that contribute to the construction of knowledge on the 'suffering subject' at work. We conducted a qualitative analysis of the questionnaire and survey report conducted by the consulting firm Technologia for France Telecom Orange, after a spate of suicides in 2008–2009.
The results show that: (1) the questionnaire used to measure suffering at work views the subject as someone reflective yet rather passive, and their suffering as resulting from an unbalanced relationship with the work environment, (2) the report further restricts this understanding of suffering to the administrative position of the individual, (3) as a consequence, the political, strategic, ideological dimensions and the economic power struggles affecting work are silenced.
Relying on Foucault's approach to knowledge (savoir), we interpret this narrow concept of the subject and their surroundings as resulting from an assemblage between scientific discourses and visibility techniques; a compromise that conceals debates on the strategic orientation of the firm.
Keywords: Foucault, questionnaire, scales, stress, suffering at work, visibility
When organizational politics matters:
The effects of the perceived frequency and distance of experienced politics
John M Maslyn, Steven M Farmer and Kenneth L Bettenhausen
Human Relations, first published: June-05-2017, DOI: 10.1177/0018726717704706
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717704706
Abstract
Drawing from literature linking organizational politics with effects of challenge or hindrance stressors, this study investigated the effects of the frequency and psychological distance of positive and negative conceptualizations of perceived politics on the impact to the individual. It was hypothesized that the frequency of political behavior would exhibit an inverted-U-function relationship with favorable evaluations of political behavior and that this relationship would be moderated by distance. Two independent samples were used to test the hypotheses. Results for negative conceptualizations of perceived politics indicated a curvilinear frequency–evaluation relationship such that moderate levels of negative or dysfunctional politics are evaluated more favorably than either high or low levels. The distance of the political behavior was further found to moderate this relationship, with distant politics having little effect on the frequency–evaluation relationship, but politics with nearby impact yielding more negative evaluations as frequency increased. For positive conceptualizations of perceived politics, results revealed that respondents evaluated this form of politics more favorably the more it occurred. Further, positive political behavior was reported to be less desirable when its impact was believed to be at a distance rather than being felt by respondents personally. Implications are discussed.
Keywords: curvilinear, job/employee attitudes, organizational politics, organizational psychology, perceptions of politics, positive organizational politics
When the farm-gate becomes a revolving door:
An institutional approach to high labour turnover
Lotte Staelens and Céline Louche
Human Relations first published May-17-2017, DOI 10.1177/0018726717702209
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717702209
Abstract
By adopting an institutional theory lens, the aim of the article is to better understand the actions and mindset of managers toward high labour turnover in the cut-flower industry in Ethiopia. Our mixed-method approach explores the ways in which managers deal with, and legitimize, high levels of labour turnover. Our results show that they engage in three types of practices – predicting, containing and accommodating – whose objective is to make labour turnover tolerable, rather than reduce it. Interestingly, managers do not legitimize their practices through the use of cost-benefit arguments, as the literature would have suggested, but blame the institutional context. This article highlights the context-dependent aspects of labour turnover and explains how managers may find themselves in a deadlock situation. It informs the debate in human resource management research about managerial practices at the bottom of global value chains.
Keywords: cut-flower industry, Ethiopia, global value chains, high labour turnover, institutional theory, intensive labour industries, legitimization
Antagonism, accommodation and agonism in Critical Management Studies:
Alternative organizations as allies
Simon Parker and Martin Parker
Human Relations, first published May-15-2017, DOI 10.1177/0018726717696135
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717696135
Abstract
Critical Management Studies has long been engaged in discussions about the purpose of critique and the possibilities of engagement. A recent expression calls for Critical Management Studies to moderate its 'negative' critique of management and instead use words like care, engagement and affirmation in order to enable 'progressive' engagement with managers. This 'performative turn' has been poorly received by some who see it as a dilution of radical intent. We argue for a middle ground between the antagonistic versions of Critical Management Studies that appear to want to oppose management, and 'performative' scholars who appear to accommodate with managerialism. We do this by planting the debate firmly within an empirical setting and a crisis that the first author experienced as a 'critical scholar' when conducting an ethnography at a sustainable financial services firm. In order to do this, we explore Chantal Mouffe's concept of agonism to establish a particular mode of political engagement that acknowledges a space between being 'for' and being 'against'. We conclude by suggesting that the exploration of alternative forms of organization and management, themselves already involved in struggle against a hegemonic present, should be the proper task of a discipline that wishes to engage with the present and remain 'critical'.
Keywords: agonism, alternative finance, alternative organization, Chantal Mouffe, Critical Management Studies, critical performativity, sustainability
Hearing music in service interactions: A theoretical and empirical analysis
Jonathan Payne, Marek Korczynski and Rob Cluley
Human Relation, first published May-15-2017, DOI 10.1177/0018726717701552
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717701552
Abstract
There is an extensive literature concerned with the impact of music on customers. However, no study has examined its effects on service workers and their interactions with customers. Drawing together literatures on service work and music in everyday life, the article develops a theoretical framework for exploring the role of music in service exchanges. Two central factors are identified – first, how workers hear, and respond to, the music soundscape, and, second, their relations with customers, given these have the potential to be both alienating and positive to the point of meaningful social interaction. From these, a 2×2 matrix is constructed, comprising four potential scenarios. The authors argue for the likely importance of music's role as a bridge for sociality between worker and customer. The article considers this theorizing by drawing upon interviews with 60 retail and café workers in UK chains and independents, and free text comments collected through a survey of workers in a large service retailer. The findings show broad support for music acting as a bridge for sociality. Service workers appropriate music for their own purposes and many use this to provide texture and substance to social interactions with customers.
Keywords: alienation, customer, music, service interaction, service work
How do we understand worker silence despite poor conditions – as the actress said to the woman bishop
Deborah Dean and Anne-marie Greene
Human Relations. first published May-12-2017, DOI 10.1177/0018726717694371
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717694371
Abstract
This article considers the customary choice of silence over voice of two groups of UK workers – women clergy and women actors – who routinely tolerate poor quality conditions rather than express dissatisfaction. We argue that a key mediating factor is an expanded version of Hirschman's (1970) concept of loyalty. The article considers how occupational ideologies facilitate loyalty as adaptation to disadvantage in ways that discourage voice, in framing silence as positive. Consequently, we also identify this type of loyalty as potentially salient in understanding silence in other occupations. A descriptive model comparing strength of occupational ideology and voicing of dissatisfaction is outlined, and through discussion of findings the article offers conceptual refinements of loyalty in accounting for worker silence.
Keywords: calling, loyalty, occupational ideologies, voice, women workers - actors, clergy
Towards an integrated framework of professional partnership performance:
The role of formal governance and strategic planning
Michel W Lander, Pursey PMAR Heugens and J (Hans) van Oosterhout
Human Relations, first published May-12-2017, DOI 10.1177/0018726717700697
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717700697
Abstract
Conventional wisdom identifies human capital and organizational reputation as the critical resources explaining professional partnership (PP) performance. PPs have increasingly adopted organizational practices like strategic planning and formal governance, however, which have long been alien in highly professionalized contexts. In order to test the influence of both these classic resources and the newly adopted practices on PP performance, as well as the mediating mechanisms- that is, client attraction and retention as well as organizational efficiency-through which this influence is channeled, we develop an integrated theoretical framework of PP performance. We test the resulting hypotheses using survey and objective data collected on 196 Dutch law firms. Our findings provide new insights into the drivers of PP performance and the complex interrelationships between PP resources and newly adopted practices.
Keywords: client attraction and retention, human capital, managed professional business, professional partnership, reputational capital
How 'flexible' are careers in the anticipated life course of young people?
Paula K McDonald
Human Relations, first published May-11-2017 DOI 10.1177/0018726717699053
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717699053
Abstract
Bridging literature that addresses the work–family interface and the changing nature of careers, this article examines, from a life course perspective, the extent to which, and why, young people anticipate careers as 'flexible'. Drawing on 123 interviews with men and women engaged in different post-secondary education pathways in Australia, the study draws attention to the role of gender and to some extent class in shaping careers in a network of social relations. Three dimensions of flexible careers are examined: temporal, that is, through imagined possibilities in various stages of early adulthood; structural, including opportunities and constraints afforded by different industry sectors and workplaces; and relational, in terms of household-level role negotiations. The findings revealed that women continue to adapt their career goals to accommodate care, but that both men's and women's careers are shaped by contingencies including household income, home ownership, access to flexible work and ideological expectations of market/family work roles. These contextual dynamics directly impact on decisions in the present. The article underscores the need for an expanded research focus on work and care from a life course perspective in order to promote career flexibility in ways that align with young people's broader aspirations for gender equality.
Keywords: career pathways, flexible careers, gender equality, life course, work–family, youth employment
Does employees' subjective well-being affect workplace performance?
Alex Bryson, John Forth and Lucy Stokes
Human Relations, first published May-09-2017, DOI 10.1177/0018726717693073
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717693073
Abstract
This article uses linked employer–employee data to investigate the relationship between employees' subjective well-being and workplace performance in Britain. The analyses show a clear, positive and statistically significant relationship between the average level of job satisfaction at the workplace and workplace performance. The relationship is present in both cross-sectional and panel analyses and is robust to various estimation methods and model specifications. In contrast, we find no association between levels of job-related affect and workplace performance. Ours is the first study of its kind for Britain to use nationally representative data and it provides novel findings regarding the importance of worker job satisfaction in explaining workplace performance. The findings suggest that there is a prima facie case for employers to maintain and raise levels of job satisfaction among their employees. They also indicate that initiatives to raise aggregate job satisfaction should feature in policy discussions around how to improve levels of productivity and growth.
Keywords: job satisfaction, job/employee attitudes, job-related affect, subjective well-being, workplace performance
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VIRTUAL SPECIAL ISSUES
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- Knowledge and knowing in the study of organization: From commodity to communication
- Women, men, and work: Gender identity and gender differences in the workplace
- Diversity research: Theorizing the new frontier in sexual orientation diversity
- Change management
- Critical performativity
Editor's Choice Collections:
- Paper of the Year Award winners
- Classic papers from Human Relations
- Papers that have influenced Paul Edwards, former EIC
Reflections on the history of HR from Paul Edwards, former EIC:
- Human Relations: The first 10 years, 1947–1956
- Human Relations: 1957–1966
- Human Relations: 1967–1986
- Human Relations: 1987–1996 and beyond
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WHY PUBLISH IN HUMAN RELATIONS?
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Human Relations is included in the FT50 list of journals (effective from January 2017) used by the Financial Times in compiling the FT Research rank, included in the Global MBA, EMBA and Online MBA rankings. It is an A* journal – the highest category of quality – in the Australian Business Deans Council (ABCD) Journal Quality List 2013. It is also ranked 4 in the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) Academic Journal Guide 2015 and
Human Relations is a top 5 interdisciplinary social sciences journal (Source: 2016 Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters, 2017):
2-year impact factor: 2.622 Ranked: 4/96 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary and 58/193 in Management
5-year impact factor: 4.027 Ranked: 2/93 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary and 50/186 in Management
Read the journal's mission statement.
Best wishes,
Claire Castle
Managing Editor, Human Relations
Tavistock Institute of Human Relations
Email: c.castle@tavinstitute.org
Website: www.humanrelationsjournal.org
Twitter: @HR_TIHR
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