Apologies for any cross-posting.
The September issue of Human Relations is available online: Human Relations September 2017; 70(9).
You might also like to take a look at recent issues: August 2017 70(8); July 2017 70(7); June 2017 70(6)
We hope you enjoy reading these Human Relations articles – please feel free to forward details onto your colleagues and students.
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FREE ACCESS FEATURED ARTICLE FOR SEPTEMBER
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Free to access until 30 September 2017:
Do women advance equity?
The effect of gender leadership composition on LGBT-friendly policies in American firms
Alison Cook and Christy Glass
Human Relations, 69(7): 1431–1456. First published date: February-03-2016, DOI: 10.1177/0018726715611734
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726715611734
Abstract
We advance the literature on the demographic factors that shape organizational outcomes by analyzing the impact of the gender composition of firm leadership on the likelihood that a firm will adopt lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)-friendly policies. Drawing on social role and token theory, we test the relative impact of CEO gender and the gender composition of the board of directors separately and together in order to identify the effects of gender diversity at the top of the organization. We rely on a unique data set that includes corporate policies (gender identity and sexual orientation non-discrimination policies, domestic-partner benefits, and overall corporate equality index scores) as well as the gender of the CEO and board of directors among Fortune 500 firms over a 10-year period. Our findings suggest that firms with gender-diverse boards are more likely than other firms to offer LGBT-friendly policies, whereas findings for firms with women CEOs offer mixed results.
Keywords: gender, LGBT, organizational demography, sexual orientation, workplace policies
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FREE ACCESS VODCAST
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo5jqYXe08c
In this video, Dr Jonathan Pinto discusses his article:
'Wow! That's so cool!' The Icehotel as organizational trope
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726715618764
Abstract
This article introduces the Icehotel, the world's first and largest hotel to be constructed entirely of ice and snow, as a unique and generative organizational trope. As a trope (and metaphor, in particular), it both supplements and complements Morgan's seminal book, The Images of Organization, and generates unique insights with regard to surprise, unifinality, purity, eco-coreness and rebirth. The Icehotel also serves as a lens for examining organizations through each master trope, that is, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche and irony. Evidence of metonymy in language describing the Icehotel is presented. The case for synecdoche is made by arguing that the Icehotel is a species of two genera, that is, temporary organizations and paradoxical organizations. Also, the Icehotel is not only paradoxical (i.e. a form of irony), but also generates four other paradoxes, namely, the ways that organizations are evolutionary yet revolutionary, negative as well as positive, different yet similar and unsustainably sustainable. The Icehotel also exemplifies serious play – a particular approach for managing paradoxes. Finally, the article discusses implications for research and practice.
Keywords: irony, metaphor, metonymy, paradox, serious play, synecdoche
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SEPTEMBER ISSUE ARTICLES
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Body art as branded labour: At the intersection of employee selection and relationship marketing
Andrew R Timming
Human Relations, 70(9): 1041‒1063. First published date: January-06-2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726716681654
Abstract
Using mixed methods, this article examines the role of body art as a form of branded labour in customer-facing jobs. It brings together employee selection and relationship marketing into one framework, and uniquely conceptualizes body art as an asset in the labour market, rather than the traditional liability. In Study 1, 192 respondents with management experience participated in an online laboratory experiment in which they were asked to rate photographs of tattooed and non-tattooed job applicants in two hypothetical organizations: a fine dining restaurant and a popular nightclub. In Study 2, 20 in-depth, qualitative interviews were carried out with managers, tattooed front-line employees and potential consumers in two real-world service sector firms. The results show how body art can be strategically used to positively convey the brand of organizations, primarily those targeting a younger, 'edgier' demographic of customer.
Keywords: aesthetic labour, body art, branded labour, recruitment and selection, relationship marketing
Casual employment and long-term wage outcomes
Irma Mooi-Reci and Mark Wooden
Human Relations, 70(9): 1064‒1090. First published date: February-01-2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726716686666
Abstract
Temporary and other forms of non-standard employment are an important feature of modern labour markets. Yet, relatively little is known about how much and under what circumstances such employment arrangements impact on long-term wage outcomes. Using longitudinal data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey spanning the period 2001 to 2014, we examine how employment status earlier in a working career is associated with subsequent wage dynamics. Particular attention is paid to how wage trajectories vary with gender and age. Estimates from a series of panel data models of real hourly wages reveal that among men there is an average long-run penalty from casual employment of about 10%, suggestive of scarring effects. Nevertheless, for men in most age groups this wage penalty does eventually begin to shrink. Among prime-age men, however, there is no evidence of catch-up; indeed, for this group the wage gap widens over time. Among women the estimated average long-run wage penalty associated with casual employment is both much smaller and less robust. We argue that expectations and norms about 'ideal careers' may be an important explanatory factor underlying the larger casual employment wage penalty for men.
Keywords: casual employment, contingent workers, gender differences, HILDA Survey, longitudinal data, pay/rewards
Work–family interface in the context of career success: A qualitative inquiry
Mina Beigi, Jia Wang and Michael B Arthur
Human Relations, 70(9):1091‒1114. First published date: February-01-2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717691339
Abstract
Work–family researchers are increasingly recognizing the need to expand their focus to advance the field. One population largely neglected by work–family researchers is individuals who have been extremely successful in their careers. In addition, organizational career scholars have largely neglected the interplay between employees' work and family lives. This study contributes to the work–family literature by studying work–family interface (WFI) in the context of career success. We sought to explore the lived experiences of 28 distinguished professors who are among the top 2–5% of scholars in their field, to provide an in-depth understanding of their WFI and the prominent factors affecting it over their careers. Our findings have theoretical implications for both work–family and career success literatures.
Keywords: academic careers, career success, distinguished professor, work–family, work–family interface, WFI
Different ways new information technologies influence conventional organizational practices and employment relationships: The case of cybervetting for personnel selection
Brenda L Berkelaar
Human Relations, 70(9): 1115‒1140. First published date: January-31-2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726716686400
Abstract
Cybervetting – employers' use of online information from social media and search engines to evaluate job candidates – may displace, supplement or shape conventional personnel selection and employment relationships in unexpected ways. Analysis of 45 interviews suggests that typically extractive approaches to cybervetting have the potential to displace less recognized, yet valuable, relational functions of more interactive practices depending on the functions and values users apply to the adoption and use of particular information and communication technologies. These findings highlight the need to consider how people implicitly and explicitly compare the functions of emerging technology-enabled practices with conventional organizational practices and salient values to understand when an emerging practice may displace, supplement or have no effect on a conventional practice. This study offers a preliminary framework for understanding how emerging sociotechnical practices evolve and with what effect, thereby providing insight into information and communication technology adoption and use beyond personnel selection contexts. It also suggests the emergence of a type of parasocial employment relationship should employers conflate interacting with applicants' information with interacting with applicants themselves.
Keywords: cybervetting, employment interview, employment relationships, information and communication technologies, information technology, online screening, organizational processes, parasocial relationships, personnel selection, social media, technology adoption and use
The body, identity and gender in managerial athleticism
Janet Johansson, Janne Tienari and Anu Valtonen
Human Relations, 70(9): 1141‒1167. First published date: January-17-2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726716685161
Abstract
We argue that the healthy, fit and athletic body plays an essential role in the way contemporary managerial identities are construed. Drawing on insights from Judith Butler, we study these bodily identities as a form of regulation in organizations. We identify the cultural basis of regulation, show how it operates through specific norms, and detail how it implies gender. Based on an empirical study of men and women in management who are passionate about their healthy and fit bodies and athletic lifestyles, we demonstrate how norms set by managerial athleticism – understood as a particular regulative regime – operate through three discursive practices: perfecting the body, advocating against non-fit bodies, and becoming a role model. We show how the norms operate in both explicit and abject fashion and how they are implied in masculine language and materialized in physical (athletic) bodies. We offer new insights on how bodily identity regulation occurs and elucidate the gendered complexity and contradictions inscribed in managerial athleticism.
Keywords: body, fitness, gender, health, identity, management, managerial athleticism, regulation, sports
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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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Analytics and expert collaboration:
How individuals navigate relationships when working with organizational data
Joshua B Barbour, Jeffrey W Treem and Brad Kolar
Human Relations 10.1177/0018726717711237. First published August-18-2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717711237
Abstract
Analytics is heralded as an important, new and increasingly widespread organizational function, and one that promises new approaches for generating value from organizational knowledge. What is not yet clear is how analytics may affect how organizations work with data, or how organizations can realize the benefits of analytics. Analytics, envisioned as not just a technical skill but a reconceptualization of data's place in the organization, may improve, challenge or undermine existing processes and procedures. Building upon scholarship on expert collaboration and multidisciplinary knowledge work, this study reports a mixed-methods investigation of the implementation of analytics at a Fortune 500 financial services company. The findings make multiple contributions, including (a) confirming the importance of relationships among organizational experts in analytics work; (b) exploring specific communicative strategies employed by practitioners in those relationships; (c) demonstrating that the functioning of those relationships may differ depending on the type of analytics work (i.e. the degree to which it involves requesting, collaborating or commissioning); and (d) indicating that analytics practitioners need autonomy, as well as technical acumen, to question entrenched ideas about organizational data and problems. The findings contribute to practice by identifying problems that may be common in implementing analytics and strategies employed to address them.
Keywords: analytics, data, expert collaboration, expert relationships, knowledge work
Global supply chains, institutional constraints and firm level adaptations:
A comparative study of Chinese service outsourcing firms
Jingqi Zhu and Glenn Morgan
Human Relations 10.1177/0018726717713830. First published August-18-2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717713830
Abstract
The focus on inter-firm governance relations within global supply chains analysis has left social relations at workplaces as a 'black box' and relatively underdiscussed. Through an in-depth, comparative study of two Chinese IT service providers for Japanese clients, this article explores how the work and employment relations in the supplier firm are shaped by the institutional contexts of both the supplier firm and the lead firm as well as by the nature of the global supply chain in which they are located. The article shows how the intersection of global supply chains and local institutional environments creates potential gaps between what is required by the lead firms and what is feasible within the supplier firms. Therefore, managers in the supplier firm have to negotiate ways of managing these expectations in the light of their own institutional constraints and possibilities. We identify three forms of adaptation made by the suppliers that we describe as wholesale adaptation, ceremonial adaptation and minimal adaptation to lead firms' expectations. We argue that these interactions and forms of adaptation can be extended and explored more generally in global supply chains and provide the basis for a fruitful integration of institutional approaches with global supply chain analysis.
Keywords: comparative case study, global supply chain, institutional analysis, service outsourcing, strategic choice, workplace relations
Women's employment patterns after childbirth and the perceived access to and use of flexitime and teleworking
Heejung Chung and Mariska van der Horst
Human Relations 10.1177/0018726717713828. First published August-17-2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717713828
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.
Keywords: flexible working, mothers' employment, panel survey, women's careers, working hours
Coding military command as a promiscuous practice?
Unsettling the gender binaries of leadership metaphors
Karen Lee Ashcraft and Sara Louise Muhr
Human Relations 10.1177/0018726717709080. First published August-08-2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717709080
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 oppositions, and this article treats the scholarly practice of coding leadership through gendered metaphor as a consequential practice of leadership unto itself. Drawing on queer theory, the article develops a mode of analysis, called 'promiscuous coding', conducive to disrupting the gender divisions that currently anchor most leadership metaphors. Promiscuous coding can assist leadership scholars by translating the vague promise of queering leadership into a tangible method distinguished by specific habits. The article formulates this analytical practice out of empirical provocations encountered by the authors: namely, a striking mismatch between their experiences in military fields and the dominant metaphor of leading as military command. Ultimately, the article seeks to move scholarly practices of leadership toward queer performativity, in the hopes of loosening other leadership practices from a binary grip and pointing toward new relational possibilities.
Keywords: gender, leadership, metaphor, military command, queer, sexuality
When the past comes back to haunt you:
The enduring influence of upbringing on the work–family decisions of professional parents
Ioana Lupu, Crawford Spence and Laura Empson
Human Relations 10.1177/0018726717708247. First published July 14, 2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717708247
Abstract
Prior research generally presents work–family decisions as an individual's rational choice between alternatives, downplaying the crucial role that upbringing plays in shaping work and parenting decisions. This article emphasizes how habitus – historically constituted and embodied dispositions – structures perceptions about what is 'right' and 'normal' for working mothers and fathers. This relational approach explores how the entrenched dispositions of individuals interact dynamically with contextual imperatives to influence professionals' work–family decisions. Drawing on 148 interviews with 78 male and female professionals, our study looks at much deeper rooted causes of work–family conflict in professional service firms than have hitherto been considered. We show how dispositions embodied during one's upbringing can largely transcend time and space. These dispositions hold a powerful sway over individuals and may continue to structure action even when professionals exhibit a desire to act differently. In turn, this implies that the impediments to greater equality lie not only in organizational and societal structures, but within individuals themselves in the form of dispositions and categories of perception that contribute towards the maintenance and reproduction of those structures. Additionally, in a more limited number of cases, we show how dispositions adapt as a result of either reflexive distancing or an encounter with objective circumstances, leading to discontinuity in the habitus.
Keywords: habitus, professional parents, professional service firms, socialization, upbringing, work–family decisions, working parents
Occupational limbo, transitional liminality and permanent liminality: New conceptual distinctions
Matthew Bamber, Jacquelyn Allen-Collinson, John McCormack
Human Relations 10.1177/0018726717706535. First published 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 10.1177/0018726717703449. First published June-05-2017
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 10.1177/0018726717704706. First published June-05-2017
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 10.1177/0018726717702209. First published May-17-2017
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 10.1177/0018726717696135. First published May-15-2017
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 10.1177/0018726717701552. First published May-15-2017
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 10.1177/0018726717694371. First published May-12-2017
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 10.1177/0018726717700697. First published May-12-2017
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 10.1177/0018726717699053. First published May-11-2017
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 10.1177/0018726717693073. First published May-09-2017
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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