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Apologies for any cross-posting.

A new issue of Human Relations is available online:  Human Relations November 2017; 70(11).

You might also like to take a look at recent issues: October 2017; 70(10); September 2017 70(9), August 2017 70(8)

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NOVEMBER ISSUE ARTICLES

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When too many are not enough: Human resource slack and performance at the Dutch East India Company (1700–1795)

Stoyan V Sgourev and Wim van Lent

Human Relations 70(11): 1293–1315. First published February-01-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717691340

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717691340

Abstract

Slack is an elusive concept in organizational research, with studies documenting a variety of relationships between slack and firm performance. We advocate treating slack not as a resource, but as a practice – a sequence of events and responses over time. A longitudinal analysis of the Dutch East India Company (1700–1795) highlights the use of slack as a response to a resource constraint (the shortage of skilled labor). After documenting the negative performance effects of skill shortage, we identify a trade-off in the use of human resource slack (number of sailors above what is operationally required), in which slack enhanced operational reliability, but reduced efficiency. Derived from a historical context, this trade-off has contemporary relevance and is helpful in reconciling contradictory evidence on slack.

Keywords: contingent workers, human resources, management history, organizational slack, personnel selection

You might like to read the following blog post about this article:

Lessons from history: What the Dutch East India Company can teach us about modern-day organizational slack

ManagementINK, March 06, 2017.

Using humor and boosting emotions:

An affect-based study of managerial humor, employees' emotions and psychological capital

Nilupama Wijewardena, Charmine EJ Härtel and Ramanie Samaratunge

Human Relations 70(11): 1316–1341. First published April-28-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717691809

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717691809

Abstract

Evidence from emerging scholarly investigations consistently points to managerial humor as fruitful new grounds to expand management knowledge and practice. In light of this, the present study examined managerial humor as an affective event at work that has short-term emotional and long-term psychological outcomes for employees. To test this empirically, we recruited a sample of 2498 Australian employees to participate in a field experience sampling study. We also considered the potential moderating effect of leader–member exchange on the humor–emotions relationship. Findings provide initial support for managerial humor as an affective event such that when employees perceived their manager's humor as positive they reported experiencing positive emotions, and vice versa. Importantly, employees with high-quality relationships with their managers responded to their manager's humor use with a greater number of positive emotions and fewer negative emotions than did employees with low-quality relationships with their managers. We argue that humor is an event that managers must responsibly manage in order to produce positive emotional experiences for employees and support healthy emotion regulation at work. We also discuss the conditions under which it is advisable for managers to use humor with employees, and suggest future research directions to develop this growing field of inquiry.

Keywords: affective events theory (AET), broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, experience sampling, leader–member exchange (LMX), managerial humor, psychological capital (PsyCap)

Betwixt and between: Role conflict, role ambiguity and role definition in project-based dual-leadership structures

Joris J Ebbers and Nachoem M Wijnberg

Human Relations 70(11): 1342–1365. First published April-28-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717692852 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717692852

Abstract

Project-based organizations in the film industry usually have a dual-leadership structure, based on a division of tasks between the dual leaders – the director and the producer – in which the former is predominantly responsible for the artistic and the latter for the commercial aspects of the film. These organizations also have a role hierarchically below and between the dual leaders: the 1st assistant director. This organizational constellation is likely to lead to role conflict and role ambiguity experienced by the person occupying that particular role. Although prior studies found negative effects of role conflict and role ambiguity, this study shows they can also have beneficial effects because they create space for defining the role expansively that, in turn, can be facilitated by the dual leaders defining their own roles more narrowly. In a more general sense, this study also shows the usefulness of analyzing the antecedents and consequences of roles, role definition, and role crafting in connection to the behavior of occupants of adjacent roles.

Keywords: creative industries, dual leadership, film industry, project-based organization, role crafting

Antagonism, accommodation and agonism in Critical Management Studies: Alternative organizations as allies

Simon Parker and Martin Parker

Human Relations 70(11): 1366–1387. 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

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 70(11): 1388–1414 First published date: May-12-2017 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

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CELEBRATING 70 YEARS OF HUMAN RELATIONS

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Last few tickets left for 70th Anniversary Workshop:

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.

[Overview and Programme...]  

Owing to some late cancellations, a very limited number of places at this event are still available – to book a place, please contact Claire Castle.

Reflections on the history of Human Relations – FREE ACCESS during October

Human Relations is one of the oldest social science journals. It was established in 1947, ahead of journals such as the British Journal of Sociology (1950), and long before other leading management journals such as those published by the Academy of Management (the Journal, 1958, and the Review, 1976) and journals of work, organization and employment (e.g. Organization Studies, 1980 and Work, Employment and Society, 1987).

For the 70th anniversary of the journal's foundation, Professor Paul Edwards, FBA, looks back over its development and contents and offers a series of reflections – all the articles in these collections have been made free to access during October:

- 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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FREE ACCESS FEATURED ARTICLE FOR OCTOBER

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Free access until 31 October 2017:

Theorization as institutional work: The dynamics of roles and practices

Sébastien Mena and Roy Suddaby

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726715622556

Abstract

This study unpacks the construct of theorization – the process by which organizational ideas become delocalized and abstracted into theoretical models to support their diffusion across time and space. We adopt an institutional work lens to analyse the key components of theorization in contexts where institutional work is in transition from changing institutions to maintaining them. We build on a longitudinal inductive study of theorization by the Fair Labor Association – a private regulatory initiative that created and then enforced a code of conduct for working conditions in apparel factories. Our study reveals that when institutional work shifts from changing to maintaining an institutional arrangement of corporate social responsibility, there is a key change in how the Fair Labor Association theorizes roles and practices related to this arrangement. We observe that theorization on key practices largely remains intact, whereas the roles of different actors are theorized in a dramatically different manner. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of the work involved in the aftermath of radical change by demonstrating the relative plasticity of roles over the rigidity of practices.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility, institutional change, institutional maintenance, institutional transition, private regulation, private regulatory initiative

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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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Configuring shared and hierarchical leadership through authoring

Flemming Holm and Gail T Fairhurst

Human Relations, first published October-06-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717720803

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717720803

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.

Keywords: authoring, authoritative texts, authority, ethnography, hierarchical leadership, shared leadership

The role of intermediaries in governance of global production networks:

Restructuring work relations in Pakistan's apparel industry

Kamal Munir, Muhammad Ayaz, David L Levy and Hugh Willmott

Human Relations, first published October-06-2017, doi:  10.1177/0018726717722395

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717722395

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.

Keywords: cultural political economy, development, employment, gender in organizations, global governance, Gramsci

Mind the gap: Grass roots 'brokering' to improve labour standards in global supply chains

Sarah J Kaine and Emmanuel Josserand

Human Relations, first published October-06-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717727046

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717727046

Abstract

While governance and regulation are a first step in addressing worsening working conditions in global supply chains, improving implementation is also key to reversing this trend. In this article, after examining the nature of the existing governance and implementation gaps in labour standards in global supply chains, we explore how Viet Labor, an emerging grass-roots organization, has developed practices to help close them. This involves playing brokering roles between different workers and between workers and existing governance mechanisms. We identify an initial typology of six such roles: educating, organizing, supporting, collective action, whistle-blowing and documenting. This marks a significant shift in the way action to improve labour standards along the supply chain is analysed. Our case explores how predominantly top-down approaches can be supplemented by bottom-up ones centred on workers' agency.

Keywords: governance, implementation gap, labour standards, migrant labour, supply chains

History, gendered space and organizational identity: An archival study of a university building

Yihan Liu and Christopher Grey

Human Relations, first published October-06-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717733032

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717733032

Abstract

How do buildings contribute to an organization's sense of what it is? In this article, we present the findings of a major archival study of an iconic university building to answer this question. Founded in the 19th century as a college for women, the building is analysed as a gendered space that embodies meanings that are selectively deployed and adapted by the present-day, now co-educational, university. By bringing together concepts of space and history so as to examine 'space in history' we show how over long periods of time what buildings 'say' about an organization change so that the past is both a legacy and a resource for shifting organizational identity.

Keywords: archive methods, Founder's Building, gender, history, Lefebvre, organizational identity, Royal Holloway, space

Committing to refugee resettlement volunteering: Attaching, detaching and displacing organizational ties

Kirstie McAllum

Human Relations, first published October-03-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717729209

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717729209

Abstract

As members of local host communities, volunteers play an important role in effective long-term refugee resettlement. This study investigated the nature of volunteer commitment by organizational volunteers who were assigned a front-line role in organizing material assistance and providing information about cultural practices for newly arrived refugees. Using interview data from volunteers, organizational representatives, and organizational recruitment and training documents, the study found that volunteers' commitment was structured by the presence and absence of volunteer coordinators, the organization's clients and volunteers' significant others. While insufficient ties to the organization or strong, competing ties from significant others led volunteers to detach themselves from the organization, overly strong affective ties with refugees displaced organizational ties, leading to volunteers' organizational exit. This study problematizes an individual-centric, psychological notion of commitment; instead, it situates commitment as a collective communicative process whereby relevant stakeholders negotiate the relationships that tie them together. It thus expands the range of voices present in decisions about commitment and provides new data on how organizational and relational others impact sustainable volunteer management.

Keywords: commitment, nonprofit organizations, not-for-profit organizations, refugee resettlement, turnover, volunteers

The role of co-workers in the production of (homo)sexuality at work:

A Foucauldian approach to the sexual identity processes of gay and lesbian employees

Koen Van Laer

Human Relations, first published September-19-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717711236

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717711236

Abstract

Adopting a Foucauldian perspective that focuses on the way power contributes to ensuring that sexuality leads a discursive existence, this study investigates the role of co-workers in the production of gay and lesbian employees' sexuality. Drawing on interviews with 31 employees who self-identify as gay or lesbian, this article makes three contributions to the literature on sexual minorities' identities at work. First, it shows how the production of sexuality is shaped by relations of attribution, evocation and circulation, which involve sexualizing practices through which co-workers directly contribute to ensuring that employees become sexually intelligible. By shaping the way sexual identities can be managed, these practices can turn the production of sexuality into a process that is not only unmanageable, but also even unmanaged by gay and lesbian employees themselves. Second, this article shows how an important element in sexual identity management is negotiating relations of truthfulness and inclusion, and constructing the occupied sexual subject position as positive or necessary. Third, it shows the connections between these different relations, which can occur and work together to ensure that all individuals come to be linked to a clear sexual identity.

Keywords: disclosure, diversity, gay and lesbian employees, identity, power, sexuality, sexual minorities

Imagining 'non-nationality': Cosmopolitanism as a source of collective identity and belonging

Irene Skovgaard-Smith and Flemming Poulfelt

Human Relations, first published September-19-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717714042

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717714042

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. This article challenges the essentialism inherent in this model by proposing a different framing of cosmopolitan identity formation that shifts the focus to how people collectively mobilize cosmopolitanism as a resource for cultural identity construction. The article is based on an anthropological study of transnational professionals who are part of a diverse expatriate community in Amsterdam. The analysis shows how these professionals draw on cosmopolitanism to define themselves as 'non-nationals'. This involves downplaying national affiliations and cultural differences while also marking national identity categories and 'cultural features' to maintain the difference they collectively embrace. This, however, does not imply openness to all otherness. Boundary drawing to demarcate the cosmopolitan 'us' in relation to national (mono)culture is equally important. The article argues that cosmopolitan identities are socially accomplished as particular modes of collective belonging that are part of – not beyond – a global discursive sphere of identity politics.

Keywords: cosmopolitanism, cosmopolitan identity formation, cultural identity and belonging, expatriate communities, global mobility, self-initiated expatriates, skilled migration, translocality, transnational professionals

Transnational power and translocal governance: The politics of corporate responsibility

Subhabrata Bobby Banerjee        

Human Relations, first published September-19-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717726586

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717726586

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 to exercise power in the global political economy. Using the global extractive industries as a context, I focus on conflicts between communities, the state and multinational corporations that arise owing to the negative social and environmental impacts of mining and extraction. In particular, I analyse the role of political corporate social responsibility and multi-stakeholder initiatives in managing conflicts and argue that these initiatives cannot take into account the needs of vulnerable stakeholders. Power asymmetries between key actors in the political economy can diminish the welfare of communities impacted by extraction. Several governance challenges arise as a result of these power asymmetries and I develop a translocal governance framework from the perspective of vulnerable stakeholders that can enable a more progressive approach to societal governance of multinational corporations.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility, governance, marginalized stakeholders, multinational corporations, power

Competition for control over the labour process as a driver of relocation of activities to a shared services centre

Petr Mezihorak

Human Relations, first published September-18-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717727047

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717727047

Abstract

New approaches to studying multinational corporations sensitive to issues of power and politics often neglect the way power and politics in corporations shape workplaces, specifically labour processes and modes of their control. The article presents a case study of a firm's relocation of activities to a shared services centre. The relationships among the shared services centre, its client departments and the headquarters involve an ongoing combination of cooperation and competition, resulting in increased managerial control over labour processes and changes in corporate governance. The shared services centre established as a support unit aims to strengthen its position in the organizational structure by gaining control over labour processes and their modification. Competition with client departments for control over labour processes leads to the introduction of controlling mechanisms, norms and standards both in the centre and in client departments. These rules, on the one hand, limit uncertainty; on the other hand, they drive the fragmentation of labour processes, rendering them more codifiable and less complex. These effects make labour processes easier to control and, eventually, to relocate, which is advantageous for the headquarters. Changes in labour processes thus shape the relationships within the corporation and the space for power struggles and politics.

Keywords: competition, control, global value chain, labour, labour process, multinational corporation, outsourcing, power, shared services, work

From horizontal to vertical labour governance:

The International Labour Organization (ILO) and decent work in global supply chains

Huw Thomas and Peter Turnbull

Human Relations, first published September-08-2017, doi 10.1177/0018726717719994

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717719994

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 chains have undermined the traditional nation state (horizontal) paradigm of global labour governance, most notably the international Conventions agreed by the tripartite constituents (governments, employers and workers' representatives) of the ILO. But this simply poses the question of whether, and if so how, the ILO can reframe the system of global labour governance to include the (vertical) global supply chains that all too often fail to deliver 'decent work for all'. Based on an extended ethnographic study, we demonstrate how policy entrepreneurs (international civil servants) within the ILO can play a pivotal role in not only reframing the discourse in a way that resonates with the 'lived experiences' of constituents but also 'orchestrate' the social partners in order to secure majority support for a process that might ultimately lead to a new standard (Convention) for decent work in global supply chains. A new approach to employment relationships in global supply chains is 'in the making', with the potential to improve working conditions and rights at work for millions across the globe.

Keywords: decent work, discursive institutionalism, global labour governance, global supply chains, international labour standards, strategic framing

A lifespan perspective for understanding career self-management and satisfaction:

The role of developmental human resource practices and organizational support

Yuhee Jung and Norihiko Takeuchi

Human Relations, first published September-08-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717715075

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717715075

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 organizational support were high, and thus a synergistic effect was salient. For middle-aged employees, the positive relationship was stronger when these factors were low, and thus a compensatory effect was manifested. Interestingly, middle-aged employees who perceived a lack of developmental practices or support showed marked improvements in career satisfaction by engaging in career self-management behaviors. We discuss the changing nature of career management strategies across an individual's lifespan from both vocational and managerial viewpoints.

Keywords: career management strategies, conservation of resources theory, HR practices, perceived organizational support, socioemotional selectivity theory, young and middle-aged employees

Identities, mental health and work:

How employees with mental health conditions recount the pejorative discourse of mental illness

Hadar Elraz

Human Relations, first published September-08-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717716752

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717716752

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 reconstructed in the workplace. Employees with MHCs face a difficult situation: not only do they need to deal with the stigma and discrimination commonly associated with MHCs, but they must also manage their health condition whilst adhering to organizational demands to demonstrate performance and commitment to work. Discourse analysis derived from 32 interviews with individuals with MHCs delineates how these individuals feel both stigmatized and empowered by their MHCs. The findings address three discursive strands: (i) a pejorative construction of mental illness in employment and society; (ii) contesting mental illness at work by embracing mental health management skills; and (iii) recounting mental illness through public disclosure and change. This article enhances understanding of how the construction of positive identity in the face of negative attributions associated with MHCs contributes to literature on identity, organizations and stigma as well as raising implications for policy and practice.

Keywords: disability, discourse, employment, mental illness, mental health, MHC

Political ideology and the discursive construction of the multinational hotel industry

Mairi Maclean, Charles Harvey, Roy Suddaby and Kevin O'Gorman

Human Relations, first published September-08-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717718919

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717718919

Abstract

How might political ideology help to shape an organizational field? We explore the discursive construction of the multinational hotel industry through analysis of one of its leading actors, Hilton International (HI), conceived by Conrad Hilton as a means of combatting communism by facilitating world peace through international trade and travel. While the politicized rhetoric employed at hotel openings reflected institutional diversity, it resonated in parallel with a strong anti-communist discourse. We show that through astute political sensemaking and sensegiving, macro-political discourse that is ideological and universalizing may be allied to micro-political practices in strategic action fields. Our study illuminates the processes of early-stage post-war globalization and its accompanying discourses, demonstrating that the foundation of a global industry may be ideologically inspired. Our primary contribution to theory is specific acknowledgement of the importance of political ideology as a particular 'social skill', helping to determine how international business has been 'won'.

Keywords: discourse, global hotel industry, macro-politics, micro-politics, power, rhetoric

Gender segregation, underemployment and subjective well-being in the UK labour market

Daiga Kamerāde and Helen Richardson

Human Relations, first published September-08-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717713829

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717713829

Abstract

This article 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 article examines time-related underemployment: people working part time because they cannot find a full-time job. The article 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 organizations. 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.

Keywords: anxiety, gender segregation, happiness, involuntary part-time work, life satisfaction, part-time work, recession, subjective well-being, underemployment

Trust and betrayal in interorganizational relationships: A systemic functional grammar analysis

Love Börjeson

Human Relations, first published September-08-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717718916

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717718916

Abstract

What is it that we do when we say to our business partner that we trust them? Or when we hint that we would consider a withdrawal from cooperation a betrayal? Relying on a systemic functional grammar analysis, interorganizational relationships (IORs) are in this study shown to be characterized by a recurring dilemma: the involved partners are expected to be transparent and explicit regarding their intentions while at the same time being open to opportunities that the IOR may present. In the struggle to balance between these opposing demands, trust is used by trustees to promise both explicitness and opportunity. Conversely, trustors of IORs pressure the trustee to continue the cooperation by evoking latent accusations of betrayal. The intended result of these rhetorical strategies is to prolong the IOR until it can be properly evaluated. While this prolongation accrues to the systems of IORs and to participating organizations, the costs for the involved individuals can be considerable. The trustor risks feeling betrayed, and the trustee risks being accused of betrayal for reasons that are beyond his or her control.

Keywords: betrayal, dilemma, interorganizational relationships, systemic functional grammar, trust

Mechanisms of biopower and neoliberal governmentality in precarious work:

Mobilizing the dependent self-employed as independent business owners

Johanna Moisander, Claudia Groß and Kirsi Eräranta

Human Relations, first published September-08-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717718918

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717718918

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 mechanisms of biopower and techniques of managerial control that underpin-and produce consent for-precarious work and nonstandard work arrangements. Based on an ethnographic study, the article shows how a globally operating direct sales organization deploys particular techniques of government to mobilize and manage its precarious workers as a network of enterprise-units: as a community of active and productive economic agents who willingly reconstitute themselves and their lives as enterprises to pursue self-efficacy, autonomy and self-worth as individuals. The article contributes to the literature on organizational power, particularly Foucauldian studies of the workplace, in three ways: (1) by building a theoretical analytics of government perspective on managerial control that highlights the nondisciplinary, biopolitical forms of power that underpin employment relations under the conditions of neoliberal governmentality; (2) by extending the theory of enterprise culture to the domain of precarious work to examine the mechanisms of biopower that underpin ongoing transformations in the sphere of work; and (3) by shifting critical attention to the lived experience of precarious workers in practice.

Keywords: biopower, enterprise culture, gig economy, managerial control, neoliberal governmentality, precarious work

Expanding role boundary management theory:

How volunteering highlights contextually shifting strategies and collapsing work–life role boundaries

Disraelly Cruz and Rebecca Meisenbach

Human Relations, first published September-08-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717718917

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717718917

Abstract

Despite interest in expanding work–family research to focus on work–life issues, few scholars have addressed non-family life enrichment roles and their potential additional forms of and issues for boundary management. Using in-depth qualitative interviews, this study investigates the management of under-researched work–life boundaries by focusing on how volunteers communicatively manage the volunteer role in light of work and home demands. The findings suggest new boundary management processes. Specifically, in addition to the established segmenting and integrating processes, the volunteers also articulated a process of collapsing boundaries. This latter new category is manifested in two forms, named simultaneous role enactment and role value fusion. Furthermore, findings highlight how rather than only enacting one stance, individuals described contextually dependent, shifting ways of managing multiple life roles. These findings have implications for how scholars study work–life management, how practitioners seek to recruit members, and how volunteers and organizational employees make membership decisions.

Keywords: multiple role engagement, role boundary management, volunteerism, work and family, work–life enrichment

Talking into (non)existence: Denying or constituting paradoxes of Corporate Social Responsibility

Jochen Hoffmann

Human Relations, first published September-08-2017, doi: 10.1177/0018726717721306

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717721306

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 and practice. The preferred figure is not a paradoxical one, but that of organizational hypocrisy. Overall, non-paradoxical approaches dominate; they, in turn, ventriloquize their creators, thereby limiting the scope of future research. A communicative perspective is instead open to the constitution of Corporate Social Responsibility paradoxes. It enables practitioners to engage in a proactive management of organizational tensions and encourages scholars to reflect on the constituted nature of academic discourses.

Keywords: Communication Constitutes Organizations, Corporate Social Responsibility, critical research, managerialism, paradox, ventriloquism

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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

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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): 

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Claire Castle

Managing Editor, Human Relations 

Tavistock Institute of Human Relations

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