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A new issue of Human Relations is available online: Human Relations January 2018; 71(1).
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JANUARY ISSUE ARTICLES
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Human Relations Paper of the Year 2017 Award
Human Relations 71(1): 3
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726717734505
Enjoy free access to the winning paper
SPECIAL ISSUE: CONCEPTUALISING FLEXIBLE CAREERS ACROSS THE LIFE COURSE
GUEST EDITED BY JENNIFER TOMLINSON, MARIAN BAIRD, PETER BERG AND RAE COOPER
View SI Vodcast: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/HUMA_71_1
Flexible careers across the life course: Advancing theory, research and practice
Jennifer Tomlinson, Marian Baird, Peter Berg and Rae Cooper
Human Relations 71(1): 4‒22
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717733313
Abstract
This introductory article sets out a framework for conceptualizing flexible careers. We focus on the conditions, including the institutional arrangements and the organizational policies and practices, that can support individuals to construct flexible and sustainable careers across the life course. We ask: What are flexible careers? Who are the (multiple) actors determining flexible careers? How do institutions and organizational settings impact upon and shape the career decisions and agency of individuals across the life course? We begin our review by providing a critique of career theory, notably the boundaryless and protean career concepts, which are overly agentic. In contrast, we stress the importance of institutions, notably education and training systems, welfare regimes, worker voice, working-time and leave regulations and retirement systems alongside individual agency. We also emphasize the importance of various organizational actors in determining flexible careers, particularly in relation to flexible work policies, organizational practices, culture and managerial agency. Finally we argue for the importance of a life course framing taking into account key transition points and life stages, which vary in sequence and significance, in the analysis of flexible careers. In concluding remarks, we urge researchers to use and refine our model to the concept of flexible careers conceptually and empirically.
Keywords: careers, flexibility, flexible careers, institutions, life course, organizations
How 'flexible' are careers in the anticipated life course of young people?
Paula K McDonald
Human Relations 71(1): 23‒46
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
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 71(1): 47‒72
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
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 71(1): 73‒102
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
The transition to part-time: How professionals negotiate 'reduced time and workload' i-deals and craft their jobs
Charlotte Gascoigne and Clare Kelliher
Human Relations 71(1): 103‒125
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717722394
Abstract
For professionals working in demanding environments, the negotiation of part-time or workload reduction idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) may be challenging, with negative consequences for career progression. Yet there are few studies of part-time i-deals specifically, or empirical studies of their development process. This article examines the process of achieving a part-time i-deal, drawing on interviews with 39 part-time professionals in two organizations, each located in the UK and the Netherlands. The article makes two contributions to i-deal theory: first, it defines the four elements of a new category of 'reduced time and workload' i-deal for professionals (perceived suitability of the work, schedule, workload, and career impact); and second, it refines Rousseau's model of the development process, by adding an initial 'private consideration' of options stage, where the feasibility of working part-time is evaluated against alternatives including remaining full-time, or leaving the organization. Third, it identifies as structural constraints two work practices designed for full-time professional work in demanding environments: the routine expectation of unpredictability, and the absence of substitutability in resourcing. Fourth, it shows how, post-negotiation, professionals use informal job crafting, both individual and collaborative, to try to overcome these constraints. The implications for achieving flexible and sustainable careers are discussed.
Keywords: flexible careers, flexible workers, job crafting, job design, part-time workers, professional workers
Special issue Call for papers:
Collective dimensions of leadership: The challenges of connecting theory and method
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726717748894
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FREE ACCESS FEATURED ARTICLE FOR DECEMBER
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Free to access until 31 December 2017:
Accumulation through derealization: How corporate violence remains unchecked
Rohit Varman and Ismael Al-Amoudi
Human Relations 69(10): 1909-1935. First Published May 4, 2016
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716628970
Abstract
This study examines the alleged organization of violence by Coca-Cola through a field study conducted in a village in India. It draws on the works of Judith Butler to show how subaltern groups are derealized and made into ungrievable lives through specific, yet recurrent, practices that keep violence unchecked. Many participants attempt to resist derealization through protest activities that showcase their vulnerability. However, the firm appropriates their claims to vulnerability through a paternalistic discourse that justifies intensified violence and derealization. This research offers insights into accumulation through derealization and on the effects of resistance to it.
Keywords: Butler, dispossession, India, resistance, Third World, violence
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Special issue: Collective dimensions of leadership: The challenges of connecting theory and method – submit by 15 June 2018
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/LeadershipCollectiveDimensions.html
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Human Relations welcomes critical reviews and essays:
- Critical reviews advance a field through new theory, new methods, a novel synthesis of extant evidence, or a combination of two or three of these elements. Reviews that identify new research questions and that make links between management and organizations and the wider social sciences are particularly welcome. Surveys or overviews of a field are unlikely to meet these criteria.
- Critical essays address contemporary scholarly issues and debates within the journal's scope. They are more controversial than conventional papers or reviews, and can be shorter. They argue a point of view, but must meet standards of academic rigour. Anyone with an idea for a critical essay is particularly encouraged to discuss it at an early stage with the Editor-in-Chief.
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Servant leadership as a driver of employee service performance:
Test of a trickle-down model and its boundary conditions
Zhen Wang, Haoying Xu and Yukun Liu
Human Relations 10.1177/0018726717738320, first published November 28, 2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717738320
Abstract
Previous research has demonstrated the role of servant leadership, a leadership style emphasizing serving others, in promoting frontline employees' service performance. It is unclear, however, how servant leadership by leaders at different organizational levels would exert such an influence. Integrating insights from both social learning theory and the trickle-down paradigm of leadership, we develop a cross-level model in which we argue that servant leadership by high-level managers could cascade downward through the organizational hierarchy to influence frontline employees' service performance and that this trickle-down effect is contingent on the extent to which subordinates identify their leaders as embodying the organization. Using a matched sample of 92 supervisors and 568 frontline employees across 92 sub-branches of a large banking company, we found that servant leadership by high-level managers could indeed promote employees' in-role and extra-role service performance through its effect on low-level supervisors' servant leadership. We also found that this trickle-down effect was stronger when high-level managers and low-level supervisors were perceived by their subordinates as more fully embodying the organization. Implications, limitations and future directions are discussed.
Keywords: organizational embodiment, servant leadership, service performance, social learning theory, trickle-down effect
Crossing team boundaries: A theoretical model of team boundary permeability and a discussion of why it matters
Rebekah Dibble and Cristina B Gibson
Human Relations 10.1177/0018726717735372, first published November 28, 2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717735372
Abstract
Given the context in which teams work today, many teams are necessarily dynamic and permeable; that is, workers must be able to move quickly and easily in and out of teams, across team boundaries. We develop a model of team boundary permeability that incorporates the features of the team that give rise to boundary permeability, the outcomes experienced by teams with permeable boundaries, and moderators that serve to enhance the benefits and mitigate the liabilities of boundary permeability. In doing so, we extend theory on the fluid nature of teams. We conclude with implications for theory, directions for future research and implications for practice.
Keywords: boundary permeability, team boundaries, team effectiveness, team membership, teams
Employee commitment before and after an economic crisis:
A stringent test of profile similarity
John P Meyer, Alexandre JS Morin, S Arzu Wasti
Human Relations 10.1177/0018726717739097, first published November 27, 2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717739097
Abstract
Researchers have recently begun to take a person-centered (profile) approach to investigate how the affective, normative and continuance commitment mindsets combine within the three-component model of organizational commitment. The meaningfulness of the profiles identified in this research depends, in part, on evidence that similar profiles emerge across samples, particularly those drawn from a common population. We conducted a particularly stringent test of similarity by comparing profiles for samples of employees drawn from a large Turkish conglomerate prior to (N = 346) and following (N = 797) a major economic crisis. Using procedures recently introduced by Morin et al., (2016) we found similarity in the number (seven) and structure of the profiles before and after the crisis; only the distribution of individuals across profiles (i.e. the relative size of the profiles) differed. We also found similarity in the patterns of relations with theoretical antecedent, correlate, and outcome variables, suggesting that a common set of principles might be operating regardless of major differences in the work environment. In addition to providing strong evidence for the meaningfulness of commitment profiles, this study is one of the first to investigate the impact of an economic crisis on employee commitment.
Keywords: economic crisis, latent profile analysis, profile similarity, three-component model of commitment, Turkey
Employee commitment before and after an economic crisis:
A stringent test of profile similarity
John P Meyer, Alexandre JS Morin, S Arzu Wasti
Human Relations 10.1177/0018726717739097, first published November 27, 2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717739097
Abstract
Researchers have recently begun to take a person-centered (profile) approach to investigate how the affective, normative and continuance commitment mindsets combine within the three-component model of organizational commitment. The meaningfulness of the profiles identified in this research depends, in part, on evidence that similar profiles emerge across samples, particularly those drawn from a common population. We conducted a particularly stringent test of similarity by comparing profiles for samples of employees drawn from a large Turkish conglomerate prior to (N = 346) and following (N = 797) a major economic crisis. Using procedures recently introduced by Morin et al., (2016) we found similarity in the number (seven) and structure of the profiles before and after the crisis; only the distribution of individuals across profiles (i.e. the relative size of the profiles) differed. We also found similarity in the patterns of relations with theoretical antecedent, correlate, and outcome variables, suggesting that a common set of principles might be operating regardless of major differences in the work environment. In addition to providing strong evidence for the meaningfulness of commitment profiles, this study is one of the first to investigate the impact of an economic crisis on employee commitment.
Keywords: economic crisis, latent profile analysis, profile similarity, three-component model of commitment, Turkey
Unemployment as a liminoid phenomenon: Identity trajectories in times of crisis
Maria Daskalaki and Maria Simosi
Human Relations 10.1177/0018726717737824. First Published November 23, 2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717737824
Abstract
This article explores the formation of work identities in times of financial crisis and extreme austerity. In particular, we build upon prior studies of liminality, a state of in-betweenness and ambiguity, and explore how individuals, whose employment opportunities and career paths have been disrupted, construct their work/professional identities. The study draws on 39 semi-structured interviews conducted in Greece, where high levels of unemployment and economic stagnation prevail. Persistent crisis and austerity have prompted extended periods of instability and unpredictability during which the unemployed narratively (re)construct their past, present and future work selves. We propose that frequent job changes and persistent lack of work are not linear experiences but, instead, require multiple and, at times, ambiguous, fluid and incomplete identifications. These identifications include attempts to re-affirm prior stable professional identities, to institute new, yet still unidentified, careers or to enact what we term 'liminoid identity positions'. When in liminoid positions, instead of pursuing intangible work futures, the unemployed create anti-structural spaces in which they collectively practice alternative forms of work and organization. Concluding, the article provides grounds for the study of individuals' capacity to challenge the neoliberal restructuring of work and the possibilities for transformation in periods of unemployment and crisis.
Keywords: alternatives, anti-structural, communitas, Financial Crisis, identity, liminality, unemployment
Keeping up with the Joneses: Industry rivalry, commitment to frames and sensemaking failures
Federica Pazzaglia, Maeve Farrell, Karan Sonpar and Pablo Martin de Holan
Human Relations, first Published November 10, 2017
0018726717719993
Abstract
Drawing on a qualitative study of the banking crisis in Ireland, we examine how a cognitive frame of environmental conditions that is shared among industry rivals constrains their ability to act on the cues of slowly incubating threats. We find that shared frames are reinforced through social comparisons that prompt imitation and through their enactment that prompts a reconfiguration of internal control structures and power relationships. The reinforcement of a shared frame dulls the emerging cues of changing market conditions and weakens perception of the risks of staying the course. A core contribution of this study is to highlight the cognitive and political processes by which a shared frame solidifies within an industry, trapping organizations in their enacted environment and resulting in their collective failure.
Keywords: cognitive frames, crisis, cues, framing, politics, risk, rivalry, sensemaking
The competing influences of national identity on the negotiation of ideal worker expectations: Insights from the Sri Lankan knowledge work industry
Charlotte Croft and Weerahannadige Dulini Anuvinda Fernando
Human Relations, first Published November 10, 2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717733530
Abstract
How does national identity influence the way individuals respond to the demands of their work? Despite an increasing awareness of the complex interplay between intersecting social identities and work demands, our understanding of how they are influenced by national identity is underdeveloped. This article presents the accounts of employees from two Sri Lankan knowledge work industries, who were attempting to align work demands associated with ideal worker expectations, with the social demands associated with their national identity. Conceptualizing the empirical setting of Sri Lanka as a collectivist national context, we offer two theoretical contributions. First, by showing how a shared national identity significantly influences divergence from, and conformity to, ideal worker expectations in Sri Lankan organizations, we generalize understandings of individuals' negotiation of ideal worker expectations. In doing so, we build on and extend the prevailing 'individualistic' assumptions in collectivistic settings. Second, we show how ideal worker expectations enabled individuals to fulfill and refine demands associated with their non-western national identity, contesting assumptions that non-western national identities are challenging or constraining in global organizations. These findings lead us to propose a reciprocal influence between ideal worker expectations in global organizations, and expectations associated with national identities.
Keywords: ideal workers, international HRM, national identity, Sri Lanka, work demands
Disentangling passion and engagement: An examination of how and when passionate employees become engaged ones
Violet T Ho and Marina N Astakhova
Human Relations, first Published November 10, 2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717731505
Abstract
While anecdotal industry evidence indicates that passionate workers are engaged workers, research has yet to understand how and when job passion and engagement are related. To answer the how question, we draw from person-environment fit theory to test, and find support for, the mediating roles of perceived demands–abilities (D–A) fit and person–organization (P–O) fit in the relationships between passion and job engagement, and between passion and organizational engagement, respectively. Also, because the obsessive form of passion is contingency-driven, we answer the when question by adopting a target-similarity approach to test the contingent role of multi-foci trust in the obsessive passion-to-engagement relationships. We found that when obsessively passionate workers trust their organization, they report greater levels of organizational engagement (because of increased P–O fit). In contrast, when these workers trust both their co-workers and supervisor simultaneously, they report greater levels of job engagement (because of increased D–A fit).
Keywords: engagement, harmonious passion, obsessive passion, person–environment fit, POF, trust
Drawing on the discursive resources from psychological contracts to construct imaginary selves: A psychoanalytic perspective on how identity work drives psychological contracts
Michaela Driver
Human Relations First Published November 10, 2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717733312
Abstract
The study contributes novel theoretical perspectives for a more comprehensive and processual understanding of psychological contracts in the context of identity work. It builds on a psychoanalytic, specifically Lacanian, perspective to analyze 106 psychological contract narratives by employees of a wide range of organizations. Based on this analysis, the study suggests that psychological contracts can be understood as providing discursive resources on which narrators draw in complex and non-linear fashion to construct imaginary selves. Their inevitable unsettlement prompts both imaginary and symbolic responses that seem independent of the viability and type of psychological contract narrated. This suggests that identity work drives psychological contracts in surprising ways and empowers individuals as contract and identity-makers. Implications for psychological contract research are discussed.
Keywords: discourse, identity, Lacan, narratives, psychoanalysis, psychological contract
Censored: Whistleblowers and impossible speech
Kate Kenny
Human Relations, first Published November 10, 2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717733311
Abstract
What happens to a person who speaks out about corruption in their organization, and finds themselves excluded from their profession? In this article, I argue that whistleblowers experience exclusions because they have engaged in 'impossible speech', that is, a speech act considered to be unacceptable or illegitimate. Drawing on Butler's theories of recognition and censorship, I show how norms of acceptable speech working through recruitment practices, alongside the actions of colleagues, can regulate subject positions and ultimately 'un-do' whistleblowers. In turn, they construct boundaries against 'unethical' others who have not spoken out. Based on in-depth empirical research on financial sector whistleblowers, the article departs from existing literature that depicts the excluded whistleblower as a passive victim – a hollow stereotype. It contributes to organization studies in a number of ways. To debates on Butler's recognition-based critique of subjectivity in organizations, it yields a performative ontology of excluded whistleblower subjects, in which they are both 'derealized' by powerful norms, and compelled into ongoing and ambivalent negotiations with self and other. These insights contribute to a theory of subjective derealization in instances of 'impossible speech', which provides a more nuanced conception of excluded organizational subjects, including blacklisted whistleblowers, than previously available.
Keywords: Butler, censorship, financial sector, speech, subjectivity, whistleblowing
Women on corporate boards: Do they advance corporate social responsibility?
Alison Cook and Christy Glass
Human Relations, first Published November 10, 2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717729207
Abstract
Do women board directors change how companies do business? Firms face growing pressure to appoint more women to their boards of directors, yet little is known about the factors that enable female directors to impact their organizations. This study analyzes the representational thresholds that facilitate women's leadership in the area of corporate social responsibility. We test the predictions of token theory and critical mass theory to evaluate the ability of women to impact firm outcomes based on their numerical representation on the board of directors. Our analysis focuses on board composition and organizational outcomes in the Fortune 500 from 2001 to 2010. Our findings challenge the theoretical assumptions that solo and token women are unable to exert significant influence over their organizations, and underscore the importance of board diversity for today's firms.
Keywords: corporate social responsibility (CSR), gender in organizations, leadership, organizational diversity, women on corporate boards
Penis-whirling and pie-throwing: Norm-defying and norm-setting drama in the creative industries
Bent Meier Sørensen, Kaspar Villadsen
Human Relations, first published October 30, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726717733310
Abstract
This article explores the drama performed around a self-proclaimed 'anti-establishment' executive at a Danish film company, Zentropa. The company prides itself on being against the existing 'elitist' and commercialized Danish film industry. Inspired by the thesis that modern capitalism develops by incorporating the critiques directed against it, the article analyses how Zentropa's Chief Executive Officer invests a 'progressive', counter-cultural spirit in his management practices. We describe how a 'freethinking' and 'subversive' CEO uses his dramatized performances to exercise an authority that violates employees' privacy and involves public displays of disrespect. We further examine how employees use impression management to cope with norm-violating management practices, including sexual provocations and the dramatic, unjustified dismissal of an employee. In the context of these disruptions, we analyse how order is reestablished through dramaturgical cycles of symbolic events, including sacrifice. In particular, the study provides insights into how theatrically staged, norm-defying performances both disrupt the organization and allow managerial power to be reinstituted. It also demonstrates that anti-establishment management involves and rests upon the occasional exercise of traditional managerial hierarchy and control. Theoretically, the article develops a dramatist perspective, combining Goffman's symbolic interactionism and Burke's dramatism to offer a framework for understanding norm-transgressive management in modern organizations.
Keywords: creative industries, dramaturgy, Erving Goffman, film industry, Kenneth Burke, norm-transgression, sacrifice
When does an issue trigger change in a field? A comparative approach to issue frames, field structures and types of field change
Santi Furnari
Human Relations, first published October 25, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726717726861
Abstract
Previous research has shown that institutional fields evolve around issues, but has devoted less attention to explain why certain issues trigger substantial field-level changes while others remain largely inconsequential. In this article, I argue that the extent to which an issue is likely to trigger field change and the type of field change triggered depend on the structure of the field and the ways in which the issue is framed. I develop a model linking two types of issue frames (adversarial vs collaborative issue frames) with two types of field structures (centralized vs fragmented). The model explains how the likelihood of field change and type of field change vary across four configurations of these issue frames and field structures. In particular, I highlight four types of field change that entail different re-distribution of power within a field (weakening vs reinforcing the field's elite; aligning vs polarizing fragmented actors). Overall, I contribute a much called-for comparative approach to institutional fields, explaining how the effects of issue frames on field change vary across different fields.
Keywords: frames, institutional change, institutional field, institutional theory, issue
The transition to part-time: How professionals negotiate 'reduced time and workload' i-deals and craft their jobs
Charlotte Gascoigne and Clare Kelliher
Human Relations, first published October 9, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726717722394
Abstract
For professionals working in demanding environments, the negotiation of part-time or workload reduction idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) may be challenging, with negative consequences for career progression. Yet there are few studies of part-time i-deals specifically, or empirical studies of their development process. This article examines the process of achieving a part-time i-deal, drawing on interviews with 39 part-time professionals in two organizations, each located in the UK and the Netherlands. The article makes two contributions to i-deal theory: first, it defines the four elements of a new category of 'reduced time and workload' i-deal for professionals (perceived suitability of the work, schedule, workload, and career impact); and second, it refines Rousseau's model of the development process, by adding an initial 'private consideration' of options stage, where the feasibility of working part-time is evaluated against alternatives including remaining full-time, or leaving the organization. Third, it identifies as structural constraints two work practices designed for full-time professional work in demanding environments: the routine expectation of unpredictability, and the absence of substitutability in resourcing. Fourth, it shows how, post-negotiation, professionals use informal job crafting, both individual and collaborative, to try to overcome these constraints. The implications for achieving flexible and sustainable careers are discussed.
Keywords: flexible careers, flexible workers, job crafting, job design, part-time workers, professional workers
The politics of cultural capital: Social hierarchy and organizational architecture in the multinational corporation
Orly Levy and B Sebastian Reiche
Human Relations, first published October 9, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726717729208
Abstract
How is social hierarchy in multinational corporations (MNCs) culturally produced, contested and reproduced? Although the international business literature has acknowledged the importance of culture, it gives little consideration to its role in constructing social hierarchies and symbolic boundaries between individuals and groups within MNCs. We take a Bourdieusian approach to understanding the role of cultural capital in structuring the social hierarchy in the MNC under two contrasting organizational architectures: hierarchical and network architecture. We argue that cultural capital serves as an instrument of power and status within the MNC, influencing access to valuable resources such as jobs, rewards and opportunities. Our framework further suggests that the transition from hierarchical towards network architecture sets in motion a high-stakes political struggle between headquarters and subsidiary actors over the relative value of their cultural capital in a bid to preserve or gain dominance and to determine the 'rules of the game' that order the social hierarchy in the MNC. We elaborate on this political struggle by theorizing about the relative dominance of cultural versus social capital, the content and relative value of firm-specific and cosmopolitan cultural capital, and the convertibility of cultural capital into other forms of capital under hierarchical and network architectures.
Keywords: Bourdieu, cultural capital MNC, multinational corporation, organizational architecture, social capital, social hierarchy
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
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WHY PUBLISH IN HUMAN RELATIONS?
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Human Relations is included in the FT50 list of journals 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.
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
Telephone: +44 (0)7432740583
Website: www.humanrelationsjournal.org
Human Relations is one of 50 Journals used by the Financial Times in compiling the FT Research rank, included in the Global MBA, EMBA and Online MBA rankings.
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
Source: 2016 Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters, 2017)