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February free-access article
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This article will be free to access until 28 February 2015:
Validation of the Job Demands-Resources model in cross-national samples: Cross-sectional and longitudinal predictions of psychological strain and work engagement
Paula Brough, Carolyn Timms, Oi-ling Siu, Thomas Kalliath, Michael P O'Driscoll, Cindy HP Sit, Danny Lo, and Chang-qin Lu
Human Relations 2013; 66 (10): 1311–1335. DOI: doi:10.1177/0018726712472915
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/66/10/1311.full
Abstract
The Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model proposes that employee health and performance are dependent upon direct and interacting perceptions of job demands and job resources. The JD-R model has been tested primarily with small, cross-sectional, European samples. The current research extends scholarly discussions by evaluating the full JD-R model for the prediction of psychological strain and work engagement, within a longitudinal research design with samples of Australian and Chinese employees (N = 9404). Job resources (supervisor support and colleague support) accounted for substantial variance, supporting the motivational hypothesis of the JD-R model. However, minimal evidence was found for the strain hypothesis of the JD-R model. The interactions of job demands and job resources were not evident, with only one from 16 interaction tests demonstrating significance. We discuss explanations for our findings. The implications of testing western-derived organizational behavior theories among employees employed in Asian regions, especially in regard to the increasing 'westernization' of many Asian organizations and their employees, are also discussed.
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Trouble at the next level: Effects of differential leader–member exchange on group-level processes and justice climate
Anthony T Cobb and Rebecca S Lau
Human Relations 0018726714557873, first published on February 10, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726714557873
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/02/10/0018726714557873.abstract
Abstract
Leaders develop different exchange relationships with their followers ranging from higher to lower quality. As these exchange relationships increase in quality a number of beneficial outcomes often accrue to both the leader and the follower when examined at the individual level of analysis. At the work unit level, however, differential leader–member exchange (LMXD) can lead to structural schisms between subordinates receiving higher- and lower-quality exchange that can interfere with productive group processes and the benefits of a favorable work climate. This article examines the incremental effects of group-level LMXD over average group levels of LMX on three group processes (co-worker communications, relationship conflict and team-member exchange) and three justice climates (interactional, procedural and distributive). Results from 87 intact teams indicate that LMXD has a sizable and negative impact on all group-level processes. LMXD also substantially decreases the strength of interactional, procedural and distributive justice climates. The incremental effects for LMXD on justice climate levels were negative for interactional justice and surprisingly positive for distributive justice. Post hoc analyses indicate an additional positive moderating effect of LMXD for relationship conflict and interactional justice climate level.
Advancing conceptualization and measurement of psychological capital as a collective construct
Sarah Dawkins, Angela Martin, Jenn Scott, and Kristy Sanderson
Human Relations 0018726714549645, first published on February 10, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726714549645
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/02/05/0018726714549645.abstract
Abstract
Psychological capital (PsyCap) has been conceptualized as an individual-level construct concerned with an employee's state of positive psychological development. However, research has now started to examine PsyCap as a collective phenomenon. Although positive associations between team-level PsyCap and team-level functioning have been demonstrated empirically, there has been limited synopsis regarding the theoretical and measurement foundations of PsyCap at higher levels of analysis. This conceptual article extends collective PsyCap scholarship by applying a multilevel-multireferent framework to explore alternate conceptualizations of collective PsyCap. The framework furthers understanding of PsyCap at higher levels by exploring unique antecedents and emergent processes relating to five proposed forms of collective PsyCap. A series of testable propositions pertaining to the antecedent network of collective PsyCap are offered to guide empirical multilevel PsyCap research.
Respect as an engine for new ideas: Linking respectful engagement, relational information processing and creativity among employees and teams
Abraham Carmeli, Jane E Dutton, and Ashley E Hardin
Human Relations 0018726714550256, first published on January 22, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726714550256
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/01/22/0018726714550256.abstract
Abstract
In four studies we examine whether and why respectfully engaging with other organizational members can augment creativity for individuals and teams. We develop and test a model in which respectful engagement among organizational members facilitates relational information processing, which in turn results in enhanced creative behaviors. We found a similar pattern across all four studies – respectful engagement is indirectly related, through relational information processing, to creative behavior at both the individual and team levels. These findings underscore the importance of respectful engagement in facilitating relational information processing and fostering creative behaviors at both the individual and team levels.
Leader reactions to follower proactive behavior: Giving credit when credit is due
Bryan Fuller, Laura E Marler, Kim Hester, and Robert F Otondo
Human Relations 0018726714548235, first published on January 21, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726714548235
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/01/20/0018726714548235.abstract
Abstract
In the present study, we rely upon an integration of proactive motivation and performance theories to investigate a neglected research question – when is proactive behavior likely to be rewarded or punished? Based upon a self-determination theory perspective of proactive motivation, we hypothesize that leader feelings of responsibility for constructive change moderate the relationship between follower proactive behavior and performance evaluation. The results of a time-lagged study support this hypothesis, indicating that follower taking charge behavior is rewarded with higher performance evaluations only when leaders feel responsible for constructive change. Following the discussion of findings, we discuss practical implications, potential limitations of the present study and directions for future research.
Asymmetric intergroup bullying: The enactment and maintenance of societal inequality at work
Soydan Soylu and Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington
Human Relations 0018726714552001, first published on January 21, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726714552001
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/01/20/0018726714552001.abstract
Abstract
What does inequality mean for dysfunctional organizational behaviours, such as workplace bullying? This article argues that workplace bullying can be understood as a manifestation of intergroup dynamics originating beyond the organization. We introduce the construct of asymmetric intergroup bullying: the disproportionate mistreatment of members of low status groups, with the intended effect of enhancing the subordination of that group in society at large. Analysis of data from 38 interviews with public and private sector workers in Turkey depicts a pattern of asymmetric intergroup bullying, undertaken to achieve organizational and broader sociopolitical goals. Respondents reported bullying acts used to get rid of unwanted personnel, with the goal of avoiding severance pay, or of removing supporters of the former government from positions of political and economic influence. Bullying was also described as working towards the dominance of the sociocultural worldview of one political group over another. We discuss asymmetric intergroup bullying as one mechanism through which acute intergroup hierarchy in the broader society corrupts management practice and employee interactions, in turn exacerbating economic inequality along group lines.
How trust functions in the context of identity work
Michaela Driver
Human Relations 0018726714548080, first published on January 13, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726714548080
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/01/12/0018726714548080.abstract
Abstract
The study develops a new perspective on trust in organizations by exploring trust in the context of identity work. An analysis of stories in which employees describe how they experienced when the employer violated their trust suggests that individuals draw on trust discourse to validate who they are. Using a psychoanalytically informed framework, the study examines the complexities of trust in the context of struggles with the conscious self and unconscious desire. Trust emerges as a placeholder for what is really wanted but impossible to attain. Based on this perspective, the study offers new insights on why individuals trust, why trust may be resilient, why trust may be engineered and how trust mirrors identity as an elusive and fleeting accomplishment.
Trust, reflexivity and knowledge integration: Toward a conceptual framework concerning mobile engineers
Anna Sankowska and Jonas Söderlund
Human Relations 0018726714549646, first published on January 13, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726714549646
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/01/12/0018726714549646.abstract
Abstract
Reduced team membership intensity and flux have triggered the emergence of a new cadre of professional workers. In an increasing number of industries, mobile engineers and other types of flexible human resources contribute significantly to team processes and the integration of team members' knowledge. Little is known about the factors influencing their knowledge integration performance. Addressing this gap by focusing on the transitional nature of their work, we introduce a conceptual framework that models the influence of trust on knowledge integration through reflexivity. Principally, we argue that social and technical reflexivity are processes that transmit the effects of trust on knowledge integration. The interaction between trust and the proposed construct of perceived value of the assignment affects reflexivity's overall impact on knowledge integration through different constellations of social and technical reflexivity. This interaction explains the paradoxical situation that high trust levels do not necessarily translate into higher knowledge integration performance and accounts for mobile engineers' varied outcomes as knowledge integrators.
Reflections on the labyrinth: Investigating black and minority ethnic leaders' career experiences
Madeleine Wyatt and Jo Silvester
Human Relations 0018726714550890, first published on January 7, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726714550890
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/01/07/0018726714550890.abstract
Abstract
Black and minority ethnic (BME) employees appear to experience more difficulty reaching senior leadership positions than do their white counterparts. Using Eagly and Carli's metaphor of the labyrinth, our aim was to give voice to black and minority ethnic managers who have successfully achieved senior management roles, and compare their leadership journeys with those of matched white managers. This article used semi-structured interviews and attribution theory to examine how 20 black and minority ethnic and 20 white senior managers from a UK government department made sense of significant career incidents in their leadership journeys. Template analysis was used to identify facilitators and barriers of career progression from causal explanations of these incidents. Although BME and white managers identified four common themes (visibility, networks, development and line manager support), they differed in how they made sense of formal and informal organizational processes to achieve career progression. The findings are used to theorize about the individual and organizational factors that contribute to the leadership journeys of minority ethnic employees.
Something happened: Spectres of organization/disorganization at the airport
Hannah Knox, Damian P O'Doherty, Theo Vurdubakis, and Christopher Westrup
Human Relations 0018726714550257, first published on January 7, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726714550257
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/01/07/0018726714550257.abstract
Abstract
The article explores the practical accomplishment of organization at an international airport during the course of a number of 'security alerts' that disrupted routine 'modes of ordering' (Law, 1994). Airports, we suggest, invite us to re-think 'organization' as the partial, contingent and always-incomplete outcome of complex order(ing)s and disorder(ing)s played out across various spaces, agencies and materials. When 'something happens' we begin to see how spaces, agents and materials are subject to unexpected becomings: objects appear treacherous, spaces mutable, agencies ineffectual and informants unreliable. Following the work of Weick we might say that in such moments of uncertainty we are forced to reconsider our customary ways of thinking about objects, subjects and systems. We argue this thinking requires a relational understanding of organization so that we can better grasp how organizations are continuously being made and un-made through an on-going co-creation and dispersal of parts.
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February issue articles
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Enjoy free access until 14 March to the articles and podcast in our new Human Relations Special Issue!
Access the entire special issue here: February 2015; Vol. 68, No. 2
Changing work, labour and employment relations in China
Guest editors: Sarosh Kuruvilla and Eli Friedman
Experimentation and decentralization in China's labor relations
Eli Friedman and Sarosh Kuruvilla
Human Relations February 2015 68(2): 181‒195, DOI: 10.1177/0018726714552087
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/68/2/181?etoc
Abstract
In this introduction to the special issue 'Changing work, labour and employment relations in China', we argue that China is taking an experimental and decentralized approach to the development of new labor relations frameworks. Particular political constraints in China prevent interest aggregation among workers, as the central state sees this as posing a risk to social stability. Firms and local governments have been given a degree of space to experiment with different arrangements, as long as the categorical ban on independent unions is not violated. The consequence has been an increasingly differentiated labor relations landscape, with significant variation by region and sector. We note some countervailing tendencies towards re-centralization, but emphasize that this phenomenon remains largely confined to the municipal level. The five articles in this special issue address different aspects of both experimentation and decentralization in labor relations.
China's 2008 Labor Contract Law: Implementation and implications for China's workers
Mary Gallagher, John Giles, Albert Park, and Meiyan Wang
Human Relations February 2015 68(2): 197‒235, first published on February 17, 2014 DOI: 10.1177/0018726713509418
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/68/2/197?etoc
Abstract
This article presents empirical evidence from household and firm survey data collected during 2009−2010 on the implementation of the 2008 Labor Contract Law and effects on China's workers. The Government and local labor bureaus have made substantial efforts to enforce the provisions of the new Law, which has likely contributed to reversing a trend toward increasing informalization of the urban labor market. Enforcement of the Law, however, varies substantially across cities. The article analyzes the determinants of worker satisfaction with the Law's enforcement, workers' propensity to have a labor contract, their awareness of the Law's content and their likelihood of initiating disputes, and finds that all are highly correlated with education level, especially for migrants. Although higher labor costs may have had a negative impact on manufacturing employment growth, this has not led to an overall increase in aggregate unemployment or prevented the rapid growth of real wages. Less progress has been made in increasing social insurance coverage, although signing a labor contract is more likely to be associated with participation in social insurance programs than in the past, particularly for migrant workers.
Explaining compliance: A multi-actor framework for understanding labour law compliance in China
Sunwook Chung
Human Relations February 2015 68(2): 237‒260, first published on June 30, 2014 DOI: 10.1177/0018726714530013
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/68/2/237?etoc
Abstract
I argue that there is increasing evidence that multiple stakeholders, such as labour intermediaries and independent workers, are involved in the regulation of labour standards in China, resulting in increasing compliance with labour laws. In addition, I argue that the differential interests of multiple stakeholders lead to a variation in compliance across different labour law provisions. I find support for these arguments using original factory-level compliance data collected in southern China between 2009 and 2011. There is 'thick' compliance when stakeholders' interests converge, as observed in the case of written contract requirements. There is 'thin' compliance when there is less convergence in stakeholder interests, as observed in the case of compliance with social insurance provisions. Finally, there is no compliance when there is convergence toward non-compliance in stakeholder interests, as observed in the case of overtime hour limits.
Chinese migrants' work experience and city identification: Challenging the underclass thesis
Stephen J Frenkel and Chongxin Yu
Human Relations February 2015 68(2): 261‒285, first published on January 28, 2014 DOI: 10.1177/0018726713508991
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/68/2/261?etoc
Abstract
Are internal migrant workers who have contributed so much to contemporary Chinese economic growth forming a distinct, impoverished underclass (Chan, 2010; Solinger, 2006) or are they slowly merging into the Chinese working class? In this article sociological theory is employed to develop the distinction between underclass and working class, including the conditions and criteria that enable these social categories to be distinguished theoretically and empirically. Drawing on a large range of survey data, including our own analysis of a recent Chinese migrant worker survey, we examine relevant aspects of work and city experience in order to assess the underclass thesis. In addition, we evaluate the argument that younger migrant workers are significantly different in work orientation and strategies for work-life improvement compared with their more experienced counterparts. We conclude that evidence for the underclass thesis is less compelling than an interpretation that views most migrant workers as transitioning into the working class. In addition, although younger workers are more intrinsically oriented than older migrants, both groups concur that labor law enforcement is critical for work-life improvement while simultaneously developing their own collective capacity to influence labor relations outcomes.
Humanized management? Capital and migrant labour in a time of labour shortage in South China
Susanne YP Choi and Yinni Peng
Human Relations February 2015 68(2): 287‒304, first published on October 9, 2014 DOI: 10.1177/0018726714541162
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/68/2/287?etoc
Abstract
This article explores changing strategies of managerial control in a labour-intensive factory in South China at a time of labour shortage. It describes power relationships between capital and migrant labour under changing labour market conditions, migrant cohorts and global business environment, and analyses a new paternalist managerial strategy named 'humanized management' and workers' reactions to it. Although 'humanized management', as part of East Asian paternalism, advocates mutual respect, care and reciprocity between management and labour, it constructs workers as irresponsible, spoiled children needing to be led, moved, touched, taught and ruled. Its human focus notwithstanding, the new strategy did not result in substantial reforms of managerial despotism, nor did the factory institute any welfare programs for workers. Because of these discrepancies between the ideological avowals and practical application of 'humanized management', the new approach was disregarded by workers, who preferred to rely on individual measures such as threats to quit, or collective action, to win concessions from management. The study provides new insight into the changing relationship between capital and migrant workers in South China and informs the debate in industrial sociology and human resource management research about the efficacy of East Asian paternalist management in improving capital–labour relationships.
Working for two bosses: Student interns as constrained labour in China
Chris Smith and Jenny Chan
Human Relations February 2015 68: 305-326, DOI: 10.1177/0018726714557013
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/68/2/305?etoc
Abstract
Based on interviews with students and teachers at one electronics company, we analyse the use of student interns to do regular manufacturing work in China. We argue that student workers need to be seen as a distinct category of constrained labour; part of a growing insecure workforce in China. We find that students enrolled in vocational schools are moved into internships, without their consent, to suit the needs of employers. This results in a misalignment between interns and their area of study that invalidates the basic principle of vocational education, which is to combine theory and practice within a sector or occupationally-focused education programme. Teachers in vocational schools follow their students into the factory and become 'teacher-supervisors', receiving a second salary for co-managing the utilization of student interns' labour power. Thus, within such an unfree labour regime, student workers are subject to dual control in the workplace from managerial and teacher-supervisors.
PODCAST: Changing work, labour and employment relations in China
Posted February 2015
http://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/d/7/8/d78c801b7bcafc59/Human_Relations_Podcast_9_Labour_in_China.mp3?c_id=8289554&expiration=1423664501&hwt=f38291d19f5ff4702adfb1095aebb312
You might also be interested in:
The impact of China's new Labour Contract Law on socioeconomic outcomes for migrant and urban workers
Zhiming Cheng, Russell Smyth and Fei Guo
Human Relations, first published online ahead of print on October 27, 2014 as DOI: 10.1177/0018726714543480
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/10/23/0018726714543480.abstract
Abstract
This article examines the effect of having a labour contract on a range of employee outcomes (wages, hours worked, social insurance coverage and subjective well-being) for a sample of urban and migrant workers in China using data from the Rural-Urban Migration in China (RUMiC) project. Using different methods, we find that the Labour Contract Law has larger effects for urban workers than for migrant workers on receipt of social benefits, subjective well-being and wages, but not for hours worked.
We hope you enjoy reading these articles.
Warm regards,
Claire
Claire Castle
Managing Editor, Human Relations
Email: c.castle@tavinstitute.org
Website: www.humanrelationsjournal.org
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