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A new issue of Human Relations is available online: Human Relations July 2016; 69(7) − we hope you enjoy reading these articles.
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JULY ISSUE ARTICLES
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Do women advance equity?
The effect of gender leadership composition on LGBT-friendly policies in American firms
Alison Cook and Christy Glass
Human Relations July 2016, 69(7): 1431‒1456; doi: 10.1177/0018726715611734
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/7/1431?etoc
Abstract
We advance the literature on the demographic factors that shape organizational outcomes by analyzing the impact of the gender composition of firm leadership on the likelihood that a firm will adopt lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)-friendly policies. Drawing on social role and token theory, we test the relative impact of CEO gender and the gender composition of the board of directors separately and together in order to identify the effects of gender diversity at the top of the organization. We rely on a unique data set that includes corporate policies (gender identity and sexual orientation non-discrimination policies, domestic-partner benefits, and overall corporate equality index scores) as well as the gender of the CEO and board of directors among Fortune 500 firms over a 10-year period. Our findings suggest that firms with gender-diverse boards are more likely than other firms to offer LGBT-friendly policies, whereas findings for firms with women CEOs offer mixed results.
What do employees want and why?
An exploration of employees' preferred psychological contract elements across career stages
Chin Heng Low, Prashant Bordia, and Sarbari Bordia
Human Relations July 2016, 69(7): 1457‒1481; doi: 10.1177/0018726715616468
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/7/1457?etoc
Abstract
Employees' psychological contracts comprise their beliefs about what they have to contribute to their organizations and what inducements they will receive in return. One recommended approach to attract and retain employees is to design psychological contracts that allow them to contribute in desirable ways and receive attractive inducements. However, we know little about the factors that affect psychological contract preferences. We present a qualitative study on the preferred psychological contracts of employees who are in different career stages. Our findings reveal that the roles and self-concepts that employees take on at a particular career stage may shape preferences for stage-relevant contributions and inducements. These findings advance psychological contract theory by highlighting the plausible link between employees' career stages and their psychological contract preferences.
Social comparisons and organizational support: Implications for commitment and retention
James M Vardaman, David G Allen, Robert F Otondo, Julie I Hancock, Lynn M Shore, and Bryan L Rogers
Human Relations July 2016, 69(7): 1483‒1505; doi: 10.1177/0018726715619687
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/7/1483?etoc
Abstract
Organizational support theory (OST) suggests that employees develop a general perception of the extent to which the organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being (perceived organizational support – POS), and respond to that support through attitudes and behaviors that are beneficial toward the organization. Although OST emphasizes both social exchange and self-enhancement processes, most accounts of POS's effects are rooted in social exchange. For example, POS's linkages with commitment and retention have been explained as an exchange of support for positive attitudes and continued employment. This research sheds light on self-enhancement's less-understood role in fostering these reactions by demonstrating the influence of social comparison effects. Drawing on a sample of 342 employees nested in 82 work-units of a US hospitality company, our analysis demonstrates that favorable POS comparisons with peers in one's work-unit are positively associated with commitment and retention, whereas unfavorable comparisons are negatively related. Results also show that comparisons taking place in less-supported work-units have stronger impact than comparisons made in those with better support. Our findings extend OST by revealing the importance of social comparisons in engendering responses to organizational support, and in so doing potentially explicate the differential ways social exchange and self-enhancement operate with regard to POS.
When and how does functional diversity influence team innovation?
The mediating role of knowledge sharing and the moderation role of affect-based trust in a team
Siu Yin Cheung, Yaping Gong, Mo Wang, Le (Betty) Zhou, and Junqi Shi
Human Relations July 2016, 69(7): 1507‒1531; doi: 10.1177/0018726715615684
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/7/1507?etoc
Abstract
Findings from prior research on the relationship between functional diversity and team innovation have been inconclusive. This study aims to reconcile the mixed findings in the literature by investigating how functional diversity may influence team innovation and when such influence may or may not occur. The view of teams as information processors suggests that functionally diverse teams may capitalize on their knowledge benefits to produce innovations through knowledge sharing. However, knowledge sharing and subsequent team innovation do not necessarily occur in functionally diverse teams. Drawing on the motivated information processing in groups theory, we propose that affect-based trust in a team moderates the effects of functional diversity on team innovation (via knowledge sharing). The results based on a sample of 96 research and development teams indicate that functional diversity had a negative indirect relationship with team innovation via knowledge sharing when affect-based trust in a team was low, and this relationship became less negative as the level of affect-based trust in a team increased. The relationship was not significant when affect-based trust in a team was high.
Rhetoric of epistemic authority: Defending field positions during the financial crisis
Suhaib Riaz, Sean Buchanan, and Trish Ruebottom
Human Relations July 2016, 69(7): 1533‒1561 ; doi: 10.1177/0018726715614385
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/7/1533?etoc
Abstract
In this article we explore how elite actors respond to a field-wide crisis. Drawing from a study of CEOs of large US banks in the immediate aftermath of the global financial crisis, we show how elite actors use rhetorical strategies to defend their dominant position in the field. Specifically, we show how actors strengthen their epistemic authority – the perceived expertise and trustworthiness of an actor – through four distinct but interwoven rhetorical strategies. Actors used two internally-directed means of strengthening epistemic authority by providing rational guarantees and expressing normative responsibilities, and two externally-directed strategies that sought to strengthen their own epistemic authority by lowering the epistemic authority of others through critiquing judgments and questioning motives. We contribute to research on defensive institutional work by highlighting how elite actors rhetorically defended their position following a field-wide crisis.
Knowledge leadership: Mobilizing management research by becoming the knowledge object
Michael D Fischer, Sue Dopson, Louise Fitzgerald, Chris Bennett, Ewan Ferlie, Jean Ledger, and Gerry McGivern
Human Relations July 2016, 69(7): 1563‒1585; doi: 10.1177/0018726715619686
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/7/1563?etoc
Abstract
This article explores contrasting forms of 'knowledge leadership' in mobilizing management research into organizational practice. Drawing on a Foucauldian perspective on power–knowledge, we introduce three axes of power–knowledge relations, through which we analyse knowledge leadership practices. We present empirical case study data focused on 'polar cases' of managers engaged in mobilizing management research in six research-intensive organizations in the UK healthcare sector. We find that knowledge leadership involves agentic practices through which managers strive to actively become the knowledge object – personally transposing, appropriating or contending management research. This article contributes to the literature by advancing the concept of knowledge leadership in the work of mobilizing management research into organizational practice.
Social organization, classificatory analogies and institutional logics: Institutional theory revisits Mary Douglas
Danielle M Logue, Stewart Clegg, and John Gray
Human Relations July 2016, 69(7): 1587‒1609 ; doi: 10.1177/0018726715614637
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/7/1587?etoc
Abstract
As a social theory of organization, it is unsurprising that institutional theory draws upon the profound and ambitious work of the late anthropologist Mary Douglas. One of the foundational concepts of organizational institutionalism, institutional logics, directly draws upon her work. Yet, in recent times this foundational role has faded from view. This is unfortunate for there is much continuity in current work with that of Douglas, it now being 50 years and 30 years respectively, since the publication of two of her formative works. The deep analogies that underpin classificatory systems and the processes by which they are sustained remain significant areas under continued investigation by institutional theorists. Thus, in this article we revisit Douglas' core arguments and their connections to institutional theorizing. We specifically explore her contribution of 'naturalizing analogies' as a way of accounting for the unfolding of change across levels of analysis, extending, modifying and enriching explanations of how institutional change is reified, naturalized and made meaningful. We do this by providing empirical descriptions of meta-organizing analogies and field-level applications. We explain how Douglas' major theoretical works are of considerable relevance for current institutional theorizing, particularly in informing accounts of institutional logics.
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WHY PUBLISH IN HUMAN RELATIONS?
Human Relations 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:
2-year impact factor: 2.619
5-year impact factor: 3.544
Ranked: 37/192 in Management and 4/93 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary
Source: 2015 Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters, 2016)
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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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Taste matters: Cultural capital and elites in proximate Strategic Action Fields
Crawford Spence, Chris Carter, Javier Husillos and Pablo Archel
Human Relations, first published on June 28, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716649247
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/06/23/0018726716649247?papetoc
Abstract
Recent literature suggests that elites are increasingly fragmented and divided. Yet there is very little empirical research that maps the distinctions between different elite groups. This article explores the cultural divisions that pertain to elite factions in two distinct but proximate Strategic Action Fields. A key insight from the article is that the public sector faction studied exhibits a much broader, more aesthetic set of cultural dispositions than their private sector counterparts. This permits a number of inter-related contributions to be made to literature on both elites and field theory. First, the findings suggest that cultural capital acts as a salient source of distinction between elite factions in different Strategic Action Fields. Second, it is demonstrated how cultural capital is socially functional as certain cultural dispositions are strongly homologous with specific professional roles. Third, the article demonstrates the implications for the structure of the State when two culturally distinct elites are brought together in a new Strategic Action Field.
The case for reinvigorating quality of working life research
Gudela Grote and David Guest
Human Relations, first published on June 21, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716654746
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/06/21/0018726716654746?papetoc
Abstract
The quality of working life became an important topic in the 1960s and 1970s, helping to stimulate an early approach to evidence-based policy advocacy drawing on interdisciplinary research by social scientists. Over the years it fell out of the limelight but much relevant, albeit fragmented, research has continued. We present a case for rekindling an integrated and normative approach to quality of working life research as one means of promoting workers' well-being and emancipation. We outline an updated classification of the characteristics of quality of working life and a related analytic framework. We illustrate how research and practice will benefit from following this renewed quality of working life framework, using work design as an example. Concluding, we aim to stimulate debate on the necessity and benefits of rebuilding a quality of working life agenda for marrying academic rigour and practical relevance in order to support interventions aimed at fostering worker emancipation and well-being.
A Web of opportunity or the same old story?
Women digital entrepreneurs and intersectionality theory
Angela Martinez Dy, Susan Marlow and Lee Martin
Human Relations, first published on June 10, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716650730
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/06/09/0018726716650730?papetoc
Abstract
This article critically analyses the manner in which intersectionality and related social positionality shape digital enterprise activities. Despite popular claims of meritocratic opportunity enactment within traditional forms of entrepreneurship, ascribed social characteristics intersect to influence the realization of entrepreneurial potential. However, it is purported that the emerging field of digital entrepreneurship may act as a 'great leveller' owing to perceived lower barriers to entry, disembodiment of the entrepreneurial actor and the absence of visible markers of disadvantage online. Using an interpretivist approach, we analyse empirical evidence that reveals how the privileges and disadvantages arising from intersecting social positions of gender, race and class status are experienced by UK women digital entrepreneurs. This analysis challenges the notion that the internet is a neutral platform for entrepreneurship and supports our thesis that offline inequality, in the form of marked bodies, social positionality and associated resource constraints, is produced and reproduced in the online environment.
The indeterminacy of 'temporariness':
Control and power in neo-bureaucratic organizations and work in UK television
Jonathan Morris, Catherine Farrell and Mike Reed
Human Relations, first published on June 10, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716648387
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/06/09/0018726716648387?papetoc
Abstract
Whereas historically the UK television industry has been characterized by hierarchy and vertical integration of programme production within a few large broadcasters, new neo-bureaucratic temporary organizational forms have proliferated in the industry in the past 20 years. This has been a product of a variety of factors, including globalization, technological change in the industry, deregulation and cost-cutting. This article draws on research involving 75 participants working in the large broadcasters, independents and as freelancers. The temporary form in the industry is an extreme case, in that they can be of very short duration (under a week). This has far-reaching implications for industry coordination and control. However, these forms are far from 'one-offs' and they are continuously reinvented and recast. This neo-bureaucratic form is controlled and regulated by the major producers through a set of powerful normative methods, based partly on an evolving custom and practice, but also in the extreme familiarity of people in the industry, across the large broadcasters, the independents and freelancers. The article evaluates how the structures, processes and coordination of these organizations through the manipulation of social capital in the industry are used to regulate and control a set of confused and 'messy' temporary arrangements.
The systems psychodynamics of gendered hiring:
Personal anxieties and defensive organizational practices within the New Zealand film industry
Jocelyn Handy and Lorraine Rowlands
Human Relations, first published on June 10, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716651690
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/06/09/0018726716651690?papetoc
Abstract
This article uses systems psychodynamic concepts to explore the creation and reproduction of gendered inequality within the New Zealand film industry. The article focuses on the ways in which senior film production workers' anxieties about hiring, or working with, women influence the process of assembling project teams. It suggests that the process of choosing team members creates considerable anxiety for both senior film production workers with responsibility for hiring and lower-status team members who need to rely on them to create high-functioning teams. The industry ideal of the autonomous creative worker is implicitly gendered, conforming more closely to traditional concepts of the unencumbered male worker than traditional ideals of femininity and motherhood. The antithesis between these representations creates anxiety, raising unconscious fears that women as a category are less trustworthy workers. Consequently, discriminatory hiring practices that diminish these anxieties become collectively accepted as rational responses to organizational problems and embedded within the social system as collectively endorsed defences against anxiety. Given that project-based employment is temporary, this pattern of discrimination against women is regularly repeated and contributes to entrenched gender inequality within the film industry. Qualitative data from interviews with 12 male and 13 female film production workers is presented to illustrate this analysis.
Slipping into functional stupidity: The bifocality of organizational compliance
Roland Paulsen
Human Relations, first published on June 7, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716649246
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/06/03/0018726716649246?papetoc
Abstract
Drawing on ethnographical work at the Swedish Public Employment Service, this article contextualizes functional stupidity in relation to other types of organizational compliance. Rather than seeing stupidity as a personality trait, I argue that it should be regarded as a transient unreflective mode of compliance one may yield to for a number of reasons but also reflect on in hindsight. Based on the empirical material, I distinguish 10 'stupidity rationales' emanating from reflective types of compliance with which employees can motivate the practice of functional stupidity. Functional stupidity can be seen as the modus operandi of ego-dystonic compliance we enter in order to endure long hours of imposed work assignments we would rather not perform.
In pursuit of ambidexterity: Managerial reactions to innovation–efficiency tensions
Angeliki Papachroni, Loizos Heracleous and Sotirios Paroutis
Human Relations, first published on June 7, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726715625343
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/06/03/0018726715625343?papetoc
Abstract
Whereas tensions arising from the pursuit of ambidexterity have been documented, how
these are interpreted and managed by actors themselves remains largely unexplored.
Based on in-depth case research in a large Scandinavian-based telecommunications
organization pursuing ambidexterity, we identify a path-dependent process of tension
interpretation and tension management at different levels of the organization. Our
findings suggest that, in the context of an ambidextrous strategy, actors are actively
involved in managing arising tensions based on their differing interpretations of these
tensions (where ambidextrous demands are seen as complementary, conflicting or
interrelated). We find that these interpretations are influenced by actors' strategic
orientation and organizational level. Our study extends understanding of the pursuit of
ambidexterity in practice, offering a pluralist, path-dependent perspective of how actors
perceive and deal with ambidexterity tensions.
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CALLS FOR PAPERS
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Special issue: Politicization and political contests in contemporary multinational corporations – submit by 30 September 2016
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Politics%20and%20MNCs.html
Special issue: Organizing feminism: Bodies, practices and ethics – submit by 30 November 2016
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Organizing%20feminism.html
Special issue: The changing nature of managerial work – submit by 31 January 2017
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Managerial%20work.html
Special issue: Inserting professionals and professional organizations in studies of wrongdoing: The nature, antecedents, and consequences of professional misconduct – submit by 30 April 2017
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Professional%20misconduct.html
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.
Best wishes,
Claire Castle
Managing Editor, Human Relations
Tavistock Institute of Human Relations
Email: c.castle@tavinstitute.org
Website: www.humanrelationsjournal.org
OnlineFirst forthcoming articles: http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/recent
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