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A very happy and healthy New Year to you!
A new issue of Human Relations is available online: Human Relations January 2016; Vol. 69, No. 1 − we hope you enjoy reading these articles.
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JANUARY ISSUE ARTICLES
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Human Relations Paper of the Year Award 2015
Human Relations January 2016; 69(1): 3
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/1/3?etoc
The Human Relations Paper of the Year Award is given to the paper that the Editorial Team considers best encapsulates broad readership appeal, sound methods, and whose theory advances our understanding of human relations at work.
The moral work of subversion
Peter N Bloom and Paul J White
Human Relations January 2016; 69(1): 5−31
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/1/5?etoc
Abstract
This article critically reconsiders dominant understandings of morality and subversion within organizations. Existing organizational literature does not adequately address the important productive role of morality for producing and justifying everyday subversive practices as well as the use of subversion to legitimate power relations and dominant values. Drawing upon interactionist insights, we develop a practice-based account of morality, highlighting the means through which subversion retroactively legitimates the diverse range of actions performed by organizational subjects. This form of retrospective reasoning, which we term 'moralization', serves as an important resource for subjects to actively negotiate the often competing moral and practical demands placed on them as organizational subjects. Consequently, we position subversion as an important means of accomplishing, legitimating and preserving a given organizational order, rather than a 'common sense' view that subversion necessarily subverts organizational values. In doing so, we make explicit the 'positive' function of rule-bending for processes of organizational control.
Unfreezing change as three steps: Rethinking Kurt Lewin's legacy for change management
Stephen Cummings, Todd Bridgman, and Kenneth G Brown
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/1/33?etoc
Human Relations January 2016; 69(1): 33−60
Abstract
Kurt Lewin's 'changing as three steps' (unfreezing → changing → refreezing) is regarded by many as the classic or fundamental approach to managing change. Lewin has been criticized by scholars for over-simplifying the change process and has been defended by others against such charges. However, what has remained unquestioned is the model's foundational significance. It is sometimes traced (if it is traced at all) to the first article ever published in Human Relations. Based on a comparison of what Lewin wrote about changing as three steps with how this is presented in later works, we argue that he never developed such a model and it took form after his death. We investigate how and why 'changing as three steps' came to be understood as the foundation of the fledgling subfield of change management and to influence change theory and practice to this day, and how questioning this supposed foundation can encourage innovation.
You might also be interested in our Change Management virtual special issue:
http://hum.sagepub.com/site/misc/VSI/Change_Management/CM_VSI.xhtml
The bored self in knowledge work
Jana Costas and Dan Kärreman
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/1/61?etoc
Human Relations January 2016; 69(1): 61−83
Abstract
This article draws attention to reported experiences of boredom in knowledge work. Drawing on extensive qualitative data gathered at two management consultancy firms, we analyze these experiences as a particular interaction with identity regulation and work experiences. We conceptualize the reports of the bored self as a combination of unfilled aspirations and the sense of stagnation, leading to an arrested identity. Our contribution is to expand extant conceptualizations of employee interactions with identity regulation, in particular relating to identity work and identification. The findings provide a critical rendering of the glamourized image of knowledge work.
Beyond choice: 'Thick' volunteering and the case of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution
Michelle O'Toole and Chris Grey
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/1/85?etoc
Human Relations January 2016; 69(1): 85−109
Abstract
This article problematizes the dominant assumption in the literature on volunteer work that it is undertaken primarily as a matter of individual choice. Using findings from a qualitative study of volunteers at the not-for-profit organization, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, it is shown that volunteering exists within a dense web of social relations, especially familial and communal relations, so that volunteering is recursively constituted by structure and agency. The concept of 'thick volunteering' is developed to denote how in some cases these social relations, especially when the work involved is dangerous, may make volunteering especially significant.
Challenge and hindrance stressors and wellbeing-based work–nonwork interference: A diary study of portfolio workers
Stephen J Wood and George Michaelides
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/1/111?etoc
Human Relations January 2016; 69(1): 111−138
Abstract
Stress-based work–nonwork interference, or negative spillover, is associated with transference of negative emotions from the work to the nonwork domain. It is argued that work–nonwork interference resulting from high work demands does not necessarily entail the reproduction of any affective states. First, calmness can result in lower work–nonwork interference and enthusiasm in higher levels. Second, hindrance stressors can be negatively related to enthusiasm and calmness, while challenge stressors are positively associated with them. Hypotheses about the relationship between stressors and interference that reflect this rationality are developed and tested using longitudinal data from a six-month diary study of portfolio workers. The results offer some support for them and indicate that both challenge and hindrance stressors are positively related to interference. However, for hindrance stressors the indirect effect is positive when mediated by calmness and negative for enthusiasm. In contrast, for challenge stressors the indirect effect is negative when mediated by calmness and positive when mediated by enthusiasm. The mediation paths are significant only for transient effects. Thus, there are indications that well-being can both increase or decrease interference depending on the nature of the stressor and whether it is mediated by calmness or enthusiasm.
What happens when you can't be who you are: Professional identity at the institutional periphery
Jelena Zikic and Julia Richardson
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/1/139?etoc
Human Relations January 2016; 69(1): 139−168
Abstract
This article examines the impact of large scale, 'macro' role transitions on professional identity. Drawing on in-depth interviews with two different groups of immigrant professionals, it theorizes how organizational outsiders with established professional identities respond to the institutional requirements and specifically to professional pre-entry scripts in their new host country. The study demonstrates how identity work evolves among each group as they navigate the permeable and impermeable pre-entry scripts in their respective professions. It identifies both barriers and facilitators to engagement with, and fulfillment of, local pre-entry scripts. These findings demonstrate how different professional domains and power structures create different opportunities for re-entry and as a result give rise to different forms of identity work – involving, for example, identity customization, identity shadowing, struggle and enrichment. Implications for policy makers in the field will be discussed, focusing on how different groups of professionals respond to unique forms of identity threat emerging from their respective professional institutions and structural barriers.
Modelling job crafting behaviours: Implications for work engagement
Arnold B Bakker, Alfredo Rodríguez-Muñoz, and Ana Isabel Sanz Vergel
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/1/169?etoc
Human Relations January 2016; 69(1): 169−189
Abstract
In this study among 206 employees (103 dyads), we followed the job demands–resources approach of job crafting to investigate whether proactively changing one's work environment influences employee's (actor's) own and colleague's (partner's) work engagement. Using social cognitive theory, we hypothesized that employees would imitate each other's job crafting behaviours, and therefore influence each other's work engagement. Results showed that the crafting of social and structural job resources and the crafting of challenge job demands was positively related to own work engagement, whereas decreasing hindrance job demands was unrelated to own engagement. As predicted, results showed a reciprocal relationship between dyad members' job crafting behaviours – each of the actor's job crafting behaviours was positively related to the partner's job crafting behaviours. Finally, employee's job crafting was related to colleague's work engagement through colleague's job crafting, suggesting a modelling process.
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JANUARY FREE ACCESS ARTICLE
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Free to access until 31 January 2016:
Towards a negative ontology of leadership
Simon Kelly
Human Relations August 2014 vol. 67 no. 8 905−922
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/67/8/905.full.pdf+html
Abstract
Drawing on recent critical debates concerning the ontology of leadership, this article outlines a radical rethinking of the concept – not as the study of heroic individuals, skilled practitioners, collaborators or discursive actors – but as the marker of a fundamental and productive lack; a space of absent presence through which individual and collective desires for leadership are given expression. Where current critical debates tend to oscillate between variants of the physical and the social in their analyses, this article considers the potential for a negative ontology of leadership; one in which absence, ideological practices and the operation of empty signifiers form the basis for empirical investigation and critical reflection.
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SPECIAL ISSUE EDITORIAL REVIEWS NOW FREE!
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Readers can now access introductory articles from recent special issues for free –
simply scroll down to Published special issues at:
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues.html
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WHY PUBLISH IN HUMAN RELATIONS?
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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: 2.398 - Ranked: 35/185 in Management and 5/95 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary
5-year impact factor: 3.187 - Ranked: 37/185 in Management and 3/95 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary
Source: 2014 Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters, 2015)
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CALLS FOR PAPERS
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Special issue: Conceptualising flexible careers across the life course – submit by 1 March 2016
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Flexible%20careers.html
Special issue: Global supply chains and social relations at work – submit by 30 April 2016
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Global%20supply%20chains.html
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
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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RECENT ONLINEFIRST PREVIEW ARTICLES
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How does customer affiliative behaviour shape the outcomes of employee emotion regulation? A daily diary study of supermarket checkout operators
David Holman
Human Relations 0018726715600230, first published on December 17, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726715600230
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/12/16/0018726715600230.full.pdf+html
Abstract
Few studies have examined how customer behaviour shapes the outcomes of employees' emotion regulation. Drawing on existing literature, this article tests two alternative models of customer affiliative behaviour (e.g. smiling, engaging in short conversation), employee emotion regulation (surface acting, deep acting) and employee outcomes (emotional exhaustion, objective task performance). In one model, customer affiliative behaviour is a mechanism that mediates the relationship between employee emotion regulation and outcomes, and in the other model customer affiliative behaviour moderates this relationship. The models were tested on data drawn from a daily diary study of 49 supermarket checkout operators and store performance records. The findings from multilevel analyses make a significant contribution to understanding how a key part of the social context during service interactions (i.e. customer affiliative behaviour) is a mechanism and moderator of employee emotion regulation. Results show that the effects of deep and surface acting on employee well-being are mediated by customer affiliative behaviour, and that relationship between surface acting and task performance is mediated by customer affiliative behaviour and emotional exhaustion. In addition, customer affiliative behaviour moderated the relationship between deep acting and emotional exhaustion, and the indirect effect of deep acting on task performance through emotional exhaustion.
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 0018726715619686, first published on December 14, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726715619686
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/12/09/0018726715619686.full.pdf+html
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.
Leader–member exchange differentiation and team creativity:
An investigation of nonlinearity
Yan Li, Fengying Fu, Jian-Min Sun, and Baiyin Yang
Human Relations 0018726715597481, first published on December 3, 2015 as
doi:10.1177/0018726715597481
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/11/26/0018726715597481.full.pdf+html
Abstract
Although substantial knowledge regarding the antecedents and outcomes of leader–member exchange (LMX) differentiation has been accumulated, numerous questions related to this topic remain underexplored. To enhance the understanding of LMX differentiation and team-focused outcomes, this study proposed that LMX differentiation has a curvilinear relationship with team creativity and that team LMX quality (represented by the LMX median in this study) moderates the association between these two variables. An investigation based on 59 teams from multiple Chinese companies was conducted. The results indicated that LMX differentiation has an inverted U-shaped relationship with team creativity, and LMX median moderates the inverted U-shaped relationship. Specifically, for teams with a low LMX median, the curvilinear relationship is stronger, whereas for teams with a high LMX median, the slope of the curve becomes nearly flat, thus losing the inverted-U effect. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, and directions for future research are outlined.
Longitudinal associations between employees' beliefs about the quality of the change management process, affective commitment to change and psychological empowerment
Alexandre JS Morin, John P Meyer, Émilie Bélanger, Jean-Sébastien Boudrias, Marylène Gagné, and Philip D Parker
Human Relations 0018726715602046, first published on December 3, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726715602046
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/11/26/0018726715602046.full.pdf+html
Abstract
Organizational changes are costly ventures that too often fail to deliver the expected outcomes. Psychological empowerment and affective commitment to change are proposed as especially important in turbulent contexts characterized by multiple and ongoing changes requiring employees' continuing contributions. In such a context, employees' beliefs that the changes are necessary, legitimate and will be supported, are presumed to increase psychological empowerment and affective commitment to change. In a three-wave longitudinal panel study of 819 employees, we examined autoregressive and cross-lagged relations among latent constructs reflecting change-related beliefs (necessity, legitimacy, support) and psychological reactions (psychological empowerment, affective commitment to change). Our findings suggest that psychological empowerment and affective commitment to change represent largely orthogonal reactions, that psychological empowerment is influenced more by beliefs regarding support, whereas affective commitment to change is shaped more by beliefs concerning necessity and legitimacy.
Liminal roles as a source of creative agency in management: The case of knowledge-sharing communities
Jacky Swan, Harry Scarbrough, and Monique Ziebro
Human Relations 0018726715599585, first published on November 27, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726715599585
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/11/26/0018726715599585.full.pdf+html
Abstract
Studies suggest that the experience of liminality – of being in an ambiguous, 'betwixt and between' position – has creative potential for organizations. We contribute to theory on the link between liminality and creative agency through a study of the coordinators of 'knowledge-sharing communities'; one of the latest examples of a 'neo-bureaucratic' practice that seeks to elicit innovative responses from employees while intensifying control by the organization. Through a role-centred perspective, our study found that both the structural and interpretive aspects of coordinators' role enactments promoted a degree of creative agency. 'Front-stage' and 'back-stage' activities were developed to meet the divergent expectations posed by senior management and community members, and the ambiguity of their roles prompted an array of different role interpretations. Our findings contribute to theory by showing how the link between liminality and creative agency is not confined to roles and spaces (consultancy work, professional expertise) that are positioned across organizational boundaries, or free from norms and expectations, but may also apply to roles that are ambiguously situatedwithin organizational contexts and that are subject to divergent expectations. This shows how neo-bureaucratic forms may be both reproduced and renewed through the creative responses of individual managers.
Channeling identification: How perceived regulatory focus moderates the influence of organizational and professional identification on professional employees' diagnosis and treatment behaviors
David R Hekman, Daan van Knippenberg, and Michael G Pratt
Human Relations 0018726715599240, first published on November 27, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726715599240
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/11/26/0018726715599240.full.pdf+html
Abstract
We suggest that organizational and professional identification are two sources of motivation that can be channeled in similar or different directions based on perceived organizational and professional regulatory focus. Specifically, we hypothesize and find that both types of identification-based motivation are channeled toward diagnosis behaviors when professionals think their coworkers and colleagues value a promotion focus, and they are channeled toward treatment behaviors when professionals think their coworkers and colleagues value a prevention focus. Our results advance research on social identification by helping to explain how and when organizational and professional identification influence work performance, and also advance the organizational literature on professions by introducing diagnosis and treatment as two theory-derived types of in-role performance for professional employees.
When performativity fails:
Implications for Critical Management Studies
Peter Fleming and Subhabrata Bobby Banerjee
Human Relations 0018726715599241, first published on November 27, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726715599241
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/11/26/0018726715599241.full.pdf+html
Abstract
This article argues that recent calls in this journal and elsewhere for Critical Management Studies scholars to embrace rather than reject performativity presents an overly optimistic view of (a) the power of language to achieve emancipatory organizational change and (b) the capability of lone Critical Management Studies researchers to resignify management discourses. We introduce the notion of failed performatives to extend this argument and discuss its implications for critical inquiry. If Critical Management Studies seeks to make a practical difference in business and society, and realize its ideals of emancipation, we suggest alternative methods of impact must be explored.
Best wishes,
Claire Castle
Managing Editor, Human Relations
Email: c.castle@tavinstitute.org
Website: www.humanrelationsjournal.org
OnlineFirst forthcoming articles: http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/recent
Submission guidance: http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/submit_paper.html
2-year impact factor: 2.398 - Ranked: 35/185 in Management and 5/95 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary
5-year impact factor: 3.187 - Ranked: 37/185 in Management and 3/95 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary
Source: 2014 Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters, 2015)