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A new issue of Human Relations is available online: Human Relations June 2016; Vol. 69, No. 6 − we hope you enjoy reading these articles.
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JUNE ISSUE ARTICLES
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On temporary organizations: A review, synthesis and research agenda
Catriona M Burke and Michael J Morley
Human Relations June 2016, 69(6): 1235-1258, doi: 10.1177/0018726715610809
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/6/1235?etoc
Abstract
Despite the ascendency of temporary organizations to common practice in many industries, and their expansion as an area of academic inquiry, research evidence on their genesis, development and impact remains fragmented across diverse fields, many of which fail to engage with each other. Our purpose in this article is to bring greater systematics to the scholarship on temporary organizations through documenting their evolution and assembling their bricolage. To this end, we first define and delineate the concept of the temporary organization and we develop an inductively derived framework for organizing the literature comprising individual/team attributes and interior processes, task attributes, tensions between the temporary organization and the permanent organization, networks and organizational fields and performance/outcomes of temporary organizations. Following an explication of these attributes and the dominant relationships between them, we suggest how this nascent area of inquiry might advance through the identification of a number of significant research opportunities. Finally, we highlight the consequences for broader management and organization theory development.
Self and senior executive perceptions of fit and performance:
A time-lagged examination of newly-hired executives
Jia Hu, Sandy J Wayne, Talya N Bauer, Berrin Erdogan, and Robert C Liden
Human Relations June 2016, 69(6): 1259-1286, doi:10.1177/0018726715609108
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/6/1259?etoc
Abstract
Drawing on the person–organization fit literature and person-categorization theory, we proposed that new executive performance depends on both their self-perceptions as well as their fit as seen by senior executives. Using three-phased, multisource data from newly-hired executives of a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company across their first six months on the job, we found that senior executive pre-entry person–organization fit expectations of their followers (new executives) are positively related to their post-entry person–organization fit perceptions through the partial mediating role of their leader–member exchange relationships. Furthermore, results also revealed that senior executive person–organization fit perceptions were significantly and positively related to new executive in-role and extra-role performance, but only when new executives' own perceptions of person–organization fit were low.
When and why do individuals craft their jobs?
The role of individual motivation and work characteristics for job crafting
Cornelia Niessen, Daniela Weseler, and Petya Kostova
Human Relations June 2016, 69(6): 1287-1313, doi:10.1177/0018726715610642
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/6/1287?etoc
Abstract
As a proactive behavior, job crafting refers to changes in the task (cognitive, and behavioral) and social boundaries at work. This article focuses on antecedents of job crafting and the development and validation of a job crafting scale. In Study 1 (N = 466), an exploratory factor analysis with one half of the sample (n = 233) and a confirmatory factor analysis with the other half (n = 233) supported a three-dimensional structure of job crafting (task crafting, relational crafting and cognitive crafting), and convergent as well as discriminant validity of job crafting, in relation to personal initiative and organizational citizenship behavior. In Study 2 (N = 118, two points of measurement), we cross-validated the measure and demonstrated that job crafting was related to, yet distinct from, taking charge. We found that an increase in job crafting at Time 2 was predicted by need for positive self-image (Time 1), as well as by work experience (Time 1). Need for human connection (Time 1) was related to job crafting at Time 2 when self-efficacy was high. Moreover, there was evidence that job crafting as self-oriented behavior related positively to person–job fit. Implications for future research are discussed.
Injustice hurts, literally: The role of sleep and emotional exhaustion in the relationship between organizational justice and musculoskeletal disorders
Caroline Manville, Assâad El Akremi, Michel Niezborala, and Karim Mignonac
Human Relations June 2016, 69(6): 1315-1339, doi:10.1177/0018726715615927
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/6/1315?etoc
Abstract
The physical health consequences of perceived injustice at work are an important yet underexplored area of research. Using the job-stress recovery literature as an overarching framework, we argued that incomplete recovery because of sleep disorders and subsequent emotional exhaustion is a possible underlying mechanism through which organizational justice relates to employee musculoskeletal disorders (MSD). Using both self-administered questionnaires and medical examination to assess MSD, we tested our argument in two studies. Based on a randomly selected sample of employees from a variety of organizations, Study 1 found organizational justice to be negatively related to MSD through diminished sleep-related disorders. Using a sample of employees in nursing homes for the elderly, Study 2 extended these results by showing that the organizational justice–MSD relationship is sequentially mediated by sleep disorders and emotional exhaustion.
Othering, ableism and disability: A discursive analysis of co-workers' construction of colleagues with visible impairments
Nanna Mik-Meyer
Human Relations June 2016, 69(6): 1341-1363, doi:10.1177/0018726715618454
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/6/1341?etoc
Abstract
The aim of this article is to explore how able-bodied co-workers engage in the 'othering' of colleagues with impairments. Taking a discursive analytical approach, the article examines interviews with 19 managers and 43 colleagues who all worked closely with an employee with cerebral palsy in 13 different work organizations. The primary finding of the article is that co-workers spontaneously refer to other 'different' people (e.g. transvestites, homosexuals, immigrants) when talking about a colleague with visible impairments. This finding suggests that disability is simultaneously a discursive category (i.e. the discourse of ableism prevents co-workers from talking about the impairments of a colleague) and a material phenomenon (i.e. employees with impairments are a distinct category of employees in the eyes of the co-workers). Othering of employees with disabilities thus demonstrates contradictory discourses of ableism (which automatically produce difference) and tolerance and inclusiveness (which automatically render it problematic to talk about difference).
Constructing positive identities in ableist workplaces:
Disabled employees' discursive practices engaging with the discourse of lower productivity
Eline Jammaers, Patrizia Zanoni, and Stefan Hardonk
Human Relations June 2016, 69(6): 1365-1386, doi:10.1177/0018726715612901
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/6/1365?etoc
Abstract
This article explores how disabled workers engage with the ableist discourse of disability as lower productivity in constructing positive identities in the workplace. Disabled employees inhabit a contradictory discursive position: as disabled individuals, they are discursively constructed for what they are unable to do, whereas as employees they are constituted as human resources and expected to be able to produce and create value. Our discourse analysis of 30 in-depth interviews with disabled employees identifies three types of discursive practices through which they construct positive workplace identities: (1) practices contesting the discourse of lower productivity as commonly defined; (2) practices contesting the discourse of lower productivity by redefining productivity; and (3) practices reaffirming the discourse of lower productivity yet refusing individual responsibility for it. The study advances the disability literature by highlighting how disabled speakers sustain positive workplace identities despite the negative institutionalized expectations of lower productivity both by challenging and reproducing ableism as an organizing principle.
When saying sorry may not help: Transgressor power moderates the effect of an apology on forgiveness in the workplace
Xue Zheng, Marius van Dijke, Joost M Leunissen, Laura M Giurge, and David De Cremer
Human Relations June 2016, 69(6): 1387-1418, doi:10.1177/0018726715611236
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/6/1387?etoc
Abstract
An apology, as an expression of remorse, can be an effective response from a transgressor to obtain forgiveness from a victim. Yet, to be effective, the victim should not construe the transgressor's actions in a cynical way. Because low-power people tend to interpret the actions of high-power people in a cynical way, we argue that an apology (versus no apology) from high-power transgressors should be relatively ineffective in increasing forgiveness from low-power victims. We find support for this moderated mediation model in a critical incidents study (Study 1), a forced recall study (Study 2) among employees from various organizations and a controlled laboratory experiment among business students (Study 3).
These studies reveal the limited value of expressions of remorse by high-power people in promoting forgiveness.
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RECENT ONLINE FIRST PREVIEW ARTICLES
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Access all OnlineFirst articles here: http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/recent
Theorization as institutional work: The dynamics of roles and practices
Sébastien Mena and Roy Suddaby
Human Relations 0018726715622556, first published on May 20, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726715622556
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/05/20/0018726715622556?papetoc
Abstract
This study unpacks the construct of theorization – the process by which organizational ideas become delocalized and abstracted into theoretical models to support their diffusion across time and space. We adopt an institutional work lens to analyse the key components of theorization in contexts where institutional work is in transition from changing institutions to maintaining them. We build on a longitudinal inductive study of theorization by the Fair Labor Association – a private regulatory initiative that created and then enforced a code of conduct for working conditions in apparel factories. Our study reveals that when institutional work shifts from changing to maintaining an institutional arrangement of corporate social responsibility, there is a key change in how the Fair Labor Association theorizes roles and practices related to this arrangement. We observe that theorization on key practices largely remains intact, whereas the roles of different actors are theorized in a dramatically different manner. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of the work involved in the aftermath of radical change by demonstrating the relative plasticity of roles over the rigidity of practices.
Politics of place: The meaningfulness of resisting places
David Courpasson, Françoise Dany, and Rick Delbridge
Human Relations 0018726716641748, first published on May 20, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716641748
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/05/20/0018726716641748?papetoc
Abstract
The meaningfulness of the physical place within which resistance is nurtured and enacted has not been carefully considered in research on space and organizations. In this article, we offer two stories of middle managers developing resistance to managerial policies and decisions. We show that the appropriation and reconstruction of specific places by middle managers helps them to build autonomous resisting work thanks to the meanings that resisters attribute to the place in which they undertake resistance. We contribute to the literature on space and organizations by showing that resistance is a social experience through which individuals shape physical places and exploit the geographical blurring of organizations to develop political efforts that can be consequential. We also suggest the central role played by middle managers in the subversion of these meaningful places of resistance.
Mixed feelings, mixed blessing? How ambivalence in organizational identification relates to employees' regulatory focus and citizenship behaviors
Sebastian C. Schuh, Niels Van Quaquebeke, Anja S. Göritz, Katherine R. Xin, David De Cremer, and Rolf van Dick
Human Relations 0018726716639117, first published on May 20, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716639117
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/05/20/0018726716639117?papetoc
Abstract
Recent conceptual work suggests that the sense of identity that employees develop vis-vis their organization goes beyond the traditional notion of organizational identification and can also involve conflicting impulses represented by ambivalent identification. In this study, we seek to advance this perspective on identification by proposing and empirically examining important antecedents and consequences. In line with our hypotheses, an experimental study (N = 199 employees) shows that organizational identification and ambivalent identification interactively influence employees' willingness to engage in organizational citizenship behavior. The effect of organizational identification on organizational citizenship behavior is significantly reduced when employees experience ambivalent identification. A field study involving employees from a broad spectrum of organizations and industries (N = 564) replicated these findings. Moreover, results show that employees' promotion and prevention focus form differential relationships with organizational identification and ambivalent identification, providing first evidence for a link between employees' regulatory focus and the dynamics of identification. Implications for the expanded model of organizational identification and the understanding of ambivalence in organizations are discussed.
How leader and follower attachment styles are mediated by trust
P.D. Harms, Yuntao Bai, and Guohong Helen Han
Human Relations 0018726716628968, first published on May 20, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716628968
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/05/20/0018726716628968?papetoc
Abstract
The current study utilizes attachment theory to understand how leader–follower relationships impact emotional and behavioral outcomes in the workplace. Specifically, we examine the roles of two dysfunctional attachment styles – anxious and avoidant attachment – as determinants of trust in leaders, stress and citizenship behaviors. Results showed that followers with anxious attachment orientations reported experiencing more stress, whereas followers with avoidant attachment orientations were less likely to engage in organizational citizenship behaviors. Moreover, we found that the relationship between attachment orientations and workplace outcomes are mediated by affective and cognitive trust. However, these negative outcomes only occur when the follower has a leader with an avoidant attachment orientation. Implications for training, selection, job design and understanding leader–follower dynamics are discussed.
Older British employees' declining attitudes over 20 years and across classes
Michael White and Deborah Smeaton
Human Relations 0018726715618765, first published on May 20, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726715618765
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/05/20/0018726715618765?papetoc
Abstract
British employers, under increasing competitive pressures, and applying new technology and work organization, have sought to reduce labour costs, resulting in work intensification and precarity. Older employees as a result are exposed to work demands that conflict with expectations of favourable treatment in late career. National survey data for Britain in the years 1992, 2001, 2006 and 2012 demonstrate a decline in overall job attitude among older employees following the changed conditions of the 1990s and across the major recession that began in 2008. To assess whether this decline is unequally distributed, decomposition by socio-economic class is carried out. This shows that older employees in the 'service class' of managerial and professional employees are affected at least as much as older employees in intermediate and less-skilled classes, thus underlining the age effect and showing that 'service-class' employees are not invulnerable to a changing economic environment.
Enabling team learning when members are prone to contentious communication: The role of team leader coaching
John Schaubroeck, Abraham Carmeli, Sarena Bhatia, and Etty Paz
Human Relations 0018726715622673, first published on May 20, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726715622673
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/05/20/0018726715622673?papetoc
Abstract
Members of teams are often prone to interpersonal communication patterns that can undermine the team's capacity to engage in self-learning processes that are critical to team adaptation and performance improvement. We argue that team leader coaching behaviors are critical to ensuring that team discussions that may foster learning new teamwork skills and strategies are unfettered by the tendency of two or more members to exhibit contentious interpersonal communications. We accordingly test a model in which team contentious communication moderates the mediated relationship of team leader coaching behaviors on team innovation effectiveness and team task performance. In a study of 82 work teams, team leader coaching behaviors exhibited indirect, positive relationships with both team innovation effectiveness and team task performance through team learning, but only among teams with an average or higher level of contentious interpersonal communication. We discuss theoretical and practical implications for the leadership of teams.
Towards a Butlerian methodology: Undoing organizational performativity through anti-narrative research
Kathleen Riach, Nick Rumens, and Melissa Tyler
Human Relations 0018726716632050, first published on May 20, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716632050
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/05/13/0018726716632050?papetoc
Abstract
This article explores the methodological possibilities that Butler's theory of performativity opens up, attempting to 'translate' her theoretical ideas into research practice. Specifically, it considers how research on organizational subjectivity premised upon a performative ontology might be undertaken. It asks: What form might a Butler-inspired methodology take? What methodological opportunities might it afford for developing self-reflexive research? What political and ethical problems might it pose for organizational researchers, particularly in relation to the challenges associated with power asymmetries, and the risks attached to 'fixing' subjects within the research process? The article outlines and evaluates a method described as anti-narrative interviewing, arguing that it constitutes a potentially valuable methodological resource for researchers interested in understanding how and why idealized organizational subjectivities are formed and sustained. It further advances the in-roads that Butler's writing has made into organization studies, thinking through the methodological and ethical implications of her work for understanding the performative constitution of organizational subjectivities. The aim of the article is to advocate a research practice premised upon a reflexive undoing of organizational subjectivities and the normative conditions upon which they depend. It concludes by emphasizing the potential benefits and wider implications of a methodologically reflexive undoing of organizational performativity.
Becoming hybrid: The negotiated order on the front line of public–private partnerships
Simon Bishop and Justin Waring
Human Relations 0018726716630389, first published on May 20, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716630389
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/05/13/0018726716630389?papetoc
Abstract
This article examines how tensions in institutional logics, created in the formation of hybrid organizations, are played out, and partially resolved, through micro-level interactions within everyday work. Drawing on the negotiated order perspective, our research examined how the 'context', 'processes' and 'outcomes' of micro-level negotiations reflect and mitigate tensions between institutional logics. Our ethnographic study of a public–private partnership within the English healthcare system identified tensions within the hybrid organization around organizational goals and values, work activities, hierarchies and the materials and technologies of work. We also identified processes of negotiation between actors, which contributed to negotiated settlements, at times combining elements of parent institutional logics, and at other times serving to keep parent logics distinct. The article demonstrates the relevance of negotiated order perspective to current institutional logics literature on hybrid organizations.
Rhetoric of epistemic authority: Defending field positions during the financial crisis
Suhaib Riaz, Sean Buchanan, and Trish Ruebottom
Human Relations 0018726715614385, first published on May 20, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726715614385
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/05/13/0018726715614385?papetoc
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.
Food and music matters: Affective relations and practices in social justice organizations
Lynne Keevers and Christopher Sykes
Human Relations 0018726715621368, first published on May 20, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726715621368
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/05/13/0018726715621368?papetoc
Abstract
In this article, we focus on the organizing practices of a community-based, not-for-profit, social justice organization. We investigate how organizational participants interweave bundles of practices involving food and music to choreograph the affective relations that bring forth a sense of belonging, participation, recognition and respect between diverse people, thereby enacting social justice. This article examines the everyday, organizing practices associated with food and music and shows how not only are food and music excellent entrances to understanding organizational practices but they are also instrumental in constituting and reconstituting the performance of social justice. In this way, our article brings attention to the dimensions of knowing which are not primarily about representing but about affecting. In particular, practices of respect, recognition and belonging are rendered communicable across the boundaries of difference, dependency and inequality, forming platforms for solidarity and the understanding of differences. The article illustrates how organizing practices involving food and music play important roles in creating the conditions of possibility for diverse people to work collaboratively and respectfully together. We contend that the lived experience of organization cannot be understood without attentiveness to affect and affective relations.
FREE ACCESS: Temporal issues in person–organization fit, person–job fit and turnover:
The role of leader–member exchange
Corine Boon and Michal Biron
Human Relations 0018726716636945, first published on May 20, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716636945
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/05/13/0018726716636945.full.pdf+html
Abstract
Person–environment fit has been found to have significant implications for employee attitudes and behaviors. Most research to date has approached person–environment fit as a static phenomenon, and without examining how different types of person–environment fit may affect each other. In particular, little is known about the conditions under which fit with one aspect of the environment influences another aspect, as well as subsequent behavior. To address this gap we examine the role of leader–member exchange in the relationship between two types of person–environment fit over time: person–organization and person–job fit, and subsequent turnover. Using data from two waves (T1 and T2, respectively) and turnover data collected two years later (T3) from a sample of 160 employees working in an elderly care organization in the Netherlands, we find that person–organization fit at T1 is positively associated with person–job fit at T2, but only for employees in high-quality leader–member exchange relationships. Higher needs–supplies fit at T2 is associated with lower turnover at T3. In contrast, among employees in high-quality leader–member exchange relationships, the demands–abilities dimension of person–job fit at T2 is associated with higher turnover at T3.
Digging deeper towards capricious management: 'Personal traits become part of the means of production'
Gerard Hanlon
Human Relations 0018726716644661, first published on May 20, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716644661
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/05/13/0018726716644661?papetoc
Abstract
What follows examines the shifting nature of work to argue that we need to look beyond the employment relationship and the work organization to understand labour. It suggests one tendency in capitalism is to generate 'all labour as productive of value' (Harvie, 2005: 161), so that we subsume life to work. The article also suggests that, rather than being new, this development is an intensification of the past. Indeed, by returning to early management writers, it asserts that we can see the scale of management's political ambition to subsume life to work. As such, to understand labour we need to comprehend the broader issue of capitalism's social reproduction and the manner in which it recalibrates the subject as a 'subject of value'.
Microfinance and the business of poverty reduction: Critical perspectives from rural Bangladesh
Subhabrata Bobby Banerjee and Laurel Jackson
Human Relations 0018726716640865, first published on May 12, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716640865
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/05/11/0018726716640865?papetoc
Abstract
In this article we provide a critical analysis of the role of market-based approaches to poverty reduction in developing countries. In particular, we analyse the role of microfinance in poverty alleviation by conducting an ethnographic study of three villages in Bangladesh. Microfinance has become an increasingly popular approach that aims to alleviate poverty by providing the poor new opportunities for entrepreneurship. It also aims to promote empowerment (especially among women) while enhancing social capital in poor communities. Our findings, however, reflect a different picture. We found microfinance led to increasing levels of indebtedness among already impoverished communities and exacerbated economic, social and environmental vulnerabilities. Our findings contribute to the emerging literature on the role of social capital in developing entrepreneurial capabilities in poor communities by highlighting processes whereby social capital can be undermined by market-based measures like microfinance.
The impact of stereotypes and supervisor perceptions of employee work–family conflict on job performance ratings
Andrew Li, Jessica Bagger, and Russell Cropanzano
Human Relations 0018726716645660, first published on May 12, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716645660
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/05/11/0018726716645660?papetoc
Abstract
We draw on gender role theory to examine the relationships among employee-rated work–family conflict, supervisor perceptions of employee work–family conflict, employee gender and supervisor-rated job performance. We found that the relationship between employee-rated work–family conflict and supervisor perceptions of employee conflict varied based on both employee gender and the direction of conflict under consideration. Specifically, the relationship between the two rating sources (employee and supervisor) was stronger for male employees when conflict was considered. However, the relationship between the two rating sources was stronger for female employees when family-to-work conflict was considered. Supervisor perceptions of employee work–family conflict were negatively related to employee job performance ratings. More generally, we found support for a moderated mediation model such that the relationship between employee-rated work–family conflict and job performance was mediated by supervisor perceptions of employee work–family conflict, and the effect was moderated by employee gender. Implications for research and practice are discussed.
Expatriation and career success: A human capital perspective
Aarti Ramaswami, Nancy M Carter, and George F Dreher
Human Relations 0018726716630390, first published on May 12, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716630390
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/05/11/0018726716630390?papetoc
Abstract
Very little is known about the linkages between expatriation and objective measures of career success. In this field study we address the expatriation–compensation attainment relationship, after controlling for different kinds of international experience, among 440 graduates of elite MBA programs from around the world. The results suggest that a positive compensation return only accrues to repatriates who have experienced more than one expatriate assignment, perceived acquired knowledge and skills to be utilized during post-repatriation periods, and who are working at higher organizational levels. These findings, along with a supplementary analysis, support an explanation of the results based on human capital theory. That is, expatriation relates to compensation attainment because it is an intense developmental experience, and not merely a selection or signaling mechanism. Furthermore, by incorporating the concepts of value of human capital, richness of human capital, and opportunity to display human capital, we provide a stronger test of when and for whom completing expatriate assignments is positively associated with compensation. The results also suggest that there are currently few readily available substitutes for expatriation.
Social influence and the invocation of rights: The effects of accountability, reputation and political skill on legal claiming
Angela T Hall, Wajda Wikhamn, and Robert Cardy
Human Relations 0018726716642506, first published on May 10, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716642506
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/05/09/0018726716642506?papetoc
Abstract
Issues relating to litigation and other forms of employee legal claiming are at the forefront of the practice of human resource management. However, organizational scholars have paid scant attention to this important aspect of organizational life. Underrepresented in this collective research have been investigations into how social influence variables impact the legal claiming process. We add to the understanding of legal claiming by evaluating how perceived levels of accountability, reputation and political skill affect individuals' willingness to engage in contentious and non-contentious legal claiming. We also investigate the impact that social influence has on individuals' advice to other potential claimants. This study employed a longitudinal design utilizing both scenarios and survey data collection. Results from our study partially support the conclusion that individuals are more risk-averse in their own legal claiming considerations than they are in the advice they offer to similarly-situated others. Furthermore, accountability, reputation and interpersonal influence (one aspect of political skill) were found to significantly influence the likelihood of legal claiming. The pattern of results indicates that social influence variables play a role in determining whether legal claiming will be pursued and what type of claiming will be chosen.
Reputation and identity conflict in management consulting
William S Harvey, Timothy Morris, and Milena Müller Santos
Human Relations 0018726716641747, first published on May 5, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716641747
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/05/05/0018726716641747?papetoc
Abstract
Based on a case study of a large consulting firm, this article makes two contributions to the literature on reputation and identity by examining how an organization responds when its identity is substantially misaligned with the experience and perceptions of external stakeholders that form the basis of reputational judgments. First, rather than triggering some form of identity adaptation, it outlines how other forms of identity can come into play to remediate this gap, buffering the organization's identity from change. This shift to other individual identities is facilitated by a low organizational identity context even when the identity of the firm is coherent and strong. The second contribution concerns the conceptualization of consulting and other professional service firms. We explain how reputation and identity interact in the context of the distinctive organizational features of these firms. Notably, their loosely coupled structure and the central importance of expert knowledge claims enable individual consultants both to reinforce and supplement corporate reputation via individual identity work.
The subversive craft worker: Challenging 'disutility' theories of management control
Dale Tweedie and Sasha Holley
Human Relations 0018726716628971, first published on May 4, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716628971
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/04/30/0018726716628971?papetoc
Abstract
Although sociologists and psychologists have documented various motivations for working, the concept of work as essentially disutility or undesirable retains broad resonance among influential economists and social theorists. These concepts imply that workers will tend to avoid or 'shirk' their work task unless subjected to management controls. Yet emerging counter-narratives have sought to retrieve and develop alternative concepts of work as craft, where workers are motivated to work well or be recognized for doing so. On these approaches, management controls can decrease the quality of the final outputs. This article uses a case study of cleaners in Australia to challenge influential representations of workers as prone to 'shirking' and the interpretation of management control to which these perspectives lead. The article argues that craft concepts of work derived from Richard Sennett and contemporary recognition theory provide alternative narratives of how workers can derive satisfaction from working well even in 'menial' tasks, and how craft motivations can drive workers to subvert management controls to uphold rather than diminish service quality. In this way, craft theories reveal limitations of overly instrumental concepts of work, and also help conceptualize how workers' attachment to their tasks can drive resistance to management control.
FREE ACCESS: Compositions of professionalism in counselling work:
An embodied and embedded intersectionality framework
Maria Adamson and Marjana Johansson
Human Relations 0018726716639118, first published on May 4, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716639118
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/04/30/0018726716639118?papetoc
Abstract
This article explores the embodied compositions of professionalism in the context of the counselling psychology profession in Russia. Specifically, we develop an embodied intersectionality framework for theorizing compositions of professionalism, which allows us to explain how multiple embodied categories of difference intersect and are relationally co-constitutive in producing credible professionals, and, importantly, how these intersections are contingent on intercorporeal encounters that take place in localized professional settings. Our exploration of how professionalism and professional credibility are established in Russian counselling shows that, rather than assuming that a hegemonic 'ideal body' is given preference in a professional context, different embodied compositions may be deemed credible in various work settings within the same profession. An embodied intersectionality framework allows us to challenge the notion of a single professional ideal and offer a dynamic and contextually situated analysis of the lived experiences of professional privilege and disadvantage.
The paradoxical effect of self-categorization on work stress in a high-status occupation:
Insights from management consulting
Julia Mühlhaus and Onno Bouwmeester
Human Relations 0018726715626255, first published on May 4, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726715626255
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/04/30/0018726715626255?papetoc
Abstract
Following social identity theory, the way in which individuals appraise stressful encounters and cope with them is influenced by their membership of social groups, which presumes self-categorization as a group member. To date, the impact of self-categorization on stress has mainly been studied for low-status groups. This article uses an interview study among management consultants to explore how self-categorization in terms of occupational identity impacts work stress in a high-status occupation. Adding to previous research, we find that not only low-status but also high-status groups benefit from self-categorization when coping with stressful situations. In line with prevailing theoretical assumptions, we even empirically find an 'upward spiral'. We illustrate how consultants' social identity as high-performing professionals helps them cope with stress, which in turn creates a feeling of social inclusion. However, we also find a 'downward spiral', where social identity provokes work stress among management consultants who cannot meet the high occupational standards. They cope less effectively and fear social exclusion from the group. These new findings relate to the specifics of our research context, including high status and increased stress. We thus argue for a research agenda that includes such context characteristics when further developing self-categorization models of stress.
Accumulation through derealization: How corporate violence remains unchecked
Rohit Varman and Ismael Al-Amoudi
Human Relations 0018726716628970, first published on May 4, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716628970
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/04/30/0018726716628970?papetoc
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.
Organizational citizenship behaviour and job satisfaction: The impact of occupational future time perspective
Julia G Weikamp and Anja S Göritz
Human Relations 0018726716633512, first published on May 4, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716633512
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/04/30/0018726716633512?papetoc
Abstract
This study examines how occupational future time perspective (OFTP) affects organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) and job satisfaction. OFTP reflects how much time and how many opportunities people perceive themselves as having left in their occupational future. OCB comprises extra-role behaviours that aim to support other individuals in the organization (OCBI) and the organization as a whole (OCBO). Socioemotional selectivity theory posits that people with an open-ended OFTP strive for knowledge-oriented goals (i.e. OCBO). In contrast, people with a constrained OFTP strive for emotion-oriented goals (i.e. OCBI). Thus, the more people perceive their OFTP as open-ended, the more they should show OCBO rather than OCBI. Applying a motivational OFTP approach to job satisfaction, the greater the open-ended people's OFTP, the more they should be satisfied with their job if they show more OCBO than OCBI because they can pursue their own goals. Findings support our hypotheses for people's perceived remaining opportunities in their occupational future. Herein, we discuss theoretical and practical implications of these findings.
Out of sight, out of mind? How and when cognitive role transition episodes influence employee performance
Brandon W Smit, Patrick W Maloney, Carl P Maertz, Jr, and Tamara Montag-Smit
Human Relations 0018726716636204, first published on May 3, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0018726716636204
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/04/27/0018726716636204?papetoc
Abstract
A widely-cited proposition in boundary theory states that it is difficult for individuals to transition between roles, especially when these roles are highly segmented. Surprisingly, this hypothesis has not been directly tested. We provide an empirical test of these propositions and draw from the self-regulation literature to expand boundary theory in exploring how episodes of cognitive role transitions impact job performance. We propose that cognitive role transitioning is cognitively demanding, which consumes the limited executive control resources that facilitate effective job performance. In a multilevel study of 619 employees providing 4371 episodes, we observed that work-to-family cognitive role transitioning was negatively related to job performance, and this effect was mediated by self-regulatory depletion. Although individuals with greater role integration were somewhat more likely to experience cognitive role transitions than those with segmented roles, these individuals were also buffered from the self-regulatory depletion that impairs effective job performance. Overall, these findings suggest that integration, rather than segmentation, may be a better long-term boundary management strategy for minimizing self-regulatory depletion and maintaining higher levels of job performance during inevitable work–family role transitions.
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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
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http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Professional%20misconduct.html
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Tavistock Institute of Human Relations
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