Apologies for any cross-posting.
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FEATURED FREE ACCESS ARTICLE FOR JUNE
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Free access until 30 June 2017:
What happens when you can't be who you are: Professional identity at the institutional periphery
Jelena Zikic and Julia Richardson
Human Relations 69(1): 139‒168. First published date: June-30-2015. DOI 10.1177/0018726715580865
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726715580865
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.
Keywords: external labour market, identity work, immigrant professionals, medical and IT profession, professional identity
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JUNE ISSUE ARTICLES
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The June issue of Human Relations is available online here: June 2017; 70(6). See also May 2017 70(5) and April 2017 70(4).
"A significant contribution in relation to debates on various forms of 'misbehaviour' as well as to the specifics of financial services":
Power, corruption and lies: Mis-selling and the production of culture in financial services
Matthew J Brannan
Human Relations 70(6): 641‒667. First published November-01-2016, doi: 10.1177/0018726716673441
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726716673441
Abstract
The extent of recent misconduct in retail financial services questions assumptions that mis-selling is perpetrated by rogue traders dealing in sub-prime markets. Yet we know little about the organizational dimensions of mis-selling and specifically how new employees are introduced to and subsequently enact mis-selling behaviour when not explicitly encouraged to do so. This article seeks to understand the mechanics of mis-selling through an ethnographic account of the opening of a new retail financial services call centre, and analysis of the ritual nature of the sales interaction. The study documents the training, induction and initial work of direct sales agents to better understand the complexity, social relations and organization of mis-selling, together with the way in which regulation and management regimes shape sales practice and consequent employee behaviour. The critical analysis of sales rituals allows us to explain how mis-selling becomes embedded in organizational practice and contributes to our understanding of the everydayness of mis-selling in contrast to approaches that focus either on individual decision-making or on cultural explanations.
Keywords: culture, ethnography, mis-selling, regulation, retail financial services, risk
Not all brokers are alike: Creative implications of brokering networks in different work functions
Diego Stea, Torben Pedersen
Human Relations 70(6): 668‒693. First published November-21-2016, doi: 10.1177/0018726716672921
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726716672921
Abstract
Brokers are expected to be more creative than employees embedded in closed social structures because they occupy a position in the social space that provides them with access to non-redundant knowledge. However, the extant research provides partly inconsistent findings on the creative implications of brokerage, which raises important questions about when and how brokering between otherwise disconnected colleagues leads to individual creativity. We advance the relational perspective on individual creativity by adopting a contingency view, and showing that a curvilinear (inverted U-shape) specification of the relationship between brokerage and creativity applies particularly when brokers work in research and development, as they are more likely to intensively exploit their structural opportunities. In addition, we show that brokers who work in research and development are more sensitive to work environments that protect their cognitive resources, such that they exhibit greater creativity when the work environment is free from environmental stressors, such as noise and disturbances. Thus, environmental stressors are particularly harmful for those employees who are most likely to exploit the opportunity to broker across otherwise disconnected colleagues.
Keywords: creativity, environmental stressor, research and development, social network
Authentic leadership in context: An analysis of banking CEO narratives during the global financial crisis
Helena Liu, Leanne Cutcher and David Grant
Human Relations 70(6): 694‒724. First published November-18-2016, doi: 10.1177/0018726716672920
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726716672920
Abstract
The concept of authentic leadership rose to prominence through its idealization as an inherently moral and universally desirable trait. We problematize this romantic notion by exploring how the 'authenticity' of the CEOs of four major Australian banks was discursively constructed before and during the global financial crisis (GFC). Using multimodal discourse analysis of media texts, we show how what it meant to be an 'authentic leader' was co-constructed differently by the CEOs and the media. We also highlight the dynamic nature of context, where the GFC was variously framed by and for each of the CEOs. Our study challenges the acontextual notion of authentic leadership by showing how a discursively constructed context can reinforce or undermine leaders' narratives of authenticity.
Keywords: authentic leadership, discourse, global financial crisis, media, narrative
Work–life management in legal prostitution: Stigma and lockdown in Nevada's brothels
Sarah Jane Blithe, Anna Wiederhold Wolfe
Human Relations 70(6): 725‒750. First published December-06-2016, doi: 10.1177/0018726716674262
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726716674262
Abstract
Across occupations, people contend with the difficult task of managing time between their work and other aspects of life. Previous research on stigmatized industries has suggested that so-called 'dirty workers' experience extreme identity segmentation between these two realms because they tend to cope with their occupational stigma by placing distance between their work and personal lives. Through a qualitative study of Nevada's legal brothel industry, this article focuses on the prevalence of boundary segmentation as a dominant work–life management practice for dirty workers. Our analysis suggests that work–life boundaries are disciplined by legal mythologies and ambiguities surrounding worker restrictions, occupational ideologies of 'work now, life later,' and perceived and experienced effects of community-based stigma. These legal, occupational and community constructs ultimately privilege organizations' and external communities' interests, while individual dirty workers carry the weight of stigma.
Keywords: brothels, dirty work, prostitution, sex work, stigma, work–life balance, work–life management
Is it ok to care? How compassion falters and is courageously accomplished in the midst of uncertainty
Jason Kanov, Edward H Powley and Neil D Walshe
Human Relations 70(6): 751‒777. First published November-14-2016, doi: 10.1177/0018726716673144
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726716673144
Abstract
This article elaborates the organizational literature's process theory of compassion – an empathic response to suffering – which falls short of adequately explaining why and how compassion unfolds readily in some workplace situations or settings but not in others. We address this shortcoming by calling attention to the basic uncertainty of suffering and compassion, demonstrating that this uncertainty tends to be particularly pronounced in organizational settings, and presenting propositions that explain how such uncertainty inhibits the compassion process. We then argue that understanding the accomplishment of compassion in the midst of uncertainty necessitates regarding compassion as an enactment of courage, and we incorporate insights from the organizational literature on everyday courageous action into compassion theory. We conclude with a discussion of implications in which we underscore the importance of organizational support for the expression of suffering and the doing of compassion, and we also consider directions for future research.
Keywords: compassion, courage, organizational context, relational process, suffering, uncertainty
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HUMAN RELATIONS WORKSHOP
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Can, and should, social science contribute to better quality jobs?
A 70-year retrospect and prospect
Tuesday 10 Oct 2017 at The British Academy, London SW1Y 5AH
Organizer: Prof. Paul K Edwards, former Editor-in-Chief, Human Relations
This year Human Relations celebrates its 70th Anniversary!
As part of our celebrations, Human Relations will be running a workshop that will interest scholars of work and employment, policy makers in employers' organizations and trade unions, public officials, and researchers in research institutes with an interest in work and the labour market. It is intended to be an engaged conversation among experts. Numbers will be restricted.
There will four short (15 minute) presentations by experts in the field, taking specific examples to address some of the above questions, six short presentations from other participants on different aspects of work then space for questions and discussion, all leading up to a concluding round table of experts. [Read more]
To book your place at this event, please contact Claire Castle no later than 5 September 2017.
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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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When the farm-gate becomes a revolving door:
An institutional approach to high labour turnover
Lotte Staelens and Céline Louche
Human Relations first published May-17-2017, DOI 10.1177/0018726717702209
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717702209
Abstract
By adopting an institutional theory lens, the aim of the article is to better understand the actions and mindset of managers toward high labour turnover in the cut-flower industry in Ethiopia. Our mixed-method approach explores the ways in which managers deal with, and legitimize, high levels of labour turnover. Our results show that they engage in three types of practices – predicting, containing and accommodating – whose objective is to make labour turnover tolerable, rather than reduce it. Interestingly, managers do not legitimize their practices through the use of cost-benefit arguments, as the literature would have suggested, but blame the institutional context. This article highlights the context-dependent aspects of labour turnover and explains how managers may find themselves in a deadlock situation. It informs the debate in human resource management research about managerial practices at the bottom of global value chains.
Keywords: cut-flower industry, Ethiopia, global value chains, high labour turnover, institutional theory, intensive labour industries, legitimization
Antagonism, accommodation and agonism in Critical Management Studies:
Alternative organizations as allies
Simon Parker and Martin Parker
Human Relations, first published May-15-2017, DOI 10.1177/0018726717696135
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717696135
Abstract
Critical Management Studies has long been engaged in discussions about the purpose of critique and the possibilities of engagement. A recent expression calls for Critical Management Studies to moderate its 'negative' critique of management and instead use words like care, engagement and affirmation in order to enable 'progressive' engagement with managers. This 'performative turn' has been poorly received by some who see it as a dilution of radical intent. We argue for a middle ground between the antagonistic versions of Critical Management Studies that appear to want to oppose management, and 'performative' scholars who appear to accommodate with managerialism. We do this by planting the debate firmly within an empirical setting and a crisis that the first author experienced as a 'critical scholar' when conducting an ethnography at a sustainable financial services firm. In order to do this, we explore Chantal Mouffe's concept of agonism to establish a particular mode of political engagement that acknowledges a space between being 'for' and being 'against'. We conclude by suggesting that the exploration of alternative forms of organization and management, themselves already involved in struggle against a hegemonic present, should be the proper task of a discipline that wishes to engage with the present and remain 'critical'.
Keywords: agonism, alternative finance, alternative organization, Chantal Mouffe, Critical Management Studies, critical performativity, sustainability
Hearing music in service interactions: A theoretical and empirical analysis
Jonathan Payne, Marek Korczynski and Rob Cluley
Human Relation, first published May-15-2017, DOI 10.1177/0018726717701552
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717701552
Abstract
There is an extensive literature concerned with the impact of music on customers. However, no study has examined its effects on service workers and their interactions with customers. Drawing together literatures on service work and music in everyday life, the article develops a theoretical framework for exploring the role of music in service exchanges. Two central factors are identified – first, how workers hear, and respond to, the music soundscape, and, second, their relations with customers, given these have the potential to be both alienating and positive to the point of meaningful social interaction. From these, a 2×2 matrix is constructed, comprising four potential scenarios. The authors argue for the likely importance of music's role as a bridge for sociality between worker and customer. The article considers this theorizing by drawing upon interviews with 60 retail and café workers in UK chains and independents, and free text comments collected through a survey of workers in a large service retailer. The findings show broad support for music acting as a bridge for sociality. Service workers appropriate music for their own purposes and many use this to provide texture and substance to social interactions with customers.
Keywords: alienation, customer, music, service interaction, service work
How do we understand worker silence despite poor conditions – as the actress said to the woman bishop
Deborah Dean and Anne-marie Greene
Human Relations. first published May-12-2017, DOI 10.1177/0018726717694371
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717694371
Abstract
This article considers the customary choice of silence over voice of two groups of UK workers – women clergy and women actors – who routinely tolerate poor quality conditions rather than express dissatisfaction. We argue that a key mediating factor is an expanded version of Hirschman's (1970) concept of loyalty. The article considers how occupational ideologies facilitate loyalty as adaptation to disadvantage in ways that discourage voice, in framing silence as positive. Consequently, we also identify this type of loyalty as potentially salient in understanding silence in other occupations. A descriptive model comparing strength of occupational ideology and voicing of dissatisfaction is outlined, and through discussion of findings the article offers conceptual refinements of loyalty in accounting for worker silence.
Keywords: calling, loyalty, occupational ideologies, voice, women workers - actors, clergy
Towards an integrated framework of professional partnership performance:
The role of formal governance and strategic planning
Michel W Lander, Pursey PMAR Heugens and J (Hans) van Oosterhout
Human Relations, first published May-12-2017, DOI 10.1177/0018726717700697
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717700697
Abstract
Conventional wisdom identifies human capital and organizational reputation as the critical resources explaining professional partnership (PP) performance. PPs have increasingly adopted organizational practices like strategic planning and formal governance, however, which have long been alien in highly professionalized contexts. In order to test the influence of both these classic resources and the newly adopted practices on PP performance, as well as the mediating mechanisms- that is, client attraction and retention as well as organizational efficiency-through which this influence is channeled, we develop an integrated theoretical framework of PP performance. We test the resulting hypotheses using survey and objective data collected on 196 Dutch law firms. Our findings provide new insights into the drivers of PP performance and the complex interrelationships between PP resources and newly adopted practices.
Keywords: client attraction and retention, human capital, managed professional business, professional partnership, reputational capital
How 'flexible' are careers in the anticipated life course of young people?
Paula K McDonald
Human Relations, first published May-11-2017 DOI 10.1177/0018726717699053
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717699053
Abstract
Bridging literature that addresses the work–family interface and the changing nature of careers, this article examines, from a life course perspective, the extent to which, and why, young people anticipate careers as 'flexible'. Drawing on 123 interviews with men and women engaged in different post-secondary education pathways in Australia, the study draws attention to the role of gender and to some extent class in shaping careers in a network of social relations. Three dimensions of flexible careers are examined: temporal, that is, through imagined possibilities in various stages of early adulthood; structural, including opportunities and constraints afforded by different industry sectors and workplaces; and relational, in terms of household-level role negotiations. The findings revealed that women continue to adapt their career goals to accommodate care, but that both men's and women's careers are shaped by contingencies including household income, home ownership, access to flexible work and ideological expectations of market/family work roles. These contextual dynamics directly impact on decisions in the present. The article underscores the need for an expanded research focus on work and care from a life course perspective in order to promote career flexibility in ways that align with young people's broader aspirations for gender equality.
Keywords: career pathways, flexible careers, gender equality, life course, work–family, youth employment
Does employees' subjective well-being affect workplace performance?
Alex Bryson, John Forth and Lucy Stokes
Human Relations, first published May-09-2017, DOI 10.1177/0018726717693073
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717693073
Abstract
This article uses linked employer–employee data to investigate the relationship between employees' subjective well-being and workplace performance in Britain. The analyses show a clear, positive and statistically significant relationship between the average level of job satisfaction at the workplace and workplace performance. The relationship is present in both cross-sectional and panel analyses and is robust to various estimation methods and model specifications. In contrast, we find no association between levels of job-related affect and workplace performance. Ours is the first study of its kind for Britain to use nationally representative data and it provides novel findings regarding the importance of worker job satisfaction in explaining workplace performance. The findings suggest that there is a prima facie case for employers to maintain and raise levels of job satisfaction among their employees. They also indicate that initiatives to raise aggregate job satisfaction should feature in policy discussions around how to improve levels of productivity and growth.
Keywords: job satisfaction, job/employee attitudes, job-related affect, subjective well-being, workplace performance
Using humor and boosting emotions:
An affect-based study of managerial humor, employees' emotions and psychological capital
Nilupama Wijewardena, Charmine EJ Härtel and Ramanie Samaratunge
Human Relations, first published April-28-2017 DOI 10.1177/0018726717691809
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717691809
Abstract
Evidence from emerging scholarly investigations consistently points to managerial humor as fruitful new grounds to expand management knowledge and practice. In light of this, the present study examined managerial humor as an affective event at work that has short-term emotional and long-term psychological outcomes for employees. To test this empirically, we recruited a sample of 2498 Australian employees to participate in a field experience sampling study. We also considered the potential moderating effect of leader–member exchange on the humor–emotions relationship. Findings provide initial support for managerial humor as an affective event such that when employees perceived their manager's humor as positive they reported experiencing positive emotions, and vice versa. Importantly, employees with high-quality relationships with their managers responded to their manager's humor use with a greater number of positive emotions and fewer negative emotions than did employees with low-quality relationships with their managers. We argue that humor is an event that managers must responsibly manage in order to produce positive emotional experiences for employees and support healthy emotion regulation at work. We also discuss the conditions under which it is advisable for managers to use humor with employees, and suggest future research directions to develop this growing field of inquiry.
Keywords: affective events theory (AET), broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, experience sampling, leader–member exchange (LMX), managerial humor, psychological capital (PsyCap)
Betwixt and between: Role conflict, role ambiguity and role definition in project-based dual-leadership structures
Joris J Ebbers and Nachoem M Wijnberg
Human Relations, first published April-28-2017 DOI 10.1177/0018726717692852
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717692852
Abstract
Project-based organizations in the film industry usually have a dual-leadership structure, based on a division of tasks between the dual leaders – the director and the producer – in which the former is predominantly responsible for the artistic and the latter for the commercial aspects of the film. These organizations also have a role hierarchically below and between the dual leaders: the 1st assistant director. This organizational constellation is likely to lead to role conflict and role ambiguity experienced by the person occupying that particular role. Although prior studies found negative effects of role conflict and role ambiguity, this study shows they can also have beneficial effects because they create space for defining the role expansively that, in turn, can be facilitated by the dual leaders defining their own roles more narrowly. In a more general sense, this study also shows the usefulness of analyzing the antecedents and consequences of roles, role definition, and role crafting in connection to the behavior of occupants of adjacent roles.
Keywords: creative industries, dual leadership, film industry, project-based organization, role crafting
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VIRTUAL SPECIAL ISSUES
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- Knowledge and knowing in the study of organization: From commodity to communication
- Women, men, and work: Gender identity and gender differences in the workplace
- Diversity research: Theorizing the new frontier in sexual orientation diversity
- Change management
- Critical performativity
Editor's Choice Collections:
- Paper of the Year Award winners
- Classic papers from Human Relations
- Papers that have influenced Paul Edwards, former EIC
Reflections on the history of HR from Paul Edwards, former EIC:
- Human Relations: The first 10 years, 1947–1956
- Human Relations: 1957–1966
- Human Relations: 1967–1986
- Human Relations: 1987–1996 and beyond
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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 and included in the FT50 list of journals (effective from January 2017) used by the Financial Times in compiling the FT Research rank, included in the Global MBA, EMBA and Online MBA rankings.
Human Relations is a top 5 interdisciplinary social sciences journal (Source: 2015 Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters, 2016):
2-year impact factor: 2.619 Ranked: 4/93 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary and 37/192 in Management
5-year impact factor: 3.544 Ranked: 2/93 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary and 40/192 in Management
Best wishes,
Claire Castle
Managing Editor, Human Relations
Tavistock Institute of Human Relations
Email: c.castle@tavinstitute.org
Website: www.humanrelationsjournal.org
Twitter: @HR_TIHR
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