The Face-to-Face Delivery of Downsizing Decisions in UK Public Sector Organizations: The envoy role

In the wake of current UK public sector retrenchment, this article introduces a role that may be important to successful restructuring management, referred to here as the ‘downsizing envoy’. It involves delivering the news of downsizing decisions, face to face, with the victims and then dealing with the repercussions. After a review of the relevant, but limited, literature the findings are presented from interviews with twenty-four envoys drawn from public sector organizations. They indicate that the envoy role is emotionally demanding and that the public sector context invokes additional pressures that may not occur in other sectors.     

Roadmapping for technology push and partnership: A contribution for open innovation environments

There are several tools in the literature that support innovation in organizations. Some of the most cited are the so-called technology roadmapping methods, also known as TRM. However, these methods are designed primarily for organizations that adopt the market pull strategy of technology-product integration. Organizations that adopt the technology push integration strategy are neglected in the literature. Furthermore, with the advent of open innovation, it is possible to note the need to consider the adoption of partnerships in the innovation process. Thus, this study proposes a method of technology roadmapping, identified as method for technology push (MTP), applicable to organizations that adopt the technology push integration strategy, such as SMEs and independent research centers in an open-innovation environment. The method was developed through action-research and was assessed from two analytical standpoints: externally, via a specific literature review on its theoretical contributions, and internally, through the analysis of potential users' perceptions on the feasibility of applying MTP. The results indicate both the unique character of the method and its perceived implementation feasibility. Future research is suggested in order to validate the method in different types of organizations     

Building value through sustainable project management offices

Organizations' attempts to implement and gain value from investments in project management have resulted in the rapid growth and, in some cases, demise of project management offices (PMOs). The recent research literature on PMOs provides an ambiguous picture of the value case for PMOs and suggests the tenuous nature of their current position in many organizations. In studying project management implementations for the Value of Project Management project, we chose to use three detailed cases and comparisons with the remaining 62 organizations in the value project to study how PMOs are connected to value realization for organizations investing in project management. Specifically, we sought to understand how PMOs deliver sustained value to organizations. Using the theories of Jim Collins (Collins, 2001; Collins & Porras, 1994) as an interpretive framework, we explore these cases to understand how to create and sustain project management value through investment in PMOs.     

Investigating the link between managers' green knowledge and leadership style,and their firms' environmental performance: The mediation role of green creativity

Despite extensive literature on green hotel management and sustainability, scant attention has been given on the role of managers to solve environmental related issues. This study's aim is to assess the effects of managers' green knowledge and green transformational leadership on firms' environmental performance with the mediating effect of green creativity. The study analyzes the perceptions of 363 employees in different managerial positions of the hotel industry employing Partial Last Square Structural Equation Modeling. The findings of the study show a positive effect of green knowledge and green transformational leadership on green creativity and green transformational leadership on environmental performance. Furthermore, green creativity is also found to have significant mediating effect between green knowledge and environmental performance, and green transformational leadership and environmental performance relations. The main implication of the current research is that managers' green concerns might help the stakeholders in the hotel industry to respond through appropriate green initiatives for their organizations. Further suggestions for literature and practice are discussed.     

非营利组织治理结构:特征分析与框架构建

非营利组织治理效率的高低取决于对非营利组织治理结构的厘清程度,由此也就取决于其治理结构基本框架的构建.文章回顾了非营利组织治理结构研究的相关文献,在此基础上对非营利组织结构特征进行分析,并致力于构建我国非营利组织治理结构的基本框架.     

Employee lactation: A review and recommendations for research,practice, and policy

Recent social justice movements call for an increased focus on workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion. Given the large proportion of working mothers who return to work after having a baby, research about lactation, work, and human resources issues is sorely needed to increase knowledge and understanding of working and lactating mothers' needs so that they feel welcome, respected, and supported in the workplace. For mothers who feed their baby breastmilk, concurrently managing work responsibilities and lactation demands can be a substantial source of employee stress and can create work-family conflict. Research on workplace lactation across a variety of disciplines has increased over the past decade. As attention to lactation is slowly increasing in the management and organizational behavior literature, synthesizing research from other domains into the organizational and managerial sciences is a critical precursor to facilitating future research in the field as well as translating that research into meaningful action in organizations. We contribute to filling this gap, by reviewing and coalescing research across relevant domains, grounding it in extant theory, and offering a conceptual model suggesting the critical antecedents that facilitate employee lactation behaviors, and the work-related moderators that meaningfully impact those relationships. Finally, we offer recommendations to guide future research both methodologically and substantively so as to advance management theory and research surrounding employee lactation at work, and offer practical implications for organizations as well as for public policy.     

HRM practices used to promote pro-environmental behavior: a UK survey

To date, the extent to which UK organizations use human resource management (HRM) practices to promote pro-environmental behavior through workplace HRM policies and initiatives is under-researched within the literature. Therefore, this paper presents results of a survey investigating current HRM practices used to promote pro-environmental behavior in a sample of 214 UK organizations representing different sizes and industry sectors. Overall, findings indicated that HRM practices are not used to a great extent to encourage employees to become more pro-environmental. The most prevalent practices used within organizations incorporated elements of management involvement supporting the idea that managers are the gatekeepers to environmental performance. Although organizations indicated that some HRM practices were more effective than others at encouraging pro-environmental behavior in their staff, only a very small percentage of organizations actually conducted any form of evaluation; organizations consequently lack clear evidence as to whether their HRM practices actually result in employee behavior change. Practical implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Measuring the Performance of Voluntary Organizations

In the current political and economic climate, there are rapidly escalating demands from public funders and other stakeholders for indicators which can capture the achievements and impacts of the voluntary sector. Having clarified the context of these demands, the primary aim of this article is to develop criteria for measuring the ‘performance’ of voluntary organizations. This is undertaken by marrying relevant international theoretical literature suggestive of their roles and contributions with a ‘production of welfare’ approach, which has a proven track record in the evaluation of human services. Eight domains of performance are suggested (economy, effectiveness, efficiency; choice/pluralism; equity; participation; innovation and advocacy), embracing twenty-two separate indicator sets.     

Organizational sustainability identity: Constructing oneself as sustainable

In the literature, organizational sustainability identity tends to be treated as something that is ‘engineered’ within business organizations through control, reporting, target setting, strategic communication, and other instruments. Through a case study of a company mainly active within the recycling industry, an alternative understanding is given. A distinct organizational sustainability identity is, rather, a social construct based on perceptions of the core operations as “sustainable in themselves” and collaborative work with customers that is perceived as entailing sustainable solutions. Understood in this way, organizational sustainability identity has relatively little to do with formal controls such as codes, policies, reports used by management to position the company as sustainable. Rather, for organizational members, the process of constructing oneself as sustainable builds on convictions about the core operations and the possession of specific capabilities manifested in customer relations. The article adds to current literature through its constructivistic approach and through identifying underlying beliefs that condition the process of forming an organizational sustainability identity.     

Human Capital,the Millennial's Reign,and the Need For Servant Leadership

Human capital has been a major emphasis and priority for organizations for the past 15–20 years; however, changing demographics in the workplace dictate that organizations step up these efforts. The current paper explores three generational cohorts, with particular emphasis on the Millennial generation as this cohort will encompass upward of 50% of the workforce by 2020. If organizations want to compete for and retain top Millennial talent, organizations must make themselves attractive to Millennials. This will require that organizations develop a leadership base that is suited to lead Millennials. We suggest that servant leadership is likely the optimal leadership style for creating an organization rich in human capital development and for making an organization a preferred workplace for the Millennial generation.     

The selection of supply chain management projects: A case study approach

Organizations undertake strategic supply chain initiatives through project implementation. However, selecting the right supply chain projects can be difficult due to high levels of organizational risk and technical complexity. Although the literature is rich in quantitative and qualitative methods for project management, prior research into best management practices specific to supply chain management (SCM) project selection is limited. This paper examines the methods used in evaluating and selecting SCM projects used by the management at three publically held multi-national organizations. The primary objective of this research is to identify a set of generalizable good practices in the selection and evaluation of SCM projects. Nine useful business practices in SCM project selection have been identified based on cross-case comparisons and a close examination of the literature. Eight practices had been previously identified, but were scattered throughout the literature on ERP, IT management, and R&D management. A new practice calls for the consideration of supply chain partners’ return-on-investment (ROI) in the project selection process. Highest preference should be given to win-win projects for the organization and its partner(s). The practices identified here sho`uld provide the foundation of practical guidelines that can be used during the planning stage of SCM projects. This paper reduces the knowledge gap in SCM project management by analyzing organizations with significant supply chain experience and synthesizing these results with the current related literature.     

Understanding the adoption and institutionalization of workforce analytics: A systematic literature review and research agenda

Data analytics plays a crucial role in enhancing organizational decision-making. Various organizational disciplines have already embraced data analytics. However, human resources management is lagging in data-driven decision-making and, specifically, workforce analytics. Although an increasing number of studies explore the diffusion of workforce analytics, our understanding of why organizations decide to adopt workforce analytics and how organizations further institutionalize workforce analytics remains limited. Taking an HRM innovation and contextualized perspective, this systematic literature review aims to provide in-depth knowledge on factors driving workforce analytics adoption and institutionalization. The results, including relevant learnings from business analytics research, show the importance of competitive, institutional, heritage mechanisms, key decision-makers and actors, and HRM fit-related factors in the diffusion process. Based on the results of this review, various avenues for future research are presented. Additionally, insights from this literature review can help decision-makers allocate their scarce resources effectively and efficiently to cultivate workforce analytics as an organizational practice.     

THE MANAGEMENT OF NEW OFFICE TECHNOLOGY: CHOICE, CONTROL AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE IN THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY

Amongst the growing literature on the technical and social aspects of microelectronics in work organizations, a considerable portion has direct or indirect pertinence to the question of managerial practice. That segment of the literature relating to new office technology is perhaps especially conscious of this angle — not least because this sphere of innovation has a clear bearing on the managerial role itself. Drawing both on theoretical issues extracted from this literature, and on empirical studies in three insurance companies, it is argued that while control is of crucial long-term importance in shaping the general direction of organizational change using new technology, there are sound sociological reasons why the path which is beaten out in that direction remains a far from straight one. Moreover, while differences in organizational practice between these organizations are found to exist, these appear to be associated only indirectly with the diverse levels of technological sophistication.     

Managers' Innovations and the Structuration of Organizations

Drawing on interview data from managers in three organizations a theoretical framework based on structuration theory is offered for understanding the social construction of innovation in a way that overcomes the duality of individual and structural perspectives that fragments the literature on innovation and other related domains. Three case studies, one from each organization, illustrate and help link the elements of an argument that focuses first on how an organization's openness to its external environment allows for conflicting interpretations of necessary action. Individual agents exploit the ambiguity, making choices which help sustain or develop their self-identities, drawing on experience to shape innovations that promise to reconcile the constraints of the personal and organizational domains. Their capacity to transform circumstances in the desired direction depends on the extent to which they can deploy personal and organizational resources to negotiate appropriate meanings through social and political relationships with relevant others. The socio-political process and the substance of the innovation have reciprocal effects, yielding the possibility of agreement on a ‘working innovation’ which, once institutionalized, modifies the existing system and structures in ways that constrain, in new modes, the behaviours of all of those involved     

Managing diversity through human resource management: an international perspective and conceptual framework

This paper critically reviews the literature on managing diversity through human resource management (HRM). We discuss the major issues and objectives of managing diversity and examine the state of human resource diversity management practices in organizations. Our review shows that inequality and discrimination still widely exist and HRM has focused mainly on compliance with equal employment opportunity (EEO) and affirmative action (AA) legislation. Less attention has been paid to valuing, developing and making use of diversity. Our review reveals limited literature examining how diversity is managed in organizations through effective human resource management. We develop a framework that presents strategies for HR diversity management at the strategic, tactical and operational levels. Our review also discusses the implications for practice and further research.     

Efficiency,stability and the decision to give to nonprofit arts and cultural organizations in the United States

• Using data from the Cultural Data Project, this study extends the literature by examining the impact of financial disclosure information on donations to arts and culture‐related nonprofit organizations in the United States. Results for organization financial stability are for the most part counterintuitive: financially unstable arts and culture‐related nonprofits receive more donations. The current analysis supports prior research and finds evidence of a “crowding in” effect for fundraising expenses, suggesting that nonprofits that spend more on fundraising and marketing raise more funds than those that spend less. Additional analysis indicates efficiency matters to donors when it comes to fundraising efforts. As the “cost to raise a dollar” increases donations decrease. Nonprofit managers in arts and culture‐related organizations concerned about increasing donations should consider strategies that will increase the efficiency of their fundraising and marketing efforts. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

     

Fluidity,Identity, and Organizationality: The Communicative Constitution of Anonymous

This paper examines how fluid social collectives, where membership is latent, contested, or unclear, achieve ‘organizationality’, that is, how they achieve organizational identity and actorhood. Drawing on the “communicative constitution of organizations” perspective, we argue that the organizationality of a social collective is accomplished through ‘identity claims’ – i.e., speech acts that concern what the social collective is or does – and negotiations on whether or not these claims have been made on the collective's behalf. We empirically examine the case of the hacker collective Anonymous and analyse relevant identity claims to investigate two critical episodes in which the organizationality of Anonymous was contested. Our study contributes to organization studies by showing that fluid social collectives are able to temporarily reinstate organizational actorhood through the performance of carefully prepared and staged identity claims.     

Fundraising,race, and discourse: The challenges and opportunities' of social construction

Fundraisers have turned their attention to minority communities as potential resources despite the fact that minority communities are both underserved by and underrepresented in nonprofit organizations. This paper argues that the current approach to minority fundraising, which uses broad racial categories, is limiting. Minority fundraising practice and research face three distinct challenges (racial categorization, socially constructed markets, and privilege) that can be addressed through a focus on language, specifically discourse analysis.