Commitment and conflict in the restaurant industry: Perceptions from the Generation Y viewpoint

This study investigates Generation Y restaurant employees’ perceptions of conflict and the extent to which the presence of management team conflict influences employee organizational commitment. Regression analysis found that perceptions of task and process conflict negatively impact organizational commitment, while relationship conflict was not found to have a statistically significant impact on organizational commitment. This study represents the first attempt to understand the carryover effects of management team conflict on employees and offers insights into the perceptions of the Generation Y restaurant worker. Theoretical and managerial implications of the empirical findings as well as directions for future research are discussed.     

Here comes Generation Z: Millennials as managers

As the workplace continues to change, a new generational cohort—Generation Z, sometimes referred to as iGen—is beginning to enter the workforce. At the same time, millennials are now progressing in their careers and will be challenged with managing these incoming workers. The purpose of this article is to provide a contextual overview that identifies and illuminates some of the defining work-related characteristics of these two youngest generations in the workplace to increase understanding of the potential intergenerational conflict between these cohorts and develop leadership strategies that can be utilized to increase employee morale and productivity. This article analyzes the millennial supervisor-Gen Z subordinate relationship based on generational cohort theory, leader-member exchange (LMX) theory, and the work values framework.     

Generation Y’s Ethical Ideology and Its Potential Workplace Implications

Generation Y is a cohort of the population larger than the baby boom generation. Consisting of approximately 80 million people born between 1981 and 2000, Generation Y is the most recent cohort to enter the workforce. Workplaces are being redefined and organizations are being pressed to adapt as this new wave of workers is infused into business environments. One critical aspect of this phenomenon not receiving sufficient research attention is the impact of Gen Y ethical beliefs and ethical conduct in workplace contexts. It is widely accepted that distinct generational experiences shape ethical ideologies and ethical ideologies in turn affect the way people function in the workplace. Thus, Gen Y’s unique cohort experiences are likely to shape their ethical ideologies and consequent workplace judgments and actions. In this article, we examine Gen Y’s ethical ideology and study its impact on workplace functioning regarding leadership style, teamwork, and judgments about ethical violations. Our analyses indicate that Gen Y’ers tend toward situationalism (high idealism and high relativism), and their socially connected orientation produces more lenient judgments of collaborative vs. unilateral ethical violations. However, Gen Y’ers do exhibit individual variation. Relativist Gen Y’ers are more tolerant of ethical violations, whereas, Gen Y Idealists are less tolerant of ethical violations. High Idealists also show stronger teamwork and leadership characteristics. In addition, Gen Y’ers possessing servant leader traits exhibit incrementally better teamwork, and greater perceived unacceptability of ethical violations. We conclude by discussing implications of these findings for managing ethical climates and conduct.     

DITTO for Gen Z: A framework for leveraging the uniqueness of the new generation

Generation Z, or Gen Z, represents 24% of the U.S. population and is very different from earlier generations. A higher proportion of Gen Zers are earning college degrees, and they are now moving to the next phase in which they will constitute the predominant majority of the incoming workforce. Gen Z faced an unusual set of technology-driven circumstances while growing up and thus bring a distinct set of characteristics into the workplace. We offer a new research-based framework, DITTO, which encapsulates specific recommendations for organizations on diversity, individualism and teamwork, technology, and organizational supports. DITTO serves as a useful mnemonic to help managers recall specific ways to support Gen Zers and leverage the strengths of Gen Zers to benefit the organization and the workforce. Research shows that Gen Zers are more open to diversity and more individualistic and technology-driven than other generations. To the extent that companies use the DITTO framework, the more attractive they should be to Gen Z workers; but the principles of this framework also extend beyond Gen Zers to existing workforce with similar efficacy.     

Customer orientation,engagement, and developing positive emotional labor

Frontline employees must deal on a daily basis with emotionally demanding customer interactions. Such interactions, when coupled with organizational directives to focus upon exemplary customer service, can prompt employees to express feelings and emotions that are not genuine. Such ‘surface acting' has been found to create stress in frontline personnel, but an understanding of how this negative aspect of emotional labor may be minimized is lacking in the services literature. How a frontline employee's individual attributes might interact with a service work context to build deep, as opposed to surface, acting is the current focus. Applying job demands–resources theory, this study investigates how a frontline employee's customer orientation helps to develop positive work engagement, even in the face of contextual demands. Engagement is then linked positively to the beneficial behavior of deep acting which, in contrast to surface acting, has been identified as a less stressful form of emotional labor.     

The Effects of Employee Attitudes on Workplace Charitable Donations

ABSTRACT

The objectives of this paper are to examine the effects of employee attitudes toward the employer on workplace monetary donations at two levels: (1) to see if there is a significant difference between the attitudes of employees who make workplace contributions and those who do not; and (2) to examine whether awareness of employer charitable contributions moderate the relationship between employee attitudes and donating behavior. Employee attitudes include organizational commitment and job satisfaction. The research questions are examined in the context of workplace contributions made to a regional branch of United Way. The results indicate that organizational commitment scores exhibited by employees who made workplace contributions, and who were aware that their employer was also making corporate donations were significantly higher than the commitment for employees who did not make workplace contributions. No significant relationships were found for job satisfaction.     

What drives college-age Generation Y consumers?

Generation Y (individuals ages 14-31 in 2008) are in the marketplace with the numbers and the purchasing power to have an unprecedented impact on the economy. Despite the potential of this group as a whole, especially the middle-aged members of this generation (ages 18-22) who are in the highly coveted college-student market, much is unknown about the motivations behind these individuals' consumption behavior and preferences. This study attempts to address this gap in the literature by exploring the antecedents of the consumption behavior of college-aged Generation Y individuals. The findings indicate that issues relating to socialization, uncertainty reduction, reactance, self-discrepancy, and feelings of accomplishment and connectedness drive Y consumers' product purchases and retail patronage. This article discusses these issues as well as their theoretical and managerial implications.     

Generation Y employees' retail work experience: The mediating effect of job characteristics

This research examines Generation Y employees' retail work experience. Based upon Brown and Peterson's [Brown SP, Peterson RA, Antecedents and consequences of salesperson job satisfaction: meta-analysis and assessment of causal effects. J Mark Res 1993; 30: 63-77; Brown SP, Peterson RA, The effect of effort on sales performance and job satisfaction. J Mark 1994; 58: 70-80.] job satisfaction model, Gen Y employees work experience framework encompasses the work environment variables of role conflict, role ambiguity, supervisory support, and work involvement to predict job performance, job satisfaction, and, ultimately, retail career intention. Drawing from the job crafting perspective in management theory [Wrzesniewski and Dutton, 2001], this research tests the mediating effect of job characteristics between work environment and job outcomes using structural equation modeling. Study participants were members of a national sample of students (n = 803) from 14 universities in the United States. The findings indicate that job characteristics have a critical mediating role on the relationships for Gen Y employees, suggesting a paradigm shift from passive to active employees who craft their jobs, roles, and selves within a retail organizational context.     

Generation Y vs. Baby Boomers: Shopping behavior,buyer involvement and implications for retailing

This paper presents some significant empirical findings about generational cohorts and their shopping behavior. Marketing has long relied on the use of market segmentation. While birth age has been a useful way to create groups, it describes segments but does not help to understand segment motivations. However, environmental events experienced during one's coming of age create values that remain relatively unchanged throughout one's life. Such values provide a common bond for those in that age group, or generational cohort. Segmenting by ‘coming of age’ age provides a richer segmentation approach than birth age. This study compares two significant cohorts: Baby Boomers and Generation Y, with respect to their shopping behavior and purchase involvement for food, clothing and automobiles. For the three types of products, Baby Boomers value the retail experience and in-store service higher than Generation Y. For Baby Boomers, the purchase process starts with a retailer the consumer trusts, who gives advice for choosing the right product, while for Generation Y, the purchase process starts with choosing a product. This study presents implications for retail strategies that have an appeal to different generational cohorts and considers how retailers should deal with building customer relationships.     

Colliding Employer‐Employee Perspectives of Employee Turnover: Evidence from a Born‐Global Industry

Set in the context of internationalization of the global division of labor, this article provides a deeper exploration of qualitative themes of conflicting accounts of employees’ reasons to quit and managerial strategies to prevent employee turnover in six business process outsourcing firms operating in India. Such differences in cognition and action between the two constituencies suggest that the decision to quit is not a linear and rational process as highlighted in most extant models of employee turnover. Our findings suggest that employees are attached more to a place or people they work with rather than the organization per se. Intergenerational differences between Generation Y knowledge workers and Generation X managers and the ineffectiveness of espoused human resource practices suggest the presence of “push” human resource management (HRM) systems. Our findings have implications for employee turnover models, intergenerational theory and high‐commitment HRM, and practitioners. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Examining the consequences of customer-oriented deviance in retail

Retail employees sometimes breach company rules and policies in order to assist their customers. Referred to as customer-oriented deviance (COD), the phenomenon is defined as intentional behaviours that depart from the norms of a referent group in honorable ways. While researchers have begun to examine the important organisational contributions that positive deviance delivers, there have been calls to develop a better understanding of the direct and indirect consequences of such behaviours. Accordingly, conceptual model was tested on a sample of 390 frontline service employees, elucidating the complex relationships between COD behaviours, self-perceptions of service quality and organisational commitment intentions. The current research also examines the moderating effect of gender on these complex relationships. The model offers a strong psychological explanation of how an employee's COD behaviours impact on their self-perception of their service reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy, which leads to greater overall commitment to the organisation. This research also finds an employee's gender moderates several of these relationships. The work offers practitioners insight into the important role of employee empowerment in service organisations. The research calls for further empirical examinations of COD behaviours, including antecedents and the mediating roles of perceived risk and tenure.     

When Organizational Justice Matters for Affective Merger Commitment

We investigate when organizational justice matters to employees’ commitment in the postacquisition process after a company is taken over in a cross‐border acquisition. Overwhelming evidence from the literature suggests that employees who are treated fairly during acquisitions are more committed to their new firms. We extend this finding by dividing organizational justice into three subdimensions: informational justice, interpersonal justice, and procedural justice. We find evidence that procedural justice is an important antecedent of affective merger commitment at an early stage of the integration period, while informational justice becomes important at a later stage. Further analysis on heterogeneity between the target firm's employees and the bidder firm's employees reveals that, immediately after the acquisition, target firm's employees value knowing where they will be at the new firm (procedural justice), while bidder firm employees are more concerned about communication and transparency (informational justice). Our results point to the importance of organizational justice in a cross‐border merger and acquisition (M&A) setting and the need for a separate study of issues related to bidder firms and target firms. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Exposure to workplace bullying and negative gossip behaviors: Buffering roles of personal and contextual resources

This study adds to business ethics research by investigating how employees' exposure to workplace bullying might spur their negative gossip behaviors, as well as how this effect might be buffered by their access to two personal resources (religiosity and innovation propensity) and two contextual resources (work meaningfulness and trust in top management). Survey data collected among Canadian-based employees who work in the religious sector reveal that workplace bullying increases the likelihood that they spread negative rumors about other organizational members, but this effect is weaker when employees (1) can draw from their religious faith, (2) are motivated to generate innovative ideas, (3) derive meaning from their work, and (4) have confidence in the trustworthiness of top management. For management scholars and practitioners, this study thus pinpoints different resources that diminish the risk that workplace bullying infuses work environments with even more negative energy, as might occur if bullying spills over into additional, negative gossip behaviors.     

Gender differences in the work commitment of Chinese workers: An investigation of two alternative explanations

This study explores the differences in work commitment between Chinese male and female employees. We develop a model that specifies the major antecedents of job and organizational commitment in the Chinese workplace. We then examine whether the gender differences can be attributed to factors related to gender role ideology or unfavorable work conditions encountered by women. Several hypotheses are formulated and tested with a data set collected from 582 employees in Beijing. The findings reveal that employee work commitment is related to organizational support, job characteristics, and perceptions of gender discrimination. Further, it is found that the level of job commitment of women is lower than that of men, whereas the level of organizational commitment is the same for both sexes. The lower level of job commitment of women is due largely to their stronger perception of gender discrimination, receiving less challenging job assignments, and engaging in a low level of leader–member exchange. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

国有企业员工编制身份与组织承诺——内在薪酬感知的调节作用

国有企业作为社会经济发展的奠基石,肩负着艰巨的历史使命和现实重任,而国有企业员工作为企业发展的第一要素,员工组织承诺对企业的发展具有十分重要的影响。文章从身份视角切入,基于社会认同威胁理论,探讨员工编制身份如何影响组织承诺,以及这一影响过程是否受内在薪酬感知的调节作用。281份有效问卷的研究结果表明：员工编制身份对组织承诺有正向影响;内在薪酬感知在“编制身份-组织承诺”关系中部分起负向调节作用,即内在薪酬感知能够部分减少“双轨制”带来的员工价值认同、回报以及继续留在组织意愿的差距。内在薪酬感知的具体调节作用存在差异,即内在薪酬管理并不如预想中有效。文章对国有企业雇佣制度的理论研究和管理实践具有一定的启示意义。     

Examining the impetus for internal CSR Practices with digitalization strategy in the service industry during COVID-19 pandemic

The year 2020 began with a glimpse into the darkness with the onset of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. An invisible, threatening virus has forced many countries to practice restricted movement and impose lockdowns for the sake of their citizens’ safety and well-being. In response, many business organizations have implemented various remote-work arrangements. These arrangements have spurred the use of digitalization strategies and have landed many employees in the vulnerable virtual workplace. With employees facing all these uncertainties and vulnerabilities, their commitment to their workplace could come into question. At the same time, organizations facing tremendous challenges are searching for committed employees to navigate through this turbulent time. From a strategic management perspective, organizations could revisit their internal core competencies to prevail through internal corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices. Meanwhile, the rapidly growing pace of digitalization could further augment organizations’ survival and resilience. This research paper showcases the empirical outcomes of the promising match between internal CSR practices and digitalization strategy; and employees’ organizational commitment during times of crisis. The results reveal that internal CSR practices positively stimulate employees’ organizational commitment, while digitalization strategy intercedes in the nexus between internal CSR practices and affective commitment. The empirical outcomes shed light on business organizations and their ability to take a frugal approach in turbulent times.     

Self‐directed learning readiness as an antecedent of organizational commitment: a Korean study

This study was to test whether employees possessing a higher level of self‐directed learning (SDL) readiness have significantly stronger organizational commitment in Korean business settings. Job position and length of service in the workplace, which were previously found as related variables to influence organizational commitment, were included to see how strongly they are associated with organizational commitment. This study found that SDL readiness was a meaningful variable in terms of predicting both affective and continuance commitment. While SDL readiness is negatively related to continuance commitment, it is positively associated with affective commitment. The findings of this study supported the theoretical assumption drawn in a review of the literature.     

From organizational values to mobilization of human resources

This study examines the relationship of perceived organizational values to employee mobilization behaviours as mediated by perceived organizational support (POS) and affective organizational commitment. Firstly, a scale comprising three types of perceived organizational values (interpersonal values, formal values, and individual well‐being‐centered values) was developed and validated using a sample of 580 employees. Secondly, the relationships among variables were examined using structural equations modeling on an independent sample of 260 employees. POS mediated the relationship between employees' perceptions that their organization values the individual well‐being of its members and their affective organizational commitment, which in turn mediated the relationship between POS and individual mobilization behaviours. The contributions of these findings to advancing scholarship and practice are discussed. Copyright © 2010 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Service climate and employee service performance: exploring the moderating role of job stress and organizational identification

Drawing on a sample of 368 frontline employees and 45 managers from five Chinese banks, this study examined the relationship between service climate and frontline employee service performance, including in-role and extra-role performance, and the difference of this relationship considering the moderating role of employee's emotional experience (job stress and organizational identification). Empirical results indicated the positive effect of service climate on service performance as hypothesized. Moreover, job stress negatively moderated the relationship between service climate and extra-role performance, while organizational identification positively moderated the climate–performance relationship.     

Does Sleep Really Matter? Examining Sleep among Salespeople as Boundary Role Personnel for Key Job Factors

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Sleep deprivation among employees has become commonplace in the workforce. In the United States, the number of hours individuals sleep per night has declined by an hour and a half per night since the 1960s. As of 2005, seventy-four percent of individuals were getting less than eight hours of sleep per night on weekdays. There are negative ramifications to the organization when employees are sleep deprived such as lost productivity, increased accident rate, and increased absenteeism.

Originality/Value/Contribution of the paper: Although prior research has investigated the impact that sleep deprivation has on unique job positions (e.g., shift workers, transportation), no research has investigated how sleep impacts business-to-business sales employees. Due to the responsibilities of business-to-business sales employees, this type of position should not just be lumped in with other organizational employees. For example, business-to-business sales employees are boundary spanning employees that are responsible for generating revenue for the organization. These sales employees are also more likely to be physically, socially, and psychologically separated from the organization since they frequently work outside of the office. Because of these distinctive roles, this study examines if differences based on sleep duration exist for business-to-business sales employees for two individual and five organizational factors. The two individual factors consisted of grit and happiness while the five organizational factors consisted of perceived organizational support, perceived supervisory support, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intentions.

Methodology/Approach: Data was collected from 320 business-to-business sales employees using a cross industry survey. The survey was conducted using a Qualtrics panel. Sleep duration was broken into two groups with one group consisting of business-to-business sales employees who sleep, on average, seven or more hours per night and the other group consisting of business-to-business sales employees who sleep, on average, six or less hours per night. The sleep duration groups were determined based on prior research that found adults should regularly sleep seven or more hours per night in order to support optimal health. There were one hundred thirty-four respondents who slept six hours or less and one hundred eighty-six respondents who slept seven or more hours, on average, per night.

Findings: The research question developed was answered by examining the differences between means for the two individual constructs and the five key organizational constructs. Differences in sleep duration for six of the seven sales constructs. There were significant differences between those that slept seven or more hours per night from those that slept six or less for grit, perceived organizational support, perceived supervisory support, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intentions. Results found that business-to-business sales employees that slept seven or more hours per night exhibited more grit than those that slept six or less hours per night. In addition, business-to-business sales employees that slept six or less hours per night had higher perceptions of both organizational and supervisory support than those that slept seven or more hours per night. Furthermore, business-to-business sales employees that slept six or less hours per night displayed higher job satisfaction and organizational commitment than sales employees that slept seven or more hours per night. Finally, business-to-business sales employees that slept seven or more hours per night indicated higher levels of turnover intentions than sales employees that slept six or less hours per night. There were no significant differences between the two sleep groups for sales employee happiness. Although some of these results may appear to be counterintuitive, conservation of resources theory can be used to explain these findings.

Research Implications: This exploratory study showcases the importance of good sleep among business-to-business sales employees. This study draws on the conservation of resources theory literature to explain the counterintuitive findings. This theory posits that individuals will retain and guard against resource depletion. Additionally, as resources become depleted, other resources are valued to a greater extent. In this study, the resource being depleted is the condition of sleep. When business-to-business sales employees experience a lower average amount of sleep per night (i.e., six hours or less), they perceive higher levels of support, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment than business-to-business sales employees who experience a higher average amount of sleep per night (i.e., seven hours or more). Although this study provides a good initial examination of how sleep impacts sales organizations, this study also highlights the need for additional business-to-business sales employee sleep research. This is the first study that has examined how sleep duration impacts business-to-business sales employees.

Practical Implications: This study is important to sales research because it highlights the impact that poor sleep of business-to-business sales employees has on the organization. For sales organizations, we provide guidance on ways a sales organization can help promote healthy sleep for their business-to-business sales employees. Some examples of guidance provided can be categorized into four primary categories. These categories include (1) proper sleep education, (2) sales management training, (3) creating a sleep friendly workplace environment, and (4) creating specific workplace policies to minimize sleep disturbances such as setting reasonable work hours and sleep accommodating travel schedules.