Telework paradoxes and practices: the importance of the nature of work

Research on telework often focuses on the outcomes of telework, investigating if telework is ultimately a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’ thing for teleworkers and their organisations. However, findings across telework research studies are often inconclusive, requiring deeper engagement with potential explanations for contradictory and paradoxical results. This study uses virtual ethnography (netnography) to investigate naturally occurring data. By analysing online debates related to Yahoo!'s decision to ban telework for its employees, this study surfaces aspects currently overlooked by telework research. These findings suggest that the diversity of the nature of work undertaken by knowledge workers and perceived differences in the suitability of different tasks for telework are of critical importance for understanding telework from a practice perspective. However, deeper engagement with the different kinds of work activities of knowledge workers is currently missing in the telework research literature. This study therefore contributes to better understanding of telework and paradoxical findings in telework research.     

Occupational roles and expectations of research scientists and research managers in scientific research institutions†

Publicly funded research institutes in most countries have been pressed by economic and political pressures through the 1990s to become more financially independent, to be more accountable and to adopt more businesslike principles and practices. In this context the occupational roles and career options for scientists and research managers in these organisations have undergone considerable change. As the research cultures of these institutions take on a more commercial perspective, new and critical career path choices for both researchers and the organisations themselves have emerged. This article focuses on the changing occupational roles of research scientists and research managers in the Australian CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation), one of the world's largest multidisciplinary research organisations. Two critical occupational pathways are discussed: one between science and science management and another between science management and commercial management. Key points where the pathways diverge are identified and linked to broader issues of organisational culture and human resource management. The authors argue that research institutes such as the Australian CSIRO require a ‘multicultural’ management approach that horizontally integrates the industrial, scientific and commercial domains of the organisations’ research cultures.     

Postgraduate scientists and R&D: the role of reputation in organisational choice

This paper reports on a series of interviews with postgraduate scientists in a number of UK universities. The interviews were designed to investigate the attitude of young scientists to employment in the pharmaceutical industry. The sample consisted of postgraduates in the biological sciences and included a broad cross-section of universities. The primary objective was to ascertain each student's ideal employer and to establish the role organisational reputation played in that choice. Students not intending to seek employment in commercial R&D were asked to explain why they had made that decision. The research established that knowledge of potential employers in the pharmaceutical industry was concentrated on two major companies, ICI and Glaxo. Students not considering the pharmaceutical industry indicated that lack of academic freedom was their major concern.     

R&D employee tenure in MNC subsidiaries: the role of institutional distance and experience

Long tenure of research and development (R&D) employees helps organisations to utilise employees' knowledge over a sustained time period and strengthen their competitive advantage. It also allows organisations to benefit from the training investments made on their R&D employees. Thus, identifying the determinants of R&D employees' tenure is crucial for designing effective R&D employee retention strategies. This paper analyses the factors explaining R&D employees' tenure in the subsidiaries of multinational corporations (MNCs). Building on institutional theory, we claim that formal and informal institutional distance between MNCs' home and host country might lead to R&D employees' short tenure in subsidiaries. We further suggest that R&D employees' international experience and MNCs' host country experience play a moderating role. We find support for our hypotheses by mobilising an original database that combines patent data and the LinkedIn profiles of 939 R&D employees in 256 MNC subsidiaries in India.     

After the reforms: how have public science research organisations changed?

Throughout the Western world, the provision of public good science research has undergone dramatic reforms over the past two decades. In the aftermath of these reforms, this paper asks whether the organisations engaged in science research and knowledge production have actually changed, and if so, how? Archetype analysis is used to explore the deep structures of four comparable case study organisations drawn from the New Zealand science sector. The study concludes that no new, stable organisational archetype has emerged following the reforms, but that in fact, a dynamic style of organisation that is in a state of endless transition is the most appropriate response to contemporary demands for knowledge production. The role of organisational leaders in this context is not only to make sense of the organisation's ever‐changing situation, but also to translate this sense into the actions of organisational members and other stakeholders.     

The Financial Impact of Organisational Downsizing Practices—The New Zealand Experience

Partly in response to the Asian economic crisis, many organisations in the Asia Pacific rim reduced staff numbers. This research examines the New Zealand experience of this change intervention from 1997 to 1999. This includes an examination of the impact on financial performance, and how the process followed may moderate such an impact. A questionnaire instrument was designed to measure this, to which responses were received from 155 New Zealand for-profit organisations employing fifty or more people.There is some evidence to suggest that those respondents who had downsized over the period of the study reported lower measures of profitability than those who did not (p < .05). Also, ensuring the procedure was perceived as just by the employees, and offering outplacement help to those who lost their jobs, went some way to improving the financial performance of downsized firms (p < .05). This may suggest that if downsizing is necessary then attention needs to be given to how the process is implemented in order to maximise the financial return.Peter Carswell teaches, consults and researches in the areas of organisational change, development, and innovation; leadership; strategic management; team building; people management and human resource training; organisational culture; management development; and entrepreneurship. He is a research fellow at UNITEC Institute of Technology in New Zealand.     

How can research on research contribute to a better management of university research?

In recent years new forms of research organizations have been established at universities, which have been faced to a much higher degree with problems of research management. This circumstance provides the main reason for starting research on research in the university field on a new basis. In the ‘Sonderforschungrbereich 79', a large interdisciplinary research unit at Hannover University concerned with ‘water research in the coastal area', a symbiosis and active co-operation was arranged between a small group of scientists engaged in research on research and a large number of scientists and engineers of several disciplines. The strong liaison between R o R scientists and their subject of investigation is institutionally organized. The purpose of this liaison is to involve R o R scientists in a feed-back process with a large university research organization and its actual management problems. The results to date have been encouraging and indicate that such an experiment can be a very worthwhile exercise.     

Implementing industrial sustainability: the research issues in technology management

This paper ties together issues in the implementation of industrial sustainability and the contribution that technology management research has to offer. The idea of sustainability seems to be slowly attracting more attention. Discussion occurs not only amongst world governments, academics and NGOs, but also in industry. Industrial sustainability now appears to be moving up the management agenda in many organisations. Corporate reputation and shareholder value may be at stake for organisations which cannot demonstrate a rational position on sustainability. However, despite this increasing awareness, in practice there are a number of barriers to the implementation of industrial sustainability ideas. For a start, it is unclear what industrial sustainability means in practical terms. The business case for implementation is often built on individual conviction or motivational case examples, rather than being grounded in solid theory with associated frameworks, guidelines and tools. Particular challenges facing organisations include the choice of appropriate product and process technologies, lifecycle valuation techniques, changing employee and other stakeholder mindsets, and possibly most importantly, creating a new business model altogether. In light of these issues, this paper sets out to review the contribution that technology management research can make towards the effective implementation of industrial sustainability. Considerations include the cross‐functional and cross‐organisational issues of implementation – bringing together various business units and functions within a company, and the many players in a supply chain, with the goal of improving environmental, social and economic performance in parallel. There is a need to develop new methods for technology valuation which integrate the concept of triple bottom line accountability and existing technology strategy in organisations could be extended, to include the wider set of values that underpin the concepts of industrial sustainability. The critical research needs for this to be achieved are identified.     

Careers in public sector science: orientations and implications

There is consensus that the world of science is changing (Ziman, 1994; see for example Nowotny et al., 2002). The environment in which scientists work is typified now as increasingly dynamic, managerialist and commercialised. This paper focuses on how scientists within different organisational and national contexts understand and enact their careers in the face of such changes. Based on empirical work in the UK and New Zealand, this paper introduces four career orientations evident in the career accounts of these participants. The categories are further analysed in terms of the key drivers to career: science, the organisation and the individual. Implications for career management are discussed in each section. In conclusion, the paper makes two related contributions. First, the evidence presented poses a challenge to highly individualised notions of the career actor central to current career thinking, instead revealing scientists' continued attachment to old institutional arrangements alongside new and emerging ways of understanding career. Second, with reference to the issue of career management of research scientists, the study highlights the need for those involved in management to look beyond employing organisations to other life interests, and science itself. It argues the need for those involved in career management to recognise the variety of legitimate ways to run a scientific career.     

Telework quality and employee well-being: Lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) forced organisations to implement intensive telework for many of their workers overnight. This scenario was completely new, and the emergency caused by COVID-19 created the possibility of experimenting with new ways of working with an unknown impact on employee well-being. Drawing on previous literature, we defined a model of telework quality consisting of the following four core domains: agile offices within organisations, functional remote workstations, flex-time and engaging management. We identified two high-quality and low-quality telework profiles using latent profile analysis on a data sample of 2295 insurance and financial sector employees. Demographic, occupational and procedural characteristics were associated with the probability of being in the positive or negative profiles. Our results showed that employees' emotional exhaustion and work engagement levels were related to telework quality. This study suggests that organisations need to consider the quality of telework to effectively adopt new ways of working that foster employee well-being.     

企业社会责任表现对员工组织行为的影响研究

采用访谈法、问卷调查法等方式探讨了企业社会责任表现对组织行为变量的影响。研究发现,企业社会责任表现与企业员工感受到的组织吸引力有显著的正相关;与员工的企业声望感、组织承诺以及工作满意度也有显著的正相关。     

Out of control: personal networks in European collaboration

The formal ties that bind collaborating organisations are often assumed to be reinforced by the relationships of individual employees, and these by trust. So, too, are the personal networks by which employees acquire much of the information required for the organisation's innovation. It is easy to assume that personal networks should support collaborative arrangements. It is also tempting for managers to ensure that they do by bringing them under organisational control. This paper investigates collaboration in Esprit, the European Commission's programme for research in information technology. It finds personal networks, and considers the implications for innovation of attempts to render these networks compatible with collaboration.     

A cross-cultural study on the leadership behaviour of Chinese and Japanese executives

In recent years the People's Republic of China has focused on economic development. The State called on scientists to contribute to the implementation of economic reform and leadership reconstruction. In the Institute of Psychology, Academia Sinica, a research group conducted a cross-cultural study on the leadership behavior of Chinese and Japanese executives. The performance maintenance (PM) theory of leadership which was widely adopted in Japan, has been introduced into China. The findings of the Chinese study conducted in 53 factories among 16260 respondents are compared with the results from the Japanese study by J. Misumi of Osaka University.The author is Professor of Psychology in the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Science and Secretary-General of the Chinese Psychological Society     

Whistle‐blowing in the digital era: motives,issues and recommendations

With the ever‐increasing popularity of social media, whistle‐blowing, which generally refers to the disclosure of organisational wrongdoing, has entered a new era. Whistle‐blowing via virtual platforms has transformed not just the channel of disclosure, but also the associated motives, processes and outcomes. The impact on the whistle‐blower, the organisation and the public can often be accelerated and is seen as being more significant than traditional whistle‐blowing through internal means or external dedicated authorities or journalists. Yet systematic research on this changing phenomenon is just emerging, and regulation (e.g. for rewards, safeguards or protection) is lagging behind. In this paper, we specifically examine the impetus, as well as the benefits and drawbacks, of using online channels such as social media, blogging or websites, for whistle‐blowing by both employees and non‐employees, taking into consideration recent case law and development. A number of recommendations are proposed for virtual whistle‐blowers, organisations and governments.     

Diversity is strategy: the effect of R&D team diversity on innovative performance

Diversity in the workplace has attracted significant interest in organisations that want to attract and retain talented employees. Breakthrough innovation requires a wider knowledge base, and organisations increasingly rely on multidisciplinary R&D teams to identify scientific developments that bridge gaps and reduce time to market. However, research on the performance implications of R&D team diversity remains limited and the empirical evidence inconsistent. This paper investigates the impact of surface and deep-level diversity on R&D teams’ innovative performance and how diversity dimensions interact to drive innovation. We find supportive evidence that R&D team characteristics influence innovation outcomes, confirming our hypothesising that diversity is a valuable strategy for an organisation to pursue as it provides greater cognitive ability. Each diversity facet however has its own distinct effects depending on the novelty of innovation and industry. Yet, diversity is not solely positive and excessive heterogeneity could be detrimental to R&D team performance. Our findings suggest that high diversity in gender or skills in cognitively diverse teams might be negative attributes to take into consideration. Senior managers and organisations should therefore consider the appropriate mix of capabilities to benefit from creativity in diverse R&D teams and avoid possible conflict and distrust associated with diversity.     

Reputation gaps and the performance of service organizations

Links between the reputation of organizations and their financial performance are intuitively attractive to assume, but often difficult to demonstrate convincingly. Gaps between employee and customer perceptions of corporate reputation have traditionally been associated with poor performance. In the context of service business and applying assimilation‐contrast theory, we hypothesize that the nature of such gaps will, in reality, have a differential effect on future revenue depending on the size and valence of the gap. The effects of small gaps should be assimilated by customers, but larger ones have a greater potential of creating a contrast effect resulting in significant increases or decreases in subsequent sales. In businesses where employees have a more positive view of the company reputation than customers, we hypothesize a growth in future sales, and where they have a relatively more negative view, a decline. We test the effects of what we label as reputation gaps in 56 business units drawn from nine service organizations and confirm our hypotheses. Among the implications of our findings are that managing reputation by elevating employee perceptions of a company's reputation above those perceived by its customers holds the potential to enhance future sales. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Weak links and the management of reputational interdependencies

This paper builds on a growing literature that takes into account the fact that firms in an industry may be interdependent with regard to their corporate reputations, thus sharing a “reputation commons.” We argue that the theory of public goods can help us to understand the interdependencies that link corporate reputations and to frame the contexts and requirements for collective action that they induce. In particular, we suggest that more and more frequently these interdependencies make industry reputation a “weak link” public good. We show that this raises new challenges for the strategic management of industry reputation by communities of firms. The discussion of these challenges is based on the case study of the collective action of the European chlorine companies towards restoring their reputation after being accused of not being safe, and on a model of the production of reputation by companies. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effects of corporate reputation perceptions of the general public on shareholder value

Superior corporate reputations can have strategic value for firms. Of the “multiple reputations” associated with each firm, we focus on the perceptions of the general public. The public represents the most widely defined stakeholder group but has attracted the least amount of research interest to date. Drawing on data for German firms, this study demonstrates that superior reputation perceptions issued by the general public increase shareholder value, as measured by future stock returns. This study provides a more nuanced understanding for this novel finding. Applying a conceptualization of reputation that balances both its affective and cognitive components, we find that reputation perceptions that are driven by nonfinancial aspects are more value relevant in the future than reputation perceptions that are driven by previous financial performance. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hybrid social media: employees’ use of a boundary‐spanning technology

Improved employee collaboration and communication can be facilitated by social technologies that extend within and beyond organisations. These social technologies have increasingly come to be represented by social media sites, which are used to extend workplace relationships across personal and professional boundaries in a hybrid role. This presents opportunities and risks as those boundaries are collapsed. Using boundary management as a theoretical lens, we evaluate the associations of relationship initiation between colleagues at different levels of organisations with employees’ strategies and their well‐being. We also investigate relationships with social media usage, age and propensity to self‐monitor and group employees using cluster analysis. We consider implications of our findings for developing more sophisticated policies, training and guidance for employees on the use of social media as a workplace tool.     

Teleworking: benefits and pitfalls as perceived by professionals and managers

This study explores how teleworking is perceived by employees and highlights its possible benefits and pitfalls. Interviews with sixty-two teleworkers in five UK organisations provide a comprehensive view on this mode of work. In particular the study examines teleworking impact on effectiveness, quality of working life, and family life.