A model of employee responses to drug-testing programs

Testing employees for drug use is an increasingly widespread organizational response to the problem of employee drug abuse. Despite this, little attention has been given to its effects on employee attitudes and behavior. This paper reviews the issue of drug testing in industry, provides a theoretical model of employee perceptions of and responses to drug-testing programs, and offers an agenda for future research directions.     

Attitudes toward employee and employer rights in the workplace

A large sample (N=692) of undergraduate business majors were surveyed in order to assess their attitudes toward 54 different employer activities that might impact on employee rights in the workplace. Demographic and lifestyle measures as well as one personality variable, authoritarianism, were also included in the survey. A factor analysis on attitudes toward employer activities revealed three distinct factors, which we labeled private, polydrug (i.e., polygraphs and drug tests), and normative activities. Mean levels of agreement with employer actions were highest for normative and lowest for private activities, with polydrug activities falling in between. All mean differences were highly significant. Authoritarianism proved to be the strongest predictor of attitudes toward both private and polydrug activities.     

Employee attitudes toward drug testing: Effects of individual characteristics and employment setting

Testing for the presence of drug continues to gain popularity as a method for controlling drug use in the workplace. It is important that employers understand how potential applicants and current employees will react to the various types and purposes of drug testing. Employees (n = 529) were interviewed to investigate the role of attitudes toward drugs and work setting characteristics in explaining acceptance or rejection of drug testing. Individuals believing users should be held responsible for becoming dependent on cocaine, who felt the primary cause of cocaine addiction was weak moral character, and those who felt cocaine users should be treated as criminals were more supportive of drug screening and the testing of current employees.     

Effective HR implementation: the impact of supervisor support for policy use on employee perceptions and attitudes

Abstract

Effective implementation of human resource (HR) policies appears to depend on supervisors’ active involvement in the intervention process. Following recommendations of a recent intervention evaluation framework, we examine how perceived supervisor support during the implementation of a work-life intervention helps to change participants’ perceptions of organizational family supportiveness, and how this ultimately changes participants’ engagement and turnover intentions. A three-wave longitudinal study in a professional services firm (N = 434) that has formally involved supervisors in the process of a work-life intervention showed support for our study hypotheses. Supervisor support for policy use influenced employees’ positive work–home culture perceptions, which in turn strengthened employees’ work engagement and diminished their turnover intentions over time. We discuss practical implications and give recommendations on the future design of HR interventions and related policies.     

The relationship between employee knowledge,personal contact and attitudes towards chronically ill co-employees within the banking sector

As chronic illnesses continue to be a burden in today's organisations, it remains a very crucial call for management to find ways to eradicate the associated organisational problems. While people of all ages are affected by chronic illnesses, there is a higher risk of the elderly developing chronic diseases. However, as much as chronic illnesses are inevitable among employees, there should be ways at least to curb negative social and goal achievement impact which they bring in organisations. In this regard, a survey was conducted to examine the relationship between employees' knowledge about, contact with and attitudes towards their co-employees with chronic illnesses within the banking sector. This is not a well-researched area from an International Journal of Human Resource Management (IJHRM) view and this work could make a useful additive contribution. Results indicated that employees' knowledge about and contact with individuals diagnosed with chronic illnesses were significantly related to better attitudes towards this population. The findings also revealed that knowledge was related to positive attitudes among employees who had more personal contact with individuals with chronic illnesses and such findings indicate the importance of exposing employees to information about chronic illnesses and direct practice experience with individuals who have these illnesses. Managerial implications for employees with chronic illness are discussed.     

The influence of financial participation and participation in decision-making on employee job attitudes

This study investigates the direct and indirect effects of financial participation (FP) and participation in decision-making (PDM) on employee job attitudes. The central premise is that both financial participation and participation in decision-making have effects on job attitudes, such as integration, involvement and commitment, perceived pay equity, performance-reward contingencies, satisfaction and motivation. After reviewing the theoretical and empirical literature and testing two theoretical frameworks, developed by Long (1978a) and Florkowski (1989), a new model was constructed to consider a combined effects of both FP and PDM, herein referred to as employee participation (EP). The underpinning of the model is based on the assumption that both (a) the combination of financial participation and participation in decision-making (‘employee participation’), and (b) participation in decision-making produce favourable effects on employee job attitudes. The test of the new model showed that employee participation does not produce more favourable effects on employee job attitudes, than does participation in decision-making on its own. The data were gathered from a questionnaire study administered in a large British retail organization that operates two types of ownership schemes – profit-sharing and SAYE schemes.     

The impact of varying types of performance-related pay and employee participation on earnings

Using matched employer-employee data from a nationally representative sample of British establishments, the paper examines the impact of different types of performance-related pay (PRP) on earnings and whether this is moderated by the presence of employee involvement and financial participation schemes. It supports previous work that has suggested that there are strong and complex interactions between employee involvement schemes and compensation mechanisms. In particular, the results indicate that employees' earnings are highest where both individual and work-group PRP schemes are present at a workplace, and where there are congruent PRP and employee participation schemes.     

Drug testers versus nontesters: Human resources managers’ perceptions and organizational characteristics

Survey responses from 134 human resources managers (50 from drug testing and 84 from nontesting organizations) indicated that representatives from drug testing organizations were no less likely than their counterparts from nontesting organizations to know that drug tests cannot assess performance impairment. However, awareness of this limitation of drug testing was associated with greater perceptions of testing as invasive of privacy and unsound for dealing with drug use in the workplace. The prevalence of drug testing was related to organizational size and industry type, but unrelated to perceptions of employee’s drug use. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

The influences of new employee development practices upon role stressors and work-related attitudes of temporary employees

Understanding what influences temporary employee attitudes toward their work is becoming an increasingly significant managerial concern in organizations employing temporary workers. In this empirical study, we examine the relationship between new employee development (NED) practices, role stressors and employee work-related attitudes. It was hypothesized that NED practices will be negatively related to the role stressor variables and that the role stressor variables will be related to employee work-related attitudes. It was further hypothesized that role stressors will mediate the relationship between NED practices and temporary employee work-related attitudes. Since temporary employees receive new employment practices at both the client organization and the temporary agency, the relationships were hypothesized to exist for both the client organization and temporary agency. Data were collected from temporary employees (N = 1,261) across the United States. Results indicate that NED practices at the temporary agency and client organization were both negatively related to role ambiguity and role conflict. Role stressors were positively related to intention to quit and negatively related to job satisfaction and organizational commitment in relation to both client organization and temporary agency. Role ambiguity and role conflict partially mediated the relationship between NED practices and temporary employee work-related attitudes for both the client organization and temporary agency. Theoretical and practical implications for managing temporary employees are discussed.     

The effects of employee engagement and self-efficacy on job performance: a longitudinal field study

Abstract

Self-efficacy’s influence on individual job performance has been well documented in laboratory studies. However, there have been very few rigorous field studies of self-efficacy’s relationship with objectively measured individual job performance in organizational settings. This research history might account for the low take-up of self-efficacy within the business literature as well as within business itself. When it comes to studies of employee engagement, the same lack of rigorous individual studies applies, although several organizational-level studies link employee engagement to organizational performance, while its claimed benefits have been widely discussed in the business literature. Finally, the degree to which employee engagement and self-efficacy have independent and additive effects on individual-level job performance remains unknown. In order to address these issues, a longitudinal field study was undertaken within an Australian financial services firm. Using survey data linked to objectively measured job performance, we found the additive effects of self-efficacy and employee engagement explained 12% of appointments made and 39% of products sold over and above that explained by past performance. This finding suggests human resource management (HRM) practitioners should address both self-efficacy and employee engagement in order to boost job performance while encouraging HRM scholars to incorporate both measures when conducting job performance studies.     

The impact of sourcing enterprise system use and work process interdependence on sourcing professionals’ job outcomes

We examine sourcing professionals’ work context to conceptualize how they use sourcing enterprise systems (SESs) and to understand when SES use results in positive/negative job outcomes. We differentiate between SES use for supplier selection and supplier governance, identify sourcing professionals’ work process interdependence as a moderator for the impacts of SES use on job satisfaction, and suggest job satisfaction mediates the impacts of SES use on job performance. We conducted a field study of sourcing professionals’ SES use at one of the largest consumer product companies in the United States, which has implemented an SES to innovate its sourcing professionals’ work processes. Based on our analysis of the survey and qualitative data we collected, we found the impacts of both types of SES use (1) to be negative on job satisfaction when work process interdependence was high, (2) to be positive on job satisfaction when work process interdependence was low, and (3) to be mediated by job satisfaction for job performance. We discuss the implications of our findings for the literature at the intersection of information systems and operations management as well as for the information technology enabled innovation of sourcing processes and, more generally, complex business processes.     

The impact of managerial skills on employee outcomes: a cross cultural study

Leaders with global skills are in demand by MNCs. Global management skills depend on the applicability of management practices across cultures. Using data from managers in 50 countries, this study examines the interaction effect of cultural values and managerial skills on two outcomes, employees' attitudes and workgroup effectiveness. Our results indicate that cultural values tend to have a greater effect when a manager is less skilled than when the manager is highly skilled. When the manager is highly skilled, the interaction effects of culture tend to disappear. The practical and research implications of these findings are discussed.     

The impact of large-scale employee share ownership plans on labour productivity: the case of Eircom

Large-scale employee share ownership plans (ESOPs) have been a distinctive characteristic of Irish public enterprise reform, with shareholdings of 14.9% being allocated to employees as part of firm restructuring and privatisation programmes. This paper presents a case study analysis of a large-scale ESOP in Eircom, Ireland's former national telecommunications operator. We identify changes in labour productivity (LP) during 8 years before and after the establishment of the company's ESOP and use a framework based on Pierce, Rubenfeld and Morgan (1991, The Academy of Management Review, 16, 121–144) and Pierce, Kostova and Dirks (2001, Academy of Management Review, 26, 298–310) to explore the role played by the ESOP. The ESOP was found to play a key role in enabling firm-level reform through concession bargaining and changes in employee relations, and thereby indirectly affecting LP. However, despite the substantial shareholding and influence of the ESOP, we find that it has failed to create a sense of psychological ownership among employees, and thereby further impact on productivity.     

Trust,individualism and job characteristics as predictors of employee preference for teamwork

Employee resistance has long been recognized as a key constraint on the success of organizational change initiatives. However, it is only recently that employee attitudes towards working in teams has been specifically investigated as a factor influencing team effectiveness. Using data from 218 employees in 40 self-managing work teams, we examined the relationship between trust, individualism, job characteristics and team members' attitudes towards teamwork. Providing a partial test of Mayer et al.'s (1995) relational model of trust, the results indicate that the two situational forms of trust (trust in co-workers and trust in management) were stronger predictors of an employee's preference for teamwork than propensity to trust. Trust in co-workers was found to partially mediate the relationship between a person's propensity to trust strangers and their preference for working in a team. The importance of considering the dispositional variables of propensity to trust and individualism as factors that influence an employee's preference for teamwork, as well as their trust in management, trust in co-workers and their opportunity for skill utilization are discussed.     

Embeddedness across contexts: A two‐country study on the additive and buffering effects of job embeddedness on employee turnover

Despite the growing body of literature on the effects of job embeddedness on turnover, there are few studies on how job embeddedness operates in different countries. This study, based on the Conservation of Resources theory, addresses this research gap by investigating both the additive and the buffering effects of on‐the‐job and off‐the‐job embeddedness using employee data from China (n = 373) and Switzerland (n = 268). Results showed that on‐the‐job embeddedness reduced the likelihood of turnover more strongly in Switzerland than in China (additive effect). Additionally, in China, the unsolicited job offer–turnover relationship was stronger when employees had lower levels of off‐the‐job embeddedness (buffering effect). This research contributes to the understanding of the relative role of on‐the‐job and off‐the‐job embeddedness for turnover in different countries.     

Mapping the relationships between high-performance work systems,employee resilience and engagement: a study of the banking industry in China

Abstract

There is now growing interest in employee resilience in the organizational context and its contribution to organizational performance. However, little is known the extent to which high-performance work systems (HPWS) contributes towards enhancing employee’s resilience as well as their levels of engagement. This study examines the relationships among HPWS, employee resilience and engagement, using a sample of 2040 employees in the Chinese banking industry. Drawing on the job demands-resources model and strategic/high-performance human resource management theory, we develop three hypotheses to test the relationship between HPWS and employee resilience, resilience and employee engagement, and the mediating effect of resilience on the relationship between HPWS and engagement. All hypotheses are supported and suggest that HPWS can be used as a job resource to positively affect resilience and subsequently employee engagement. The key message of the paper is that employee resilience can be viewed as a set of skills and attributes that can be developed through the effective use of HPWS to benefit both individuals and the organization.     

The impact on the cultural diversity to employees' job satisfaction between mainland China and Taiwan: a comparison of Taiwanese invested companies

This study explores how the Chinese values (Integrations, Confucian Work Dynamism, Human-heartedness and Moral Discipline) impact employees' satisfaction (ES). Employees who work in mainland China for companies whose parent companies are based in Taiwan were surveyed. The results can be summarized as the following: ‘Integration’, ‘Confucian Work Dynamism’ and ‘Human-heartedness’ are significantly different between Taiwanese and Chinese employees, while ‘Moral discipline’ is not; Taiwanese employees have higher ES than Chinese employees; Taiwanese employees view ‘career planning’ is the most important, while Chinese employees think ‘management system’ is most important; For Taiwanese employees, ‘Salary and benefit’, ‘Working load’ and ‘Management system’ have effects on ES; Age and Education have effects on Chinese employees.     

Balancing tensions: Buffering the impact of organisational restructuring and downsizing on employee well‐being

This study examines the impact of employee experiences of restructuring and downsizing on well‐being. The job demands‐resources model was used to develop hypotheses related to job demands in the form of work intensity and job resources in the form of consultation. The job demands‐resources model allows for direct incorporation of employee perceptions and does not assume a singular, predetermined consequence of HRM practices. Hypotheses were tested via structural equation modelling on a nationally representative sample of over 5,110 employees from the Republic of Ireland in 2009. The findings indicate that work intensity serves as a conduit through which experiences of restructuring and downsizing negatively impact employee well‐being. Notably, consultation served as a buffer, diminishing the extent of this negative experience. The findings illuminate the complex pathways that shape how restructuring and downsizing are perceived by employees and the consequences for well‐being. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of these findings.