Guanxi and professional conduct in China: a management development perspective

This paper explores guanxi within the context of 'ethical' behaviour. It was found that guanxi exerted a strong influence on our sample, with the exception of the necessity to lend money. As well, there appeared to be a significant minority of respondents who would behave unethically to preserve group solidarity. It was suggested that a modified version of the Belcourt et al . 's management development model would be a useful tool in the development of modified coaching processes for use in authoritarian cultures.     

PAY,CONTROL AND COMMITMENT: LINKING APPRAISAL AND REWARD

John Geary, who is a Research Fellow in the Industrial Relations Research Unit at the University of Warwick, explores the implementation of appraisal-linked reward systems in three US electronics plants operating in the Irish Republic. He focuses in particular on how the schemes work in practice and how employees respond to them. He argues that there are often a number of tensions within management's strategy and that the degree to which such reward systems are capable of engendering harmonious relations must be open to some scepticism. Furthermore, he questions the extent to which management's payment policy was successful in avoiding the extremes of individualism and collectivism.     

The characteristics of dyadic trust in executive coaching

This qualitative study explores the development of trust in executive coaching relationships. Interviews were conducted with 27 high‐level executives who were voluntarily engaged in executive coaching for the purpose of leadership development. The theory that emerged from these findings, as expressed in an integrated model of sequential, interdependent trust development, was that interplay of relational, situational, and behavioral factors influenced the development of trust in executive coaching. Trust was highest when (a) the client was willing to disclose honest feelings and thoughts to the coach and was met with a supportive, nonjudgmental reaction from the coach; (b) the organization was supportive of the positive leadership development that could occur in executive coaching; (c) the coach and client were clear about expectations of confidentiality and outcomes; and (d) the coach supportively confirmed the client's developmental needs, and challenged the client's leadership behaviors. These multiple, interdependent factors manifested throughout the coaching relationship to result in bonds of trust.     

公路路面施工过程中滑膜式摊铺机的应用分析

随着经济不断发展,我国的城市化进程也在不断前进,因此促进交通发展公路建设项目开始不断增加。在公路施工过程里,滑膜摊铺机已经是其中至关重要的设备之一,目前被大量应用。本文主要针对摊铺机的工作原理进行分析,并对其在公路施工中的应用进行探索,希望以此方式,帮助公路建设提高质量和效率。     

Becoming a Working Mother: Managing Identity and Efficacy Uncertainties During Resocialization

The work reentry period following the birth of a first child is a time of uncertainty for a professional woman. During reentry, a new mother is often questioning who she is and how effective she can be as a mother and working professional. In this study, we conceptualize reentry as a period of resocialization as we explore the first‐time mother's changing self‐concept during this time. Specifically, we develop a model that explores the identity and efficacy uncertainties that women experience during resocialization. This model draws attention to the influence organizational context has on the degree of uncertainty women experience and to the adjustment tactics women engage to manage their identity and efficacy uncertainty. We discuss the implications these findings have for both socialization research and work‐life theory and practice. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

浅谈ESP教师专业发展

ESP(English for specific purposes,即"专门用途英语")正在我国外语教学界蓬勃发展。而ESP教师成为了ESP教学发展的关键。目前我国ESP教师的发展在教师的学术能力、师资培训以及合作教学等中遇到了很多问题。本文针对这些问题,结合ESP相关理论,探讨我国ESP教师的现状,提出了我国ESP教师发展的可行途径。     

Sustainability challenges in public health sector procurement: An application of interpretative structural modelling

Sustainable procurement is an integral part of public sector sustainability, but developing countries are far behind in this area. This study explores the internal and external challenges in Pakistan's public health sector that hamper sustainable procurement. With the help of experts, we found eleven key challenges that hamper sustainability in public health sector procurement. We designed an instrument and fielded it to eighty-five procurement officials in government hospitals, who verified the presence of the challenges in health sector. The interpretative structural modelling (ISM) we used to develop a hierarchy among the identified challenges reflects that government regulations and senior management's commitment—all strategic challenges—are the most critical challenges, whereas perceived ineffectiveness, third-party involvement, and the unavailability of green products—all operational challenges—are less critical. The study presents comprehensive recommendations to policymakers and future researchers related to achieving sustainable development goals in the health sector.     

Social expectations,gender and job satisfaction: Front‐line employees in China's retail sector

This study aims to enhance our understanding of gender and employment in China. Analysing data collected from over 1,800 employees at 22 foreign‐invested and locally owned retail stores in eight Chinese cities, it firstly explores whether, like their counterparts in Western countries, female employees have higher levels of job satisfaction than their male colleagues. Secondly, it distinguishes the key differential predictors of female and male employees' job satisfaction levels. This article extends gender role theory on job satisfaction by showing how traditional values, the structure of work and a nation's dominant gender ideology combine to shape women and men's job satisfaction and work experiences in a transitional context.     

Mediating ambiguity: Narrative identity and knowledge workers

Drawing on Paul Ricoeur's approach to narrative identity and a longitudinal case study of a graphic design firm, this paper explores identity work provoked by organisational changes for one group of knowledge workers, graphic designers. The approach to identity work developed in this paper illuminates how these knowledge workers use narrative to mediate between social and personal identities during a period of significant organisational change. The narrative identity approach, derived from Ricoeur, embraces the multiplicity, complexity and potential contradictions encountered by knowledge workers facing threats to their personal identity. In addition to developing Ricoeur's thinking to understand identity work in an organisational context, the impact of organisational change for knowledge workers is highlighted for practitioners.     

The trade union response to agency labour in Sweden

This article explores the possibilities for temporary agency workers to gain union representation at workplace level. Using Heery's classification of four different union responses to agency work—Exclusion, Regulation, Replacement and Engagement—we found that, even though the union wishes to represent agency workers, there are institutional conditions obstructing them from succeeding.     

Employee perceptions and their influence on training effectiveness

Studies of the benefits of human resource development (HRD) for organisations have assumed a direct connection between training strategy and a hierarchy of performance outcomes: learning, behavioural change and performance improvement. The influence of workplace practices and employees' experiences on training effectiveness has received little attention. This study investigates evaluation strategies designed to elicit greater training effectiveness, and explores the influence of trainees' perceptions and work environment factors on this. Drawing on detailed case study findings, the authors highlight the importance of management practices, trainees' perceptions of the work environment and systems of reward in explaining behaviour change after training.     

石油企业基层纪检监察业务风险防控管理工作初探

我国关于深入开展党的群众路线教育实践活动的工作部署成为了新时期各单位日常工作中的主旨思想。距离国家相应部署工作的开展已经过去了一段时间,在本文中,将就石油企业基层纪检监察业务风险防控管理工作的开展情况进行了一定的调查探究。     

Selection of individuals to serve on major gift fundraising teams: a study of membership choice criteria

Major gift fundraising (MGF) is a crucial activity for large UK charities and is one that is normally undertaken by teams. This paper examines the criteria that the managements of large charities apply when selecting individuals to serve on MGF teams. It also explores possible connections between team composition and MGF success. A questionnaire exploring this matter was distributed to a sampling frame comprising 500 of the UK's largest fundraising charities, resulting in 151 replies. It emerged that MGF teams which contained people who had been chosen on the basis of their commitment to the MGF function, their communication and relationship nurturing abilities, and their wide‐ranging connections throughout an organisation were reported to perform better than teams that were not deliberately assembled in this way. The more background research was completed into an MGF prospect's circumstances and preferences and the more diverse an MGF team's composition, the higher the probability of success. However, team size did not exert significant effects on performance nor did (i) the personal status of any of a team's members or (contrary to expectations) (ii) the inclusion of individuals who knew a prospect personally. Teams with members who possessed extensive experience of MGF did not perform substantially better than others. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Empowering Justice: An Intersectional Feminist Perspective on Restorative Justice in the Sex Trade

Restorative justice might seem like a benign alternative to prison, but it is full of pitfalls, particularly when it is still enmeshed in the criminal justice system. Nowhere is this more true than with sex workers, who are either punished for their work or morally castigated for it. The criminal justice system's interventions into the sex trade, even when using programs based on restorative justice, fails to address the harms and conflicts women experience in the sex trade and street economy. A major reason restorative programs fail to serve women in the sex trade is because it remains tethered to the criminal justice system, which carries traditional punitive consequences. When women entrenched in these conflicts are given the space, support, and freedom, they are able to develop relationships and resolutions that better exemplify restorative values. This paper explores the limitations of the current relationship between restorative justice and the criminal justice system and then highlights how the relationships and resistance strategies of the Young Women's Empowerment Project demonstrated restorative justice praxis in the sex trade.     

Promoting the informal sector as a source of gainful employment in developing countries: insights from Ghana

Although the informal sector continues to be the main source of employment in developing countries, little empirical research has been conducted into the human resource management (HRM) issues surrounding this sector in sub-Saharan Africa. Against this background, this study seeks to highlight the HRM issues, such as training and employment strategy, which are assuming increasing importance in the informal sector in developing countries. After reviewing the marginalist and structuralist debates on the informal sector, the paper looks at the Ghanaian government's attempt to transform the sector into a source of national economic development, entrepreneurship and self-employment. As part of this examination, the paper explores the question of whether the government's strategies can provide jobs for all who need them.

Based on the evidence of the empirical research, the paper argues that although the current Ghanaian government's informal employment strategy is a product of political expediency and, therefore, prone to pitfalls, it nevertheless constitutes a worthwhile attempt to combat unemployment in the long term. The paper also contends that in environments of perpetual economic crisis, which undermine the ability of sub-Saharan African (SSA) governments to generate adequate growth, it makes good socio-economic sense to promote the informal sector as a significant source of employment. The government's strategy should, therefore, be seen as an attempt to help the informal sector generate a level of employment above the marginal and survival. In this respect, the Ghanaian experience provides useful lessons for other SSA countries grappling with similar unemployment problems.     

Gendered observations and experiences in executive women's work

This article explores gendered observations and experiences of executive women on the basis of common world views or lenses through which gender differences are interpreted and understood. Three types of lenses are identified from both the literature and the data: monocultural, statistical and structural. The discussion explores the relationships and ties between each lens noting the overlapping characteristics. A qualitative study is used to index the various themes and the coping strategies employed by executive women in Australia based on specific work experiences in leadership and gender relations. The study adds to existing gender theory by highlighting how gendered lenses can be used to explore gender hierarchies and inequality regimes which lie at the centre of executive women's work.     

Street Performance,Public Space,and the Boundaries of Urban Desirability: The Case of Living Statues in Barcelona

How do cities determine who has the right to station themselves in iconic public spaces? This article explores this question by analyzing the evolution of Barcelona's approach to regulating street performance, with a particular focus on regulations pertaining to ‘living statues’. Although most buskers have been expelled from the Ramblas, one of the city's most emblematic walkways, living statues remain permitted on the promenade. This, I argue, is due to the general embrace of statues as part of local tradition and their integration within city‐branding campaigns, as well as their own organizing and boundary work. As the image Barcelona seeks to cultivate has changed, however, the right of statues to station themselves in public space has become ever more tenuous. My findings speak to broader questions regarding how cities determine the boundaries of ‘urban desirability’, as well as why and how such boundaries change over time. They also elucidate the strategies that groups located at the margins employ in attempting to position themselves favorably in relation to such boundaries. More generally, they highlight how current approaches to analyzing urban inclusion and exclusion may benefit from a more sustained engagement with the burgeoning social scientific literature on symbolic boundaries.     

Predicting On-the-Job Substance Abuse with a Written Integrity Test

This paper explores definitions and predictors of employee substance abuse, using 173 employed undergraduates who completed a prominent written integrity test and a self-report of work behaviors, including on-the-job (OTJ) alcohol and drug abuse. Approximately 21% of participants reported recent OTJ abuse and were significantly more likely than nonabusers to exhibit other counterproductive work behaviors. Validity coefficients for the integrity test's Employability Index (r = –.25) and Drug Avoidance Scale (r = –.39) suggest that such measures can reduce OTJ abuse, but the procedure's effectiveness may be limited by the high rate of false negatives. We discuss suggestions for improving psychological testing to reduce OTJ abuse.     

New management practices in a multinational corporation: the restructuring of worker representation and rights?

This article addresses the strategy of a multinational corporation's approach to implement new management practices within its European operating units. It explores how certain elements of an industrial relations system can facilitate the development of these practices. It argues that a foundation for labour may be being constructed which can condition eventual outcomes.     

Leading to Learn

“You don't see to draw, you draw to see.” And then Fred said, “It's just the same for leadership, you don't learn to lead, you lead to learn.” The arts can teach us to stay with our senses and not know and in that way to provide a balance to the dominance of the analytic approaches to our organizational worlds. There is an old saying that you can only manage what you can measure. The arts can help us to work with what we cannot measure and the way to do that is by leading to learn. The current article explores the qualitatively different way in which the arts teach us to apprehend the world and how that is central to leadership.