The problem of employees' network centrality and supervisors' error in performance appraisal: A multilevel theory

This article reveals an unexplored paradox for HR managers: the centrality of an employee in the social network benefits performance but hampers performance appraisal because it affects supervisors' rating errors. Central employees can be erroneously rated high on performance even when they are not high performers because supervisors tend to overappraise their performance. A distinction is made between rating precision, which depends on supervisors' uncertainty regarding employees' performance, and rating accuracy, which depends on supervisors' bias in favor of employees. Employee centrality is posited to be beneficial to precision but deleterious to accuracy because it regulates the diffusion of positive information, status, and power, all of which distort supervisors' capacity and motivation to accurately appraise performance. It is then argued that rating errors caused by network centrality affect aggregate perceptions of justice in organizations. When employees are highly connected to each other in a dense network, organizations have a strong and positive justice climate. Yet when some employees are more central than others in a centralized network, organizations have a negative and weak justice climate. The article contributes to the literature because it identifies an unexplored dark side of network centrality and offers recommendations for HR managers to cope with its deleterious consequences and for scholars to study them.     

Manager's occupational stress in state-owned and private enterprises in the People's Republic of China

Privatization that has taken place in the People's Republic of China has brought about improved profitability and effectiveness of enterprises. However, it is not known whether employees' occupational stressors and strains in private enterprises would differ from those in state-owned enterprises. This study aims to examine the major sources of manager's occupational stress in private and state-owned enterprises, and comparing the intensity of these stressors and strains. The relationships between stressors and strains were also investigated in both economic sectors. The questionnaires were completed by 234 managers in state-owned enterprises and 179 managers in private enterprises from eight cities of the PRC. The questionnaires were used to measure sources of stress, job satisfaction, and physical and psychological strain. The results showed that managers in private enterprises experienced higher levels of occupational stressors (mainly ‘Organizational structure and climate’ and ‘Relationship with others’) and psychological strains than those in state-owned enterprises. Moreover, ‘Organizational structure and climate’ was also found to be a major stressor when predicting both psychological and physical strain in both economic sectors.     

Differences in Perceptions of Human Resource Development Across Countries

Abstract

This study sought to determine whether managers within a multinational enterprise (MNE) differed in their perceptions of selected human resource development practices in their organization. The study also sought to identify whether the managers' perceptions could be clustered by the countries in which they reside. The study was based on cluster research studies that have been conducted in the field of cross-cultural management. Cluster research has suggested that systematic differences in an individual's perceptions of organizational variables can be expected to occur, which are based on culture and national identity. The results of this study showed that differences in perceptions about human resource development existed among managers and that the managers' responses could be clustered into five relatively distinct country clusters.     

Effects of demographic,experiential, and attitudinal factors on occupational sex stereotypes

The purpose of this study was to (a) compare the occupational sex stereotypes of 366 college students with those reported by Shinar in 1975, and (b) examine the relationships between demographic, experiential, and attitudinal variables and these occupational sex stereotypes. The results indicated a significant difference in occupational ratings from Shinar's study, with females' perceptions shifting more than males' perceptions. In addition, subjects' gender, tenure with female managers, and attitudes toward women as managers, were shown to be significant predictors of occuptational ratings. The implications of these findings for both employees and managers are then discussed.     

Herr Ingenieur or the Grease-Monkey? How the Managerial Prospects of Engineers are Perceived

The work roles considered appropriate to an occupational group are determined by its status in the organisation. Status depends on how group members are perceived. the article shows that perceptions of engineers as managers derive from the way the company defines the profession by qualifications required and the boundary established between it and other technical employees. the test of engineers’ power is ability to survive a decline in the strategic importance of engineering in the company. Survival is assured by the engineer's development of generalist abilities rather than specialist ones.     

The influence of managers' awareness of climate change,perceived climate risk exposure and risk tolerance on the adoption of corporate responses to climate change

Uncertainties posed by climate change limit companies' ability to understand implications of global warming on business and society at large, hampering the adoption of tangible organizational responses to climate change. Understanding climate action thus requires to investigate influential factors of decision-making under uncertainty, which implies acknowledging managerial interpretations and perceptions about climate issues. Drawing insights from the literature on climate inaction and from corporate sustainability literature, the present study examines awareness of climate change and perceived exposure to climate risks as antecedents of corporate responses to climate change, drawing on a survey of managers of Italian manufacturing companies. In addition, the study tests the moderation of risk tolerance on the relation between perceived climate risk exposure and climate action, suggesting that risk attitudes are a significant factor of decision-making under climate uncertainty. The results support the hypothesis of the model and thus provide several contributions to the literature on business and climate change. Managerial implications and avenues for future research are also discussed.     

A change in the earnings penalty for British men with working wives: Evidence from the 1980's and 1990's

Using pooled cross-sectional data from 1984–1989 and 1990–1995, two-stage (Tobit/OLS) regressions show that the penalty on male earnings for working wives, found in earlier research for British males in the early 1980's in managerial and other occupations, is not present in the second half of the 1980's and is largely reversed by the 1990's; in most occupational clusters, managers most notably, it is replaced by an earnings premium. The results are consistent with a view that increases in married women's labor force participation in Britain, coupled with positive assortative mating, have overwhelmed any forces tending to reduce male salaries when their wives work.     

Crisis spillover of corporate environmental misconducts: The roles of perceived similarity,familiarity, and corporate environmental responsibility in determining the impact on oppositional behavioral intention

Negative impact of a firm's environmental misconduct can spread to other firms under the same category due to stakeholders' categorization. Such problem implies a sociocognitive process that has yet to be explored. Therefore, this study extends the current literature by exploring how interfirm similarity affects the spillover effects through stakeholders' engagement. We propose that interfirm similarity can be perceived by stakeholders as a categorization standard, which can lead to their opposition to other firms. Spillover of misconduct is caused by the decreasing stakeholders' trust, wherein the negative effect is contingent upon stakeholders' perceptions. A questionnaire study is conducted to investigate how people resist an innocent firm in China when a chemistry firm experienced an explosion accident. Our findings confirm that interfirm similarity increases stakeholders' opposition to the innocent firm by decreasing their trust. However, the negative effect is alleviated when the innocent firm is perceived as highly environmentally responsible. Our work contributes to the crisis spillover literature and carries important implications for the management of innocent firms that may lose from an industry peer's misconduct.     

When do high‐level managers believe they can influence the stock price? Antecedents of stock price expectancy cognitions

Stock based rewards are often used to motivate high‐level managers to take actions to increase the stock price of the firm. However, numerous constraints may weaken the perceived link between individual effort and stock price appreciation for many recipients. This study introduces a new construct, stock price expectancy, which we define as individuals' perceptions of influence over their firm's stock price. We examined its antecedents in a sample of 349 high‐level U.S. managers and found that employment at corporate headquarters, firm size, hierarchical level, and contact with investment analysts predicted stock price expectancy perceptions. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The relationship between HRM practices and service behaviour in South African service organizations

This paper reports on findings from research conducted in South African service organizations that frontline employees' perceptions of HRM practices have a direct influence on their service behaviour. Specific HRM practices have more impact than others and this was attributed to the influence of external factors such as the socio-political situation and national culture and to internal factors linked to the way managers implemented the HRM practices in the organization. Organizational commitment was found to play a mediating role in the relationship between frontline employees' perceptions of HRM and their service behaviour.     

Intra-organizational legitimization strategies used by purchasing managers

This paper addresses the issue of how purchasing managers can develop the purchasing department's legitimacy within an organization. A qualitative exploratory approach based on six cases has been used since: (1) there has not yet been a research performed on this topic; and (2) an analysis of internal legitimization strategies must take into consideration the context and the nature of the relationships among departments. Our analysis shows that in order to create, maintain or increase the purchasing department's internal legitimacy, purchasing managers have to do very well about two complementary strategic orientations: (1) identify and attract the best suppliers; (2) identify and implement collaborative processes and coordination mechanisms that cannot be duplicated by competitors. In fact, supply managers actually develop legitimization strategies based internally and externally, since a higher level of internal legitimacy can also be supported partially by external stakeholders, who then influence the other departments' and top management's perceptions.Our study also shows that the strategies used by purchasing managers take different forms depending which legitimacy dimension (cognitive, pragmatic, or moral legitimacy) they are trying to influence. Moreover, a purchasing department's legitimacy strategy is developed based on a few important factors: (1) where the purchasing department stands at a given time in terms of the contribution perceived, similar to a "balance sheet" evaluation; (2) the purchasing personnel's technical and relational competencies; and (3) the extent of their implication in the strategic choices leading to the development of a competitive advantage for the organization they work for. It seems that any effort to take steps based on coherent legitimization strategies could help improve both a purchasing department's legitimacy level and its development level. From this standpoint, this study also shows that the purchasing department's internal legitimacy is a crucial driver of purchasing practices.     

How do leaders' perceptions of organizational health climate shape employee exhaustion and engagement? Toward a cascading-effects model

Although researchers and practitioners increasingly focus on health promotion in organizations, research has been mainly fragmented and fails to integrate different organizational levels in terms of their effects on employee health. Drawing on organizational climate and social identity research, we present a cascading model of organizational health climate and demonstrate how and when leaders' perceptions of organizational health climate are linked to employee well-being. We tested our model in two multisource studies (N_{Study 1} = 65 leaders and 291 employees; N_{Study 2} = 401 leader–employee dyads). Results showed that leaders' perceptions of organizational health climate were positively related to their health mindsets (i.e., their health awareness). These in turn were positively associated with their health-promoting leadership behavior, which ultimately went along with better employee well-being. Additionally, in Study 1, the relationship between perceived organizational health climate and leaders' health mindsets was moderated by their organizational identification. High leader identification strengthened the relationship between perceived organizational health climate and leaders' health mindsets. These findings have important implications for theory and practice as they show how the dynamics of an organizational health climate can unfold in organizations and how it is related to employee well-being via the novel concept of health-promoting leadership.     

Executive stress: A ten-country comparison

In recent years, many companies have become conscious of the dire effects of excessive managerial stress on the performance of the organization, as well as on the health of their executives. Moreover, the so called “boss's disease” was long considered strictly a phenomenon of the affluent, industrialized Western world. The results of this investigation, however, reveal that the spectre of executive stress is not only taking on critical dimensions for companies in developing countries (in terms of mental well being and job satisfaction) but that its incidence is worrying, especially in newly industrialized Japan. The pressures on managers to perform in a climate of rapid sociological, technological, and economic change in emerging countries such as Brazil, Nigeria, Egypt, and Singapore, as well as Japan, are beginning to produce negative effects. Executives in all five countries show a higher incidence of mental stress symptoms and job dissatisfaction than their counterparts from other highly industrialized countries surveyed, e.g., the United States, Sweden, and West Germany.     

Promotional message strategies for disability charities' employment services

One hundred and eight managers responsible for employee recruitment completed mail questionnaires designed to assess their affective, cognitive and conative reactions to two promotional messages for a disability charity's employment (job‐finding) service. The first message contained a mainly altruistic appeal; the second emphasised the financial and other practical benefits of employing a disabled person. Overall the sample reacted more favourably to the latter communication. Heads of department and general managers found the altruistic message to be significantly less appealing than did personnel or human resources managers. Responses were significantly influenced by a recruiting manager's personal experiences of disabled individuals; by the state of the labour market; and by perceptions (possibly unfounded) that non‐disabled employees within a firm would feel uncomfortable if they were made to work alongside a disabled person. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

What have the universities done for business management?

Do managers resist close study of their jobs in the same way line-workers have resisted time studies? Why is so little known about what the manager really does? Who is to blame for the lack of progress since the days of Frederick Taylor's Scientific Management?     

HR managers’ talent philosophies: prevalence and relationships with perceived talent management practices

Abstract

HR managers have different beliefs about the nature, value, and instrumentality of talent—referred to as ‘talent philosophies’. In line with cognitive psychology, we reason that talent philosophies are similar to mental models that influence how HR managers interpret and use talent management (TM) practices within their organizations. In this article, we explore the prevalence of four different talent philosophies (exclusive/stable; exclusive/developable; inclusive/stable; inclusive/developable) in a sample of 321?HR managers. We then explore how talent philosophies relate to organizational context (i.e. size, ownership form, multinational orientation) as well as to HR managers’ perceptions of their organization’s TM practices. Cluster analysis corroborated the presence of the four talent philosophies in our dataset. All four talent philosophies were represented almost equally often in the overall dataset. Organizational size was found to be related to talent philosophies, such that HR managers who worked in smaller organizations were more likely to hold an inclusive talent philosophy. We also found support for the relationship between talent philosophies and perceptions of the exclusiveness or inclusiveness of the organization’s definition of talent, and its degree of workforce differentiation. Contrary to expectations, results did not support a link between talent philosophies and perceived talent identification criteria.     

Work Teams: Perceptions of a Ready-Made Support System?

Much research on work teams has been focused at the team-level, considering such issues as effectiveness, productivity, and overall interaction. Using qualitative in-depth interviews, the author has asked the question: what is the experience of the individual working within a team? This paper discusses one theme to have emerged, that of perceptions of support being provided within the team. Respondents' accounts presented an expectation that support would be forthcoming from other team members. The discussion considers the experiences of respondents both when this support was received and when it was not, prompting a reconsideration of our understanding of work teams. Further discussion shows how the expectation and provision of this support has implications for how individuals view both teams and organizational work in general, and how consideration of this issue can assist managers in the renewal of employees' energy and well-being.     

Leader‐Member Exchange,Group‐ and Individual‐Level Procedural Justice and Reactions to Performance Appraisals

Previous research has established that relationships with authority figures and procedural justice perceptions are important in terms of the way in which employees react to organizational procedures that affect them. What is less clear are the reasons why exchange quality with authorities is related to perceptions of process fairness and the role of procedural justice climate in this process. Results indicate that individual‐level perceptions of procedural justice, but not performance ratings, partially mediate the relationship between exchange quality and reactions to performance appraisals, and that procedural justice climate is positively related to perceptions of procedural justice and appraisal reactions. These results support a more relational than instrumental view of justice perceptions in organizational procedures bound by exchange quality with an authority figure. Our study suggests that it is essential for managers to actively monitor and manage employee perceptions of process fairness at the group and individual levels. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Tensions between assessment,grading and development in development centres: a case study

Development centres capitalize upon tried and tested assessment centre methods and are quite widely used in career management. However, a number of issues arise in their operation. Some of these reflect the balance between, on the one hand, assessing and grading people and, on the other hand, facilitating and guiding their future development. An investigation is reported of how these issues are experienced and made sense of in a UK-based international company. Data were gathered on two occasions one year apart (Ns = 95 and 113) from participants and other stakeholders in a development centre for potential senior managers. Findings indicate that participants who were awarded a high grade at the centre did not necessarily have more positive perceptions of the development centre process. However, grading, with its consequences for development, motivation and social networks, was salient in respondents' comments about the centres. Themes in these responses are identified and described. Participants were more likely than others (e.g. assessors, line managers) to value the development centre for reasons related to their development, whereas others were more likely to mention assessment/grading. Few respondents mentioned both. Overall, the findings support, to some extent, concerns about the incompatibility of grading and development, but also suggest that the use of grading does not entirely negate the developmental value of the centres. Much depends on perceptions of how the grading information is used.