Organizational climate and workplace efficiency

Abstract

The subject organization of this article is the government employment agency in Sweden. The agency is a key component of the national labour market focusing specifically on placing the unemployed and job-seekers in work. The agency also administers the processes of providing benefits to the unemployed.

We describe the agency, its work and some of its special features and its workforce. We discuss how these features impact on organizational climate and performance. We outline the characteristics of a cadre organization, and particularly how features of this type of organization influence workplace climate. We discuss the ways in which workplace climate contributes to workplace performance. Finally, we review two empirical studies of the agency and its workforce and use data from these studies to augment our discussions.

The agency is a real-life organization managing real world issues. Complexities abound. We attempt to unravel some of these complexities.     

Negative affectivity and workplace deviance: the moderating role of ethical climate

This study investigates (1) the relationship between employees’ trait of negative affectivity (NA) and workplace deviance and (2) the moderating role of ethical climate in the above relationship. Data was collected from 310 employees in 40 Taiwanese companies, and hierarchical linear modeling was used to test the hypotheses. Results show that NA was positively related to workplace deviance. In addition, the rules climate weakened the relationship between NA and workplace deviance, and both the instrumental climate and the caring climate strengthened the relationship between NA and workplace deviance. Managerial implications and future research directions are also discussed.     

A mutual gains perspective on workplace partnership: Employee outcomes and the mediating role of the employment relations climate

Recent years have witnessed increased research on the role of workplace partnership in promoting positive employment relations. However, there has been little quantitative analysis of the partnership experiences of employees. This article examines how the kinds of attributions employees make regarding indirect (union‐based) and direct (non‐union‐based) employee participation in workplace partnership might influence the process of mutual gains. It uses employee outcomes to reflect partnership gains for all stakeholders involved (i.e. employees, employers and trade unions). The article contributes to existing knowledge of workplace partnership by examining the potential role of the employment relations climate as an enabling mechanism for the process of mutual gains. The findings suggest mutual gains for all stakeholders are varied and mediated through the employment relations climate.     

Family-related benefits in the workplace

The emergence and subsequent expansion of employer-provided benefits since 1915 have been fueled in part by the changing needs of employees and their families.     

Affectual trust in the workplace

While trust is increasingly recognized as central to the functioning of relationships in general and to business relationships in particular, there has been very little attention paid to the nature of the experience of trust – as distinct from its antecedents and outcomes. When the nature of trust is considered, it is most often presented as a rational calculus of cost and benefit. This ignores the emotional content of trust that, we argue, is central to the understanding of the phenomenon. An understanding of these emotions and the way they combine with the cognitive elements of trust allows a clearer view of why differing conditions lead to different manifestations of trust, and how these in turn lead to different relational benefits. This paper presents an affect-based framework for trust consisting of cognitive and emotional elements. This is used to consider in-depth interviews with service providers talking about their jobs and their employer. The affect-based framework allows us to understand the distancing that has occurred between employer and employee and to consider the reasons for this distance. Suggestions for the remedying of this situation are proposed.     

Revitalizing social dialogue in the workplace: the impact of a cooperative industrial relations climate and sustainable HR practices on reducing employee harm

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to unravel the relationship between current forms and realities of social dialogue in the workplace, the industrial relations climate, HRM, and employee harm. We tested a model specifying associations between (1) indicators of revitalized social dialogue, (2) perceived cooperation within the industrial relations climate, (3) perceived sustainability in HR practices, and (4) management perceptions regarding employee harm. The test was based on a survey conducted among 356 (HR-)managers and CEOs in Belgium. The results support the idea that a cooperative industrial relations climate and sustainable HR practices can reduce employee harm. More specifically, efficiency in social dialogue fully mediated the relationship between cooperative industrial climate and employee harm. In turn, industrial relations climate partially mediated the relationship between sustainable HR practices and employee harm. Finally, sustainable HR practices correlated positively with a cooperative industrial relations climate, suggesting that HR and employee relations reinforce rather than weaken each other.     

Gift exchange in the workplace

Certain altruistic phenomena in the workplace that exceed the bounds of contract theory can be explained within the framework of gift exchange theory. We discuss the application of gift exchange theory to interactions between an employer and an employee as well as between employees themselves. We emphasize the opportunities of gifts to improve coordination and contract efficiency in the workplace and argue that there exists the productive function of gifts. We use the framework of a market for externalities in order to demonstrate that given the inter-related activities of agents a gift exchange between them can lead to Pareto improvement.     

The role of management and trade union leadership on dual commitment: The mediating effect of the workplace relations climate

This article examines the effect of transformational and laisser‐faire leadership on the part of local union leaders and immediate supervisors on the dual commitment of unionised workers. Building on the social information processing perspective, it is suggested that these leadership styles are linked to commitment through the workplace relations climate (WRC). Based on a sample of 834 unionised workers, our results suggest that WRC represents an important mechanism explaining the effect of the immediate supervisor's leadership in unionised settings. Results also show that transformational leadership on the part of union representatives is positively linked to union and organisational commitment. This article contributes to the WRC and dual commitment literatures by going beyond structural and institutional explanations and considering relational and actor‐related variables, such as leadership styles.     

AIDS in the workplace: Options and responsibilities

Scientists now believe that no one is safe from AIDS. AIDS is no longer “the disease” of a small fringe segment of society. It is now a disease that can touch us in our personal, family, and professional lives. AIDS is, as columnist Ellen Goodman has suggested, an “equal opportunity infector” that does not discriminate on the basis of race, age, sex, or sexual orientation. Although statistics indicate that most of us will probably not experience AIDS in our private or family lives, a significant number of us will be forced to grapple with AIDS in the workplace. This article is an attempt to examine the business community's response to AIDS, and the possible options and strategies that larger corporations especially might use in responding to the medical, legal, and ethical dimensions of the disease. According to Nancy L. Merritt, vice-president and director of equal opportunity for Bank of America, AIDS raises at least three fundamental issues in the workplace: How do you handle an employee with AIDS? How do you educate and ensure the safety and morale of your other employees? How do you balance the needs of business with the human, ethical considerations raised by the disease? Such questions, Merritt maintains, will become more and more pressing as the AIDS epidemic continues to spread.     

Adult attachment styles in the workplace

Prior research has demonstrated that attachment styles are important antecedents of interpersonal relationship quality and psychological well-being. Despite this, the theory of attachment styles has been largely ignored by researchers interested in workplace phenomena. The present paper aims to explain the theory of attachment styles, why researchers have overlooked attachment styles as an antecedent of organizational behavior, and a possible means of reconciling attachment theory with current models of personality. Moreover, I will review what existing research has actually demonstrated in terms of linking attachment styles to leadership, trust, satisfaction, performance and other outcomes. Finally, I will explore what possible future directions may be taken by researchers in the future in order to broaden and deepen our understanding of the role of attachment styles in the workplace.     

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.     

Revision of the workplace bullying checklist: the importance of human resource management's role in defining and addressing workplace bullying

Human resource professionals (HRPs) in the US are important actors in workplace bullying (WB) situations. Most WB research currently focuses on the target but fails to include the individual most often left to interpret and respond to complaints of bullying – the HRP. We argue that because HRPs must work to identify, understand and deal with victims and bullies; HR should have a voice in assessing WB. The difficulties HRPs report in effectively responding to employee complaints of WB have been attributed to a number of factors, including conflicts among multiple HR roles in the organisation, a paucity of specific organisational policies and guidelines for dealing with bullying, and ambiguous definitions and criteria for behaviour to be considered bullying. The impetus for the study reported here was the need to clarify the definition of bullying incorporating the HR perspective, determine what behaviours and criteria are seen as bullying by HRPs. Scale use and limitations are discussed as well as theoretical and practical implications.     

Seizing the Ethical High Ground: Ethical Reputation Building in Corrupt Environments

We study how ethical behaviour by firms leads to ethical reputation building. Based on our in‐depth studies of two firms in India and Zimbabwe that resisted corruption and survived for extended time periods, we propose that in addition to behaving ethically, firms need to elicit favourable responses from a critical mass of stakeholders from both strong and weak tie networks in order for their ethical reputations to diffuse quickly and widely. We find that the strength of stakeholder responses to ethical behaviour is moderated by firm level and contextual factors: high status affiliations, industry characteristics, the nature of corruption resisted, the presence of a plural press, the potential for collective action, and the presence of an independent judiciary. These antecedents also influence the pattern of stakeholder resource commitments that firms are able to enjoy as a result of having built ethical reputations.     

Listen carefully: transgender voices in the workplace

Abstract

We find that only 17% of FTSE 100 company websites refer directly to transgender (‘trans’) individuals, illustrating the extent to which trans voices are unheard in the workplace. We propose that these voices are missing for a number of reasons: voluntary silence to protect oneself from adverse circumstances; the subsumption of trans voices within the larger ‘LGBT’ community; assimilation, wherein many trans voices become affiliated with those of their post-transition gender; multiple trans voices arising from diversity within the transgender community; and limited access to voice mechanisms for transgender employees. We identify the negative implications of being unheard for individual trans employees, for organizational outcomes, and for business and management scholarship, and propose ways in which organizations can listen more carefully to trans voices. Finally, we introduce an agenda for future research that tests the applicability of the theoretical framework of invisible stigma disclosure to transgender individuals, and calls for new theoretical and empirical developments to identify HRM challenges and best practices for respecting trans employees and their choices to remain silent or be heard.     

Socialization of people with disabilities in the workplace

Socialization has crucial outcomes for both the employee and the employer. Through an exploratory qualitative study conducted in India, we examined how people with disabilities (PWD) viewed various aspects of their socialization process. Specifically, we looked at the role of coworkers, supervisors, organizational practices, and employee proactive behaviors in influencing organizational integration. We found that integration was most influenced by coworkers and supervisors. Organizational practices and employee proactive behaviors were less important. Respondent gender and tenure also influenced certain findings. Specifically, PWD with less tenure sought and accepted more help from coworkers and supervisors. Further, more men with disabilities than women with disabilities indicated that they were proactive in terms of obtaining training to make themselves employable, and more men with disabilities indicated that having coworkers with a disability helped them during socialization. We discuss both theoretical and practical implications as well as future research directions based on our findings. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Constructive responses to sexual harassment in the workplace

Sexual harassment is a significant problem in the workplace, including the union work environment. A repertoire of positive responses can be called upon to deal with sexual harassment: (1) Complainants can be empowered to become agents of action and to respond effectively, orally or in writing, to sexual harassment. (2) Shuttle diplomacy utilizing a neutral third party can be effective in both stopping harassment and fostering communication between grievant and harasser. (3) Mediation by a neutral third party can provide immediate communication and restoration of a constructive workplace atmosphere. (4) Generic solutions (workshops, seminars, etc.) focus on the problem or on a generalized approach to improve the workplace setting rather than the individual. (5) Establishment of sexual harassment policies or a policy of well-being of staff can establish a supportive institutional framework. (6) As an extension of its sexual harassment or well-being policies, management can convene workshops, seminars, etc. to educate all its constituents. (7) In many organizations, appointment of an Ombudsperson has provided an effective mechanism for dealing with harassment. This ensemble of options can be utilized prior to loding a formal grievance. In many instances, these maneuvers can effectively deal with sexual harassment.     

Repetitive strain injuries in the information age workplace

The transformation of many office and white-collar jobs into ones primarily dealing with managing information has brought about problems that previously had been associated mostly with assembly-line and blue-collar work. Specifically, repetitive strain injuries (RSIs), such as carpal tunnel syndrome, are a growing health problem in a number of office jobs. The extent, definition, costs, and legal implications of the problem are discussed. Examples of steps many organizations are taking to combat RSI are presented. Finally, recommendations for human resource and other managers are offered based on the experiences and evidence from the collected studies and articles. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.