Factors affecting the use of e-government in the telecommunications industry of spain

e-Government has become one of the most important keywords for the public sector reform with proponents claiming that it guarantees transparency; Accountability; Interface with citizen; Business; And other local and national administrations. Few, if any, studies have investigated the factors that might contribute to the integration or implementation of e-Government in business; Particularly SMEs. This paper examines the relative importance and significance of company size; Business performance and three types of information communication technology on the use of e-Government through an empirical investigation of 321 businesses in the Spanish Telecommunication sector using a multinomial logistic regression. The main conclusions are that there is a significant lack of use of the internet for e-Government by SMEs and that any use of e-Government is significantly affected by the size of business and the extent of use of information communication technology within the business. Although the targets set by the Eu for e-government might be achieved it is unlikely that many businesses will take advantage     

Examining the link between flexible working arrangement bundles and employee work effort

Empirical evidence regarding the link between flexible working arrangements (FWAs) and work effort is mixed, with the literature showing that some practices are linked to more while others to less work effort. In this study, we argue that this discrepancy may be due to the existence of different types of FWA bundles with potentially distinct effects on work effort. Using Understanding Society, a British national survey, and building on theories related to social exchange, the study examines the link between employee‐centered and employer‐centered FWA bundles, and work effort. This study further tests whether these relationships differ depending on employees' family responsibilities. Based on a sample of 13,834 employees, results show that both employee‐centered and employer‐centered FWA bundles are negatively associated with work effort, and findings for the latter bundle are more pronounced. These negative associations are somewhat stronger for employees with fewer family responsibilities. We infer that employees appear to use employee‐centered FWAs for their intended purpose, that is, to balance life and job demands, while they might perceive employer‐centered FWAs as unfair, resulting in less work effort in an attempt to restore fairness.     

Fine‐tuning what we know about employees' experience with flexible work arrangements and their job attitudes

Prior research has generally found positive relationships between flexible work arrangements (FWAs) and employee attitudes. However, we know relatively little about organizational contingencies that affect the strength of these relationships, as there is little multilevel, multicompany research on FWAs. This study explores three aspects of employees' experience with FWAs—perceived availability of the number of FWAs, different types of FWAs, and actual use of FWAs—and their corresponding effects on employee job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Using a large multicompany data set (1,799 companies, 17,895 workers), we found that employees who perceive more FWAs available to them have higher job satisfaction and organizational commitment, especially in organizations that report offering fewer formal FWA policies. Among different types of FWAs, perceived availability of flexible scheduling is more positively associated with job satisfaction than flexible location and hours, and both flexible scheduling and location are more positively associated with organizational commitment than flexible number of hours. We also found that employees who actually use flexible scheduling have lower job satisfaction and organizational commitment than those who have it available but do not use it. The theoretical contributions and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Contribution to social exchange in public organizations: examining how support,trust, satisfaction,commitment and work outcomes are related

The intent of the research was to examine the relationships between support, trust, satisfaction, commitment and work outcomes. The framework of social exchange theory was used as a guide. The research described in this study replicates in the public sector (N = 704) and previous findings obtained in a study conducted in the private sector. Consistent with the study in private sector, support is related to intention to leave and helping behavior to trust and satisfaction. Results are discussed.     

How do flexible work arrangements alleviate work-family-conflict? The roles of flexibility i-deals and family-supportive cultures

Flexible work arrangements (FWAs) are becoming common in emerging economies, though it is not clear if and how employees benefit from them in terms of their work-family balance and well-being. In contrast to previous work that used structural-functional explanations, we argue that FWA implementation should be depicted within its socio-political and socio-cultural context. We used survey data collected from 213 professionals in Istanbul, Turkey to examine the roles of flexibility i-deals and perceived family-supportive culture in the relationship between FWA availability and these employee outcomes. Results supported the hypothesis that i-deals mediate the relationship between FWAs and work-to-family conflict. Furthermore, perceived family supportive cultures predicted both work-to-family and family-to-work conflict and moderated the relationship between i-deals and family-to-work conflict. Finally work-to-family conflict mediated the relationship of flexibility i-deals and family supportive cultures with perceived general health. These finding are discussed for their implications for employees who are trying to balance their work and family lives and for organizations who are considering implementing FWAs.     

Antecedents and outcomes of implementing flexibility policies in organizations

This study examines the antecedents of employees' utilization of various flexibility work arrangements (FWA) on the one hand and job-related outcomes due to their implementation in organizations on the other hand. Data are provided by an original survey administered to employees working in private organizations (N = 480). Workers' uptake of the arrangements is enhanced by their family responsibilities, by FWA availability, by supervisors' support and by co-workers' FWA use. Regarding employee outcomes, FWA availability is related to two of the three outcomes studied. Moreover, a favourable work-family culture is related to our three outcomes, employee commitment, turnover intentions and work-to-family conflict.     

Personnel Formalization and the Enhancement Of Teamwork: A public–private comparison

Formalization has long been regarded as one of the most distinctive features of the public sector. Personnel systems in the public sector are particularly formalized due to merit system protections and strong due process requirements. In much of the contemporary public management literature, personnel formalization implies red tape, referring to excessive rules that bring negative outcomes such as employee frustration. The present study offers an alternative view, suggesting that personnel formalization results in high-performance work practices, particularly teamwork, by ensuring that organizations attract the right employees and provide employees with various protections such as worker safety, procedural justice and conflict resolution. Given that public organizations are structured more formally, public sector employees are more likely to work in teams than their peers in the private sector. The authors test this view by using variables from the National Organization Survey (NOS) data set and find strong statistical support. Therefore, personnel formalization is not necessarily equivalent to red tape and not always detrimental to the public sector. It enhances teamwork, a central element of high-performance work practices.     

Examining transformational leadership,job satisfaction,organizational commitment and organizational trust in Turkish hospitals: public servants versus private sector employees

Leadership, job satisfaction, organizational commitment and trust have become important processes for healthcare management in recent years. One of the contemporary human resource management functions in the organizations involves engaging in leadership development, improving organizational trust and organizational commitment and increasing job satisfaction. Considering the rapidly changing healthcare technology and higher levels of occupational complexity, healthcare organizations are increasingly in need of engaging in leadership development in any given area of expertise to address ever-changing nature of the industry and the delivery of quality of care while remaining cost-effective and competitive. This paper investigates the perceptions of both public servants and private sector employees (outsourcing) on transformational leadership, organizational commitment, organizational trust and job satisfaction in Turkish healthcare industry. Additionally, the paper analyzes the predictability of organizational commitment based on employee – both public servants (physicians, nurses, administrative personnel and other healthcare professionals) and private sector employees (outsourcing) (auxiliary services such as administrative assistants, security personnel, kitchen, laundry and housekeeping employees) – perceptions of transformational leadership, job satisfaction and organizational trust. Using a survey instrument with items adopted from the transformational leadership inventory (TLI) [Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Moorman, R. H., & Fetter, R. (1990). Transformational leader behaviors and their effects on followers' trust in leader, satisfaction, and organizational citizenship behaviors. Leadership Quarterly, 1, 107–142], the organizational commitment questionnaire [Meyer, J. P., & Allen, N. J. (1997). Commitment in the workplace: Theory, research, and application. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage], the organizational trust inventory (OTI) [Cummings, L. L., & Bromiley, P. (1996). The occupational trust inventory (OTI): Development and validation. In R. Kramer & T. Tyler (Eds.), Trust in organizations: Frontiers of Theory and Research (pp. 302–330). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage] and job satisfaction survey (JSS) [Spector, P. E. (1985). Measurement of human service staff satisfaction: Development of the job satisfaction survey. American Journal of Community Psychology, 13, 693–731], this quantitative study was conducted among 2108 healthcare employees (public servants and private employees) in two large government hospitals in Turkey. The study findings indicate a significant difference between the public servants and private sector employees in terms of their perceptions on two dimensions of transformational leadership (being an appropriate model, providing individualized support), overall transformational leadership and one dimension of job satisfaction (communication). The two dimensions of job satisfaction – operating procedures and communication – as well as organizational trust were the significant predictors of organizational commitment of public servants, whereas the two dimensions of leadership – individualized support and fostering the acceptance – as well as the two dimensions of job satisfaction – promotion and contingent rewards – and organizational trust were the significant regressors of organizational commitment of private sector employees. In addition, there is a significant difference between the predictors of the dimensions of organizational commitment (transformational leadership, job satisfaction and organizational trust) in terms of public servants versus private sector employees. Finally, organizational trust has a significant effect on overall organizational commitment as well as its three dimensions for public servants and private employees.     

Upward influence tactics and their effects on job performance ratings and flexible working arrangements: The mediating roles of mutual recognition respect and mutual appraisal respect

Supervisor's human resources (HR) decisions have a significant impact on the employees they manage but have been found to be subject to bias. The upward influence tactics use by subordinates can play a role in this. We investigated the effects of seven upward influence tactics on supervisor job‐performance ratings and the extent of subordinate flexible working arrangements (FWAs). Supervisors are often responsible for determining whether employees are granted FWAs. We posit an alternative theoretical mechanism by which upward influence tactics bring about their effects, mediated through two distinct types of respect, mutual appraisal respect and mutual recognition respect. We collected data from 389 matched supervisor–subordinate dyads, and found that both mutual appraisal respect and mutual recognition respect mediated relationships between several upward influence tactics and both job‐performance ratings and FWAs. Our findings show that upward influence tactics affect the quality of the relationship between employees and their supervisors, specifically, these two forms of mutual respect. Further, both mutual appraisal respect and mutual recognition respect may explain why supervisors show favoritism to some subordinates over others, in reaching HR decisions in these areas.     

Employee perceptions of performance appraisals: a comparative study on Indian banks

Performance appraisal is the most critical human resource practice and an indispensable part of every organization; however, the practice continues to generate dissatisfaction among employees and is often viewed as unfair and ineffective. Indian banking sector is one of the biggest and fastest growing financial service sectors. The post-liberalization era has witnessed significant changes in the structure and operations of banks operating in India. Arrival of new private and foreign banks has given a cause to public sector banks to be more competitive, effective and innovative in their approach. Past researches have compared public and private sector banks and have indicated that new private sector banks are outscoring public sector banks in terms of technical and economic efficiency parameters. However, no study could be found that compared public and private banks in India on fairness perceptions of performance appraisal system. Therefore, this research studied the differences between public and private sector banks with respect to perception of fairness of the performance appraisal system and performance appraisal satisfaction. Perception of fairness of the performance appraisal system has been studied through nine factors. The study used independent samples t-test and qualitative analysis to study the mean differences between the two banks. Results indicated that private sector bank employees perceive greater fairness and satisfaction with their performance appraisal system as compared to public sector bank employees.     

Self/paid-employment, public/private sector selection, and wage differentials

We use Probit models to account for the double selection problem of choice between, on the one hand, self- and paid-employment and, on the other, employment in the public and private sector. These models provide corrections for sample selection in wage equations for paid employees in the public and private sectors. Using a modified version of the Oaxaca and Ransom [J. Econom. 61 (1994) 5] procedure, we decompose the wage gap between the public and private sectors into a portion attributable to differences in characteristics, the public sector advantage, the private sector disadvantage and unobserved selection effects. Rich data for the Republic of Cyprus, a thriving economy with institutional features reminiscent of a developing economy, help determine the choice of type (self/paid) and sector (public/private) of employment. The human capital model describes the wage determination process satisfactorily. The size and distribution of public sector rents between men and women are similar to those in North America and are bracketed by results for developing countries.     

Business associations and their potential contribution to the competitiveness of SMEs

This paper examines the relations between small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and business associations. It identifies sectoral, local and national dimensions and reports survey results in Britain that evidence the range of services supplied and demanded. The paper reviews the theoretical understanding of how associations operate and how they can be expected to relate to their SME members. Using this framework the paper then assesses, largely using new survey evidence, the types of associations most relevant to SMEs, their characteristics, and their services. The paper concludes by arguing that SMEs are one of the least well represented groups of business, their interests are often likely to be swamped in association governance either by large businesses or by employee–status individuals. In general there are also limits to development of services through business associations, although there is strong variation between businesses by sector, location and size. The author concludes that contributions by associations through specific services to individual companies appears to be relatively limited. The chief contribution of associations to competitiveness of their member businesses appears to be their improvement of collective industry standards, e.g. through codes of conduct, information, collective events, benchmarking and management seminars.     

Consultation and communication in family businesses in Great Britain

Nationally representative data on family businesses are available in the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey, alongside comparable information for other types of firms. We use these data to compare differences in the use of different consultation and communication procedures. We cover such practices as the use of direct communication schemes (e.g. briefings; the provision of information on financial performance to the workforce) as opposed to indirect methods such as the use of joint consultative committees. There is an a priori expectation in the literature that family-owned businesses are either more likely to use direct forms of communication (vis-à-vis indirect forms) or that they will not be involved in direct communication or consultation with their employees, and we test this using multivariate techniques. Finally, we consider whether the type of consultation/communication structure matters in terms of establishment performance, and what differences exist with respect to family-owned businesses. In particular, this paper tests if those firms that consult directly with staff, as opposed to those that consult through joint consultative committees or trade unions, have higher productivity and/or other measures of performance. Concurrently we test whether there are separate ‘family business’ effects or whether it is generally establishment size that ‘matters’, by estimating a model for family-owned and non-family-owned establishments. In general, our results show that not only do family-owned establishments have lower levels of communication and consultation, but, when the latter is present, this does not generally translate into greater economic benefits (as is the case in non-family-owned firms).     

Training in the new private sector in Russia

The growth of the new private sector in Russia has been associated with the expansion of trade and services, requiring a labour force with different occupational and skill characteristics from those of the Soviet economy. This paper reports on the first research ever undertaken on training practices in the new private sector in Russia. The analysis is based on forty case studies of new private enterprises and a large-scale household survey in four relatively prosperous Russian cities carried out in the first half of 1998. The paper shows that the old system of vocational retraining has largely collapsed, but very little has arisen to take its place. The majority of new private employers make little provision for the training of their employees, relying heavily on training provided by previous state employers or on the motivation of their own employees or prospective employees to undertake training on their own initiative, at their own expense and in their own time. At the same time, the availability of appropriate training is limited and it is extremely expensive in relation to the resources available to new private employers. Nevertheless, those who undertake training experience significant increases in earnings.     

Education,job satisfaction and gender in Kuwait

This study explores the relationship between education (level and field) and job satisfaction among Kuwaiti women employees in the Kuwaiti private banking sector. The analysis is focused on the responses of the female employees to their own jobs as indicated by their level of job satisfaction. Specifically, the research involved a stratified sample of the Kuwaiti women employees in the whole private banking sector in Kuwait. This study differs from previous investigations of job satisfaction in two principal ways: in dealing with the private sector (rather than the more common public sector in studies of the Middle East) and in taking into account education (level and field) in the privatesector work setting. The major findings of this research indicate that a much broader approach towards increasing satisfaction than focusing on the job itself is required. The study shows that the respondents' education background is of substantial importance in affecting job satisfaction.     

Engaging Hong Kong businesses in environmental change: drivers and barriers

Hong Kong's businesses have been slow to embrace environmental management principles, particularly in the SME sector. This article analyses key barriers and incentives to engaging Hong Kong businesses with voluntary environmental initiatives and compares their relevance for companies of different sizes. As in other countries, SMEs show a much lower uptake of such activities than larger companies. Their approach towards environmental management is predominantly reactive, and legislation remains the key driver for engaging them with environmental change. Inadequate government policy and support, societal attitudes and corporate culture all contribute significantly to the comparatively poor development of corporate environmental management among Hong Kong companies. As long as most SMEs regard voluntary environmental activities as costly and unnecessary ‘extras’ that endanger their competitiveness and detract resources from their core business without offering any tangible benefits, fundamental improvements in their environmental performance will be difficult to achieve. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Patterns of psychological contract and their relationships to employee well-being and in-role performance at work: longitudinal evidence from university employees

Abstract

This study identified patterns of psychological contract (PC) and examined how these patterns were related to employee well-being and in-role performance over time (T1–T3). PC was measured at T1 based on cross-sectional data and well-being and performance longitudinally in two consecutive years (T1?T3) among university employees. Latent profile analysis revealed six different patterns of PC at T1. These were labelled (1) strong and balanced (n = 131), (2) average and balanced (n = 382), (3) employer-focused (n = 79), (4) employee-focused (n = 59), (5) balanced transactional (n = 224) and (6) employee-focused relational (n = 322). The longitudinal findings showed that the employees in PC patterns 1 and 2 experienced more vigour at T1–T3 than those in pattern 5, while the employees in pattern 2 reported higher proficiency at work at T1–T2 than those in pattern 6. Employee job satisfaction did not vary between patterns. Altogether, the PC pattern that included many different obligations on the part of both employee and employer seemed to result in better employee well-being and in-role performance.     

In support of the new working class thesis: the case of the Irish white collar worker

This study, using data collected from 325 Irish white-collar employees in the private sector, examines the extent to which white-collar trade unionism may be regarded as a response to concern about the lack of achievement of desired levels of self-expression at work.     

Financing high-tech SMEs in China: A three-stage model of business development

This article examines the financing of high-tech Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in China at different stages of business development, based on a survey of 74 face-to-face interviews with high-tech SMEs and additional nine informal face-to-face interviews with bank and government officials in the two Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi. Attention is focused on distinguishing different financing methods according to particular stages of an SME's business life cycle. The findings show the importance of informal financial sources from individuals and firms’ employees for high-tech SMEs at all three development stages. Such sources have become a central aspect of the financial infrastructure for the private sector in China. The article distinguishes between the alternative methods or practices used by firms at all three stages, seeking to either overcome particular financial constraints or to avoid the commitment of large capital investments in relatively long-term projects. It identifies the absence of demands and a gap for medium- and long-term funding for high-tech SMEs, placing a serious barrier on the ability of high-tech SMEs to engage in R&D for making more fundamental innovation and developing new/distinctive products. It concludes by making the implications of these findings for China, and internationally.     

Alternative Approaches to Correcting Public Sector Inefficiency

A bstract . Numerous proposals have been made for improving the provision of collective services. The major ones are explored including reduction of public sector size, introduction of greater competition into the provision of collective services, greater use of incentives to foster sector private sector production, direct substitution of private for public production , and redefinition of the outputs expected from collectively provided services. The advantages and disadvantages of each are considered in light of the multiple sources of public sector inefficiency. No one proposal to eliminate inefficiency in the provision of collective services is likely to succeed. What is needed is careful consideration of the alternatives for each type of public sector service.