Supervisory and nonsupervisory employee attitudes about drug testing

Both supervisory and nonsupervisory employees are divided in their support for drug testing n the workplace. Comparisons are drawn between employee attitudes displayed in this study with student and public attitudes reported in previous studies. Factors associated with employee attitudes toward drug testing include: occupational group, acceptance of related employer disciplinary rules, interest in training on assisting those with substance abuse problems, and the timing of discipline and referrals for assistance. The implications of these findings for drug-testing programs are discussed.     

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.     

Employee development and voluntary turnover: testing the employability paradox

The employability paradox is a concern among employers. It states that development activities enhancing employees' employability also increase the risk for employee turnover. This study examined this paradox and probed the relationship between six development activities and voluntary turnover mediated by perceived employability. We tested both a turnover‐stimulating path via perceived external employability (i.e. perceived job alternatives with other employers) and a retention path via perceived internal employability (i.e. perceived job alternatives with the current employer) by using two‐wave longitudinal data from 588 employees. The results put the turnover risk into perspective: only upward job transition positively influenced turnover via perceived external employability. Also, the retention path via perceived internal employability was not supported: several development activities were positively related with perceived internal employability, but perceived internal employability did not influence turnover. We did, however, find a direct retention effect of skill utilisation. Overall, the results downplay the employability paradox.     

The employer as social arbiter: Considerations in limiting involvement in off-the-job behavior

This article analyzes the trend of increasing employer involvement in social issues through human resource policies that influence employee behavior off the job and away from the workplace. Many employers are increasingly acting as social arbiters—regulators of the private conduct, personal behaviors, and habits of their employees. Relying on historical perspectives from (1) an exchange transaction economic view of the employment relationship, and (2) the origins and nature of the corporate form, a framework is developed to analyze the conditions under which employer involvement in employee personal matters may be appropriate. Our criteria generally guide an employer to act conservatively in invoking mandatory policies that affect employees' personal lives unless there is a clear individual employee performance problem or the personal behavior imposes harm on employees or customers. Two tests should be satisfied for mandatory programs: (1) the policy must have a discernible impact on the employee's performance on the current job based on individually based data, or (2) the behavior poses an immediate danger to or has an established discernible impact on the safety of co-workers or customers. The difficulties that may arise in administering specific polices such as no smoking, drug and medical testing, child care, and fitness policies are discussed.     

Alignment,integration, and consistency in HRM across multi‐employer networks

Most studies of human resource management (HRM) have been conducted within the context of the single employing organization, which is strange given the recent growth in multi‐employer networks. In this study, the authors examine whether alignment, integration, and consistency—concepts central to or implicit in most analyses of HRM—has meaning and relevance in the multi‐employer context. They focus specifically on networks in which collaboration is intended to deliver high levels of product quality or customer service, precisely where one might expect employers would be attracted to “strong” HRM systems. Data was collected via interviews and document analysis in four networks, spanning both the public and private sectors in the United Kingdom. Despite a set of potentially favorable conditions within these networks to promote alignment, integration, and consistency, implementation was impeded by other equally powerful forces, including differences in employer goals within networks, especially between public and private sector organizations; intraorganizational tensions within internal labor markets for organizations involved in networks; using divergent HR policies between organizations within multi‐employer networks; and contradictions between the pursuit of “among employee” or “temporal” consistency for workers. Rather than prescribing a one‐size‐fits‐all solution for these problems, it is argued that detailed analysis of each network is necessary. ©2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Ideological currency in psychological contracts: the role of team relationships in a reciprocity perspective

This study focused on the role of ideology in psychological contracts, which has been a neglected theme in psychological contract research. A study among Dutch middle managers in education revealed that ideological psychological contract fulfillment explained additional variance in relation to employee obligations toward the organization. Moreover, it was found that team relationships moderated the relations between some aspects of employer contract fulfillment and employee obligations, but no significant interactions were found between employer ideological fulfillment and team relationships in relation to employee obligations.     

Employer Penalties for Failure to Provide Individual Employee Notification Under the Family and Medical Leave Act: “Clarifications” Following Ragsdale v. Wolverine Worldwide, Inc.

This article examines the Supreme Court's ruling in Ragsdale v. Wolverine Worldwide, Inc. (2002) and considers its implications for employer and employee rights and responsibilities relative to implementing the FMLA policies. We provide an overview of the pre-decision regulatory environment including the general leave provisions of the FMLA and DOL's regulations requiring employer notification of leave designated as FMLA leave. We also identify those provisions that the decision did not alter and provide a broader consideration of the issues and implication of this decision for employers and employees.     

Corporate environmental responsibility,employer reputation and employee commitment: an empirical study in developed and emerging economies

Employer reputation is relevant not only to attract but also to retain qualified employees. While in the past financial incentives have been the most important instrument, corporate environmental responsibility (CER) is becoming more and more relevant as a determinant for employer attractiveness and employee commitment. On the basis of signaling theory, we conducted an empirical study among 215 firms in China, Germany, India and the USA. Our results reveal that green strategy & culture, green technology & products, green recruitment & evaluation and green communication positively influence the environmental reputation of a company as an employer and in turn employee commitment. The signaling effects of these CER activities are similar in Germany and the USA (developed economies) as well as in China and India (emerging economies). An exception is green communication, which has a more positive effect on environmental reputation in developed economies. We conclude with managerial and theoretical implications as well as recommendations for future research.     

Workplace Privacy: Employee Relations and Legal Implications of Monitoring Employee E-mail Use

The tradeoff between employees’ workplace privacy and employers’ need to protect company assets, safeguard proprietary information, and avoid costly litigation has been receiving increased attention (Lee and Kleiner 2003; Mello 2003; National Workplace Institute 2004). This tradeoff often favors employers, as the legal system provides much leeway for employers to monitor employees’ electronic communications in the workplace. However, employers need to consider the effect such monitoring has on their employees since employee and employer attitudes about monitoring often diverge. In this article, we explore workplace email monitoring from both employee relations and legal perspectives and discuss implications for employee morale. An earlier version of this research was presented at the 2005 Association on Employment Practices and Principles Conference, Baltimore, MD.     

Understanding employee preferences for investing in employer stock: evidence from France

In this article, we broaden the focus of existing research on employee stock purchase plans by analysing employee preferences for investing in employer stock as a construct distinct from actual investment behaviour. In our analysis of original survey data in a sample of 900 employees in four French companies, we find that employee preferences are influenced by two common cognitive heuristics (representativeness and familiarity), organisational commitment, the perceived quality of corporate communications about these plans and perceived managerial commitment to employee ownership. We did not find, however, that risk aversion, turnover intentions or perceived employee involvement in decision making influenced preferences for investing in employer stock. Our findings have both theoretical and practical implications for understanding and operating these types of employee benefit plans, which are becoming more common across the globe.     

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 predictability of normative organizational commitment for turnover in Chinese companies: a cultural perspective

While many researchers have shown that affective organizational commitment is the most valuable predicator for organizational outcomes, such as job satisfaction, the value of normative organizational commitment in predicting working behaviour needs to be clarified. Additionally, indices of organizational outcomes used in prior studies were almost always the employees' perceptions of and attitudes towards organizations, rather than actual behaviour. The current research aims to investigate the impact of normative organizational commitment on an employee's turnover, rather than attitudes or perceptions. A total of 242 employees completed questionnaires including the Organizational Commitment Scale, the Organizational Satisfaction Scale, and the Idiocentrism and Allocentrism Scale, and reported the number of organizations they had worked for. Regression analysis revealed that the affective commitment was an important predicator for organizational satisfaction (p < .01) whereas the normative commitment was the most important predicator for employees' job-changing behaviour (p < .01). Idiocentrism and allocentrism had a slight moderating effect upon these relationships. Thus, the different dimensions of organizational commitments have different functions, and more attention should be paid to normative commitment than previously thought. These findings underline the importance of the normative commitment for predicating organizational behaviour, especially in collectivistic contexts. The implications for management are also discussed.     

Management rights: A topological survey of the terrain

Dramatic changes in both the business environment and practitioner attitudes have made many of the traditional views of management rights moribund. Based on an analysis of the pertinent literature and a series of field interviews, this article sketches the rough dimensions of a managerial perspective of the parties' respective rights that is far more specific, pragmatic, and reciprocal in nature than the erstwhile global normative views were. In the future, management rights researchers should strive for the following goals: (1) conducting both inductive and deductive studies, (2) considering both positive and normative elements, (3) achieving a better balance between global, middle range, and particularitstic theories, and (4) recognizing the diverse disciplinary approaches that can be brought to bear on the subject.     

Compensation or Right: An Analysis of Employee “Fringe” Benefit Perception

Past research suggests that employee perceptions of the benefits provided to them by their organization can influence employee attitudes. Three factors that appear to influence the perception of benefits by employees are benefit satisfaction, benefit importance, and the perceived motive of the organization in providing the benefit to employees. However, it also appears that some benefits are perceived as rights that are owed to employees by the organization. This study proposes and tests a model of benefit perception that incorporates all of these factors. Results suggest that benefit satisfaction and the perceived motive of the organization in providing a benefit both have a direct relationship with employee attitudes. The perceived right status of a benefit appears to moderate this relationship.     

Layoff victim's employment relationship with a new employer in Korea: effects of unmet tenure expectations on trust and psychological contract

Existing studies of psychological contract have largely focused on the effects of contract breach on employees' attitudes and the contract itself involving the same employer. Given that both workforce mobility and downsizing activities are increasing, it is important to understand how individuals' past employment experiences shape their relationships with their employers. The present study focuses on the effect of prior layoffs on relationships with new employers. We posit that furloughed workers experience layoff as a breach of the psychological contract of job security they have entered into with their employer. Longitudinal data collected from individuals who were re-employed following a layoff revealed that unmet tenure expectations in an employment relationship result in reduced trust in a new employer, which in turn negatively impacts the quality of psychological contracts with the new employer. The results also show that the relationship between unmet tenure expectations and trust was moderated by individual attributions regarding the cause of the layoff. The present findings suggest that the negative impact of contract breach experienced with one organization may carry over to subsequent organizational contexts.     

Work‐life balance and the software worker

This article examines the impact of employer flexibility to work‐life issues and negative spillover from work to non‐work life on the attitudes of software developers. Software workers present an interesting case for work‐life balance issues – Ackroyd et al (2000) designate them the key occupation to examine in future studies of ‘knowledge workers’, and Barrett (2001) states that they are the ‘vanguard’ of new working practices, with the separation of work and life being substantially more ‘blurred’ than for more traditional occupations. Despite this general perception of the work‐life boundary, our results show that intrusion of work into private life for this group of workers still has a substantial impact on work‐related attitudes. Work‐life boundary variables affect trust in the organisation which plays a mediational role in these variables' relationship to job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Our results suggest that even within this industry, where employees are relatively individualistic in orientation, highly marketable and unlikely to show attachment to a single organisation, mutual gains for employee and employer can be attained by an accommodating approach to non‐work commitments which may lead to greater organisational attachment.     

New public management and organisational commitment in the public sector: testing a mediation model

This paper focuses on the attitudes of learning professionals towards New Public Management (NPM). In a survey of the UK further education sector (n = 433), NPM beliefs were found to be positively associated with both affective and normative organisational commitment. However, as expected, NPM beliefs were not found to be related to continuance organisational commitment. The results also show that although perceived organisational support mediates the relationship between NPM beliefs and affective organisational comment, it is only a partial mediator of the relationship between NPM beliefs and normative organisational commitment. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings, and potential directions for future research, are discussed.     

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.     

Profiling employees online: shifting public–private boundaries in organisational life

Profiling involves the collection and use of online information about prospective and current employees to evaluate their fitness for and in the job. Workplace and legal studies suggest an expanded use of profiling and significant legal/professional implications for HRM practitioners, yet scant attention has been afforded to the boundaries of such practices. In this study, profiling is framed as a terrain on which employees and employers assert asymmetrical interests. Using survey data from large samples in Australia and the UK, the study investigates the prevalence and outcomes of profiling; the extent to which employees assert a right to privacy versus employer rights to engage in profiling; the extent to which organisations codify profiling practices; and employee responses in protecting online information. The findings contribute to a small and emerging body of evidence addressing how social media conduct at work is reconstituting and reshaping the boundaries between public and private spheres.     

Employee drug testing: A constitutional perspective

The proliferation of employee drug testing by federal and state governments and by private sector employers acting pursuant to governmental directives has led to a steadily growing number of lawsuits raising constitutional challenges to such testing. Most of these cases have been based on the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures. In 1989, the Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of employee drug tests for the first time in two cases,Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Ass'n andNational Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab. Recognizing that urinalysis drug testing constitutes a search for Fourth Amendment purposes, the Court determined the constitutionality of the drug tests by balancing the governmental interest in the testing against the privacy interest of the employees and, in both cases, upheld the drug testing at issue. TheSkinner andVon Raab decisions provided guidelines for analyzing Fourth Amendment challenges to employee drug testing, and the lower courts are now in the process of applying and refining these guidelines. Constitutional challenges to employee drug testing programs have also been based on the due process clause and the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and on the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of religion. Unlike Fourth Amendment claims, however, these claims have rarely been successful.