The role of inclusive work environment practices in promoting LGBT employee job satisfaction and commitment

ABSTRACT

One of the most enduring issues facing public administration and public policy is discrimination against and exclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) employees in the public workplace. Research on how inclusion management influences LGBT public servants’ work outcomes is limited. The US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) synthesized a construct of integrated inclusive work environment consisting of five practices thought to be important for public employee work outcomes. Social exchange theory is used in this paper to theorize about the effects of these different inclusive work environment practices on LGBT employee job satisfaction and organizational (affective) commitment. An inclusive work environment approach was found to have a positive effect on LGBT employee job satisfaction and affective commitment in federal government staff in the USA. However, individual inclusive work environment practices varied in their effects on LGBT employee job satisfaction and affective commitment.     

Comparing Malta and USA police officers’ individual and organizational support on outcomes

This paper investigates the quality of support for police officers in the USA and Malta to use as protection against stress. The authors found a significantly different organizational work context for police officers doing the same tasks. Police officers in both countries would benefit from upskilling in psychological capital and police managers require upskilling in management training as a means of increasing support for police to reduce the impact of stress.     

Managing workplace bullying experiences in nursing: the impact of the work environment

To progress our understanding of good practice in the management of workplace bullying, the authors explored the influence of work environment factors on bullying intervention. Analysis of focus group data from public hospitals in New Zealand revealed factors at multiple levels in the work environment system that influenced intervention. Many of these factors have previously been identified as antecedents to bullying, suggesting that the work environment hypothesis can also be applied to the management of workplace bullying experiences.     

Relationships with managers and harassment: the Italian nurse experience

This paper examines the link between workplace relationships with management and work harassment for Italian nurses. The relationship with the supervisor was a key predictor of work harassment, and work harassment was found to have a major negative effect on engagement. There are significant differences in nurses’ perceptions of work harassment, engagement and job satisfaction for public and private sector nurses.     

Lean and mean: how NPM facilitates the bullying of UK employees with long-term health conditions

This empirical study explores perceptions of bullying among public sector workers with long-term health conditions (LTHC), using focus groups and interviews with knowledgeable trade union members and representatives. While incidents of overt discrimination occurred, there was more support for the social model of disability, with bullying largely attributed to intensive working practices typical of new public management.     

Some Ethical Dilemmas in the Handling of Police Informers

Decision-making by police officers often involves complex problems and this is particularly so in the recruitment and management of informers—and area of policing generally shrouded in mystery and secrecy. Drawing on research conducted in two police force areas, this article identifies and discusses some of the concerns of officers involved in this activity and concludes they are ill-prepared to deal with the ethical dilemmas they are confronted with.     

Online relationship marketing and affective customer commitment – The mediating role of trust

The pervasive use of information technology has implications for consumer relationship management among financial services organisations. There is a need for increased understanding of how digital channels might influence the development and maintenance of firm–customer relationships and in particular the role of the Internet upon commitment and trust outcomes. Thus, this research aims to determine the relationship between online relationship marketing practices and affective customer commitment, and how this relationship is mediated by online channel trust. Data were collected from 200 online retail bank customers and Structural Equation Modelling was used to test the impact of five key online relationship marketing practices on affective commitment, and how trust mediates these relationships. We found that advocacy and collaboration have a direct relationship with affective commitment, while trust mediates the influence of engagement and personalisation on affective commitment. The article highlights the significance of trust in technology when using online channels to build customer relationships.     

Has the Public Sector Retained its 'Model Employer' Status?

The authors investigate whether public sector organizations can still be considered 'model employers' as they were before the late 1970s. Comparisons are made with private sector human resource management (HRM) practices to determine how closely the 'model employer' rhetoric approximates the public sector reality. The article focuses on recent changes in the core and traditional non-traded areas of public sector employment funded directly through either central or local taxation—the National Health Service, central and local government and higher education. Objective quantitative data on public sector HRM practices and flexible work patterns are examined from both primary and secondary sources. Central to the discussion is the question of which sector offers the greater job security to employees.     

New development: Bullying in a reforming context—a holistic,layered model of the interpersonal interaction

Public services have been transformed, with health services, in particular, in a state of almost constant change with reforms leading to a blurring of the nature of work across sectors and a bullying rate at epidemic levels. A new holistic model of the drivers of bullying is presented. The model is a powerful tool for understanding and addressing workplace bullying.     

Risk transfer and stakeholder relationships in Public Private Partnerships

Drawing on stakeholder theory, this study seeks to gain an insight into the stakeholder management strategies used by the Procuring Authority in Irish road Public Private Partnerships to manage its complex stakeholder relationships.Based on interviews with 38 key stakeholders the findings of this study indicate that the allocation, transfer and management of risk impact on the quality of stakeholder relationships. A proactive and somewhat accommodating approach is used by the Procuring Authority in its relationship with the Special Purpose Vehicle, while there is some evidence that collaborative relationships exist between the public sector bodies responsible for allocating risk.     

Disability Risk Management and Postinjury Employment of Workers With Back Pain

We analyze the outcomes of occupational back pain among four large employers that use one or more of the following disability management practices: aggressive return to work, claims management, medical management, or time‐limited job accommodations. Outcomes measured at 6 and 12 months postonset include: duration of initial work absence and the probability of returning to stable employment. Employment outcomes are better in firms with more proactive return‐to‐work policies than in firms with more restrictive policies. We devise a statistical test for attrition bias and conclude that sample attrition does not significantly alter our results.     

Accountants’ hybridization and juridification: a critical reflection on the fight against organized crime

Policy-makers and regulators are increasingly focusing on fighting organized crime. Preventing criminal organizations infiltrating an economy involves multiple groups of professionals operating in complex regulatory environments. This paper looks at whether the current regulations for the management of assets seized from organized crime are adequate. The focus is on the Italian setting, and the research included interviews with accountants, judges and police officers involved in the management of seized entities. The results have application worldwide.     

Debate: Shrinking the quango state— an international view

Social exchange theory is used in this paper to explore how the quality of leader–member exchange (LMX) and perceived organizational support (POS) affect Brazilian nursing professionals’ perceptions of bullying and harassment and, in turn, their wellbeing. Data was obtained from 868 nursing professionals in four public hospitals in Brazil. Statistically significant linkages were found between LMX, POS, bullying/harassment and wellbeing, except for the relationship between POS and bullying/harassment. Healthcare managers and human resource managers clearly need to take initiatives to strengthen LMX and POS, minimize bullying and to strengthen nursing professionals’ wellbeing.     

Best Value: Is It Delivering?

The enhancement of public service performance has been a central concern of successive Labour governments since 1997. Best Value is intended to address this by replacing the former policy of compulsory competitive tendering with a policy that has been likened to a local government version of total quality management. In this article the authors draw on a survey of local government officers to explore the extent to which BV is providing the basis for improvements in the quality of local services and finds mixed results.     

Moonlighting: public service and private practice

We study job incentives in moonlighting, when public‐service physicians may refer patients to their private practices. Some doctors in the public system are dedicated, and behave sincerely, but others—the moonlighters—are utility maximizers. Allowing moonlighting always enhances aggregate consumer welfare, but equilibrium public‐care quality may increase or decrease; if quality increases, moonlighting improves each consumer's expected utility. Unregulated moonlighting may reduce consumer welfare as a result of adverse behavioral reactions, such as moonlighters shirking more and dedicated doctors abandoning their sincere behavior. Price regulation in the private market limits such adverse behaviors in the public system and improves consumer welfare.     

Technologies of government in public sector's networks: In search of cooperation through management control innovations

In recent years, the public sector has been the subject of a thorough reassessment in a significant number of countries. During this process of modernization, issues such as inter-organizational collaboration and managerial innovation have been progressively placed at the forefront of practice and research. In particular, a number of countries have recently re-organized their public sectors around more or less formalized networks or hybrid inter-organizational forms, which are often led by a regulatory body and governed by a cooperation agreement. The literature on inter-organizational relationships in the public sector has evolved alongside the development of such cooperation agreements and innovative forms of organizing. Nevertheless, despite the fact that networks formed by public organizations, not-for-profit organizations, and private firms provide important services to their relevant communities, limited attention has been dedicated to studying the role of management control practices within inter-organizational relationships in public organizations. This is an important gap in the existing literature that this Special Issue intends to address. For this reason, and most importantly because public sector forms of inter-organizational collaborations are likely to differ significantly from those observed in the private sector, in the first part of this Editorial we draw attention to some of the themes that characterize the management and control of inter-organizational relations in the domain of public administration. Next, we introduce the six papers which comprise this Special Issue, and we briefly illustrate how each of them enhances our understanding of the role of control systems within public sector networks. Building on the empirical evidence and theoretical arguments offered by these studies, and after a brief review on the possible alternative ways of conceptualizing the process of adopting new management practices, we point to the further research that needs to be done if we are to understand the role that management control practices play in public sector networks. In particular, we suggest that there is a need to look inside management control practices, to explore what these practices are and, how and why they enable the cooperative “ideal” to become real, as well as to stimulate or hinder opportunities for public sector managerial innovation. It is concluded that there are a number of issues yet to be explored if we are to deepen our understanding of the formal and informal mechanisms of control which are the active elements of the so-called “regulatory hybrids” in the public sector.     

The Police Funding Formula: Does it Reflect London's Crime Management Needs?

The allocation of funds to police authorities in England and Wales is based on a formula which has been constructed to capture the key drivers of the main activities of the police: crime management, call management, public order and reassurance and traffic management. The formula was based on data from a 1995/96 survey by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), using data on police activity and recorded crime from 1990–92. In this article, the authors argue that the resulting allocation no longer reflects accurately the policing needs of London.     

ORGANISATIONAL COMMITMENT IN THE POLICE SERVICE: EXPLORING THE EFFECTS OF PERFORMANCE MEASURES,PROCEDURAL JUSTICE AND INTERPERSONAL TRUST

This study aims to investigate whether, and how, the use of performance measures, procedural justice, and interpersonal trust interact to affect organisational commitment of police officers. Drawing on a survey based on a sample of 57 senior officers within a single police force, we find that the use of performance measures, procedural justice, and interpersonal trust are positively associated with organisational commitment. Further analysis reveals that trust between officer and superior mediates the relationship between the use of non‐financial measures and organisational commitment, but procedural justice does not have a mediating effect on commitment. These findings are further explored through selected interviews with respondents.     

Coping with austerity: innovation via collaboration or retreat to the known?

This paper explores new approaches to the management of public sector austerity through collaborative innovation. Practitioner-based insider research offers an insight into how collaborative innovation can work in the public sector, what undermines it and what impact the active management of a turbulent environment can make to outcomes. A flexible action framework—modelling collaborative innovation—offers a practical means of understanding and supporting effective innovation through collaboration.