Family-friendly management,organizational performance and social legitimacy

Research on family-friendly practices has concentrated on the predictors of their use, particularly from the perspective of either institutional theory or the high involvement or commitment management vogue. This paper first shows how such perspectives can be used to generate hypotheses about the link between family-friendly management and organizational performance. Second, the paper reports research designed to test these, using data from a national representative sample of workplaces across the British economy, the Workplace Employment Relations Survey of 2004 (WERS2004). The results support the high commitment thesis that family-friendly management will strengthen the relationship between commitment and key economic outcomes, as the relationships between workforce commitment and productivity or quality are stronger in organizations when friendly management is high, which is consistent with social exchange theory. Family-friendly management is not, however, related to the human resource outcomes of labour turnover and absenteeism. Nor does the study find support for the argument that its use in conjunction with high involvement management enhances the performance effects of both. Equally, there is no support for the hypothesis from the institutional thesis that family-friendly management has positive effects on the legitimacy of the organization.     

Performance management effectiveness: practices or context?

Although much research has focused on the technical or measurement issues involved in employee performance management, this study investigates the mutual influence of practices and context on performance management effectiveness. From a sample of 312 private and public sector organizations with 200 or more employees, the results indicate positive associations between practices – training and employee recognition – and performance management effectiveness. They further underscore the relevance of three contextual variables – culture, climate and the strategic integration of human resource management – as they are also related to more positive performance management outcomes. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Security in a sea of insecurity: job security and intention to stay among service sector employees in Turkey

This article examines the association between job security and intention to stay for those who are employed in Turkey. There is a high level of unemployment in the country and many workers there are concerned about their job security. Job security refers to the objective dimensions of continuous contract, working full-time hours and paid and unpaid overtime. Job security also refers to the subjective dimension of perceived job security. We surveyed 407 employees in banking and related sectors' call centres, five-star hotel front-line staff and airline cabin crews. Results show that objective dimensions of job security are not associated with intention to stay. However, perceived job security is significantly and positively associated with intention to stay. We recommend that human resource managers focus on the perceived job security aspect of employment to keep valuable employees with the company.     

How employee perceptions of HR policy and practice influence discretionary work effort and co-worker assistance: evidence from two organizations

Drawing on social identity theory and organizational justice research, we model the impact of employee perceptions of human resource (HR) policies and practices on two important outcome variables – discretionary work effort (DWE) and co-worker assistance (CWA). Results based on 618 full-time employees in two organizations show that HR practices are positively related to procedural and distributive justice and that organizational identification mediates the relationship between procedural and distributive justice and DWE and CWA, respectively. Distributive justice is also shown to have direct effects on the two outcome variables suggesting the relevance of a social exchange perspective as a complement to social identity explanations. Implications for research and practice are briefly discussed.     

Work engagement,psychological contract breach and job satisfaction

This study extends both Social Exchange Theory and the Job Demands–Resources model by examining the link between psychological contract breach (PCB) and work engagement, and by integrating job satisfaction into this exchange relationship. We argue that PCB reflects employees' feelings of resource loss, and that these feelings impact work engagement through their impact on job satisfaction. Levels of employee work engagement can therefore be viewed as reciprocation for the exchange content provided by employers. We conduct structural equation modeling on longitudinal survey data from 191 employees, and our results suggest that the negative effect of PCB on work engagement is mediated by job satisfaction.     

The impact of management on the engagement and well-being of high emotional labour employees

Australia, like many other countries, suffers high turnover of nurses and police officers. Contributions to effectively manage the turnover challenge have been called for, and there are few Australian studies of nursing/policing turnover intentions. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of supervisor–subordinate relationships and perceived organisational support (POS) upon engagement, well-being, organisational commitment and turnover intentions. Second, we examined the similarities and differences between nursing and policing work contexts. The retention of nurses/police has been investigated from traditional management perspectives; however, we used a different theoretical approach – social exchange theory – and evaluated its utility as a framework. Findings are from Australian data collected during 2010–2011 from 510 nurses and 193 police officers, using a survey-based, self-report strategy. Partial least squares path modelling was used to analyse these data. Results indicated that for both samples, engagement predicts well-being and then, well-being predicts affective commitment and intentions to leave. MANOVA results suggested that nurses had significantly higher levels of satisfaction with their supervisor–subordinate relationships, POS, engagement, well-being and affective commitment than police officers. Only the intention to leave was similar for both groups. Given that turnover can be influenced by supervisors/management, this study provides new knowledge about targeted retention strategies.     

Effectiveness of a corporate HR department in an Australian public-sector entity during commercialization and corporatization

This study examines the effectiveness of the strategic human resource management (HRM) function performed by the corporate human resource department of an Australian public-sector entity, before and after its corporatization. Multiple methods (including a survey of senior managers and semi-structured interviews) were used to collect the data. Despite an improvement in the overall level of strategic integration between HRM and strategic management, the rating of strategic HRM role effectiveness remained low. The results indicate that the strategic HRM function, as a corporate headquarters function, was more effective in its administrative role than in a value-adding function. The difficulty in balancing the dual roles of a corporate headquarter unit, together with the challenges of becoming a strategic business partner to line managers, provided the major impediments to effective strategic HRM.     

An interactional perspective on perceived empowerment: the role of personal needs and task context

This study examines the influence of individual needs and task characteristics on a multifaceted definition of perceived empowerment using an interactional perspective. Respondents were Hong Kong Chinese employees and most of them lower-level or nonmanagerial level workers in business organizations. We used regression analyses to test a number of hypotheses informed by social psychology theories. The significant findings indicate that perceived empowerment is predicted by individual characteristics (need for achievement, need for power), task situations (receipt of task feedback, competency-based reward system, participation in goal setting) and their interactions. Limitations of the study and implications for future research are discussed.     

‘Breaking the ICE’: workplace democracy in a modernized social Europe

The EU seeks to improve its labour market performance through implementing the Lisbon and European Employment Strategies which encourage the modernization of work organization through the development of partnership with the assistance of an ‘appropriate’ regulatory framework. Key aspects of this latter framework concern workers' rights regarding information, consultation and participation in corporate governance. European labour laws, introduced in the 1970s, sought to strengthen employers' consultation with their workforce and, more recently, the changing economic, technological and organizational environment has returned issues related to workplace democracy to the top of the social policy agenda. Here we evaluate the significance of the new Directive on Information and Consultation with Employees (ICE) within the context of this planned modernization of European social policy. In doing so, we re-examine the historical development of workers' consultation laws in Europe and assess the economic rationale for regulating workplace social dialogue in an enlarged Social Europe.     

The linkage between profit sharing and organizational citizenship behaviour

The study investigated the effects of profit sharing (cash-based, stock-based and combined-total profit sharing) on organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB). It also examined the mediating role of organizational commitment on the relationship between profit sharing and OCB. Data were collected from 426 employees of 35 information electronics companies in Taiwan. Results showed that whereas cash-based profit sharing had no effect on OCB, both combined-total profit sharing and stock-based profit sharing positively influenced OCB. We also found that organizational commitment mediated the relationship between profit sharing (stock-based and combined-total profit sharing) and OCB.