Too hot to handle? Trust and human resource practitioners' implementation of anti‐bullying policy

In this article, we examine the dynamics of trust in the triadic relationship between HR, employees and managers when dealing with allegations of workplace bullying. Previous research has shown employees to be dissatisfied with HR practitioners' responses to complaints of workplace bullying, and we explore the novel angle of the HR practitioners' perspective through semistructured interviews. Paralleling extant employee accounts, the findings suggest that HR practitioners rarely judge situations as bullying where a manager is accused. Trust between employee, manager and HR practitioner is essential for the successful resolution of bullying claims, yet this study suggests multiple directions of distrust. By virtue of their role alignment and previous experiences of handling bullying, HR practitioners were found to prioritise their relationships with managers, automatically distrusting employees' bullying claims. Despite also distrusting managers to effectively deliver HRM practices, it appears that bullying complaints are ‘too hot to handle’ for HR practitioners given the risks to their relationships with managers.     

The many faces of pay variation

Research on pay variation and organizational outcomes has yielded inconsistent results. We argue that this is due to a lack of construct clarity regarding pay variation, and we attempt to provide clarification by distinguishing among the sources and types of pay variation. Using these distinctions, we integrate different theoretical perspectives on pay variation, and we propose avenues through which different kinds of pay variations affect outcomes. This clarification also elucidates some measurement concerns affecting pay variation studies.     

CONTROL POLICIES TO COMBAT THE HEALTH RISKS FROM SMOKING AND PASSIVE SMOKING1

Good information is necessary for markets to allocate resources efficiently. Tobacco is a demerit good; smoking endangers smokers but also exerts externalities on non‐smokers. Public policies, however, foster misinformation, are contradictory and damage public health. Current policies also deny feedback from the tobacco industry and reduce consumer information about tobacco products that could substantially reduce the harmful effects of smoking.     

Reconnecting Australian consumers and producers: Identifying problems of distrust

A growing gap between the production and consumption of food has led to a decline in consumer trust in food, and a desire for increased regulation of food. The aim of this study was to investigate the nature of consumer trust in food production and regulation in the wake of shifts in food technology, globalisation and production. Semi-structured interviews (n = 47) were conducted in 2009 with participants living in rural and metropolitan South Australia. Rural participants were more trusting of food production because of their direct experience with producing food than their metropolitan counterparts. Consumers’ embeddedness in food production impacts their trust in food. Increasing local food production and consumption may increase consumer trust in food, and decrease consumer dependence on government regulation.     

Autonomy as a key resource for women in low gender egalitarian countries: A cross‐cultural examination

Relying on Conservation of Resources theory and a sample of 23,439 workers in 26 countries, we develop and test a multilevel moderated mediation of the effects of perceived job autonomy on work–life balance, engagement, and turnover intentions, depending on employee gender and country‐level gender egalitarianism (GE), and indirectly through stress. We find that perceived job autonomy relates to these outcomes indirectly through stress such that these effects are stronger for women in lower GE countries compared with women in higher GE countries and are not significant for men. Practical implications for engaging and retaining global female talent are discussed.     

Afro-Diasporic women navigating the black ceiling: Individual,relational, and organizational strategies

In this article, we describe how the black ceiling—upheld by the powerful institutional logics of patriarchy and white supremacy, inordinately challenging and interlocking systemic barriers to leadership advancement—leads to the dearth of Afro-Diasporic women in senior corporate leadership positions and pathologizes Afro-Diasporic women as multiple outsiders. As a result, Afro-Diasporic women’s well-being in the workplace is compromised and many adopt coping and survival strategies to navigate a myriad of relational and environmental phenomena, such as spirit murder, emotional taxation, social closure, white privilege, and white fragility. To navigate and ameliorate these dynamics, we advance several individual, relational, and organizational strategies that support Afro-Diasporic women thriving in the workplace.