An empirical investigation of psychological capital among flight attendants

Our paper develops and tests a research model that examines whether psychological capital (PsyCap) mediates the relationship between servant leadership and work engagement (WE) and whether WE mediates the effect of PsyCap on service recovery performance and life satisfaction. Data were collected from flight attendants with a two-week time lag in three waves and their pursers in the private airline companies in Iran. The results suggest that servant leadership influences WE indirectly only through PsyCap. The results also suggest that WE is a partial mediator between PsyCap and the aforesaid attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Our study discusses theoretical implications and provides recommendations for managers in the airline industry.     

Managing service employees: literature review,expert opinions,and research directions

This article reviews the service management and marketing literature on managing people with a particular emphasis on managerial relevance. This review explores the market and financial results of managing people effectively, emphasizing that it is probably harder to duplicate high-performing human assets than any other corporate resource. The challenges inherent in boundary-spanning frontline jobs are discussed, including role conflict and emotional labor. Next, recommended human resources (HR) strategies and practices related to recruitment, training, empowerment, service delivery teams, and employee motivation are reviewed. The literature review concludes with a section on service culture, climate, and leadership. Each section is complemented with further research suggestions that emerged from interviews with eight academic and practitioner experts. The last section outlines six themes for new research opportunities with high potential managerial relevance; they relate to (1) the financial impact of HR practices and strategies, (2) motivating service employees, (3) training, (4) emotional labor, (5) dealing with rude customers, and (6) the impact of technology on managing service employees.     

Leadership marketing: an exploratory study

In an era when collaboration is the key to business prosperity, the ability to develop one truly coherent and agile brand lived by its employees and delivered to external stakeholders has become extremely challenging. Unity between the internal brand and a company’s external image, when change is the only constant, has almost ceased to exist. The marketing function is frequently underemphasised at board level and its role is often devalued in leading organisational change. This paper concerns how marketing can partner with organisational leadership for a mutually beneficial exchange of skills and capabilities to be able to reinvent organisations rapidly enough to cope with shifts in the external business environment and create a sustainable future for the business. This paper explores the concept of “leadership marketing” from an interpretivist perspective which challenges the conventional view of marketing and leadership as two separate fields and offers a holistic approach for business management and brand alignment.     

Ethical leadership and its impact on service innovative behavior: The role of LMX and job autonomy

This study examined the effect of ethical leadership on service innovative behavior of employees at small and medium sized tourist hotels in Uttarakhand, India. It has forwarded an integrated model that highlights the relationship between ethical leadership and employees' service innovative behavior while interacting through leader-member exchange and job autonomy. Using a sample of 468 customer contact employees and their 117 supervisors, hierarchical regression was conducted to establish the relationship. Findings of the study revealed that ethical leadership promoted service innovative behavior of the hotel employees mediated through leader-member exchanges. Further, it was also found that the level of service innovative behavior was commensurate to the perception of employee job autonomy. Based on the study findings, implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Subordinates' perception of managers' transformational leadership style and satisfaction: a comparison of electronic manufacturing companies in Mainland China and Taiwan

Rapid economic growth has made leadership studies a significant subject in Asia. The present research compared subordinates' different perceptions of managers' transformational leadership style in Mainland China and Taiwan. Quantitative methodology was used in collecting 250 random samples from Shanghai and Taipei. Subordinates in Taiwan perceived that more managers had a transformational leadership style and also employees had higher satisfaction with managers' leadership style than those in Mainland China. The results of the present research would provide suggestions and directions for industrial managers seeking to display appropriate management behavior for an effective business environment.     

Workplace isolation: salespeople and supervisors in USA

Virtual work is becoming the norm in sales organizations because it is cost effective for the firm and can benefit customers and salespeople. However, along with these benefits, virtual work brings new challenges to organizations. One critical issue is workplace isolation (WI). This study uses responses from a sample of 346 salespeoples in the pharmaceutical field to test a model that investigates the relationships among WI, self-efficacy, leadership style, extra-role performance (ERP), satisfaction with the supervisor, and turnover intentions. Salespersons perception of managers as considerate leaders are associated with lower WI levels. Salespeople with higher levels of self-efficacy are less likely to believe that they are isolated from the company and their colleagues. WI, in turn, is significantly related to satisfaction with the supervision and ERP. Managerial implications and future research directions are presented.     

How does growth need strength influence employee outcomes? The roles of hope,leadership, and cultural value

Abstract

Strong growth need is essential if an employee is to be motivated to complete complex and challenging jobs. It is important for organizations to attract employees with high growth need strength and help them achieve positive outcomes. However, limited research has been conducted to examine the mechanism underlying growth need strength’s positive effect on employee outcomes. Based on hope theory, we hypothesized that hope mediates the effect of growth need strength on job performance and affective commitment by transforming employees’ general desire for personal growth into goal-related cognitive thinking, comprising both ‘will’ and ‘ways’. We further hypothesized the moderating effect of transformational leadership, and the joint moderating effect of transformational leadership and individual power distance on the relationship between growth need strength and hope. We tested our hypotheses with data from a sample of 265 subordinate–supervisor dyads from China. Data analysis results supported the mediating role of hope. We found that growth need strength has a stronger effect on hope when transformational leadership is higher, and this effect is the strongest when both transformational leadership and individual power distance are simultaneously higher. The implications of these findings for human resource management research and practice are discussed.     

A theory of collusion with partial mutual understanding

Unlawful collusion is when firms have a mutual understanding to coordinate their behavior for the purpose of achieving a supracompetitive outcome. Given the legal focus on mutual beliefs, this paper explores the role of mutual beliefs in producing collusion. Focusing on price leadership, firms are assumed to commonly believe that price increases will be at least matched but lack any shared understanding about who will lead, when they will, and at what prices. Sufficient conditions are derived which ensure that supracompetitive prices emerge. However, price is bounded below the maximal equilibrium price.     

中外英语语法教学思想、原则及方法对比研究

对比研究国内外学术专著及期刊中有关英语语法教学的文章,可以看出国内外关于语法教学的思想、原则及方法大同小异。借鉴国外教学方法时,必须结合国情,创造性地、灵活地使用。     

关于江泽民人学思想研究的综述

十六大以来,关于江泽民人学思想得到较为深入、全面、系统的研究。学术界对其形成的条件、内容、特点和意义,尤其是江泽民对马克思主义人学思想的继承发展等方面取得的可喜成果,不乏深刻见解,但仍需深入研究。