The cross‐cultural study of LMX and individual employee voice: The moderating role of conflict avoidance

This article examines the role of national culture, measured by conflict avoidance, on the relationship between leader–member exchange (LMX) and individual employee voice. Using data collected from automotive industry employees in the United States and Korea, the findings show that conflict avoidance is negatively related to employee voice and also moderates the relationship between LMX and employee voice in the Korean sample. In particular, the relationship between LMX and voice becomes less positive when conflict avoidance is high. On the other hand, conflict avoidance does not have a direct effect on employee voice as well as an interactive effect with LMX on employee voice in the U.S. sample. This study, therefore, highlights the importance of the national culture in the comparative study of employee voice.     

Lobbying as a potent political marketing tool for firm performance: A closer look

This study endeavors to enhance political marketing literature about the impact of lobbying on firm performance. Our sample is composed of 140 U.S. firms and spans the years 2007–2014 to encompass the 2007–2009 recession and the subsequent recovery period. Our findings indicate that lobbying expenses positively contribute to firm performance. Also, government contracts in both ways, dollar amount and number of government contracts, act as mediators between lobbying expenses and firm performance. In addition, organizational slack moderates the relationship between lobbying expenses and government contracts. The managerial implications suggest that lobbying expenses can be leveraged as a potent tool for firm performance. Firms with larger lobbying efforts acquired both, higher dollar amounts and a greater number of government contracts.     

Climate for conflict management,exposure to workplace bullying and work engagement: a moderated mediation analysis

The present study investigates a potential preventive factor in relation to workplace bullying. Specifically, we examine how climate for conflict management (CCM) may be related to less bullying, increased work engagement, as well as whether CCM is a moderator in the bullying engagement relationship. The study was based on a cross-sectional survey among employees in a transport company (N = 312). Hypotheses were tested simultaneously in a moderated mediation analysis which showed that bullying and job engagement were related (H1), CCM was related to less reports of bullying (H2), CCM was related to work engagement (H3) and that CCM was indirectly related to job engagement through bullying (H4), but only when CCM was weak (H5). That is, CCM moderated the relationship between bullying and work engagement in that this relationship only existed when CCM was low. The present study contributes to theory within this research field by showing that organizational measures may not only prevent bullying, but may also affect how employees react when subjected to bullying. Furthermore, the effect of climate in relation to bullying may be down to the narrow bandwidth facet of CCM. The study informs employers how they may act to prevent bullying while also reducing the potential negative outcomes of those cases of bullying that inevitably will show up from time to time.     

Social media affordances in entry‐level employees’ socialization: employee agency in the management of their professional impressions and vulnerability during early stages of socialization

This study examined how entry‐level employees interacted with social media during three stages of organizational socialization. They navigated between four different media affordances (persistence, editability, visibility, and association) while experiencing them as both enabling and constraining in different socialization stages. Qualitative interview data analysis revealed during anticipatory socialization, job applicants realized visibility and persistence in relation to institutional and individualized socialization. During encounter, new employees managed personal and professional life boundaries carefully against the association and visibility affordances. Although some participants used both public and enterprise social media for obtaining job‐related information and understanding coworkers and company culture, during metamorphosis, most interviewees adopted passive information seeking strategies and experienced a paradoxical tension between the enabling and constraining affordances of social media. Findings are discussed with regards to employees’ exertion of agency in managing their professional impressions and coping with high levels of uncertainty and vulnerability during early stages of socialization.     

Do pensions foster education? An empirical perspective

The paper examines the effect of population ageing on public education spending. On the one hand, ageing is expected to have a negative effect on education, as an increasing number of retirees results in ‘intergenerational conflict’ and, hence, the condemnation of education expenditure. On the other hand, ageing, in combination with pay-as-you-go pension systems, offers incentives for the working-age generation to invest in the public education of the young in order to ‘reap’ the benefits (that is, higher income tax/contributions) of their greater future productivity. Empirical evidence derived from the application of a fixed effects approach to panel data for OECD countries shows that the increasing share of elderly people has a non-linear effect on education spending. This indicates a certain degree of intergenerational conflict. Nevertheless, we find that future population ageing, which reinforces the mechanism linking public education and pensions, reflects positively on education expenditure. Furthermore, by disaggregating total education expenditure by educational levels, we observe that this effect is led by levels of non-compulsory education, probably as a reflection of the direct connection to labor productivity.     

Forget about ‘the ideal worker’: A theoretical contribution to the debate on flexible workplace designs,work/life conflict,and opportunities for gender equality

This study integrates insights from Self-Determination Theory and Boundary Theory to present scenarios on how flexible workplace designs can trigger multiple motivational processes underlying gendered work/nonwork integration behaviors, and how these affect work/life conflict. We disentangle processes underlying work engagement and work/life conflict, explaining the paradoxical outcomes found with regard to gender inequality in terms of work/life performance, satisfaction, and health. Policy makers and organizations need an increased understanding and a reconceptualization of these issues, realizing that the ideal worker does not exist. Instead, a long-term perspective is needed in order to truly realize the potential benefits of flexible workplace designs for all stakeholders. Organizations need to take responsibility for preventing individual workers’ depletion and stimulating the regeneration of workers’ resources.     

Battles in the costing war: UK debates, 1950-75

In the UK, 1950-75 was a lively period in the long-running debates between proponents of absorption and marginal costing. In the nexus of competing interests, management accountants advocated and defended rival costing systems with much vigour and passion. Expressed in the language of the times, these debates were 'battles' in the costing 'war'. We focus on these battles, analysing the various forces that operated upon the combatants, and locate them in the wider costing war. We conclude that no final resolution of the conflict was achieved in the twentieth century, nor is one likely in the foreseeable future.     

Smart work and hard work: explicating a learning orientation in strategic management accounting

This paper examines the skills and aptitudes necessary to undertake a strategic management accounting project. It argues that individuals involved in such projects are required to work both smart and hard. This argument is developed theoretically by reference to the work of educational psychologists who have identified two different types of goal orientation which people pursue in achievement situations: the learning orientation and the performance orientation. Evidence that strategic management accounting requires a learning orientation is provided by means of a case study which describes its use in a competitive tendering situation. This is followed by a discussion of the potentially symbiotic relationship of strategic management accounting and organizational learning. The discussion leads to the specification of a research agenda that may have significant implications for the practice and learning of management accounting.     

Negotiation support using the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution

The Graph Model for Conflict Resolution is a flexible methodology for systematically studying strategic conflicts in the real world, and is therefore a natural tool for negotiation support. The basic definitions underlying the graph model are reviewed, and the techniques for analysis and interpretation are discussed. The modeling and analysis of a case study, an international trade negotiation concerning the export of Canadian softwood lumber to the United States, are used to demonstrate the practical application of the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution as a negotiation support tool. The modeling and analysis is carried out using the GMCR software system. The ability of the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution to provide insights and advice to negotiators is emphasized.