Apologies for any cross-posting.
A new issue of Human Relations is available online: Human Relations July 2017; 70(7). See also recent issues: June 2017 70(6); May 2017 70(5); April 2017 70(4).
We hope you enjoy reading these articles.
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JULY ISSUE ARTICLES
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Beneath the white gaze: Strategic self-Orientalism among Chinese Australians
Helena Liu
Human Relations, 70(7): 781‒804. First published November-14-2016, DOI: 10.1177/0018726716676323
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726716676323
Abstract
This article analyses the ethno-cultural identities of Chinese Australian professionals through a postcolonial lens. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 21 participants, it explores how they engaged in self-Orientalism; casting themselves as exotic commodities for the benefit of white people and institutions. In particular, they enacted Chinese stereotypes through 'mythtapping' and 'mythkeeping' in order to secure recognition under the white gaze. As mythtappers, professionals presented themselves as custodians of an ancient and mysterious culture that offered organizational wisdoms for 'the West.' As mythkeepers, the professionals allayed white anxieties by surrendering themselves to white Australians as pathways into their communities. However, the professionals' Orientalized identities are not passively determined, but are in some cases tactically and strategically resisted through 'mythbusting.' The article contributes to postcolonial theorizing by demonstrating how imperialist ideologies constrain the lives of people beyond the colonizer/colonized dichotomy and by illuminating the potential for their resistance against Orientalization.
Keywords: Australia, Chinese, culture, ethnicity, Orientalism, postcolonialism, race
Work-related change in residential elderly care: Trust, space and connectedness
Wieke E van der Borg, Petra Verdonk, Linda Dauwerse, Tineke A Abma
Human Relations, 70(7): 805‒835. First published February-10-2017, DOI: 10.1177/0018726716684199
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726716684199
Abstract
Increasing care needs and a declining workforce put pressure on the quality and continuity of long-term elderly care. The need to attract and retain a solid workforce is increasingly acknowledged. This study reports about a change initiative that aimed to improve the quality of care and working life in residential elderly care. The research focus is on understanding the process of workforce change and development, by retrospectively exploring the experiences of care professionals. A responsive evaluation was conducted at a nursing home department in the Netherlands one year after participating in the change program. Data were gathered by participant observations, interviews and a focus and dialogue group. A thematic analysis was conducted. Care professionals reported changes in workplace climate and interpersonal interactions. We identified trust, space and connectedness as important concepts to understand perceived change. Findings suggest that the interplay between trust and space fostered interpersonal connectedness. Connectedness improved the quality of relationships, contributing to the well-being of the workforce. We consider the nature and contradictions within the process of change, and discuss how gained insights help to improve quality of working life in residential elderly care and how this may reflect in the quality of care provision.
Keywords: authenticity, autonomy, case study, connectedness, leadership, quality of care, quality of working life, responsive evaluation, trust
A femininity that 'giveth and taketh away': The prosperity gospel and postfeminism in the neoliberal economy
Katie Rose Sullivan, Helen Delaney
Human Relations, 70(7): 836‒859. First published November-21-2016, DOI: 10.1177/0018726716676322
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726716676322
Abstract
This article explores how postfeminist and prosperity gospel discourses intersect in an organizational context to produce a particular ideal of feminine subjectivity that reproduces a neoliberal agenda. We focus on narratives written by female national vice presidents in a multi-national network marketing organization headquartered in America. Network marketing tends to attract a vast number of women who are enticed by grand messages of material and spiritual riches; however, such messages are often at odds with the precarious and uncertain working conditions. We contribute to gender and organization scholarship by introducing the concept of evangelical entrepreneurial femininity to explore the tensions and demands that are placed on women in an organizational context where postfeminism and prosperity gospel discourses intersect. In doing so, we question the expectations and constraints that many working women negotiate in this neoliberal age of alleged 'freedom' and 'equality,' and raise a number of concerns for feminist critique.
Keywords: discourse, evangelical entrepreneurial femininity, neoliberalism, network marketing, postfeminism, prosperity gospel, women/gender
Ethnic discrimination during résumé screening: Interactive effects of applicants' ethnic salience with job context
Eva Derous, Roland Pepermans, Ann Marie Ryan
Human Relations, 70(7): 860‒882. First published November-21-2016, DOI: 10.1177/0018726716676537
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726716676537
Abstract
Systematic research considering job context as affecting ethnic discrimination in hiring is limited. Building on contemporary literature on social categorization and cognitive matching, the interactive effect of context characteristics (client contact; industry status) and person characteristics (i.e. ethnic cues: Maghreb/Arab vs Flemish-sounding name; dark vs light skin tone) were investigated using an experimental field study among 424 white majority HR professionals. Findings showed that equally qualified applicants with a dark skin tone received lower job suitability ratings than applicants with a light skin tone, particularly when they were screened for high client contact/low industry status positions and low client contact/high industry status positions. It is concluded that some ethnic cues (such as skin tone) may be more salient compared with other cues and that job context may influence the salience of ethnic cues and steer hiring discrimination in subtle ways. Implications of these findings for hiring discrimination research and organizations are discussed.
Keywords: cognitive matching, ethnicity, hiring discrimination, personnel selection, social categorization
Who gets to lead the multinational team? An updated status characteristics perspective
Minna Paunova
Human Relations, 70(7): 883‒907. First published November-22-2016, DOI: 10.1177/0018726716678469
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716678469
Abstract
This article examines the emergence of informal leadership in multinational teams. Building on and extending status characteristics theory, the article proposes and tests a model that describes how global inequalities reproduce in multinational teams, and accounts for who gets to lead these teams. It is argued that an individual's language (i.e. a specific status characteristic) and nationality (i.e. a diffuse status characteristic) predict deference received from peers (i.e. leadership status). However, individuals enhance and/or compensate for the effects of their status characteristics by virtue of their core self-evaluations. A study of over 230 individuals from 46 nationalities working in 36 self-managing teams generally supports the expected main and moderation effects. Individual core self-evaluations enhance an otherwise weak effect of English proficiency, but compensate for low levels of national development. The article concludes with implications for practice, and linking micro- and macro-level theories of status and global inequality.
Keywords: core self-evaluation, English proficiency, language, leadership emergence, leadership perception, leadership status, multinational teams, national development, nationality, status characteristics
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FEATURED FREE ACCESS ARTICLE FOR JUNE
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Free access until 30 June 2017:
What happens when you can't be who you are: Professional identity at the institutional periphery
Jelena Zikic and Julia Richardson
Human Relations 69(1): 139‒168. First published date: June-30-2015. DOI 10.1177/0018726715580865
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726715580865
Abstract
This article examines the impact of large scale, 'macro' role transitions on professional identity. Drawing on in-depth interviews with two different groups of immigrant professionals, it theorizes how organizational outsiders with established professional identities respond to the institutional requirements and specifically to professional pre-entry scripts in their new host country. The study demonstrates how identity work evolves among each group as they navigate the permeable and impermeable pre-entry scripts in their respective professions. It identifies both barriers and facilitators to engagement with, and fulfillment of, local pre-entry scripts. These findings demonstrate how different professional domains and power structures create different opportunities for re-entry and as a result give rise to different forms of identity work – involving, for example, identity customization, identity shadowing, struggle and enrichment. Implications for policy makers in the field will be discussed, focusing on how different groups of professionals respond to unique forms of identity threat emerging from their respective professional institutions and structural barriers.
Keywords: external labour market, identity work, immigrant professionals, medical and IT profession, professional identity
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HUMAN RELATIONS WORKSHOP
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Can, and should, social science contribute to better quality jobs?
A 70-year retrospect and prospect
Tuesday 10 Oct 2017 at The British Academy, London SW1Y 5AH
Organizer: Prof. Paul K Edwards, former Editor-in-Chief, Human Relations
This year Human Relations celebrates its 70th Anniversary!
As part of our celebrations, Human Relations will be running a workshop that will interest scholars of work and employment, policy makers in employers' organizations and trade unions, public officials, and researchers in research institutes with an interest in work and the labour market. It is intended to be an engaged conversation among experts. Numbers will be restricted.
There will four short (15 minute) presentations by experts in the field, taking specific examples to address some of the above questions, six short presentations from other participants on different aspects of work then space for questions and discussion, all leading up to a concluding round table of experts. [Read more]
To book your place at this event, please contact Claire Castle no later than 5 September 2017.
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RECENT ONLINE FIRST PREVIEW ARTICLES
Access all OnlineFirst articles here: http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/recent
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The sound of silence: Measuring suffering at work
Florence Allard-Poesi and Sandrine Hollet-Haudebert
Human Relations, first published: June-05-2017, DOI: 10.1177/0018726717703449
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717703449
Abstract
What realities do questionnaires and surveys, designed to measure stress and suffering at work, bring to light? What realities do they conceal? In this research, we consider self-assessment scales and questionnaires as techniques of visibility that contribute to the construction of knowledge on the 'suffering subject' at work. We conducted a qualitative analysis of the questionnaire and survey report conducted by the consulting firm Technologia for France Telecom Orange, after a spate of suicides in 2008–2009.
The results show that: (1) the questionnaire used to measure suffering at work views the subject as someone reflective yet rather passive, and their suffering as resulting from an unbalanced relationship with the work environment, (2) the report further restricts this understanding of suffering to the administrative position of the individual, (3) as a consequence, the political, strategic, ideological dimensions and the economic power struggles affecting work are silenced.
Relying on Foucault's approach to knowledge (savoir), we interpret this narrow concept of the subject and their surroundings as resulting from an assemblage between scientific discourses and visibility techniques; a compromise that conceals debates on the strategic orientation of the firm.
Keywords: Foucault, questionnaire, scales, stress, suffering at work, visibility
When organizational politics matters:
The effects of the perceived frequency and distance of experienced politics
John M Maslyn, Steven M Farmer and Kenneth L Bettenhausen
Human Relations, first published: June-05-2017, DOI: 10.1177/0018726717704706
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717704706
Abstract
Drawing from literature linking organizational politics with effects of challenge or hindrance stressors, this study investigated the effects of the frequency and psychological distance of positive and negative conceptualizations of perceived politics on the impact to the individual. It was hypothesized that the frequency of political behavior would exhibit an inverted-U-function relationship with favorable evaluations of political behavior and that this relationship would be moderated by distance. Two independent samples were used to test the hypotheses. Results for negative conceptualizations of perceived politics indicated a curvilinear frequency–evaluation relationship such that moderate levels of negative or dysfunctional politics are evaluated more favorably than either high or low levels. The distance of the political behavior was further found to moderate this relationship, with distant politics having little effect on the frequency–evaluation relationship, but politics with nearby impact yielding more negative evaluations as frequency increased. For positive conceptualizations of perceived politics, results revealed that respondents evaluated this form of politics more favorably the more it occurred. Further, positive political behavior was reported to be less desirable when its impact was believed to be at a distance rather than being felt by respondents personally. Implications are discussed.
Keywords: curvilinear, job/employee attitudes, organizational politics, organizational psychology, perceptions of politics, positive organizational politics
When the farm-gate becomes a revolving door:
An institutional approach to high labour turnover
Lotte Staelens and Céline Louche
Human Relations first published May-17-2017, DOI 10.1177/0018726717702209
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717702209
Abstract
By adopting an institutional theory lens, the aim of the article is to better understand the actions and mindset of managers toward high labour turnover in the cut-flower industry in Ethiopia. Our mixed-method approach explores the ways in which managers deal with, and legitimize, high levels of labour turnover. Our results show that they engage in three types of practices – predicting, containing and accommodating – whose objective is to make labour turnover tolerable, rather than reduce it. Interestingly, managers do not legitimize their practices through the use of cost-benefit arguments, as the literature would have suggested, but blame the institutional context. This article highlights the context-dependent aspects of labour turnover and explains how managers may find themselves in a deadlock situation. It informs the debate in human resource management research about managerial practices at the bottom of global value chains.
Keywords: cut-flower industry, Ethiopia, global value chains, high labour turnover, institutional theory, intensive labour industries, legitimization
Antagonism, accommodation and agonism in Critical Management Studies:
Alternative organizations as allies
Simon Parker and Martin Parker
Human Relations, first published May-15-2017, DOI 10.1177/0018726717696135
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717696135
Abstract
Critical Management Studies has long been engaged in discussions about the purpose of critique and the possibilities of engagement. A recent expression calls for Critical Management Studies to moderate its 'negative' critique of management and instead use words like care, engagement and affirmation in order to enable 'progressive' engagement with managers. This 'performative turn' has been poorly received by some who see it as a dilution of radical intent. We argue for a middle ground between the antagonistic versions of Critical Management Studies that appear to want to oppose management, and 'performative' scholars who appear to accommodate with managerialism. We do this by planting the debate firmly within an empirical setting and a crisis that the first author experienced as a 'critical scholar' when conducting an ethnography at a sustainable financial services firm. In order to do this, we explore Chantal Mouffe's concept of agonism to establish a particular mode of political engagement that acknowledges a space between being 'for' and being 'against'. We conclude by suggesting that the exploration of alternative forms of organization and management, themselves already involved in struggle against a hegemonic present, should be the proper task of a discipline that wishes to engage with the present and remain 'critical'.
Keywords: agonism, alternative finance, alternative organization, Chantal Mouffe, Critical Management Studies, critical performativity, sustainability
Hearing music in service interactions: A theoretical and empirical analysis
Jonathan Payne, Marek Korczynski and Rob Cluley
Human Relation, first published May-15-2017, DOI 10.1177/0018726717701552
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717701552
Abstract
There is an extensive literature concerned with the impact of music on customers. However, no study has examined its effects on service workers and their interactions with customers. Drawing together literatures on service work and music in everyday life, the article develops a theoretical framework for exploring the role of music in service exchanges. Two central factors are identified – first, how workers hear, and respond to, the music soundscape, and, second, their relations with customers, given these have the potential to be both alienating and positive to the point of meaningful social interaction. From these, a 2×2 matrix is constructed, comprising four potential scenarios. The authors argue for the likely importance of music's role as a bridge for sociality between worker and customer. The article considers this theorizing by drawing upon interviews with 60 retail and café workers in UK chains and independents, and free text comments collected through a survey of workers in a large service retailer. The findings show broad support for music acting as a bridge for sociality. Service workers appropriate music for their own purposes and many use this to provide texture and substance to social interactions with customers.
Keywords: alienation, customer, music, service interaction, service work
How do we understand worker silence despite poor conditions – as the actress said to the woman bishop
Deborah Dean and Anne-marie Greene
Human Relations. first published May-12-2017, DOI 10.1177/0018726717694371
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717694371
Abstract
This article considers the customary choice of silence over voice of two groups of UK workers – women clergy and women actors – who routinely tolerate poor quality conditions rather than express dissatisfaction. We argue that a key mediating factor is an expanded version of Hirschman's (1970) concept of loyalty. The article considers how occupational ideologies facilitate loyalty as adaptation to disadvantage in ways that discourage voice, in framing silence as positive. Consequently, we also identify this type of loyalty as potentially salient in understanding silence in other occupations. A descriptive model comparing strength of occupational ideology and voicing of dissatisfaction is outlined, and through discussion of findings the article offers conceptual refinements of loyalty in accounting for worker silence.
Keywords: calling, loyalty, occupational ideologies, voice, women workers - actors, clergy
Towards an integrated framework of professional partnership performance:
The role of formal governance and strategic planning
Michel W Lander, Pursey PMAR Heugens and J (Hans) van Oosterhout
Human Relations, first published May-12-2017, DOI 10.1177/0018726717700697
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717700697
Abstract
Conventional wisdom identifies human capital and organizational reputation as the critical resources explaining professional partnership (PP) performance. PPs have increasingly adopted organizational practices like strategic planning and formal governance, however, which have long been alien in highly professionalized contexts. In order to test the influence of both these classic resources and the newly adopted practices on PP performance, as well as the mediating mechanisms- that is, client attraction and retention as well as organizational efficiency-through which this influence is channeled, we develop an integrated theoretical framework of PP performance. We test the resulting hypotheses using survey and objective data collected on 196 Dutch law firms. Our findings provide new insights into the drivers of PP performance and the complex interrelationships between PP resources and newly adopted practices.
Keywords: client attraction and retention, human capital, managed professional business, professional partnership, reputational capital
How 'flexible' are careers in the anticipated life course of young people?
Paula K McDonald
Human Relations, first published May-11-2017 DOI 10.1177/0018726717699053
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717699053
Abstract
Bridging literature that addresses the work–family interface and the changing nature of careers, this article examines, from a life course perspective, the extent to which, and why, young people anticipate careers as 'flexible'. Drawing on 123 interviews with men and women engaged in different post-secondary education pathways in Australia, the study draws attention to the role of gender and to some extent class in shaping careers in a network of social relations. Three dimensions of flexible careers are examined: temporal, that is, through imagined possibilities in various stages of early adulthood; structural, including opportunities and constraints afforded by different industry sectors and workplaces; and relational, in terms of household-level role negotiations. The findings revealed that women continue to adapt their career goals to accommodate care, but that both men's and women's careers are shaped by contingencies including household income, home ownership, access to flexible work and ideological expectations of market/family work roles. These contextual dynamics directly impact on decisions in the present. The article underscores the need for an expanded research focus on work and care from a life course perspective in order to promote career flexibility in ways that align with young people's broader aspirations for gender equality.
Keywords: career pathways, flexible careers, gender equality, life course, work–family, youth employment
Does employees' subjective well-being affect workplace performance?
Alex Bryson, John Forth and Lucy Stokes
Human Relations, first published May-09-2017, DOI 10.1177/0018726717693073
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717693073
Abstract
This article uses linked employer–employee data to investigate the relationship between employees' subjective well-being and workplace performance in Britain. The analyses show a clear, positive and statistically significant relationship between the average level of job satisfaction at the workplace and workplace performance. The relationship is present in both cross-sectional and panel analyses and is robust to various estimation methods and model specifications. In contrast, we find no association between levels of job-related affect and workplace performance. Ours is the first study of its kind for Britain to use nationally representative data and it provides novel findings regarding the importance of worker job satisfaction in explaining workplace performance. The findings suggest that there is a prima facie case for employers to maintain and raise levels of job satisfaction among their employees. They also indicate that initiatives to raise aggregate job satisfaction should feature in policy discussions around how to improve levels of productivity and growth.
Keywords: job satisfaction, job/employee attitudes, job-related affect, subjective well-being, workplace performance
Using humor and boosting emotions:
An affect-based study of managerial humor, employees' emotions and psychological capital
Nilupama Wijewardena, Charmine EJ Härtel and Ramanie Samaratunge
Human Relations, first published April-28-2017 DOI 10.1177/0018726717691809
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717691809
Abstract
Evidence from emerging scholarly investigations consistently points to managerial humor as fruitful new grounds to expand management knowledge and practice. In light of this, the present study examined managerial humor as an affective event at work that has short-term emotional and long-term psychological outcomes for employees. To test this empirically, we recruited a sample of 2498 Australian employees to participate in a field experience sampling study. We also considered the potential moderating effect of leader–member exchange on the humor–emotions relationship. Findings provide initial support for managerial humor as an affective event such that when employees perceived their manager's humor as positive they reported experiencing positive emotions, and vice versa. Importantly, employees with high-quality relationships with their managers responded to their manager's humor use with a greater number of positive emotions and fewer negative emotions than did employees with low-quality relationships with their managers. We argue that humor is an event that managers must responsibly manage in order to produce positive emotional experiences for employees and support healthy emotion regulation at work. We also discuss the conditions under which it is advisable for managers to use humor with employees, and suggest future research directions to develop this growing field of inquiry.
Keywords: affective events theory (AET), broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, experience sampling, leader–member exchange (LMX), managerial humor, psychological capital (PsyCap)
Betwixt and between: Role conflict, role ambiguity and role definition in project-based dual-leadership structures
Joris J Ebbers and Nachoem M Wijnberg
Human Relations, first published April-28-2017 DOI 10.1177/0018726717692852
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717692852
Abstract
Project-based organizations in the film industry usually have a dual-leadership structure, based on a division of tasks between the dual leaders – the director and the producer – in which the former is predominantly responsible for the artistic and the latter for the commercial aspects of the film. These organizations also have a role hierarchically below and between the dual leaders: the 1st assistant director. This organizational constellation is likely to lead to role conflict and role ambiguity experienced by the person occupying that particular role. Although prior studies found negative effects of role conflict and role ambiguity, this study shows they can also have beneficial effects because they create space for defining the role expansively that, in turn, can be facilitated by the dual leaders defining their own roles more narrowly. In a more general sense, this study also shows the usefulness of analyzing the antecedents and consequences of roles, role definition, and role crafting in connection to the behavior of occupants of adjacent roles.
Keywords: creative industries, dual leadership, film industry, project-based organization, role crafting
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VIRTUAL SPECIAL ISSUES
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- Knowledge and knowing in the study of organization: From commodity to communication
- Women, men, and work: Gender identity and gender differences in the workplace
- Diversity research: Theorizing the new frontier in sexual orientation diversity
- Change management
- Critical performativity
Editor's Choice Collections:
- Paper of the Year Award winners
- Classic papers from Human Relations
- Papers that have influenced Paul Edwards, former EIC
Reflections on the history of HR from Paul Edwards, former EIC:
- Human Relations: The first 10 years, 1947–1956
- Human Relations: 1957–1966
- Human Relations: 1967–1986
- Human Relations: 1987–1996 and beyond
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WHY PUBLISH IN HUMAN RELATIONS?
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Human Relations is included in the FT50 list of journals (effective from January 2017) used by the Financial Times in compiling the FT Research rank, included in the Global MBA, EMBA and Online MBA rankings. It is an A* journal – the highest category of quality – in the Australian Business Deans Council (ABCD) Journal Quality List 2013. It is also ranked 4 in the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) Academic Journal Guide 2015 and
Human Relations is a top 5 interdisciplinary social sciences journal (Source: 2015 Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters, 2016):
2-year impact factor: 2.619 Ranked: 4/93 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary and 37/192 in Management
5-year impact factor: 3.544 Ranked: 2/93 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary and 40/192 in Management
Best wishes,
Claire Castle
Managing Editor, Human Relations
Tavistock Institute of Human Relations
Email: c.castle@tavinstitute.org
Website: www.humanrelationsjournal.org
Twitter: @HR_TIHR
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