Apologies for any cross-posting.
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THIS MONTH'S FREE ACCESS ARTICLE
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Free to access until 30 November 2015:
An 'emerging challenge': The employment practices of a Brazilian multinational company in Canada
Roberta Aguzzoli and John Geary
Human Relations May 2014, Vol. 67(5) 587–609
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/67/5/587.full
Abstract
Although the literature in international human resource management has developed greatly over recent years, our understanding of the dynamics of the transfer of HR practices in multinational companies (MNCs) from emerging economies with subsidiaries in advanced economies is found wanting. This study addresses this gap in our knowledge by investigating the transfer of employment policies of a Brazilian MNC to its Canadian subsidiaries. It examines interrelated questions about the influence of an emerging-economy parent-business system and how this interacts with the well-developed institutional regulation of the host country in a context of complex relations of dependence and dominance. Our prior expectation that the MNC would have had to adapt its policies to the 'Canadian way' was not borne out by the evidence. Instead the Brazilian MNC was found to be adept at capturing significant components of the host country's institutional setting in a manner that gave it the space to determine the 'rules' for its own advantage. That it was able to do so was, in large part, shaped by the market context of the firm and by Canada's dependence on foreign investment and, in turn, by the political relations of dependence that such reliance engendered. Broader lessons from the case analysis are offered.
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VIRTUAL SPECIAL ISSUE ON CHANGE MANAGEMENT
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The content below will be free to access until 30 November and the entire virtual issue can be accessed here: http://hum.sagepub.com/site/misc/VSI/Change_Management/CM_VSI.xhtml
Introduction
This virtual special issue brings together a range of papers in the journal on the management of change. The particular inspiration is the paper by Cummings et al. (2015), which revisits the famous paper by Lewin (1947), published in the first issue of the journal, and demonstrates that the many popularisations of Lewin around a three-step model miss much of what was in fact said. We accordingly include the original Lewin paper. Two other papers, by Cooke (2007) and by Burnes and Cooke (2012), offer complementary accounts of the history of management ideas. Such analyses in fact represent something of a tradition in the journal. Almost as famous as Lewin is the Coch and French paper (1948) on overcoming resistance to change. Two later reassessments (Gardner, 1977 and Bartlem and Locke, 1981) demonstrate the many errors in Coch and French and show just how the paper needs to be viewed.
The present virtual special issue includes three other papers. We include two by Elliott Jaques (1950, 1953), to illustrate a rather different take on change management from that offered by Lewin, and also to remind readers of the celebrated Glacier Project, from which many important papers were published during the 1950s. Finally, Hendry's (1996) paper illustrates an arguably much more sophisticated analysis of change than that offered by Lewin, and thus development in a field of inquiry over a 50-year period.
Professor Paul Edwards, FBA
Editor-in-Chief, Human Relations
Frontiers in Group Dynamics: Concept, Method and Reality in Social Science; Social Equilibria and Social Change
Kurt Lewin
Human Relations 1947, Volume 1, Issue 1: 5‒41, doi: 10.1177/001872674700100103.
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/1/1/5.full.pdf+html
Studies in the Social Development of an Industrial Community (The Glacier Project):
I. Collaborative Group Methods in a Wage Negotiation Situation; Part One: Case Study
Elliott Jaques
Human Relations August 1950, Volume 3, Issue 3: 223-249, doi: DOI: 10.1177/001872675000300301.
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/3/3/223.full.pdf+html
On the Dynamics of Social Structure: A Contribution to the Psycho-Analytical Study of Social Phenomena
Elliott Jaques
Human Relations February 1953, Volume 6, Issue 1: 3-24, doi: 10.1177/001872675300600101.
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/6/1/3.full.pdf+html
Understanding and Creating Whole Organizational Change Through Learning Theory
Chris Hendry
Human Relations May 1996, Volume 49, Issue 5: 621-641, doi: 10.1177/001872679604900505.
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/49/5/621.full.pdf+html
Abstract
The management of change has become characterized by an atheoretical pragmatism, overfocused on the political aspects of the change process. Emerging interest in the learning organization provides an occasion to remedy this, by developing a theory of change which is more congruent with the requirement to build learning capacity within organizations. The result should be to place learning theory more centrally within the theory of planned organizational change. This should also reinvigorate action research by defining a wider range of learning technologies and perspectives. The argument is developed by first reviewing theories of learning employed in organizational change. The notion of communities-of-practice is then developed as a core concept to highlight the paradoxical processes of inertia and change centered on groups. A series of examples is then drawn from a recent action research project in order to illustrate the possibilities for applying learning theory. Finally, a research agenda is set out for exploring the role of communities-of-practice, with some preliminary observations from a study of small-medium enterprises.
The Kurt Lewin–Goodwin Watson FBI/CIA files: A 60th anniversary there-and-then of the here-and-now
Bill Cooke
Human Relations March 2007, Volume 60, Issue 3: 435-462, doi: 10.1177/0018726707076686.
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/60/3/435.full.pdf+html
Abstract
FBI files on Kurt Lewin, founder of this journal, and his close colleague Goodwin Watson, reveal inter alia the investigation of Lewin postmortem by the FBI/CIA, and FBI surveillance of Watson while he was a proponent of corporate T-groups, a precursor to present day team development. Sixty years on from Human Relations' launch, and Lewin's premature death, the files enrich understandings of Lewin's, and Watson's, lives and work. The socio-political structures-in-process they evidence also support the idea of the T-group as a knowing political tactic, apparently emancipatory, yet immunized from (proto-)Cold War inquisition by its very focus on the here-and-now.
Review Article: The past, present and future of organization development: Taking the long view
Bernard Burnes and Bill Cooke
Human Relations November 2012, Volume 65, Issue 11: 1395-1429, doi: 10.1177/0018726712450058.
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/65/11/1395.full.pdf+html
Abstract
Organization development has been, and arguably still is, the major approach to organizational change across the Western world, and increasingly globally. Despite this, there appears to be a great deal of confusion as to its origins, nature, purpose and durability. This article reviews the 'long' history of organization development from its origins in the work of Kurt Lewin in the late 1930s to its current state and future prospects. It chronicles and analyses the major stages, disjunctures and controversies in its history and allows these to be seen in a wider context. The article closes by arguing that, although organization development remains the dominant approach to organizational change, there are significant issues that it must address if it is to achieve the ambitious and progressive social and organizational aims of its founders.
Unfreezing change as three steps: Rethinking Kurt Lewin's legacy for change management
Stephen Cummings, Todd Bridgman and Kenneth G Brown
Human Relations, published online before print September 30, 2015, doi: 10.1177/0018726715577707.
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/09/24/0018726715577707.full.pdf+html
Abstract
Kurt Lewin's 'changing as three steps' (unfreezing → changing → refreezing) is regarded by many as the classic or fundamental approach to managing change. Lewin has been criticized by scholars for over-simplifying the change process and has been defended by others against such charges. However, what has remained unquestioned is the model's foundational significance. It is sometimes traced (if it is traced at all) to the first article ever published in Human Relations. Based on a comparison of what Lewin wrote about changing as three steps with how this is presented in later works, we argue that he never developed such a model and it took form after his death. We investigate how and why 'changing as three steps' came to be understood as the foundation of the fledgling subfield of change management and to influence change theory and practice to this day, and how questioning this supposed foundation can encourage innovation.
Michael Todd, Social Science Space editor
Social Science Space, October 20, 2015
http://www.socialsciencespace.com/2015/10/taking-foundational-research-out-of-the-cold/
Like a favorite quote that turns out not to have passed the lips of Churchill or Twain, foundational research often is honored as its interpreters see it and not as the original author presented it. That's one premise of a new paper from the journal Human Relations (http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/09/24/0018726715577707.full.pdf+html) that examines how secondary research, in this case on Kurt Lewin's change management theory, has frozen out Lewin's original insights (which appeared in the first paper in the then-new journal Human Relations in 1947, the same year Lewin would die of a heart attack).
The authors – Stephen Cummings and Todd Bridgman of Victoria University of Wellington and Kenneth G. Brown of the University of Iowa – trawled through Lewin's archives at the University of Iowa tracing the history of his famed three-step change management ideas, and found a corpus of subsequent work littered with misquotes, mis-citations, and possibly even fabrications, alongside a popularity in management textbooks and pop-management books on change management.
While they focus on the misapprehension of Lewin, in the following email interview the authors discuss how this sort of myopia is surprisingly common – and often pernicious – in academe, and offer a prescription for combating it: dig deeper into the past and look at what the founders actually wrote ... [read more here: http://www.socialsciencespace.com/2015/10/taking-foundational-research-out-of-the-cold/ ]
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WHY PUBLISH IN HUMAN RELATIONS?
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Human Relations 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 Association of Business Schools (ABS) Academic Journal Guide 2015. With an impact factor of 2.398, it is also ranked as one of the top 5 journals in social and interdisciplinary sciences.
2-year impact factor: 2.398 - Ranked: 35/185 in Management and 5/95 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary
5-year impact factor: 3.187 - Ranked: 37/185 in Management and 3/95 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary
Source: 2014 Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters, 2015)
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CALLS FOR PAPERS
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Special issue: Conceptualising flexible careers across the life course – submit by 1 March 2016
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Flexible%20careers.html
Special issue: Global supply chains and social relations at work – submit by 30 April 2016
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Global%20supply%20chains.html
Special issue: Politicization and political contests in contemporary multinational corporations – submit by 30 September 2016
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Politics%20and%20MNCs.html
Human Relations welcomes critical reviews and essays:
- Critical reviews advance a field through new theory, new methods, a novel synthesis of extant evidence, or a combination of two or three of these elements. Reviews that identify new research questions and that make links between management and organizations and the wider social sciences are particularly welcome. Surveys or overviews of a field are unlikely to meet these criteria.
- Critical essays address contemporary scholarly issues and debates within the journal's scope. They are more controversial than conventional papers or reviews, and can be shorter. They argue a point of view, but must meet standards of academic rigour. Anyone with an idea for a critical essay is particularly encouraged to discuss it at an early stage with the Editor-in-Chief.
Call for a realist critique of meta-analysis in organisation and management studies:
I would particularly like to encourage any interested scholar to submit a critical essay on the above theme. Meta-analysis is increasingly popular in many fields in organization studies. Yet, within this paradigm, there is increasing debate about the power and reproducibility of research studies. Outside the paradigm, scholars would ask questions about the importance of context, and whether the things included in meta-analyses are in fact the same kind of thing. Realism in general and realist evaluation in particular offer a way of addressing such issues. An application of realism to meta-analysis is thus timely. Among other things, a paper would need to be strongly rooted in the journal's focus on the social relations in and around work; it might thus take a topic such as teamwork or high performance work systems as a specific theme. The paper would also need to offer specific conclusions as to when meta-analysis might be valid, and the conditions permitting generalization across contexts, as opposed to a merely negative critique. It would be subject to the journal's normal rigorous peer review. Scholars interested in this topic are encouraged to discuss ideas for a paper with me.
Paul Edwards, Editor-in-Chief
humanrelationsjournal@tavinstitute.org
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NOVEMBER ISSUE ARTICLES
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A new issue of Human Relations is available online: Human Relations November 2015; Vol. 68, No. 11 - we hope you enjoy reading these articles. The entire issue can be accessed online at http://hum.sagepub.com/content/68/11?etoc .
Management commitment to the ecological environment and employees: Implications for employee attitudes and citizenship behaviors
Berrin Erdogan, Talya N Bauer, and Sully Taylor
Human Relations November 2015, 68(11): 1669‒1691. Published online before print April 28, 2015, doi: 10.1177/0018726714565723
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/68/11/1669?etoc
Abstract
In this article, we examine the implications of perceived management commitment to the ecological environment for employee attitudes and behaviors. Following deontic justice theory, which suggests that individuals are capable of feeling and expressing moral outrage when others are treated poorly, even if such treatment has no direct implications for themselves, we expected that employee attitudes and behaviors would be related to perceived organizational treatment of the environment. At the same time, we expected that these reactions would be moderated by how employees themselves were treated by the organization, in the form of perceived organizational support. In a study of employees and supervisors in a textile firm in Turkey, the results indicate that perceived organizational support moderated the effects of management commitment to the environment on organizational justice, organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors targeting the environment.
The exhausted short-timer: Leveraging autonomy to engage in production deviance
Raenada A Wilson, Sara Jansen Perry, Lawrence Alan Witt, and Rodger W Griffeth
Human Relations November 2015, 68(11): 1693‒1711, first published online before print May 5, 2015, doi: 10.1177/0018726714565703
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/68/11/1693?etoc
Abstract
This article explores the conditions under which autonomy may lead to production deviance (unsanctioned, non-task-focused behavior) rather than acting as a motivational job characteristic. In a study of 260 manual laborers, we applied Conservation of Resources Theory to propose an interaction among autonomy, emotional exhaustion and employment opportunity in predicting production deviance. We suggest that employees who experience emotional exhaustion may leverage autonomy to engage in production deviance in efforts to conserve and protect remaining energy reserves, particularly when they feel they can secure 'better' opportunities than their current job. Results of hierarchical moderated multiple regression analyses revealed that workers reporting high levels of autonomy, emotional exhaustion and employment opportunity also manifested the highest levels of production deviance.
Is non-family social capital also (or especially) important for family firm performance?
Valeriano Sanchez-Famoso, Naveed Akhter, Txomin Iturralde, Francesco Chirico, and Amaia Maseda
Human Relations November 2015, 68(11): 1713‒1743, first published online before print June 29, 2015, doi: 10.1177/0018726714565724
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/68/11/1713?etoc
Abstract
This article reports on a study investigating the effects of both family and non-family social capital on firm performance. Specifically, we contend that non-family social capital has a stronger effect on firm performance than family social capital and it also serves as a mediator between family social capital and firm performance. Using a sample of 172 Spanish family firms that includes two respondents per firm, we test a structural model that confirms our hypotheses. Our results extend the understanding of social capital beyond family firms by exploring both family- and non-family-based social relationships in a context in which social factors are predominant.
Career scripts in clusters: A social position approach
Annick Valette and Jean-Denis Culié
Human Relations November 2015, 68(11): 1745‒1767, first published online before print May 14, 2015, doi: 10.1177/0018726715569515
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/68/11/1745?etoc
Abstract
This article examines the career scripts held by individuals working in clusters by studying the careers seen as desirable and possible by 42 micro-nanotechnology and computer science researchers in the 'Minalogic' cluster, the French equivalent of Silicon Valley. We consider the links between the researchers' career scripts and their social positions and identify six discrete career scripts that we label organizational nomad, entrepreneurial, organizational extension, cloister, escape and conversion. Central social positions in the cluster are linked with boundaryless career scripts (organizational nomad and entrepreneurial scripts), but individuals also use the resources associated with their central social positions to envisage both extending their careers and the range of tasks they undertake (organizational extension script) within their employing organizations. Others − those holding peripheral social positions − may be unable to match the cluster's expectations, and so feel trapped in involuntary immobility (cloister script), constrained to leave the cluster (escape script) or to change their occupations or broaden their skill sets to advance their careers within it (conversion script). Our article goes beyond simply using scripts as descriptions to propose a more comprehensive approach by highlighting the social dimension of career scripts. Our results qualify the supposed predominance of the boundaryless career notion by confronting it with the wider generic notion of the career script, so proposing a more complete description of how a cluster shapes individuals' career definitions and aspirations, as well as a more complex theorization of how those careers are influenced by the cluster context.
Sexual orientation discrimination in the United Kingdom's labour market: A field experiment
Nick Drydakis
Human Relations November 2015, 68(11): 1769‒1796, first published online before print April 8, 2015, doi10.1177/0018726715569855
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/68/11/1769?etoc
Abstract
Deviations from heteronormativity affect labour market dynamics. Hierarchies of sexual orientation can result in job dismissals, wage discrimination and the failure to promote gay and lesbian individuals to top ranks. In this article, I report on a field experiment (144 job-seekers and their correspondence with 5549 firms) that tested the extent to which sexual orientation affects the labour market outcomes of gay and lesbian job-seekers in the United Kingdom. Their minority sexual orientations, as indicated by job-seekers' participation in gay and lesbian university student unions, negatively affected their workplace prospects. The probability of gay or lesbian applicants receiving an invitation for an interview was 5.0 percent (5.1%) lower than that for heterosexual male or female applicants. In addition, gay men and lesbians received invitations for interviews by firms that paid salaries that were 1.9 percent (1.2%) lower than those paid by firms that invited heterosexual male or female applicants for interviews. In addition, in male- or female-dominated occupations, gay men and lesbians received fewer invitations for interviews than their non-gay and non-lesbian counterparts. Furthermore, gay men and lesbians also received fewer invitations to interview for positions in which masculine or feminine personality traits were highlighted in job applications and at firms that did not provide written equal opportunity standards, suggesting that the level of discrimination depends partly on the personality traits that employers seek and on organization-level hiring policies. I conclude that heteronormative discourse continues to reproduce and negatively affect the labour market prospects of gay men and lesbians.
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RECENT ONLINEFIRST PREVIEW ARTICLES
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The labour market for jazz musicians in Paris and London: Formal regulation and informal norms
Charles Umney
Human Relations 0018726715596803, first published on October 26, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726715596803
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/10/24/0018726715596803.abstract
Abstract
This article examines the normative expectations freelance jazz musicians have about the material conditions of live performance work, taking London and Paris as case studies. It shows how price norms constitute an important reference point for individual workers in navigating the labour market. However, only rarely do they take 'stronger' form as a collective demand. Two further arguments are made: first, that the strength of norms varies very widely across labour markets, being much stronger on jobs where other qualitative attractions (such as the scope for creative autonomy) are weak. Second, in the Paris case, an ostensibly solidaristic social insurance mechanism (the Intermittence du Spectacle system) had the seemingly paradoxical effect of further weakening social norms around working conditions. Workers' individual efforts to meet the system's eligibility criteria often disrupted the emergence of collective expectations around pricing, and in some cases the existence of formal regulation itself was stigmatized as stifling creativity.
Rethinking the benefits and pitfalls of leader–member exchange: A reciprocity versus self-protection perspective
Jeremy B Bernerth, H Jack Walker, and Stanley G Harris
Human Relations 0018726715594214, first published on October 26, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726715594214
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/10/24/0018726715594214.abstract
Abstract
Existing literature assumes employees sharing high-quality relationships with supervisors hold advantageous positions over their peers under the leader–member exchange model. We propose environmental conditions limit the generalizability of this logic. Our framework is based on the idea that certain environments threaten the cycle of resource exchange and reciprocity, a foundational assumption in existing leader–member exchange models. To demonstrate this effect, we integrate social exchange and self-regulation theories to define four generalized environmental conditions we label appetitive alignment, appetitive misalignment, aversive misalignment and aversive alignment. We discuss accompanying propositions including both theoretical and practical implications of a contextualized leader-member exchange model to help future researchers anticipate when the benefits associated with high-quality leader–member relations and the pitfalls of low-quality relationships are attenuated by the environment.
Ethos at stake: Performance management and academic work in universities
Kirsi-Mari Kallio, Tomi J Kallio, Janne Tienari, and Timo Hyvönen
Human Relations 0018726715596802, first published on October 26, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726715596802
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/10/24/0018726715596802.abstract
Abstract
Higher education has been subject to substantial reforms as new forms of performance management are implemented in universities across the world. Extant research suggests that in many cases performance management systems have disrupted academic life. We complement this literature with an extensive mixed methods study of how the performance management system is understood by academics across universities and departments in Finland at a time when new management principles and practices are being forcefully introduced. While our survey results enabled us to map the generally critical and negative view that Finnish scholars have of performance management, the qualitative inquiry allowed us to disentangle how and why our respondents resent the ways and means of measuring their work, the assumptions that underlie the measurement, and the university ideal on which the performance management system is rooted. Most significantly, we highlight how the proliferation of performance management can be seen as a catalyst for changing the very ethos of what it is to be an academic and to do academic work.
The cultural grammar of governance: The UK Code of Corporate Governance, reflexivity, and the limits of 'soft' regulation
Jeroen Veldman and Hugh C Willmott
Human Relations 0018726715593160, first published on October 19, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726715593160
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/10/16/0018726715593160.abstract
Abstract
We identify limits of 'reflexive governance' by examining the UK Code of Corporate Governance that is celebrated for its 'reflexivity'. By placing the historical genesis of the Code within its politico-economic context, it is shown how its scope and penetration is impeded by a shallow, 'single loop' of reflexivity. Legitimized by agency theory, the Code is infused by a 'cultural grammar' that perpetuates relations of shareholder primacy as it restricts accountability to narrow forms of information disclosure directed exclusively at shareholders. Engagement of a deeper, 'double loop' reflexivity allows account to be taken of the historical conditions and theoretical conceptions that shape practices and outcomes of corporate governance. Only then is it possible to disclose, challenge and reform narrow conceptions, boundaries and workings of 'reflexive governance'.
Challenge and hindrance stressors and wellbeing-based work–nonwork interference: A diary study of portfolio workers
Stephen J Wood and George Michaelides
Human Relations 0018726715580866, first published on October 15, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726715580866
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/10/14/0018726715580866.abstract
Abstract
Stress-based work–nonwork interference, or negative spillover, is associated with transference of negative emotions from the work to the nonwork domain. It is argued that work–nonwork interference resulting from high work demands does not necessarily entail the reproduction of any affective states. First, calmness can result in lower work–nonwork interference and enthusiasm in higher levels. Second, hindrance stressors can be negatively related to enthusiasm and calmness, while challenge stressors are positively associated with them. Hypotheses about the relationship between stressors and interference that reflect this rationality are developed and tested using longitudinal data from a six-month diary study of portfolio workers. The results offer some support for them and indicate that both challenge and hindrance stressors are positively related to interference. However, for hindrance stressors the indirect effect is positive when mediated by calmness and negative for enthusiasm. In contrast, for challenge stressors the indirect effect is negative when mediated by calmness and positive when mediated by enthusiasm. The mediation paths are significant only for transient effects. Thus, there are indications that well-being can both increase or decrease interference depending on the nature of the stressor and whether it is mediated by calmness or enthusiasm.
Organization at the margins: Subaltern resistance of Singur
Mahuya Pal
Human Relations 0018726715589797, first published on October 15, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726715589797
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/10/14/0018726715589797.abstract
Abstract
Based on fieldwork and subaltern studies as a theoretical framework, this article engages organizational discourses of farmers in Singur, India. Opposing their land grab by the state for a corporate project, the farmers join the global struggle against land acquisition by subaltern communities, a prominent feature of the neoliberal economy. My conversations with the farmers reveal that discourses of violence and non-violence informed their organization of struggle. Further, their organization of resistance emerges as a self-organization, demonstrates the interplay of agency and structure, and follows an ethico-political ideology to challenge the imperial power produced by state-corporate nexus. In particular, cultural value frames of ahimsa (non-violence) and dharma (moral) guide their organizational principles centered on ethical considerations, justice and human dignity. This research brings forth the counter-hegemonic potential of the Singur resistance and suggests its possibilities to contribute to the process of change in the neoliberal economy. Ultimately, the peasant discourses decentralize the ways we think of the world in terms of its forms of organization and its social life in the neoliberal political order, and offer social imaginaries of a politically just society.
The paradox of inclusion and exclusion in membership associations
Nicholas Solebello, Mary Tschirhart, and Jeffrey Leiter
Human Relations 0018726715590166, first published on October 15, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726715590166
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/10/14/0018726715590166.abstract
Abstract
We use interviews and a focus group with leaders of a sample of nonprofit professional and trade membership associations based in the United States to understand what the leaders recognize to be their membership association's diversity challenges and initiatives. We identify incentives, identity and power challenges as fundamental influences on the diversity of potential and existing members. Our analysis reveals a paradox in which attempts to increase the association's inclusiveness are met with countervailing desires to maintain the membership association's exclusiveness. We find that leaders may attempt to manage the paradox through strategies that legitimize diversity initiatives, change the membership association's identity to reflect the valuing of diversity, and take advantage of organizational structures to embed diversity-related practices and accountability. These strategies have been discussed in the diversity management literature but without our paradox perspective. Additionally, paradox literature emphasizes the importance of ambidextrous ('both/and') approaches to paradox management, but these strategies may reflect an 'either/or' approach as leaders push their agenda forward, potentially in direct conflict with the desires of some current members.
Crafting one's leisure time in response to high job strain
Paraskevas Petrou and Arnold B Bakker
Human Relations 0018726715590453, first published on October 12, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726715590453
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/09/30/0018726715590453.abstract
Abstract
The present study addresses employee leisure crafting as the proactive pursuit and enactment of leisure activities targeted at goal setting, human connection, learning and personal development. Study 1 developed a measure for leisure crafting and provided evidence for its reliability and validity. In study 2, we followed 80 employees over the course of three weeks. We hypothesized that weekly leisure crafting would be more likely during weeks of high job strain (i.e. high quantitative job demands and low job autonomy) combined with sufficient autonomy at home, and during weeks of high activity at home (i.e. high quantitative home demands and high home autonomy). Furthermore, we predicted that weekly leisure crafting would relate positively to weekly satisfaction of basic human needs. Results indicated that leisure crafting was pronounced in weeks with high job strain combined with high home autonomy. However, an active home condition (i.e. high home demands and high home autonomy) was unrelated to leisure crafting. Weekly leisure crafting further related positively to weekly satisfaction of relatedness and autonomy (but not competence) needs. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings for the job crafting and leisure literatures.
The social potency of affect: Identification and power in the immanent structuring of practice
Mark Thompson and Hugh Willmott
Human Relations 0018726715593161, first published on October 12, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726715593161
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/09/30/0018726715593161.abstract
Abstract
We address the centrality of affect in structuring social practices, including those of organizing and managing. Social practices, it is argued, are contingent upon actors' affectively charged involvement in immanent, yet indeterminate social relations. To understand this generative involvement, we commend a temporally-sensitive, critically-oriented theoretical framework, grounded in an affect-based ontology of practice. We demonstrate the relevance and credibility of this proposal through an analysis of the interactions of Board members in a UK consulting company.
Best wishes,
Claire Castle
Managing Editor, Human Relations
Email: c.castle@tavinstitute.org
Website: www.humanrelationsjournal.org
OnlineFirst forthcoming articles: http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/recent
Submission guidance: http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/submit_paper.html
2-year impact factor: 2.398 - Ranked: 35/185 in Management and 5/95 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary
5-year impact factor: 3.187 - Ranked: 37/185 in Management and 3/95 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary
Source: 2014 Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters, 2015)