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1 – 10 of over 10000Victoria L. Pace and Jennifer L. Kisamore
To maximize their effectiveness, exit interviews should incorporate employee voice and be aligned with other HR processes. The purpose of this paper is to describe a three-step…
Abstract
Purpose
To maximize their effectiveness, exit interviews should incorporate employee voice and be aligned with other HR processes. The purpose of this paper is to describe a three-step approach to the strategic use of exit interviews.
Design/methodology/approach
The current study synthesizes extant theory including that of employee voice to enhance the exit interview process. A qualitative study conducted within a large marketing research organization demonstrates how exit interviews that utilize employee voice can inform HR and organizational strategy.
Findings
Application of the proposed process to the case study revealed conditions, critical incidents, and cognitive processes underlying exit decisions for employees in several job categories. Qualitative exit information is used to describe corresponding employee withdrawal paths.
Practical implications
Use of the three-step exit interview process is expected to enhance HR decisions. Data gathered from the three-step process can be used by HR and organizational leaders to develop action plans as well as inform an organization’s strategic decisions.
Originality/value
An organizational example is presented in which insight into underlying causes of voluntary turnover are discovered through exit interviews. Exit interview information suggested interventions related to HR processes. Such targeted insights from exit interviews can greatly improve retention and enhance organizational effectiveness.
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Cornelius J. König, Manuela Richter and Isabela Isak
According to previous research, exit interviews do not fulfil the purpose of generating useful feedback from parting employees. According to signaling theory, they might, however…
Abstract
Purpose
According to previous research, exit interviews do not fulfil the purpose of generating useful feedback from parting employees. According to signaling theory, they might, however, serve a different purpose: to leave one last good impression on parting employees, and the aim of this study was to test this.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey was administered to a sample of 164 German employees.
Findings
Consistent with arguments based on signaling theory, those who experienced an exit interview reported more residual affective commitment toward their former employer and less willingness to complain about it, and these effects were mediated by interpersonal fairness perceptions. In addition, the probability of having an exit interview was found to depend on the resignation style of employees.
Research limitations/implications
This new perspective on exit interviews can renew the interest in studying how organizations manage the offboarding process.
Practical implications
This study advises employers to conduct “exit conversations” (as two-way interactions rather than one-way interviews) and to carefully plan the exit phase.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that proposes a signaling theory perspective of exit interviews and that links exit interviews with the literature on resignation styles.
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Melvin R. Weber, Craig Marshall, Sydney Pons and Ruth Annette Smith
The purpose of this research is two-fold: first, the researchers will create a reliable and valid hospitality senior exit survey by conducting a Delphi panel of experts and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is two-fold: first, the researchers will create a reliable and valid hospitality senior exit survey by conducting a Delphi panel of experts and second, the researchers will pilot-test the instrument with students from a four-year university. The data will be (a) assessed to determine the retention of knowledge by four-year students, (b) used by academicians to make changes to course material and (c) used to help with the accreditation assessment process.
Design/methodology/approach
A Delphi panel of hospitality educators was used to validate the items, and graduating hospitality students were used to calculate reliability.
Findings
By embracing the hospitality exit survey (HES), institutions can effectively evaluate and enhance their programs. With its ability to gauge students' knowledge retention, the study findings serve as a powerful tool for shaping the future of hospitality education.
Research limitations/implications
The study's findings might be somewhat limited in representing a broader range of perspectives within hospitality programs. Another limitation stems from the structure of the survey itself. The survey included numerous items requiring two inputs for each item. This format has the potential to introduce certain biases among participants.
Practical implications
In a positive statement, organizations can use this information to discover why employees stay and then continue to develop goals/strategies to ensure this process stays up to date. Academia is no different. Academia also wants to produce the best product, and since the students are to become the next set of leaders, these programs need to know what is successful and what needs to be adjusted.
Social implications
A strategic exit interview program should 1)Uncover issues relating to human resources/students; 2) understand employees'/students' perception of the work; 3) managers'/directors' leadership style and effectiveness; 4) human resource/college/departments benchmarks and 5) improve the organization.
Originality/value
This research holds significant importance as it focuses on developing the senior HES and its potential utilization within hospitality programs. The HES serves as a valuable tool for these programs to evaluate the knowledge levels of their graduating students and collect data necessary for assessment and accreditation purposes.
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Neelu Puri, Anil Gupta, Arun K. Aggarwal and Vipin Kaushal
Outpatient departments (OPDs) need to monitor the quality of care and patient satisfaction for continuous quality improvement. Additionally, there is a need for an increase in…
Abstract
Purpose
Outpatient departments (OPDs) need to monitor the quality of care and patient satisfaction for continuous quality improvement. Additionally, there is a need for an increase in focused literature on patient satisfaction and quality of health care at a tertiary care level. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to fulfil this need.
Design/methodology/approach
A cross‐sectional hospital‐based study among OPD patients was undertaken, where investigators conducted interviews with 120 patients at entry (registration), 120 patients at the OPD clinic (60 doctor‐patient interactions and 60 exit interviews), and a further 120 patients at investigation facilities. Patient satisfaction, client convenience facilities, prescription quality, doctor‐patient interaction and other quality elements as described in the study were given score of 0 or 1.
Findings
At exit, 52 (86.6 percent) patients were satisfied with the OPD care. The mean total quality score was 80.9 percent of the total scores. It was above 90 percent of the total score for patient convenience facilities and for doctor‐patient interaction, 76 percent for the prescription quality of the doctors and 43.3 percent for signage display. The mean score for patient‐doctor interaction was found to be significantly lower (3.6/5) among dissatisfied patients compared to the satisfied patients (4.7/5). Satisfied patients reported a significantly higher consultation time (12.4 minutes) with a doctor compared to dissatisfied patients (8.5 minutes) (p=0.04).
Research limitations/implications
Not using a Likert scale to measure patient satisfaction could be considered a limitation. However, the authors also arrived at similar conclusions with their tools as with the use of Likert scales in other studies. Furthermore, findings are limited to medicine and surgery general OPDs in a tertiary care setting. Any interpretation beyond this frame may be done with caution.
Practical implications
Hospitals should encourage good patient‐doctor interaction as it has emerged as the key factor associated with patient satisfaction.
Social implications
Quality improvements in public sector health institutes can lead to better utilization of health care by the poor and compromised sections of society and can lead to a reduction in the inequity associated with health care.
Originality/value
This paper fulfils the need to evaluate quality of hospital care in public sector hospitals at the tertiary care level. The methods and tools used are simple and extensive enough to capture information at multiple service points.
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Terrence E. Deal, Devorah Lieberman and Jack Wayne Meek
The purpose of the paper is to address the following question: What can novels reveal about what leadership nonfiction sources miss or obscure?
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to address the following question: What can novels reveal about what leadership nonfiction sources miss or obscure?
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reviews the benefits that are derived from the use of literature in the examination of leadership, compares and contrasts three novel experiments in the examination of literature and leadership, and examines the impact of one approach as reflected in student assignments and exit interviews.
Findings
Student reflection papers morphed from descriptive reviews to reflections expressed through poetry, artwork and personal experiences. Students also deepened their views on what leadership is and means. Exit interviews revealed student significant reflection on personal views in a number of areas. The longitudinal follow up of students expanded their flexibility and ability to listen and understand how and why people approach leadership in different ways. They also felt it increased their openness to new or different approaches and encouraged them to think more independently.
Practical implications
One implication of the approach of this class is how the authors embraced questions to guide the students and faculty. Instead of listing topics and assigning categorical meaning, the approach of the class was organized around questions, such as, “is leadership real or imagined? Am I ready to take responsibility?
Social implications
The power of storytelling is unmistakable. The value of storytelling is that it allows the reader to escape from the day-to-day challenges we face to find how others are facing challenges sometimes very similar to our own.
Originality/value
The article compares and contracts three experiments in the examination of literature and leadership. The paper then examines one approach to literature and leadership in terms of the impact on students (papers, exit interview and longitudinal follow-up). Findings are assessed with the works of Gardner, Bennis and Hartley stressing the possibilities of storytelling as a unique approach to studying and practicing leadership.
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This paper aims to evaluate a range of best practice knowledge management (KM) ideas used to manage knowledge resources. In total, four KM toolkits and 16 KM tools were tested…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to evaluate a range of best practice knowledge management (KM) ideas used to manage knowledge resources. In total, four KM toolkits and 16 KM tools were tested over a five-year period (2008-2013), as part of a large-scale longitudinal change project. Each tool was assessed against an evaluative framework designed to test criticisms of KM: strategy, implementation and performance. The results provide empirical evidence about which KM tools work and which do not and why, and outcomes for practitioners, researchers and consultants.
Design/methodology/approach
The case study organization participating in the study was selected because it was a knowledge-intensive organization, with an ageing workforce. An invitation and cover letter explaining the study were sent via email to all 150 engineering and technical staff at the case study organization. Therefore, the entire population was included in the study. Respondents were asked to attend training workshops. Following each workshop, respondents were asked to complete feedback in the form of learning journals and to be involved in work-place based trials of the KM tools. Both management and staff participated in the project.
Findings
The results provide empirical evidence that KM can be used to manage knowledge resources. The highest rating toolkit was knowledge strategy, followed by knowledge measurement. The most value was created by using KM to introduce objectivity into future thinking (future capability requirements) and decisions when filling competency gaps (sourcing). The results tended to support criticism that KM is difficult to implement and identified the main barriers as participation located at the operational action research level, i.e. how do we make this work? Evidence that KM works was found in progress towards learning organization capacity and in practical outcomes.
Research limitations/implications
The action research cycle and learning flows provide opportunities to examine barriers to KM implementation. The research also presents opportunities for further research to examine the findings in other organizational and industry settings, for example, the relationship between the KM toolkits and organizational change and performance, presents an important area for further research. Researchers might also consider some of the toolkits which rated poorly, e.g. knowledge creation (KC), and challenge these findings, perhaps selecting different KC tools for testing. The paper has limitations. It is based on a single case study organization, offset, to some degree, by the longitudinal nature of the empirical evidence. It is ambitious, and the findings may be controversial. However, the depth of the study and its findings provide rare longitudinal empirical evidence about KM, and the results should be useful for practitioners, researchers and consultants.
Practical implications
There are many critics of KM. It has been described as overwhelmingly optimistic and managerial rhetoric; that its claims are false; and that many KM initiatives fail and, therefore, it does not create value for the firm, and its return on investment is unlikely. There is a shortage of empirical studies demonstrating an actual connection between KM and organizational performance. Despite widespread interest and growth in investment by practitioners and growth in research, KM needs validation to give people confidence in its value and some of the problems associated with implementation. This paper provides rare empirical evidence gathered from a five-year (2008-2013) large-scale longitudinal change project to address this gap. For practitioners, the research findings provide management with an evaluative framework to use when making decisions regarding KM.
Originality/value
Much of the previous research on this topic looks at specific KM tools only, and often at one point in time. This study examined a wide range of best-practice KM tools as part of an integrated set of KM systems, launched at the same time and studied over five years. The study did not examine what the case study does in terms of KM. Instead, it deliberately introduced tools which were new to the case study organization. The results provide practical outcomes in terms of the effectiveness of KM when introduced to an organization as a system of integrated tools, and what happens in the five years that follow.
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The purpose of this paper is to propose a shift in emphasis from gender differences to gender similarities in the explanations of the findings of future gender in management…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose a shift in emphasis from gender differences to gender similarities in the explanations of the findings of future gender in management research. The results from a study in a major Australian bank help build the case. Such a focus on gender similarities (FGS) hopefully will bring about positive organizational change that might stimulate an increase in women's representation in senior management in the future.
Design/methodology/approach
To make a case for the proposed FGS approach the paper uses results from a survey of 178 senior managers and interviews with 14 executives in one Australian bank. The paper draws on the masculine culture and organizational silence literatures to explain how women and men in senior management can have similar work experiences and hold similar views of their organizations.
Findings
The paper finds that male and female respondents held similarly unfavorable views of the organization's culture, but men felt constrained in raising concerns. Most executives would welcome a change of culture.
Research limitations/implications
The research study in banking is included specifically to show how the proposed FGS approach works in gender in management research. A limitation of the study is the small interview sample. The finding on men's silence is particularly pertinent to the argument for organizational change that benefits the whole organization, not just women.
Practical implications
The FGS approach broadens the appeal of change for organizations. For example, by applying the FGS approach to the study in banking, the principal message for organizations would be that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the outdated command‐and control management style, extremely long hours, and lack of work‐life balance. Organizations are more likely to address findings of “widespread dissatisfaction” than of dissatisfaction in a section of the workforce (e.g. women).
Originality/value
The recognition that a shift in the approach to the study of gender in management is needed to stimulate organizational change that might increase women's representation in senior management. The study shows how men will also benefit from this shift in emphasis, because the explanations and recommendations emanating from future research using the FGS approach will give men a much needed voice to raise issues that are similar to those raised by their female colleagues.
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Paul Johnson and John Corcoran
The Manpower Consultative Group for the Hotel and Catering Industry has for the last 18 months shown a serious concern for the critical manpower situation faced by that industry…
Abstract
The Manpower Consultative Group for the Hotel and Catering Industry has for the last 18 months shown a serious concern for the critical manpower situation faced by that industry. The Group's Chairman, in a recent statement entitled ‘Manpower weaknesses hamper industry's efficiency and restrict its growth’ drew attention to the achievements of the Group and to a number of important studies due to be reported this year:
Two things happen every time an employee retires, is made redundant or leaves to join another company. The experience acquired at the company’s considerable expense literally…
Abstract
Two things happen every time an employee retires, is made redundant or leaves to join another company. The experience acquired at the company’s considerable expense literally walks out of the door and the company has to replace the individual, often from outside. For organizations, job change, which has always been continuous, has been accelerating over the past decade as individuals switch their employer every six years. Even though most professionally managed companies run induction courses, most new managers will readily admit that the components that most inhibit their early passage to full productivity relate to understanding and accommodating their new employer’s individual corporate culture, management and communication styles, and the detail of recent events. Because of the difficulties of imparting such information, companies generally leave individuals to assimilate these intangibles as best they can, usually by osmosis. The evidence suggests that it can take 12 months ‐ and often much longer ‐ to become fully productive. Lack of continuity has an insidious effect on productivity and competitiveness. Outlines a cost‐effective solution to high job mobility.
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Ana Roque, José Manuel Moreira, José Dias Figueiredo, Rosana Albuquerque and Helena Gonçalves
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the relaxion on what can be done to develop ethical cultures that may be less permeable and more resilient to changes in leadership…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the relaxion on what can be done to develop ethical cultures that may be less permeable and more resilient to changes in leadership from an ethical point of view. The influence of leaders on organisational ethics is recognised, and there are even those who consider that it is not possible to maintain an ethical culture when leaders are not engaged. But, if this theory is true, all business ethics programmes that can be created, and the cultures that can gradually be developed in organisations, will always have their existence and robustness suspended at each leadership change. How to maintain an ethical culture beyond leadership?
Design/methodology/approach
As a strategy, we used the case study with a narrative methodology, in which a chief executive officer (CEO) and a chief compliance officer (CCO) narrate in the first person a case of perceived collapse of the ethical culture of a multinational company.
Findings
The findings point to the difficulty in maintaining ethical leadership. Key aspects to protect an organization from leadership changes are as follows: the management of the succession process, the quality of the training on ethics and the mechanisms developed by the organization to foment speak up and take notice of the situations. Moral blindness and the banality of evil that also can be observed in organizations appear as facilitating elements for collapse.
Originality/value
Ethical leadership is generally presented as a necessary condition for an ethical culture. However, leaders often have unethical or ethically neutral leadership. This case helps to understand the difficulties experienced by leaders in adopting ethical leadership and proposes a set of instruments and procedures that, when included in an ethical programme, can protect the company's ethical culture against unethical leaders. Some characteristics of our case study make it particularly relevant: action occurs in a multinational, a context where, by size and complexity, achieving uniformity in culture becomes particularly relevant, and actions happen in the context of a CEO succession process, something that may occur in any company and which is often a trigger for ethical misconducts. Additionally, our case is narrated by a CEO and a CCO, which makes it rare, as it is especially difficult to have access to these executives.
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