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In the past few years, many Australian organisations have either undergone or been planning a change from a hierarchical bureaucratic culture to a team‐based one. Much faith in the potential success of this kind of change appears to have been based on stories of transformations which worked well in overseas organisations, notably Japanese and American companies. One important issue for Australian organisational leaders was to come to terms with how the cultures of local and overseas companies were similar to or different from each other. For example, if the value systems of both local and overseas organisations tended to converge rather than diverge, the probability of developing a team‐based culture in Australian companies was relatively high. This paper critically examines stories of Australian organisations which are moving to a team‐based culture, from an adult communication management perspective. In particular, the paper aims to identify communication management variables which contribute to the successful implementation of teams in those organisations. Finally, conclusions and implications are drawn for maintaining high performance in team‐based organisations through effective communication management practices. ‘The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order’ — Alfred North Whitehead.

With the increasing dependence on the Chinese market, Chinese subsidiary managers rather than Western managers in the headquarters take responsibility for the overall success of the multinational company (MNC). This paper aims to argue that Chinese managers need to actively interfere to guarantee the survival of the MNC. Transaction analysis is suggested as a tool to rebalance the relationship.

Based on illustrative material and experience cases, the authors highlight why and how Chinese subsidiary managers have to engage in interference management.

Introducing different strategies within transaction analysis shows how Western managers can deal with Chinese interference management to improve relationships.

With the use of transaction analysis, Western managers can verify their communication strategies and behavior to better relate to Chinese subsidiaries on an “adult” level.

Interference management is based on counterintuitive thought that Chinese subsidiary managers rather than headquarters become responsible for the overall success of the MNC. Transaction analysis is used to uncover hidden assumptions, communication strategies and behavior in headquarters–subsidiary relationships.

The purpose of this study aims to investigate the independent and combined moderating effects of social sharing and rumination on the relationship between customer aggression and service sabotage.

Two samples of service providers were recruited: a sample of face-to-face service employees from various organizations (N = 481) and a sample of call center employees (N = 122). Data were collected using self-reported questionnaires and the research hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression analyses.

The impact of customer aggression on service sabotage was exacerbated by rumination in Sample 1 and although failing to reach significance (0.08), the same pattern of interaction was observed in Sample 2. The results lend support to the existence of a three-way interaction effect between customer aggression, social sharing and rumination. Specifically, the positive relationship between customer aggression and service sabotage was stronger for employees who reported high levels of both social sharing and rumination compared to employees who reported high levels of social sharing but low levels of rumination.

Implementing stress-management training intended to help service employees avoid using maladaptive coping strategies when confronted with mistreatment can serve to reduce employees’ engagement in retaliatory behaviors directed against customers.

The study’s findings provide one potential explanation for the mixed findings in the literature on social sharing and suggest that sharing of emotions for coping with customer aggression may become a maladaptive strategy for individuals who tend to engage in ruminative thinking whereas it may be a helpful coping choice for individuals who do not.

The purpose of this empirical study is to explore the drivers and effects of a multidimensional conceptualization of burnout for information technology (IT) personnel using the job demands-resources framework.

Using survey data from 247 IT professionals, the authors analyzed our model using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), a composite-based method.

The authors find that job demands and job resources differently influence the dimensions of burnout, and the burnout dimensions influenced turnover intention (leave the organization) and turnaway intention (leave the field) except for cynicism, which did not affect turnover intention. The authors’ findings suggest that managers and human resource professionals may want to look beyond managing work exhaustion and consider focusing on the professional efficacy dimension of burnout to keep their IT professionals from leaving the organization and the IT industry.

This study highlights the need for researchers in the information systems field to rethink using exhaustion as a proxy for the burnout construct as focusing on work exhaustion does not tell the full story for IT professionals. Additionally, the findings indicate that job-related burnout affects not only IT professional's turnover intention but also turnaway intention. Last, psychosocial mentoring did not directly influence any of the burnout components but indirectly influenced all three components.

Planning is a perennially popular management tool with an ambiguous relationship to learning and performance. The purpose of this study attempts to resolve this ambiguity. The authors suggest that the critical question is not whether firms need learning for planning to influence performance, but when different firms experience different performance outcomes. The authors propose firms will benefit from strategic planning only when they learn from planning and have the resources to act on their learning.

The authors collected data from a survey of 293 individuals from 191 publicly listed US firms.

Organizational learning mediates the relations between strategic planning and organizational performance. This mediated relationship is positively moderated by high levels of human resource slack and moderate to high levels of financial slack.

The study provides evidence for previous theoretical arguments on the planning–learning relationship while extending this research by finding a complicated moderating effect of slack. The study also adds to the existing debate on optimal slack levels by suggesting that having bundles of slack resources may matter more than having uniformly high or low levels of slack. A cross-sectional study means the authors cannot infer causation.

While strategic planning is a common practice, companies may vary in their planning methodologies, influencing the outcomes of planning. Firms seeking to benefit from planning need to have both the mechanisms to learn from planning and slack to deploy these mechanisms.

These findings clarify the planning–learning–performance relationship while challenging the assumption of an average effect of planning on performance across firms.

Discusses strategies for implementing modern knowledge management curricula in academic programs for adult professionals. References the perspectives of multidisciplinary curricula covering information and society; multimedia and hypermedia; electronic information design and presentation; and infrastructure development and implementation. The analysis assumes the increasing involvement of highly trained professionals in adult education programs; the continuing growth of corporate universities in scope and breadth; the integration of corporate programs with traditional colleges and universities; and the increasing use of the Internet as a mechanism to coordinate, supplement, support, and integrate learning experiences. Advances historical and pedagogical methodologies as a means to provide perspective and structure for program development and future research. References an information technology (IT) program for mid‐career information managers in Northern California and serving the high‐technology area known as Silicon Valley.

Public relations (PR) research has given little space to the opinions, innovations and experiences of those working in marginalised or ‘dirty’ roles or occupations. To ensure that the worlds of these ‘others’ are represented this chapter explores the lives and work of women working in PR and communication roles in the ‘adult’ industry (worth an estimated $15 billion worldwide). Tibbals notes that ‘the voices and experiences of women working in the adult film industry are often overlooked’ (2013, p. 21) and dismissing a highly profitable but ‘dirty’ sector is to overlook and denigrate the people who work in it and the experiences and knowledge created therein. To explore my research questions I gathered informal interview data from women working in PR and combined this with published literature which recorded the lives of women who carried out PR and communications roles in the adult industry. My research demonstrates that high quality PR work is carried out within the adult industry and that the industry attracts women from diverse backgrounds, many of whom progress quickly within a meritorious environment. Nonetheless, these women often feel difficulty in explaining or justifying their work to family and friends and have strategies to avoid discussing their work to those outside the industry. They also have to work within a media environment where adult industry issues are not well or correctly reported.

In today’s aging world online communication is often viewed as a means to enhance social connectivity, and therefore well-being, of older adults. However, previous research on the influence of online communication on social connectivity largely disregards older adults, yields conflicting results and fails to assess the – debatable − causal direction of relationship. The purpose of this paper is to overcome these issues by developing four hypotheses related to who uses what, how, with whom.

The authors use a panel data study to test the hypotheses, including 302 older adults. Response rates are between 62 and 75 percent.

The authors find, first, that older adults differentiate between social connectivity with other village members, i.e., village connectivity, and connectivity with friends. Second, the impact of online communication varies among these two types of social connectivity. Where e-mail use has a negative impact on village connectivity, it does not affect connectivity with friends. Facebook use on the other hand has a negative impact on connectivity with friends, but not on village connectivity. The negative effects were not found among those older adults that were already well-connected on forehand, indicating a buffer effect.

Policy makers’ implementing online communication tools to strengthen social connectivity of older adults, may want to carefully select tools based on the type of connectivity they aim to enhance. Impact needs to be monitored.

The authors contribute by analyzing how characteristics of online communication tools, i.e., information richness and privacy protection, as well as social connectivity, i.e., geographical proximity and emotional closeness jointly shape older adults’ social connectivity.

Over one million individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) will be entering adulthood and attempting to cultivate fulfilling, meaningful life experiences. These young adults with ASD represent Generation A. The workplace will be a major element in cultivating fulfilling lives for Generation A. Social interaction is an integral component for functioning within most postsecondary and occupational settings. It is necessary to understand the interaction between autistic adults and organizations to understand potential social and behavioral deficits. The workplace is inherently a social place. Understanding both formal and informal social information in the workplace may be critical to successful job performance. Fit, particularly person–organization fit, is used to address this social nature of the workplace. Understanding this interaction helps provide a means for crafting both individual and organizational interventions which support autistic adults in the workplace. This chapter provides an analysis of interventions that support those with ASD in the workplace. It is proposed that these interventions will help create a more supportive work environment for those with ASD. As important, it is proposed that the accommodations for those with ASD are reasonable for any organization seeking to improve both satisfaction and performance for all its employees. By addressing these issues, organizations have the potential to create a more satisfying workplace for all workers, not just those in Generation A.