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1 – 7 of 7Building on the institutional theory perspective on corporate governance change and based on interviews with investor relations (IR) managers in large Japanese companies, this…
Abstract
Purpose
Building on the institutional theory perspective on corporate governance change and based on interviews with investor relations (IR) managers in large Japanese companies, this study aims to examine Japanese IR managers’ perceptions of the influence of foreign shareholders on Japan’s corporate governance reform and stakeholder-based system. The paper examines tensions, conflicts and collaborations among different stakeholders involved in corporate governance changes in Japan, especially in the areas of firm ownership, employment relations and boards of directors. The paper explains why convergence does not happen in some large Japanese companies by investigating Japanese managers’ responses to and perceptions of foreign shareholders in multiple corporate contexts.
Design/methodology/approach
The author conducted in-depth interviews with ten IR managers at large, listed Japanese companies in Kyoto and Tokyo and two managers at foreign investment banks in Tokyo, between 2018 and 2021.
Findings
This paper explores five themes that emerged from my interviews: Chief executive officers’ (CEOs’) mixed perceptions of foreign investors, the effectiveness of CEO compensation and outside directors, managers’ reluctance to accept stock price-driven business strategies, foreign investors’ engagement vs investments in index funds and gender patterns, including the effectiveness of token female outside directors. The Japanese companies the author looked at incorporated foreign shareholders as consultants and adopted a few major shareholder-based customs, such as CEOs communicating with investors, having outside directors, increasing CEO compensation and slimming down unprofitable parts of the business via restructuring and downsizing. Simultaneously, they resisted a few major shareholder-based practices. Foreign shareholders’ pressure revealed tensions and contradictions between the Japanese stakeholder system and shareholder primacy-based customs.
Originality/value
This paper is one of the few qualitative studies that explores Japanese IR managers’ responses to and perceptions of foreign shareholders in corporate governance reform, with a particular focus on ownership, employment relations and board members. This paper provides examples of tension, conflict and cooperation between Japanese managers and foreign investors, as seen through the eyes of Japanese IR managers. Examining changes in Japan’s stakeholder-based system of corporate governance reform enables us to better understand the processes by which, with vigorous pressure from government and foreign shareholders, a non-western country like Japan may adopt shareholder-based customs and how such a change may also lead to institutional changes.
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Cara-Lynn Scheuer, Catherine Loughlin, Dianne Ford and Dennis Edwards
Successful knowledge transfer (KT) between younger and older workers (YW and OW, respectively) is critical for organizational success, especially in light of the recent surge in…
Abstract
Purpose
Successful knowledge transfer (KT) between younger and older workers (YW and OW, respectively) is critical for organizational success, especially in light of the recent surge in employment volatility among the youngest and oldest segments of the workforce. Yet, practitioners and scholars alike continue to struggle with knowing how best to facilitate these exchanges. The qualitative study offers insight into this phenomenon by exploring how KT unfolds in YW/OW dyads.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors performed a reflexive thematic analysis of semistructured interviews with two samples of blue- and white-collar younger/older workers from the USA (N = 40), whereby the authors interpreted the “lived experiences” of these workers when engaged in interdependent tasks.
Findings
The analysis, informed by social exchange theory and exchange theories of aging, led to the development of the knowledge transfer process model in younger/older worker dyads (KT-YOD). The model illustrates that, through different combinations of competence and humility, KT success is experienced either directly (by workers weighing the perceived benefits versus costs of KT) and/or indirectly (through different bases of trust/distrust perceived within their dyads). Further, humility in dyads appears to be necessary for KT success, while competence was insufficient for realizing KT success, independently.
Originality/value
In exposing new inner workings of the KT process in YW/OW dyads, the study introduces the importance of humility and brings scholars and organizations a step closer toward realizing the benefits of age diversity in their workplaces.
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Tine Buffel, Patty Doran, Mhorag Goff, Luciana Lang, Camilla Lewis, Chris Phillipson and Sophie Yarker
This paper aims to explore the social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on issues facing older people living in urban areas characterised by multiple deprivation.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on issues facing older people living in urban areas characterised by multiple deprivation.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper first reviews the role of place and neighbourhood in later life; second, it examines the relationship between neighbourhood deprivation and the impact of COVID-19; and, third, it outlines the basis for an “age-friendly” recovery strategy.
Findings
The paper argues that COVID-19 is having a disproportionate impact on low-income communities, which have already been affected by cuts to public services, the loss of social infrastructure and pressures on the voluntary sector. It highlights the need for community-based interventions to be developed as an essential part of future policies designed to tackle the effects of COVID-19.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to debates about developing COVID-19 recovery strategies in the context of growing inequalities affecting urban neighbourhoods.
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The purpose of this paper is to pinpoint some key variables that help shape the notion of older workers as a source of organizational wisdom capital.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to pinpoint some key variables that help shape the notion of older workers as a source of organizational wisdom capital.
Design/methodology/approach
Toward that end, the paper reviews a selective bibliography in order to support its arguments.
Findings
The evidence garnered throughout this paper – fundamentally through different lens of analysis – suggests that older workers may be considered as valuable assets. Furthermore, a sizeable number of members of this cohort continue, even in the latter stages of their careers, to be willing, well-equipped, and able to enhance, if properly utilized, companies to achieve other patterns of performance. Accordingly, it is advocated here that their knowledge and expertise constitutes an authentic source of organizational wisdom capital that deserves careful attention from organizations to maintain by means of suitable incentives and training.
Research limitations/implications
This paper highlights other aspects that should not be disdained by organizations such as career-ending, work characteristics, and mastery-avoidance goals. Thus, companies that are interested in keeping older talents must be attuned to their wishes and aspirations, as well as being proactive by offering tailor-made job-products to them.
Social implications
Given the trend of aging workforce, it is likely that organizations will be increasingly impacted by societal demands and public policies toward benefiting and respecting older talents.
Originality/value
This paper advocates that older workers are usually living memories of organizational life. Rather, they tend to keep in their minds those failures and successful ideas, projects, initiatives, and leaderships, which added or not value throughout their trajectories, as well as things that worked out or not. Fundamentally, they are able to provide answers to vital questions.
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Ewa Soja and Piotr Soja
Adaptation to the requirements of digital economy is especially difficult for older workers, which is a challenge for today’s organizations due to workforce shrinking and ageing…
Abstract
Purpose
Adaptation to the requirements of digital economy is especially difficult for older workers, which is a challenge for today’s organizations due to workforce shrinking and ageing. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how it is possible to develop older employees’ potential in technology use in the business environment.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors examined how employees at various age perceive barriers during enterprise system (ES) adoption and use. This exploratory study is based on grounded theory and draws from the opinions of 187 Polish ES practitioners.
Findings
With age, emphasis on employees’ perception of mandatory ICT implementation projects is shifting from technology to people-related considerations. For older employees, job security and workload appear the most critical issues in such projects. Age-diverse collaboration appears necessary to address the problems posed by technology-related and demographic changes.
Research limitations/implications
The findings imply that incorporating multiple stakeholder perspectives and age-related considerations into research on ICT adoption appears essential.
Practical implications
ICT adoption in the business environment can be successfully supported by age-balanced team building, cooperation between younger and older employees, and age-adjusted change management initiatives.
Social implications
Supporting older employees during the implementation of mandatory business software should embrace reducing their negative attitudes to ICT-induced change by minimizing their perception of job insecurity.
Originality/value
Unlike many prior studies, the current research places age in the central role and discusses not only how it is possible to support older employees, but also how to leverage their potential in the process of ICT adoption and use in a mandatory setting.
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Hendrik P. van Dalen and Kène Henkens
The purpose of this paper is to see whether attitudes toward older workers by managers change over time and what might explain development over time.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to see whether attitudes toward older workers by managers change over time and what might explain development over time.
Design/methodology/approach
A unique panel study of Dutch managers is used to track the development of their attitudes toward older workers over time (2010–2013) by focusing on a set of qualities of older workers aged 50 and older. A conditional change model is used to explain the variation in changes by focusing on characteristics of the manager (age, education, gender, tenure and contact with older workers) and of the firm (composition staff, type of work and sector, size).
Findings
Managers have significantly adjusted their views on the so-called “soft skills” of older workers, like reliability and loyalty. Attitudes toward “hard skills” – like physical stamina, new tech skills and willingness to train – have not changed. Important drivers behind these changes are the age of the manager – the older the manager, the more likely a positive change in attitude toward older workers can be observed – and the change in the quality of contact with older workers. A deterioration of the managers’ relationship with older workers tends to correspond with a decline in their assessment of soft and hard skills.
Social implications
Attitudes are not very susceptible to change but this study shows that a significant change can be expected simply from the fact that managers age: older managers tend to have a more positive assessment of the hard and soft skills of older workers than young managers.
Originality/value
This paper offers novel insights into the question whether stereotypes of managers change over time.
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Rita Rueff-Lopes, Ferran Velasco, Josep Sayeras and Ana Junça-Silva
Generation Y early-career workers have the highest turnover rates ever seen. To better understand this phenomenon, this study combines the P-O values fit with the Cohort…
Abstract
Purpose
Generation Y early-career workers have the highest turnover rates ever seen. To better understand this phenomenon, this study combines the P-O values fit with the Cohort perspectives to (1) identify the work-related values of this generation, (2) explore the relation between values and turnover intentions and examine how the field of study influences this relationship and (3) verify if the turnover intentions materialized one year after the first data collection.
Design/methodology/approach
We interviewed 71 early-career workers and applied thematic analysis to identify the value categories. A classification decision tree tested whether the field of study influences the relation between values and turnover intentions. A post-test was conducted to determine whether the reported turnover intentions were materialized one year later.
Findings
Thematic analysis yielded 285 themes that were grouped into 12 values’ categories. Decision trees revealed that the combination of values that most predicted turnover was substantially different between Finance graduates (more instrumental and future-oriented values) and Innovation and Entrepreneurship graduates (more social and job-oriented values). The post-test confirmed that the number of respondents who reported an intention to quit their jobs during the interview with us and did quit one year later was statistically significant.
Originality/value
To our knowledge, this is the first study that uses critical incident interviews to explore the work-related values of this specific cohort and their relation to turnover. Our findings on the moderating effects of the field of study are unprecedented. We also identified three new work-value categories, and, to our knowledge, this is the first study that used decision trees to explore the relation between values and turnover.
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