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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of staffing levels (one or two staff) on the amount of assistance provided to residents in one group home, and associated levels of resident engagement in activities prior to and following the implementation of active support.

Data on staff assistance and resident engagement were gathered by direct observation across six pre‐test and post‐test 80‐minute sessions, using palmtop computers. Percentage of all non‐overlapping data, an index of effect size, was used to analyse these data.

There was no clear benefit from additional staffing prior to active support training, in terms of staff assistance or resident engagement in activity. However, at post‐test, having two staff yielded increased staff assistance, but with limited evidence of increased resident engagement, despite more continuous staff assistance.

This is the first active support study to examine the impact of staffing levels on resident engagement and staff assistance. Implications for service management and research are presented.

The author argues that we must stop and take a look at what our insistence on human labour as the basis of our society is doing to us, and begin to search for possible alternatives. We need the vision and the courage to aim for the highest level of technology attainable for the widest possible use in both industry and services. We need financial arrangements that will encourage people to invent themselves out of work. Our goal, the article argues, must be the reduction of human labour to the greatest extent possible, to free people for more enjoyable, creative, human activities.

The purpose of this paper is to reconcile various theoretical directions in employee engagement with self-determination theory (SDT) as a unifying framework and introduce an inter-disciplinary employee engagement economics model based on SDT.

Two studies were conducted applying a T1/T2 intervention study design. Study 1 examined the causal relationship between an organizational intervention and employee engagement with n=367 employees from a European pharmaceuticals company using both survey and actual performance data. Study 1 results were used as input data for study 2 which tested the employee engagement economics model by calculating the pre-/post-economic value added and return on investment (ROI) for the intervention.

Study 1 results showed a significant positive impact of the SDT-based intervention on both self-reported and actual employee engagement. Study 2 converted study findings into pre-/post-economic considerations putting an economic dollar value on achieved employee engagement gains and calculating an ROI in relation to the cost incurred.

The present results support SDT as a unifying theory for employee engagement and the proposed employee engagement economics model as strategic decision-making tool for planning and evaluating the economics of employee engagement interventions.

This research supports a shift in corporate focus from “people as cost” to “people as values” proposing a systematic, value-based, strategic management approach to employee engagement based on cost-benefit analysis.

This is the first research to contribute an empirical economic model for employee engagement interventions to literature. It is based on the first reconciliation of engagement literature identifying SDT as a unifying framework. Finally, for the first time, this work identifies subjective vitality as a measure for engagement and contributes a definition for disengagement to literature.

This study investigated employee cynicism and workplace ostracism as pathways through which perceived organizational politics (POPs) is related to counterproductive work behavior (CWB) targeted at individual coworkers (CWB-I) and the organization (CWB-O).

Data were collected from 794 university employees in Southeastern, Nigeria at three-point of measurements.

Results of the Structural Equation Modelling showed that POPs positively predicted CWB-I but did not predict CWB-O directly. POPs positively predicted both employee cynicism and workplace ostracism. Employee cynicism did not predict CWB-I and CWB-O, but workplace ostracism positively predicted both CWB-I and CWB-O. Moreover, whilst POPs did not predict both CWB-I and CWB-O through employee cynicism; workplace ostracism partially mediated the relationship between POPs and the two dimensions of CWB.

The relationship between POPs and CWB has been documented in the literature, but whether affect-laden processes (employee cynicism and workplace ostracism) explain this relationship is new. Conducting the study in a context previously neglected extended our understanding of the indirect relationship between POPs and CWB.

The concept and practice of e-services has become essential in business transactions. Yet there are still many organizations that have not developed e-services optimally. This is especially relevant in the context of Indonesian Airline companies. Therefore, many airline customers in Indonesia are still in doubt about it, or even do not use it. To fill this gap, this study attempts to develop a model for e-services adoption and empirically examines the factors influencing the airlines customers in Indonesia in using e-services offered by the Indonesian airline companies. Taking six Indonesian airline companies as a case example, the study investigated the antecedents of e-services usage of Indonesian airlines. This study further examined the impacts of motivation on customers in using e-services in the Indonesian context. Another important aim of this study was to investigate how ages, experiences and geographical areas moderate effects of e-services usage.

The study adopts a positivist research paradigm with a two-phase sequential mixed method design involving qualitative and quantitative approaches. An initial research model was first developed based on an extensive literature review, by combining acceptance and use of information technology theories, expectancy theory and the inter-organizational system motivation models. A qualitative field study via semi-structured interviews was then conducted to explore the present state among 15 respondents. The results of the interviews were analysed using content analysis yielding the final model of e-services usage. Eighteen antecedent factors hypotheses and three moderating factors hypotheses and 52-item questionnaire were developed. A focus group discussion of five respondents and a pilot study of 59 respondents resulted in final version of the questionnaire.

In the second phase, the main survey was conducted nationally to collect the research data among Indonesian airline customers who had already used Indonesian airline e-services. A total of 819 valid questionnaires were obtained. The data was then analysed using a partial least square (PLS) based structural equation modelling (SEM) technique to produce the contributions of links in the e-services model (22% of all the variances in e-services usage, 37.8% in intention to use, 46.6% in motivation, 39.2% in outcome expectancy, and 37.7% in effort expectancy). Meanwhile, path coefficients and t-values demonstrated various different influences of antecedent factors towards e-services usage. Additionally, a multi-group analysis based on PLS is employed with mixed results. In the final findings, 14 hypotheses were supported and 7 hypotheses were not supported.

The major findings of this study have confirmed that motivation has the strongest contribution in e-services usage. In addition, motivation affects e-services usage both directly and indirectly through intention-to-use. This study provides contributions to the existing knowledge of e-services models, and practical applications of IT usage. Most importantly, an understanding of antecedents of e-services adoption will provide guidelines for stakeholders in developing better e-services and strategies in order to promote and encourage more customers to use e-services. Finally, the accomplishment of this study can be expanded through possible adaptations in other industries and other geographical contexts.

This literature review is on advanced computer analytics, which is a major trend in the field of Human Resource Management (HRM). The authors focus specifically on computer-assisted text analysis (CATA) because text data are a prevalent yet vastly underutilized data source in organizations. The authors gathered 341 articles that use, review, or promote CATA in the management literature. This review complements existing reviews in several ways including an emphasis on CATA in the management literature, a description of the types of software and their advantages, and a unique emphasis on findings in employment. This examination of CATA relative to employment is based on 66 studies (of the 341) that bear on measuring constructs potentially relevant to hiring decisions. The authors also briefly consider the broader machine learning literature using CATA outside management (e.g., data science) to derive relevant insights for management scholars. Finally, the authors discuss the main challenges when using CATA for employment, and provide recommendations on how to manage such challenges. In all, the authors hope to demystify and encourage the use of CATA in HRM scholarship.

The purpose of the current study is to investigate the role of management involvement in innovation and its relationships with organizational, technical and marketing innovations. Organizational innovation, which features both administrative and human capital innovation, is introduced as the intermediate construct to test its indirect effects on the influences of management involvement on technical and marketing innovations.

Data were collected from 196 respondents to an online questionnaire that was sent to 2,500 potential participants randomly selected from electronics manufacturing firms across China. Structural equation model using AMOS 18 was used to analyse the data.

The findings reveal that management involvement has a positive and significant impact on all dimensions of innovation featured. It is also found that organizational innovation has a mediating effect on the association between management involvement and technical innovation, though no such effect can be found in the relationship between management involvement and marketing innovation.

Since the study is quantitative using data emanating from the electronics manufacturing industry in China, further empirical study would be useful to verify and complement the results in other industries and other countries.

The findings show that management involvement appears to exert permeating impacts on all strata of innovation, presenting a reminder to practitioners and researchers that clear senior management direction, endorsement and support are essential to innovation pursuits.

The study contributes to the body of knowledge relating to innovation and innovation decisions. By investigating the interrelationships between management involvement and the various dimensions of innovation featured, the study identifies and charts the casual chains that can be used to guide innovation decisions.

The focus of this paper is a comparative case study of the symbolic role of the Croatian and Serbian languages and writing in discourses of the Nation and the National. Our research is situated at the intersection of the scientific fields of sociolinguistics, memory studies, and studies on nationalism. Using Anthony D. Smith’s ethno-symbolist approach to the study of nationalism, which focuses on the reciprocal relationship between elites and the people, we analyze the case of anti-Cyrillic protests in Vukovar, Croatia, which were triggered by the implementation of Croatian minority rights legislation. This research analyses the role of language and its use as a symbol in memory practices and accompanying discourses in Croatia and its echoes in Serbian public space. The top-down perspective observes state-promoted events and populist implications of language mis(use). Alternatively, the bottom-up approach encompasses various actions and initiatives of so-called “activists” who belong either to “nationalist” organizations or to liberal/democratic NGOs. The majority of voices that are not aligned with the above-mentioned organizations are neglected in the public space (Obradovic-Wochnik, 2013).

We explore the dynamics created between social groups promoting populist ideas, other groups promoting alternative practices, and their influence on the ideological pattern adopted by ruling elites.

This study examines the association between management control systems (MCSs), specifically the interactive and diagnostic use of controls, with the corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure-action portrayal gap (i.e. the disparity in employees’ perception of their organisation’s emphasis on CSR disclosures relative to CSR actions) and the subsequent impact on employees’ perceptions of organisational performance, both operational performance and corporate social performance. Data were collected using a survey of US lower-level managers, with the data obtained from 209 respondents and analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM). The results reveal that the interactive and diagnostic use of controls both exhibit a significant negative association with the CSR disclosure-action portrayal gap, that is, the use of these controls reduces the gap. In addition, the various dimensions of the CSR disclosure-action portrayal gap exhibit a significant negative association with both operational and corporate social performance, that is, lower gap, higher performance. The study contributes to the CSR literature by providing the first empirical insight into employees’ perception of both CSR disclosures and actions, and hence, the CSR disclosure-action portrayal gap. In addition, the study contributes to the MCS and organisational performance literature by providing the initial empirical insight into the role of MCSs in mitigating the gap through enhancing the interactive and diagnostic use of controls, and the negative association between the gap and employees’ perceptions of organisational performance.