Search results

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of mindfulness as a predictor of the two components of regulatory focus theory (RFT): promotion and prevention focus. It further examines promotion focus and prevention focus as mediators of the mindfulness-job satisfaction and mindfulness-turnover intentions relationships. Finally, job satisfaction is also examined as a mediator of the mindfulness-turnover intentions relationship.

The model was tested using data collected via a snowball approach. Online surveys were distributed to undergraduate students enrolled in a business course. Students were then given the opportunity to earn extra credit by sending the survey to potential respondents. The relationships were tested using structural equation modeling.

Support was found for four of the six hypotheses. Prevention focus did not negatively mediate the relationship between mindfulness and job satisfaction as well as the relationship between mindfulness and turnover intentions.

One limitations of this research is the placement of mindfulness as an antecedent to promotion and prevention focus. Another plausible alternative is to consider mindfulness as a consequence. An additional limitation is the use of a snowball sampling technique. Future research should examine these findings using employees of a single organization.

This research theoretically and empirically links RFT and mindfulness. This study also adds to the limited research empirically linking RFT and turnover intentions, both directly and indirectly via job satisfaction. Finally, this research extends previous research that established the positive relationship between mindfulness and job satisfaction by examining the mindfulness-job satisfaction-turnover intentions relationship.

We raise and address an unexamined research question: Why do managers place some business activities in the formal economy and others in the informal? This firm-level managerial choice is most visible in emerging economies and is important due to its performance implications.

We theorize that managers use social ties with formal institutions (e.g. parliament, central bank) to protect against (1) being singled out for enforcement and (2) opportunistic business partners, and that these protections allow managers to conduct more activities in the informal economy. Based on regulatory focus theory, we also submit that managers with a promotion (prevention) focus mindset are more (less) prone to use their social ties with formal institutions to emphasize the informal economy. Hypotheses are tested using survey data from 362 Lebanese top managers.

Managers' social ties with formal institutions relate positively to their propensity to use the informal economy, and managers with a promotion mindset are more willing and those with a prevention mindset are less willing to leverage their social ties with formal institutions to conduct activities in the informal economy.

Our study raises an important new research question at the intersection of strategic and international management and offers an initial answer. Working within the informal economy requires informal social ties among informal actors, but for formally registered firms, entry into the informal economy requires informal ties with formal actors.

Although employee race has been an actively investigated area of scientific inquiry for decades, a thorough and informed understanding of the role of race in the organizational sciences has eluded us for a number of reasons. The relationship of race and stress in organizations is a prime example of this neglect and deficiency in our knowledge base, as little work has been done in this area. We attempt to address this limitation in the literature by proposing an inductively derived, review-centric framework that attempts to articulate the multiple intermediate linkages that explain the process dynamics taking place in the relationship between employee race and health and well-being in organizations. We argue that socialization processes, social networks, information and resource access, and mentoring contribute to distance and differences between racial minorities and nonminorities concerning control, reputation, performance, and political understanding and skill, which in turn, creates barriers to success, and increased stress and strain for racial minorities. The implications of this framework along with directions for future theory and research are discussed in this chapter.

This study aims to examine the moderating effect of supportive organisational culture (SOC) on the differential impact of work-based learning (WBL) on employee agility, ambidexterity and proactive goal generation.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted using an online structured questionnaire with 443 respondents in Ghana. The data set was analysed using structural equation modelling.

The outcomes of the study show that WBL has a significant and positive impact on employee agility, ambidexterity and proactive goal generation. However, the effect on employee agility was higher, followed by proactive goal generation and employee ambidexterity. The moderating effect of SOC on H1, H3a and H3b was found to have a decreasing effect.

This study augments knowledge by examining how different approaches to WBL collectively affect proactive goal generation, agility and ambidexterity. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to examine the differential impact of summative WBL approaches on employee outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of one personal variable (locus of control) and two relationship variables (leader-member exchange and co-worker cooperation) on perceptions of organizational politics in Lebanese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Survey data was collected from 300 Lebanese employees from different SMEs located between Tripoli and Beirut.

Results of regression analysis indicated that all the three variables were significant predictors of perceptions of politics, and that perceptions of politics affected employee outcomes. More specifically, higher levels of politics are associated with higher turnover intention and lower job satisfaction.

Results of this study raise several implications for companies and employers. Perceptions of politics were found to have a negative impact on employee attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Therefore, employers must examine the factors that affect employee perceptions of politics in the workplace. Since leader-member exchange and co-worker cooperation were found to predict politics, management's efforts should focalize on improving the relationships between employees and their supervisor as well as their relationships with each other. Management should develop strategies to create an atmosphere of cooperation and support in the organization.

There is paucity of studies on organizational politics in Arabic cultures. This study extends the organizational politics literature by investigating antecedents and outcomes of politics in Lebanon, a country that differs in its culture from US and European contexts.

From an online survey of 114 participating accountants at staff, senior staff, and supervisor levels from a top-100 U.S. accounting firm, we investigate the effects of the Big Five personality traits (Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Openness) on the ethical decision-making process of accountants. Within the framework of Rest’s (1986) Four-Component Model of Ethical Behavior, we focus on Component III, the formation of an intention to act upon one’s best ethical judgment. Based on the limited extant literature on the connection between personality and ethical behavior, we expect that accountants high in Conscientiousness and Openness will tend to form an intention to act ethically despite pressure in an ethical dilemma. We develop more tentative hypotheses about the remaining three factors. Controlling for age, gender, education, sole earning status, and experience, we find clear positive statistical effects of only Conscientiousness and Openness. These findings have implications for the human resource departments of accounting firms, as well as contributing to a basic understanding of the relationships between Big Five personality factors and ethical intention.

Purpose – Past literature suggests that the performance and turnover of the subordinate are affected by the support, abuse, and feedback provided by the supervisor. In this study, we posit that support, abuse, and feedback in an accounting firm, are in turn, affected by the supervisor's personality, as defined by the Big Five personality factors.

Methodology/approach – We conducted a web-based study with 115 accountants from a top 100 US accounting firm. The accountants completed questionnaires related to the personality of their supervisors along with questionnaires related to the support, abuse, and feedback they received from their supervisors. We analyzed the data using factor analysis and multiple regression.

Findings – We hypothesize that Openness and Agreeableness increase support; Neuroticism increases abuse, but less so if the supervisor is an Extravert; and Extraversion and Conscientiousness increase feedback. Among the hypothesized relationships, all are supported except the relationship between Openness and support. Additional findings are that Extraversion and Conscientiousness increase support; Agreeableness and Conscientiousness decrease abuse; and Agreeableness increases feedback.

Research implications – Our study contributes to the literature by demonstrating the relationship between the personality traits of supervisors and their behavior toward subordinates in an accounting setting. The results of our study can be used in identifying the supervisors who have the right personality for the position, which will likely improve the work environment and reduce turnover.

Smart card-based E-payment systems are receiving increasing attention as the number of implementations is witnessed on the rise globally. Understanding of user adoption behavior of E-payment systems that employ smart card technology becomes a research area that is of particular value and interest to both IS researchers and professionals. However, research interest focuses mostly on why a smart card-based E-payment system results in a failure or how the system could have grown into a success. This signals the fact that researchers have not had much opportunity to critically review a smart card-based E-payment system that has gained wide support and overcome the hurdle of critical mass adoption. The Octopus in Hong Kong has provided a rare opportunity for investigating smart card-based E-payment system because of its unprecedented success. This research seeks to thoroughly analyze the Octopus from technology adoption behavior perspectives.

Cultural impacts on adoption behavior are one of the key areas that this research posits to investigate. Since the present research is conducted in Hong Kong where a majority of population is Chinese ethnicity and yet is westernized in a number of aspects, assuming that users in Hong Kong are characterized by eastern or western culture is less useful. Explicit cultural characteristics at individual level are tapped into here instead of applying generalization of cultural beliefs to users to more accurately reflect cultural bias. In this vein, the technology acceptance model (TAM) is adapted, extended, and tested for its applicability cross-culturally in Hong Kong on the Octopus. Four cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede are included in this study, namely uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, individualism, and Confucian Dynamism (long-term orientation), to explore their influence on usage behavior through the mediation of perceived usefulness.

TAM is also integrated with the innovation diffusion theory (IDT) to borrow two constructs in relation to innovative characteristics, namely relative advantage and compatibility, in order to enhance the explanatory power of the proposed research model. Besides, the normative accountability of the research model is strengthened by embracing two social influences, namely subjective norm and image. As the last antecedent to perceived usefulness, prior experience serves to bring in the time variation factor to allow level of prior experience to exert both direct and moderating effects on perceived usefulness.

The resulting research model is analyzed by partial least squares (PLS)-based Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. The research findings reveal that all cultural dimensions demonstrate direct effect on perceived usefulness though the influence of uncertainty avoidance is found marginally significant. Other constructs on innovative characteristics and social influences are validated to be significant as hypothesized. Prior experience does indeed significantly moderate the two influences that perceived usefulness receives from relative advantage and compatibility, respectively. The research model has demonstrated convincing explanatory power and so may be employed for further studies in other contexts. In particular, cultural effects play a key role in contributing to the uniqueness of the model, enabling it to be an effective tool to help critically understand increasingly internationalized IS system development and implementation efforts. This research also suggests several practical implications in view of the findings that could better inform managerial decisions for designing, implementing, or promoting smart card-based E-payment system.

Leader member exchange has previously been found to be a solid predictor of positive organizational outcomes. Much research has tested a variety of possible antecedents to Leader Member Exchange (LMX), but only a limited number involving leadership styles. In this study servant leadership dimensions were tested for relationship to LMX quality. Strong correlations were found, tested for collinearity, and the best predictive model identified via regression analysis. The value to leadership educators was highlighted, limitations were recognized, and suggested areas for future research discussed.