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1 – 10 of over 138000Nitya Rani and Anand A. Samuel
The transgender community faces prejudice and stigma and is one of the most ostracised groups in society. One of the ways to reduce prejudice is through intergroup contact. This…
Abstract
Purpose
The transgender community faces prejudice and stigma and is one of the most ostracised groups in society. One of the ways to reduce prejudice is through intergroup contact. This may be achieved through direct or indirect contact. The purpose of this paper is to compare the impact of direct and indirect contact on reducing transphobia.
Design/methodology/approach
Direct contact was achieved through a transgender speaker panel and indirect contact involved a video presentation. In total, 159 students enroled in undergraduate courses at a prominent university in India were enlisted for this study. Perceptions regarding transgenders were measured using the genderism and transphobia scale. Perceptions were measured at three different time points – before the contact, immediately after the contact and one month post contact.
Findings
Results indicate that both direct and indirect contact cause a significant immediate decrease in transphobia at the post intervention stage. However, only direct contact caused significant reduction at the follow-up stage (one month after the intervention). Direct contact also effected a greater reduction in transphobia than indirect contact.
Research limitations/implications
This study extends previous research that shows that speaker panels involving sexual minority speakers can result in reducing stigma (e.g. Croteau and Kusek, 1992). The present study shows that such speaker panels can also be useful for reducing stigma against transgender individuals. Another important outcome of this study is the relative effectiveness of direct contact in reducing transphobia compared to indirect contact. Direct contact resulted in greater reduction in transphobia both at the post-test and follow-up stages compared to indirect contact.
Practical implications
The results of this study may benefit HR practitioners and policy makers in designing workplace initiatives and policies in creating an inclusive workplace. This study shows that meaningful interaction with transgenders would be a key step in reducing stigmatisation. Since direct contact is rarely expensive or time consuming, it can be a valuable tool to improve the integration of transgender individuals within society. Therefore, students and employees may be encouraged to interact with transgender individuals through panel discussions and workshops. Indirect contact may be used as a preliminary intervention in certain cases where direct contact may be difficult to organise.
Social implications
The stigma faced by transgender individuals has a significant negative impact on their quality of life (Grant et al., 2014; Reisner and Juntunen, 2015). It is, therefore, necessary to recognise and reduce prejudice against transgenders at both the college and school levels as well as in work organisations. Educators and managers have a significant role to play in this societal change. This study shows that stigma reduction can be achieved in a fairly simple way through contact theory.
Originality/value
This study is one of the first to investigate Indian students’ perceptions of transgenders. It improves on earlier studies using similar interventions in two main ways. First, this study includes a follow-up assessment, which was not performed in most studies. Second, random assignment of participants to one of two conditions improves the reliability of the findings.
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Hyeyoung Lim and Jae-Seung Lee
The purpose of this study is to examine how direct-negative and indirect-negative contact experiences affect students' attitudes toward the police by race and test the mediation…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine how direct-negative and indirect-negative contact experiences affect students' attitudes toward the police by race and test the mediation effect of social distance on the relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the data collected from two US 4-year public universities, this study employed structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the impacts of the key variables, direct-negative and indirect-negative contact experience, on the students' attitudes toward the police. This study also tests whether indirect negative contact with the police is a stronger factor than direct negative contacts among racial/ethnic minority people.
Findings
Results show that both direct-negative and indirect-negative contacts are stronger predictors of the dependent variable. In particular, the indirect-negative contact has significant direct and indirect effects through social distance on the dependent variable in racial minorities. The study also shows that indirect contact more strongly affects racial minorities than direct-negative contact experiences do.
Originality/value
This study is the first sophisticatedly to examine students' negative contact experiences into two variables: direct-negative and indirect-negative contacts with the police.
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Kristin L. Cullen-Lester, Caitlin M. Porter, Hayley M. Trainer, Pol Solanelles and Dorothy R. Carter
The field of Human Resource Management (HRM) has long recognized the importance of interpersonal influence for employee and organizational effectiveness. HRM research and practice…
Abstract
The field of Human Resource Management (HRM) has long recognized the importance of interpersonal influence for employee and organizational effectiveness. HRM research and practice have focused primarily on individuals’ characteristics and behaviors as a means to understand “who” is influential in organizations, with substantially less attention paid to social networks. To reinvigorate a focus on network structures to explain interpersonal influence, the authors present a comprehensive account of how network structures enable and constrain influence within organizations. The authors begin by describing how power and status, two key determinants of individual influence in organizations, operate through different mechanisms, and delineate a range of network positions that yield power, reflect status, and/or capture realized influence. Then, the authors extend initial structural views of influence beyond the positions of individuals to consider how network structures within and between groups – capturing group social capital and/or shared leadership – enable and constrain groups’ ability to influence group members, other groups, and the broader organizational system. The authors also discuss how HRM may leverage these insights to facilitate interpersonal influence in ways that support individual, group, and organizational effectiveness.
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Meng Cai, Haifeng Du, Chen Zhao and Wei Du
The aim of this paper, considering the two types of networks and the scope of power from structural holes, is to clarify the relationship between employees’ performance and their…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper, considering the two types of networks and the scope of power from structural holes, is to clarify the relationship between employees’ performance and their social network structure in Chinese small and medium enterprises from the whole-network perspective. The complicated relationship in Chinese culture requires human resource management (HRM) practitioners to be aware of the implications of social network.
Design/methodology/approach
An empirical research approach is used in this paper. Using the cluster sampling method, authors collected 118 employees’ characteristic data and network data by face-to-face interviews through structured questionnaire survey, and also got their performance data from the financial department, which support correlation analysis and OLS regression analysis.
Findings
First, informal network, but not formal network, has a significant impact on employees’ performance. Second, individual performance of brokerage is greater for direct than indirect contacts. Finally, broker-of-brokers will be the winner in the competition.
Originality/value
First, previous research focuses on egocentric network as the difficulty of data collection, while this paper analyzes a whole network based on the real social network. Second, this paper reveals the network structure mode where individuals get benefits. Third, it also uncovers the effect of relationship type on employees’ performance in Chinese SME. Finally, this paper identifies the status homophily and status crystallization phenomenon in the process of social network formation.
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What is the scope of brokerage network to be considered in thinking strategically? Given the value of bridging structural holes, is there value to being affiliated with people or…
Abstract
What is the scope of brokerage network to be considered in thinking strategically? Given the value of bridging structural holes, is there value to being affiliated with people or organizations that bridge structural holes? The answer is “no” according to performance associations with manager networks, which raises a question about the consistency of network theory across micro to macro levels of analysis. The purpose here is to align manager evidence with corresponding macro evidence on the supplier and customer networks around four-digit manufacturing industries in the 1987 and 1992 benchmark input–output tables. In contrast to the manager evidence, about 24% of the industry-structure effect on industry performance can be attributed to structure beyond the industry's own buying and selling, to networks around the industry's suppliers and customers. However, the industry evidence is not qualitatively distinct from the manager evidence so much as it describes a more extreme business environment.
Songtao Hu, Noel Brunetiere, Weifeng Huang, Xi Shi, Zhike Peng, Xiangfeng Liu and Yuming Wang
Face contact has a strong impact on the service life of non-contacting gas face seals; the current research which mainly focuses on the face contact had appeared during the…
Abstract
Purpose
Face contact has a strong impact on the service life of non-contacting gas face seals; the current research which mainly focuses on the face contact had appeared during the startup or shutdown operation. This paper aims to present a closed-form contact model of a gas face seal during the opened operation.
Design/methodology/approach
Referring to the axial rub-impact model of rotor dynamics, a closed-form contact model is developed under a nonparallel plane contact condition that corresponds to the local face contact of sealing rings arising from some disturbances during the opened operation. The closed-form contact model and a direct numerical contact model are performed on Gaussian surfaces to compare the contact behavior.
Findings
The closed-form contact model is in a good agreement with the direct numerical contact model. However, the closed-form contact model cannot involve the influence of grooves on the sealing ends. The error is eliminated in some other types of gas face seals such as coned gas face seals. Besides non-contacting face seals, the closed-form model can be applied to the axial rub impact of rotor dynamics.
Originality value
A closed-form contact model of a gas face seal is established during the opened operation. The closed-form contact model is validated by a direct numerical contact model. The closed-form contact model also suits for axial rub-impact of rotor dynamics.
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For the AFL-CIO, the 2000 presidential election was a test of a revised political action program that concentrated resources on “issue based” political education and intensive…
Abstract
For the AFL-CIO, the 2000 presidential election was a test of a revised political action program that concentrated resources on “issue based” political education and intensive member contact. Using quasi-experimental methods, I evaluate the effect of direct mailings, telephone calls, and workplace mobilization on the presidential preferences and voting rates of members from a Milwaukee area local union. Results indicate that only workplace mobilization successfully communicated the labor-endorsed candidate and shifted preferences toward that candidate. Voting rates were higher among union members that received a get-out-the-vote telephone call prior to the election.
Kefeng Xu, Jayanth Jayaram and Ming Xu
The purpose of this research is to examine how service enablers such as resource management and human resource management practices, identified in prior research as vital…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to examine how service enablers such as resource management and human resource management practices, identified in prior research as vital, influence both conformance quality and productivity performance. The paper also aims to study how the level of customer contact, a major service differentiator, could moderate the influence of such practices on performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Using sample data from 249 service firms in China, hierarchical a regression analyses is employed to test the research questions.
Findings
The results indicate that there are common resource management and human resource management practices that positively affect both conformance quality and productivity. Importantly, besides its direct and positive effect on conformance quality and on productivity performance, the level of customer contact was found to have a contingency effect on the relationships between resource management or human resource management practices, and conformance quality or productivity performance.
Research limitations/implications
Future research should consider including other developing countries, more service industries, and a longitudinal study if possible.
Practical implications
Implications of the findings on theory in services and managerial practice in the context of China are offered.
Originality/value
The theoretical value of the research lies in identifying the factors that simultaneously affect both conformance quality and productivity (which are often seen as competing goals) in service sectors, and their dependency on the level of customer contact.
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Omid Pourali, Hashem Ghasemi Kadijani and Farideh Mohammadi Khangheshlaghi
An effective chemical conditioning technique was successfully tested and investigated to control and minimize the chemistry-related damages within mixed metallurgy steam and water…
Abstract
Purpose
An effective chemical conditioning technique was successfully tested and investigated to control and minimize the chemistry-related damages within mixed metallurgy steam and water cycle of Heller dry cooled combined cycle power plants (CCPPs), in which cooling water and condensate are completely mixed in direct contact condenser. This study aims to perform a comprehensive experimental research in four mixed metallurgy steam and water cycle.
Design/methodology/approach
A comprehensive experimental study was carried out in four mixed metallurgy steam and water cycle fabricated with ferrous- and aluminum-based alloys which have various corrosion resistance capabilities in contact with water. Chemical conditioning was conducted using both volatile and non-volatile alkalizing agents, and, to perform chemical conditioning effectively, quality parameters (pH, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, sodium, silica, iron, aluminum and phosphate) were monitored by analyzing grab and online samples taken at eight key sampling points.
Findings
Results indicated that pH was the most critical parameter which was not mainly within the recommended ranges of widely used standards and guidelines at all key sampling points that generally increases the occurrence of chemistry-related damages. The other quality parameters were mostly satisfactory.
Originality/value
In this research, the development of a suitable chemical conditioning technique in mixed metallurgy steam and water cycle, fabricated with ferrous and aluminum-based alloys, was studied. The obtained results in this thorough research work was evaluated by comparison with the chemistry limits of the widely used standards and guidelines, and combined use of volatile and solid alkalizing agents was considered as a promising chemical conditioning technique for utilization in mixed metallurgy units of Heller dry cooled CCPPs.
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