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To be denied the status of formal worker is to be denied the rights and protections of the formal sector. Such classification is a source of insecurity and uncertainty for many. When employers privilege disembedded employment arrangements, workers in precarious semi-formal settings face many financial and relational challenges, yet receive limited support. In hostile economic, social, and legal contexts, what practices and discourses do these workers draw on to respond to their work situations? When, and against whom, do they struggle for labor embeddedness? Analyses of ethnographic and interview data from two fieldwork projects studying semi-formal work – one study of inmate labor in a US prison and one of a local independent culture industry – reveal that workers engage in collective and independent classification struggles in search of formal and symbolic reclassification. A typology of such struggles is presented. By viewing these practices through this lens, this chapter aims to reveal parallels in the experiences of workers in seemingly disconnected fields and advance our understanding of worker action and embeddedness in contemporary capitalism.

This is the first study to examine AIDS activism among African American women. It also argues for womanism as a framework that can more accurately examine activism among African American women. Based on in-depth interviews with 36 African American women AIDS activists, this chapter explores factors that encourage activism among this sample of women. Intersectionality, and its emphasis on notions of identity and intersecting oppressions and social justice, is used as the theoretical framework to examine AIDS activism among these women. Findings suggest that their identities as activists and African American women, as well as their spirituality and notions of community uplift and survival have informed their activism efforts. These findings are discussed along with the limitations of utilizing intersectionality as the theoretical framework. Womanism is suggested as a theoretical framework that can extend the notions of identity and activism among people of color emphasized by intersectionality, as it addresses identity and social justice, but also highlights the importance of spirituality and community uplift among this sample of women.

A number of theoretical frameworks exist to explain perpetrators’ motivation for workplace aggression. Most of them consider these behaviors as retaliatory actions from individuals who experience triggering events in their workplaces. The current chapter describes a model that focuses on the motivations underlying proactive workplace aggression, and identifies situations where perpetrators consider their aggressive behaviors as morally justifiable. In particular, we argue that depending on the targets’ in- versus out-group membership and higher- versus lower-status in the hierarchy, aggressive behaviors may be viewed as acceptable to achieve perpetrators’ goals of forcing compliance or managing identity. The model extends the current literature by considering non-retaliatory workplace aggression, and by identifying potential avenues for future research and intervention to reduce proactive workplace aggression.

Scholarship on reputation in and of organizations has been going on for decades, and it always has separated along level of analysis issues, whereby the separate literatures on individual, group/team/unit, and organization reputation fail to acknowledge each other. This sends the implicit message that reputation is a fundamentally different phenomenon at the three different levels of analysis. We tested the validity of this implicit assumption by conducting a multilevel review of the reputation literature, and drawing conclusions about the “level-specific” or “level-generic” nature of the reputation construct. The review results permitted the conclusion that reputation phenomena are essentially the same at all levels of analysis. Based on this, we frame a future agenda for theory and research on reputation.

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of two types of negative ties, namely perceived negative ties and intended negative ties, on the two types of employee work outcomes, namely job performance and ethical voice. In addition, the chapter discusses the role of personal reputation as a mediator in explaining the relationship between negative ties and work outcomes. The study sample comprised of 103 blue-collar workers and their direct supervisors in a large cement factory in southern Iraq. The study used survey method as a mean to collect the data. Data analysis showed that perceived negative ties and intended negative ties influence participants’ job performance and ethical voice. The result also indicates that personal reputation mediates the relationship between negative ties and work outcomes. In light of the results, theoretical and practical implications are presented.

One organizational phenomenon in which emotions undoubtedly emerge is that of abusive supervision. To date, however, very little research has examined emotional responses associated with perceptions of abuse by supervisors. If subordinates believe that responsibility for abuse does not fall on the abusive supervisors but on the organization itself, they might think the abuse is uncontrollable or unintentional on the part of the supervisors. This attribution shift may result in feelings of sympathy toward the supervisor. In this chapter, we suggest that such responses are likely to occur when subordinates are under no-escape conditions. This circumstance can lead subordinates to forgive their supervisor and retaliate against their organization.

Aggression in the workplace has increasingly become a focus of organizational behavior research given its debilitating effects on employees and consistent links to reduced organizational performance. The current literature on workplace aggression presents a bewildering array of definitions with overlapping meanings creating confusion for researchers and academics. In response to this, we consider a range of definitions of workplace aggression and build a taxonomy of workplace aggressive behaviors based on four dimensions: intensity, impact, intentionality, and indirect/direct aggression. This chapter contributes to the field offering a taxonomy of aggressive behaviors at work that can be used in subsequent research.

Purpose: The prominence of quality education for building sustainable development is undeniable and is distinctly pointed out in 1 of the 14 sustainable development goals (SDGs). In the same context, this study intends to investigate the role of university commitment, perceived organisational prestige, student satisfaction, and perceived employability in enhancing sustainability in higher education.

Need of the Study: To evaluate how student satisfaction mediates the relationship between university commitment, perceived organisational prestige, and perceived employability with sustainable university institutes.

Methodology: An adapted questionnaire was used in this study to capture the perception of 458 management graduates selected through the purposive sampling method. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) technique was used to analyse the data with the help of Smart PLS software.

Findings: The results of this study show that student satisfaction is the strongest predictor of sustainable university institutes. University commitment was found to lead to student satisfaction significantly. Furthermore, student satisfaction wasn’t found to play the role of mediator in the proposed model.

Practical Implications: This study aims to fulfil theoretical, research, and management implications for students, higher education institutes (HEIs), and policymakers. HEIs are recommended to instil university commitment, perceived organisational prestige and student satisfaction via various practices and amendments in their curriculum. Students are recommended to enhance their perceived employability to achieve career sustainability.

For work organizations and their members, establishing and maintaining mutually satisfying employment relationships is a fundamental concern. The importance that scholars attach to employment relationships is reflected in research streams that explore the optimal design of strategic human resource management systems, the nature of psychological contract fulfillment and violation, and the factors associated with achieving person-environment fit, among others. Generally missing from theory and research pertaining to employment relationships is the perspective of individuals who reside at the employee-employer interface – managerial leaders. We argue that, for managerial leaders, a pervasive concern involves the tangible and intangible resource requirements of specific employees. We then provide the groundwork for study of the leader’s perspective on employment relationships by proposing a model that identifies how employees come to be perceived as low versus high maintenance and how these perceptions, in turn, influence leader cognition, affect, and behavior.