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Work environments, which are widely acknowledged to exert strong influences on employee attitudes and behavior, have been studied since the initiation of formal work entities. Over this time, scholars have identified myriad impactful internal and external factors. Absent though are investigations examining economic downturns despite their acknowledged pervasiveness and destructive effects on worker performance and well-being. To address this theoretical gap, a multistage model acknowledging the impact of recessions on workplace responses, response effects, and environmental considerations is proposed. Inherent in this discussion is the role of economic decline on reactive change processes, the nature of work, and the structure and design of organizations. These significant changes affect employee attitudes and behaviors in ways that increase the political nature of these work environments. Organizational factors and employee responses to heightened recession-driven politics are discussed. Additionally, theoretically relevant intervening variables capable of influencing work outcomes are described. The chapter is concluded by discussing the implications of this theoretical framework as well as directions for future research.

This chapter builds on previous research that conceptualized organizational politics as an organizational stressor. After reviewing the studies that integrated the occupational stress literature with the organizational politics literature, it discusses the negative implications of the use of intimidation and pressure by supervisors, implications that have generally been overlooked. Specifically, the chapter presents a conceptual model positing that the use of intimidation and pressure by supervisors creates stress in their subordinates. This stress, in turn, affects subordinates’ well-being, evident in higher levels of job dissatisfaction, job burnout, and turnover intentions. The stress also reduces the effectiveness of the organization, reflected in a high absenteeism rate, poorer task performance, and a decline in organizational citizenship behavior. The model also maintains that individual differences in emotional intelligence and political skill mitigate the stress experienced by subordinates, resulting from the use of intimidation and pressure by their supervisors. In acknowledging the destructive implications of such behavior in terms of employees’ well-being and the productivity of the organization, the chapter raises doubts about the wisdom of using it, and advises supervisors to rethink its use as a motivational tool. Implications of this chapter, as well as future research directions, are discussed.

This chapter focusses on the links between economic ideas, sustainability and the circular economy. Economics begins with the view that all resources are scarce and careful and informed choices must be made to ensure resources are used efficiently and not wasted. Given the fundamental importance of markets to human resource allocation decisions, unless economic concepts, especially markets and prices, are used to help transition towards the circular economy, a sustainable economic growth process is unlikely to be achieved. Economists have long grappled with the problems of resource depletion, unsustainable growth and intergenerational equity. Their ideas and views about the interconnection between markets, the environment and resource use have been in existence for several centuries. While frequently overlooked, some of these ideas have important insights for sustainable development and the implementation of a circular economy. The chapter will consider how economic concepts could be used to help society transition to a circular economy. It will also argue that difficulties with the implementation of a circular economy lie less with the application of economic instruments, and more with the political and institutional constraints that reduce our ability to think creatively and innovatively about ‘cradle-to-cradle’ processes.

This chapter offers new insights into the understanding of internal (employee) perceptions of organizational corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies and strategies.

This study explores the significance of employees’ involvement and scepticism upon CSR initiatives and focuses on the effects it may have upon word of mouth (WOM) and the development of employee–organisation relationships. Desk research introduces the research questions. Data for the research questions were gathered through a self-completion questionnaire distributed in a hardcopy form to the sample.

An individual’s level of scepticism and involvement appears to affect the development of a positive effect on employees’ WOM. Involvement with the domain of the investment may be a central factor affecting relationship building within the organization, and upon generation of positive WOM.

The chapter offers a conceptual framework to public relations (PR) and corporate communications practitioners, which may enrich their views and understanding of the use and value of CSR for communication strategies and practices.

For-profit organisations are major institutions in today’s society. CSR is proffered as presenting advantages for (at macro level) society and (micro level) the organization and its employees.

Concepts, such as involvement and scepticism, which have not been rigorously examined in PR and corporate communication literature, are addressed. By examining employee perceptions, managers and academic researchers gain insights into the acceptance, appreciation and effectiveness of CSR policies and activities upon the employee stakeholder group. This will affect current and future CSR communication strategies. The knowledge acquired from this chapter may be transferable outside the for-profit sector.

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.

This chapter explores religion and spirituality as a form and source of demographic differences relevant to the study of occupational stress and well-being. The purpose of the chapter is to provide a resource and starting point to occupational health and stress researchers who may be interested in religion/spirituality. A review of critical religion/spirituality concepts is provided, along with a discussion of how religion/spirituality can be integrated into common occupational stress theories and reconciled with commonly studied variables within this domain. A series of future research directions involving religion/spirituality and occupational health and stress are ultimately presented.

Because teacher training is an important component of high-quality early care and education (ECE), states are employing various efforts to increase the credentials of teachers in private ECE centers. In New Jersey, teachers who serve disadvantaged students in the state’s community-based Abbott preschools are under a court mandate to obtain a Bachelor’s degree and Preschool – Grade 3 certification by September 2004 or lose their jobs. This chapter describes a phenomenological study of five teachers’ experiences in attempting to meet that mandate, and offers implications for policymakers to consider when evaluating the overall success of this reform effort.

Previous research on workplace meetings identified critical design features, leader behaviors, group dynamics, post-meeting actions, and other factors which help determine the effectiveness of the meeting. But as much as the authors acknowledge that meetings may differ from each other, much of the research appears to assume that it is meaningful to talk about “the meeting” as a single, generic entity (most commonly, the regularly scheduled staff or department meeting). In fact, though, there are several common types of meetings which vary among themselves in terms of a number of measurable parameters such as structure, meeting members, meeting leader, timing and duration, and scope. It is a gratuitous assumption that what the authors know about workplace meetings based on one especially common type applies to all workplace meetings. This chapter offers a historical review of previous attempts to classify meeting types; it then overviews several common types which deviate from the standard staff meeting paradigm, including project team meetings, debrief meetings, committee meetings, site-wide meetings, shift change meetings, and crew formation meetings. In comparing these types to the staff meeting, the authors identify some of the critical differences, thereby providing a first step toward a true taxonomy of meetings.

Persistent change has placed considerable pressure on organizations to keep up or fade into obscurity. Firms that remain viable, or even thrive, are staffed with decision-makers who capably steer organizations toward opportunities and away from threats. Accordingly, leadership development has never been more critical. In this chapter, the authors propose that leader development is an inherently dyadic process initiated to communicate formal and informal expectations. The authors focus on the informal component, in the form of organizational politics, as an element of leadership that is critical to employee and company success. The authors advocate that superiors represent the most salient information source for leader development, especially as it relates to political dynamics embedded in work systems. The authors discuss research associated with our conceptualization of dyadic political leader development (DPLD). Specifically, the authors develop DPLD by exploring its conceptual underpinnings as they relate to sensemaking, identity, and social learning theories. Once established, the authors provide a refined discussion of the construct, illustrating its scholarly mechanisms that better explain leader development processes and outcomes. The authors then expand research in the areas of political skill, political will, political knowledge, and political phronesis by embedding our conceptualization of DPLD into a political leadership model. The authors conclude by discussing methodological issues and avenues of future research stemming from the development of DPLD.