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1 – 10 of over 91000Tommi Pauna, Jere Lehtinen, Jaakko Kujala and Kirsi Aaltonen
The aim of this research was to understand how governmental stakeholder engagement facilitates the sustainability of industrial engineering (IE) projects. A model for governmental…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this research was to understand how governmental stakeholder engagement facilitates the sustainability of industrial engineering (IE) projects. A model for governmental stakeholder engagement activities is presented.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors relied on a single-case study of a mining project in Northern Europe, where a novel collaboration and engagement approach with governmental stakeholders was piloted in the project's front-end phase. The analysis focused on the collaborative practices through which the IE project investor engaged governmental stakeholders during the project's front-end phase and how the engagement contributed to solving challenges in the early planning and permitting process and achieving project plans that balanced economic, social and environmental aspects.
Findings
The findings show how four collaborative engagement practices reduced uncertainty and equivocality related to the legal sustainability requirements, enabled the development of sustainable design solutions and overall accelerated the permitting process without compromising the quality of final project plans.
Practical implications
The findings can be used to plan governmental stakeholder engagement and understand related challenges that need to be overcome. The study highlights the need to develop established practices and guidelines for governmental stakeholder engagement.
Originality/value
This study complements prior research on stakeholder engagement and project sustainability by developing an understanding of how governmental stakeholder engagement can be a key mechanism enabling the sustainability of IE project's end product. This research contributes to stakeholder theory by elaborating on a new stakeholder role, intermediary stakeholder.
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Frank Nana Kweku Otoo and Nissar Ahmed Rather
Highly committed, motivated and engaged employees assure organizational success and competitiveness. The study aims to examine the association between human resource development…
Abstract
Purpose
Highly committed, motivated and engaged employees assure organizational success and competitiveness. The study aims to examine the association between human resource development (HRD) practices and employee engagement with organizational commitment as a mediating variable.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 760 employees of 13 star-rated hotels comprising 5 (five-star) and 8 (four-star). The data supported the hypothesized relationships. Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate the proposed model and hypotheses. Construct validity and reliability were established through confirmatory factor analysis.
Findings
The results indicate that HRD practices and affective commitment are significantly associated. HRD practices and continuance commitment were shown to be non-significantly associated. HRD practices and normative commitment were shown to be non-significantly associated. Employee engagement and organizational commitment are significantly associated. The results further show that organizational commitment mediates the association between HRD practices and employee engagement.
Research limitations/implications
The generalizability of the findings will be constrained due to the research's hotel industry focus and cross sectional data.
Practical implications
The study's findings will serve as valuable pointers for stakeholders and policymakers of the hotel industry in the adoption, design and implementation of proactive HRD interventions to keep highly engaged and committed employees for organizational competitiveness and sustainability.
Originality/value
By evidencing empirically that organizational commitment mediates the nexus between HRD practices and employee engagement, the study extends the literature.
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Laura Innocenti, Silvia Profili and Alessia Sammarra
This study aims to examine the role that four distinct bundles (developmental, utilisation, maintenance and accommodative) of HRM practices play in enhancing work engagement among…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the role that four distinct bundles (developmental, utilisation, maintenance and accommodative) of HRM practices play in enhancing work engagement among chronically ill employees, and to analyse whether perceptions of discrimination on the grounds of illness can affect these relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
The data were collected through a quantitative survey using a sample of 669 chronically ill employees of a major Italian company.
Findings
This study's findings confirm the importance of discerning between positive, insignificant and negative effects of distinct HR bundles on chronically ill employees' work engagement. Furthermore, this study's results suggest that the positive effect of utilisation practices (i.e. practices aimed at enabling employees to make full use of existing, but not yet necessarily utilised, individual resources) on engagement is greater when chronically ill employees perceive a discrimination-free work environment.
Research limitations/implications
This study's findings confirm the importance of discerning between positive, no, and negative effects of distinct HR bundles on chronically ill employees' work engagement. Furthermore, this study's results suggest that the positive effect of utilisation practices (i.e. practices aimed at enabling employees to make full use of existing but not necessarily applied individual resources) on engagement is greater when chronically ill employees perceive a discrimination-free work environment.
Originality/value
The study highlights those HR bundles that have the capacity to positively affect the work engagement of chronically ill employees, a minority group rarely considered in HRM studies. Furthermore, the research identifies perceived discrimination on the grounds of illness as a contextual condition that may hinder the otherwise positive effect of HRM practices on the engagement of workers suffering from a chronic illness.
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Ata Babaei, Giorgio Locatelli and Tristano Sainati
Transport megaprojects often struggle to offer social value (SV) that meets local communities' needs. This problem is embedded in how local communities' views are captured and…
Abstract
Purpose
Transport megaprojects often struggle to offer social value (SV) that meets local communities' needs. This problem is embedded in how local communities' views are captured and incorporated into SV plans through local community engagement (LCE). By problematising the literature, this article aims to identify LCE issues and their impacts on SV plans at the front-end of transport megaprojects.
Design/methodology/approach
The theoretical lens of the study is the practice theory developed by Schatzki (2016, 2005). The authors conceptualised LCE as a practice and conducted 32 semi-structured interviews with UK practitioners. The authors collected data in three steps from three types of practitioners involved in LCE practice and SV planning: project managers, LCE experts and SV experts.
Findings
The authors identified 18 LCE issues with thematic analysis and clustered them into five themes. These issues impact LCE with five mechanisms. Findings show that a weak link between LCE and SV plans due to the issues reduces LCE to a tick-box exercise and presents a distorted view of local communities. This reduces SV plans to the bare minimum for project approval instead of offering relevant SV to local communities. Addressing the issues goes beyond changing the approach of project teams to engagement (from instrumental to normative) and requires changing the practices.
Originality/value
For the first time, the study uses practice theory to conceptualise LCE as a practice, following the notion of project as practice. The study problematises the literature to address the under-represented link between LCE and SV plans.
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Dorothea Kossyva, Georgios Theriou, Vassilis Aggelidis and Lazaros Sarigiannidis
This study aims to explore talent retention in knowledge-intensive industries by investigating the mediating processes between the existence and application of human resource…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore talent retention in knowledge-intensive industries by investigating the mediating processes between the existence and application of human resource management (HRM) and employee turnover. Toward this end, drawing on the conservation of resources and job demands–resources theories, a three-dimensional model is examined, which includes the relationship between HRM, knowledge management (KM) and change management (CM), as well as their relationship with employee engagement and employee turnover intention.
Design/methodology/approach
The proposed research model has been studied with a sample of 168 talented employees in over six European countries, using a quantitative approach, involving the structural equation modeling method. All data were gathered by a multidimensional questionnaire via prolific, an academic crowdsourcing platform.
Findings
Results indicated that knowledge-intensive services firms may achieve higher talent retention through the interaction of HRM with KM and CM practices, which may lead to enhanced employee engagement.
Research limitations/implications
Possible limitations of the study include the relatively small sample size, the self-rate questions for the collection of data and the use of cross-sectional data.
Practical implications
To retain their talented employees, organizations should identify ways to improve their HRM, CM and KM practices. In addition, HR practitioners ought to include their talented employees in all organizational change and KM processes and create mechanisms that successfully support knowledge acquisition, creation, sharing, retention and codification.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine various factors of retaining talented employees in knowledge-intensive services. Furthermore, the study took place in six European countries, i.e. UK, Poland, Italy, Germany, Portugal and Greece, where the research on talent retention is very limited.
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The purpose of this paper is to consider recent developments in student engagement practices within higher education institutions (HEIs) and to reflect upon the practical reality…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to consider recent developments in student engagement practices within higher education institutions (HEIs) and to reflect upon the practical reality and challenges faced by HEIs as they develop such practices.
Design/methodology/approach
Consideration is given to theoretical understandings around institutional and social power relations and to the influence such relationships can have on the development of student engagement practices within HEIs. The work of Giroux, Freire and Foucault is drawn upon to help develop and deepen understanding of the power relationships at play within HEI student engagement practices.
Findings
It is argued that the power imbalance ingrained within student‐tutor relationships serves to constrain how students act and respond in the presence of tutors, and this can have significant implications in terms of the extent to which student engagement practices genuinely capture the perspectives, interests and visions of students.
Practical implications
Thought needs to be given to how HEIs will balance student engagement with academic work. The historical hierarchical staff‐student relationship will need to be challenged and re‐defined as some staff and students move outside of their comfort zones in order to work as partners and develop mutual understandings around, for example, practices of assessment, curriculum and teaching, and seek to improve the quality of student's HEI experiences.
Originality/value
The paper develops and deepens our understanding of the power relationships at play within HEI student engagement practices and opens up debates about the potential of student engagement practices in HEIs and the related dilemmas which surround the development of such practices.
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Yuri Seo, Carol Kelleher and Roderick J. Brodie
While extant service-centric research has largely focussed on managerial advantages, few studies have addressed how brand engagement emerges in the broader context of consumer…
Abstract
Purpose
While extant service-centric research has largely focussed on managerial advantages, few studies have addressed how brand engagement emerges in the broader context of consumer lives. The purpose of this paper is to develop a novel intersubjective hermeneutic framework that bridges the socially constructed as well as the individualised meanings of brand engagement in the context of service research.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper adopts a theory-building approach based on recent developments in the service-centric marketing literature.
Findings
The authors offer a novel theoretical perspective that recognises the intersubjective and phenomenological nature of individual and collective consumer brand experiences, and show how such experiences emerge from socially constructed brand engagement practices using the co-constituting lens of value-in-use.
Research limitations/implications
The proposed conceptual framework invites further empirical and contextual investigations of intersubjective brand engagement in both online and offline contexts.
Originality/value
The contribution of this framework is twofold. First, the authors draw on the intersubjective orientation and hermeneutic framework to provide conceptual clarity in relation to the nature of brand engagement practices, brand experiences, and value-in-use, and discuss their interrelationships. Second, the authors address the nature of meaning ascribed to engagement beyond customer-firm-brand relationships, and discuss why any given consumer’s experience of brand engagement reflects a complex dialectic between socially constructed and individualised brand meanings. In doing so, the integrative framework recognises the interplay between the intersubjective and phenomenological natures of consumer brand experiences, and offers insights as to how these experiences are framed by broader socially constructed engagement practices.
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Benjamin Piers William Ellway and Alison Dean
This paper uses practice theory to strengthen the theoretical relationship between customer engagement (CE) and value cocreation (VCC), thereby demonstrating how customers may…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper uses practice theory to strengthen the theoretical relationship between customer engagement (CE) and value cocreation (VCC), thereby demonstrating how customers may become engaged and remain engaged through VCC practices.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopts a problematization approach to identify shared assumptions evident in service-dominant logic (SDL) and CE research. Practice theory, as a higher-order perspective, is used to integrate the iterative and cyclical processes of VCC and CE, specifically through the theoretical mechanism of habitus.
Findings
Habitus acts as a customer value lens and provides a bridging concept to demonstrate how VCC and CE are joined via sensemaking processes. These processes determine how customers perceive, assess, and evaluate value, how they become engaged through VCC, and how their experience of engagement may lead to further VCC practice. The temporally bound experiences, states, and episodes are accumulated and aggregated through an enduring customer value lens comprised of habituated dispositions, interests, and attitudes.
Research limitations/implications
This work responds to calls for research to strengthen the theoretical link between VCC and CE and to take account of customers' lived realities and their contextualized experiences. A key suggestion for future research is the use of a rope metaphor to stimulate thinking about the complex, temporally unfolding, and interrelated processes of VCC and CE.
Practical implications
The customer value lens and CE rope are introduced to simplify the complex, abstract, theoretical research on VCC and CE for a nonacademic audience. To understand how customers' value lenses are formed and change, and how a CE rope is strengthened, firms, service designers, and practitioners need to understand sensemaking processes through customer narratives and to use platforms and feedback to support and trigger sensemaking.
Originality/value
This paper provides a theoretical mechanism to explain the iterative and cyclical nature of VCC and CE processes and how accumulation and aggregation occur in these processes. In doing so, it demonstrates that CE occurs by virtue of, and is typified by, sensemaking processes that reproduce and shape a customer's habituated value lens, which perceives, assesses, and determines VCC and thus provides a basis for further customer engagement.
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Mumtaz Ali Memon, Rohani Salleh, Muhammad Zeeshan Mirza, Jun-Hwa Cheah, Hiram Ting, Muhammad Shakil Ahmad and Adeel Tariq
This study aims to examine the impact of employees' satisfaction with human resource management (HRM) practices (i.e. training satisfaction, performance appraisal satisfaction and…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the impact of employees' satisfaction with human resource management (HRM) practices (i.e. training satisfaction, performance appraisal satisfaction and pay satisfaction) on work engagement and subsequently employee turnover intentions. The mediating role of work engagement between employee satisfaction with HRM practices and turnover intentions is also assessed.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from Malaysian oil and gas (O&G) professionals. A total of 442 useable questionnaires were obtained for the final data analysis. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was performed to test the hypothesised relationships.
Findings
The findings indicate that training satisfaction and performance appraisal satisfaction are the key drivers of employee engagement at work. Work engagement in turn has a negative impact on employee turnover intentions. Furthermore, work engagement mediates the relationship between employees' satisfaction with HRM practices (i.e. training satisfaction and performance appraisal satisfaction) and turnover intentions. Nevertheless, it did not have any mediating effect on pay satisfaction and turnover intention.
Practical implications
Training plans should be designed to make the relevant jobs more attractive and fulfilling, thus increasing employees' level of work engagement. Besides, ensuring that the appraisal system is fair is pivotal to work engagement. Work engagement will cultivate a strong sense of emotional attachment between employees and employers, thus reducing the turnover intention of Malaysian O&G professionals.
Originality/value
To date, little has been done on employees' satisfaction with HRM practices with respect to their attitudinal and behavioural outcomes. The present study enhances our understanding of the importance of employees' satisfaction with HRM practices and its relation to employees' work engagement and turnover intentions.
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Amanda Shantz, Kerstin Alfes and Lilith Whiley
Due to increasing cost pressures, and the necessity to ensure high quality patient care while maintaining a safe environment for patients and staff, interest in the capacity for…
Abstract
Purpose
Due to increasing cost pressures, and the necessity to ensure high quality patient care while maintaining a safe environment for patients and staff, interest in the capacity for HRM practices to make a difference has piqued the attention of healthcare professionals. The purpose of this papers is to present and test a model whereby engagement mediates the relationship between four HRM practices and quality of care and safety in two different occupational groups in healthcare, namely, nurses and administrative support workers.
Design/methodology/approach
Structural equation modeling was used to analyze questionnaire data collected by the National Health Service in the UK as part of their 2011 Staff Survey (n=69,018). The authors tested the hypotheses for nurses and administrative support workers separately.
Findings
Training, participation in decision making, opportunities for development, and communication were positively related to quality of care and safety via work engagement. The strength of the relationships was conditional on whether an employee was a nurse or administrative support worker.
Originality/value
This is the first paper to examine the mediating role of engagement on the relationship between four relevant HRM practices in the healthcare context, and outcomes important to healthcare practitioners. The authors also add value to the HRM literature by being among the first to use the job demands resources model to explain the impact of HRM practices on performance outcomes. Moreover, the authors provide insight into how HRM practices affect outcomes in the world’s largest publicly funded healthcare service.
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