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Open Access
Article
Publication date: 17 December 2019

Marie-Therese Christiansson and Olof Rentzhog

Despite many efforts within organizations toward business process orientation (BPO), research on real-world experiences remains in its infancy. The purpose of this paper is to…

7219

Abstract

Purpose

Despite many efforts within organizations toward business process orientation (BPO), research on real-world experiences remains in its infancy. The purpose of this paper is to redress the existing knowledge gap by analyzing a Swedish public housing company that has made notable effects regarding BPO and to explore lessons learned from the BPO journey (from 1998 to 2013).

Design/methodology/approach

The point of departure is principles in the BPO foundation, principles of successful BPM and effects in empirically based literature. The reconstruction of the narrative case study describes milestones and critical junctions, as well as effects based on quantitative and qualitative data.

Findings

Effects in BPO are demonstrated in terms of higher customer satisfaction, increased innovative ability, improved operational performance, higher employee satisfaction and, as a result of these, increased profitability. Theoretical constructs with implications for the theory building on BPO are suggested in a three-layer management framework – with capabilities and abilities emerging from the case study used as an illustrative example.

Practical implications

Lessons are learned regarding critical practices related to advancement in BPO. A strategy-building process based on eight design propositions is suggested to define the pre-conditions for BPO in an organization.

Originality/value

This is the first longitudinal case study to provide a comprehensive view and detailed insights of a BPO journey and top management performance toward a business process-oriented organization. Practitioners and BPM community get valuable insights into how the temporality and the context shape the BPO maturity process in terms of new organizational structure and roles during the journey.

Details

Business Process Management Journal, vol. 26 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1463-7154

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 12 August 2022

Elaine Wallace and Joseph Coughlan

This study aims to investigate affective commitment (ACS) and leader–member exchange (LMX) as resources mitigating against burnout and counterproductive work behaviours (CWBs) in…

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Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to investigate affective commitment (ACS) and leader–member exchange (LMX) as resources mitigating against burnout and counterproductive work behaviours (CWBs) in the hospitality sector, and examines the effect of zero-hour contracts on these relationships.

Design/methodology/approach

Through conservation of resources theory, this study tests a framework exploring ACS and LMX as resources against burnout and CWBs, using a data set of 260 frontline hospitality employees working in Ireland, considering zero-hour contracts as a moderator.

Findings

Findings indicate that burnout is associated with CWB, and ACS and LMX are resources against burnout and CWB. Furthermore, zero-hour contract perceptions moderate the resource effect of ACS and LMX. Yet, zero-hour contract perceptions do not moderate the relationship between burnout and CWB, indicating these employees may be caught in a resource-loss spiral.

Practical implications

This study proposes mechanisms to enhance resources against burnout, with specific strategies to support young employees who are more likely to experience burnout. As findings suggest unique negative impacts of burnout for employees on zero-hour contracts, this paper also provides guidance to support these vulnerable employees.

Originality/value

This study provides unique insights into hospitality employees’ ability to harness resources against burnout and CWB consequences of burnout. The results indicate that perceived precarity does not moderate these relationships, suggesting that burnout affects this cohort differently.

Details

International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol. 35 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-6119

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 2 May 2017

Nazrai Ahmad Zabidi, Tai Kwan Woo, P. Rajesh Kumar, Mansor Fadzil and Syarifah Hidayatul Syed Husain

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the stages involved in the module development process at the Open University Malaysia (OUM), to make them “print ready,” and how this has…

14317

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the stages involved in the module development process at the Open University Malaysia (OUM), to make them “print ready,” and how this has evolved over the years with various quality assurance (QA) mechanisms in place.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper builds upon the 12 quality control checks in the various stages of module development from pre-development to actual development and finally to post-development process. This is in line with the QA continuous improvement process of PDCA or Plan, Do, Check and Act.

Findings

Change, through the fine-tuning of QA processes and open door communication, is the key toward achieving quality modules, and hence meeting learners’ expectations.

Research limitations/implications

This paper highlights the experiences of only the Centre for Instructional Design and Technology, OUM in the development of quality learning material for the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) learners.

Originality/value

This paper outlines the step-by-step process in module development, from print to print-ready material, to assist the ODL universities in their mission to provide quality learning material to learners.

Details

Asian Association of Open Universities Journal, vol. 12 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1858-3431

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 20 October 2022

Deborah Richards, Salma Banu Nazeer Khan, Paul Formosa and Sarah Bankins

To protect information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure and resources against poor cyber hygiene behaviours, organisations commonly require internal users to…

Abstract

Purpose

To protect information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure and resources against poor cyber hygiene behaviours, organisations commonly require internal users to confirm they will abide by an ICT Code of Conduct. Before commencing enrolment, university students sign ICT policies, however, individuals can ignore or act contrary to these policies. This study aims to evaluate whether students can apply ICT Codes of Conduct and explores viable approaches for ensuring that students understand how to act ethically and in accordance with such codes.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors designed a between-subjects experiment involving 260 students’ responses to five scenario-pairs that involve breach/non-breach of a university’s ICT policy following a priming intervention to heighten awareness of ICT policy or relevant ethical principles, with a control group receiving no priming.

Findings

This study found a significant difference in students’ responses to the breach versus non-breach cases, indicating their ability to apply the ICT Code of Conduct. Qualitative comments revealed the priming materials influenced their reasoning.

Research limitations/implications

The authors’ priming interventions were inadequate for improving breach recognition compared to the control group. More nuanced and targeted priming interventions are suggested for future studies.

Practical implications

Appropriate application of ICT Code of Conduct can be measured by collecting student/employee responses to breach/non-breach scenario pairs based on the Code and embedded with ethical principles.

Social implications

Shared awareness and protection of ICT resources.

Originality/value

Compliance with ICT Codes of Conduct by students is under-investigated. This study shows that code-based scenarios can measure understanding and suggest that targeted priming might offer a non-resource intensive training approach.

Details

Organizational Cybersecurity Journal: Practice, Process and People, vol. 2 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2635-0270

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 1 January 2021

Øystein Pedersen Dahlen and Helge Skirbekk

The aim of this article is to explain why there is a higher degree of trust in some countries compared to others – and which are the main historical factors that explain these…

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Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this article is to explain why there is a higher degree of trust in some countries compared to others – and which are the main historical factors that explain these differences. The main focus is on how governments relate to and communicate with its citizens in the times of crises.

Design/methodology/approach

The analysis is based on comparative historical sociology with a modernity perspective with a special focus on Norway and Scandinavia. The authors do a parallel demonstration of history to confirm and expand the theories that could explain the high level of trust in these countries. The authors also bring in the Spanish experience in order to testify how governmental reactions affected the different levels of trust.

Findings

Scandinavian governments allowed open communication between different social classes on difficult and important issues, in contrast to Spain in the same period. These two factors therefore expand the understanding of the development of trust: (1) The establishment of the nation state as the organising concept and all-encompassing container of the other institutions (democracy, parliamentarism, trade unions, etc.); (2) The open hand strategy in dealing with deviant opinions, based on democratic compromises and a policing of consent ideology.

Originality/value

The article combines the understanding of the first crisis of modernity and the development of trust and contain a comparative analysis of the development of trust in four different countries. The investigation thus clarifies the correlation between specific historical factors and the levels of trust.

Details

Corporate Communications: An International Journal, vol. 26 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1356-3289

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 1 July 2018

Arfat Ahmad

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the underlying reciprocity mechanism which governs the relationship between employer and employee at their workplaces in a perspective…

24355

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the underlying reciprocity mechanism which governs the relationship between employer and employee at their workplaces in a perspective whereby intrinsic and extrinsic factors of job satisfaction are considered as proxy to organizational offerings, while multi overall job satisfaction and dimensional organizational commitment as employee’ attitudinal reaction to the organizational offerings. Under the aforementioned notion, the present study intends to examine the influence of job characteristics on employees’ attitudes, such as, job satisfaction, organizational commitment and employee’ turnover intentions as psychological response to job characteristics. In a way, the study attempts to insight into how employee’ reciprocate to the perceived obligation toward its organization. The study also aims to supplement the empirical evidence about the competing power of intrinsic and extrinsic factors of job in determining the job satisfaction. Although various studies exhibit positive relationship between job satisfaction and organizational commitment has been consistently reported. However, for the managerial implication, the identification of employee physiological and psychological needs to gauge the understanding of mechanism by which of employee’ reacts to its environment and develop attitude toward their job and organization is imperative. In this context, this study makes a humble attempt to clear the relationships in the perspective of reciprocation between organization and its employees. Thus, this study attempts to illustrate how feeling a need to reciprocate, those who experienced strong satisfaction with job characteristics appear to have had a sense of moral duty to the organization can be helpful in understanding the processes by which organizational inducements exert their influence on other employee attitudes and behaviors. Evidently, while the link between employees’ satisfaction with their job and high organizational commitment, on the one hand, and low intentions to leave on the other is fairly straightforward, yet there in need to study these variables as exogenous and endogenous to inquire about their causation. Also, the available present literature on the understudy concern genuinely lacks adequate empirical material about the competing power of intrinsic and extrinsic factors of job in determining the job satisfaction as such some author hold that intrinsic characteristic of job better predict job satisfaction while as another set of behavioral scientists found extrinsic job characteristics as prime determinant of job satisfaction compare to the intrinsic worth of their jobs. The present study was conducted in the state of depressed economy where unemployment rate is as high as 194 percent it was found interesting to investigate the about the competing power of intrinsic and extrinsic factors of job in determining the job satisfaction. The present study also attempts to supplement the empirical evidence in this direction.

Design/methodology/approach

Since the study use the tenets of situational theories of employee’ attitude which assume that employee’ attitude results from the psychological evaluation of one’s job characteristics or other aspects of the environment in the organization; therefore, the study integrates the job characteristics as the organizational offerings to its employee and employees attitude like job satisfaction, organizational commitment and employee’ turnover intentions as reciprocity reaction to the organizational offerings. The structural equation model was used to frames the intricacy job characteristics, job satisfaction and organizational commitment and employee turnover intentions. Ten job characteristics were identified with which employees experience at the workplace as organizational offerings. These include salary, recognition, co-workers, supervision, organizational policies, promotion, working condition, task requirement, job security and nature of work. Subsequently, these identified facets were divided into intrinsic and extrinsic factors of job satisfaction, and were considering as proxy to the organizational offerings to its employees. These job characteristics were identified during in-depth interviews and discussions with the respondents, while overall job satisfaction, organizational commitment and employees’ turnover intentions were considered as employee’s psychological reactions to the organizational offerings. The sample consists of 654 hospital employees, working at the different hospital across state. In order to ensure the representation of the entire human capital, employees working under different levels of occupational status and different sectors of economy were included in the for the purpose of data collection. The number of employees from each hospital has been selected through proportionate method. Employees from each hospital were selected on the basis of the chit method. Measurement tools Questionnaire method was used to collect the data for the present study. A five-point likert type scale was used for the sake of maintaining uniformity in measuring the variables. All the variables were measured with multiple-item scales, questionnaire item used to measure different constructs in this study are derived from the previously established studies. As such, multidimensional organizational commitment construct was measured using items drawn from Meyer and Allen (1991) scale. Job characteristics and employee’ turnover intentions scale was adapted from the study conducted by Ali Muhammad et al. (2008). The instrument used for the present study has universal application. Therefore the results thus produce are of universal significance. The reliability and validity of measurement tools for the study was established by the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

Findings

The findings from the study reveal employees’ subjective evaluation to the intrinsic and extrinsic factors of job contribute to the formation of their reciprocal perspective of psychological attitude toward its job and organization characterized as their job satisfaction and organizational commitment. As such, better evaluation of job content and job context by the employees leads to the sense of obligation and commitment toward the organization, hence reduces their intentions to discord organizational membership. The findings also reveal that employees tend to incline their job satisfaction more toward the extrinsic worth of job than the intrinsic worth. While as both, job satisfaction and organizational commitment, explains relatively equal variation in the employees’ turnover intentions. The relatively strong correlation of extrinsic characteristics of job could be attributed to the fact that professionals generally have limited control over extrinsic factors and have high degree of control over intrinsic elements. Therefore, their perceptions of the job are particularly dependent on the degree of satisfaction with the extrinsic factors (Pearson and Seiler, 1983).

Originality/value

Although there are various studies manifested the relationship between job satisfaction, organizational commitment and employee turnover intentions, for all that, the present work is an attempt to deem these relationships in a different panorama to bring more insight in the subject of organizational behavior. In this study, the relationship among the job characteristics, job satisfaction, organizational commitment and employee’ turnover intentions were considered in a perspective of reciprocity norms. The study opens new horizons to the researchers across the globe, whereby organizational and job characteristics are considered as catalyst for the employee’ attitude and can be study and analyze in a functional relationship model. A new regime of paradigm may investigate the functional relationship between employer offerings as an input and employee attitudes as an output, with more emphasis on the organizational equilibrium. Hence, study encompass the managerial implication by gauging the understanding of mechanism by which of employee’ reacts to the workplace environment and develop attitude toward their job and organization. In this way, the propositions expatiated in the present work improves the understanding for the implications of various motivational theories, different organizational theories and human resource management models. Moreover, this work substantiates and provides insight about the competing power of intrinsic and extrinsic job factors on job satisfaction and opens debate for the generalization of Herzberg’s motivation theory.

Details

Journal of Work-Applied Management, vol. 10 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2205-2062

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 20 October 2020

Festim Tafolli and Sonja Grabner-Kräuter

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between perceived corporate social responsibility (PCSR) and perceived organizational corruption (POC) in a developing…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between perceived corporate social responsibility (PCSR) and perceived organizational corruption (POC) in a developing country context. The research suggests mediating roles of perceived ethical leadership (PEL) and job satisfaction (JS) in the PCSR–POC relationship.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected through survey questionnaires. The sample consisted of 434 employees working in private and public organizations in Kosovo. Regression analysis was conducted by using a serial mediation model.

Findings

Applying a social learning framework, this study provides evidence that employees’ perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) are positively related to perceived ethical leadership and job satisfaction and negatively related to perceived organizational corruption. Furthermore, results confirm that the relationship between CSR perception and organizational corruption perception is mediated by ethical leadership perception and job satisfaction.

Practical implications

Armed with the findings, organizations can adopt CSR practices to positively influence employee behaviors and attitudes. From these results, it is possible to better comprehend the role of CSR in dealing with relevant aspects such as corruption at the organizational level, especially in developing and emerging markets.

Social implications

The findings of this research indicate that employees in socially responsible organizations perceive less organizational corruption. Adopting a more ethical and responsible management approach might represent a promising solution to fight the corruption phenomenon inside and even outside organizations. These results should serve as reflection for both managers and public authorities.

Originality/value

With regard to CSR, previous studies have investigated different employee outcomes but never considered the potential impact on corruption at the organizational level. Furthermore, this study extends the literature by conceptualizing perceived ethical leadership and job satisfaction as mediators between perceived CSR and organizational corruption perception, in a developing country context where the concept of CSR is still less investigated.

Details

Corporate Governance: The International Journal of Business in Society, vol. 20 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1472-0701

Keywords

Open Access
Book part
Publication date: 1 December 2022

Agnès Vandevelde-Rougale and Patricia Guerrero Morales

This chapter looks at the discursive dimension of the working environment in research and higher education organizations; more specifically at neoliberal managerial discourse and…

Abstract

This chapter looks at the discursive dimension of the working environment in research and higher education organizations; more specifically at neoliberal managerial discourse and at how it participates in shaping the way researchers, teachers and support staff perceive themselves and their experiences. It is based on a multiple case study and combines an intersectional and a socio-clinical approach. The empirical data is constituted by in-depth interviews with women conducted in Ireland and Chile, and includes some observations made in France. A thematic analysis of individual narratives of self-ascribed experiences of being bullied enables to look behind the veil drawn by managerial discourse, thus providing insights into power vectors and power domains contributing to workplace violence. It also shows that workplace bullying may reinforce identification to undervalued social categories. This contribution argues that neoliberal managerial discourse, by encouraging social representations of “neutral” individuals at work, or else celebrating their “diversity,” conceals power relations rooting on different social categories. This process influences one’s perception of one’s experience and its verbalization. At the same time, feeling assigned to one or more of undervalued social category can raise the perception of being bullied or discriminated against. While research has shown that only a minority of incidents of bullying and discrimination are reported within organizations, this contribution suggests that acknowledging the multiplicity and superposition of categories and their influence in shaping power relations could help secure a more collective and caring approach, and thus foster a safer work culture and atmosphere in research organizations.

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