Search results

Outlines the methods and costs of converting existing robotic systems to new applications and gives research results of software and hardware conversion strategies which speed up re‐configuration. Discusses the trade‐offs between buying new solutions or upgrading old ones, describes the uses and extra costs of multi‐arm systems and attempts to generalize the applications to which they can be put. Concludes that the application of co‐operating, multi‐arm systems can provide high system reusability, although this is at the cost of greater planning needs, some of which have been met. Continued enhancement of processing power, sensing and operator interfaces are permitting multi‐arm systems to be used and reused in versatile, high dexterity industrial applications.

Considers the three main forms of winding‐up leading to the dissolution of a company: members′ voluntary winding‐up, creditors′ voluntary winding up and compulsory winding up. Outlines liquidation procedures involved in these forms of winding‐up under the Insolvency Act 1986, including creditor′s petition, court hearing, collection and distribution of assets, liquidator′s duty to investigate and the final act of dissolving the company.

This study explored the relationships between a leader’s self‐awareness of his/her leadership behavior and the attitudes and performance of subordinates. Following previous research, leaders were categorized as overestimators, underestimators or in‐agreement. Results indicate that subordinates of underestimators reported significantly higher levels of supervisory and job satisfaction than did subordinates of those who were in‐agreement, and both subordinates of underestimators and those in‐agreement reported significantly higher levels of supervisory and job satisfaction than did subordinates of overestimators. No significant differences were found between the self‐awareness categories and transfer intent. Finally, subordinates of underestimators and those in‐agreement achieved a significantly higher level of productivity than did subordinates of leaders who overestimated their leadership ability.

Previous studies on job characteristics have been performed mainly in Western contexts. More empirical evidence is needed to understand the important job characteristics of positive job outcomes in a non‐Western context. Therefore, this research has two objectives: to assess the impact of five job characteristics on work attitudes and behaviors in the UAE, and to test the mediating impact of distributive justice on the job characteristics‐work outcomes relationship.

The study reports responses of 350 employees from five large organizations operating in Dubai. Data were collected on a structured questionnaire containing standards scales of job characteristics, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, turnover intentions, distributive justice, and some demographic variables. After testing scales reliability and validity, the proposed linear relationships were tested using a series of separate hierarchical regression analyses. Proposed mediation hypotheses were tested using Baron and Kenny's recommendations.

Consistent with studies conducted in a Western context, the study showed that skill variety and feedback have functional impacts on job satisfaction, organizational commitment and turnover intentions. Contrary to Western studies, the study reported that task identity and task significance have functional effects on work attitudes and behaviors. Autonomy also showed unexpected positive relationship with turnover intentions. Additionally, distributive justice mediates some of the relationships between job characteristics and work outcomes.

The limitations of common method bias and cross‐sectional data are discussed in the light of implications for future research. Nevertheless, the results provide new insights on the influence of job characteristics on work outcomes in a non‐Western context of the UAE. Also, the study reported evidence for the mediating impact of distributive justice on the job characteristics‐work outcomes relationship.

The study has implications for enhancing work behaviors and attitudes. In general, enhancing certain job characteristics can result in higher‐level employee outcomes. Also, managers should improve some of the contextual factor (i.e. distributive justice) in order to enhance the impact of job characteristics on work outcomes.

The study is considered to be one of the first to examine the job characteristics‐work outcomes relationship in a non‐western context of the UAE. Also, it is among the first studies to test the role of distributive justice as a mediator for the job characteristics‐work outcome relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of perceived organizational support (POS) in the relationships between job autonomy and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and the moderating role of organizational strategy in those relationships.

The hypotheses were tested by a moderated mediation model using multilevel survey data that were collected in South Korea in 2008.

This study found that POS mediated the relationship between autonomy and OCB regardless of organizational strategy, and that job autonomy was more strongly related to POS in companies with an analyzer strategy than with a defender strategy. The results also indicated that the indirect relationship between job autonomy and OCB via POS was stronger in companies with an analyzer strategy than in companies with a defender strategy.

This study provides a new mechanism in the relationship between job autonomy and OCB using social exchange theory. An analyzer strategy should not be treated as a hybrid of defender and prospector strategies.

While all organizations may benefit from providing employees with job autonomy regardless of organizational strategy, companies with an analyzer strategy in particular should provide their employees with sufficient autonomy.

The present study bridged the gap between the macro and micro approaches through multilevel analyses. This study is unique in that it examined the vertical fit between job autonomy and organizational strategy while focussing on individual employee outcomes.

This research paper aims to follow a line of research that examines the impact of elements of emotional intelligence (EI), particularly those related to self‐awareness, on self‐other agreement and performance.

This is a quantitative study that employs the same methodology as Sosik and Megerian to analyze survey data gathered from a matched sample of 146 managers and 1,314 subordinates at a large international technology company based in North America.

The analysis revealed that the relationship between EI and leader performance is strongest for managers who underestimate their leader abilities. Underestimators earn higher follower ratings of leader performance than all other agreement categories (In agreement/good, In agreement/poor, and Overestimators). The analysis also suggests that there appears to be a negative relationship between EI and leader performance for managers who overestimate their leader abilities.

Implications of the counterintuitive findings for underestimators as well as the imperative for further study utilizing alternative measures of EI are discussed.

Previous empirical work in this area used an ad hoc measure of EI. This study extends this work by utilizing a larger, business sample and employing a widely‐used and validated measure of EI, the Emotional Quotient Inventory. Results further illuminate the nature of the relationship between EI and self‐other agreement and provide a potential selection and development tool for the improvement of leadership performance.

Although high-performance work practices (HPWPs) are considered to have a strong influence over organizational performance, researchers are not unanimous about the exact mechanism through which the impact of HPWS transcends to organizational performance. The purpose of this paper is to explore two explanatory theories (job characteristics theory and psychological impact theory) of HRM and examine their possible mediation effect on the relationship between HPWPs and organizational performance.

Structural equation modeling was used to examine the mediation effect.

Four constituents of job characteristics theory (autonomy, feedback, skill variety and task significance) and two constituents of psychological impact theory (job satisfaction and organization citizenship behavior) reported partial mediation.

The paper is based on primary data collected by author.

Building on the premise of conservation of resources theory (COR) that people protect their knowledge as a resource, the authors questioned whether the contextual nature of job resources buffers the counterintuitive positive relationship between evasive knowledge hiding (KH) and task performance.

Two multisource field survey studies were conducted to examine the moderating influence of task-job resources on the knowledge hiders' task performance. Hierarchical regression analyses tested the main effect of evasive KH on task performance. In addition, conditional process analyses were applied to examine two-way and three-way interactions of evasive KH, job autonomy and task variety.

The data analysis showed a positive relationship between evasive KH and task performance. Moreover, the authors found that employees receiving accumulative task-job resources continued to hide knowledge and used abundant resources to increase their task performance further. However, contrary to expectations, for employees—who received partial task-job resources—their task performance deteriorated when evasively hiding knowledge.

Managers and human resource practitioners should acknowledge that employees' evasive KH to co-workers is not always wrong and should not be treated like it is. Moreover, they are endorsed to pay attention and invest in job resources since job autonomy and task variety create a beneficial context for knowledge holders' task performance.

The authors provided novel theoretical (the gain-loss perspective of COR theory) and consistent empirical (confirmed by two field-study evidence) arguments for an important contextual role of an HRM practice of job design in shaping the underrepresented knowledge behavior–task performance relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to test the hypothesized relationships between job demands, job resources and personal resources toward work engagement, by utilizing a cross section of Thai employees.

In this study, a group of employees (n=416) responded to a set of self-report surveys on job demands, job resources, personal resources and work engagement.

The results of the hierarchical regression analysis supported the relationships between job demands (i.e. workload and role conflict), job resources, personal resources (self-efficacy) and work engagement. In addition, the results supported the role of (positive) self-esteem as moderator in the role ambiguity and work engagement relationship, and the role of self-efficacy in buffering the effect of role conflict and workload on work engagement. The final model explained 43 percent of the variance in the dependent variable.

This study will help managers in understanding employee expectations and providing appropriate feedback. Devising effective jobs, which lead to perceptions of meaningfulness, safety and availability leading to improved engagement.

This is the first study employing the job demands resources model in a cross-sectional study in Thailand.