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This study aims to explore the competencies needed by performance consultants, a particular role identified for training and development professionals. The role was formally named and promoted nearly two decades ago. Two ongoing discussions in the field are the competencies needed by training and development professionals and the role of consulting within the field.

This study identifies the general competencies needed by a performance consultant as reflected in job descriptions for the position. It accomplished this goal by collecting job descriptions for the position from organizations in Canada (the result of a practical arrangement with an organization that would collect the descriptions and remove identifying information before the research team analyzed them), systematically analyzing them using qualitative content analysis techniques and generating a profile of the position, which can be used as a basis for further analysis of the position.

The job title and competencies sought in the job descriptions differ from those proposed in the literature. Specific areas of difference include the title (none of the job descriptions analyzed explicitly used the title performance consultant), role in needs analysis and client relationships, technology competence (the job descriptions sought little, if any, while the literature suggests broad conceptual knowledge) and qualifications (most job descriptions only require a bachelor’s degree; many training and development professionals have more education).

The profile presented in this paper only represents that used in job descriptions (typically an idealized version) and in a particular national context. But if the results are validated with other methodologies and in other contexts, they suggest that the actual consulting role significantly differs from the one conceptualized in the literature.

The findings suggest that the consultant role conceived in the literature differs from the actual job expected by employers, at least as reflected in job descriptions. Research with incumbents in the job is needed to assess whether the inconsistencies are also reflected in the day-to-day work.

Social implications validate the broad concern that trainers have skills and talents to offer organizations that those organizations do not fully utilize.

The paper provides one of the few empirical studies of the job responsibilities of a performance consultant.

Introduction Consider a hi‐fi loudspeaker manufacturing company acquired on the brink of insolvency by an American multinational. The new owners discover with growing concern that the product range is obsolete, that manufacturing facilities are totally inadequate and that there is a complete absence of any real management substance or structure. They decide on the need to relocate urgently so as to provide continuity of supply at the very high — a market about to shrink at a rate unprecedented in its history.

The impact of manager gender on subordinates’ perceived job responsibility and intention to look for work was explored using a national sample of 1,825 supervisors employed in a variety of industries. After accounting for several covariates, results indicated that supervisors who had a female manager perceived lower job responsibility than did those who had a male manager. Results also showed that supervisors who had a female manager had higher intentions to look for work than did those who had a male manager. The causes and managerial implications of these findings are explored.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and espouse employee corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in classified hotels in the coastal region of Kenya, then to evaluate perceived job satisfaction, employee turnover/retention and organizational commitment by employees and explore any inherent paradox in the employee perceptions on both employee CSR practices and the job‐related outcomes in the African context.

The paper is based on an exploratory survey that targeted a population of 5,595 hotel employees from 20 selected classified hotels. A sample size of 699 employees was systematically selected and data collected using a structured questionnaire anchored on a five‐point Likert scale. The instrument was evaluated for internal consistency and subjected to principal component analysis to explore extant dimensions.

Though initially employee CSR practices by the hotel enterprises were defined by four dimensions, while employee job satisfaction‐related outcomes were defined by three dimensions, principal component analysis revealed six dimensions of the employee CSR practices and four dimensions of the job‐related outcomes. This paper, therefore, identifies and discusses the inherent paradoxes of employee job satisfaction, employee commitment and employee retention as revealed by the study.

Internal social responsibility practices among enterprises in Africa, has relatively been downplayed by government, respective enterprise management and scholars.

The purpose of this paper is to extend research on fun in the workplace by focussing on its relationship with job embeddedness among Millennials. This research examined the influence of four dimensions of fun, including fun activities, manager support for fun, coworker socializing, and fun job responsibilities, on embeddedness. In addition, this research assessed the impact of fun relative to other aspects of the employment experience.

Data were obtained from 234 full-time working Millennials via survey methodology.

Fun job responsibilities were the most dominant predictor of embeddedness followed by perceived career opportunities and praise and rewards. The other dimensions of fun accounted for significant variance in embeddedness, yet their influence was more modest.

The research demonstrated that fun plays a role in enhancing Millennials’ embeddedness, accounting for significant additional variance beyond other important aspects of the employment experience. At the same time, some aspects of fun were more dominant predictors of embeddedness than others, and other aspects of the employment experience were more dominant predictors than certain aspects of fun. These findings should be interpreted in the context of the primary limitation that the data were cross-sectional.

Workplace fun may play a role in enhancing embeddedness, but organizations should not lose sight of other human resource management practices.

The present study examined the role of workplace fun in a more nuanced perspective by examining its relationship on embeddedness relative to other important constructs.

The aim of this article is to analyze the relationship between the personal life situation and marital status of the worker and how this relates to organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and job flexibility. The study has been carried out with a group of Mexican employees from a commercial company located in the northeast of the México.

The research is a nonexperimental empirical study using t-test, Levene’s test and Cohen’s test to analyze the significant relationship between the variables under study for 419 employees. The questionnaire was applied only once without a control group against which to compare. The study was carried out in a commercial company located in a city in northeastern Mexico, covering four municipalities in the conurbation area.

The research reveals that those workers who participated in the study and who have direct family responsibilities show greater OCB and value job flexibility more highly. The tests also found that a flexible working policy is valued by all those with direct family responsibilities, regardless of their marital status. It is also shown that there is a positive relationship between job flexibility and OCB, although not a strong one.

Decent work implies labor policies that support women and men to have an adequate work–life balance. Companies seeking work–family balance through the implementation of policies such as flexible working arrangements should consider the domestic background of their employees, as this has a direct impact on competitive advantage and is of importance when recruiting and retaining human talent. These findings may also be useful for companies interested in implementing flexible working policies to retain employees with family responsibilities who value the ability to reconcile work and family life.

This research demonstrates the relevance of OCB and job flexibility for employees. If the company wants to enhance OCB, they must consider that personal situation as well as the employee's marital status influences OCB. They should also consider that work flexibility is highly valued by those employees who have children or family dependents.

An investigation of 133 job advertisements for systems librarians in American Libraries in 1996‐1997 was conducted to examine the increasingly important role that systems librarians play in the ever‐changing information environment, and to identify the knowledge, skills and qualifications of systems librarians expected by employers in various types of libraries. The results show that although systems librarians in different types of libraries may play different roles and have different emphases in their duties, the responsibility and knowledge requirements for them are generally expanding. Systems librarians are not only technology experts but also managers and coordinators. Positions for systems librarians in most academic and public libraries require at least one year of work experience. Employers expect systems librarians to have a strong computer and network background. Over two‐thirds of the position in public and academic libraries and more than half of the openings in other libraries require MLIS/MLS degrees.

Introduction The literature on earnings change has increasingly suggested that the key processes generating earnings inequality are those operating within the firm. However, there has been little empirical work on these phenomena, largely reflecting data deficiencies. Very few data‐sets on earnings contain information about internal processes and those which do often measure them narrowly. For example, most surveys of labour mobility define it either as movement between firms or as such movement plus major, once‐and‐for‐all changes of work type.

The purpose of this study is to explore the extent to which working in a management team in which leadership functions are shared impacts the role clarity, job overload, stress and job satisfaction of team members. It also aims to explore the moderating influence of organizational encouragement for team work.

The study uses data obtained from 200 top management team members working in Christian church organizations in the USA. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationship of shared leadership with the role conflict, role ambiguity, job stress, and job satisfaction of the management team members. These relationships were also evaluated for team members in organizations with both higher and lower levels of encouragement for team work.

A model in which role conflict and ambiguity mediate the relationship between shared leadership and job stress and job satisfaction provides the best fit with the data. Shared leadership within a management team was negatively related to team member role overload, role conflict, role ambiguity and job stress. Shared team leadership was positively related to job satisfaction of team members. The relationship of shared leadership with team member job outcomes is stronger in organizations with lower levels of encouragement for teamwork.

A practical implication of these results for leaders of management teams is that sharing some leadership roles and responsibilities within their teams with other members may have positive effects for the effectiveness of the team as well as the satisfaction of the team members. The generalizability of the results may be limited by the team size studied and the tendency of church pastors to be pre‐disposed to helping their management team members.

This is one of the few studies that have examined the effects of shared leadership within management teams on team members. Although shared leadership within teams may increase job demands on members and require team members to take on new roles, it seems to have positive effects on team member perceptions of their jobs. In addition, the extent to which an organization encourages teamwork makes a difference in the relationship of shared leadership with team member jobs.