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The purpose of this paper is to extend the meaning maintenance model (MMM) by elucidating the meaning employees provide to both work and family during a furlough.

The sample consisted of 180 state government employees, who completed four surveys, starting at a time before a furlough was initiated through returning to work following a furlough. The authors used random coefficient modeling of a mixed-effects model for discontinuous change.

Findings suggest that a furlough is associated with increases in perceived psychological contract breach, an indication that the meaning of work is being threatened. Following the furlough, employees’ family identity salience significantly increased. Further, rumination about the furlough increased the shift in family identity salience.

This research tests the MMM in the context of furloughs and work-family implications. The results suggest that employees experience fluid compensation, a key facet of the MMM, during a furlough. Further, rumination of the experienced furlough can strengthen the fluid compensation process.

The implications for organizations implementing furloughs and various methods for implementing furloughs are discussed.

This research extends the MMM by empirically examining it in the context of furloughs and work-family implications. Further, it extends the MMM by examining the impact of rumination on the fluid compensation process.

In a recent review of the history of women in unions, the author suggested that downturns in the economy have had a more significant effect on women than men in unions, leading to significant declines in the membership of women in unions. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between economic cycles and women's membership in unions.

The paper investigates that relationship using both quantitative and historical methods and generate evidence for the proposal.

Based on the historical and quantitative analysis, it is concluded that a more accurate way to depict the situation is to say that economic conditions influence union membership through a number of important intervening variables and, furthermore, that changes in those intervening variables over the past 40 years have substantially influenced the relationship between economics and union membership.

This paper is unique in its combination of historical and empirical approaches to addressing questions of a historical nature. The paper addresses an interesting proposal regarding relationships between economics and gender in union membership

Pluralistic ignorance is defined as a situation in which an individual holds an opinion, but mistakenly believes that the majority of his or her peers hold the opposite opinion. The purpose of this paper is to refocus attention on pluralistic ignorance as an important, applied, and multilevel concept to organizational researchers by developing a theory of pluralistic ignorance in organizational contexts.

The paper reviews the literature with regard to the causes and consequences (for individuals, groups and organizations) of pluralistic ignorance and develops an integrated understanding of how pluralistic ignorance influences employees and organizations.

The paper finds that pluralistic ignorance is a complex phenomenon that has important consequences for organizations with relation to behavior of individuals.

The development of a model of pluralistic ignorance, with research propositions, will assist researchers seeking to conduct research on this topic.

This paper is original in that it is the first to delineate the processes underlying pluralistic ignorance in a managerial/organizational context.

This paper examines the historical development of pluralistic ignorance as a construct and its application to organizational studies. Pluralistic ignorance is a social comparison error where an individual holds an opinion, but mistakenly believes that others hold the opposite opinion. Pluralistic ignorance was first developed as an important social construct in the 1920s by social psychologist Floyd Allport, and has been applied to myriad settings in psychology and sociology, including racial segregation, student perceptions of alcohol use, and classroom behavior. Despite work in pluralistic ignorance for over 75 years, it has only recently been applied to management settings. Management scholars have suggested applications of pluralistic ignorance to decision‐making, business ethics, group dynamics, performance appraisal, and burnout. Other management applications are proposed as a means to guide research in pluralistic ignorance in the future.

This paper proposes a theoretical, yet practical, framework for managing the formation process of students unrealistic expectations in a college course. Using relational contracting theory, alternative teacher interventions, aimed at effective management of students expectations about the course, are described. Also, the formation of the student entitlement process is examined. Finally, a matrix of remedies for effective management of students' unrealistic expectations is proposed. In conclusion, practical implications of the proposed framework for the advancement of teaching scholarship are outlined.

With the demand for continuous services increasing, organizations have relied more upon shift work to adapt to the needs of consumers. However, relatively little research has adequately explored the effects of different types of shifts on emotional exhaustion, particularly as they relate to work‐family conflict and social support. In this paper based on the conservation of resources (COR) model of stress, a mediated model where shifts that demand more resources related to the work‐family interface will be more likely to lead to emotional exhaustion is argued. The paper aims to address this issue.

A study of 168 fire service personnel from departments working on three different shift systems is conducted. The participants complete survey measures of emotional exhaustion, work‐family conflict, support, and demographic controls.

The paper suggests that more demanding shifts, those that lead to less time spent off the job in continuous blocks, are associated with higher work‐family conflict. Moreover, family support can make up for the lost resources of demanding shifts and is negatively associated with work‐family conflict. Finally, higher work‐family conflict is associated with emotional exhaustion.

The paper has important implications for the scheduling of shifts and employee well‐being. Specifically, it suggests that scheduling shifts with larger continuous blocks of time with family will be associated with lower work‐family conflict and less strain on employees.

The paper is the first to use a COR‐based framework to understand how shift scheduling leads to decrements in employee well‐being. Given the common use of shift work in practice, such findings may be critical in effective shift work design such that shifts have less negative impact on family life and less longer term impact on employee strain.

The IOM report “To Err is Human” recommended Crew Resource Management (CRM) training to improve patient safety and teamwork in health care. However, the effectiveness of CRM training in health care is uncertain; this study aims to identify the effect of CRM training on communication and decision making, processes that are associated with better teamwork and patient safety.

Employees in two intensive care units at a US academic medical center, one with high training penetration (67 percent trained) and one with low penetration (27 percent), were observed and interviewed about CRM principles and teamwork.

The paper found differences between the units in communication and decision making; it argues that these processes are mediating processes necessary for the effective transfer of CRM training to improvement of safety outcomes.

This study adds to the growing literature concerning health care quality interventions.

The findings suggest that high levels of training concentration are needed, along with incentives for implementation of CRM principles to maximize effectiveness.

This study adds value to the literature by examining the processes mediating CRM training and its intended patient safety outcomes.

This paper discusses the role that customers play as human resources in service‐based organizations. These involve situations where a customer replaces a more traditional employee (ATMs, self‐serve gas stations), or situations where the customer serves as a strategic partner by providing resources, particularly information, that are critical for the performance of the service exchange (consulting, health care, physical fitness training). After discussing the conditions under which a customer acts as a “partial employee” of a firm, we turn to a discussion of how human resource functions apply to partial employees. Research propositions are offered to guide future research in customer labor contributions.

The present paper seeks to understand the influence of great works through the relationship between theoretical and empirical publications. The authors examined three samples of articles published in the Academy of Management Review and used the grounded theory approach of qualitative analysis to help identify differences and similarities between theory articles that have led to empirical tests and those articles that have not. It was found that those theory articles with concise introductions drawn from disparate academic domains, proposed empirical designs, methodologies, and measurement strategies, and discussions that reiterate the need for the prescribed theory are more likely to receive empirical consideration than those theory articles that do not include these factors.

The present research has three goals: to examine the prevalence of smoke‐free workplace policies; to examine how coverage by a smoke‐free workplace policy differs among racial/ethnic groups; and to examine the impact of smoke‐free workplace policy (SFWP) coverage on health outcomes.

The research uses secondary analysis of data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) from 1998‐2006.

It was found that SFWP coverage is below government goals – especially for Hispanic workers and that SFWP coverage was associated with health outcomes.

The relatively slow progress in coverage by smoke‐free workplace policies during the last eight years suggests the possibility that a ceiling has been reached in smoke‐free workplace policy coverage. Limitations include factors that might negatively influence SFWP reporting (e.g. lack of knowledge about SFWP; language barriers), availability of data after 2006, and a cross‐sectional design for health outcomes.

The findings suggest that there is health value in SFWP, but that coverage is not at 100 percent and a federal‐level mandate might be necessary to reach that level. In situations where customers are allowed to smoke, it may be more difficult to justify and enforce a smoke‐free workplace policy.

This is the first study to examine SFWP coverage by race over time. This study allows for examination of progress toward published SFWP goals.