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1 – 10 of 145Ana Maria Silva, Jorge F.S. Gomes and Sílvia Monteiro
This study aims to analyse how people's perceived employability was affected during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This study explores individuals' perceived…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyse how people's perceived employability was affected during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This study explores individuals' perceived financial threat, age and work situation as factors that shape perceived employability.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected via a survey at three different times between October 2020 and May 2021, which were chosen to reflect the evolution of the pandemic. The participants (n = 124) reported participants' perceived employability and financial threat during the pandemic in Portugal. Perceived employability is a multidimensional concept, as this includes the following scales: employment protective behaviour, employment risk, job-seeking behaviour, self-control and self-learning.
Findings
Participants' overall perceived employability failed to record significant variance over the period under analysis. Nevertheless, perceived employment protective behaviour decreased the most, especially in the case of young adults (aged 18 to 24). Individuals' perceived financial threat varied according to the external context, being lower during the last moment of data collection, which corresponded to the less-socially and economically restrictive period. Employees with the most stable work condition, i.e. with a permanent employment contract, were those who felt less financially threatened when compared to other respondents. A negative relationship between perceived employability and perceived financial threat was identified during the third moment of data collection.
Originality/value
The research informs about how individuals perceive themselves in a highly unpredictable and unstable context. The longitudinal approach shows how the external context affected people's perceived employability and financial threat throughout the pandemic.
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Maria Céu Santos, Filipe Coelho, Jorge F.S. Gomes and Carlos M.P. Sousa
This paper aims to investigate how personal values relate to the psychological contract employees establish with their employers.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate how personal values relate to the psychological contract employees establish with their employers.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample consisted of 223 frontline employees from a major Portuguese company. The paper used stepwise regressions analysis to test the research hypotheses.
Findings
Collectivistic-oriented values were generally related to psychological contract features such as long time frame, lower tangibility, flexibility, inequality and collective regulation. Conversely, individualistic-oriented values were generally associated with a short time frame and a more tangible, stable, equal and individually regulated type of contract with a narrow scope.
Research limitations/implications
This study uses cross-sectional data collected from a single Portuguese company. While common method bias could potentially affect the results, various procedural remedies were used to control for it. Finally, the study relied on stepwise regression, which is a data-driven approach.
Practical implications
The study supports the contentions that internal dispositions are related to psychological contracts.
Originality/value
This paper innovates by exploring how employees’ personal values are associated with the psychological contract from a feature-oriented approach. In addition, this study was carried out in Portugal, highlighting the importance of exploring existing models and theories in different cultural contexts.
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Jorge F.S. Gomes, Pia Hurmelinna, Virgílio Amaral and Kirsimarja Blomqvist
This article investigates the reasons for collaboration and the barriers to cooperation between universities and industry organizations. In an increasingly integrated world…
Abstract
Purpose
This article investigates the reasons for collaboration and the barriers to cooperation between universities and industry organizations. In an increasingly integrated world, cooperation between universities and companies is likely to grow in forthcoming years.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach taken in this article differs from previous works in the sense that it reveals the psychological frameworks that academics and managers hold about collaborating with each other. Data come from a survey of academic and managerial staff working in several universities and companies in Portugal and Finland.
Findings
Overall results show that academics still see companies as information sources for their researches, but they are also willing to participate in joint projects in which academic knowledge is not the sole output.
Originality/value
Provides information for companies and universities with regard to how to embark on such cooperative endeavors.
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Tânia Rodrigues Ribeiro, Joaquim Pinto Coelho and Jorge F.S. Gomes
The purpose of this paper is to explore the connections between human resource (HR), situation strength and improvisation behavior. A high degree of “fit” among HR practices and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the connections between human resource (HR), situation strength and improvisation behavior. A high degree of “fit” among HR practices and between such practices and organizational strategy, is said to have an impact on organizational outcomes. How these fits are achieved is not fully understood in the literature. It has been proposed that horizontal fit is achieved when messages regarding HR matters are communicated to employees in a distinct, consensual, and consistent way. This will create a strong situation, which in turn will affect outcomes such as improvisation behavior. Situation strength is captured by the concepts of climate strength, and culture strength.
Design/methodology/approach
The research was conducted at a call center of a company belonging to a Portuguese Telecommunications Group. In total, 91 questionnaires were collected. Scales in the questionnaire are based on existing indicators, but a new measure of HR strength (HRS) was also used. The data were analyzed with structural equation modeling.
Findings
Results show that HRS has a direct effect on improvisation behavior. Furthermore, culture is a mediator between HRS and climate. There was also a strong indication that culture may be a mediator between HRS and improvisation behavior.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations concern the sample size and the fact that research was conducted in a call center. Implications for research include the need to introduce leadership into this type of studies, as well as model and scales validation.
Originality/value
The current research advances knowledge in the area in three ways. First, it presents a new instrument to measure HRS. Second, it introduces improvisation as an outcome of HR. And third, it tests a full model that links HR to social common structures (climate and culture) and performance outcomes (improvisation behavior in this work).
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Joana R.C. Kuntz and Jorge F.S. Gomes
The purpose of the present paper is to advance a testable model, rooted on well‐established control and self‐regulation theory principles, explaining the causal links between…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the present paper is to advance a testable model, rooted on well‐established control and self‐regulation theory principles, explaining the causal links between change‐related sensemaking, interpretation, readiness and subsequent behavioural action.
Design/methodology/approach
Following a review of the two motivation theories and clarification of change‐related sensemaking, interpretation, and readiness concepts, the paper proposes a series of research propositions (illustrated by a conceptual model) clarifying how these concepts interact with self‐regulating mechanisms. In addition, the feedback model exemplifies how cognitive processes triggered by new knowledge structures relate to behavioural action.
Findings
The model expands upon other existing frameworks by allowing the examination of multi‐level factors that account for, and moderate causal links between, change‐related sensemaking, interpretation, readiness, and behavioural action. Suggestions for future research and guidelines for practice are outlined.
Practical implications
The variables and processes depicted in the model provide guidelines for change management in organisations, both for individuals and for groups. By eliciting important self‐regulating functions, change agents will likely facilitate sensemaking processes, positive interpretations of change, change readiness, and effective change behaviours.
Originality/value
This paper makes two contributions to the literature. First, it offers a comprehensive and dynamic account of the relationships between change‐related sensemaking, interpretation, readiness, and behavioural action decision‐making. Second, it elucidates the impact of human agency properties, namely the interplay of efficacy perceptions, social learning, and self‐regulating mechanisms on these change‐related cognitive processes and subsequent behavioural outcomes.
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The purpose of this paper is to compare the sustainability dimensions reported on the websites of public and private universities in Ghana, an emerging economy.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to compare the sustainability dimensions reported on the websites of public and private universities in Ghana, an emerging economy.
Design/methodology/approach
The universities in Ghana were categorized under public and private universities. The top five under each category were chosen (by Edu Rank’s ratings), and data was gathered from the websites of the sampled universities. Data analysis was conducted using Global Reporting Initiative (GRI-G4) framework and sustainability tools for campus assessment. Findings were then analyzed through stakeholder theory’s lens and organizational characteristics such as ownership, students’ acceptance ratios, performance, size and age.
Findings
This study’s results show that the key aspects of sustainability disclosed on the websites of the sampled private and public universities in Ghana are more of economic and campus sustainability assessment indicators than the social and environmental dimensions. Contrary to the popular notion that private sector organizations do more sustainability reporting than those in the public sector, in the case of Ghana, the sampled public universities reported more than the privately owned universities. This study attributes the extent and variations of sustainability reporting among the public and private Ghanaian universities to the universities’ characteristics such as students’ acceptance ratios, performance, size, ownership and age.
Practical implications
The findings from this study indicate that in improving the value of sustainability reporting, stakeholders of the educational sector in emerging economies should encourage universities to adopt the GRI-G4 framework and campus sustainability assessment indicators in disclosing their sustainability initiatives.
Originality/value
To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first study to compare the extent and variations in sustainability reporting between public and private universities in an emerging economy.
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Sustainable development (SD) is becoming an important area of research in accounting education. This paper examines if postgraduate accounting students in the Greek context…
Abstract
Purpose
Sustainable development (SD) is becoming an important area of research in accounting education. This paper examines if postgraduate accounting students in the Greek context present different awareness of SD issues and if this is related to their Master’s orientation. Moreover, it compares the results with other similar studies.
Design/methodology/approach
An online questionnaire was designed based on Ebaid (2022) and Aleixo et al. (2021), and distributed to two different Master’s orientation programs. Then, descriptive statistics and contingency table analysis were performed to illustrate the main differences regarding the students’ responses.
Findings
The results indicate that the examined postgraduate students recognize the importance of SD for their future careers and require more knowledge about this issue. Moreover, it is presented that most of the postgraduate students adhere to the core sustainability principles (i.e. recycle, reuse and reduce), while only the students of environmental, social and governance (ESG) Master are significantly and actively engaged in social and environmental activities. Collectively, the results show that postgraduate students in Greece are more familiar with the term SD compared to participants in other similar studies in different contexts.
Practical implications
Planners and decision-makers in higher education institutions could benefit from the findings to reconsider accounting education by introducing new courses and/or Master’s programs to promote knowledge and action for SD.
Originality/value
This is the first study, as far as we know, that examines the issue of sustainability and accounting education on postgraduate students.
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Magno Rogério Gomes, Marina Silva da Cunha, Solange de Cássia Inforzato de Souza and Paulo Jorge Reis Mourão
This article aims to analyze the workers' probabilities of following their parents’ occupational legacy and whether these individuals are paid differently compared to those who…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to analyze the workers' probabilities of following their parents’ occupational legacy and whether these individuals are paid differently compared to those who opted for occupations different from their parents, in Brazil.
Design/methodology/approach
To that end, the occupational legacy probability equation was estimated as the quantile wage equations with sample selection bias correction and the wage decomposition for Brazil from the microdata of the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) of 2014. It was found that families have a strong influence on the process of choosing the careers of their children. The average probability of a young person following the occupational legacy of their parents was 41.63%. This percentage is different when analyzing different groups of individuals, such as being male or female, being in a traditional or single parent family, being in an income household lower or higher per capita.
Findings
The results also confirm the hypothesis that workers who tend to follow the occupational legacy have lower wages than individuals who choose other occupations and that this may cause a “poverty trap” since the lower the salary quantile, the stronger the “trap” as economically disadvantaged young people tend to follow in their parents' footsteps and to contribute to family income they face a tradeoff, opt between work or study, which ends up disrupting their education and forcing young people to entering the job market early, performing secondary occupations with lower income and arduous work, generating a “vicious cycle of poverty”.
Research limitations/implications
Given the database, we are comprised to its most recent version.
Practical implications
This is the first work on Latin American problem of occupational legacy.
Originality/value
This is the first work on Latin American problem of occupational legacy.
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Keywords
Eduardo Simőes, Ana Patricia Duarte, Kanji Tanimoto, Ana Simaens and Vasco Rato
Abstract
Details