Search results
1 – 10 of over 1000The proportion of remote workers in America continues to increase every year. Research has demonstrated that feeling appreciated in the workplace increases employee engagement…
Abstract
Purpose
The proportion of remote workers in America continues to increase every year. Research has demonstrated that feeling appreciated in the workplace increases employee engagement, reduces turnover and increases profitability. The current study aims to determine if remote workers differ in the manner they prefer to be shown appreciation.
Design/methodology/approach
From 2014 to 2018, workers completed the Motivating By Appreciation Inventory (White, 2011a), opting for either the general version designed for face-to-face work settings (N = 86,393) or the version designed for long-distance work relationships (N = 2,640).
Findings
Employees in a long-distance work relationship chose quality time (“hanging out” with coworkers, working together on a project, someone taking time to listen to them) as their preferred means to be shown appreciation more frequently (35 per cent) than workers on site (25 per cent). Words of affirmation (oral or written praise) remain high for both groups, but the long-distance group did not value it as much (long-distance: 38 per cent, general: 48 per cent).
Practical implications
The results suggest that supervisors and staff members working in long-distance work relationships must be more proactive than in face-to-face relationships to incorporate meaningful interactions that speak to long-distance colleagues.
Originality/value
This is the first study to assess the differences in preferred ways to be shown appreciation in the workplace with respect to long-distance vs face-to-face work environments.
Details
Keywords
Joana Kuntz and Abigail Roberts
The purpose of this study was to investigate the unique contributions from social (i.e. trust climate, departmental integration) and organisational factors (i.e. managerial…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to investigate the unique contributions from social (i.e. trust climate, departmental integration) and organisational factors (i.e. managerial recognition, goal clarity and technology support) to work engagement and identification with the organisation in a human resource offshoring (HRO) context.
Design/methodology/approach
Participants were recruited from a large Australian financial institution with an HR centre located in the Philippines. Ninety-one members of the captive HR centre completed the anonymous online questionnaire consisting of quantitative items and open-ended fields. Regression analyses were conducted to ascertain the relationships hypothesised.
Findings
The findings suggest that goal clarity is a key predictor of both engagement and identification with the organisation, and that technology support and managerial recognition also influence offshore staff members’ motivation and workplace attitudes.
Research limitations/implications
The cross-sectional, self-report nature of the study, along with the small sample obtained, are noted as limitations of the study. Nevertheless, the high response rate (91 per cent) and availability of qualitative data provide valuable insight into the key factors that impact HRO operations and performance.
Practical implications
The study uncovers social and organisational variables that affect staff motivation and attitudes in an HRO context, and offers a number of guidelines for practitioners operating in these settings, focussing on goal clarity, managerial recognition and technology support.
Originality/value
The study contributes to a growing body of research into the organisational and human capital factors that account for HRO performance and sustainability, and offers preliminary evidence for their unique contributions to key performance drivers. Guidelines for future research and business practice are proposed, namely, the consideration of multilevel and temporal approaches to the management and investigation of HRO operations.
Details
Keywords
The aim of this paper is to address teams as substitutes for leadership. The article makes use of juridical foundations as a normative basis for addressing substitutes for…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to address teams as substitutes for leadership. The article makes use of juridical foundations as a normative basis for addressing substitutes for leadership. Together with the means of management and leadership, the juridical foundations constitute the background for defining sufficient and good supervisory work, which is used as an assistant instrument in addressing the research question: can teams act as substitutes for leadership?
Design/methodology/approach
In this article, substitutes for leadership theories are used to analyze the status of teams. The article includes a preliminary empirical study in a timber procurement organization and ideas for further investigations are provided.
Findings
Teams often do not act as internal supervisors or as sources of feedback and incentives, even though they are expected to do so. Some team members experience feelings of abandonment. Although planned as substitutes or supplements, teams can instead become neutralizers.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to recognizing the status of teams and to research questions concerned with explanations for the problems of teams.
Details
Keywords
Hui Zhang, Luciara Nardon and Greg J. Sears
Various forms of precarious employment create barriers to the integration and inclusion of migrant workers in receiving countries. The purpose of this paper is to review extant…
Abstract
Purpose
Various forms of precarious employment create barriers to the integration and inclusion of migrant workers in receiving countries. The purpose of this paper is to review extant research in employment relations and management to identify key factors that contribute to migrant workers' precarious employment and highlight potential avenues for future research.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a narrative literature review drawing on 38 academic journal articles published between 2005 and 2020.
Findings
The authors’ review suggests that macro- and meso-level factors contribute to the precarious employment conditions of migrant workers. However, there is a limited articulation of successful practices and potential solutions to reduce migrant work precarity and exclusion. The literature on migrant workers' precarious employment experience is primarily focused on low-skilled sector (e.g. agriculture, hospitality, domestic care) jobs. In addition, few studies have explored the role of worker characteristics, such as gender, class, ethnicity, race and migration status, in shaping the experience of migrant workers in precarious employment.
Practical implications
The results of this research highlight the importance of engaging multilevel actors in addressing migrant employment precarity, including policymakers, employers and employment agencies.
Originality/value
This research contributes to a growing conversation of migrant employment precarity by highlighting the heterogeneity of migrant groups and calling for the use of intersectional lenses to understand migrant workers' experiences of precarious employment.
Details
Keywords
Raymond Loveridge and Albert Mok
In neo‐classical economic theory labour is a commodity and the ultimate value of the employer's services is determined by the sales value of the product of these services: the…
Abstract
In neo‐classical economic theory labour is a commodity and the ultimate value of the employer's services is determined by the sales value of the product of these services: the cost of supply reflects both the disutility of work for the recruit and his equalisation of net advantages between jobs. For modern labour economists the assumption that entrepreneurs require identical inputs of labour and the new recruits will therefore possess similar skills (the conditions of free competition) is an unrealistic one. Hence segmental labour market theory has grown out of the need to explain differences between shared needs and commonalities within each group of consumers (employers) on the one hand and suppliers (employees) on the other. In this way it has been possible to carry on assuming the existence of perfect competition on both sides of the market within the boundaries of labour markets thus defined.
The purpose of this paper is to critically analyze the discourses on migrant acculturation and migrants’ mobile phone communication, in order to examine the inclusiveness of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to critically analyze the discourses on migrant acculturation and migrants’ mobile phone communication, in order to examine the inclusiveness of communication-acculturation research in the recent years.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on from 102 qualitative interviews (48 Malayali, 26 Bangla, 17 Tamil and 11 Telugu) for a larger research project that investigated the role of mobile phones in migrant acculturation in Singapore. Respondents were selected using a combination of purposive and snowball sampling methods. The respondents had been in Singapore for varying amount of time: from one month to 19 years.
Findings
The analysis of the discourses on migrant acculturation and mobile phone communication revealed that labor migrants were excluded on the basis of their temporary status and apprehensions on work productivity. The mobile usage prohibitions that existed in work sites were hinged on similar discourses that stereotyped the labor migrants. The emancipatory metaphor that has been at the center of research on migrants’ mobile phone usage and acculturation needs to be replaced with a critical discourse perspective.
Research limitations/implications
The data were originally collected for a research project that approached the phenomena of acculturation and mobile phone appropriation from a positivist perspective, whereas this paper analyzed the data to critically examine the discourses that supported the premise of the project itself. Due to this, the findings presented in this paper have limited scope for generalization.
Originality/value
The paper critiques the research trends in migrant acculturation and mobile phone communication and suggests a possible alternative that goes beyond the “transcendental teleology” that underpins discourse and practice.
Details
Keywords
The past twenty years or so have seen remarkable social and economic changes. In the industrialised countries in particular, vast improvements in the techniques of production and…
Abstract
The past twenty years or so have seen remarkable social and economic changes. In the industrialised countries in particular, vast improvements in the techniques of production and distribution have made possible a substantial increase both in gross national product and in real income per head. However, many people wish to share in the benefits of technical progress not only through higher real earnings but also through an improvement in the quality of life and, in particular, through an easing of the strains and stresses of the daily round. This desire has led to a reconsideration of the proportion of time spent on paid work. The duration of the working week has in fact been reduced in recent years in most of the industrialised countries in which it had not already been brought down to about 40 hours and the International Labour Office has been urged to provide further information on the nature and extent of this development.
Martin Guzi and Pablo de Pedraza García
The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of work conditions and job characteristics with respect to three subjective well-being (SWB) indicators: life satisfaction, job…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of work conditions and job characteristics with respect to three subjective well-being (SWB) indicators: life satisfaction, job satisfaction and satisfaction with work-life balance. From a methodological point of view, the paper shows how social sciences can benefit from the use of voluntary web survey data.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper makes use of a large sample of individual data obtained from voluntary web surveys collected as part of the WageIndicator project. The sample includes extensive information on the quality of working conditions together with different well-being indicators. The propensity score adjustment weights are used to improve the sample performance.
Findings
The results shed light on the importance of certain job characteristics not only in determining job satisfaction, but also in other SWB domains. The findings support the theory of spillover perspectives, according to which satisfaction in one domain affects other domains.
Research limitations/implications
As a voluntary web-survey, WageIndicator is affected by selection bias. The validity of the sample can be improved by weighting, but this adjustment should be made and tested on a country-by-country basis.
Originality/value
The paper provides analysis of the quality of a web survey not commonly used in happiness research. The subsequent presentation of the effects of working conditions on several satisfaction domains represents a contribution to the literature.
Details
Keywords
Cristina Toca Pérez and Dayana Costa
The purpose of this paper is to present a taxonomy of transportation waste in construction production processes based on lean construction (LC) principles.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a taxonomy of transportation waste in construction production processes based on lean construction (LC) principles.
Design/methodology/approach
The research methodology used is case study and the main stages for the identification of the transportation waste in two construction projects were: mapping physical flows; measurement of transportation time; and monitoring of transportation waste events; assessment of the taxonomy.
Findings
The main contribution of this paper is the proposition of a taxonomy of transportation waste in construction production processes through the understanding of the transportation waste causes and consequences.
Research limitations/implications
Although the literature reviewed addresses sources from different parts of the world, the case studies performed are limited to one country, Brazil. However, the studies were carried out in two different construction sites separated by more than 3,000 km.
Practical implications
All data collected during the taxonomy application can be organized in order to develop an improvement plan. Moreover, if data collected is disseminated, there is the potential to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the construction sector.
Social implications
Although the paper does not explore in depth the impact of the study on society or policy, the theme of waste minimization is focused on cost reduction, and one way to do that is through the flow management for waste minimization.
Originality/value
The paper discusses the concept of transportation waste of production in construction based on LC philosophy, through the understanding of its causes and consequences.
Details