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This paper aims to adopt the mutuality perspective from the field of human resource management (HRM) to examine family firms, specifically human resource (HR) practices that are likely to be found in Thai family firms.

The cross-case analysis of three successful unreformed or authoritarian family firms in Thailand draws on semistructured interviews with top managers and/or HR managers as well as the employees of each family firm, field visits to each firm and a review of archival documents and Web-based resources.

This paper proposes that the recruitment of employees via alternative or substream recruitment channels (especially the recruitment of current employees’ relatives or family members), paternalistic employee relations practices and the management of aging employees, specifically with regard to the absence of retirement age, the facilitation of financial planning, reduced workload, the appointment of mentors/advisors and the encouragement of aging employees to transfer knowledge to younger generations tend to be found across Thai family firms, especially the unreformed or authoritarian type. These HR practices are implemented across family firms because they help to manage high levels of debt that have accumulated over many years so that employees attain financial literacy before retirement and to foster and maintain positive relationships between managers and employees across firms. These positive relationships thus foster the retention of capable and loyal, aging employees who have been developed within the firm and who have worked with the firm for a long time (so-called Look-Mor), leading to the maintenance of tacit knowledge and experience within firms and the alleviation of the problem of labor shortage. Theoretically, this paper proposes that a family-like corporate culture typically found in family firms serves as the antecedent to the adoption and implementation of those HR practices (so-called culture determinism). In particular, the fit between corporate culture and HR practices is likely to foster the strong commitment among employees to firms and the feelings of job security among these employees (so-called commitment match in the mutuality of the employment relationship).

An important limitation of this study concerns its methodology. Because this study is based on the case studies of only three unreformed or authoritarian family firms located in Thailand, the findings in this paper only propose substream or alternative HR practices that are likely to be found across Thai family firms; therefore, generalization to all other types of family firms and all other family firms across countries is not possible. Examining whether the HR practices proposed in this paper are uniquely found across family firms should be the subject of future research. Another limitation of this study is that it does not include firms located in other industries, such as the health-care industry and the hotel and restaurant industry. Future research could explore the HR practices implemented by family firms in these industries. Moreover, quantitative studies using large samples of family firms across industries might be useful in deepening the understanding of the HR practices implemented in family firms from the mutuality perspective on HRM.

This paper has practical implications for top managers and/or HR managers across firms not only in Thailand but also in other countries. First, top managers and/or HR managers across family firms, especially those of the unreformed or authoritarian type, should implement the HR practices proposed in this paper that are aligned well with a family-like corporate culture found in family firms to foster the strong commitment among employees to firms and the feeling of job security among these employees. Second, other types of firms (e.g. publicly owned corporations and multinational corporations) that do not have a family-like corporate culture may have to adapt some of these HR practices to their corporate culture and workplace atmosphere within their firms. Third, to manage and retain high-quality aging employees within firms, top managers and HR managers across various types of firms should implement some of the HR practices for managing aging employees proposed in this paper so that the firms can retain invaluable aging employees over time.

This paper provides social/policy implications for the government and/or relevant public agencies of Thailand and of several other emerging market economies. These governments should encourage the firms located in their countries to implement some of the HR practices proposed in this paper to maintain and support knowledgeable and skillful aging employees in their firms.

This paper contributes to the two main bodies of literature on HRM and family business in the following ways. First, most previous studies on HRM have focused on the mainstream HR practices used in large firms while neglecting the alternative or substream HR practices used in family firms. Additionally, relatively little research has specifically examined the mutuality perspective with regard to HRM. Thus, this paper extends the literature on HRM and family business settings regarding HR practices that are likely to be found across Thai family firms, corporate culture as an antecedent of the adoption and implementation of those HR practices, and the fit between corporate culture and HR practices with respect to mutuality in the employment relationship. Moreover, the literature on HRM has typically overlooked the underresearched country of Thailand; most studies in this area have primarily focused on developed countries or other emerging market economies, including China and India. The findings of this paper provide an in-depth analysis of HR practices that are likely to be found in family firms located in the emerging market economy of Thailand according to the mutuality perspective with regard to HRM.

There have been increasing calls to explore the psychological contract from the lens of power. By addressing this gap, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the assumption of mutuality in relation to power dynamics in the employment relationship.

A total of 43 in-depth interviews are conducted with 6 managerial and 37 non-managerial respondents in three major call center organizations in Pakistan. Template analysis is used to analyze the data.

By undermining the assumption of implicit mutuality, the analysis reveals indeterminacy, an issue that has been frequently underplayed in the psychological contract research. The results further suggest that – in reality – employability, flexibility and employee training do not promote mutuality to the extent that is theoretically assumed because of the employers’ manipulation of these issues in their own favor.

The focus on call centers limits the generality of findings with further qualitative research needed in other industries to explore how power asymmetries impact upon mutuality in different working environments.

The research implications suggest the significance of timely and explicit communication in order to curtail indeterminacy in the employment relationship. This will not only reduce the development of breach perceptions among employees but will also reinforce their psychological contracts with the organization.

This research contributes by highlighting the significance of mutual dependence rather than mutuality in the psychological contract. The mutual dependence approach efficiently acknowledges the implications of power asymmetries which remain largely under-researched in the psychological contract theory.

Relationship marketing has been playing an important role in the development of marketing theory and practice. Though the concept has been extensively applied in international marketing in understanding the dynamics of exporter-importer relationships, few studies have looked at dyadic data to investigate the impact of mutuality of relational variables on the exporter-importer relationships. The objective of this study is to understand the impact of mutuality of key relational variables on exporter-importer relationship performance. A dyadic model of mutuality is proposed. The model highlights the impact of balance, level and quality of perceptual bi-directionality of relational variables.

The model was tested using dyadic data collected from exporter-importer relationships involving Australian exporters and their Southeast Asian import partners through a cross-sectional, quantitative survey. Mutuality of relationship constructs was measured using the perceptual bi-directionality (PBD) method.

The results support the central hypothesis that mutuality of relational constructs has an impact on relationship performance.

The study is the first to apply the perceptual bi-directionality method to measure mutuality of relational constructs in an exporter-importer setting. The study contributes to the general understanding of international business and exporter-importer relationship performance in particular.

This paper aims to investigate how employee–organization relationship (EOR) outcomes – types and qualities – are interrelated and how employees' perceptions of types (exchange and communal EORs) and qualities (trust, satisfaction, commitment, and control mutuality) play a role in their evaluations of symmetrical internal communication (SIC) and employee job engagement (EJE).

This study conducted an online survey of full-time employees (N = 804) from major US industries. This study performed a confirmatory factor analysis to check the validity and reliability of the measurement model using latent variables and then conducted structural equation modeling.

The findings demonstrate that employees' perceptions of both exchange and communal EORs are associated with each of the four EOR qualities. The results also show that only communal EORs have a significant relationship with perceived SIC and that employees' perceptions about one of the EOR quality indicator, satisfaction with an organization, has a significant association with their perceived EJE.

This study contributes to relationship management theory within the internal context by examining the interrelationship between each of the EOR types and qualities that are perceived by employees. This paper also suggests the practical importance of developing not only communal but also exchange EORs to enhance EOR quality. Additionally, the results imply that SIC programs could help to enhance employees' perceptions of communal EORs and employees could be engaged in their workplace when they are satisfied with their organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an emic view of how one researcher negotiated complex relationships in teacher education research and learned to employ the principles of the relational cultural theory (RCT) to create a research design aimed at building and sustaining relationships with participants.

The authors offer illustrative qualitative data examples from teacher education research to highlight complexities in research relationships, essential elements of the RCT, and the affordances RCT can offer qualitative researchers invested in similar work.

By engaging pre-service teachers and ourselves as mutually engaged in this process, the authors put into practice a sense of community and relationship building the authors hope pre-service teachers will practice with their future students.

This paper provides a qualitative research design employing tenets of the RCT which centers relationships as critical to the research process. The authors offer affordances and limitations to using the RCT in research.

Several affordances are offered to researchers interested in engaging in similar work.

This paper offers an original perspective of how one researcher in teacher education negotiated complex relationships and learned to employ the principles of the RCT within these to build a research design aimed at widening research and practice in teacher education through productive and lasting relationships.

Researchers recognize that interpersonal relationships contribute to the career development of professional employees. The purpose of this paper is to extend this research to individuals working at a formative point in their careers. Guided by Social Cognitive Career Theory, a model is developed that tests whether the quality of individuals’ work relationships at an early career stage has implications for their development of career cognitions and career exploration behaviors.

Structural equation modeling is used to test the model in two samples of employed students (n=372 and n=166).

Coworker relationship quality had a direct influence on career self-efficacy, which led to increased career outcome expectations, goals and exploration behaviors. The influence of supervisor relationship quality was mixed across studies.

Findings suggest that the quality of individuals’ relational experiences at work, even at an early career stage, has implications that extend beyond the workplace to affect their careers more generally.

Results speak to the dangers associated with a poor interpersonal climate for employees at an early career stage, and suggest that managers invest in opportunities that allow these employees to build stronger bonds with coworkers. The results also suggest that career counselors and internship coordinators be sensitive to the interpersonal climate of organizations with whom they contract.

This study offers insight into the connection between early employment experiences and individuals’ career cognitions and career exploration behaviors.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the process of entrepreneurial growth from the perspective of the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm and transaction cost theory (TCT) and to formulate propositions regarding the entrepreneurs’ decisional rules and structural elements in this process.

The argumentation draws upon three fields of academic research, namely, entrepreneurship studies on firm growth as well as strategic management and organization science studies on company scope and size (boundary). A systematic review of the literature was performed that combines the RBV and TCT to explain a firm’s boundary.

Three levels of entrepreneurial decisional rules in the process of growth were identified. The first level includes main decisional criteria. The second level approaches the structural elements of growth process, namely, its motives, rationale, mechanism and modes. The third level assumes evolutionary approach to decision making, namely, feedback relationships among transaction costs, governance and capabilities to create value from growth.

The paper broadens the early stream of research in the process of entrepreneurial growth. It contributes to explaining the way growth is realized, instead of identifying its predictors, which has dominated in to-date studies. The entrepreneurs’ decisional rules and choices in the process of expansion were suggested. Moreover, the integrated RBV-TCT approach was proposed as a theoretical background for studying this phenomenon.

Although private health care is regarded as providing a premium quality experience for both patients and staff alike, it is not without its daily challenges for health professionals. This study aims to explore the psychological contract of nurses to develop a greater understanding of how employee–employer interaction impacts motivation levels.

Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with thirteen nurses at a private hospital in South Africa. Five nursing managers were interviewed to provide a management perspective. Thematic analysis was used to identify the salient elements of the psychological contract and to establish connections with motivational features.

The psychological contract of nurses was balanced in nature, contained predominantly relational elements and was characterized by the need for manager support, leadership and autonomy. Motivation was a by-product of fulfilment and was enhanced by a combination of tangible and intangible rewards.

Nursing managers should recognize their role in caring for the wellbeing of their staff and should be trained accordingly. Equipping nurses with the necessary tools to work autonomously, as well as acknowledging their skills, will stimulate confidence and improve motivation.

This study makes an important contribution to the existing literature on the psychological contract of nurses within the health-care system. It provides insight into relationship-based mechanisms that can be used to improve the motivation of nurses and thus impact the overall quality of patient care.

Acts of interpersonal influence are observed throughout organizations, and most typically, in direct supervisor–subordinate relationships. However, researchers have focused less on subordinates bypassing the chain of command and targeting their supervisor's supervisor with influence attempts. We conceptualize a new term, “leapfrogging,” as subordinates' attempts to influence and manage the impressions of their supervisor's supervisor. Here we focus on influencing the target's perception of likability (the focus of ingratiation) and competence (the focus of self-promotion). This study focuses on its personal and situational antecedents.

Given the central role of social exchange and psychological processes within this phenomenon, we build on a social exchange and a social cognition approach. Using a sample of 131 university support personnel service employees, hierarchical regression is used to test the hypotheses.

The following antecedents of leapfrogging are hypothesized and tested: the subordinate personal characteristics of Machiavellianism, need for achievement, and fear of negative evaluation, and the situational/relational characteristic of leader–member exchange (LMX). Of these potential antecedents, subordinate Machiavellianism and LMX were the strongest predictors, and subordinates' need for achievement and fear of negative evaluation were moderate predictors.

Leapfrogging occurs when actors are frustrated with their current situation and desire change. However, influence tactics aimed at a subordinate's supervisor's supervisor may further strain a low-quality leader–subordinate relationship. As actors become increasingly dissatisfied and leave, this may result in increased organizational costs related to the loss of experienced employees and the hiring and training of new ones.

Most upward influence research has largely ignored subordinate influence attempts that go outside of the normal chain of command and target their boss's boss. The present study addresses this gap in the literature by examining leapfrog behaviors. Although acknowledged in a limited manner as a legitimate organizational behavior, this topic has received virtually no empirical attention.