Search results

This study explores the role of organisational culture in promoting collective coping strategies in construction project teams in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Three collective coping strategies were examined, including problem-focused, relationship-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies.

O'Reilly et al.’s (1991) organisational culture profile (OCP) assessed organisational culture values. Data were collected through an online questionnaire from practitioners in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) construction organisations.

The findings show a high correlation between competitiveness culture values and problem-focused team coping strategy. Relationship-focused team coping strategy was found to have a high correlation with emphasis on rewards and performance orientation values. Conversely, an emotion-focused team coping strategy correlates highly with competitiveness, supportiveness and emphasis on rewards cultural values.

The cross-sectional design of the survey and the UAE context may present limits to the generalisability of findings.

Limited attempts have been made to study collective coping in construction project teams. The study paves the path for exploring emergent socio-psychological concepts in construction organisations, including the impact of organisational culture on team collective coping with adverse events.

Understanding the pivotal impact of culture on successful team coping provides managers with valuable insights into managing situational adversity in construction project teams.

Organizational change is usually stressful and destabilizing for employees, for whom coping with the induced stress is primordial to commit to the change. This paper aims to unravel how and when change recipients can enact different coping strategies and, ultimately, manifest different forms of commitment to change.

We propose a theoretical model that identifies challenge appraisal and hindrance appraisal as two primary appraisals of organizational change that fuel, respectively, proactive and preventive coping strategies and, indirectly, affective and normative forms of commitment to change. Moreover, this framework suggests that coping strategies and commitment are influenced by the secondary appraisal of two vital resources – resilience and POS – allowing individuals to react effectively to primary change-related appraisals. Finally, the relationship between coping strategies and the components of commitment to change is proposed to be moderated by employees' regulatory focus.

Using appraisal theory and conservation of resources theory as guiding frameworks, our integrated model describes the antecedents, processes and boundary conditions associated with coping with the stress of organizational change and how they ultimately influence commitment to it.

This is the first theoretical paper to identify a conditional dual path to disclose the different reactions that change recipients can manifest in response to the stressful aspects of organizational change.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating roles of two distinct styles of coping and decision latitude on the relationship between three facets of role stress and psychological strain in six national contexts.

The objective of the research is to examine the relative predictive efficacies of three theory specific moderators in six countries which differ on the cultural dimension of individualism‐collectivism. The data are analyzed using moderated regression analysis.

The results show that problem‐focused coping is a better moderator in the individualistic countries and that emotion‐focused coping is a better moderator in the collectivistic contexts. None of the three moderators moderate the relationships in Germany and South Africa – the two countries which had scores in the mid‐range of the individualism‐collectivism continuum. Findings are discussed for their significance into the interplay of cultural variations and coping with work stress in predicting psychological strain or distress on the job.

Practical implications for managing human resources in various subsidiaries of multinational and global organizations are discussed.

This paper confirms existing theories and expands the authors’ understanding of role stress and psychological strain in different cultural contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of person-organization (P-O) value congruence on employees’ coping with organizational change and to test the moderating effect of change event attributes vis-à-vis value congruence and coping strategies.

This paper uses a four-dimensional design to examine relationships between P-O value congruence and employees’ coping strategies. It discusses moderating effects of change attributes based on an elaboration likelihood model. The sample includes 242 employees from 34 organizations in China. Data are analyzed by a structural equation model, dominance analysis and hierarchical regression analysis.

This paper provides empirical evidence that the four dimensions of P-O value congruence have different impacts on employees’ coping strategies with change; and the effects are moderated by employees’ perceived scope of change.

Future research should collect data at different time points during change processes to better understand the influence of value congruence on coping processes. To generalize robustly beyond this case-study requires research across a larger number of individuals and organizations.

According to this paper, value congruence between employees and organizations could be better ensured by considering it as an important factor in the recruitment and selection processes, which is more effective in the long run. This is particularly pertinent for those organizations which experience frequent changes.

First, this paper considers the influences of stable organizational factors and attributes of change events on employees’ coping abilities; these are both ignored in previous studies. Second, it develops a four-dimensional coping with change structure and a two-dimensional measure of change attributes in a Chinese context which are reliable and can thus be employed in future studies.

The purpose of this paper is to study the following related terms: flexibility, resilience and coping capacity, in order to clarify relationships between them.

Methods applied in the study include the analysis and synthesis of scientific literature and a critical discussion considering provided references. By drawing on the notion of the ladder of abstraction, conceptual differences between the three terms are proposed.

Based on the most common associations of the terms in the literature, the paper proposes the following relationships between the terms: flexibility is most commonly associated with the inherent property of systems, which allows them to change within pre-established parameters; resilience is the ability of organizations to withstand changes in their environment and still function; coping capacity commonly refers to organizational behavior involving timely purposeful change.

As managers strive to improve the performance of their organizations in turbulent conditions, the paper provides a useful enhanced understanding of the relative roles that flexibility, resilience and coping capacity play in changes and maintaining the continuity of the organization.

While confusion between the meanings of these terms has been noted by various authors, the paper is believed to be the first to discuss the three terms in conjunction and thereby propose relationships between them. The proposed framework overcomes existing definitional fragmentation and raises awareness in the conceptualization of terms: flexibility, coping capacity and resilience. We contribute to extant business and management literature by proposing a model indicating the relationships between them.

The first purpose of this paper is to situate and conceptualise ambiguity in the operations management (OM) literature, as connected to supply chain decision-making (SCDM). The second purpose is to study the role of ambiguity-coping mechanisms in that context.

This research uses the behavioural decision theory (BDT) to better embed ambiguity in a generic SCDM framework. The framework explicates both behavioural and non-behavioural antecedents of ambiguity and enables us to also ground the “coping” mechanisms as individual and organisational level strategies. Properties of the framework are illustrated through two “ambiguous” events – the 2011 Thai flood and Covid-19 pandemic.

Three key findings are documented. First, ambiguity is shown to distinctively affect supply chain decisions and having correspondence with specific coping mechanisms. Second, the conceptual framework shows how individual coping mechanisms can undermine rational-based organisational coping mechanisms, leading to “sub-optimal” (poor) supply chain decisions. Third, this study highlights the positive role of visibility but surprisingly organisational “experiential” learning is imperfect, due to the focus on “similar” past experience and what is known.

The paper is novel in two ways. First, it introduces ambiguity – an often neglected concept in operations management – into the supply chain lexicon, by developing a typology of ambiguity. Second, ambiguity-coping mechanisms are also introduced as both individual and organisational strategies. This enables the study to draw distinctive theoretical and practical implications.

In response to external conditions, organizations yearn to gain a competitive edge during unremitting change. Recognizing the importance of managing change, researchers have aggressively investigated organizational change at the macro level. This research, however, argues that an employee's ability to cope with change is a function of both micro (individual) and macro (contextual) factors.

The survey data were collected at an organization that was undergoing a significant internal change. Correlational and structural equation modeling techniques were used for data analysis.

The results suggest that individual differences (intolerance for ambiguity) and contextual factors (LMX, TMX receipts and TMX contributions) are important factors for understanding the ability to manage organizational change effectively. Additionally, it is argued that contextual factors not only have direct effects on coping with change but indirect effects through perceptions of work group effectiveness. Our results indicate that both micro and macro factors are important for understanding the ability to cope with and manage change.

The research leaves open some interesting questions around the role of contextual factors in coping with change, in addition to the interaction with individual differences.

Most sources discuss change as focused at the organizational level. Managers will be well served to understand that the degree to which employees cope effectively with change will be partly determined by the interaction of individual differences and the organizational and team level context.

This research extends our understanding of the relationship between social exchange relationships and how individuals cope with change in organizations and the mechanism by which that occurs.

A strong relation between task and relationship conflict has toxic impact on teams and poses a high-risk factor in startup organizations. The purpose of this study is to investigate the moderating role of conflict behavior and related coping strategies on the relationship between task and relationship conflict in startup teams.

The authors conducted surveys among 100 Dutch and German startup members (Study 1) and 75 Belgium startup members (Study 2). In Study 3, 75 startup members completed weekly surveys in 11 consecutive weeks.

Both Study 1 and 2 show that the positive association between task and relationship conflict is buffered by problem-solving conflict behavior while this relationship is amplified by the use of avoiding strategies in startup teams. Similarly, the results of Study 3 show that individual and team-level problem-focused coping over a period of 11 weeks buffers the association between task and relationship conflict during this period, while individual disengagement coping potentiates it.

This study adds to the literature on conflict management and entrepreneurship by studying conflict behavior as a moderator in the association between task and relationship conflict in startup teams. Moreover, it takes a comprehensive perspective by including coping strategies conceptually related to conflict behaviors at both individual and teamlevel, as moderators in this relationship. The results of this study provide practical recommendations for entrepreneurs on how to prevent conflict escalation via conflict-oriented behaviors and more general coping strategies.

This study aims to identify specific changes in the content of the psychological contract during mergers and acquisitions (M&As), looking into both the “previous” and the “current” psychological contract.

A total of 255 non‐managerial employees who had recently gone through a MorA, participated in the study. They were asked to evaluate both their previous psychological contract (prior to the MorA) and their current psychological contract (after the MorA). Paired t‐tests provided support for the propositions stated.

Statistical analysis revealed that employee perceptions of both organizational obligations and contributions change after a MorA. Furthermore, employees with limited coping with changes ability are more likely to consider that their contract has changed after a MorA.

The cross‐sectional character of this study may have increased common method bias. Still, no other option existed in this organizational setting.

These findings suggest that major organizational changes, such as MorA significantly impact on individuals' view of their employment relationship. In fact, employees that feel confident in handling organizational changes are more prone to believe that their psychological contract has replaced by a new, subordinate one. Consequently, it is important that organizational agents shield employees against M&As negative impact by fostering coping with changes ability.

The paper offers insights into psychological contracts after a major organizational change.