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21 – 30 of over 7000High-performance work system (HPWS) has been verified as a promoter of both organizational and individual outcomes. However, this research takes the conflicting view of HPWS to…
Abstract
Purpose
High-performance work system (HPWS) has been verified as a promoter of both organizational and individual outcomes. However, this research takes the conflicting view of HPWS to examine the impact of HPWS perception on knowledge hoarding. In addition, competitive climate is proposed to mediate the relationship while HPWS psychological contract breach is hypothesized to moderate the HPWS-knowledge hoarding linkage.
Design/methodology/approach
A quantitative research design is adopted with data collected from 367 MBA and PhD students in Vietnam. Partial least square structural equation modeling is used to test the hypotheses.
Findings
The perception of HPWS increase knowledge hoarding with competitive climate acting as a partial mediator. HPWS psychological contract breach intensifies the relationship.
Research limitations/implications
The research provides additional evidences to support the dark-side view of HPWS on employees' outcomes. The adoption and implementation of HPWS should be clearly announced to reduce perceptions of mismatch between expectation and reality.
Originality/value
This study is among the first to investigate the association between HPWS and knowledge hoarding. In addition, the mediating role of competitive climate represents a novelty in HPWS research. Finally, the concept of HPWS psychological contract breach has been introduced to the literature.
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A.S. Adair, J.N. Berry and W.S. McGreal
Reviews institutional decision making and the role of property within amulti‐asset portfolio. Discusses diversification strategies by sectorand region as a means of reducing or…
Abstract
Reviews institutional decision making and the role of property within a multi‐asset portfolio. Discusses diversification strategies by sector and region as a means of reducing or managing risk. Indicates the mismatch that can occur between the perception of risk, current market performance and targeting of investment activity by sector. Geographical diversification is apparent by region but not by subregion in the UK. In contrast investment into European markets is weak with particular concerns relating to currency fluctuations, taxation, lease structures and asset pricing.
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Julie Robson, Yasmin Sekhon and Haomin Simon Ning
Using role theory, this paper aims to focus on business-to-business inter-personal relationships and the strain such relationships can have on the individual. How is this strain…
Abstract
Purpose
Using role theory, this paper aims to focus on business-to-business inter-personal relationships and the strain such relationships can have on the individual. How is this strain expressed, and what are the implications for the future of these relationships?
Design/methodology/approach
Thirty in-depth interviews were conducted with experienced account managers. The relationship under scrutiny was the inter-personal relationship that exists between the account managers of UK insurance brokers and their business customers.
Findings
The study found account managers use a range of resources to support their inter-personal relationships. Where there was a mismatch in the perception of relationship closeness, this did result in role strain for the account managers. In particular, resentment was expressed over time being taken from their working day and their personal life and the impact this had on their work–life balance.
Practical implications
Identification and an understanding of role strain in inter-personal relationships enables firms to provide support, guidance and training to their employees on how best to manage such relationships. Identifying when and in what ways strain can occur enables firms to identify and take steps to avoid relationship disintegration.
Originality/value
This is one of a few papers to provide empirical evidence of the role strain in inter-personal relationship from an individual employee’s perspective. Identification of the personal resources used in inter-personal relationships may prove useful for other researchers working in this under-researched area. In addition, the in-depth interviews highlighted the often overlooked subtleties within relationships and issues that can trigger relationship strain.
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Taniya Jayani Koswatta, Gary Wingenbach, Holli R. Leggette and Theresa Pesl Murphrey
Public perception of health benefits derived from organic foods is often misaligned with scientific evidence. This study aims to examine the factors affecting public perception of…
Abstract
Purpose
Public perception of health benefits derived from organic foods is often misaligned with scientific evidence. This study aims to examine the factors affecting public perception of scientific information about organic foods.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted multinominal and multiple linear regression analyses to examine associations between public perception of scientific information about organic foods and 19 factors using data from a descriptive survey (N = 763).
Findings
Perceived benefits of organic foods, trust in scientists, communicator credibility, preexisting beliefs and events related to science (e.g. COVID-19) were significant predictors of public perception of scientific information about organic foods.
Theoretical implications
Cognitive dissonance and recreancy theoretical frameworks help describe relationships between beliefs, science, trust and risk. These theories intersect when purchasing credence goods (i.e. organic foods) whose qualities cannot be observed during or after purchase. Hence, public trust of scientific information about perceived health benefits of organic foods may conflict with strongly held beliefs that contradict scientific findings.
Practical implications
Scientists can more effectively share research findings after trust is established through the listening, asking and sharing values process. Therefore, by following the path of listening, asking and sharing the endogenous/exogenous factors in this study, scientists and the public can have meaningful conversations about perceived health benefits and nutritional values of organically and conventionally grown foods.
Originality/value
Current research on perception factors about organic foods often examined consumers' perceptions and purchase intentions but rarely considered perceptions of scientific information about organic foods. This study examined relationships between public perception of scientific information about organic foods and endogenous/exogenous factors.
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The two main purposes of the paper are: first, to provide an empirical test of the widely‐held view among employers that overqualified workers are less committed as evidenced by…
Abstract
Purpose
The two main purposes of the paper are: first, to provide an empirical test of the widely‐held view among employers that overqualified workers are less committed as evidenced by heightened levels of job search, and second, to evaluate the three explanations of overqualification (matching theory, the theory of differential overqualification, and the career mobility hypothesis) in which job search plays a central role.
Design/methodology/approach
Maximum likelihood probit estimation is conducted on a sample of employed Canadians aged 18 and over who were surveyed in 2000. Predictors of job search are derived from the economic assumption that the employee's decision to undertake job search depends on a cost‐benefit assessment.
Findings
The empirical results indicate that overqualified workers are more active job searchers, and lend support to the matching theory view that overqualification is sub‐optimal from the worker's perspective.
Originality/value
This paper adds to the small number of European studies exploring the connection between overqualification and job search. The impacts of overqualification are especially important for Canadian employers given the high incidence of overqualification of the Canadian work force.
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Ralf Barkemeyer and Frank Figge
This paper aims to argue that the on-going professionalization and dissemination of the current wave of corporate social responsibility (CSR) concepts and instruments leads to a…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to argue that the on-going professionalization and dissemination of the current wave of corporate social responsibility (CSR) concepts and instruments leads to a headquartering effect, i.e. the concentration of CSR-related decision-making within corporate headquarters. This headquartering effect casts doubt on earlier studies suggesting that the “transnational” or “glocal” model can effectively address the multitude of global and local CSR challenges modern multinational companies (MNCs) face.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper uses a stakeholder lens, in turn, drawing from resource dependence theory and organizational legitimacy theory to develop under which conditions claims of Southern stakeholders will be considered by Northern MNCs. It provides evidence for the existence of a headquartering effect as a defining characteristic of mainstream CSR approaches.
Findings
The authors argue that the increasing professionalization and dissemination of mainstream CSR approaches among MNCs reinforce the headquartering effect, with strategic decision-making increasingly confined to the companies’ headquarters, while the scope of action within the subsidiaries and the supply chain of MNCs becomes increasingly restricted over time. Ultimately, this headquartering effect strengthens a Northern CSR/sustainability agenda and fails to empower developing country stakeholders.
Originality/value
The paper contributes by exploring how international CSR follows a different underlying rationale than international business. While international business research follows an instrumental perspective, international CSR is driven by both instrumental and normative considerations. Thus, international business theories may not be directly applicable to international CSR contexts.
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Laura Francis-Gladney, Robert B. Welker and Nace Magner
Budget decision-makers are forced at times to assign budgets that deviate substantially from budget participants’ requests. In these instances, budget participants likely…
Abstract
Budget decision-makers are forced at times to assign budgets that deviate substantially from budget participants’ requests. In these instances, budget participants likely interpret their budgetary involvement as lacking influence and perhaps as pseudo-participative. This experimental study examined two situational factors that may affect perceptions of pseudo-participation: budget favorability (receiving a much better or much worse budget than requested) and disclosure of budget intention (the decision-maker discloses or does not disclose a preliminary budget before the budget decision, with the final budget exactly matching the preliminary budget). As hypothesized, budget participants had a self-serving tendency to discount pseudo-participation as the cause of low influence when they received a favorable budget. However, contrary to a hypothesized effect, budget participants did not have a self-serving tendency to inflate pseudo-participation as the cause of low influence when they received an unfavorable budget. Instead, they formed strong, unbiased pseudo-participation perceptions. Also contrary to a hypothesized effect, the budget decision-maker's disclosure of an intended budget, which should have provided clear indications of an insincere request for budget input, did not increase perceptions of pseudo-participation. Budget outcomes that indicate low influence may evoke such strong perceptions of pseudo-participation as to override other information that suggests pseudo-participation.
Ruilin Zhu, Aashish Srivastava and Juliana Sutanto
Despite grave public concerns over information privacy and ongoing academic explorations of privacy policy, there is a general lack of understanding toward this issue in the legal…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite grave public concerns over information privacy and ongoing academic explorations of privacy policy, there is a general lack of understanding toward this issue in the legal context in China, the largest e-commerce market in the world. Departing from the extant literature of general discussion in nature, the authors undertook an exploratory study on the efficacy of e-commerce websites' privacy policies in China from the legal perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors drew on a qualitative grounded theory approach to identify selective codes relating to the focal issue and established a theoretical framework therefrom. The authors then conducted theoretical integration by linking them to the Theory of Development Blocks and the System Justification Theory.
Findings
The research identifies a general distrust of Chinese consumers toward privacy policies and highlights that despite their growing concerns about privacy, the privacy policies are largely ineffective in reflecting legal enforcement, changing their perceptions or influencing purchase behaviors. It also reveals that the current Chinese legislation is unable to fully render consumers' confidence in e-commerce websites' privacy policies effectiveness and privacy protection due to its limited recognition and influences among them.
Originality/value
The research has multiple ramifications. The authors empirically confirmed a mismatch between customers' perception of privacy policies and their actual behaviors and then theoretically explained the seemingly conflicting scenario in the context of development block of legal enforcement and system justification. The authors theorized the absence of the legal enforcement in privacy policies to supplement the legal perspective to the literature. The research further leads us to suggest that the time has come to update and strongly enforce privacy regulation in China to fuel the further development of e-commerce sector in practice.
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Paula Linna, Sanna Pekkola, Juhani Ukko and Helinä Melkas
This paper aims to identify what productivity means in the public sector, how it is measured and how it should be measured and improved, according to municipal authorities in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to identify what productivity means in the public sector, how it is measured and how it should be measured and improved, according to municipal authorities in managerial positions.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach is both theoretical and empirical. The first part is a literature review of research concerning public sector productivity. The second part presents findings of empirical research that is based on interviews and workshops with municipal authorities representing: special healthcare services; basic healthcare and social services, and educational services. The research was carried out in the Päijät‐Häme region, Finland.
Findings
According to the results, there is a certain mismatch between perceptions concerning productivity and the potential that lies in this concept as a functional tool in the public sector's development efforts. Public sector productivity cannot be developed and discussed without taking into consideration the issue of effectiveness.
Practical implications
Deeper common understanding concerning productivity and effectiveness and their measurement are likely to facilitate municipal decision making and service processes in individual workplaces as well as within and among different spheres of authority – and thus facilitate mutual learning.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to development and application of productivity and effectiveness thinking in the public sector. It is linked to service excellence, performance measurement and management systems, creativity in process delivery and deployment of improvement techniques in the public sector. It is of interest both to researchers and practitioners.
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Paula Linna, Sanna Pekkola, Juhani Ukko and Helinä Melkas
The paper aims to identify what productivity means in the public sector, how it is measured and how it should be measured and improved, according to municipal authorities in…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to identify what productivity means in the public sector, how it is measured and how it should be measured and improved, according to municipal authorities in managerial positions.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach is both theoretical and empirical. The first part is a literature review of research concerning public sector productivity. The second part presents findings of empirical research that is based on interviews and workshops with municipal authorities representing: special healthcare services; basic healthcare and social services; and educational services. The research has been carried out in the Päijät‐Häme region, Finland.
Findings
According to the results, there is a certain mismatch between perceptions concerning productivity and the potential that lies in this concept as a functional tool in the public sector's development efforts. Public sector productivity cannot be developed and discussed without taking into consideration the issue of effectiveness.
Research limitations/implications
Deeper common understanding concerning productivity and effectiveness and their measurement is likely to facilitate municipal decision making and service processes in individual workplaces as well as within and among different spheres of authority – and thus facilitate mutual learning.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to development and application of productivity and effectiveness thinking in the public sector. It is linked to service excellence, performance measurement and management systems, creativity in process delivery and deployment of improvement techniques in the public sector. It is of interest both to researchers and to practitioners.
Details