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Article
Publication date: 8 October 2018

Yuchao Zhang, Ting Ren and Xuanye Li

This paper aims to investigate the Chinese employment relationship under the framework of psychological contracts. The authors explored the effects of firm ownership (in terms of…

1261

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate the Chinese employment relationship under the framework of psychological contracts. The authors explored the effects of firm ownership (in terms of state-owned and private enterprises) and employment type (in terms of permanent and temporary employees) on employee perceptions of psychological contract. In addition, the associations between fulfilled psychological contract and various dimensions of employee attitudes were examined.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors adopted a questionnaire as the primary instrument to investigate the impact of firm ownership and employment type on psychological contract perceptions and outcomes. The analysis was based on a Chinese sample of a size of 363 employees.

Findings

The results indicate that state-owned employees overall reported fewer promises (employer under-obligation promised psychological contract), while private employees tended to have more promises (mutual high obligation, employer over-obligation and quasi-spot obligation promise-based psychological contract). Permanent employees reported high fulfillment (employer over-obligation, mutual high obligation and employer under-obligation fulfilled psychological contract). In contrast, temporary employees presented many promises (mutual high obligation promised psychological contract) and low fulfillment (quasi-spot fulfilled psychological contract). In general, firm ownership had weak effects on permanent and temporary employees’ perceptions of promise-based psychological contract, but no significant influence on fulfillment-based psychological contract. Moreover, psychological contract fulfillment was positively related to employees’ fairness perception and job satisfaction, while negatively related to the intention to quit. The authors failed to find comprehensive statistical support for the moderating effects of firm ownership or employment type.

Originality/value

The study contributes to the literature through a number of ways. First, instead of psychological contract breach, the authors use psychological contract fulfillment as a direct measure to examine the relationship between psychological contract and employees’ attitudes. Second, they investigate the effects of firm ownership on employment relationship under the psychological contract framework, enriching the institutional lens of the issue. Third, while majority of psychological contract studies concerning employment type concentrate on either permanent or temporary employees, the authors take both types into account. Fourth, they integrate perspectives of firm ownership and employment type. Finally, the authors perform the study in the Chinese context, which offers extra evidence to the body of psychological contract literature.

Details

Chinese Management Studies, vol. 13 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1750-614X

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 11 July 2019

Alex Bryson and Harald Dale-Olsen

Higher replacement rates often imply higher levels of absenteeism, yet even in generous welfare economies, employers provide sick pay in addition to the public sick pay. Using…

Abstract

Higher replacement rates often imply higher levels of absenteeism, yet even in generous welfare economies, employers provide sick pay in addition to the public sick pay. Using comparative population-representative workplace data for Britain and Norway, we show that close to 50% of private sector employers in both countries provide sick pay in excess of statutory sick pay. However, the level of statutory sick pay is also much higher in Norway than in Britain. In both countries, private sick pay as well as other benefits provided by employers are chosen by employers in a way that maximizes profits having accounted for different dimensions of labor costs. Several health-related privately provided benefits are often bundled. In both countries easy-to-train workers, high turnover and risky work are linked to less extensive employer provision of extended sick leave and sick pay in excess of statutory sick pay. In contrast, the presence of a trade union agreement is strongly correlated with both the provision of private sick pay and extended sick leave in Britain but not in Norway. We show that the sickness absence rate is much higher in Norway than in Britain. However, the higher level of absenteeism in Norway compared to Britain relates to the threshold for statutory sick pay in the Norwegian public sick pay legislation. When we take this difference into account, no significant difference remains.

Details

Health and Labor Markets
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78973-861-2

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 November 2017

Rakesh Belwal and Shweta Belwal

The participation and productivity of women in Oman’s labor force are very low and heavily skewed toward the government sector. There are few women in the private sector and the…

Abstract

Purpose

The participation and productivity of women in Oman’s labor force are very low and heavily skewed toward the government sector. There are few women in the private sector and the reasons for this are not well-known. The challenges that women workers face specifically in the Arab World are worth understanding from a participation and policy perspective. The purpose of this paper is to explore employers’ perceptions of women workers and the major challenges they face in Oman in the context of government efforts to develop the female workforce in this Middle East region.

Design/methodology/approach

Data collected by interviewing the top executives (employers) from 28 organizations in two major cities in Oman were analyzed qualitatively, grouped into emerging themes, triangulated, and discussed.

Findings

The results indicated that employers, in general, are impressed by women workers in Oman. However, they identify a number of challenges women face. This study synthesized and grouped employers’ perceptions of these challenges in the following categories: women’s natural and physiological composition, their attitude at work, post-marital challenges, socio-cultural barriers, nature and place of work, organizational preparedness and governance, biases or prejudices of employers, and work-life balance (WLB) issues facing them.

Practical implications

This study suggests that since female participation in the government sector in Oman is substantial, women can also be attracted to work in the private sector if policies are formulated to safeguard their interests.

Originality/value

There is an absolute dearth of studies about female participation in the Omani workforce; this study is one of the pioneering efforts. Whereas the extant literature on WLB issues represents mostly the western perspective, this study highlights the major WLB issues in Oman and fills some important gaps between the West and the Middle East by focusing on women, WLB, and policies triangle.

Details

Employee Relations, vol. 39 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0142-5455

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 August 2021

Radka Vaníčková and Stanislav Bílek

The purpose of this paper is to provide a legal analysis of some chosen aspects of protection of privacy of employee as one of its personal (personality) rights in labour-law…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide a legal analysis of some chosen aspects of protection of privacy of employee as one of its personal (personality) rights in labour-law relations so how to follow from the actual legal state of legislation of property protection and other rightful interest of an employer.

Design/methodology/approach

Current legislation, in general, provides adequate privacy protection to employees in labour-law relations, but in the opinion of the authors is not quite adequately balanced with adequate legislative protection of property rights and employer private in the current legislative status of employee privacy protection. Employee privacy protection should be balanced by the increased protection of employer the interests who bears responsibility for the results of productive activities towards third parties and public power bodies, but responsible for any damage incurred to his employees. Authors of the paper are aware that the constitutional order of the Czech Republic, the Civil Code, EU legislation and the legal norms of labour law provides, in general, a sufficient guide for the fair and equitable application and interpretation of relevant law norms in the monitored area, next suggest realized legislative changes or additions in the area of employers protection of the interests and property in labour-law relations on the background of employee privacy protection.

Findings

The authors are of the opinion that the proposed change is not a denial of constitutional rules and legal provisions for the protection of personality under the Civil Code and consider it to be a balanced and professional experience to apply. Its purpose is to exhaustively identify the reasons for the introduction of control mechanisms, without prejudice to the principle of use only to the extent necessary and proportionate manner.

Research limitations/implications

Re-codified private law after 1st January 2014 is in many cases very a cased interpretation. For the issue of the interests and property protection of the employer on the backgrounds of the employee privacy protection would be appropriate to legislative more elaborate the particular legal passages and chapters of the legal text, and thus reduce the scope interpretation of the court decision. To stimulate discussion on the topic authors propose the following legislative adjustment provisions of §316 paragraph 1 and 3 of the Labor Code. The proposal allows for even that is rarely possible to get an audio recording that an employee in the course of his work, even without prior notice, if it is a compelling reason for involving the exercise and protection of employees.

Practical implications

Employees may not, without the consent of the employer to use it for their personal use, production and employment employer resources including computers nor its telecommunications equipment. Compliance with the ban in the first sentence, the employer is entitled to adequate controls. The employer shall not, except as noted below, interfere with the privacy of employees in workplaces and public areas of the employer that the employee undergoing open or covert surveillance, interception and recording of his telephone calls, checking e-mail or check the correspondence addressed to employees or making video and audiovisual recordings employee during his employment. These control mechanisms employer is entitled to a proportionate manner and to the extent necessary in the following cases: on grounds of legitimate interests and property of the employer against the threat or violation, on grounds of health and property and other employees and other serious reasons. If it is for the employer is no reason that justifies the implementation of control mechanisms under paragraph 2, the employer is obliged to inform employees directly about the extent of control by way of implementation. The obligation to inform employees not arise in cases where there is an imminent risk of injury to the health or property of the employer, the employee, other employees or third parties or in the case of sound recording employees when acquired or used for the exercise or protection of other rights or legally protected interests of others people.

Originality/value

The weaker subordination position of the employee in labour-law relations requires consistent protection and its personal interests towards employer follow from labour-law relations. These regulations have to have particular legal limits so that there was no threatened or even directly touched personal and personality rights of the employee such as honour, human dignity, ethics, morality, reverence, mutual tolerance and labour-law relations in relation to equality with participants with that employer carry responsibility for performance and results do work and it even towards to third persons when it has right to provide effectual protection property and personality rights. The proposal allows for even that is rarely possible to get an audio recording that an employee in the course of his work, even without prior notice, if it is a compelling reason for involving the exercise and protection of employees.

Details

International Journal of Law and Management, vol. 63 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1754-243X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 May 1989

Patricia A. Greenfield, Ronald J. Karren and Lawrence S. Zacharias

Every employer, unless he or she has no pool of applicants orpotential applicants to choose from, engages in hiring choices. Whilethe hiring process may vary, both from one…

Abstract

Every employer, unless he or she has no pool of applicants or potential applicants to choose from, engages in hiring choices. While the hiring process may vary, both from one employer to another and from one job to another, some form of screening occurs. In recent years, students of management have noted the proliferation of screening practices in the hiring process, especially in bringing new technologies such as medical and drug testing procedures. Testing and other screening practices, while wide‐ranging both with respect to their ends and means, have raised consistent patterns of concern among job‐seekers, public policy makers and managers themselves. In this monograph a variety of methods of screening and issues of public policy raised by screening procedures are discussed. An overview of United States law regulating the screening process is provided, together with future directions in the area of screening in the US.

Details

Employee Relations, vol. 11 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0142-5455

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 11 April 2005

Frank Ridzi and Payal Banerjee

This paper examines the experiences of welfare clients on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Indian immigrant information technology (IT) workers on the H-1B visa…

Abstract

This paper examines the experiences of welfare clients on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Indian immigrant information technology (IT) workers on the H-1B visa to analyze how public–private collaborations in the spirit and practice of outsourcing, i.e. systematic fragmentation and decentralization of both corporate and state activities, function as mechanisms for disciplining labor. Through an analysis of these groups’ parallel experiences with exploitative work and employers in the U.S., this paper identifies how outsourcing is not merely a business model for cross-border trade, but also a key principle, component, and outcome of policy-based neo-liberal economic restructuring.

Details

Worker Participation: Current Research and Future Trends
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-76231-202-3

Abstract

Details

International Journal of Migration, Health and Social Care, vol. 2 no. 3/4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1747-9894

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 7 October 2013

Khondkar E. Karim, Robert Pinsker and Ashok Robin

The specific purpose of this study is to understand how firm size and public/private affiliation (employment status) affect voluntary disclosure decisions concerning…

1956

Abstract

Purpose

The specific purpose of this study is to understand how firm size and public/private affiliation (employment status) affect voluntary disclosure decisions concerning quantitatively immaterial nonfinancial information. Although the prior disclosure literature is large and has considered a variety of factors including size and to a lesser degree employment status, this study offers a new perspective by considering both factors in the context of qualitative materiality.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper presents 136 manager participants with 24 cues representing nonfinancial, realistic business events and solicits their disclosure judgments. The cues are adapted from Pinsker et al. and contain information that does not meet widely-accepted quantitative thresholds for disclosure (e.g. 5 percent of net income), yet were identified by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as more likely to be material. This paper uses a median split of total assets and total revenues to determine “large” and “small” firms. Managers' judgments are measured in an own-firm setting (The context is their current employer, which can be public or private.).

Findings

This paper finds that disclosure is positively linked to firm size, but this paper do not find an employer status effect. Additional testing reveals that private firm managers are sensitive to SEC oversight and other external, competitive pressures, suggesting that they face mimetic pressures to behave like their public firm counterparts. In sum, their findings contribute significantly to the disclosure, strategic management, institutional theory and judgment-and-decision-making (JDM) literatures.

Originality/value

Although there is a vast literature on public firm managers' voluntary disclosure behavior (mostly involving large firms), there is little research regarding the voluntary disclosure behavior of small or large private firm managers involving nonfinancial information.

Details

Managerial Auditing Journal, vol. 28 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0268-6902

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 April 2014

Robert Salvino, Michael Tasto and Gregory Randolph

– The purpose of this paper is to examine the long-run impact of federal government healthcare subsidies on the level of entrepreneurship as measured by self-employment.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the long-run impact of federal government healthcare subsidies on the level of entrepreneurship as measured by self-employment.

Design/methodology/approach

Using annual healthcare and employment data from 1948 through 1999, the paper empirically examines the relationship between the growth in employer-provided healthcare and the rate of self-employment as a share of the non-agriculture, civilian labor force.

Findings

The regression results imply that there is a consistent effect that has appeared over time – where federal healthcare subsidies have disproportionately benefitted larger firms, contributing to the decline in the rate of self-employment, within-firm innovation, and factor mobility over time.

Research limitations/implications

The research in this study is limited by the examination of self-employment only and a constant institutional structure across all states, only varying across time for the entire USA. In addition, an empirical study looking at how the value of healthcare benefits have changed over time – vs the sole question in this study that depends upon whether or not an individual is covered or not would be very useful in determining the true effect on an entrepreneur.

Social implications

Reducing or removing the layers of healthcare subsidies would bring about an increase in the transparency of the wage-productivity relationship and a more efficient allocation of labor and entrepreneurial ability across firm sizes.

Originality/value

This paper presents empirical evidence supporting specific improvements to national healthcare policy at a time when such policy is undergoing significant change with consequences for entrepreneurial decision making.

Details

Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy, vol. 3 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2045-2101

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 July 2012

Mohammed A. Al‐Waqfi and Ingo Forstenlechner

The uncompromising preference of citizens for public sector employment throughout the Middle East is not new. However, with the recent saturation of the public sector job market…

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Abstract

Purpose

The uncompromising preference of citizens for public sector employment throughout the Middle East is not new. However, with the recent saturation of the public sector job market and demographic pressures, it has grown to become a problem of unpredictable economic and social consequences. This paper aims to explore the factors determining career choice behaviour and the underlying career expectations and perceptions of young citizens in one Middle Eastern country, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where the preference for public sector employment is not only very strong, but is also perceived as increasingly problematic.

Design/methodology/approach

Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with a total of 60 UAE citizens in the age group of 18‐23.

Findings

The authors explore and discuss cognitive, social, and institutional factors that influence the job‐seeking behaviour of young Emiratis and lead to negative attitudes towards the private sector. They further suggest potential causes of the very low private sector employment levels among UAE citizens and discuss their implications for policy makers. The authors argue for two main approaches: first, a focus on training and orientation of young citizens to enable them to confidently pursue job opportunities in the private sector. This may also include ways for providing young UAE citizens with private sector exposure, as 98 per cent of the national workforce is currently working in the public sector and a lot of what young UAE citizens think they know about the private sector is not founded in reality. Second, interventions to address structural and institutional challenges hindering employment of citizens including gaps in employment conditions and remuneration levels for citizens between the public and private employment sectors.

Originality/value

While much previous research in this field has focused on the perceptions of employers, this is the first paper to actually explore the perceptions of those at the centre of the discussion – young UAE citizens themselves.

Details

Personnel Review, vol. 41 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0048-3486

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 25000