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The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether formal authority of the HR department has any impact on line managers’ evaluations of HR department effectiveness.

Two studies were conducted in Vietnam. Study 1 comprised a survey of 405 line managers to test the hypothesized model. Study 2 comprised a survey conducted with 155 line managers validated the findings from Study 1. Structural equation modeling and PROCESS macro were used to analyze the data.

Line managers’ perceptions of the HR department’s formal authority had a positive and indirect impact on HR department effectiveness through the HR department’s strategic involvement and influence. Public sector line managers tended to perceive their HR departments as possessing a higher level of formal authority than did their private sector counterparts.

This study extends the theory of political influence as it applies to the HR department. Specifically, the study provides empirical evidence of the influences of an organization’s political conditions on the perceptions of HR department effectiveness. This study also contributes to the extant literature on HRM in Vietnam by showing how Vietnam’s HR departments can utilize power and influence in accordance with specific ownership types.

Public sector HR managers could establish their formal authority among stakeholders as a way to enhance the recognition of HR department effectiveness. This can be done by relying on the presence of the traditional bureaucratic characteristics of the public sector which confer the HR department with formal authority.

The study contributes an understanding of the determinants of HR department effectiveness in the context of Vietnam. Research findings show that highly formal authority practices in the public sector affect the way line managers perceive the strategic involvement of the HR department. The more formal the authority, the more the public sector HR department is perceived to be involved in the strategic management process. Thus, formal authority is a prerequisite that public sector HR departments need to signal its importance among line managers. To have a long-term influencing role in the organization, the HR department in the public sector needs to develop its political and influencing skills. In contrast to this, the private sector HR department needs to develop a strategic partnership with line managers in order to increase its influence and perceived effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the implementation of talent management interventions in UK public sector organisations.

This paper draws upon the findings of a qualitative study of talent management in two UK public sector case study organisations.

Implementing talent management was found to present particular tensions for public sector managers, particularly in terms of its alignment with well‐embedded diversity and equality policies and their own perceptions of fair treatment in the workplace. Despite an acknowledgement that the sector needs to attract, develop and retain the most talented individuals to achieve its modernisation agenda, interventions which require singling out those individuals for special treatment challenges many of its established practices for recruitment and selection, employee development and career management.

Public sector organisations need to invest both time and effort into developing appropriate and relevant approaches to talent management, which take proper account of line managers' perceptions of fair treatment and established organisational approaches to diversity and equality.

Talent management is a topic of growing interest from employers concerned about their work force demographics, specific skills shortages and the retention of high potential employees but the concepts that inform talent interventions are often unclear or are an uneasy fit with the beliefs and understandings about fair treatment of those who have to implement them.

The purpose of this paper is to use conservation of resources (COR) theory as a lens for comparing the impact of line management on Bangladeshi public and private nurses’ perception of work harassment, well-being and turnover intentions where Anglo-American and European management models have been super-imposed on an existing different culture.

Survey data were collected from 317 Bangladeshi nurses’ (131 from the public sector and 186 from the private sector). Structural equation modelling was used for analysis.

High work harassment was associated with low-being, and together with management practices, it explained approximately a quarter of private sector nurses’ well-being. In total, management, work harassment and employee well-being explained approximately a third of the turnover intentions of public sector nurses, whereas only work harassment explained approximately a third of private sector nurses’ turnover intentions. The findings suggest a differential impact of management on work harassment across the public and private sector.

Cross-sectional data are susceptible to common method bias. A common latent factor was included, and several items that were explained by common method variance were controlled. Further, the findings are limited by the sample size from one sector and the use of only one developing country.

It is a waste of resources to transplant Anglo-American and European management models to developing countries without understanding the impact on nurses’ outcomes.

Anglo-American and European management models are not easily transferable to the Bangladesh context probably because of the impact of ties and corruption. Line management is a positive resource that builds employee well-being for public sector employees only.

The purpose of this paper is to further the understanding of public sector line managers' work-related well-being and health in relation to job strain, gender and workplace social support.

An online survey was sent to all senior and middle line managers (N = 357) in three administrative departments of Iceland's largest municipality. The response rate was 64.7%. Multivariate logistic regression was used to analyse the data.

A minority of respondents experience high job strain. However, for these managers, the risk of experiencing emotional exhaustion is about fivefold, compared to those not experiencing high job strain. Social support is an important buffering against job strain and enhances well-being. Female managers are more likely than their male counterparts to report myositis, back or shoulder pain and sleeping difficulty.

The study emphasises that workplace social support attenuates the negative impact of job strain on line managers' work-related well-being. Furthermore, it demonstrates that in a society at the forefront in gender equality, gender differences in health symptoms exist among line managers in the public sector – a finding that highlights the importance of studying all aspects of workplace well-being by gender. This calls for future research using a more comprehensive survey data and interviews to shed light on the pathways through which female line managers' health is negatively affected.

Knowledge relating to well-being and health of line managers in the public sector is scarce. This study contributes to filling that gap. As work-related well-being is often gender-blind, the value of the study is also the investigation of the gender patterns in the authors’ data.

The increasingly demanding psychosocial working conditions in Swedish public sector workplaces call for implementation of workplace health promotion (WHP) interventions. There is a need to increase first-line public sector managers’ capacities for health-promoting leadership. The purpose of this paper is to investigate first-line managers’ experiences of participating in an intervention aimed at strengthening health-promoting leadership. More precisely, the aim is to study what obstacles and prerequisites the intervention have for their learning processes to become health-promoting managers.

A qualitative study in Northern Sweden at workplaces in the county council and municipalities was conducted. The data were gathered through individual interviews with 18 participating first-line managers. Inductive-content analysis was used to analyse the data.

The results identify time for reflection and collegial discussions about leadership as prerequisites for learning about health-promoting leadership. Managers experienced the intervention as a confirmation of the leadership behaviours already gained. However, the health-promoting leadership intervention was seen as a contradiction, since organisational prerequisites to implement WHP measures were perceived to be lacking. The managers were not involved in the planning of the intervention and questioned why the organisation did not involve them more when the educational activities were created.

When the organisation understands how and when its managers learn, what they need and want to learn about WHP, and what they already know, tailored participatory interventions can be facilitated that consider the unique prerequisites for the particular organisation.

This paper explores how deservingness features in how line managers and employees with cancer negotiate post-diagnosis support in the workplace.

It draws on narrative interview data from people with cancer in the UK who were employed when diagnosed and line managers with experience of managing an employee with cancer. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with members of occupational health and human resources staff and staff from a UK cancer support charity.

It shows that post-diagnosis support for employees with cancer was negotiated in subjective, individualised ways, drawing on pre-diagnosis workplace contribution as well as the perceived deservingness of cancer as an illness. Managerial support for employees with cancer was also influenced by post-diagnosis employee behaviours, particularly those that implied a readiness to return to work.

The sample size and methods limit the generalisability of the results. However, sampling choices were instrumental in reaching a rich set of data, which enabled deeper understanding of individual workplace negotiations.

Pervasive and unhelpful notions of deservingness in the context of ill-health and disability have distinct and worrying implications for ageing workforces, particularly across the Global North. This has been exacerbated by the ongoing uncertainty and insecurity triggered by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. As a result insight into the management of ill-health at work has never been more relevant, and can be used to inform policy and practice.

This exploratory paper extends debates usually reserved for social welfare and health provision to a new domain by exploring how deservingness features in line manager–employee interactions in the context of an employee diagnosis of cancer.

The speed of integration has been a salient and longstanding topic in the literature on managing mergers and acquisitions. Yet over the decades, speed has also been the subject of extensive debate. While many have advocated for fast integration, others have recommended a more measured pace. In this chapter, the authors reflect on the discussion by canvasing the variety of views on the speed of integration. The work is positioned at the nexus of the literature on mergers with that on stakeholders, in particular its attention to urgency in stakeholder management. It approaches urgency in mergers and acquisitions as a “dilemma of stake,” a new lens on a well-established but challenging topic. The study draws on ethnographic research to examine accounts of speed of integration in a New Zealand public sector merger. The chapter juxtaposes varied views on the topic against the respective arguments within the merger literature. It examines the overarching themes of “go slow” and the “need for speed” by attending to the tensions between a prosocial service ethos on the one hand and a managerialist ethos on the other. The explication of the respective dilemmas of stake shows how participants articulate their views on urgency both in terms of its effects on their individual professional role, their own stake, as well as in terms of the effects on employees as internal stakeholders. The analysis also explores the role of internal and external context in shaping the views on urgency in merger integration. The work concludes by outlining an agenda for future research.

This study aims to examine task and relationship conflict and their linkage with defensive communication strategies, i.e. mature, neurotic and immature defensive communication. Furthermore, Study 1 also investigated the mediating impact of relationship conflict and the moderating impact of a manager’s active-empathic listening in dealing with task conflicts and the defensive communication of the employees. Study 2 intended to assess the causal direction of task conflicts and defensive communication strategies.

This research integrates the Job Demands–Resources framework, Conservation of Resources theory and Conflict Expression framework. Data from 124 professionals in India’s tertiary industry was gathered using a longitudinal approach. Study 1 analyses the dynamics between conflicts and defensive communication while considering managers’ active-empathic listening as a potential mitigating factor. Study 2 was conducted after a 10-month interim to delve into the intricate causal connections between defensive communication strategies and task conflicts. For analysing the data, SPSS was used for conducting confirmatory factor analysis. Furthermore, to analyse the conceptual framework and the hypothesised relationships in this study, partial least squares (PLS) modelling was performed using Smart-PLS 4.0.

Task conflicts have a significant negative association with mature and neurotic defensive communication, whereas they have a strong positive relationship with immature defensive communication. Relationship conflict significantly mediates the association between task conflict and immature defensive communication. The moderating role of the manager’s active-empathic listening was not supported. In addition, the relationship between immature defensive communication and task conflict is significantly positive, outlining their bidirectional association. In contrast, the association between mature defensive communication is significantly negative. This highlights the potential of immature defensive communication to create escalatory conflict spirals and of mature defensive communication to de-escalate them.

Defensive communication strategies, commonly explored in the psychological realm, particularly within family and romantic relationship contexts, have received limited attention in organisational behaviour. This longitudinal study offers a unique perspective on the evolution of defensive communication and its impact on task conflict over time, enhancing the understanding of how individuals adapt their communication strategies as conflicts persist or dissipate. The investigation also advances the understanding of conflict spirals, illustrating the potential of mature defensive communication to de-escalate conflicts while revealing a bidirectional connection between immature defensive communication and task conflicts.

Leaders need to prioritise addressing task conflicts, particularly those that might spiral into relationship conflicts. This would present managers with the ability to make task conflicts more functional in nature, which could help to enhance both team and organisational achievements. The bidirectional relationship between task conflict and immature defensive communication points towards the exigency for managerial and organisational initiatives to prevent the development of conflict spirals at the workplace.

This study offers crucial interdisciplinary perspectives into the body of literature with the longitudinal investigation of the connections between managers’ active-empathetic listening, task conflict, relationship conflict and the various defensive communication strategies. With the help of insights from this study, managers and leaders will be empowered to take the necessary actions to reduce employee defensive behaviours and foster a supportive culture for evoking positive and desirable performance.

This paper analyzes the influence of leadership styles and human resource management (HRM) on teacher well-being and how these contribute to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 3: Good Health and Well-being, 4: Quality Education, and 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth. The analysis assesses the extent to which the well-being of schoolteachers is influenced by the human resource management and leadership style of the school management.

The aim of this study is to determine how leadership by example, high communication leadership, human resource management and gender, influence two dimensions of teacher well-being, namely emotional and physical well-being. Gender was used as a moderating variable. The relationships between these variables are reflected in the hypotheses of this study. Linear regression analysis was used to test these hypotheses. The measurement scales were drawn from the literature. Data were obtained using non-probabilistic convenience sampling of 300 public and subsidized (concertado) high schools. To include large and medium-sized Spanish cities in the study, Madrid, Valencia, Malaga, and Murcia were selected. The final sample consisted of 315 high school teachers from 75 schools.

The results suggest that leadership by example and high communication leadership influence human resource management directly and positively. Human resource management, in turn, influences the physical and psychological well-being of schoolteachers.

This paper adds to the literature on leadership styles and human resource management by expanding the knowledge of factors influencing schoolteachers' well-being. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first article reporting a study on such factors in schools in Spain.

Este trabajo analiza la influencia de los estilos de liderazgo y la gestión de los recursos humanos (GRH) en el bienestar de los profesores y cómo estos contribuyen a los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS) 3: Buena salud y bienestar, 4: Educación de calidad y 8: Trabajo decente y crecimiento económico. El análisis evalúa hasta qué punto el bienestar de los profesores está influenciado por la gestión de los recursos humanos y el estilo de liderazgo de la dirección del centro.

El objetivo de este estudio es determinar cómo el liderazgo mediante el ejemplo, el liderazgo de alta comunicación, la gestión de los recursos humanos y el género influyen en dos dimensiones del bienestar de los profesores, a saber, el bienestar emocional y el físico. El género se utilizó como variable moderadora. Las relaciones entre estas variables se reflejan en las hipótesis de este estudio. Se utilizó un análisis de regresión lineal para probar estas hipótesis. Las escalas de medición se extrajeron de la literatura. Los datos se obtuvieron mediante un muestreo no probabilístico de conveniencia de 300 institutos públicos y concertados. Para incluir en el estudio ciudades españolas grandes y medianas, se seleccionaron Madrid, Valencia, Málaga y Murcia. La muestra final consistió en 315 profesores de secundaria de 75 centros.

Los resultados sugieren que el liderazgo mediante el ejemplo y el liderazgo de alta comunicación influyen directa y positivamente en la gestión de los recursos humanos. La gestión de los recursos humanos, a su vez, influye en el bienestar físico y psicológico de los profesores de instituto.

Este artículo se suma a la literatura sobre los estilos de liderazgo y la gestión de los recursos humanos, ampliando el conocimiento de los factores que influyen en el bienestar de los profesores de centros escolares. Hasta donde los autores saben, éste es el primer artículo que informa de un estudio sobre dichos factores en los centros escolares de España.

The purpose of this study is to explore to what extent employees' mental well-being affects their productivity while working from home (WFH) during the COVID-19 crisis and whether mental well-being and productivity differ across some socio-demographic factors.

A cross-sectional study with online questionnaires was designed with 472 valid responses in Indonesia. Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) and Individual Work Performance Questionnaire (IWPQ) were administered. Non-parametric tests and structural equation modeling were employed to analyze the data.

The prevalence of depression was 18.4%, anxiety 46.4% and stress 13.1%, with relatively good productivity. Gender, age, education level, job experiences, marital status, number of children and nature of the organization were associated with the employees' psychological health but not with their productivity, while the workspace availability influenced both outcomes. The study path model showed the negative correlation between WFH employees' psychological well-being and productivity.

This study may contribute to the implication of current mandatory WFH on mental well-being and productivity. Further studies need to address the representativeness and generalizability issues as well as incorporating potential stressors.

Organizations may adopt WFH as a future working arrangement and identify the individual and occupational characteristics that provide the most impacts on productivity. It is also necessary for them to develop proper strategies to mitigate the psychological risks and overcome the WFH challenges.

There is still a lack of studies investigating the relationship between simultaneous effects of WFH on psychological well-being and productivity, and how they affect some socio-demographic variables in the context of COVID-19.