Search results

The employee-organization relationship (EOR) has increasingly become a focal point for researchers in organizational behavior, human resource management, and industrial relations. Literature on the EOR has developed at both the individual – (e.g. psychological contracts) and the group and organizational-levels of analysis (e.g. employment relationships). Both sets of literatures are reviewed, and we argue for the need to integrate these literatures as a means for improving understanding of the EOR. Mechanisms for integrating these literatures are suggested. A subsequent discussion of contextual effects on the EOR follows in which we suggest that researchers develop models that explicitly incorporate context. We then examine a number of theoretical lenses to explain various attributes of the EOR such as the dynamism and fairness of the exchange, and new ways of understanding the exchange including positive functional relationships and integrative negotiations. The article concludes with a discussion of future research needed on the EOR.

Empirical studies of the shareholder valuation impact of firms’ international joint venture (IJV) participation have usually emphasized firm‐specific factors, but rarely extended their analysis to location‐specific factors. This is a crucial omission because the two sets of factors are interconnected vis‐a‐vis their influence on firms’ performance. Yet, previous work has neither identified how the two sets of factors complement each other nor investigated the effect of these complementarities on the shareholder value of firms who enter into IJVs. This study attempts to fill these gaps. It develops a typology of IJVs and then performs cluster analysis on a sample of 241 equity IJVs. Results indicate eight clusters in the data, including three clusters with positive shareholder value. In deriving support for its six hypotheses, the study highlights both value‐creating and value‐neutral configurations of firm‐ and location‐specific variables.

In this chapter, we review relational demography literature underpinned by the similarity–attraction paradigm and status characteristics and social identity theories. We then develop an uncertainty reduction model of relational demography, which describes a two-stage process of uncertainty emergence and reduction in a workgroup setting. The first stage depicts how structural features of the workgroup (workgroup composition) and occupation (the legitimacy of its status hierarchy) induce two forms of uncertainty: uncertainty about group norms and uncertainty about instrumental outcomes. The second part of the model illustrates employees' choice of uncertainty reduction strategies, depending on the type of uncertainty they experience, and the status of their demographic categories. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

This chapter sets forth a form of comparative analysis that is explicitly organizational, in the sense that it uses cross-level, contextual or compositional, analysis to explain organizational-level observations, especially comparisons between organizations. Inter-organizational comparisons often surface paradoxical results, in the form of unexpected differences among similar kinds of organizations, or unexpected similarities among different kinds of organizations. The value of using comparative analysis in these cases is that the information required to unravel organizational-level puzzling results is often located at a higher or lower levels. The proposed form of comparative analysis thus extends the conventional top-down, unidirectional form by adding a bottom-up component – making it bi-directional. In addition to introducing an organization-centered form of comparative analysis, the chapter offers suggestions for its practice and speculates about the potential benefits of its broad application within organizational studies.

This study has a twofold goal. First, we examined perceptions of organizational politics as viewed by the academic staff in a public university. Second, we tested the potential mediating effect of perceptions of politics on the relationship between social capital and work outcomes. We surveyed 142 junior and senior faculty members of a large public Israeli university and tested several competing models. Major results, based on Structural Equations Model (SEM) analysis, indicate that the mediating model has several advantages over the direct effect model. In addition, a revised, mixed model provided additional advantages. The models are compared and discussed. Finally, implications of the findings and recommendations for future studies on internal politics and social capital in academia and beyond are suggested.

Distributed performance arrangements are increasingly used by organizations to structure dyadic and team interactions. Unfortunately, distributed teams are no panacea. This chapter reviews some of the advantages and disadvantages associated with the geographical and temporal distribution of team members. An extended discussion of the implications of distributed team performance for individual, team, and organizational decision making is provided, with particular attention paid to selected cultural factors. Best practices and key points are advanced for those stakeholders charged with offsetting the performance decrements in decision making that can result from distribution and culture.

This article presents arguments regarding the importance of information sharing to the growth and stability of organizational knowledge. In addition, the article discusses the expected effects of group composition on the nature and degree of information sharing that takes place within groups. While group composition may vary along a number of dimensions, this article focuses primarily on differences in group membership represented by various race and gender combinations. The specific research question explored is, to what extent does group composition affect the likelihood that individually held (unique) information will be shared with group members during group discussion? A conceptual model is presented and its implications for both research and practice are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an integrated, computer vision-based system to operate a commercial wheelchair-mounted robotic manipulator (WMRM). In addition, a gesture recognition interface system was developed specially for individuals with upper-level spinal cord injuries including object tracking and face recognition to function as an efficient, hands-free WMRM controller.

Two Kinect® cameras were used synergistically to perform a variety of simple object retrieval tasks. One camera was used to interpret the hand gestures and locate the operator's face for object positioning, and then send those as commands to control the WMRM. The other sensor was used to automatically recognize different daily living objects selected by the subjects. An object recognition module employing the Speeded Up Robust Features algorithm was implemented and recognition results were sent as a commands for “coarse positioning” of the robotic arm near the selected object. Automatic face detection was provided as a shortcut enabling the positing of the objects close by the subject's face.

The gesture recognition interface incorporated hand detection, tracking and recognition algorithms, and yielded a recognition accuracy of 97.5 percent for an eight-gesture lexicon. Tasks’ completion time were conducted to compare manual (gestures only) and semi-manual (gestures, automatic face detection, and object recognition) WMRM control modes. The use of automatic face and object detection significantly reduced the completion times for retrieving a variety of daily living objects.

Integration of three computer vision modules were used to construct an effective and hand-free interface for individuals with upper-limb mobility impairments to control a WMRM.

The purpose of this chapter is to extend research and theory on learning and performance orientations to multiple levels of analysis. We begin by introducing a model describing the impact of individual learning and performance orientations on attentional focus, response to failure, experimentation, and motivation, and identify potential sources of these orientations. We then describe how learning and performance orientations are linked to incremental and profound change, and theoretically based propositions are presented to guide future research efforts. Leadership, organizational learning, and strategic human resource management are discussed in relation to the model, and implications of the framework for future research and practice are revealed.