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The purpose of this paper is to develop a new model for depicting organizational processes: the episodic spiral model (ESM).

On the basis of a strong process view as the orienting paradigm, the authors demonstrate the need for the ESM by discussing the shortcomings of two specific spiral types in the organizational literature – the knowledge creation spiral and the efficacy spiral.

A review of each spiral type through the lens of nonlinear assumptions reveals the treatment to date of organizational spirals as uni-directional and insufficient for understanding organizations. The authors propose that managers must undertake a paradigm shift in order to gain a greater awareness of both the environment in which they operate, as well as their process actions. To facilitate this shift, the ESM depicts choice points, chosen and rejected trajectories, and upward and downward environmental drafts, as well as a multi-dimensional environment, as a way of re-conceptualizing approaches to space, time, and change in organization studies.

The authors propose that the model provides a way for scholars to enhance the study of organizations by understanding that organizations exist in a more dynamic environment than previously studied; recognizing that the organization has a wider range of choices available, and acknowledging the long-lasting ramifications of both choices made and choices discarded; and obtaining a more comprehensive look at the way the organization moves through space and time at any given moment. Taken together, the authors hope that these contributions allow organizational scholars a new approach to theorizing, exploring, and writing about the organizations they study.

While focusing on the renowned bases of social power put forth by French and Raven in 1959, this paper aims to address the history and future of this taxonomy within organizational settings. Topics include the evolution of the power taxonomy, the power/interaction model, and matters relevant to future research and practice.

First, a historical overview of the French and Raven power taxonomy is provided. Second, ways in which the taxonomy has been updated over the past several decades are discussed. Third, an overview of Raven's power/interaction model (1993) is presented. Lastly, implications for future research and practice within organizations are offered.

A review of the historic and contemporary writings dedicated to social power would indicate that the advances made to the original French and Raven power taxonomy have not been incorporated into the management and organizational behavior literatures.

Practitioners and scholars interested in issues related to influence in organizational settings would benefit from an understanding of the historical developments that have occurred to the power taxonomy over the past half‐century, as well as the formation of the power/interaction model.

This paper provides readers with a historical overview of the development of the French and Raven social power taxonomy, in addition to addressing the field's more recent developments. As such, the paper will be of value to anyone interested in influence within organizational settings.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the exercise of power by leaders is impacted by cultural factors. The authors present a conceptual framework to examine the interaction of various cultural dimensions with harsh and soft power bases, thereby delineating the cross-cultural appropriateness of various power bases that may be tapped by organizational leaders.

Compatibility of each cultural dimension with harsh of soft power bases is conceptually examined, in the context of Raven’s power interaction model of interpersonal influence.

Soft power bases are more likely to be activated by managers in cultures that are collectivist, loose, long-term oriented, but low on power distance and uncertainty avoidance. Harsh power bases are expected to be chosen for influencing subordinates in cultures that are tight, short-term oriented, and high in power distance.

This is only an initial attempt to look at the exercise of social power in the context of societal culture. The framework can be extrapolated to a more fine-grained examination of the phenomenon.

The conceptualization has potential implications for developing training programs aimed at improving managers’ cross-cultural competencies.

Using a cross-cultural lens to examine how a leader exercises power contributes to a holistic view of power and culture. A cross-cultural extension of the power/interaction model, as suggested by the authors, adds value to the field of management development thinking and practice.

Although organizations change on a regular basis, much of what we know about the impacts of organizational change can best be described as macro‐level information. Only recently have scholars begun to examine the impact of organizational change at the level of the individual employee (i.e. micro level). The purpose of this paper is to assess the importance of a supervisor's support for a change initiative in relation to employee job satisfaction and job involvement.

This research made use of archival data. Police officers (n=88) were randomly selected from across the USA to complete phone interviews meant to assess, in part, supervisor support for a change from traditional policing to community policing, job satisfaction, and job involvement.

While supervisor support for the change initiative was found to be related to job satisfaction and job involvement, job satisfaction mediated the supervisor support‐job involvement relationship.

The major limitation of this study is its small sample, which precluded the use of more advanced statistical techniques (i.e. structural equation modeling). The major implication is that both employees and the organization stand to benefit during a change initiative if the supervisor demonstrates his or her support for the initiative.

This research is of value given the prevalence of organizational change and the need for more research examining the impact of change on micro‐level issues.

While managerial influence has received much research attention, Scholl has presented a fairly new approach to examining such influence. This approach distinguishes between restrictive (pushing one's wishes through, although they may run counter to the interests of another) and promotive control (influencing another in a way that is in line with his or her interests). The current research intends to offer a preliminary investigation into the relationships between these control tactics, leader‐member exchange, and organizational commitment.

University faculty members (n=46) completed measures of restrictive and promotive control, leader member exchange and organizational commitment in relation to their department chairs.

Statistical analysis indicates relationships exist between all variables of interest, but that leader‐member exchange mediates several managerial control‐organizational commitment relationships.

The main limitation for this study is its relatively small sample size. As a result, implications of the results are discussed with an emphasis on future research.

The distinction between restrictive and promotive control is important because it offers a highly parsimonious way of viewing influence and leadership.

It has been known for some time that job stress has a wide‐ranging, negative impact on employees. It has also been known that providing employees with autonomy and/or control over their work environment reduces the deleterious consequences of job stress. The purpose of this study is to examine whether control in the form of flex‐time (i.e. allowing employees to create their own work schedules) moderates the impact of stress on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation among Russian, Canadian, and Israeli Arab employees (n=933).

Archival data that was obtained from employees (n=933) residing in three different nations was analysed via hierarchical moderated multiple regression.

In relation to extrinsic motivation, a significant interaction was observed between job stress, flex‐time, and country of residence. Although flex‐time and country of residence were significant predictors of intrinsic motivation, no significant interactions were observed.

This is one of few papers to examine flex‐time from an international perspective. In terms of value, human resource managers are made aware that the impacts of flex‐time on employees' motivation depends, in part, on the nation in which they are employed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of power tactics by hospital administrators in order to gain employee compliance. It attempts to understand the influence of power bases of hospital administrators on the employee compliance using an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) technique.

The study adopted a mixed method technique and was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, qualitative analysis was carried out through content analysis of the anecdotes collected from the employees working in tertiary hospitals. Content analysis of responses aided in obtaining a list of criteria and sub-criteria affecting employee behavioural compliance. In the second phase, quantitative analysis was carried out using the AHP technique. While applying AHP, the issue pertaining to employee behavioural compliance with hospital’s policies, procedures and related instructions was formulated in form of a hierarchy of one objective, two criteria, six sub-criteria and five alternatives established through literature review and content analysis. Furthermore, the subject matter experts were asked to conduct pairwise comparison wherein priority rankings were achieved.

The results indicated that reward power (25 per cent) is the most significant power style exercised by effective hospital administrators in achieving employee behavioural compliance followed by expert (24 per cent), referent (22 per cent) and legitimate powers (17 per cent). As coercive (12 per cent) came out to be the least preferred power style, it should be cautiously exercised by hospital administrators in the present day scenario.

The major limitation of this study is that the sample was drawn only from three tertiary hospitals in Jammu district that limits the generalizability of the findings in all the hospital settings across different regions. No attempt is made in this study to understand the variations with regard to demographics of the respondents that can be taken as a future research study. This study is cross-sectional in nature and provides the perspective of specific time. A longitudinal study could further provide insights into different time variations and the comparison and henceforth can be more comprehensive, thus supporting the generalizability of this study.

The study empirically identifies the relative importance of exercising power styles in order to gain employee behavioural compliance. The study helps in understanding the complex problem of behavioural compliance in hospital setting by examining the intensity of each factor affecting employee behavioural compliance. This knowledge is very critical in effective hospital management and getting the work done. The priority rankings obtained for power styles can be used for developing selection batteries and performance records of hospital administrators. As the behaviour of the employees is not static, there may exist the inherent limitations of adopted cross-sectional design for the present study. Furthermore, longitudinal study can be conducted at different time periods, to understand the variations in the patterns of employee’s compliance behaviour and associated practiced power styles by hospital administrators.

This is perhaps the first study that has scientifically attempted to integrate the power styles and analyzed their effective use in hospital administration. This research study has attempted to develop an elementary base for academicians, scholars as well as management practitioners on the effective use of power styles for achieving employee behavioural compliance in hospitals.

The purpose of this article is to introduce the special issue which considers the impact that the global world has had on the profession of HRM.

In June 2009, the International Human Resource Management Conference was held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. Various IHRM papers were presented, and of these, many were subjected to a second round of reviews for this special issue. This special issue is made up of the best papers.

The article highlights that as IHRM has emerged as an academic discipline, a variety of debates and issues have come to dominate the literature. For practitioners, a long‐standing issue has been the delineation of specific practices to be used in the management of people within international organizations. Over time, practices have emerged, and texts today can readily be found that represent such practices for those working in MNCs as HR managers.

A number of concerns about HRM are raised in this issue, most of which are addressed by the papers chosen.