Search results

The increasing trend for the globalisation of business has highlighted the need for a better understanding of the factors that influence levels of intercultural awareness within organisations. Within the higher education sector, one initiative that aims to address this issue is student study abroad programs. This paper reports on a study that investigates factors that influence Australian students' propensity to engage in these programs. Using both qualitative and quantitative analysis, we examined the role of students' personality in the decision to participate in study abroad programs. The implications for education in international business are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between the extent of total quality management (TQM) implementation and organization performance, and the moderating effect of co‐worker support and organization support on the TQM/performance relationship.

A questionnaire survey was developed and distributed to a sample of firms selected from the motor vehicle parts and accessories industry.

Analysis of the data supports a strong positive relationship between the extent of implementation of TQM practices and organization performance. This study also found that co‐worker support and organization support moderated the relationship between TQM implementation and organization performance

This study has important implications for managers. First, it motivates managers (and provides a justification) to invest in the time and resources to implement TQM programs. Based on the results of this study, the implementation of TQM practices is associated with enhanced organization performance. Second, evidence from this study signals the importance of developing an environment or “culture” of support to further enhance the performance outcomes of TQM implementation. If employees do not feel there is acknowledgement and support from the organization and from work colleagues, then the implementation of TQM programs may be sub‐optimal.

There is increasing recognition of the importance of human factors in successful TQM implementation. Within this context, no previous research has empirically examined the synergistic moderating effect of co‐worker support and organization support on the relationship between TQM and performance.

Despite the increasing attention of organizational commitment in the management literature, most studies predominantly focus on full‐time workers in traditional work settings. This paper examined the antecedents of organizational commitment among casual academics working in the tertiary education sector in Australia.

A questionnaire survey was developed and distributed to casual academics working in a large Australian public university.

Analysis of the data shows that personal characteristics (gender, marital status, family responsibilities and education), job‐related characteristics (supervisor support, co‐worker support, role clarity and resource availability) and job involvement characteristics (tenure, second job and post‐graduate study at the employing university) all impact on organizational commitment.

Australian tertiary institutions are prominent employers of casual workers, however, very little is known about the work behavior of this group of academics. The results of this study highlight important directions for implementing strategies to increase casual academic's organizational commitment. Organization commitment is important because it is known association with other important organizational variables such as turnover, absenteeism and work effort.

Given the increasing reliance on casual academics in tertiary institutions, this study provides the first step in better understanding the factors that affect the organization commitment of casual academics.

Against a background of a customization imperative embraced by manufacturing firms in industrialised nations and the concomitant call for more balanced performance measurement systems (PMS), this study seeks to examine the mediating role of both non‐financial and financial performance measures in the relationship between a firm's strategic orientation of flexible manufacturing and organisational performance.

A path‐analytical model is adopted using questionnaire data from 84 Australian manufacturing firms.

The results indicate that, first, firms emphasising a flexible manufacturing strategy utilise non‐financial as well as financial performance measures; second, these performance measures are associated with higher organisational performance; and third, there is a positive association between a firm's strategic emphasis on flexible manufacturing and organisation performance via non‐financial and financial performance measures.

While there is agreement on the beneficial role of non‐financial performance measures in supporting strategic priorities associated with customization strategies, equivocal research results have emerged on the role of financial performance measures in this context. The study underscores the importance of both non‐financial and financial performance measures in this context.

The paper reinstates the value of financial performance measures for firms pursuing customization type strategies and adds to one's knowledge of PMSs by exploring the intervening role of such systems in linking flexible manufacturing strategy to organisation performance.

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between employee perceptions of their organization's management of cultural diversity, their perceived organizational support and affective commitment.

A questionnaire survey was developed and distributed to a sample of employees working in a large Australian financial institution.

Analysis of the data shows that, when controlling for perceived organizational support, there is no direct relationship between cultural diversity management perceptions and affective commitment. Rather, the data support an indirect relationship between the two variables via perceived organizational support.

Implications are, first, that managers need to recognize the potential contribution of developing a positive workplace atmosphere for cultural diversity to strengthen employee perceived organizational support, which in turn enhances affective commitment. Second, the research findings underscore the importance of perceived organizational support in linking cultural diversity management perceptions to organizational outcomes, such as affective commitment. Third, managers should not underestimate the influence of initiatives, such as making all employees feel included in the “taken‐for‐granted” informal networks in engendering positive organizational and individual attitudes.

The paper examines cultural diversity management from the employees' (rather than a management) perspective to develop a fully mediated model using organizational support to link cultural diversity management perceptions to commitment. The study reinforces the need to rethink simple relationships between cultural diversity management perceptions and organizational/individual outcomes, to consider more complex models that include important mediating variables to more fully understand the effects of cultural diversity management.

Job‐related stress has significant untoward consequences and appears to be wide‐spread. Although job‐related stress has a number of causes, the focus of this study is the stress associated with the lack of alignment between managers’ societal values and the culture of the organization in which the manager works. Using a sample of 78 Greek managers, it is argued that the Eiffel Tower organizational culture, characterized by low levels of decentralization and high levels of formalization, is congruent with the Greek societal values of high power distance and strong uncertainty avoidance, reducing Greek managers’ job‐related stress and increasing their performance. Results indicate that an Eiffel Tower organizational culture/Greek societal culture fit is associated with lower reported job stress but not increased managerial performance. Implications of the results are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) work values of millennial undergraduates and their priorities among key CSR dimensions as a basis for the design of CSR curricula that will enhance students’ social responsibility values and their job choice decisions.

Respondents were 238 senior undergraduates studying in three discipline areas at an Australian metropolitan university. Their CSR values were explored in the context of a hypothetical job choice scenario.

While the majority of students rated CSR values highly in the job choice scenario, a larger majority were willing to trade this off for greater extrinsic benefits. Among millennial job-seeking students, workplace practices were rated the most important CSR dimension with environmental issues ranking last. Significant differences were found between gender and discipline.

Quantitative analysis only; use of cross-sectional, single-source data.

In the context of greater extrinsic rewards, CSR values (particularly environmental concerns) are not front-of-mind in millennial students’ job choice decisions. This, coupled with high levels of indecision among business students may provide an important theoretical and practical basis for the development of CSR curricula in business courses in Australia.

The study offers a unique insight into the CSR values of millennial business students vis-à-vis humanities and science students in a job choice context. These findings are important for designing effective business programs to shape the social responsibility behaviours of the next generation of managers and leaders.

This article aims to focus on deaths by suicide in relation to UK welfare reform as a case study to question one of suicidology’s most dominant theories – the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide (Joiner, 2005) and its influential ideas on “perceived burdensomeness” – as well as wider ideologies on suicide and mental health reflected in this approach.

This article draws on evidence from disabled people’s campaigning groups (primary sources) and research literature (secondary sources), which shows the negative psychological impact of burden discourse and how this shows up in people’s accounts of feeling suicidal, in suicide notes and in family accounts of those who have died by suicide. It uses this evidence to problematise the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide (Joiner, 2005), specifically its ideas about “burden” as an individual misperception, and the assumption that suicide is always the outcome of mental health problems.

The findings highlight the systemic, intersectional and cumulative production of suicidality by governmental “welfare reform” in the UK, through positioning welfare claimants as “burdens” on society. They show that by locating the problem of burdensomeness in individual “misperceptions”, the Interpersonal Theory allows the government’s role in crafting stigmatisation and conditions of suicidality to be overlooked and to be reproduced.

The article raises urgent ethical questions about the application of approaches, such as the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide, to benefits-related suicides and calls for approaches to benefits-related harm and suicide to be rooted in social and disability justice.

With the continued expansion of Western organisations and their leadership personnel and practices across national boundaries there is a need for continued critical examination of assumptions about the transferability of these practices into other cultural settings. The purpose of this paper is to focus on one such practice, delegation, and explores its relationship to leader-member exchange (LMX) relationships and work outcomes in a non-Western organisation.

Participants (186) were Chinese subordinate managers in a large transport company in Hong Kong. Data were collected via questionnaire and analysed using a path-analytic model.

The data supported a direct and indirect path between delegation and job satisfaction and an indirect path only between delegation and job performance where LMX was the mediating variable. The results highlight the importance of LMX in the delegation-work outcomes relationship.

The limitations of using a single site for investigation, cross-sectional data and common method bias are discussed in relation to suggestions for future research.

For the company in question, quality LMX relationships are seen as key for improving delegation-work outcome relationships particularly in terms of the potential to “soften” the autonomy requirements of the delegation process for Chinese subordinate managers.

This research adds new knowledge to the literature about the conditions under which delegation may be effective in improving subordinate job satisfaction and performance through the agency of enhanced LMX relationships in a Chinese work context.