Search results

Balancing the relationship between commitment to work and commitment to family is becoming a major issue in the modern workplace of industrialized nations. In addition, regional economic integration is fast becoming a reality in all three legs of the TRIAD (Europe, Japan, and the United States). Rationalized production is occurring at a fast pace across North America. The Enterprise for the Americas Initiative seeks to extend the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) from the Alaskan Yukon to Tierra del Fuego in Southern Chile and many American corporations are moving some production jobs to countries in Latin America. In spite of these labour trends, very little is known about the attitudes of workforces in these emerging labour markets regarding the balance between commitments to work and family. Results of research comparing work‐family orientation values among Chile, Venezuela, Mexico and the United States are presented. Implications for both researchers and managers are discussed.

Organization training and development specialists have generally viewed themselves as somewhere along a segmented continuum. At one end were trainers in management development and at the other end were organization development practitioners. In some cases, these two development processes were integrated; however, more often than not, those involved found themselves in somewhat different camps, each operating in relative isolation. During the last decade, a relatively new dimension generally known as “organizational transformation” has been added to this continuum. The “organizational transformation” process represents a “new” phase of intervention styles because the underlying logic of the process compels the trainer or consultant to utilize very different paradigms regarding the global realities of organizations. There is an evolving development continuum incorporating highly compatible and indeed potentially synergistic MD‐OD‐TRANS processes. Provides a preliminary framework for understanding the differences between the three dimensions and proposes that all must be utilized and integrated if the current and future needs of organizational participants are to be met.

A life insurance firm undertakes a major programme to integrate management development with organisational development as a change strategy to impact on all levels of employees. The underlying objectives — improved planning, team effectiveness, resource utilisation, open communication — lead to much reduced “management by crisis” in the firm, and the success of the overall effort has laid a foundation for improved future functioning.

In the 1960s and 1970s working women began to increase significantly and by the 1980s over half of America′s wives worked outside the home. This social revolution has placed a major burden on women and the associated conflicts have been researched, analysed and publicized, generally from the female viewpoint. However, few studies have also included the male viewpoint. Therefore compares how feelings of guilt, resulting from work‐family conflicts, differ or are similar between husbands and wives and can aid in the counselling of employees in the workplace who are troubled with guilt. The effective counselling of the human resource in today′s organization is a must. The effective utilization of individuals in organizations thus requires a better understanding of the effect of guilt on their personal perceptions, motivations, and behaviours.

Argues that, as problems with sexual harassment in the workplace become more apparent, the development of a commonly accepted, behavioural‐based definition of the construct becomes crucial to our understanding of the phenomenon. Attempts to add to the development of this definition by assessing 840 female office professionals’ perceptions of the behaviours that create a hostile work environment and assessing differences in perceptions which might be related to demographics. Contrary to previous research, indicates that demographics do not explain differences in perceptions of female office professionals. Makes suggestions for future researchers and practitioners.

Most serious organizational change efforts of the last two decades have focused on change within groups or the socio‐technical system. Hard data on change efforts are both limited and present a mixed picture of the effectiveness of these efforts, particularly over an extended period of time. Presents ideas, notions and concepts about the role of the individual within organizations which may help to explain some of the failures and increase the probability of successful change. Like individuals, organizations consist of body (participants′ common goals, beliefs of background), and spirit (individuals′ ideas, assumption and thought processes). The artificial system of an organization (spirit) is man‐made and owes its continued existence to the ideas, assumptions and thought processes in the minds of the individual within the organization. Consistent with this notion, develops the concept that for real long‐term organizational change to occur, the systems existing within the minds of individuals must be altered. Further, proposes that language, values, norms and ethics are the factors which hold an organization together and, since these factors are developed within individuals, they must be accounted for in change efforts. Also focuses on leaders and managers and their roles in organizational change. Specific characteristics of leaders which enable them to promote and foster change are identified and discussed. It is noted that for leaders to be successful they must (1) free themselves from themselves, (2) free themselves from the artificial systems of organizations, and (3) take specific responsibility for their actions.

Explains the development of employee empowerment from its beginnings as American academic research to its successful adaptation by the Japanese management and later US management. In its present state employee empowerment or participation flourishes in many different methods of management and takes many different forms in its practice. Examines contingent factors affecting implementation of participative management practices and points out the various dilemmas to avoid.

Discrimination matters Volume 22 Number 2 of Health Manpower Management contains an article with this title by Catherine M. Prest, which outlines the changes in legal restrictions on the eligibility of dismissed employees to pursue unfair dismissal claims. Includes a discussion of recent decisions in this area and assesses the impact of these decisions on personnel practice and disciplinary procedures.

This chapter considers how observers can effectively and safely engage with unethical organizational behaviors. Engagement methods need to be aligned with the situational contexts of specific cases. Micro-level individual, meso-level organizational, and macro-level environmental contextual obstacles to effective and safe engagement are considered. Five types of observer ethics engagement methods are considered in the context of specific cases and contextual obstacles. Engagement methods considered are as follows: (1) evocation and framing of dialogic engagement as consistent with the identity, vision, and values of the organization; (2) win–win incentive and ethics networking methods; (3) internal and external whistle-blowing methods; (4) if the observer is in a position of organizational power, top-down forcing methods; and (5) linking of observed unethical behaviors with strong external social movements.