Search results

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of occupational disidentification through the lens of conservation of resources (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 1989, 1998). Occupational disidentification is conceptualized as a coping strategy, or an investment of resources to cope with poor perceived prestige of the occupation, which represents a threat to an individual’s resource: one’s self-esteem. However, occupational disidentification, as an avoidance coping strategy, generates a loss of cognitive and emotional resources leading to emotional exhaustion and, in turn, departure from the organization.

The research hypotheses are tested among two samples of employees working in health and social services (Study 1, N=544), and in home care services (Study 2, N=113). Measures of employees’ attitudes were collected at the same time, and turnover was collected 18 months (Study 1) and 12 months (Study 2) later.

Research hypotheses are all supported. Occupational disidentification partially mediates the occupational prestige-emotional exhaustion relationship, and emotional exhaustion partially mediates the occupational disidentification-turnover intention relationship. Perceived organizational support moderates the negative relationship between perceived occupational prestige and occupational disidentification.

The main contribution of this study is the conceptualization of occupational disidentification within the theoretical framework of COR. In that vein, the study provides: a deeper understanding of the mechanisms explaining and buffering occupational disidentification, and empirical evidence of the key role of emotional exhaustion to explain the consequences of occupational disidentification.

Key workers are deemed “essential” for keeping the country going while the rest of us have been resigned to the safety of our homes. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, key workers have become the exalted symbol of the pandemic; although, during pre-pandemic many of these roles were considered “low skilled” and were (and still are) low paid.

The analysis uses newspapers as data sources to discuss occupational prestige and situate it within previous theory.

This social commentary discusses how occupational prestige evolves and devolves during times of social change, and how elevated status, dependent on one's service to the country in the spirit of a “war-time” narrative, is just temporary and fleeting. Prestige is wrapped up in notions of class, income and education, and during the pandemic, “key workers” have become their own sub-group with an almost mythologised status and value, which the authors argue might take the focus away from genuine efforts to improve working conditions (e.g. access to PPE and pay rises etcetera).

The article considers the current value of key workers and how elevated levels of prestige are transitory. The enduring nature of this new status is yet to be seen. More qualitative nuanced research is required around how occupational prestige changes, evolves and devolves and more quantitative research on why and how widespread some of the critical issues might be.

There is a popular psychometric thesis suggesting that people with different levels of cognitive ability end up in different occupations because some occupations require greater intelligence than others for successful performance. To examine several central claims of the psychometric thesis, this study uses two kinds of data for analysis: one is cross-sectional and occupation-level data from various sources dated as early as World War I and the other is longitudinal and individual-level data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Cohort (NLSY79) and the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) in the United States. Findings of this study suggest that occupational segregation by cognitive ability is much less intensive than that suggested by the psychometric theory, and there is no evidence of a trend of increasing cognitive partitioning by occupation over time.

This chapter provides an overview of the results from a cross-nationally comparative project analysing gender differences and inequalities at labour market entry. Women’s relative gains in educational attainment and the expansion of the service sector suggest that gender inequalities in occupational returns are diminishing or even reversing. In assessing gender differences at labour market entry, we look at a phase of the life course when women’s family roles are still of minor importance. Conceptually, we distinguish between horizontal segregation and inequalities in vertical outcomes. The project was based on 13 in-depth case studies contributed by a network of scholars analysing countries with different institutional, socio-economic and cultural settings. The findings demonstrate that occupational gender segregation is still relatively marked among recent cohorts, though it is slightly decreasing over time in several countries. In terms of vertical inequalities, the case studies consistently revealed that while women enter more prestigious jobs than men in most countries, there is a female disadvantage in economic returns among recent labour market entrants. In addition, we found mixed evidence on the variations of gender equality at labour market entry across countries with different institutional characteristics.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the prestige of the Doctor of Ministry (DMin) among Roman Catholics in leadership positions, who may be a potential market for this degree.

In a mail survey employing a comparative rating scale, respondents rated the prestige of the DMin relative to six other doctorates: PhD, EdD, PsyD, DBA, MD, and JD.

Ratings were provided by 184 priests, 73 deacons, and 95 directors of religious education (69 lay, 26 sisters). The DMin carried the least prestige with priests and the most with religious educators, particularly the sisters. In all groups, the DMin fared best on prestige when compared to the professional doctorates (DBA, EdD, PsyD) and worst relative to the traditional degrees (MD, JD, and PhD). When submitted to a cluster analysis, three groups emerged, corresponding to negative (46 percent), neutral (38 percent), and positive (16 percent) impressions of the prestige of the DMin. The majority of the priests (44 percent) were in the negative cluster whereas the largest proportion of deacons (45 percent) and most lay religious educators (71 percent) fell into the neutral cluster. In contrast, the largest proportion of the religious educators who were sisters by background went into the positive cluster (40 percent). With the exception of the sisters, the percentage of each group falling into the positive cluster was quite small and approximately the same size across the remaining three groups (16 percent, 15 percent, and 13 percent). A discriminant analysis of the clusters identified two discriminating functions; the primary function involved perceptions of the DMin relative to the traditional degrees (MD, JD, and PhD), whereas the very minor second function involved how the DMin is perceived in comparison to the newer practice doctorates (EdD, DBA, and PsyD).

The response rate was low.

Currently, owing to its low prestige, the DMin probably does not have a sizable potential market among Roman Catholic priests, but it may appeal more to religious educators.

The DMin may be subject to the same concerns and prejudices as raised about other professional doctorates.

Roman Catholics are a non‐traditional audience for the DMin. This degree's perceived prestige was not previously studied in this emerging market.

This study adopts the popular culture lens to investigate the collective understanding behind the human resources (HR) occupations.

The empirical study analyzes 129 characters from 87 movies, television (TV) series, books and comics. The measurement model was tested using structural equation modeling and cluster analysis identified five HR representations in the popular culture.

Popular culture reflects five HR representations: The Executor, the Hero, the Buddy, the Bore, and the Good-time person. Results suggest that public opinion pays scarce attention to the so-called HR “strategic position” while underlining the need for a more socially responsible HR approach.

The authors' study serves as a means for integrating past research on HR role and reputation, occupational image, self-identity and popular media. While most scholars have addressed popular culture as a single case and paid almost no attention to the HR domain, this article complements the literature by offering a fruitful way to distil HR summative popular culture representations, thus advocating for both a theoretical and a methodological contribution.

Using a life course perspective, we develop a theoretical model of how parents can influence their children's propensity to enter self-employment. We draw on the sociological, economic, psychological, and behavioral genetics literatures to develop a model in which parental influence occurs in different ways, depending on someone's stage in their life course. We review and summarize existing findings for parental influences on entrepreneurial entry using a three-part life course framework: childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. We also analyze new data from the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics on the extent to which children were involved in their parents’ businesses. From our review, we propose strong effects from genetic inheritances and parenting practice (during childhood); moderate effects from reinforcement of work values and vocational interests (during adolescence); and little influence from financial support but stronger effects from other tangible means of support (during adulthood).

In large organizations, space planning relies on workgroup leaders to indicate spatial adjacency preferences. However, many factors affect workgroups’ adjacency preferences, and it is not clear how the choices are made. This paper aims to explore whether the adjacency preferences are influenced by the collaboration relationship or constrained by the organizational structure.

The authors studied a large company’s spatial adjacency planning with an in-depth analysis of its formal organizational structure and collaboration network. A sample of 183 managers was surveyed regarding groups with whom they want to be spatially adjacent and groups with whom they mostly interact. The data enabled us to test three structural factors related to adjacency preference: department affiliation, workgroup’s prestige and collaboration relation. The authors used the quadratic assignment procedure analysis to examine the correlations between network matrices.

The results suggest that department affiliation and collaboration relations are significantly correlated to adjacency preferences. The authors did not find evidence supporting the notion that a workgroup’s prestige affects the preference. Among the three factors, collaboration relation best predicts the preference, which echoes Pena et al.’s (1977) argument that space planners should look into how groups function, rather than merely following the organizational chart.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research was the first to explore the choice of spatially adjacent workgroup through a detailed network analysis of the formal structure, work collaboration relations and other group-level characteristics. The findings have noteworthy cross-disciplinary implications, given that spatial proximity can be taken as a human resource management strategy to facilitate the overall interactions between workgroups.

Using data from the General Social Survey (2002), structural equation modeling is employed to examine the intersections and relationships between various socio-demographic and contextual variables, patient trust, and patient preference for behaviors that indicate a desire to be an active health care participant. In so doing, a gap in the literature is addressed by uniting previous research on patient trust with research on patient participation. Findings reveal that patient trust in doctors and various socio-demographic and contextual variables are associated with people wanting to participate in the health care process by learning about medical issues on their own and by contributing to medical decisions. Results also shed new light on past research, which finds a relationship between various socio-demographic variables and patient trust. Specifically, they highlight the importance of distinguishing between patient trust in doctors and patient trust in the broader health care institution and the economic pressures it exerts on doctors. A discussion of what these findings might mean for our understanding of the doctor-patient relationship and the delivery of health care concludes the chapter.

The three papers in this section include theoretical and conceptual discussions, such as the definition of social class, how social mechanisms can be elaborated and tested, and a discussion on occupational segregation by cognitive ability.