Search results

The role of labor unions in relation to corporate social responsibility (CSR) remains both ambiguous and crucial for union members and business leaders. Given the complex relationship between labor unions and corporations, this study aims to address whether labor unions keep corporations honest (by monitoring CSR activities) or potentially render CSR initiatives less necessary.

Using data from the MSCI Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini Database for firms in the Russell 1000 Index, this study examines the link between labor unions and CSR in U.S. companies over a six year period. Generalized least squares models were used to test the hypotheses for 3,937 firm-year observations.

The findings show that unionized companies generally pay less attention to CSR compared to nonunionized ones. The presence of labor unions and positive union-management relations both show a significant negative impact on CSR ratings, where positive union-management relations negatively affect CSR ratings more than just the presence of labor unions. Further, when considering the environmental, social and governance aspects of CSR separately, the results are more complex, suggesting that the relationship between labor unions and CSR varies depending on specific ESG dimensions.

CSR, a well-researched area, rarely addresses the companies' relationships with labor unions. Studies in South Korea and the UK have touched on the impact of labor unions on CSR, but in the USA it remains unexplored. This study extends this line of work by examining U.S. companies.

This chapter analyses the other aspect of an oppressor/oppressed relationship by looking at what happens to the oppressed, in this case, the academics and staff not in leadership roles. This chapter looks at why the tactics leaders employ work, and why people do not retaliate, and what systems have been put in place to prevent the people from having any consequential power. This chapter thus looks at how the power of the majority in the academy has been slowly eroded by managerial promises of empowerment, self-governance or having an opinion on the institution's direction when in reality, they have no opinion, and the only decisions they can make are inconsequential. This is why time and time again, we see universities restructure, remove non-profitable courses and increase targets to unrealistic levels to maintain power over the majority.

While there is ample discussion in management studies and organizational behavior textbooks about the factors that impact organizational outcomes, such as employee retention, this research is focused on exploring the previously unexplored question of how procedural justice, job characteristics and meaningful work influence employees' intentions to leave their organizations. As such, this study aims to investigate the impact of procedural justice on employees' intentions to leave, both independently and in conjunction with job characteristics and meaningful work as mediators.

This study uses partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to develop the research model and for hypothesis testing. The path model is assessed using critical model fit indices and measures of goodness of fit.

The results reveal a negative relationship between procedural justice and employees’ intentions to leave. This negative relationship persists and is strengthened when both job characteristics and meaningful work act as mediators. Although job characteristics only exerted a significant effect through indirect effects, meaningful work demonstrated a significant negative impact on the intentions to leave through both direct and indirect effects.

This study presents a new perspective on employee retention by proposing an original mediation-based path model. Through the testing of eleven hypotheses, the study reveals the intricate relationships between the four constructs examined. The findings provide valuable insights that can serve as a basis for future research in management studies and organizational behavior.

The study utilises unique survey data gathered from 12,427 party members. The dependent variable measures party members’ in-party commitment and is based on willingness to donate money, to contribute effort, the feeling of belonging in the party network and social trust in the party network.

In this article, we study how different extra-parliamentary online and offline activities are associated with in-party commitment amongst political party members from the six largest Finnish parties. We especially delve into the differences between members of the Finnish parties.

We found that extra-parliamentary political activity, including connective action through social media networks and collective action through civic organisations, is highly associated with members’ in-party commitment. Additionally, members of the newer identity parties more effectively utilised social media networks, whilst the traditional interest parties were still more linked to traditional forms of extra-parliamentary political action.

By employing the sociological network theory perspective, the study contributes to ongoing discussions surrounding the impact of social media on political participation amongst party members, both within and beyond the confines of political parties.

Studies on the work integration of persons with disabilities (PwD) and the role of social dialogue therein are scarce. The study examines how the different systems of workers’ representation and industrial relations in Slovakia and Norway facilitate PwD work integration. Taking a social ecosystem perspective, we acknowledge the role of various stakeholders and their interactions in supporting PwD work integration. The paper’s conceptual contribution lies in including social dialogue actors in this ecosystem.

Evidence was collected via desk research, 35 semi-structured in-depth interviews with 51 respondents and stakeholder workshops in 2019–2020.

The findings from Norway confirm the expected coordination of unions and employers in PwD work integration. Evidence from Slovakia shows that in decentralised industrial relations systems, institutional constraints beyond the workplace determine employers’ and worker representatives’ approaches in PwD integration. Most policy-level outcomes are contested, as integration occurs predominantly via sheltered workplaces without interest representation.

This paper identifies the primary sources of variation in the work integration of PwD. It also highlights opportunities for social partners across both situations to exercise agency and engagement to improve PwD work integration.

By integrating two streams of literature – social policy and welfare state and industrial relations – this paper examines PwD work integration from a social ecosystem perspective. Empirically, it offers novel qualitative comparative evidence on trade unions’ and employers’ roles in Slovakia and Norway.

In the literature, evidence is to be found of the positive effect of high-performance work systems (HPWSs) on innovation in firms. However, innovation is enabled by not only human resources but also digital technology, and scholars have called for further investigation into the interplay between digital technology and HRM systems. Drawing on signalling theory and HPWSs research, the purpose of this study is to explore the moderating role of digital technologies in the relationship between HPWSs and innovation in the firm and consider employee participation as an additional conditioning factor.

This study uses data from the European Company Suvery 2019 administered in a sample of more than 20,000 European establishments and applies logistic regression with a three-way interaction.

HPWSs underpin product and process innovation. Moreover, this study shows that in firms with low levels of employee participation, digital technology enhances the effect of HPWSs on innovation, while in firms with high levels of employee participation, this effect is reduced.

This study enriches the scholarly discussion about the link between HPWSs and innovation in the firm, by investigating in theoretical and empirical terms the moderating effect of digital technology, underlining that either positive or negative synergistic effects are possible. By adding employee participation to the analysis, the authors cast light on an important boundary condition for understanding when the synergic effects become more prominent. This intends to respond to recent calls from scholars and practitioners for more insight into the precise nature of the synergies between HPWSs and digital technology on innovation in the firm, with important implications for management.

In this paper, the authors examine the strategies used to reduce labour costs in three public hospitals in South Africa, which were effective and why. In the democratic era, after the revelations of large-scale corruption, the authors ask whether their case studies provide lessons for how public service institutions might re-make themselves, under circumstances of austerity.

A comparative qualitative case study approach, collecting data using a combination of interviews with managers, focus group discussions and interviews with shop stewards and staff was used.

Management in two hospitals relied on their financial power, divisions between unions and employees' loyalty. They lacked the insight to manage different actors, and their efforts to outsource services and draw on the Extended Public Works Program failed. They failed to support staff when working beyond their scope of practice, reducing employees' willingness to take on extra responsibilities. In the remaining hospital, while previous management had been removed due to protests by the unions, the new CEO provided stability and union–management relations were collaborative. Her legitimate power enabled unions and management to agree on appropriate cost cutting strategies.

Finding an appropriate balance between the new reality of reduced financial resources and the needs of staff and patients, requires competent unions and management, transparency and trust to develop legitimate power; managing in an authoritarian manner, without legitimate power, reduces organisational capacity. Ensuring a fair and orderly process to replace ineffective management is key, while South Africa grows cohorts of competent managers and builds managerial experience.

Existing research has examined the results of women’s political leadership participation (WPLP) and the reasons for the lack of advancement of women to management positions. However, little research has been adopting a more comprehensive framework and configuration perspective to investigate the determinants of WPLP. By integrating institutional theory and institutional complementarities theory, this study aims to construct an institution–culture–structure framework to investigate the multiple driving mechanisms of WPLP.

Drawing on the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis method and a sample of 66 countries, the authors identify multiple equifinal combinations of conditions related to high and not-high levels of WPLP.

According to the results, the authors summarize five pathways influencing WPLP. These pathways include education and culture-driven pattern, political institutions-driven pattern, political institutions and structure-driven pattern, integrated-driven pattern and political institutions and culture restrictive pattern.

The authors shed new light on the driving mechanism of WPLP and contribute to research on making full out of women’s leadership.

This paper presents an historical reconstruction of the radicalisation of Alan Fox, the industrial sociologist and a detailed analysis of his early historical and sociological writing in the classical pluralist phase.

An intellectual history, including detailed discussion of key Fox texts, supported by interviews with Fox and other Biographical sources.

Fox’s radicalisation was incomplete, as he carried over from his industrial relations (IR) pluralist mentors, Allan Flanders and Hugh Clegg, a suspicion of political Marxism, a sense of historical contingency and an awareness of the fragmented nature of industrial conflict.

Recent academic attention has centred on Fox’s later radical pluralism with its “structural” approach to the employment relationship. This paper revisits his early, neglected classical pluralist writing. It also illuminates his transition from institutional IR to a broader sociology of work, influenced by AH Halsey, John Goldthorpe and others and the complex nature of his radicalisation.