Employee Reactions Research Articles

Early retirement of employees in demanding jobs: Evidence from a German pension reform

Early retirement options are usually targeted at employees at risk of not reaching their regular retirement age in employment. An important at-risk group comprises older employees who have worked in demanding jobs for many years. This group may be particularly negatively affected by the abolition of early retirement options. To measure differences in labor market reactions of employees in low- and high-demand jobs, we exploit the quasi-natural experiment of a cohort-specific pension reform that increased the early retirement age for women from 60 to 63 years. Based on a large administrative dataset, we use a regression-discontinuity approach to estimate the labor market reactions. Surprisingly, we find the same relative employment increase of about 25% for treated women who were exposed to low and to high job demand. For older women in demanding jobs, we also do not find substitution effects into unemployment, partial retirement, disability pension, or inactivity. Eligibility for the abolished early retirement option required high labor market attachment. Thus, we argue that this eligibility rule induced a positive selection of healthy workers into early retirement. We propose alternative policies that protect workers exposed to high job demand better against the negative consequences of being unable to reach their statutory retirement age in employment.

The impact of exclusivity in talent identification: sources of perceived injustice and employee reactions

PurposeThis paper examines antecedents to perceived injustice in exclusive talent identification practices.Design/methodology/approach31 in-depth interviews with individuals working in for-profit organizations in France were conducted and analyzed. Interviewees represented a variety of sectors such as transportation, aerospace, energy and telecommunications.FindingsThe use of exclusivity in talent identification influences perceived organizational justice through ambiguous advancement policies, support from hidden networks, lack of diversity in the talent identification process, frequent gender discrimination, and premature labeling of talent. These practices suggest breaches in procedural, distributive and interactional justice by allocating advantages to some employees over others. Exclusivity yielded frustration, jealousy and potential retaliatory behavior against those individuals deemed to be unfairly identified as talent.Practical implicationsThe challenge of ensuring fair and equitable talent identification is a growing issue for organizations. For managers, it requires paying close attention to how some forms of exclusivity in talent identification may create unfair treatment of employees.Originality/valueWhile organizational justice research focuses on the background and practices that promote justice, our research finds its originality in examining the sentiments of injustice that remain contextual, subjective and comparative.

Can organizational justice and organizational citizenship behavior reduce workplace deviance?

Purpose: This manuscript investigates the impact of organizational justice on organizational citizenship behaviour and workplace deviance and examines the mediator effect of organizational citizenship behaviour between organizational justice and workplace deviance.Design/methodology/approach: This study utilizes a quantitative method to investigate four hypotheses using PLS3-SEM on 185 respondents from five research universities in Malaysia.Findings: Findings of this study reveal the positive impact of organizational justice on organizational citizenship behaviour and the negative effects of organizational justice on workplace deviance. Further, the study confirms the mediating effect of organizational citizenship behaviour between organizational justice and workplace deviance significate, especially in higher education. These findings will be helpful guidance for decreasing deviance and eventually increasing employees’ efficiency.Research Limitation: This research focuses on organizational justice and organizational citizenship behaviour on workplace deviance. Future study should research some other unique factors relevant to reducing workplace deviance. Although data was collected only once and took almost two months, unequal distribution during the sixty days may affect the accuracy of findings. Future studies should collect data over a period longer than two months to analyze the different reactions of employees to managers’ decisions or behaviorsPractical implications: This study guides and supports managers and employees in putting organizational mechanisms towards improving organizational citizenship behaviors.Originality/value: These research findings expand knowledge on workplace deviance behavior by providing evidence for the different impact of organizational justice and organizational citizenship behaviour on workplace deviance.Keywords: Social exchange theory (SET), workplace deviance (WD), organizational justice (OJ), human resource (HR), organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB).

Revealing Relationships between Personal Resources and Coping with Organizational Change

Organizational change consists of three factors; content, process, and context. Change recipients’ characteristics with these factors provide data for employee reactions and change consequences. This study focuses on employees in terms of their dispositional traits and their coping mechanisms on coping with organizational change (COC). The study aims to examine relationships between personal resources and COC examining traits of self-esteem, optimism, perceived control, general self-efficacy and one situational factor; affective commitment and coping mechanisms. Results reveal that general self-efficacy and perceived control are significant traits on COC. Affective commitment elucidates limited role on COC. Optimism mediates the relationship between affective commitment and COC. Cognitive avoidance, cognitive redefinition and information seeking were observed as coping responses employees adapted in COC. Change agents should consider content, context and process issues in planning or responding change, but also put utmost importance in evaluating employees’ self-efficacy, perceived control potential, information sharing for smooth change period.

An assessment of implementing green HRM practices on environmental performance: The moderating role of green process innovation

As the world is trying to curb CO2 emission, mainly from the industries, various organizations' employees are crucial in mitigating carbon monoxide emissions. The employee reaction based on their perception of human resources management practices shapes their commitment to the workplace environment. According to relevant environment literature, emphasizing effective environmental management improves employees' green attitudes dedicated to natural purposes. This study explores how to enhance hotels' environmental performance (EP) by adopting green human resource management (HRM) practices. The current study developed and investigated a moderation model which examined the green process innovation (GPI) as a moderator onto the relationship between green HRM and environmental process through the lens of Ability-Motivation-Opportunity theory (AMO). SmartPLS software was used to analyze the data from 220 full-time employees of 3-, 4-, and 5-stars green hotels in Turkey. The findings demonstrate the importance of adopting green practices in advancing organizational performance, especially the environmental aspect. The novel findings of this study enrich the moderation effect of GPI in hospitality literature.

Robotics at dimension data: friend or foe of the human in process automation?

Learning outcomes The learning outcomes are follows: critically assess the impact of disruptive technologies, such as automation, on the organisation, its processes and employees; evaluate the structural changes required within the organisation to prepare for digital transformation; apply change models to the unique challenges associated with disruptive technologies; and recommend solutions for the organisation to proceed with the implementation of disruptive technologies, while keeping employees central to the change. Case overview/synopsis The Dimension Data automation case provides students and executives with a glimpse of the future that organisations and employees must prepare for. The case starts out with the protagonist and product owner of digital at Dimension Data, Andrew Harmse, reflecting on his three-year automation journey within the Automation Centre of Excellence. The world of automation is growing exponentially, and Andrew’s team will have to support the organisation as they scale up their automation journey and navigate the uncertain future of an increased, blended human-robot workforce. Individual employee reactions, positive and negative, will have to be balanced with the opportunities that ever-changing technology enables. The case focusses on the themes of digital transformation, digital disruption, change management and the very real factors to consider when faced with decision-making on automation as the world is constantly changing. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced organisations to relook processes and increase investment in technologies that enable digital client engagement and servicing, considering social distancing requirements. Automation at dimension data has been largely internally focussed, but there is a drive to increase delivery for clients. Andrew’s team will have to guide organisations through the journey and continuum of changes and uncertainties, such as large- scale unemployment and robot ethics. Complexity academic level The target audience for this teaching case are postgraduate and Master level students, specifically Master of Business Administration (MBA) students as well as Executive Education courses. Students who are responsible for making strategic decisions that impact the future of their organisations as well as students with an interest in the role of technology in the future will benefit from the case. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Subject code CSS 6: Human Resource Management.

Impact of an Enterprise System Implementation on Job Outcomes: Challenging the Linearity Assumption

ABSTRACT Organizations usually have difficulty adjusting to technology-enabled changes. Recent research has examined the interaction between technology and the key job outcomes of employees. But this research stream has done so using a linear lens even though this interplay has been recognized to be dynamic and complex. We challenge here this linearity assumption. We theorized that enterprise system (ES) use influences post-implementation job scope, and the change from pre- to post-implementation job scope perceptions will have a complex effect on job outcomes that are best captured by a polynomial model. Drawing on the anchoring-and-adjustment perspective in decision-making research, our polynomial model highlights the dynamic nature of employee reactions to changes in job scope brought about by an ES implementation that cannot be captured by traditional linear models. We found support for our model using data collected in a longitudinal field study from 2,794 employees at a telecommunications firm over a period of 12 months. Our findings highlight the key role an ES implementation can have in changing the nature of jobs and how those changes can, in turn, drive job performance and job satisfaction. This research also extends classical job characteristics research by arguing for a more complex relationship between the scope and outcomes of technology-supported jobs.

Attitudinal and behavioural reaction of employees towards CSR: a review and research agenda

Presently, scholars are paying more attention to micro-level CSR and they have looked into how employees' perceptions of CSR shape employee outcomes. To advance this area of research, we aim to present a literature review on the attitudinal and behavioural reaction of employees in response to organisation's CSR activities over the years. We reviewed the existing academic literature on these aspects, such as why, how, and when CSR initiatives could affect the employees. A systematic review of the literature is conducted with 74 articles from top listed journals searching online databases such as Emerald Insight, JSTOR, Google Scholar, Science Direct and Routeledge Taylor and Francis Group. The study discloses a pattern of research in CSR over the years and makes recommendations for future research, such as embracing the cross-national contexts and improving practical relevance. This review adds value to management literature in understanding CSR at micro-level.

Ignoring the three-way interaction of digital orientation, Not-invented-here syndrome and employee's artificial intelligence awareness in digital innovation performance: A recipe for failure

• Digital orientation implies finding ways to create value with digital technologies. • NIHS refers to organizational rejection of external technologies. • EAIA alludes to the fact that employees perceive AI as a threat to their job / career. • The negative impact of NIHS is stronger when EAIA is high. • NIHS is a reaction of employees seeking to reduce the risk of being replaced by AI. This study employs Knowledge-based view (KBV) and Transaction Cost Theory (TCT) to analyze the moderating effect of the Not-Invented-Here Syndrome (NIHS) on the relationship between digital orientation and digital innovation performance when employee's artificial intelligence awareness (EAIA) changes. EAIA alludes to employee's concern about being replaced by artificial intelligence at work. Structural equations were used to test the research model. The key findings reveal that when EAIA is high, the negative impact of the NIHS is stronger. The finding is significant because it confirms that the NIHS, which is associated with organizational rejection of external technologies, is not a phenomenon exclusive to the pre-digital era, but its negative consequences such as biases in the digital technology assessment and neglect or suboptimal use of them, persist in the digital era. Nevertheless, the major contribution demonstrates that the NIHS is not an isolated fact or a product of individuals’ whims or irrationality; in the digital era, the NIHS is above all rational and opportunistic attitude rooted in EAIA. Furthermore, the NIHS becomes a planned response by employees aiming to minimize the risk of losing their jobs due to the impending replacement of digital technologies, particularly those related to automation processes.

The Survival of Small Businesses Purchasing Health Insurance under the Affordable Care Act

Grounded in the theory of strategic organizational change (SOC), the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the strategies small business owners use to provide health insurance coverage under the ACA and remain in business. Semistructured interviews were conducted in Northeastern Ohio with 3 business owners in the physical and mental health care industry. The data-collection process included semistructured interviews and business documents. Data analysis involved cluster and coding analysis. Member checking was crucial for strengthening the trustworthiness and credibility of interpreting the responses obtained from participants. The themes that emerged from the study included the importance of cost associated with health care plans, high employee turnover rates, and significant insurance company participation. Specifically, for the small business owner to purchase affordable health care required decisions that encompassed resources and employee reactions to change. The study results may contribute to social change, with information benefiting small business owners in providing health insurance coverage to full-time employees. In addition, the study results may reduce the number of uninsured individuals. Small business owners could use the data from this study to help small business owners reduce health care insurance costs.

Социально-демографические процессы в российской Арктике в статистических оценках и опросах населения

Specificity of modern social processes determines close attention of the global scientific community to socio-demographic processes in the Arctic. The article examines systemic and recent social and de-mographic processes in the Russian Arctic, determined both by the immanent specifics of the Arctic (generating active migration processes, the phenomenon of city-forming enterprises, etc.) and by the all-Russian social reforms (in particular, the pension reform). The methodological peculiarity of the article is to present socio-demographic processes through the analysis of quantitative indicators, as well as through the reflection in the consciousness of the Arctic population (highlighting workers of city-forming enterprises) of modern factors of influence that determine their attitude to residence and work in the Arctic. The analysis of the results of settlement processes in the Arctic regions has been carried out, indicating an unstable stabilization of the population situation in the Nenets, Chukotka and Yamalo-Nenets okrugs, provided by various factors; it revealed the preservation of the negative trend of population decline in the Murmansk Oblast. Statistical analysis and surveys have revealed socio-demographic problems caused by the pension reform, which can aggravate the problem of the outflow of working-age population from the Arctic territories. It was found out that the reaction of city-forming enterprise employees differs from the "all-Arctic" reaction of the population on the grounds confirming the stabilizing role of city-forming enterprises in socio-demographic processes in the Arctic.

Особенности психологической устойчивости личности и проявления феномена эмоционального выгорания сотрудников пенитенциарной системы в условиях пандемии COVID-19

The article is devoted to an empirical study of the socio-psychological aspects of the problem of emotional burnout and psychological stability of employees of penitentiary institutions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The relevance of studying the problem is due to the fact that the requirements for employees of the penal system have increased in connection with the spread of a new coronavirus infection and the workload on staff has increased due to the tightening of sanitary and epidemiological requirements for working conditions. The article reveals the difficulties faced by employees of the penitentiary system in their professional activities in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this empirical study is to establish the current level of emotional burnout and emotional stability of employees of the penitentiary system in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results of the study of the emotional reactions of employees, indicators of anxiety and the level of emotional burnout of the personality are presented. It was found that the higher the status of the position held by the employees of the penitentiary system is, the greater is the significance of the symptoms of emotional burnout. Recommendations are offered for the psychological service and the commanding staff of the penal system in order to increase the indicators of the emotional stability of the penitentiary officers.

Employee reactions to positive action policies in the United Kingdom: Does the organization’s justification matter?

• We experimentally study the effects of positive action on employee attitudes. • We find that positive action negatively affects perceived organizational justice. • Perceived organizational justice predicts commitment and turnover intentions. • Limited evidence that the organization’s stated justification has an effect. Affirmative action remains a contentious topic in both research and practice. While advocates suggest that such action is necessary to overcome demographic imbalances in the labor market, some research shows that these policies can prompt undesirable employee reactions that negate their value. While positive discrimination (i.e., recruiting or promoting solely based on a protected characteristic) remains illegal in the United Kingdom, organizations have increasingly begun adopting positive action measures (i.e., measures aimed at alleviating disadvantage or under-representation based on protected characteristics). However, there is little research looking at how these policies specifically affect employee attitudes or how different organizational rationales for positive action might moderate these effects. This lack of research is even more notable in the UK context. In two experimental studies of UK professionals ( N = 353) we find that perceived organizational justice explained the relationship between positive action and affective commitment / turnover intention. However, evidence supporting the effect of organizational rationale was limited.

Managing the global service transition: employees’ reactions and management responses

Despite the importance of global engineering services (GES) to many manufacturing companies, this area of research has not been studied extensively. This paper explores the role of employees in a manufacturer’s transition to a global engineering services provider. Based on the literature, a conceptual framework is defined, which specifies the dynamic interaction between employee reactions and management responses to determine the transition outcome. Evidence is presented from a single case study based on 21 interviews and observations as well as documents and media information. The findings empirically demonstrate how employee resistance, support and rejection of the globalisation strategy develop, resulting in the need for continuous management responses to ensure global integration. Exemplar employee reactions are prioritisation of local over global customers in service delivery due to lack of ownership, which were responded to by designing new organisational procedures to ensure local prioritisation of global customers with service contracts. This study contributes to the emerging field of global operations management by studying the operational contributions of employees and the respective management responses. This research focuses specifically on global services as a novel focal area within this emerging field.

Abrupt policy reversal amid Black Lives Matter: Starbucks’ grande employee dress code problem

Theoretical basis Organizational Justice Theory serves as a useful frame for discussion of this case, focusing on perceptions of fairness in the workplace. Such perceptions are shaped by outcomes, procedures, information and interpersonal treatment. Perceptions of justice in these four dimensions are associated with job performance, citizenship behaviors and some mental health outcomes. The Exit, Voice, Loyalty, Neglect (EVLN) Model outlines four potential responses (exit, voice, loyalty and neglect) to perceived job dissatisfaction, serving as a useful framework for students to discuss potential employee reactions to Starbucks’ decisions. Research methodology This case was developed from secondary sources, including news reports, company annual reports and websites. The case has been classroom tested with undergraduate students in Principles of Management (online and face-to-face) Human Resource Management (online asynchronous) and Labor/Management Relations (online synchronous). Case overview/synopsis In June 2020, Starbucks became immersed in controversy when its dress code policy conflicted with its public support for national protests over police brutality against Black Americans, including the death of George Floyd while in police custody. While publicly supporting the protests in a series of tweets, an internal memo forbidding employees from wearing Black Lives Matter attire was leaked to the press, generating national outcry, threats of a boycott and forcing Starbucks to reverse course immediately. This case examines the benefits and challenges of a corporate dress/uniform policy, and the implications of corporate involvement in social justice issues. Complexity academic level This case can be used in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses, but particularly in Principles of Management and Human Resources courses.

The Dynamism of Daily Justice: A Person-Environment Fit Perspective on the Situated Value of Justice

Despite the generally positive consequences associated with justice, recent research suggests that supervisors cannot always enact justice, and responses to justice may not be universally positive. Thus, justice is likely to vary in both how much it is received and the employee reactions it engenders. In order to understand the range of justice responses, we develop a dynamic theory of justice by using person-environment fit to take both the value that an individual places in justice and the justice they received into account. Using this framework, we clarify the consequences of congruence versus incongruence in daily justice received and valued, which have implications for treatment discrepancies and subsequent work behavior. We also identify the differences between excess and deficient justice on cognitive and affective responses to justice. Our findings reveal that employees’ experience of justice is more complicated than simply whether the justice they received was high or low on a particular day. Using experience sampling and polynomial regression methods, we observe that not all instances in which employees receive high levels of justice are equivalent. In fact, we find that, depending on justice valued, receiving high levels of justice can be just as detrimental as receiving low levels. Additionally, we find that although both forms of justice misfit (excess and deficiency) cause-negative work outcomes, they affect these outcomes through differential responses to justice — with excess causing increased rumination and deficiency causing decreased positive affect. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for extant justice theory and for supervisor-employee work interactions.

The effects of idea rejection on creative self‐efficacy and idea generation: Intention to remain and perceived innovation importance as moderators

SummaryIn the pursuit of innovation, it is inevitable that many employee ideas will be disapproved of by supervisors, discouraging employees' idea generation. This idea rejection–idea generation link is important to examine because it extends current thinking which treats idea generation as the beginning stage of a creative process. Guided by social cognitive theory, this study proposes that the idea rejection–idea generation link is mediated by creative self‐efficacy. We further posit that whether idea acceptance is a salient goal is a meta‐level moderator. To capture this factor, we examine intention to remain and perceived innovation importance: Idea rejection should yield a stronger negative impact on creative self‐efficacy for those who intend to remain with the organization and perceive innovation as important to the organization, as stayers who understand the importance of innovation to their employers would view idea acceptance as a salient goal and thus react most strongly to idea rejection. Data collected from a field study and a scenario experiment supported most of our hypotheses. Thus, this study highlights idea rejection as a crucial variable, directs researchers' attention to the idea rejection–idea generation relationship, and underscores the variability in employee reactions to idea rejection.

Factor That Affect Turnover Intention in Millennial Employees

The biggest challenge for companies today is thinking about various strategies in retaining millennial generation employees in order to reduce turnover intention, in which turnover intention is the reaction of employees to what is felt in the company. Factors such as strong organizational culture and employee motivation are expected to retain employees to reduce turnover intention. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to see whether organizational culture and motivation are factors that can affect turnover intention of millennial employees who are in Jabodetabek. This research is quantitative in nature, conducted by survey using a questionnaire. Data were analyzed using Structural Equation Model (SEM). The results of the first study indicate that there is an influence between organizational culture on employee motivation. Second, there is an influence between organizational culture on employee turnover intention. Third, there is an influence between motivation on employee turnover intention. Furthermore, the four motivations mediate between organizational culture and employee turnover intention in Jabodetabek

The Impacts of Transformational Leadership and Employee Reactions on Individual Work Performance: Exploring Individual Adaptability as a Moderator

This research emphasized the significance of individual adaptability that plays the moderator role in the relationships of transformational leadership and employee reactions with individual work performance within the Malaysian oil and gas industry. The study respondents were employees of an oil and gas company operating in East and West Malaysia, specifically in the upstream segment. The respondents self-administered the questionnaire provided at their flexibility. The Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) in IBM-SPSS-AMOS 24.0 software was utilized to analyze and assess the inter-relationships of the study constructs. Individual adaptability was found to moderate the relationships of individual work performance with transformational leadership and employee reactions. The study findings stressed the significance of individual adaptability in boosting work performance, particularly in the oil and gas industry. Research on the moderating role of individual adaptability in the relationships of individual work performance with transformational leadership and employee reactions is limited, specifically in the Malaysian oil and gas industry. Creative, innovative, collaborative, and analytical skills are fundamental in this industry to be more competitive and generate new ideas, products, and procedures.

Feeling treated fairly? Employee reactions toward AI in career development systems

Organizations increasingly implement AI for career development to enhance efficiency. However, there are concerns about employees’ acceptance of AI. Integrating justice theory, we investigate the effects of the deciding entity (human, human and AI, and AI) and the impact of the data source (internal data, external data) on employees’ reactions. Using a scenario-based between-subject design and displaying a common situation in organizations (N = 280), we examined whether a decrease of human involvement in decision making diminishes employees’ perceived fairness and satisfaction with the career development process and increases the perceived privacy intrusion. Although we also considered data sources to moderate the proposed relationships, we found no support for interaction effects. Finally, fairness and privacy intrusion mediated the influence of the deciding entity and data source on turnover intention and employer attractiveness, while satisfaction with the process did not.