Managing Employee Relations Research Articles

DÖNÜŞÜMCÜ LİDERLİĞİN KULLANDIĞI GÜÇ KAYN

Factors affecting the success of an individual, as an employee, may differ from each other. Burnout, as a phenomenon, is different from the concept of stress. It refers to a concept that an individual is continuously exposed and it distracts employees from the activities by which he or she exhibit his or her performance. In fact, it causes that the individual leaves himself or herself to the flow of environmental factors. In this study, the transformational leadership practices, as a dimension of manager-employee relationship, have been studied. In addition, The effects of organizational policies, by which achievement of an individual is evaluated in terms of recognition, appreciation, expectations and justice, on the level of individual’s achievement, sensitivity and emotional power, were investigated. This investigation was performed based on individual’s own perception. In this study, survey method was used. 401 questionnaires were collected from 49 different companies and institutions. The obtained data were subjected to exploratory factor analysis by using SPSS statistics software. Reliability of factors were evaluated. At the second stage of the analysis we conducted the confirmatory factor analysis and we realized hypotheses testing by the help of structural equation modeling. We used AMOS at this stage. As a result of this study we observed the effects of power sources and organizational policies on burnout perception. Many hypotheses of this study were accepted.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Financial Performance in the Airline Industry in Central and Eastern Europe

This paper contributes to the knowledge on corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives of by businesses and its ability to influence their financial performance. Consequently, the main objective is to examine the relationship between CSR and financial performance in the airline industry in Central and Eastern Europe. The paper does not attempt to establish causality between CŚR and financial performance. The paper attempts to contribute to the existing knowledge in the field by examining the extent to which CSR relates to financial performance of airline firms. A sample of 20 audited financial statements of airline firms were selected randomly. The study analyzed the impact of CSR activities on the financial performance of firms. The Return on Equity (ROE) and Return on Assets (ROA) were used as indicators to measure financial performance of firms whiles the independent variables were Community Performance (CP), Environment Management System (EMS) and Employee Relations (ER). The study found that there is a significant positive relationship between CSR initiatives and financial performance measures. More specifically, there was found to be a positive relationship between the independent variables of CSR thus, CP, EMS and ER and the financial performance of airline firms in terms of the ROE and ROA.

Impact of Transactional, Transformational and Laissez-Faire Leadership Styles on Motivation: A Quantitative Study of Banking Employees in Pakistan

Employee motivation is vital for the accomplishment of organizational goals. In this regard, manager-employee relationships become important for achieving employee motivation by applying effective styles of leadership. Managers vary in their values, attitudes and behaviors and the way they lead their followers. This study examines the value and impact of transactional, transformational and Laissez-faire leadership styles on motivation of banking sector employees. A sample of 100 employees from 5 different commercial banks was surveyed and empirical analysis showed that all three leadership styles have significant positive impact on employee motivation. Implications and suggestions for practice are presented.

On becoming a coach

Health care leaders have called for the development of communication and leadership skills to improve manager-employee relationships, employee job satisfaction, quality care, and work environments. The aim of the study reported here was to pilot how a 2-day coaching workshop ("Coaching for Impressive CARE") conducted as a leadership development strategy influenced frontline care managers' coaching practices in residential long-term care (LTC) settings. We had four objectives: (a) to identify managers' perceptions of their role as a coach of employee performance in LTC facilities, (b) to understand managers' intentions to coach employee performance, (c) to examine opportunities and factors that contributed to or challenged implementation of workshop coaching skills in daily leadership/management practice, and (d) to examine managers' reports of using coaching practices and employee responses after the workshop. We used an exploratory/descriptive design involving pre-/post-workshop surveys, e-mail reminders, and focus groups to examine participation of 21 LTC managers in a 2-day coaching workshop and their use of coaching practices in the workplace. Focus group findings provided examples of how participants used their coaching skills in practice (e.g., communicating empathy) and how staff responded. Factors contributing to and challenging implementation of these coaching skills in the workplace were identified. Attitudes and intentions to be a coach increased significantly, and some coaching skills were used more frequently after the workshop, specifically planning for performance change with employees. The coaching workshop was feasible to implement, well received by participants, influenced their willingness to become coaches, and had some noted impact on their use of coaching behaviors in the workplace. Coaching skills by managers to improve staff performance with residents in LTC facilities can be learned.

Profiling the Perceptions of Employees at Designated Tourism Establishments: A Survey Based Review

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of employees at selected tourism establishments in the Vaal Triangle area of Gauteng Province, South Africa. The investigation was conducted in five key areas; namely, manager-employee relationships, working conditions, remuneration, teamwork and work allocation, which affect the satisfaction of employees on their jobs. A six section structured questionnaire was administered to a convenient sample of 164 employees at seven selected tourism establishments. Data were analysed using the Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences (SPSS Version 21.0). Mean scores showed that employees were more satisfied with the level of teamwork that the other four factors. Simple descriptive statistics revealed the existence of satisfactory working conditions, a market-related pay system, acceptable levels of teamwork and equitable work allocation. However, entrenched dysfunctional manager-employee relationships still remain a major challenge at the selected tourism establishments. Based on these results, appropriate recommendations were made. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n6p11

Leadership and Performance of Public Employees: Effects of the Quality and Characteristics of Manager-Employee Relationships

Leadership and Performance of Public Employees: Effects of the Quality and Characteristics of Manager-Employee Relationships

Application of Lean Tools and xRM Software Solutions in Order to Increase the Efficiency of Business Processes

In this paper wants to stress the importance of connection between organisational Lean tools and software tools that have great flexibility and ability to adapt to business processes of companies. LEAN management means creating more value for the customer by using fewer resources. Lean organisation knows which values their customers require and focuses its key processes to continuously add value to the customer. Elimination of losses in the whole process in stead of in certain parts of the system only creates processes that need less human effort, less space, less capital and less time to develop a product or to perform a service. On the other side, CRM as a concept and software tool have significantly contributed to improving relationship with customers. Development of CRM system is oriented by xRM (Anything relationship management). Processes which can be covered with these solutions are no longer related to relations with customers only, but to a large number of other processes such as managing relationships with suppliers, managing employee relations and managing machinery maintenance. This work wants to show that combining concepts of xRM and Lean can lead to the increase of efficiency and transparency of business processes.

The Impact of Age and Gender Diversity on Oganisational Commitment

Establishing the relationship between managers and employees’ age and gender differences and the level of commitment could be of benefit to the organisations in the sense that these demographic differences can be used as predictors of employees’ organisational commitment. The main purpose of the study was specifically to examine the two relational demographic differences (age and gender differences) between manager and employee and the role they play on employees’ organisational commitment. A raosoft sample size calculator was used to calculate the recommended sample size; therefore an interval or systematic random sample of 100 lower level employees. A self designed biographical and occupational data questionnaire, and to measure Organisational Commitment, Meyer and Allen (1997) which consists of 18 - item Likert-type rating scale was used. Data analysis was done by means of descriptive statistics, analysis of variance and the t-test. The results indicated a significant differences in the unexpected directions in affective commitment and continuance commitment between male employees supervised by male managers and male employees supervised by female managers; male employees were found to have higher levels of affective and continuance commitment when supervised by female managers. Female employees were found to have a higher level of normative commitment when supervised by male managers than when supervised by female managers which was also in the unexpected direction. Managers should be encouraged to apply the principles of workforce diversity in personnel selection and continue to provide diversity training in the workplace so as to dispel any vestiges of resistance to diversity which may have accounted for the partial support for the similarity/attraction paradigm that was demonstrated by the results. This study provides insights and information on age and gender differences as components of diversity which play an important role in the quality of manager-employee relationship in an organisation. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n1p657

Emotional labor in the hospitality industry: The influence of contextual factors

Given the significance of emotional labor (EL) for hospitality service firms, it is highly valuable to examine the contextual factors that affect the EL strategy undertaken by hospitality employees. Utilizing a qualitative research method, this exploratory study reveals four situational and organizational factors that affect employees’ type of EL strategy: (1) the manager–employee relationship; (2) the job's physical demands (3) the quality of EL training; and (4) the frequency, duration and repetition of guest–employee encounters. The findings provide interesting theoretical insights and useful practical implications with regard to the means to establish a suitable work environment that encourages hospitality employees to perform genuine or deep acting while minimizing incidents of surface acting. While the study was conducted in Israel and its conclusions should be generalized with caution, it sheds light on (contextual) aspects of EL that receive little attention in the literature.

Participation in decision making: a case study of job satisfaction and commitment (part three)

Purpose – When employees believe in and trust their management, it motivates and encourages employees' participation in decision making which improves employees' efforts, benefits their job satisfaction and commitment to work. All of these factors, in turn, contribute to a trustworthy manager-employee relationship. While the literature supports this premise, there is little empirical evidence that patterns of causal inference in the relationship are clearly understood. This three-part empirical case seeks to focus on studying the relations between employee trust in management in a Quebec manufacturing company and their job satisfaction, intention to quit, level of employee participation in decision making and their commitment. Design/methodology/approach – This empirical case will test five hypotheses regarding seven variables influencing the level of employee engagement and commitment, employee turnover, employee participation in decision-making processes and job satisfaction. Findings – The article finds that employee trust in management is an important determinant of their willingness to participate in decision making. Insufficient employee participation in decision making in turn leads to low level of employee job satisfaction and employee commitment. Lack of employee commitment and engagement affects the employee's intention to quit. Research limitations/implications – The sample size of the office workers was not sufficient in order to have statistically significant results of the correlations between the variables for the production department employees and for the office/administrative staff. This could have helped to determine the level of internal communication specifically, but also the level of all of the other variables for the two different groups of employees. Practical implications – This article offers useful insights for management in relation to strengthening interpersonal trust within an organization, introducing employee empowerment practices and increasing employee job satisfaction and commitment. Originality/value – The findings provide empirical evidence to support theoretical models that link employee trust in management, participation in decision making, job satisfaction, commitment, and turnover intentions and highlight the impact of these factors on organizational performance.

Participation in decision making: a case study of job satisfaction and commitment (part two)

Purpose – When employees believe in and trust their management, it motivates and encourages employees' participation in decision making which improves employees' efforts, and benefits their job satisfaction and commitment to work. All of these factors, in turn, contribute to a trustworthy manager-employee relationship. While the literature supports this premise, there is little empirical evidence that patterns of causal inference in the relationship are clearly understood. This three-part empirical case aims to focus on studying the relations between employee trust in management in a Quebec manufacturing company and their job satisfaction, intention to quit, level of employee participation in decision making and their commitment. Design/methodology/approach – This empirical case will test five hypotheses regarding seven variables influencing the level of employee engagement and commitment, employee turnover, employee participation in decision-making processes and job satisfaction. Findings – The article finds that employee trust in management is an important determinant of their willingness to participate in decision making. Insufficient employee participation in decision making in turn leads to low level of employee job satisfaction and employee commitment. Lack of employee commitment and engagement affects the employee's intention to quit. Research limitations/implications – The sample size of the office workers was not sufficient in order to have statistically significant results of the correlations between the variables for the production department employees, and for the office/administrative staff. This could have helped to determine the level of internal communication specifically, but also the level of all of the other variables for the two different groups of employees. Practical implications – This article offers useful insights for management in relation to strengthening interpersonal trust within an organization, introducing employee empowerment practices and increasing employee job satisfaction and commitment. Social implications – Due to lack of trust in management, there will be high employee turnover. This in its turn will have a negative effect on both the performance of management and employees' welfare. Originality/value – The findings provide empirical evidence to support theoretical models that link employee trust in management, participation in decision making, job satisfaction, commitment, and turnover intentions and highlight the impact of these factors on organizational performance.

Social Pressure at the Plate: Inequality Aversion, Status, and Mere Exposure

This paper uses professional baseball data to evaluate the impact of social pressures on subjective decisions made by officials. Umpires show tendencies consistent with both centrality bias and favoritism toward players with higher status in the league. Results also indicate that the odds of a strike are lower for batters in close proximity to the official throughout the game. Implications extend beyond sport to issues regarding closeness of contact in employee–manager relationships and pay and promotions decisions in the workplace. Given the persistent monitoring of officials in professional baseball, this phenomenon could be more prevalent in less scrutinized positions in other industries. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A Balanced Approach towards Market Orientation

There has been a lot of research on implementation of the concept and examination of the link between market orientation and business performance. In these offerings, scales such as MARKOR, introduced by Kohli, Jaworski, and Kumar (1993), and MKTOR, introduced by Narver and Slater (1990) have been frequently employed without further investigation. Analogous to this academic endeavour, few marketing researchers have raised doubts regarding the reliability and validity of the extant scales and have also shown concern towards the definition of the concept. Apropos, the present study has been planned to examine the degree of market orientation from management perspective and also to develop a scale for measuring market orientation in the selected public and private sector banks, viz., State Bank of India (SBI), Punjab National Bank (PNB), and The Jammu and Kashmir Bank Pvt. Ltd. (JKB). The study finds: Significant difference between the responses of management with respect to Internal Market Orientation (IMO) and External Market Orientation (EMO). The management of all the three major banks, viz., PNB, SBI, and JKB is more optimistic with regard to the three dimensions of EMO than that of IMO. Significant impact of internal market orientation on the overall market orientation as compared to external market orientation. Positive and significant relationship between internal customers' and external customers' satisfaction; internal customers' satisfaction and business performance, and external customers' satisfaction and business performance. For improving market orientation in the banking sector, managers are suggested to take the following initiatives: Initiate crucial steps towards developing a healthy work environment — delineating employee expectations; discussing goal achievement, tracking performance and feedback; and devising an appropriate mechanism for follow-up and employee appraisal. Employees should be made the root cause identifiers and solvers whereas managers must be problem eradicators. Ensure parallel inter- and intra-departmental communication. An open door policy can be encouraged to communicate through various formal and informal channels so that inter-departmental work teams can perform efficiently. Conduct internal market research once a year to generate information pertaining to the job requirements of internal customers. Retain its employees through the successful implementation of internal marketing strategies which in turn demands proper understanding of employees' work-related needs, feelings, emotions and intellect, proper treatment as an individual, open and free communication with the management, and establishing and managing effective long-term employee-management relationships.

Opening spaces for conversational practice: a conduit for effective engagement strategies and productive working arrangements

This study develops the concept of dialogic conversational practice (dialogic CP) as a conduit for effective engagement strategies and productive working arrangements. We begin with a critique of High-Involvement-High-Performance HR systems against the backdrop of the current economic crisis to underline its deep-seated instrumental orientation and adverse effects on employee engagement. We then outline the key dimensions of dialogic CP, and propose a conceptual framework grounded in the line manager–employee relationship, which we argue can moderate the adverse effects of the current economic crisis and frame a move towards more effective engagement strategies. Our research approach combines critical discourse analysis and critical realism to frame a thematic analysis of survey data gathered from two UK public sector organisations. Our core finding suggests that both organisations would fall short of the democratic values and principles underlying our framework but that, despite the negative impact of the current economic crisis on the employment relationship, do offer a glimpse of some of the key characteristics of dialogic CP and display a readiness for a more robust application of the concept to their respective contexts. We conclude by underlining the significance and limitations of our study and its implications for further research.

Management-employee relations, firm size and job satisfaction

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the job satisfaction in relation to managerial attitudes towards employees and firm size using the linked employer-employee survey results in Britain.Design/methodology/approach– The authors first investigate the management-employee relationships and the firm size using maximum likelihood probit estimation. Next various measures of job satisfaction are related to the management-employee relations via maximum likelihood ordered probit estimates. Four measures of job satisfaction that have not been used often are considered. They are satisfaction with influence over job; satisfaction with amount of pay; satisfaction with sense of achievement and satisfaction with respect from supervisors.Findings– Main findings indicate that management-employee relationships are less satisfactory in the large firms than in the small firms. Job satisfaction levels are lower in large firms. Less satisfactory management-employee relationships in the large firms may be a major source of the observed lower level of job satisfaction in them.Practical implications– These results have important policy implications from the point of view of the firm management while achieving the aims of their organizations in particular in the large firms in the area of management-employee relationships. Improving the management-employee relations in large firms will increase employee satisfaction in many respects as well as increase productivity and reduce turnover.Originality/value– The nature of the management-employee relations with firm size and job satisfaction has not been investigated before.

The Social Life of Learning Theory: The “Ideal” and “Real” of Reflective Learning

There is a growing understanding that public institutions need to be proactive in not only developing their welfare services but doing so continually through various concepts of learning. This article presents an ethnographic study of a public school that aims at working strategically with organizational learning through Donald Schön's concept of “the reflective practitioner.” Schön's concepts provide the school manager with a vocabulary to criticize the destructive effects of New Public Management's linear steering technologies. The study also illustrates that expectations of reflective practitioners produce new uncertainties and managerial challenges, especially in manager-employee relations. The implications of these are discussed.

Management-Employee Relations, Firm Size and Job Satisfaction

This paper investigates the job satisfaction in relation to managerial attitudes towards employees and firm size using the linked employer-employee survey results in Britain. We first investigate the management-employee relationships and the firm size using maximum likelihood probit estimation. Next various measures of job satisfaction are related to the management-employee relations via maximum likelihood ordered probit estimates. Four measures of job satisfaction that have not been used often are considered. They are satisfaction with influence over job; satisfaction with amount of pay; satisfaction with sense of achievement and satisfaction with respect from supervisors. Main findings indicate that management-employee relationships are less satisfactory in the large firms than in the small firms. Job satisfaction levels are lower in large firms. Less satisfactory management-employee relationships in the large firms may be a major source of the observed lower level of job satisfaction in them. These results have important policy implications from the point of view of the firm management while achieving the aims of their organizations in particular in the large firms in the area of management-employee relationships. Improving the management-employee relations in large firms will increase employee satisfaction in many respects as well as increase productivity and reduce turnover. The nature of the management-employee relations with firm size and job satisfaction has not been investigated before.

Management-Employee Relations, Firm Size and Job Satisfaction

This paper investigates the job satisfaction in relation to managerial attitudes towards employees and firm size using the linked employer-employee survey results in Britain. We first investigate the management-employee relationships and the firm size using maximum likelihood probit estimation. Next various measures of job satisfaction are related to the management-employee relations via maximum likelihood ordered probit estimates. Four measures of job satisfaction that have not been used often are considered. They are satisfaction with influence over job; satisfaction with amount of pay; satisfaction with sense of achievement and satisfaction with respect from supervisors. Main findings indicate that management-employee relationships are less satisfactory in the large firms than in the small firms. Job satisfaction levels are lower in large firms. Less satisfactory management-employee relationships in the large firms may be a major source of the observed lower level of job satisfaction in them. These results have important policy implications from the point of view of the firm management while achieving the aims of their organizations in particular in the large firms in the area of management-employee relationships. Improving the management-employee relations in large firms will increase employee satisfaction in many respects as well as increase productivity and reduce turnover. The nature of the management-employee relations with firm size and job satisfaction has not been investigated before.

Short and long-term effects of relational ambivalence with managers on employee citizenship behavior

Ambivalence is thought to exist in nearly all types of relationships (Coser, 1966), yet its existence within employee-manager relationships has never been recognized. Indeed, studies examining relationships with managers have primarily theorized about those of the high quality or low quality sort and have ignored ambivalent relationships altogether. This paper provides one of the first attempts to include the concept of ambivalence within employee-manager relationships. In doing so, it attempts to improve our understanding of the employee-manager relationship by utilizing theories developed by attitude research as well as cognitive psychology (e.g., Kaplan, 1972; Thompson et al., 1995; Fincham & Linfield, 1997; Carver & Scheier, 1998). By use of a 10-day diary study and a 6-week longitudinal design, I demonstrate that relational ambivalence is a distinct relational framework and uncover differences in its short-term and long-term impact on employee organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). More specifically, relational ambivalence was positively related to OCBs in the short-term and negatively related to OCBs in the long-term. In addition, I reveal how job control increases the chance for ambivalent employees to withdraw OCBs specifically directed toward managers in the long-term.

Interrelation between Work Ethics and Business Ethics: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

Strictly speaking, business ethics is the applied ethics discipline that addresses the moral features of commercial activity. In practice, however, various studies may fall under this category, as long as they touch upon such issues as moral values and beliefs, (in)justice, legal compliance and the like, as related to management-employee relationship, or, generally, a company's relations with its stakeholders. Previous research has, for instance, dealt with the behaviour of individuals when faced with ethical choices, assessment of choices made by business executives (Jones 1991; Trevino 1986), with the interest focused on the effects of situational or contextual variables on ethical behaviour (e.g. Ford and Richardson 1994; Jones and Kavanagh 1996; Mesmer-Magnus and Viswesvaran 2005; Robertson and Ross 1995; Trevino 1986). Quinn (1997) suggested a distinction between personal ethics and business ethics, He found some evidence that people's personal ethical attitudes are not brought to bear on business issues. Carlson, Kacmar, and Wadsworth (2002) found that the context of a given situation had an effect on perceptions of ethical or non-ethical behaviour.The paper will discuss corporate business practices perceived through the lens of the employee’s work ethics; exposing the dichotomies and dilemmas faced by employees despite numerous business ethics policies and guidelines. To start with, work ethics will be presented from the cross-cultural perspective, spanning from work ethics and Islam and focusing on Saudi Arabia, to Japan and the impact of the Japanese culture on the Japanese work ethics. Against the background of cross-cultural differences in ethical values related to work, 'global' but 'Americanised' corporate business ethics, in particular that of American IT companies will be examined. The author will argue that translating policies and other business-ethics-related documents into several languages is an insufficient strategy in a multinational working environment, leading to increased clashes between the employee’s ethical values embedded in a given culture, on the one hand, and the imposed business ethics values of the parent company on the other. This in turn calls for more localised measures, which will be put forward tentatively.In particular, the author will look into corporate framing and execution of power by companies that goes against their codes of business ethics. Corporate code of ethics and business conduct are discussed since employees are supposed to familiarise themselves with it and apply its standards to their daily working life. All employee of a given company, regardless of employment level, position, or geographic location, are expected to meet its business values and to practise ethical behaviour in all business dealings. New employees are also commonly required to complete an internal ethics course, and then retake it in predefined intervals. Other documents will also be mentioned, whereby employee dilemmas in dealings with external stakeholders, such as partners and suppliers ('partner and supplier codes'; 'directives for relationship with partners') will be taken into consideration.