Voice Mechanisms Research Articles

Voicing of Values in an Organization-Analyzing the Role of Leader Member Exchange(LMX)

An Indian is brought up with strict ‘values’, ethics and a moral system. Is it a requirement, an asset or a regulatory method? Are an Indian’s values a synthesis and an obvious result of the erudite process of socialization and internalization (Parsons, 1966).Indian cultural values have always been upheld in practice and principle. But, when there is any practice that is not co-linear to the ‘taught’ or ‘imbibed’ values, then the person faces an ‘ethical’ dilemma. This is often seen when the profession guides or coaxes the person to do something in his area of work that may not be seen by him as ‘morally’ correct or a right practice.The failure to resolve inner conflicts of cherishing Indian cultural values at the personal level and maintaining high standards of objectivity at the professional level has been reflected in methodologically sophisticated but socially irrelevant research. The study seeks to examine the construct of value conflict and the conflict between individual values and organizational values.The paper looks at the role of leader-member exchange (LMX) in expression of opinion about values in a state of conflict in the same. Superiors can have a significant influence over a subordinate’s decision to ‘speak-up’ or ‘remain silent’. Supervisors and leaders not only create opportunities for voice by providing formal and informal voice mechanisms, but also shape the cognitions that drive the decision of whether or not to voice (Ashford et al., 2009).

Escrevivência e produção de subjetividades: reflexões em torno de “Olhos d ’Água ”, de Conceição Evaristo

Este trabalho apresenta um conjunto de reflexões que compõem parte de nossa pesquisa atual em torno da escrevivência evaristiana. Através de uma leitura do conto Olhos d’Água, republicado no livro mais recente de Conceição Evaristo, buscamos observar alguns traços recorrentes na prosa da autora, destacando suas funções dentro da escrevivência, a qual pode atuar como mecanismo emancipatório da voz negra, recobrando poder sobre meios de produção de subjetividades negras. Destacamos, como base teórica, a Esquizoanálise e as próprias palavras da autora com relação à escrevivência.

Listen carefully: transgender voices in the workplace

We find that only 17% of FTSE 100 company websites refer directly to transgender (‘trans’) individuals, illustrating the extent to which trans voices are unheard in the workplace. We propose that these voices are missing for a number of reasons: voluntary silence to protect oneself from adverse circumstances; the subsumption of trans voices within the larger ‘LGBT’ community; assimilation, wherein many trans voices become affiliated with those of their post-transition gender; multiple trans voices arising from diversity within the transgender community; and limited access to voice mechanisms for transgender employees. We identify the negative implications of being unheard for individual trans employees, for organizational outcomes, and for business and management scholarship, and propose ways in which organizations can listen more carefully to trans voices. Finally, we introduce an agenda for future research that tests the applicability of the theoretical framework of invisible stigma disclosure to transgender individuals, and calls for new theoretical and empirical developments to identify HRM challenges and best practices for respecting trans employees and their choices to remain silent or be heard.

Rewarding employees in turbulent economies for improved organisational performance

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the application of total reward practices in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the South-Eastern European (SEE) region and the reward elements positively affecting organisational performance.Design/methodology/approachThe sample consists of 199 SMEs operating in SEE countries which are either under economic crisis or transition: Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, Kosovo and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.FindingsSMEs in the SEE region are implementing a total rewards model which is characterised by a weaker application of individual aspects and by a stronger application of transactional, relational and communal aspects. Within the communal aspects of the model, the study found three elements of the work environment that positively affect organisational performance; work-life balance, employee involvement voice mechanisms, and organisational culture supporting personal and professional development.Practical implicationsThe study contributes to HR practice; the authors found that a better work environment is positively related to improved organisational performance in these SMEs. This means that in times of economic crisis or transition when HR budgets are limited such non-financial strategies can be a viable alternative to costly financial rewards to such organisations.Originality/valueThe study contributes to both theory and HR practice by shedding light on how employee rewards are affected in economies under crisis and transition, how SMEs can motivate their employees when faced with significant financial limitations, as well as explores which reward elements can lead to enhanced organisational performance in such organisations.

Approaching the Discriminatory Work Environment as Stressor: The Protective Role of Job Satisfaction on Health

Discrimination is a complex phenomenon with adverse consequences at personal and organizational levels. Past studies have demonstrated that workers who are victims of discrimination might show less job satisfaction, less organizational commitment and worse levels of health and productivity. Although most research has focused on the effects of discrimination on victims, less is known about the extent to which discrimination produces consequences on workers who perceive the existence of a discriminatory work environment. The goal of this article is to analyze the consequences of the perception of a discriminatory work environment on employees’ health. The importance of this relationship is studied taking into account the mediating effect of job satisfaction. In order to reach this goal a cross-sectional study was carried out with a sample of 1633 Italian workers (male = 826, female = 764), employed in private and public sectors, and in different hierarchical positions. Results suggest that the perception of a discriminatory work environment is negatively associated with employees’ health. This relationship is partially mediated by job satisfaction (R2 = 0.17). This study demonstrates that perceiving a discriminatory work environment might have a negative impact on workers’ health. A higher level of job satisfaction might buffer this effect. These findings have several practical implications. On the one hand, Human Resource Managers need to intervene in order to recognize and diminish implicit biases, creating a healthy and inclusive environment (e.g., through training, diversity policies, etc.). On the other hand, promoting job satisfaction (e.g., providing mechanisms of voice) might help workers to preserve their well-being, coping with the negative effects of a discriminatory work environment.

Employee voice and silence in temporary agency work

Despite the increasing relevance of temporary agency work, studies dealing with this type of work arrangement in reference to employees’ voice and silence have remained rare so far. Literature mainly deals with voice mechanisms and processes with reference to traditional (permanent) workplaces. The present study tackles peculiarities of employee voice in the context of temporary agency work. The empirical material, based on 19 interviews with German temporary agency workers and agency managers, reveals that temporary agency work abounds in mechanisms inducing employee silence, but also contains instances supporting voice. Several structural and social conditions surrounding this employment mode turn out to be decisively important for processes of silence and voice, like the duration of assignments, working and task arrangements, power status of temporary employees, fear and support of agency.

Key determinants of organisational silence for non-standard workers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the key determinants of organisational silence from the perspective of non-standard workers (NSWs). The study focuses on three research themes: first, analysing the experiences motivating NSWs to remain silent; second, analysing the role of the NSW life cycle in the motivation to remain silent, the final theme is evaluation of the impact on organisational voice of an organisation employing a workforce in which NSWs and standard workers (SWs) are blended. Design/methodology/approach – The study utilises a phenomenological approach, as defined by Van Manen (2007), to collect and analyse the phenomenon of organisational silence from the perspective of NSWs. The NSWs are defined as individuals operating via Limited Liability UK registered companies created for the purpose of delivering services to organisations via a contract of services. This study employed a combination of phenomenology and hermeneutics to collect and analyse the data collected from the NSWs using semi-structured interviews (Lindseth and Norberg, 2004). Findings – The study concludes with three core findings. NSWs experience similar motivational factors to silence as experienced by standard workers (SWs). The key differential between a SW and a NSW is the role of defensive silence as a dominant motivator for a start-up NSW. The study identified that the reasons for this is that new NSWs are defensive to protect their reputation for any future contract opportunities. In addition, organisations are utilising the low confidence of new start up NSWs to suppress the ability of NSWs to voice. The research indicates how experienced NSWs use the marketing stage of their life cycle to establish voice mechanisms. The study identified that NSWs, fulfiling management and supervisory roles for organisations, are supporting/creating climates of silence through their transfer of experiences as SWs prior to becoming NSWs. Research limitations/implications – This study is a pilot study, and the findings from this study will be carried forward into a larger scale study through engagement with further participants across a diverse range of sectors. This study has identified that there is a need for further studies on organisational silence and NSWs to analyse more fully the impact of silence on the individuals and the organisation itself. A qualitative phenomenological hermeneutical study is not intended to be extrapolated to provide broad trends. The focus of the phenomenological hermeneutic research methodology is on describing and analysing the richness and depth of the NSW’s experiences of silence in organisational settings. Originality/value – This paper draws together the studies of worker classification, motivators for organisational silence, and the impact of blending SWs and NSWs in an organisational setting. The study demonstrates that academic research to date has focused predominantly on SWs to the exclusion of the 1.5 million, and growing, NSWs in the UK. This study examines these under-represented workers to analyse the participants’ experiences of organisational silence, and its consequences in organisational settings, demonstrating a need for further studies.

Subnational Variation in Electoral Accountability: Local Public Good Investments and Incumbent Support

Theories of democratic governance assume that citizens hold politicians accountable for their performance in providing public services. This study expands the existing debate by shifting its theoretical lens to subnational heterogeneity in satisfaction with government performance and incumbent support. Existing accounts suggest that local political and social contexts are likely to condition citizens’ perceptions of government performance. Since satisfaction with public services is driven not only by policy outcomes but also by the processes involved in decision making, the presence of stronger and denser voice and accountability mechanisms in small local units that increase citizens’ sense of the ability to influence local outcomes is likely to translate into higher satisfaction with government performance independent of the outcome itself. Using an original panel dataset containing detailed information on education and health investments and electoral outcomes in Turkey, I find that particularly health investments have a positive, yet delayed e↵ect on the vote share of the incumbent government. However, consistent with the theoretical expectations, this positive effect is limited only to small districts. A crucial contribution of this study is that the effect of public services on incumbent support is not uniform. By showing that local contexts may condition satisfaction with government performance, and thereby electoral outcomes, the study makes an important contribution to the literature on electoral behavior and distributive politics as well as governance and accountability.

Gender, Voice and Silence: Strategies for Inclusion of Female Employees

Employee voice has been mostly scrutinized as a general idea with inadequate attention to workforce gender diversity. Diverse employees present an important central position from which to study employee voice instruments. Female employees are often silenced by what is recognized as usual in work organizations. The lack of physical markers for gender differentiation, the deficiency of legal protections in many locations, the comparative need of union support, and the prevalent downbeat attitudes toward the female gender consequence in more silence for women employees than for men. This paper identifies some of the antecedents and harmful corollaries of such silencing and suggests ways in which the voices of female employees can be heard, arguing that effective management of gender diversity and inclusion would embrace machineries of voice through which gender differences are identified and organizational appraisals conducted to contain those differences in the procedures of decision making and career development. The status quo can shift by breaking the cycle of invisibility and silence by giving female employees room to make constructive contributions to work, unobstructed by fear of violence, prejudice, discrimination, and harassment. To achieve this plan, organizations must develop voice mechanisms that include the specific needs of women employees’ in the workforce. Specific recommendations are provided for HR managers to facilitate the expression of voice for female employees in today’s increasingly diverse organizations.

Voice Effects of Public Sector Unions on Turnover

Based on Hirschman’s exit and voice model, this article examines the impact of voice mechanisms on turnover using the case of teacher unions in New York State. In addition, we intend to identify heterogeneous effects of voice mechanisms on turnover depending on observable teacher characteristics. Our findings reveal that school districts with stronger grievance procedures are associated with low turnover at the individual level. These results shed light on public sector union literature as well as the studies on the relationship between turnover and performance.

The Perception on Fundamentals of Online Courses: A Case on Prospective Instructional Designers

This study focuses on prospective instructional designers‘ perception toward creating online courses including which elements are essential for developing such platforms. The study is significant for revealing what the prospective instructional designers focus on while they design certain learning opportunities. The participants of the study were the ―Computer Education and Instructional Technology (CEIT)‖ students from a university in Turkey (n=133) ranging from freshman to senior grades. Since the study aimed to obtain data to determine specific characteristics of a group, a non-experimental survey research design was employed. The participants were asked to assess the importance of fifteen online course elements (such as texts and videos). Afterwards, the participants were provided with seventeen sentences to reveal their thorough perceptions toward designing online courses. The study identified that the participants value feedback mechanism (M=4.69) at the most. The participants believed that the type of web browsers (M=4.50), the course login system (M=4.48), emailing tools (M=4.42), texts (M=4.32) and pictures (M=4.22) are fundamental elements of any online course. The study revealed that prospective instructional designers for online platforms were furnished themselves with the essence of offering online instructional activities. In this study as an example of gender related study, the significant differences on study items were found between males and females participants in terms of their perceptions on online courses. The results showed that voice mechanism was more important for female participants than male and female participants were logically-oriented and visual learners‘ during the entire online session.

Mobilizing and Bargaining at the Edge of Informality: The “3 Cosas Campaign” by Outsourced Migrant Workers at the University of London

In September 2012, a group of outsourced service workers at the University of London, many from Latin America, launched the “3 Cosas Campaign” demanding equal treatment with in‐house employees. Drawing from qualitative interviews and social media analysis this article explores the extent to which formal and informal mechanisms of union voice provide effective bargaining and mobilization tools to low‐paid outsourced workers. The rank‐and‐file autonomous union that led the campaign, although excluded from union recognition, developed powerful strategies to expose the employer publicly obtaining key improvements for the workers. The central argument is that a mix of strategies “at the edge of informality” including unpredictable direct action, community mobilization, and media campaigns provide additional leverage to outsourced workers confronting their multiple employers, while union recognition remains a key strategy of legitimization for relatively disenfranchised migrant workers.

Employee Engagement in the Public Sector: A Narrative Evidence Synthesis

It has been claimed that employee engagement can harness public service motivation in ways that lead to better improve functioning and positive organizational outcomes, and can help address the increasingly complex challenges associated with public service in an era of austerity. Despite this, there has not yet been a systematic review of the literature that would enable researchers to understand more about the antecedent factors and the outcomes of engagement in the public sector. To address this issue, we undertook a systematic narrative synthesis of the empirical research on engagement that yielded 5111 published studies, of which just 59 were conducted in public sector settings and met our inclusion criteria. Studies generally found that motivational features of jobs (such as autonomy), group (such as social support), management (such as leader consideration), and organizations (such as voice mechanisms) as well as psychological resources were key antecedents of engagement within the public sector; and that engagement was associated with positive employee health/morale and enhanced performance behaviors. The evidence was far from conclusive, suggesting a need for much more rigorous research focused on the specific challenges of public sector settings. We make recommendations for further research on this important topic, particularly with regards to understanding the connection between public service motivation and engagement and the need to examine engagement across different public sector/service contexts.

Signal Processing: Passive Acoustic in Fisheries and Marine Mammals

Signal processing with passive acoustic in fisheries and marine science learn the sound frequency range of fish, the intensity of the sound amplitude, sound fluctuations, and shape the sound patterns of the fish. Application of passive acoustic filed for marine fisheries and science detects the sound frequency range of fish, the intensity of the sound amplitude, sound fluctuations, and shape the sound patterns of the fish. Passive acoustic methods used to monitor marine mammals expressed. In general, the signal obtained from the ranimal record sounds is poor and difficult to determine from which directions it is produced, therefore it requires that require amplification/ strengthening. Bioacoustic research is needed to identify the communication language (acoustic communication) in mammals. Bioacoustic detect mammal-produced frequency ranges of sound, amplitude intensity of sound, voice fluctuation, and form sound patterns of mammals. Studying bioacoustic is inseparable from the science of underwater acoustics, biology of mammals, and the study of mammalian behavior. Generally bioacoustic include physiology of mammals organ that produce sound, earnings voice mechanism, sound characteristics of mammals, mammals sound-approaching mechanism, the hearing capacity of fish, and the evolution of the auditory system, and to obtain the frequency range of each sound produced by the dolphins (mammals). Environmental conditions and parameters (salinity and temperature) will greatly affect the value of the intensity and frequency generated from the target, the more extreme the environmental conditions, the lower value of the intensity and frequency generated

Voice of the Minority Workers in the Workplace - A Literature Review Based Study on Women and Ethnic Minority Workers

Purpose: Employees’ voice has emerged as an important issue in the work place as it can significantly impact their engagement and productivity as well as performance of the organization as a whole. Though, demographic heterogeneity and effective voice communication mechanisms for all employees irrespective of gender, ethnicity and other aspects are an integral part of high-performance Human Resource Management systems and may contribute a lot to enhance performances in the organization in many ways, the failure to ensure synergy among these group may result in rather a negative effect on overall organizations. Whenever majority employees get the opportunity to gain their interests through their leaderships and related roles and the minority are deprived of getting their legitimate or even minimal facilities, they start to consider themselves only as a worker rather than an integral part of the overall organizational structure. This isolated feeling keeps them apart from thinking for the betterment of the organization. This is the most common scenario for women in most of the organizations which psychologically puts them into a corner of the organization with the course of time. The same happens for ethnic minority and especially black employees because of the absence of institutional focus on them to provide them necessary back-ups to express their voices. This main purpose of the research is to identify the salient issues of voice and silence of the employees who are minority in the organization based on their “gender” (i.e. woman employees) and ethnic group. Methodology: The main research methodology incorporated in this paper includes study and review of existing academic papers published based on the empirical studies conducted elsewhere in the world. Analyzing the papers from various search repositories, it has been tried to explore the basic issues and the salient reasons of their silence along with the measures proposed in previous studies. This research also tries to come up with recommendation for uplifting the voice and silence of employees. Findings: The major research findings recommend that, the best way to uplift the voice Women and ethnic minority employees is to create awareness of their rights as well as providing them back-up support by trade unions and other inter and intra-organizational groups concerned with the minorities. At the same time most of the literature put emphasis on the organizational concerns for bringing the minority employees into main stream to provide them the maximum opportunity to express their voice with complete participation. Most importantly, the research finding suggests incorporating Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as a tool for promoting the voice of women and ethnic minority people.

Demands or Resources? The Relationship Between HR Practices, Employee Engagement, and Emotional Exhaustion Within a Hybrid Model of Employment Relations

This article explores the ways in which employees may experience and respond to tensions inherent in the mix of potentially confl icting human resource (HR) practices that compose hybrid models of employment relations. By drawing on the job demands–resources (JD-R) literature and viewing HR practices as “demands” and “resources,” we explore the impact of performance manage-ment and employee voice practices on employee well-being, as exemplifi ed by engagement and emotional exhaustion, in a large public-sector organization in Ireland. Our fi ndings suggest that employee voice mechanisms may act as a resource in both enhancing engagement and in counterbalancing the demands presented by a performance management system, thus reducing the deleteri-ous effects of emotional exhaustion. Our study extends understanding of hybrid models of human resource management (HRM) and of the ways in which employ-ees manage the contradictory signals that such models may send in terms of performance expectations.

Fatal consequences: an analysis of the failed employee voice system at the Bundaberg Hospital

In this paper we discuss the failure of the employee voice system at the Bundaberg Base Hospital (BBH) in Australia. Surgeon Jayant Patel was arrested over the deaths of patients on whom he operated when he was the director of surgery at the hospital. Our interest is in the reasons the established employee voice mechanisms failed when employees attempted to bring serious issues to the attention of managers. Our data is based on an analysis of the sworn testimonies of participants who participated in two inquiries concerning these events. An analysis of the events with a particular focus on the failings of the voice system is presented. We ask the following: how and why did the voice systems in the case of the BBH fail?

Shareholder activism through exit and voice mechanisms in Malaysia: A comparison with the Australian experience

Shareholder activism, which refers to action taken by shareholders to bring about change in a company or influence its behaviour without changing its corporate control, has been gradually inceasing in Malaysia in recent years. Among other things, this increase can be attributed to the establishment of the Minority Shareholder Watchdog Group (‘MSWG’) in 2000, amendments to the Companies Act 1965 (Malaysia) in 2007 and the introduction of the Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance 2012, which supersedes its predecessor. Drawing on Hirschman’s insights in Exit, Voice and Loyalty, this paper seeks to examine the exit and voice mechanisms available to Malaysian shareholders to monitor or discipline opportunistic management. In this context, the exit option refers to the traditional choice of shareholders in selling their shares, or the ‘Wall Street walk’ when there is a decline in corporate performance, whereas the voice mechanism refers to expressions of dissatisfaction by shareholders to corporate management, which may be participative, interactive or even combative in nature. Comparisons are made with Australia where relevant.

S1140204 高分子電解質膜を用いた音声合成機構の開発

S1140204 高分子電解質膜を用いた音声合成機構の開発

Performance of CS Fallback for Long Term Evolution Mobile Network

When a mobile operator migrates its network from the third generation (3G) system to Long Term Evolution (LTE), both 3G and LTE will coexist for a period of time. Since the 3G circuit-switched (CS) voice mechanism is more mature and available than that for the LTE Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), the operator may consider CS fallback (CSFB) as a solution for providing reliable voice calls. According to the 3G Partnership Project (3GPP) CSFB procedure, when a mobile user in the LTE network has an incoming or an outgoing call, the user equipment (UE) falls back from LTE to Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS). When the call is complete and released, the UE immediately returns to LTE. If the next activity for the UE is another voice call, immediately switching from UMTS to LTE may not be efficient. In this case, the UE has to perform another CSFB. To resolve this issue, we suggest delaying the returns to avoid unnecessary CSFBs, which is called delayed return (DR). Based on the measurements from the real UMTS and LTE networks, we develop an analytic model for investigating the performance of the CSFB with DR. This paper indicates that the DR scheme can effectively reduce the CSFB costs by up to 60%.