Frank den Hond, Frank G.A. de Bakker and Patricia de Haan
Activist groups apply a range of tactics in order to improve labour conditions in the global sports and apparel industry. The accumulation of these tactics leads to the build‐up…
Abstract
Purpose
Activist groups apply a range of tactics in order to improve labour conditions in the global sports and apparel industry. The accumulation of these tactics leads to the build‐up of pressure on firms within this industry (brands, retailers) to change their policies and activities on labour issues in their supply chains. The purpose of this paper is to explore how activist groups instigate change within an industry.
Design/methodology/approach
By re‐examining a series of previously published accounts, eight conflict situations in the global sports and apparel industry, involving Nike, Reebok and Adidas, were analysed.
Findings
The paper demonstrates how an industry‐level approach is helpful in understanding how the sequential patterning of tactical choices evokes change in an industry. Studying activist groups’ tactics from this approach provides a richer understanding.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the growing literature on activists’ influence strategies in conflicts with firms and speaks to current attempts at bringing together social movement and organization theories.
Details
Keywords
Mariana Baldi, Frank G.A. de Bakker and Rodrigo Luís Melz
This study aims to analyse the strategic moves used by major tobacco corporations to thwart the ratification of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyse the strategic moves used by major tobacco corporations to thwart the ratification of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in Brazil.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a detailed historical case study spanning 1988–2005 and encompassing the period leading up to Brazil’s FCTC ratification. The authors collected qualitative data from various sources to triangulate and develop a comprehensive historical account.
Findings
The historical analysis identified three distinct phases. First, the acquisition of a Brazilian cigarette factory, Souza Cruz, by British American Tobacco dramatically altered power dynamics, strengthening the position of the tobacco industry. The second phase regards the era of dictatorship and the efforts of various actors advocating against smoking and the tobacco industry. The third phase involved Brazil’s re-democratisation and the challenges of securing FCTC ratification, during which fierce industry opposition had to be overcome. Throughout these phases, the authors identified four key strategies used by multinational corporations (MNCs) in Brazil to uphold unsustainable practices and products that contradicted public interests instead of reforming them: shaping collective memory, dissimulation, re-presentation and redirecting attention.
Originality/value
This study contributes to critical international business research on emerging economies by examining how Brazil’s position in the global capitalist system has influenced its dependency and how MNCs produce and maintain cycles of poverty and unsustainable practices through the exploitation of power dynamics within the country.
Details
Keywords
Engaged employees assure organizational competitiveness and sustainability. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between job resources and employee turnover…
Abstract
Purpose
Engaged employees assure organizational competitiveness and sustainability. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between job resources and employee turnover intentions, with employee engagement as a mediating variable.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 934 employees of eight wholly-owned pharmaceutical industries. The proposed model and hypotheses were evaluated using structural equation modeling. Construct reliability and validity was established through confirmatory factor analysis.
Findings
Data supported the hypothesized relationship. The results show that job autonomy and employee engagement were significantly associated. Supervisory support and employee engagement were significantly associated. However, performance feedback and employee engagement were nonsignificantly associated. Employee engagement had a significant influence on employee turnover intentions. The results further show that employee engagement mediates the association between job resources and employee turnover intentions.
Research limitations/implications
The generalizability of the findings will be constrained due to the research’s pharmaceutical industry focus and cross-sectional data.
Practical implications
The study’s findings will serve as valuable pointers for stakeholders and decision-makers in the pharmacuetical industry to develop a proactive and well-articulated employee engagement intervention to ensure organizational effectiveness, innovativeness and competitiveness.
Originality/value
By empirically demonstrating that employee engagement mediates the nexus of job resources and employee turnover intentions, the study adds to the corpus of literature.
Details
Keywords
Vanja Ljujic, Jan Willem van Prooijen and Frank Weerman
The literature on terrorism suggests a strong link between criminal offending and terrorism – the crime-terror nexus. Building upon a strain theory perspective, the purpose of…
Abstract
Purpose
The literature on terrorism suggests a strong link between criminal offending and terrorism – the crime-terror nexus. Building upon a strain theory perspective, the purpose of this paper is to suggest that devalued socio-economic status (i.e. limited education and unemployment) and criminal past define the pool of people from which violent and terror offenders may be recruited.
Design/methodology/approach
The current study compares three sources of data on educational and employment characteristics of violent and terror offenders: Dutch statistical data (CBS) including the Police Recognition System (HKS) on violent criminals, the findings on jihadist networks and the open access on European terrorists.
Findings
The majority of Dutch violent offenders, foreign fighters and European terrorists have only completed secondary school (or lower) and were unemployed in the year of offending. Half of recent European terrorists had previously been involved in violent crimes and/or had joined jihadi groups abroad.
Research limitations/implications
One limitation of the study concerns the exploratory use of secondary and open-access data. While it was impossible to establish causality with the current methodology, these findings highlight the background conditions under which violent and terrorist crime can originate, and suggest one of the mechanisms that shapes the crime-terror nexus. Future research would benefit from more work identifying the causal antecedents to terrorism.
Practical implications
Whether relative deprivation is a direct cause or merely an amplifying factor in criminal motivation needs to be scrutinized in future research. However, its consideration may have great implications for policy and law enforcement agencies.
Social implications
An individual’s desire to improve status and personal significance by the virtue of illegal activity may be particularly salient in the context of cultural polarization, which manifests as decreased trust and loyalty toward national laws and institutions. Parallel to preventive and security measures, it may be worthwhile to encourage multicultural associations and community networks in support of mutual (interethnic and interreligious) understanding.
Originality/value
The paper explores one of the oldest factors that has been suspected of leading to terrorism in lack of economic or educational opportunity. However, the paper also offers a new perspective on how these factors may relate to participation in terrorism. Rather than claiming these factors directly cause terrorism, the authors take a strain theory perspective to argue that these strains induce fewer opportunities to engage in terrorism and provide individuals with the skills/strength to resist de-radicalization or counter-radicalization.
Details
Keywords
Meng-Long Huo, Zhou Jiang, Zhiming Cheng and Adrian Wilkinson
Grounded in the job demands–resources (JD-R) theory, this study investigates how the difficulty in social distancing at work, resulting from the COVID-19 crisis, may lead to…
Abstract
Purpose
Grounded in the job demands–resources (JD-R) theory, this study investigates how the difficulty in social distancing at work, resulting from the COVID-19 crisis, may lead to intention to quit and career regret and how and when these effects may be attenuated.
Design/methodology/approach
Three-wave survey data were collected from 223 frontline service workers in a large restaurant company during the COVID-19 crisis.
Findings
The results show that difficulty in social distancing reduced employees' work engagement, and consequently, increased their turnover intention and career regret. These relationships were moderated by external employability, such that the influence of difficulty in social distancing weakened as external employability increased.
Originality/value
Social distancing measures have been applied across the globe to minimize transmission of COVID-19. However, such measures create a new job demand for service workers who find it difficult to practice social distancing due to the high contact intensity of service delivery. This study identified personal resources that help service workers cope with the demand triggered by COVID-19.
Details
Keywords
Silvia De Simone, Gianfranco Cicotto, Roberta Pinna and Luca Giustiniano
Considering the ongoing international debate on the role of public administrations in economic systems, the interest around public service motivation (PSM) has significantly grown…
Abstract
Purpose
Considering the ongoing international debate on the role of public administrations in economic systems, the interest around public service motivation (PSM) has significantly grown among practitioners and scholars in the past two decades. Following the research streams that have investigated topics of organizational behavior within the public context, the purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of PSM on public employees’ feelings of job satisfaction. The novelty of the study lies in linking some characteristics of the work context presumed to be more prevalent in public organizations with specific job characteristics, regarded as relevant antecedents of job satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on two complementary studies conducted in an Italian public administration. The paper shows how PSM influences job satisfaction, job engagement, and life satisfaction.
Findings
This paper shows how PSM influences job satisfaction, job engagement, and life satisfaction. The findings display how job engagement affects both job and life satisfaction in such contexts. Additionally, the findings display how job engagement affects both job and life satisfaction in such contexts.
Research limitations/implications
Although based on a specific context of public administration, the analysis allows some generalizations.
Originality/value
Based on these results, the paper contributes to two main streams of the literature. First, it enriches the existing research on PSM by analyzing how it can be managed in complex organizations. Second, it informs the literature on job satisfaction and work-related stress and relates to the intersection between organizational behavior and human resource management that informs the drawing up of HR policies. Furthermore, the paper sheds new light on how to deal with such problems and at the same time opens new avenues for investigations.
Details
Keywords
Swati Chaurasia and Archana Shukla
The paper aims to establish the relationship between leader member exchange (LMX) relationship and work role performance through the dynamic process of employee engagement. The…
Abstract
The paper aims to establish the relationship between leader member exchange (LMX) relationship and work role performance through the dynamic process of employee engagement. The study outlines why and how leadership is important for employee engagement and effective work role performance. Adopting a survey based research design, a sample of 198 Indian working managers at different levels including various sectors has supported our hypotheses that employee engagement mediates the relations between LMX and work role performance. It provides empirical insights about how employee engagement process influences the LMX and work role performance relationships. The results also suggest that high quality relationship of employees with their leaders is positively related to employee engagement and their work role performance.
Rachel Gabel-Shemueli, Shay Tzafrir, Berlan Rodriguez Perez and Danae Bahamonde Canepa
The purpose of this two-wave longitudinal study was to examine the role of mindfulness as mediator between social support and engagement and as a moderator in the relationship…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this two-wave longitudinal study was to examine the role of mindfulness as mediator between social support and engagement and as a moderator in the relationship between work overload and burnout, both cross-sectionally and after one year.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample consisted of 243 Peruvian teachers. Structural equation modeling and SPSS Process Macro were used to test the hypothesis.
Findings
The results show that mindfulness mediated the relationship between social support and engagement at both times but doesn't moderate the relationship between work overload and burnout at either time.
Originality/value
This study highlights the role of mindfulness as a valuable personal resource in the workplace, as it facilitates a higher functioning at work while identifying relevant organizational characteristics that have an influence in its use.
Propósito
El propósito de este estudio longitudinal de dos olas fue examinar el papel de mindfulness como mediador entre el apoyo social y el engagement en el trabajo; así como moderador en la relación entre la sobrecarga de trabajo y el burnout, tanto transversalmente como después de un año.
Diseño
La muestra estuvo conformada por 243 profesores peruanos. Se utilizó el modelo de ecuaciones estructurales (SEM en inglés) y Process Macro para SPSS para probar la hipótesis.
Resultados
Los resultados muestran que mindfulness media la relación entre el apoyo social y engagement en ambos momentos, pero no modera la relación entre la sobrecarga de trabajo y el burnout en ninguno de los dos.
Originalidad
Este estudio destaca el papel del mindfulness como un recurso personal valioso en el trabajo, ya que facilita un mejor funcionamiento al tiempo que identifica características organizacionales relevantes que influyen en su uso.
Details
Keywords
Ana Junça Silva and Cannanda Lopes
This study aimed to (1) analyze whether the perceived organizational support (POS) was a significant predictor of performance and stress and (2) explore the mediating role of…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aimed to (1) analyze whether the perceived organizational support (POS) was a significant predictor of performance and stress and (2) explore the mediating role of engagement in these relations.
Design/methodology/approach
To test the hypotheses, the authors collected data with 200 working adults in a mandatory quarantine due to COVID-19 pandemic crisis.
Findings
The results showed that the POS contributed to increase engagement, and consequently, job performance. These relations also proved to be significant for stress, because when the POS increased, the work engagement also increased, and as a result decreased occupational stress.
Research limitations/implications
This study relied on a cross-sectional design. Therefore, future research should consider a daily design to replicate this study and analyze daily fluctuations. Overall, the authors can conclude that work engagement is an affective process through which POS decreases stress and increases performance.
Originality/value
This study tests the mediating effect of work engagement on the link between POS, stress and performance, and its theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
Details
Keywords
Evangelia Demerouti, Sabine A.E. Geurts and Michiel Kompier
This study conducted among 751 employees of the Dutch Postal Service examined (1) the prevalence of various types of work‐home interaction, (2) the relationships of (these various…
Abstract
This study conducted among 751 employees of the Dutch Postal Service examined (1) the prevalence of various types of work‐home interaction, (2) the relationships of (these various types of) work‐home interaction with selected work and home characteristics, and (3) the relationships of (these various types of) work‐home interaction with two health indicators (i.e., fatigue and health complaints). Results supported our assumption that workhome interaction is best characterized by a four‐dimensional structure crossing the distinction between the direction of influence (work → home influence (WHI) vs. Home → work influence (HWI)) and the quality of influence (negative vs. positive). The results further supported our hypotheses, derived from the Demand‐Control‐Support Model and the Effort‐Recovery Model: job demands were most strongly related to negative influence from work (negative WHI), and home demands were primarily (albeit weakly) related to negative influence from home (negative HWI). In accordance with our expectation, job control and particularly job support were associated with positive WHI. There was no support, however, for a similar facilitating process originating in the home situation: home control and home support were not related to any type of interaction. Furthermore, particularly negative WHI was associated with fatigue and health complaints. These findings add to the existing knowledge about possible antecedents and consequences of the interaction between work and private life.