Search results

In this investigation, the authors aim to ask whether engineers, as a profession, share distinct characteristics in their attitudes and behaviors relating to negotiations. Based on a review of the literature, the authors answer in the affirmative. Generally speaking, the existing studies on individual differences of engineers conclude that they are more conscientious, more goal-driven, more competitive and less people-oriented than non-engineers. The authors suggest that these differences have significant consequences on how engineers engage in negotiations. In particular, the authors propose that engineers’ approach to negotiation includes differences related to distributive versus integrative negotiation, emotional intelligence, perspective-taking and preferred persuasion techniques.

This paper involves an integrated literature review, combining research in management, psychology and engineering to investigate whether engineers approach negotiations differently from non-engineers.

The authors suggest that individual differences between engineers and non-engineers have significant consequences for how engineers engage in negotiations. In particular, the authors propose that engineers’ approach to negotiation includes differences related to distributive versus integrative negotiation, emotional intelligence, perspective-taking and preferred persuasion techniques.

The authors offer 11 research propositions in areas relating to how engineers engage in distributive versus integrative negotiations, emotional intelligence, perspective-taking and their preferred persuasive techniques.

There are important implications for how engineers and their supervisors should be aware of these differences between how engineers and non-engineers view negotiations and how these differences may affect them and their employing organizations. There are also cultural implications, particularly for organizations for which engineers comprise a majority or a minority of the workforce composition.

There are important implications for diversity in the engineering profession, especially as it relates to the hiring of women in engineering (as they now comprise a small minority of the profession).

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that investigates how engineers negotiate. Because engineering is a hugely important contributor to society, the results of this have important implications for the society.

A surprisingly large proportion of the working population of the USA consists of individuals with felony convictions. Moreover, the issue of employability of these individuals is compounded for minorities. This paper aims to present two experimental studies investigating whether minorities with felony backgrounds have a more difficult time being selected for employment than identically situated white applicants. The authors ground the paper in realistic group conflict theory. Results indicate discrimination is more acute against minorities with felony backgrounds than whites with the same background and shed light on the mechanisms leading to this discrimination. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

This paper involves two experimental studies involving working adults engaging with realistic survey situations using mTurk.

Results of both studies indicate discrimination is more acute against minorities with felony backgrounds than whites with the same background, and shed light on the mechanisms leading to this discrimination.

One limitation of the methodology is that the authors used fictional candidates and jobs. This may have led to understating the effects of discrimination on minorities because it allowed applicants to answer in socially desirable ways (e.g. absent of racial bias) without suffering any of the anticipated negative consequences of actually hiring individuals about whom they hold negative stereotypes.

This research has several important implications for practice. First, organizations should be keenly aware of the potential for subtle and unconscious bias to affect the job application process even among well-intentioned hiring managers. Second, as the bias is often triggered by threats, organizations should share with their employees the nature of the threat involved with former felons.

Organizations should deliberately address issues associated with the use of criminal background checks. For many organizations, a felony conviction in an applicant’s background automatically eliminates that person from employment. However, a substantial amount of the workforce now has a felony in their background. Indeed, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (2012) has issued guidelines that detail important factors that organizations should consider on a case-by-case basis when considering employment for former felons. Organizations may consider updating any blanket exclusions regarding the hiring of ex-felons – not only because it makes good policy but also because it may help the organization hire the best people.

This research studies an important – and growing – societal problem related to the hiring of convicted felons, and the related issue of racial discrimination that affects black convicted felons particularly hard. There has been very little work in the management area on this topic. Moreover, there has been very little work in all areas that includes experimental methods. The use of such methods is particularly useful to eliminate confounds found in field data.

The paper aims to investigate why organizations often opt to reject Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)-sponsored mediation of employment disputes (in contrast to employees who tend to readily agree to it). It is guided by recent research associated with Shapiro and Kirkman’s (1999, 2001) theory of “anticipatory justice”, whereby (in)justice is anticipated, or expected, when people think about an event they have not yet experienced whose likely fairness they are questioning. In contrast, “organizational justice” reflects people’s retrospective assessments of how fair they have been treated to date.

The paper relied upon data made available by the mediation program administered by the US EEOC. The EEOC provided the names and contact information for the officially designated EEOC contacts for each dispute. The authors distributed surveys to each of these organizational representatives and received completed surveys from 492 organizations (a response rate of 85.8 per cent).

The authors tested the extent to which organizational representatives’ decision to accept or reject mediation as a means of settling discrimination claims is influenced by representatives’ expectation of more versus less fair treatments – by the opposing party as well as by the third-party mediator – during the mediation procedure. The pattern of findings in the study support all hypotheses and, thus, also the expectation-oriented theories that have guided them.

The study relies on self-reports. However, this concern is somewhat lessened because of the salience and recency of events to the time of surveying.

The paper provides new insights on the need for organizations to implement rules, policies and procedures to constrain decision-maker choices consistent with organizational goals. The authors offer specific procedural proposals to reduce this organizational tendency to reject mediation.

Employee grievances are costly to organizations in terms of finances, reputation and to the emotional climate of the organization. Moreover, it is similarly costly to employees. This study provides new insights to better understand why employees (as opposed to organizations) are almost three times more likely to elect mediation of employment disputes. As such, it offers some promising ideas to narrow that gap.

The paper investigates a little-studied phenomenon – the differential participation rate of employees versus organizations in EEOC-sponsored mediation.

Prior to the passage of the 20th amendment to the US Constitution in 1920, several states had extended the suffrage to women. Helen Laura Sumner (later Woodbury), a student of John R. Commons at Wisconsin, undertook a statistical study of the political, economic, and social impacts of the granting of voting rights to women in the state of Colorado, and subsequently defended the results against numerous attacks. In this paper, we present a brief account of the struggle for women’s equality in the extension of the suffrage and examine Sumner’s critical analysis of the evidence as to its effects, as well as the counterarguments to which she responded.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the causes, impact, and resolution of ideological conflicts in the workplace. By integrating research on organizational justice, the paper aims to argue that ideological discord is engendered though the interaction of distributive, procedural, and interactional (un)fairness.

Using a longitudinal field study, the ideas were tested with a sample of 77 claimants, undergoing mediation through the USA. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

The results were generally supportive of all predictions, suggesting that, though injustice may cause troublesome ideological conflicts, fair dispute resolution interventions can provide a remedy.

The research documented in this paper is particularly important because it suggests that justice can be restored through the intervention of a neutral mediator.

This bibliographic essay examines the scope and variety of nonfiction works in comics form with the intent of expanding librarians’ awareness of the diversity of such materials and serving as a resource for librarians.

It provides some theoretical background for understanding what constitutes nonfiction in graphic form and an overview of works available in print.

The article provides a representative (but not comprehensive) survey of graphic nonfiction works in the genres of memoir, travel, journalism, history, biography, science, essays and educational materials.

The essay focuses on materials published in books in English; the library world would benefit from subsequent research exploring the richness of materials available in other formats and other languages.

The field of graphic nonfiction is expanding, and this article serves as a guide for libraries interested in building or expanding collections in this format.

The purpose of this paper is to outline a growth strategy and a conceptual model for large consumer packaged goods (CPG) firms that involves venturing with brand entrepreneurs to access innovative or disruptive new brands called “strategic brand venturing” (SBV). It aims to ground the model conceptually using the intersection of three domains: entrepreneurship, strategic management, and marketing.

An emerging development among large CPG firms known for their branding and marketing prowess has been to create dedicated brand/consumer venturing units (e.g. Coca‐Cola, P&G, Nestle, Clorox, General Mills, Unilever) as a means of creating new growth horizons. The paper notes this recent development and opportunity. It offers a conceptual explanation of how to think about this using domain intersection literature and a practice‐based description of the dimensions involved in executing such a strategy.

The paper is conceptual and practice‐oriented. No fieldwork was conducted. However, the work is based on industry practice and a longitudinal participant observation within a Fortune 100 firm over a five‐year period.

Researchers are encouraged to empirically examine this new option in further depth.

The capability dimensions needed to execute are outlined.

External corporate venturing in technology‐intensive industries is an established and growing practice. However, equity investments by large CPG corporations in entrepreneurial brand firms represents a corporate entrepreneurship opportunity that has hitherto received scant/no attention in the literature. A conceptual model is proposed based on industry practice but grounded in a novel use of domain intersection literature to encourage further action and research.

The purpose of this study was twofold: first, to optimize the Environmental Attitudes Inventory (EAI) and second, to establish a baseline of the difference in environmental attitudes between first and final year students, taken at the start of a university’s declaration of commitment to EfS.

The psychometrically designed EAI was used to overcome the problems and limitations of the much-used, but controversial, revised New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) Scale. The performance of the original 72-item EAI was compared with our 37-item reduced form using a population of first- and final-year university students.

The reduced 37-item EAI provides a reliable and valid tool for investigating structured, multi-dimensional environmental attitudes of university students while reducing response burden and increasing response and completion rates compared with the longer versions of the EAI.

No attempt is made to link elements of the university experience with changes in attitude between first- and third-year students. The authors expect the 12-faceted EAI to provide more detailed feedback on the affective outcomes of EfS initiatives than currently used instruments.

This research contributes to establishing the EAI as a gold standard with which to monitor students’ environmental attitudes. Although most studies aimed at understanding the impact of EfS measure attitude change over relatively short periods of time – typically using the brief NEP scale administered immediately before and after a specific semester course – the approach developed here is designed to detect attitudinal change that may be ascribed to the entire university experience between students’ first and final year.