Cees J. Gelderman, Janjaap Semeijn, Ferdi Ter Avest and Ellen Peeters
Buying companies in the food industry increasingly recognize the need to cultivate relationships with their suppliers. Social capital and power are important to understand…
Abstract
Purpose
Buying companies in the food industry increasingly recognize the need to cultivate relationships with their suppliers. Social capital and power are important to understand buyer–supplier relationships. Maintaining these relationships appears highly dependent on the degree of information sharing.
Design/methodology/approach
The study investigates how power and social capital dimensions are related to information sharing. A survey of first-tier suppliers in the Dutch meat processing industry was carried out. The data from 82 suppliers was analyzed using partial least squares.
Findings
It appears that expert power contributes to the cognitive and structural social capital. In contrast, coercive power showed no influence at all. Cognitive and structural social capital dimensions have a direct link to relational social capital, which significantly improves buyer–supplier information sharing in the food industry.
Practical implications
Buying companies can encourage supplier information sharing by building up their own expertise and cultivating social relationships. They should refrain from strong-handed practices.
Originality/value
Companies in the food and food processing industry are dependent on effective information exchange for their very survival. This study investigates the role of power and social capital in making such exchange possible and sustainable.
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Lise A. van Oortmerssen, Ellen R. Peeters, Albert Kampermann and Ira van Montfoort
The Q method is an inherently mixed-method approach suitable for tackling issues regarding theory, conceptualization and operationalization in the social sciences. Nevertheless…
Abstract
Purpose
The Q method is an inherently mixed-method approach suitable for tackling issues regarding theory, conceptualization and operationalization in the social sciences. Nevertheless, the application of this method in organizational behavior (OB) studies is still limited. This paper aims to delineate to what extent, regarding what topics, and in what ways the Q method has been applied in OB studies. Moreover, it aims to systematically explore the strengths and weaknesses of this method for the OB field.
Design/methodology/approach
We present a systematic literature review of 47 studies employing the Q method in OB research.
Findings
There is an upward trend in the application of Q in OB research. The studies in our sample address the following OB topics: Human resource management (HRM) (14), leadership (10), group decision-making (6), collaboration (4), culture (9) and organizational change and development (4). We describe how Q is used in a wide variety of ways.
Practical implications
This study shows how performance-oriented organizations can benefit from the Q method as a managerial diagnostic and intervention tool in organizational change and development and in human resources management.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first systematic literature review on the Q method that spans the field of organizational behavior across topics and research levels, including the individual, team and organizational levels.
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Jana Deprez, Ellen R. Peeters and Marjan J. Gorgievski
This paper seeks to identify how intrapreneurial self-efficacy (ISE) grows in a group of graduate students during their internship. We investigate which agency and structure…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to identify how intrapreneurial self-efficacy (ISE) grows in a group of graduate students during their internship. We investigate which agency and structure factors shape their experience and stabilize or help grow their ISE and how this evolves in the course of their internship.
Design/methodology/approach
We conducted group interviews with 49 last year master students of a large Belgian university during their seven-month internship. We focused on those interns with low starter ISE to better understand which factors aid or hinder ISE development.
Findings
Our results show that students who did not experience ISE growth were less aware of their own agency factors, lacked supportive colleagues and experienced a misfit with their supervisors. Students who did grow their ISE did so mostly because of an initial experimentation phase, which was structured by their supervisor. This created a positive spiral where they started feeling increasingly better and able to act intrapreneurially.
Originality/value
With this study, we contribute to the extant literature in two main ways. First, we use a graduate employability lens to study the genesis of ISE. As such, we are amongst the first to investigate how education can nurture intrapreneurship and which agency and structure factors are particularly important for this. Second, we take a qualitative process approach, rather than a static and quantitative focus of most entrepreneurial education studies. As such, we gain better knowledge to the drivers of ISE at students first steps and during their internship.
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Ellen R. Peeters, Marjolein C.J. Caniëls and Marijke Verbruggen
To deepen the understanding of the process of growth and development of career resilience, this study aims to investigate the impact of career history and openness to change as…
Abstract
Purpose
To deepen the understanding of the process of growth and development of career resilience, this study aims to investigate the impact of career history and openness to change as antecedents of career resilience and the effect of career resilience on career self-management and career outcomes (salary and career satisfaction) over time using the Career Construction Theory.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors applied structural equation modeling with cross-lagged associations between career characteristics (number of employees, job seniority and missed promotions), openness to change, career resilience, individual career management (ICM) and career success (salary and career satisfaction) using three-wave data of 872 employees.
Findings
Openness to change had cross-lagged positive relationships with career resilience. The number of (previous) employers and missed promotions had a positive effect on career resilience, whereas job seniority was related negatively to career resilience. Furthermore, career resilience had a positive effect on individual career self-management in terms of networking, practical things and drawing attention over time. No effect was found on the individual career self-management dimension of mobility-oriented behavior over time. Finally, ICM had a positive effect on salary and career satisfaction over time.
Originality/value
Altogether these results suggest that career resilience is not only a way to stay active as an employee and cope with career changes, but it also enhances employees’ chances to achieve objective and subjective career success.
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Dorien Vanhercke, Nele De Cuyper, Ellen Peeters and Hans De Witte
– The purpose of this paper is to define employability within the psychological literature with a focus upon perceived employability.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to define employability within the psychological literature with a focus upon perceived employability.
Design/methodology/approach
To achieve the aim, the paper defines five objectives as follows. First, the paper discusses how employability is interpreted in the psychological literature. Second, the paper defines perceived employability within this literature. Third, the paper goes one step further by comparing the perceived employability approach to other approaches in the psychological field, namely, approaches based on competences and dispositions. The paper concludes with an integration of the three approaches into a process model to demonstrate their interrelationships, which the authors see as the fourth objective. With approach, the paper refers to a specific view on employability, including both definitions and measures, which share significant common ground. Finally, the paper highlights some implications.
Findings
The paper concludes that each approach comes with specific advantages and disadvantages. Researchers and practitioners should use an approach according to the general research question one aims to address.
Originality value
The authors believe to contribute to the employability literature in the following ways. First, the paper raises awareness that not all psychological notions of employability are equal, though they are often treated as such in the literature. Second, the paper highlights how perceived employability is tied to competences and dispositions. That is, though all notions are clearly different, they are also related.
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Jan Brusselaers, Ellen Bracquene, Jef Peeters and Yoko Dams
The purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent a consumer’s repair strategy impacts the annual costs of ownership of a washing machine and two types of vacuum cleaner.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent a consumer’s repair strategy impacts the annual costs of ownership of a washing machine and two types of vacuum cleaner.
Design/methodology/approach
The annual cost of ownership is determined by calculating the annual life cycle cost (LCC) for the respective devices. The annual LCCs of the different scenarios allow a comparison of the different repair strategy options. A Monte Carlo simulation is run to introduce parameter variability. The device’s failure rate is estimated by a combination of data sets on the devices’ performance.
Findings
Results demonstrate that the repair of the devices considered is a more favourable option over replacement. A consumer who aims for the lowest annual LCC should allow for a high number of repairs per device, without putting a maximum on the cost per repair. However, the consumer should become more cautious when a device approaches the end of its expected lifetime. Finally, the purchase of warranty can be interesting when the warranty covers a sufficiently long proportion of the device’s (expected) lifetime and when its cost does not exceed a threshold proportion of the initial purchase price.
Research limitations/implications
The costs for repair might be overestimated. Future research can focus on the reduction of repair costs following self-repair.
Practical implications
The results provide strong arguments in favour of repair instead of replacement of broken devices.
Originality/value
This is the first research to quantify the influence of consumer behaviour in the context of repair of devices on the ownership costs of these devices.
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Manuela López, Maria Sicilia and Peeter W.J. Verlegh
Opinion leaders are increasingly important as a source of information, with consumers judging them to be more credible than other media and more influential than other consumers…
Abstract
Purpose
Opinion leaders are increasingly important as a source of information, with consumers judging them to be more credible than other media and more influential than other consumers. Thus, companies have an interest in engaging opinion leaders to post about products and brands, and the authors analyse different incentives for encouraging them to spread the word on social media (via electronic word-of-mouth [e-WoM]).
Design/methodology/approach
A 2 × 3 between-subjects experimental design was developed in which 359 technological opinion leaders (bloggers) participated. The authors manipulated the monetary incentive (money vs no money) and non-monetary incentives (information only vs return product vs keep product) offered in exchange for a brand post.
Findings
Various techniques for approaching opinion leaders are effective, but to differing degrees. Providing a product free of charge increases the likelihood that opinion leaders will post about it, and the highest intention to post is observed when they are allowed to keep the product. In contrast, giving money to opinion leaders could have an indirect negative impact on their intention to post through the expected negative reaction of followers.
Originality/value
It remains unclear how opinion leaders can best be encouraged to spread e-WoM, as incentives used for consumers may work differently for opinion leaders, who have followers that they want to maintain. The main contribution of this paper lies in its explanation of why opinion leaders react differently to monetary versus non-monetary incentives.
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Arjan van Rheede and Andriew Lim
In this chapter, we explore the theory of Strategy-as-Practices (S-as-P) (Jarzabkowski & Spee, 2009; Satyro, Sacomano, Contador, Almeida, & Giannetti, 2017), by looking into…
Abstract
In this chapter, we explore the theory of Strategy-as-Practices (S-as-P) (Jarzabkowski & Spee, 2009; Satyro, Sacomano, Contador, Almeida, & Giannetti, 2017), by looking into praxis, practices and practitioners, for better understanding how sustainability can be seen as part of the competitive advantage achieved by an integrated business strategy.
The United Nations has formulated the importance of the Sustainable Development Goals. Within the tourism and hospitality industry, although governmental organizations continue to play an important role for these initiatives, increasing number of industrial stakeholders are contributing by having sustainable oriented goals integrated in their business strategy. Traditionally, companies incorporate Corporate Social Responsibility programmes into their business strategy (Frynas & Yamahaki, 2016). However, these corporate responsibility programmes have not always been integrated as part of their strategic development. Moreover, due to the absence of the clear strategic sustainable goals, these corporate responsible practices lead to unclear integration of stakeholders' roles and their impacts to the industry.
Several theoretical approaches are possible to analyses the behaviour of practitioners leads to sustainable practices (Satyro et al., 2017). With this chapter, we show how S-as-P theory can be used in analyzing the implementation of corporate responsibility within business strategies the hospitality industry.
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Zinta S. Byrne, Steven G. Manning, James W. Weston and Wayne A. Hochwarter
Research on perceptions of organizational politics has mostly explored the negative aspects and detrimental outcomes for organizations and employees. Responding to recent calls in…
Abstract
Research on perceptions of organizational politics has mostly explored the negative aspects and detrimental outcomes for organizations and employees. Responding to recent calls in the literature for a more balanced treatment, we expand on how positive and negative organizational politics perceptions are perceived as stressors and affect employee outcomes through their influence on the social environment. We propose that employees appraise positive and negative organization politics perceptions as either challenge or hindrance stressors, to which they respond with engagement and disengagement as problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies. Specifically, employees who appraise the negative politics perceptions as a hindrance, use both problem- and emotion-focused coping, which entails one of three strategies: (1) decreasing their engagement, (2) narrowing the focus of their engagement, or (3) disengaging. Although these strategies result in negative outcomes for the organization, employees’ coping leads to their positive well-being. In contrast, employees appraising positive politics perceptions as a challenge stressor use problem-focused coping, which involves increasing their engagement to reap the perceived benefits of a positive political environment. Yet, positive politics perceptions may also be appraised as a hindrance stressor in certain situations, and, therefore lead employees to apply emotion-focused coping wherein they use a disengagement strategy. By disengaging, they deal with the negative effects of politics perceptions, resulting in positive well-being. Thus, our framework suggests an unexpected twist to the stress process of politics perceptions as a strain-provoking component of employee work environments.
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Diane A. Lawong, Gerald R. Ferris, Wayne A. Hochwarter and John N. Harris
Work environments, which are widely acknowledged to exert strong influences on employee attitudes and behavior, have been studied since the initiation of formal work entities…
Abstract
Work environments, which are widely acknowledged to exert strong influences on employee attitudes and behavior, have been studied since the initiation of formal work entities. Over this time, scholars have identified myriad impactful internal and external factors. Absent though are investigations examining economic downturns despite their acknowledged pervasiveness and destructive effects on worker performance and well-being. To address this theoretical gap, a multistage model acknowledging the impact of recessions on workplace responses, response effects, and environmental considerations is proposed. Inherent in this discussion is the role of economic decline on reactive change processes, the nature of work, and the structure and design of organizations. These significant changes affect employee attitudes and behaviors in ways that increase the political nature of these work environments. Organizational factors and employee responses to heightened recession-driven politics are discussed. Additionally, theoretically relevant intervening variables capable of influencing work outcomes are described. The chapter is concluded by discussing the implications of this theoretical framework as well as directions for future research.