James I. Novak and Jonathon O’Neill
This paper aims to present new qualitative and quantitative data about the recently released “BigRep ONE” 3 D printer led by the design of a one-off customized stool.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present new qualitative and quantitative data about the recently released “BigRep ONE” 3 D printer led by the design of a one-off customized stool.
Design/methodology/approach
A design for additive manufacturing (DfAM) framework was adopted, with simulation data iteratively informing the final design.
Findings
Process parameters can vary manufacturing costs of a stool by over AU$1,000 and vary print time by over 100 h. Following simulation, designers can use the knowledge to inform iteration, with a second variation of the design being approximately 50 per cent cheaper and approximately 50 per cent faster to manufacture. Metrology data reveal a tolerance = 0.342 per cent in overall dimensions, and surface roughness data are presented for a 0.5 mm layer height.
Research limitations/implications
Led by design, this study did not seek to explore the full gamut of settings available in slicing software, focusing predominantly on nozzle diameter, layer height and number of walls alongside the recommended settings from BigRep. The study reveals numerous areas for future research, including more technical studies.
Practical implications
When knowledge and techniques from desktop 3 D printing are scaled up to dimensions measuring in meters, new opportunities and challenges are presented for design engineers. Print times and material costs in particular are scaled up significantly, and this study provides numerous considerations for research centers, 3 D printing bureaus and manufacturers considering large-scale fused filament fabrication manufacturing.
Originality/value
This is the first peer-reviewed study involving the BigRep ONE, and new knowledge is presented about the practical application of the printer through a design-led project. Important relationships between material volume/cost and print time are valuable for early adopters.
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Susan Gordon, Chun-Hung (Hugo) Tang, Jonathon Day and Howard Adler
This paper aims to examine whether employee subjective well-being acts as a mediator in the relationship between perceived supervisor support and turnover intention within the…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine whether employee subjective well-being acts as a mediator in the relationship between perceived supervisor support and turnover intention within the context of select-service hotels.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample included hourly employees in select-service hotels in the Midwest USA. The significance of the relationships was assessed using regression, and both the Sobel test and bootstrapping methods were performed to test the mediating effect of subjective well-being on the relationship between perceived supervisor support and turnover intention.
Findings
The results confirm subjective well-being acted as a partial mediator in the relationship between supervisor support and turnover intention. Employees who perceive higher levels of support from their supervisors are less likely to leave their organizations. At the same time, supervisor support also positively affects subjective well-being, which reduces turnover intention.
Practical implications
Actions by supervisors’ impact the well-being of their employees, which in turn may influence whether an employee stays with the organization. Organizations could use management training and employee feedback on supervisor support to improve employee support mechanisms. Organizations should also pay attention to improving employee subjective well-being beyond the work place. Improving the well-being of employees and supporting employees can help reduce turnover and may increase employee satisfaction, guest satisfaction and profits.
Originality/value
This study is the first to show that subjective well-being mediates the relationship between supervisor support and turnover intention; and one of the few within the hospitality context to examine the constructs of subjective well-being, supervisor support and turnover together.
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Michael Howe, James K. Summers and Jacob A. Holwerda
The increasing prevalence and availability of big data represent a potentially revolutionary development for human resource management (HRM) scholars. Despite this, the current…
Abstract
The increasing prevalence and availability of big data represent a potentially revolutionary development for human resource management (HRM) scholars. Despite this, the current literature provides eclectic and often contradictory guidance for scholars attempting to conceptualize big data and subsequently incorporate it into relevant theoretical frameworks. The authors attempt to bridge this gap by discussing key considerations relevant to understanding and integrating big data into the existing theoretical landscape. Building on a novel, integrative definition of big data, the authors propose a parsimonious theoretical framework utilizing the established dimensions of complexity and dynamism as meta-attributes to bring order to the various attributes that have been proposed as central to defining big data (e.g., volume, variety, velocity, and variability). Throughout, the authors highlight numerous theoretical and empirical opportunities and considerations that this perspective holds for future HRM scholarship.
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Peter Boxall, Meng-Long Huo, Keith Macky and Jonathan Winterton
High-involvement work processes (HIWPs) are associated with high levels of employee influence over the work process, such as high levels of control over how to handle individual…
Abstract
High-involvement work processes (HIWPs) are associated with high levels of employee influence over the work process, such as high levels of control over how to handle individual job tasks or a high level of involvement at team or workplace level in designing work procedures. When implementations of HIWPs are accompanied by companion investments in human capital – for example, in better information and training, higher pay and stronger employee voice – it is appropriate to talk not only of HIWPs but of “high-involvement work systems” (HIWSs). This chapter reviews the theory and practice of HIWPs and HIWSs. Across a range of academic perspectives and societies, it has regularly been argued that steps to enhance employee involvement in decision-making create better opportunities to perform, better utilization of skill and human potential, and better employee motivation, leading, in turn, to various improvements in organizational and employee outcomes.
However, there are also costs to increased employee involvement and the authors review the important economic and sociopolitical contingencies that help to explain the incidence or distribution of HIWPs and HIWSs. The authors also review the research on the outcomes of higher employee involvement for firms and workers, discuss the quality of the research methods used, and consider the tensions with which the model is associated. This chapter concludes with an outline of the research agenda, envisaging an ongoing role for both quantitative and qualitative studies. Without ignoring the difficulties involved, the authors argue, from the societal perspective, that the high-involvement pathway should be considered one of the most important vectors available to improve the quality of work and employee well-being.
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Kristin L. Cullen-Lester, Caitlin M. Porter, Hayley M. Trainer, Pol Solanelles and Dorothy R. Carter
The field of Human Resource Management (HRM) has long recognized the importance of interpersonal influence for employee and organizational effectiveness. HRM research and practice…
Abstract
The field of Human Resource Management (HRM) has long recognized the importance of interpersonal influence for employee and organizational effectiveness. HRM research and practice have focused primarily on individuals’ characteristics and behaviors as a means to understand “who” is influential in organizations, with substantially less attention paid to social networks. To reinvigorate a focus on network structures to explain interpersonal influence, the authors present a comprehensive account of how network structures enable and constrain influence within organizations. The authors begin by describing how power and status, two key determinants of individual influence in organizations, operate through different mechanisms, and delineate a range of network positions that yield power, reflect status, and/or capture realized influence. Then, the authors extend initial structural views of influence beyond the positions of individuals to consider how network structures within and between groups – capturing group social capital and/or shared leadership – enable and constrain groups’ ability to influence group members, other groups, and the broader organizational system. The authors also discuss how HRM may leverage these insights to facilitate interpersonal influence in ways that support individual, group, and organizational effectiveness.
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Pok Man Tang, Anthony C. Klotz, Joel Koopman, Elijah X. M. Wee and Yizhen Lu
Professional touching behavior (PTB), defined as intentional touching behavior that occurs between organizational members and that falls within the boundaries of appropriateness…
Abstract
Professional touching behavior (PTB), defined as intentional touching behavior that occurs between organizational members and that falls within the boundaries of appropriateness and professionalism in the workplace, is prevalent in organizations. Scholars from multiple disciplines, including human resources researchers, have acknowledged the importance of physical contact for facilitating interpersonal communication and relationship-building. However, PTB may not only elicit positive reactions from those who receive it but also negative reactions as well, with implications for social dynamics in organizations. PTB can, on the one hand, fulfill employees’ desires for interpersonal connection; at the same time, such physical contact at work can represent a threat to employees’ health. To explain the nature and implications of these divergent effects of receiving PTB, the authors draw upon sociometer theory and behavioral immune system (BIS) theory to model the emotional, cognitive, and physiological processes via which, and the conditions under which, receiving such behavior will result in socially functional responses and prompt subsequent prosocial behavior, and when PTB will be perceived as a health risk and prompt withdrawal behavior. The theoretical framework of this chapter expands our conceptual understanding of the consequences of interpersonal physical contact at work and has important human resources management (HRM) implications for organizational managers.
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Sharon Glazer, Małgorzata W. Kożusznik and Irina A. Shargo
Global virtual teams (GVTs), also known as transnational or distributed teams, are increasingly common as organizations strive to maintain a global presence, find top and diverse…
Abstract
Global virtual teams (GVTs), also known as transnational or distributed teams, are increasingly common as organizations strive to maintain a global presence, find top and diverse talent, and cope with economic constraints. Despite increasing adoption of GVTs, there is a dearth of research addressing whether GVTs are an effective coping strategy for dealing with the world economic crisis and if there are unintended negative consequences on employee well-being as a result of their use. Thus, a focal question guiding the development of this chapter is whether or not GVTs are a sustainable solution for organizations? In this chapter we present a generic framework depicting the cycle by which macroeconomic demands impose changes on organization's structures, which trickle down to the level of the individual who has to cope with the demands the new structure has imposed. We discuss GVTs as an intervention (or cure) for organizations’ dealing with the current world economic crisis and how this organizational intervention inevitably becomes the context (or cause) for the kinds of stressors or demands employees face.
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This chapter explores the ideas of Alasdair MacIntyre and Vaclav Havel and what these two thinkers can contribute to green political theory.
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter explores the ideas of Alasdair MacIntyre and Vaclav Havel and what these two thinkers can contribute to green political theory.
Design/methodology/approach
This chapter includes examination of some of the key works of Havel and MacIntyre and analysis of these works from the point of view of green political theory.
Findings
The section ‘Havel and the Imperative to “Live in Truth”: Dissent and Green Politics’ explores Havel’s thought with a particular emphasis on his ethicised notion of political action and critique (‘living in truth’) and his focus on the centrality of dissent (both intellectually and in practice) as central to political critique and action. The section ‘MacIntyre as a Green Thinker: Vulnerability in Political and Moral Theory’ offers an overview of MacIntyre interpreted as a putative green thinker, with a particular emphasis on his ideas of dependence and vulnerability. The Conclusion attempts to draw some common themes together from both thinkers in terms of what they have to offer contemporary green political thought.
Research limitations/implications
What is presented here is introductory, ground clearing and therefore necessarily suggestive (as well as under-developed). That is, it is the start of a new area of exploration rather than an analysis based on any exhaustive and comprehensive knowledge of both thinkers.
Practical implications
This chapter offers some initial lines of exploration for scholars interested in the overlap between green thinking and the work of Havel and MacIntyre.
Originality/value
This is the first exploration of the connections between the works of Havel and MacIntyre and green political theory.
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To better understand the key issues surrounding Global Ecopolitics, it may be beneficial to examine the background to the environmental movement over time. The environmental…
Abstract
To better understand the key issues surrounding Global Ecopolitics, it may be beneficial to examine the background to the environmental movement over time. The environmental movement is perhaps the most significant contemporary global movement to have emerged in recent decades. The relationship between humankind and nature has been the subject of much debate and enquiry over time. The environmental movement had its cultural origins in literary accounts of humanity's relationship with nature, beginning from the romantic poets such as William Blake, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron, whose works were concerned with the reconciliation of man and nature. This aesthetic could also be found in subsequent transcendentalist American literature, such as Henry David Thoreau's Walden, published in 1854 (Shabecoff, 2003, pp. 37–71). The transcendentalists were interested in the spiritual connections that connected humankind and nature with God and could be seen as the forefathers of deep green ecologists. Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species was published in 1859, creating further interest in the understanding of nature. George Perkins Marsh wrote of the destructive impact of agriculture in his book Man and Nature in 1864. President Teddy Roosevelt would develop the National Parks with Gifford Pinchot of the Forestry Service in the early 1900s. In the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution, concerns about protecting wildlife led to the emergence of a progressive conservation movement, alongside federal regulation of natural habitats and the establishment of national parks. Influential conservation groups included the National Audubon Society, founded in 1886, and the Sierra Club, founded by John Muir in 1892. Muir and Pinchot would become adversaries in the campaign to prevent the building of a dam in Yosemite National Park in the early decade of the nineteenth century (ibid.).