Lei Wang and Jorge A. Gonzalez
This study aims to test the presence of an adverse impact against professors belonging to minority groups (African American, Asian American, Hispanic American and foreign national…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to test the presence of an adverse impact against professors belonging to minority groups (African American, Asian American, Hispanic American and foreign national origin) in official student evaluation of teaching (SET).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a series of regression analyses to compare SET rating sources and control for course difficulty.
Findings
The regression analysis results showed that White American professors receive higher SET ratings than non-White American and foreign professors, which implies the presence of bias in SET.
Originality/value
To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine race/ethnicity and national origin bias in SET using official SET results from multiple universities.
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Lorena R. Perez-Floriano and Jorge A. Gonzalez
Integrating the transactional model of stress with risk analysis perspectives and death awareness theory, this paper aims to explore how job-related risks and the experience of a…
Abstract
Purpose
Integrating the transactional model of stress with risk analysis perspectives and death awareness theory, this paper aims to explore how job-related risks and the experience of a critical job injury influence work stress and withdrawal intentions for workers in dangerous occupations, as well as the relationship between stress and job performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The study relies on survey and archival data from Mexican police officers, taking into account the occupational and national context.
Findings
The results showed differences between officers who had or had not been injured in the line of duty and a complex stress-performance relationship for the former group. Officers who had been injured reported higher job-related risks and work stress. Also, for them, work stress had a direct, positive relationship with job performance, as well as an indirect, negative relationship with such outcome through work withdrawal intentions.
Research limitations/implications
The uniqueness of the setting may present problems with generalisability, but the study provides a rich contextual description to guide scholars and practitioners. The complex work stress – job performance relationship implies that managers can assess and use workers’ construction of danger and risk to improve their work performance, but that they should be mindful of potential adverse repercussions on work withdrawal.
Originality/value
The study informs the transactional model of stress and the monolithic model of police culture, affirms the role of perception of resources to manage risk and stress in dangerous occupations, introduces the role of mortality cues in shaping risk perceptions and points to the benefits of performance metrics in risk and work stress research.
Miguel A. Baeza, Jorge A. Gonzalez and Yong Wang
The purpose of this paper is to study how job flexibility influences job satisfaction among Mexican professionals, and focus on the role of key socio-cultural moderators relevant…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study how job flexibility influences job satisfaction among Mexican professionals, and focus on the role of key socio-cultural moderators relevant to Mexican society.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper explore how this relationship may be more important for women, employees with dependents such as children and elder parents and younger generations of professionals (e.g. Millennials).
Findings
The authors find that job flexibility is positively related to job satisfaction. This relationship is stronger for employees without dependents, as well as for younger generations of professionals (e.g. Millennials). Surprisingly, the relationship between job flexibility and job satisfaction does not differ by gender. The findings explain why job flexibility is more conductive to job satisfaction for employees without dependents, who tend to belong to younger generations.
Originality/value
Overall, the findings present important implications for managing job flexibility in Mexico and other Latin American countries, particularly for younger professionals.
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Subhajit Chakraborty, Jorge A. Gonzalez, Miguel Sahagun and Cara-Lynn Scheuer
To better understand the nature and effective delivery of quality health-care globally, this paper aims to study the role of quality leadership on patient care quality (PCQ…
Abstract
Purpose
To better understand the nature and effective delivery of quality health-care globally, this paper aims to study the role of quality leadership on patient care quality (PCQ) delivered in hospitals, including the intervening role of technology integration and two country-level factors – national culture and infrastructure development – in North America (Canada, Mexico and the USA).
Design/methodology/approach
PCQ comprises four facets: interpersonal, technical, environmental and administrative quality. Using survey data and interdisciplinary theoretical support (e.g. quality management and the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness Project [GLOBE] model of national culture), this paper tested for moderated mediation between hospital quality leadership and the four-facet PCQ model with technology integration as the mediator and national culture and infrastructure development as moderators.
Findings
Results show that technology integration partially mediates the relationship between hospital quality leadership and PCQ and that national culture and infrastructure development shape the role of hospital quality leadership on PCQ. Hence, these national factors must be considered holistically to understand the impact of hospital quality leadership on patient care.
Practical implications
To improve PCQ, hospital leaders should broaden their understanding of quality health-care to include technology integration and an awareness of cultural and institutional differences across nations.
Originality/value
This paper used primary data from hospital quality leaders and the four-facet PCQ conceptualization across three large North American nations, offering a more global understanding of service quality in health-care.
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The author establishes a point of criticism against various positions regarding technology, especially the proposal of De Kerckhove on the role of social networks in life.To that…
Abstract
The author establishes a point of criticism against various positions regarding technology, especially the proposal of De Kerckhove on the role of social networks in life.
To that end the present text has four sections. The first presents a way to study society from the point of view of its symbolic production, understood as an inseparable whole. Second, this symbolic dimension of all human society, is differentiated in three inseparable components: information, communication, and knowledge. Third, having established these analytical differentiations, the text underlines the importance of the systemic relationship between internal brain and extra-cortical formations or “external” brain, to understand the human complex relations with technology. Finally, the text presents the Cultural Fronts approach as a theoretical and methodological tool for the study of the social production of hegemony and subalternity on scales of everyday life. The methodological fecundity of this category has been proven in a variety of field studies since 1982 and is the basis of the perspective of action research that the author calls “cybercultur@,” understood as the collective development of intelligent self-determination capabilities confronting concrete social problems.
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Salvador Contreras and Jorge A. Gonzalez
The authors present a quantitative analysis of the effect that organizational change has on work stress, work attitudes and perceptions, and cognitive utilization in a task.
Abstract
Purpose
The authors present a quantitative analysis of the effect that organizational change has on work stress, work attitudes and perceptions, and cognitive utilization in a task.
Design/methodology/approach
First, the authors study the role organizational change has on work stress, attitudes and perceptions, including the role of attitudes toward change. The authors do so by examining differences across employees who are and are not undergoing change, as well as across two change phases. Second, the authors take advantage of the ongoing organizational change to study how people's anxiety about such change affects their cognitive utilization. They use an innovative approach to measure attention disengagement in a cognitive utilization task – a proxy for task-related performance – through a letter detection exercise. Third, the authors examine the role of work stress and change-related anxiety on attention disengagement among employees undergoing change. For this test, they use two organizational change-related texts to function as an anxiety-inducing and a calming-inducing prime.
Findings
Organization change is associated with higher work stress, lower job satisfaction and perceptions of institutional effectiveness and support. Further, organizational change-related anxiety adversely affects cognitive utilization, showing that employees undergoing change have higher attention disengagement relative to those not experiencing change. Among employees undergoing change, those receiving an anxiety-inducing prime show better cognitive utilization (lower attention disengagement) than those receiving the calming-inducing prime.
Originality/value
The rare merger of two public universities provides a natural experiment and a source of exogenous variation to examine the effects of radical organizational change on employees' attitudes, perceptions and task performance.
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Jorge A. Gonzalez and Subhajit Chakraborty
The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of perceived external image and similarity in values, beliefs and interests with an organization's leaders and other members on…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of perceived external image and similarity in values, beliefs and interests with an organization's leaders and other members on organizational identification.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents results of a field survey research in two non‐work organizational contexts, a professional association, and a college business fraternity. Hypotheses were tested with ordinary least squares regression and mediation analyses.
Findings
Perceived external image and perceived similarity with the organization's leaders and other members influence organizational identification. Perceived similarity partially mediates the relationship between external image and identification.
Research limitations/implications
The study implements a cross‐sectional design and relies on self‐reports. The results have important implications for organizational identification and related behaviors both in work and non‐work contexts.
Practical implications
The study presents implications for enhancing member identification with an organization, which is related to increased involvement and continued membership. A positive external image may increase the likelihood that organizational members internalize values, beliefs and interests held by the organization's leaders and other members.
Originality/value
The study is based on a model of identity orientation that differentiates across personal, relational, and collective orientations. It measures perceived similarity with social referents in values, beliefs and interests, and study traditionally overlooked non‐work contexts.
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Relying on relational demography and person-organization fit perspectives, the purpose of this paper is to explore the interactive effect of demographic dissimilarity and value…
Abstract
Purpose
Relying on relational demography and person-organization fit perspectives, the purpose of this paper is to explore the interactive effect of demographic dissimilarity and value congruence on workplace attachment outcomes – affective and normative organizational commitment and turnover intentions. Based on optimal distinctiveness theory, asymmetrical effects across gender and race/ethnicity are also examined.
Design/methodology/approach
A diverse sample of 278 restaurant workers in 30 different work units is used to test the hypotheses using hierarchical OLS regression.
Findings
The results partially support the idea that perceived and objective value congruence moderate the relationship of race/ethnic and gender dissimilarity on workplace attachment. Tests for asymmetrical demographic group effects showed that value congruence had a stronger moderating effect for whites than for people of color, and for men than for women.
Research limitations/implications
The results suggest that value congruence can ameliorate the adverse diversity effects on workplace attachment, but that a complete substitution effect may not be present. Women and minorities may still be sensitive to demographic representation even when their value congruence is high. This implies that a simultaneous pursuit of fit and diversity is an adequate diversity management strategy to stimulate the inclusion and workplace attachment of all social groups.
Originality/value
This study joins a limited number of studies addressing the interaction of value congruence and demographic dissimilarity, and presents empirical evidence from a work setting. Also, this is the first study to show gender and race/ethnic differences in this interaction.
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Lorena R. Perez‐Floriano and Jorge A. Gonzalez
The purpose of this paper is to show how employees' work cultural values in three cities of two different South American countries (Buenos Aires, Sao Paolo, and Rio de Janeiro…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to show how employees' work cultural values in three cities of two different South American countries (Buenos Aires, Sao Paolo, and Rio de Janeiro) differ, and how these differences are related to the manner in which people perceive risk and construe the meaning of danger.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 220 line employees of a multinational enterprise in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires participated in this study. The paper compared the means of reported job satisfaction and cultural values among the cities. Furthermore, regressions are used for cultural values on perceptions of risks from job hazards.
Findings
There are different cultural values across the cities. These cultural values are associated with the manner people understand risk and respond to risk management programs. This could eventually influence the success of the implementation of safety management programs.
Research limitations/implications
This is a study carried out in a single organization within the transportation industry. Managers and scholars must be careful in generalizing these findings across geographical locations and industries.
Practical implications
The findings challenge the assumption that safety‐training methods can be applied indiscriminately in every country without taking into account national culture and intra‐national subculture differences.
Originality/value
This study explores the importance of culture in the transfer and administration of US‐made safety programs to South America within the context of the high‐risk transportation industry segment. Its findings are important for multinational enterprises concerned with the safety of workers in high‐risk industries.