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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between Chief Executive Officers’ (CEOs) compensation and corporate governance practices of publicly listed companies in New Zealand for the period 2005-2010.

Prior literature argues that corporate governance systems and structures are heterogeneous, that is, corporate governance mechanisms that are important tend to be specific to a country and its institutional structures. The two corporate governance mechanisms most important for monitoring CEO compensation are ownership structure and board structure. The authors use a generalised least squares regression estimation technique to examine the effect ownership structure and board structure has on CEO compensation, and examine whether ownership structure, board structure, CEO and director compensation have an effect on company performance.

After controlling for size, performance, industry and year effects, the authors report that internal features rather than external features of corporate governance practices influence CEO compensation. Companies that have their CEO on the board pay them more than those who do not sit on the board, suggesting CEOs on boards have power to influence board decisions and therefore boards become less effective in monitoring CEO compensation in the New Zealand context. Companies that pay their directors more tend to reward their CEOs more as well, thus supporting the managerial entrenchment hypothesis.

The results confirm the findings reported in prior studies that institutional investors are ineffective in monitoring managerial decisions and their focus is on decisions that benefit them on a short-term basis.

The findings indicate that although the proportion of independent directors on boards does not significantly influence CEO compensation, it does indicate that outside directors are passive and are no more effective than insiders when it comes to the oversight and supervision of CEO compensation.

Being a small and open financial market with many small- and medium-sized listed companies, New Zealand differs from large economies such as the UK and the USA in the sense that CEOs in New Zealand tend to be closely connected to each other. As such, the relationship between pay-performance for New Zealand is found to be different from those reported for the UK and the USA. In New Zealand, the proportion of institutional and/or block shareholders is positively associated with CEO compensation and negatively associated with company performance, suggesting that it is not an effective mechanism for monitoring CEO compensation.

This study is designed to bridge a gap in the existing leadership communication literature by delving into lesser-explored facets of the field. It particularly concentrates on investigating how the verbal aggressiveness of supervisors influences various aspects of the workplace, including workplace emotional culture, the quality of employee–organization relationships (EORs) and the prevalence of counterproductive work behaviors (CWB).

This study employed a quantitative research design to investigate the impact of supervisors' verbal aggressiveness on employee and organizational outcomes. The data were collected from 392 full-time employees across various organizations and industries in the USA using a self-report questionnaire. The researchers used structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze the data and test hypotheses.

The findings of this study showed that supervisors' verbal aggressiveness had a significant positive association with negative emotional culture and employee CWB. However, it had no direct impact on employee–organization relationships. The effect of supervisor verbal aggressiveness on employee CWB was found to be mediated by a negative team-level emotional culture.

This study advances the literature on leadership communication by highlighting the detrimental influence of the dark side of leadership communication. More specifically, by identifying negative emotional culture and employee CWB as the direct outcomes of supervisor verbal aggressiveness, the authors add to the existing theoretical knowledge on verbal aggressiveness in the workplace. Additionally, this study provides empirical evidence of the impact of a negative emotional culture on eliciting employees' CWBs and diminishing relationship quality, adding to the body of knowledge on why managing emotional culture is crucial for organizations and workgroups.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of emotional culture on the quality of employee–organization relationships (EORs). To understand the nuances of the influence of positive and negative emotional cultures on employee relational outcomes, this study specifically examined four fundamental emotional cultures, namely, joy, love, fear and sadness, in the cultivation of EORs. Further, as more recent emotional connotations of culture delve into the connections between employees’ fundamental need for psychological satisfaction and business success, likewise, this study proposes employees’ psychological need satisfaction as a potential mediator that explains how emotional culture influences employee–organization relational outcomes.

To test the hypothesized model, the authors conducted an online survey on a random sample of 509 employees working in 19 diverse industry sectors in a one-week period in February 2017, with the assistance of a premier global provider of survey services, Survey Sampling International. To test the hypothesized model, structural equation modeling analysis was employed using AMOS 24.0 software.

Results indicated that joy, happiness, excitement, companionate love, affection and warmth could meet employees’ psychological need for mutual respect, care, connection and interdependence within the organization. Such culture contributed to employees’ feelings of trust, satisfaction, mutual control and commitment toward the organization. By contrast, employees in organizations with a dispirited, downcast and sad emotional culture were less inclined to develop quality relationships with the organization. Employees in organizations where the emotional culture was fearful, anxious, tense or scared were less likely to satisfy their psychological need for relatedness.

This study is among one of the earliest attempts to theorize and operationalize organizational emotional culture, which fills the research gap in decades of organizational culture research that focused predominantly on the cognitive aspect. Also, this study expands the thriving relationship management literature, in particular, employee relationship management research by showing the positive impact of emotional culture of joy and love and negative impact of emotional culture of sadness on employee relational outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to compare Fortune 200 and top startup chief executive officers’ (CEOs) communication strategies on Twitter and the effectiveness of these strategies in influencing public engagement. Specifically, guided by the dialogic communication theory and social presence theory, this study explored CEOs’ use of dialogic communication, social presence strategies and message tactics. Additionally, public engagement on Twitter measured by total number of likes, retweets and comments was associated with communication strategies utilized by CEOs.

This study employed the quantitative content analysis. A total sample of 720 posts from 36 CEOs were selected and analyzed. Drawing from prior studies, a coding scheme was developed and employed during the coding process. Two authors of this study served as coders and reached satisfactory inter-coder reliability. A series of χ² tests and negative binomial regressions were conducted for data analysis.

Neither Fortune 200 CEOs nor top startup CEOs fully utilized dialogic principles for Twitter communication. Although Fortune CEOs seemed to be experts in strategically tailoring messages and therefore present themselves on Twitter in a friendly manner, startup CEOs demonstrated a higher level of authenticity, animation and informality. Findings are mixed regarding the direction of associations between dialogic principles and public engagement.

This study expands the application of dialogic principles in examining online executive communication and its influence in public engagement on Twitter. This study was among the first that examined executive leadership communication in the context of social media setting. In this sense, the study shifted the internal focus of leadership research to investigating leaders’ interaction with a variety of online publics.

The purpose of this paper is to examine why and how an open and participative communication climate matters for employee organizational identification and their change-specific responses, specifically employees’ attitudinal and behavioral reactions.

To test the hypothesized model, the authors conducted an online survey using a stratified and quota random sample of 1,034 US employees working in diverse industry sectors in June of 2018, with the assistance of a premier global provider of survey services, Survey Sampling International. To test the hypothesized model, structural equation modeling analysis was employed using AMOS 24.0 software.

An open and participative communication climate directly contributes to employee affective commitment to change and behavioral support. Communication climate featured by openness and participation boosts employee identification with the organization, which leads to positive employee reaction to change. When employees identify with the organization, they tend to believe in the inherent value of the change and are more likely to support the change initiative in action through cooperation and championship.

Theoretically, the study contributes to the change management and communication literature by focusing on the role of communication climate in inducing employee reaction to organizational change. Practically, the study offers insights for change managers, internal communication professionals and organizational leaders. Organizational leaders need to be open, create a trusting atmosphere and actively involve employees in the decision-making process. Organizational leaders and communicators should also strive to boost employee identification with the organization, especially during change.

Academics and professionals across management and communication fields have increasingly recognized significant contributions of engaged employees to organizations. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of communication channels, and communication attributes of transparency and authenticity on employee engagement in China.

A web survey was conducted with 407 employees randomly selected from a variety of medium-sized and large corporations in China.

The study results show that face-to-face interactions and social media are the most effective channels in building organizational transparency, authenticity, and engaging employees in China. Organizational transparency and authenticity demonstrate strong positive effects on employee engagement. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

This study was among the first empirical attempts to examine the impact of corporate communication channels on employee engagement in China. It also contributes to the growing literature on corporate transparency and authenticity, two of the major communication trends identified in the twenty-first century.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on exploring the link between managers’ mindset (fixed vs growth) and their choice of leadership behaviors.

The sample was drawn from a proprietary database provided by a global organization that offers 360-degree online leadership surveys. Individuals in management positions provided an assessment of their mindset orientation as well as how often they engaged in various leadership behaviors.

Growth-minded managers consistently displayed more frequent use of leadership behaviors than did their fixed mindset counterparts; and this relationship was independent of demographic or organizational factors.

The findings are consistent with previous mindset research but prominently extend those results to managers in corporate settings; and supports previous research regarding the limited influence of demographic and organizational factors on both mindset and leadership.

Managers’ mindsets influence how much they engage in various leadership behaviors, and improving leadership competencies is more likely to occur when managers hold a growth mindset that abilities can be developed through effort as compared to fixed mindset managers who believe that abilities are inherent and unchangeable. The mindset of managers is predictive of the behavioral choices they make about exercising leadership, and has practical significance since studies have shown that managers are generally more effective in direct relationship to how often they are seen as engaging in leadership.

This study extends the significance of mindset from the educational to the corporate environment, using a robust sample of managers, and finding that the relationship between mindset and leadership is independent of various demographic and organizational characteristics.

Workforce agility (WFA) is an emergent research topic in volatile times. However, there is a lack of research in understanding the leadership dimension that triggers such an attribute in organizations. Our study aims to understand the impact of workforce agility on empowering leadership behavior and employee performance dimensions (task performance, contextual performance and counterproductive work behavior).

We collected data from 236 employees using reliable, validated scales and conducted various statistical analyses.

Our results demonstrated that WFA (1) partially mediated the relationship between empowering leadership and contextual performance (CP), (2) has not mediated the relationship between empowering leadership and counterproductive behavior (CWB) and (3) mediated the relationship between empowering leadership and task performance (TP).

Our research has practical implications for management practitioners. It suggests hiring and developing an agile workforce through appropriate training and development programs can significantly impact organizational performance. Furthermore, it provides insights into building leadership capabilities that sustain workforce agility practices, empowering leaders to make informed decisions.

Our research fills a significant gap in the existing literature by exploring the effects of WFA on leadership and performance. This novel approach provides a fresh perspective on the dynamics of organizational behavior, making it a valuable addition to the field.

Drawing on Bandura’s social learning theory (SLT), the purpose of this paper is to investigate, analytically, the impact that after-training skills level (i.e. perceived skill match) has on change self-efficacy. Moreover, this research also aims to identify which specific skills sets (if any) act as a protective factor during organizational change, supporting the change confidence (CC) level of the people involved.

Quantitative research was carried out on a sample of 200 workers in the bank sector.

Findings of this study suggest that skill match has a significant impact on the CC level. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that, even in front-office jobs, a perceived skill match of soft skills does not have a significant impact on staff CC, unlike that suggested by common sense and by literature.

Future research should investigate if and how a training process enables change self-efficacy over time or instead shows its utility only when it is relating to a specific and limited period.

This study suggests that in designing training, top and middle management should pay specific attention to change recipients’ needs by adopting a bottom-up approach. Moreover, to improve training effectiveness, it would be advisable to also train change recipients’ supervisors.

This study has social implications in suggesting how to foster the adaptive capabilities of change recipients in current turbulent times. In doing so, it suggests how to prevent some undesirable change consequences such as anxiety, intention to quit, work-related stress and change cynicism.

This paper shows that, from a methodological point of view, it is necessary to evaluate training effectiveness at the level of a specific skill area and not simply by comparing the trained/not trained people, as typically practiced until now.