This study seeks to explore the incidence and severity of inconsistency in the application of disciplinary measures between supervisors, given the same disciplinary incident…
Abstract
Purpose
This study seeks to explore the incidence and severity of inconsistency in the application of disciplinary measures between supervisors, given the same disciplinary incident. Consistency is an important aspect of procedural fairness in disciplinary action, but it has received little empirical attention.
Design/methodology/approach
Four employee discipline scenarios were assigned at random to 130 real‐life supervisor‐employee dyads, who role‐played the scenario.
Findings
There was little consistency between supervisors in their decisions regarding disciplinary measures. Overall, having an informal discussion with the employee was the most common response. Only when specific instructions to impose a verbal or written warning were provided did most supervisors move beyond an informal discussion. Even when clear instructions were given, a substantial minority applied a less severe disciplinary outcome.
Research limitations/implications
Even in this role‐play situation, where “real life” variables such as union grievances that could lead to the dilution of disciplinary action were not present, supervisors were generally lenient regarding employee discipline.
Practical implications
The trade‐off between the objectives of consistency and consideration of individual circumstances presents a serious challenge to practising supervisors.
Originality/value
This is a rare empirical paper exploring the issue of consistency in employee discipline.
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This study aims to examine the question of how long a behavioral skills training program should be in order to result in measurable behavioral change.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the question of how long a behavioral skills training program should be in order to result in measurable behavioral change.
Design/methodology/approach
An empirical field study was conducted to compare two different lengths of time for a managerial skills training program aimed at achieving behavioral change. The training time for the first training condition was based on “rules‐of‐thumb” found in the literature. The training time was increased in an “extended” training condition that covered the same material but permitted more time for lecture, role‐playing and discussion.
Findings
Results showed that, relative to a control group, participants in the “extended” training condition exhibited behavioral change, but those in the “rules‐of‐thumb” training condition did not. Self‐efficacy increased significantly for trainees in both training conditions.
Practical implications
More attention is required to the length of training programs as they are being designed, especially if behavioral change is a goal of the training. Using rules‐of‐thumb regarding training length may be insufficient for bringing about behavioral change. More importantly, the need for more effective management skills will not be met, and organizational performance outcomes may be jeopardized.
Originality/value
The results of this research have the potential to be broadly applicable to management training and may possibly generalize to training in other disciplines where the training is intended to effect behavioral change.
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Nina D. Cole and Douglas H. Flint
The self‐interest and relational models of organizational justice were tested to explain the relationship between benefit plan type and organizational justice. Benefit plan types…
Abstract
The self‐interest and relational models of organizational justice were tested to explain the relationship between benefit plan type and organizational justice. Benefit plan types considered were flexible and traditional plans. In support of the self‐interest model employees in flexible benefit plans had significantly higher perceptions of procedural justice than employees in traditional benefit plans. There were no significant differences in perceptions of distributive justice between the plan types.
The purpose of the paper is to assess the relevance of the personal value called self‐transcendence as an explanatory factor regarding gender differences in the socio‐cultural…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to assess the relevance of the personal value called self‐transcendence as an explanatory factor regarding gender differences in the socio‐cultural adjustment of expatriate employees.
Design/methodology/approach
A sample of 37 male and 31 female expatriates responded to an online questionnaire concerning their self‐transcendence value and their adjustment as expatriate employees.
Findings
Self‐transcendence of the expatriate predicted interactional and work adjustment. Perceived expatriate‐local difference in self‐transcendence was a negative predictor of work and interactional adjustment. Females had higher (non‐significant) self‐transcendence than males. Further gender differences in the impact of self‐transcendence and perceived expatriate‐local differences in self‐transcendence were found.
Research limitations/implications
Further research into the effect of expatriate levels of the personal value of self‐transcendence, its two components, universalism and benevolence, and gender differences therein appears warranted. Statistical techniques to establish causality should be used.
Practical implications
Knowledge regarding the self‐transcendence values of candidates for expatriate assignments may assist global human resource managers to make more effective selection decisions regarding expatriate assignments.
Originality/value
The study described in this paper is among the first to assess potential explanations for the better interactional and work adjustment of female expatriates compared to males. This study replicates earlier findings regarding the relationship between perceived expatriate‐local differences in self‐transcendence and expatriate socio‐cultural adjustment and provides new knowledge regarding gender differences in this relationship.
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Denis Chênevert, Genevieve Jourdain, Nina Cole and Brigitte Banville
The purpose of this paper is to integrate Greenberg's perspective on the connection between injustice and stress in order to clarify the role of organisational justice, burnout…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to integrate Greenberg's perspective on the connection between injustice and stress in order to clarify the role of organisational justice, burnout and organisational commitment in the understanding of absenteeism.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was carried out among 457 workers of a large healthcare establishment in the Canadian public healthcare sector. The model was tested using structural equation methods.
Findings
The results reveal that procedural and interactional justices have an indirect effect on exhaustion through distributive injustice. Moreover, it was found that distributive injustice is indirectly linked to short‐term absences through exhaustion. By contrast, the relationship between distributive injustice and long‐term absence can be explained by two mediating variables, namely, exhaustion and psychosomatic complaints.
Research limitations/implications
In spite of the non‐longitudinal nature of this study, the results suggest that the stress model and the medical model best explain the relationship between organisational injustice and absenteeism, while the withdrawal model via organisational commitment is not associated in this study with absenteeism.
Practical implications
Healthcare managers should consider the possibility of better involving employees in the decision‐making process in order to increase their perception of procedural and interactional justice, and indirectly reduce exhaustion and absenteeism through a greater perception of distributive justice.
Social implications
For the healthcare sector, the need to reduce absenteeism is particularly urgent because of budget restrictions and the shortage of labour around the world.
Originality/value
This is one of the first studies to provide a complete model that analyses the stress process in terms of how organisational justice affects short‐ and long‐term absences, in a bid to understand the specific process and factors that lead to shorter and longer episodes of absence.
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Nurdiana Gaus, Jasruddin Daud Malago, Muhammad Basri, Mustaking Mustaking, Muhammad Azwar Paramma, Nina Maharani and Retno Angraeni
This paper aims to examine factors influencing the productivity in research and publication between science and social science.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine factors influencing the productivity in research and publication between science and social science.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative approach with interviews for 40 academics in four public universities in Indonesia was applied to get an in-depth understanding of the issues.
Findings
The results of this study demonstrated that individual factors instead of institutional factors that contributed to the productivity of academics in science as compared to academics in social science.
Originality/value
Despite there were influential effects of institutions in which the socializing process of internalizing the values, norms and scientific roles under the auspice of qualified supervisors or advisors, there seemed to be an individual capacity that comes in between. The implications of this study are discussed in the article.
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Justin A. Coles and Maria Kingsley
By engaging in critical literacy, participants theorized Blackness and antiblackness. The purpose of this study was to have participants theorize Blackness and antiblackness…
Abstract
Purpose
By engaging in critical literacy, participants theorized Blackness and antiblackness. The purpose of this study was to have participants theorize Blackness and antiblackness through their engagements with critical literacy.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used a youth-centered and informed Black critical-race grounded methodology.
Findings
Participants’ unique and varied revelations of Blackness as Vitality, Blackness as Cognizance and Blackness as Expansive Community, served to withstand, confront and transcend encounters with antiblackness in English curricula.
Practical implications
This paper provides a model for how to engage Black youth as a means to disrupt anti-Black English education spaces.
Social implications
This study provides a foundation for future research efforts of Black English outer spaces as they relate to English education. Findings in this study may also inform existing English educator practices.
Originality/value
This study theorized both the role and the flexible nature of Black English outer spaces. It defined the multi-ethnic nature of Blackness. It proposed that affirmations of Blackness sharpened participants’ critical literacies in Black English outer spaces as a transformative intervention to anti-Black English education spaces.