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Article
Publication date: 8 January 2024

David E. Bowen

This article overviews some key contributions to service research from the organizational behavior/human resource management (OB/HRM) discipline with its strong focus on the role…

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Abstract

Purpose

This article overviews some key contributions to service research from the organizational behavior/human resource management (OB/HRM) discipline with its strong focus on the role of employees. This focus complements the Marketing discipline’s heavy emphasis on customers, largely true of service research, overall.

Design/methodology/approach

Ten OB/HRM frameworks/perspectives are applied to analyzing the roles of people (with a focus on employees and modest consideration of customers as “partial” employees who co-create value) in a service organization context. Also, commentary is offered on how the frameworks relate to six key themes in contemporary service research and/or practice. The article concludes with five reflections on the role and status of employees in service research—past, present and future.

Findings

Employee roles in evolving service contexts; participation role readiness of both employees and customers; role stress in participating customers; an employee “empowered state of mind”; an emphasis on internal service quality; “strong” HRM systems link individual HRM practices to firm performance; service-profit chain with links to well-being of employees and customers; a sociotechnical system theory lens on organizational frontlines (OF); service climate as an exemplar of interdisciplinary research; emotional labor in both employees and customers; the Human Experience (HX); specification of employee experience (EX).

Originality/value

Service remains very much about people who still guide organizational design, develop service strategy, place new service technologies and even still serve customers. Also, a people and organization-based competitive advantage is tough to copy, thus possessing sustainability, unlike with imitable technology.

Details

Journal of Service Management, vol. 35 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-5818

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Article
Publication date: 20 February 2007

Jon Billsberry

This paper seeks to report an empirical test of Schneider's attraction proposition that organizations attract similar types of people.

3384

Abstract

Purpose

This paper seeks to report an empirical test of Schneider's attraction proposition that organizations attract similar types of people.

Design/methodology/approach

The person‐people (PP), person‐group (PG) and person‐organization (PO) fit of applicants to eight utility firms were compared with the similar fits of members of a suitable comparison group.

Findings

The results show an effect for person‐vocation (PV) fit but, once this is controlled for, all significant effects disappear. In other words, the PP, PG and PO fits of applicants to the utilities were no different from those in the comparison group once PV fit was controlled for.

Research limitations/implications

These results suggest that applicants choose which organization to apply to based on their desire for a particular type of work rather than their attraction for particular companies, which is contrary to Schneider's attraction proposition. One reason for this might be the nature of graduates who are largely unaware of the organizational environments to which they are applying. Drawing from the interpersonal attraction literature, it is argued that applicants need familiarity, proximity and exposure to the organization for Schneider's attraction proposition to appear.

Practical implications

These results suggest graduates choose vocations over organizations and that, if organizations wish to attract people who share their values, they need to put more effort into their recruitment efforts than those described in this study. The absence of an attraction effect suggests that, when applicants make attraction decisions based on their perceived fit, they may not be supported by an actual congruence.

Originality/value

This study extends previous work by including multiple conceptualizations of fit, by including person‐group and person‐people fits in addition to person‐organization fit.

Details

Journal of Managerial Psychology, vol. 22 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0268-3946

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Book part
Publication date: 3 August 2011

PJ McGann

Purpose – To explore the ideological effects and social control potential of diagnostic biopsychiatry and encourage the sociology of diagnosis to retain key insights of early…

Abstract

Purpose – To explore the ideological effects and social control potential of diagnostic biopsychiatry and encourage the sociology of diagnosis to retain key insights of early medicalization scholarship.

Methodology – As the sociology of diagnosis emerges from medicalization, it is imperative that the new sub-specialty retains the critical edge of the early scholarship. With this in mind the paper reviews key aspects of the medicalization thesis, emphasizing the links between medical definitions and social control processes (e.g. Conrad, 1992; Conrad & Schneider, 1992; Zola, 1972). Based on this review scholars are urged to be mindful of the “diagnostic imaginary” -- a way of thinking that conceals the presence of the social in diagnoses, and which closes off critical analysis of the existential-connectedness and political nature of diagnoses.

Findings – The paradigm shift from dynamic to diagnostic psychiatry in DSM-III opened the door to a new biomedical model that has enhanced American psychiatry's scientific aura and prestige. With the increased presence and ordinariness of diagnoses in everyday life, an illusory view of diagnoses as scientific entities free of cultural ties has emerged, intensifying the dangers of medical social control.

Social implications – By illustrating that diagnoses are cultural objects imbued with political meaning, the ideological effects and social control potential of diagnostic biopsychiatry may be mitigated.

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Book part
Publication date: 9 March 2015

Sergio Schneider and Marcio Gazolla

In this chapter we examine how the small scale agro-industries located in Southern Brazil, specifically in the North of the State of Rio Grande do Sul, started to deal with…

Abstract

In this chapter we examine how the small scale agro-industries located in Southern Brazil, specifically in the North of the State of Rio Grande do Sul, started to deal with changes in their production processes, how they created and adapted technologies, and devised new products. Among the main outcomes of the study we highlight the novelties observed during the field research, especially regarding the family situation and the agro-manufacturing activities, in which we observed (i) a relative raise in autonomy; (ii) improvement in both the income level and the quality of life of household members; (iii) creation of new nested markets and marketing channels; (iv) development of more environmentally sustainable products; (v) improvement of the value added to food products; and (vi) development of new interfaces between families and other social actors.

Details

Constructing a New Framework for Rural Development
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-622-5

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Book part
Publication date: 25 July 2008

Joseph Schneider

In 1985, I was moving along a more or less definable disciplinary path, writing qualitative sociology guided by my understanding of leading symbolic interactionist texts…

Abstract

In 1985, I was moving along a more or less definable disciplinary path, writing qualitative sociology guided by my understanding of leading symbolic interactionist texts, productively disturbed by affection for Harold Garfinkel's ethnomethodology. Although there were prior lines of influence, my writing then was focused especially on various “social constructionist” projects, first with Peter Conrad (Conrad & Schneider, 1992 [1980]; Schneider & Conrad, 1983) and then with Malcolm Spector and John Kitsuse (Kitsuse & Schneider, 1984, 1989). I also read closely and had many conversations with Anselm Strauss about how to do what he and Barney Glaser called “grounded theory” and with Howard Becker about “doing sociology.” Not only did I feel that I was getting better at doing ethnography or field work and “writing it up,” as we put it in Sociology, I felt I was engaged in an epistemologically superior practice relative to the more quantitative and structurally oriented work that was then and still is defined as “mainstream” (a land from which I had emigrated, gradually, after the Ph.D.).

Details

Studies in Symbolic Interaction
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84663-931-9

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Book part
Publication date: 17 January 2022

Andrea Fischbach and Benjamin Schneider

Purpose: Work-related emotional exposure is a fundamental job characteristic in all kinds of service jobs from sales to law enforcement and corrections and from human services…

Abstract

Purpose: Work-related emotional exposure is a fundamental job characteristic in all kinds of service jobs from sales to law enforcement and corrections and from human services (nursing, counseling) to legal services. But formalized job descriptions are surprisingly silent about the emotional issues accompanying the jobs and roles service workers perform. This is surprising because formalized job descriptions are the foundation of job design, HR, and leadership practices that positively affect employee, customer, and organizational outcomes. Study Design/Methodology/Approach: This is a theory paper and review. To help clarify the emotional labor issues service employees confront, we explicate a model of emotional labor based on the attributes of jobs, roles, and professionalism. Findings: We define emotional labor as service work that exposes those who do such work to interactions with others that can arouse negative emotions. We propose that, while employing organizations define their jobs and employees craft their larger roles, professional norms and values also are a foundation for their emotional labor. Research Implications: We integrate this work-focused emotional labor model into the larger context in which such work occurs via theory and research on organizational climate. We suggest future research on this approach to understanding the antecedents and consequences of emotional labor work. We summarize the major research ideas of what should be the focus of such research and provide a hint about what an emotional labor climate scale might look like based on these ideas. Practical Implications: This chapter offers practical advice to HR managers about how to improve emotional labor. Social Implications: Better management of emotional labor can reduce employee stress and increase employee well-being. Originality/Value: This chapter develops an original model of emotional labor.

Details

Emotions and Negativity
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-200-4

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Book part
Publication date: 28 November 2022

Sergio Schneider and Abel Cassol

Territorial food markets and governance have emerged as a key mechanism for the design and implementation new food systems and policies aimed at sustainable cities. However, the…

Abstract

Territorial food markets and governance have emerged as a key mechanism for the design and implementation new food systems and policies aimed at sustainable cities. However, the many existing policies tend to overlook the way food markets and supply strategies work. This chapter analyses governance in traditional agri-food markets in Brazil, aiming to demonstrate how, in different contexts, the economic interactions between actors are embedded in a set of social institutions (cultural values), which define modes of governance, participation in the markets and can be potential to fostering new (sustainable) rural-urban relations. These institutions challenge and compete with formal regulatory requirements imposed by the public authorities, which often disrupt and/or inhibit the development of local and traditional production and consumption practices, posing obstacles to the fostering rural-urban relations and the construction of solid local policies for food supply. Empirical data refer to three traditional Brazilian markets: the Feira do Pequeno Produtor in Passo Fundo, located in the South of Brazil, the Feira Central de Campina Grande and the Feira de Caruaru, both located in the Northeast of the country. The results point to the necessity and centrality to cities food supply policies recognise, encourage and institutionalise these markets traditional institutions in order to overcome supermarketisation and consolidate sustainable food systems. These process could be able to remove traditional markets from marginalise, promoting not only their survival, but their growth and consolidation as a source of decent work, healthy food and new sustainable rural-urban relationships.

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Food and Agriculture in Urbanized Societies
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-770-2

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Book part
Publication date: 8 March 2017

Brent Harger and Melissa Quintela

Gatekeepers play an important role in research conducted with children and youth. Although qualitative researchers frequently discuss institutional and individual gatekeepers…

Abstract

Gatekeepers play an important role in research conducted with children and youth. Although qualitative researchers frequently discuss institutional and individual gatekeepers, such as schools and parents, little attention has been paid to the role that Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) play in determining who is allowed to research particular populations and the ramifications of these decisions for findings involving children and youth. In order to examine this role, we compare negotiations of two researchers working on separate projects with similar populations with the IRB of a large Midwestern university. In both cases, it is likely that board members used their own personal experience and expertise in making assumptions about the race, social class, and gender of the researchers and their participants. The fact that these experiences are supported by findings across a wide range of IRBs highlights the extent to which qualitative research with children is changed (or even prevented) by those with little knowledge of typical qualitative methodologies and the cultural contexts in which research takes place. While those such as principals, teachers, and parents who are traditionally recognized as gatekeepers control access to specific locations, their denial of access only requires researchers to seek other research sites. IRBs, in contrast, control whether researchers are able to conduct research at any site. Although they wield considerably more control over research studies than typical gatekeepers, the fact that they are housed in the institutions at which academic researchers work also means that we can play a role in their improvement.

Details

Researching Children and Youth: Methodological Issues, Strategies, and Innovations
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-098-1

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Book part
Publication date: 9 March 2015

Jan Douwe van der Ploeg, Jingzhong Ye and Sergio Schneider

From a more general point of view the initiatives and novel practices of farmers represent ‘seeds of transition’. They are the ‘sprouts’ out of which new socio-technical modes for…

Abstract

From a more general point of view the initiatives and novel practices of farmers represent ‘seeds of transition’. They are the ‘sprouts’ out of which new socio-technical modes for organizing production and marketing emerge – ‘sprouts’ that, taken together can be described under the term ‘rural development’. The examples are, on the whole, well-known; they include agro-ecological production, on-farm processing, agro-tourism, new credit associations and cooperative forms of commercialization. But it remains important to develop a more sociological interpretation of these new forms: since they are produced by social actors and are constantly redefined and modified through the relations and interactions implied by these new forms. This chapter defines the outline on actors and practices that will be discussed in later chapters of the book.

Details

Constructing a New Framework for Rural Development
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-622-5

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Article
Publication date: 11 February 2014

Sanjay Sharma and Aniket Ghosh Choudhury

– The purpose of this exploratory study is to highlight the stages in the relationship which eventually lead to an integrated logistics alliance.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this exploratory study is to highlight the stages in the relationship which eventually lead to an integrated logistics alliance.

Design/methodology/approach

The stages involved in the evolutionary process have been explained with the help of concepts of mental models and knowledge-related asymmetries. The study has been justified by applying multiple case research design which involves examples of successful logistics alliances.

Findings

The analysis using case study approach provides a detailed overview how third-party logistics providers develop successful relationships with different industry firms over a period of time which eventually lead to innovations benefiting both the partners.

Research limitations/implications

In the paper, a qualitative case study methodology has been adopted which is limited in nature when compared to quantitative approach. Nevertheless, the multiple cases discussed in the paper involve organizations from diverse sectors thus providing a holistic perspective and adding value to the current strategic alliance literature.

Practical implications

The complete understanding of the concepts discussed in this paper will help companies revisit their business strategies and identify areas of improvements in their current engagement practices with third-party logistics providers.

Originality/value

Many a time, relationships fail to develop into an alliance and research related to the attributes causing these failures might be limited. In the past, though many papers have talked about strategic alliances between third-party logistics providers and customers, little has been discussed about how such relationships evolve into successful strategic alliances.

Details

Strategic Outsourcing: An International Journal, vol. 7 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1753-8297

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