Patrick Gallagher, Stephen Christian Smith, Steven M. Swavely and Sarah Coley
Against the backdrop of a competitive hiring market and historically high rates of quitting, the current research examines a factor that could support talent retention in…
Abstract
Purpose
Against the backdrop of a competitive hiring market and historically high rates of quitting, the current research examines a factor that could support talent retention in organizations: employees’ feelings of connectedness to their top executives. The authors examined the relationship between workers’ feelings of executive connectedness and job attitudes relative to other antecedents and its predictive power for quitting over and above manager and team connectedness.
Design/methodology/approach
In Study 1, the authors measured the relative predictive power of executive connectedness, along with 14 other antecedents, for the outcome of job attitudes in ten samples totaling over 70,000 observations, including two longitudinal samples. In Study 2, the authors used path analysis to test the relationship between executive connectedness and actual quitting, controlling for workers’ feelings of connectedness to their manager and teammates, in two (related) longitudinal samples.
Findings
Executive connectedness was robustly related to concurrent and future job attitudes, and it outranked manager variables in all samples. Executive connectedness predicted quitting, even when controlling for manager and team connectedness; this effect was mediated by job attitudes in one of two samples.
Practical implications
Executive connectedness could be an underutilized resource for understanding and possibly improving employee attitudes and retention. Executives should not delegate all responsibility for employee attitudes and retention to managers.
Originality/value
This research is to the authors' knowledge the first to systematically test the unique predictive validity of employees’ feelings of connectedness to executives for important outcomes. The results suggest that executive connectedness may be an important factor in employees’ workplace experience.
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Connie R Wanberg, Elizabeth T Welsh and Sarah A Hezlett
Organizations have become increasingly interested in developing their human resources. One tool that has been explored in this quest is mentoring. This has led to a surge in…
Abstract
Organizations have become increasingly interested in developing their human resources. One tool that has been explored in this quest is mentoring. This has led to a surge in mentoring research and an increase in the number of formal mentoring programs implemented in organizations. This review provides a survey of the empirical work on mentoring that is organized around the major questions that have been investigated. Then a conceptual model, focused on formal mentoring relationships, is developed to help understand the mentoring process. The model draws upon research from a diverse body of literature, including interpersonal relationships, career success, training and development, and informal mentoring. Finally, a discussion of critical next steps for research in the mentoring domain is presented.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the most significant censorship issues faced by UK school librarians today and to determine what factors influence attitudes towards…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the most significant censorship issues faced by UK school librarians today and to determine what factors influence attitudes towards these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire was designed, closely based on that used for a previous survey of UK librarians in 2004. It was distributed online and 96 responses were received.
Findings
Overall, respondents were more likely to express support for intellectual freedom in theory than in practice. Statements that prompted the strongest pro-censorship responses related to access issues, namely, labelling and filtering. A number of librarians place significant emphasis on their personal ability, or right, to determine whether or not resources are included in the collection. There was evidence of a difference in practical application depending on whether librarians worked with pre-school children or were members of professional associations.
Research limitations/implications
The findings suggest a need for further research into the role of professional associations in supporting school librarians faced by censorship issues, especially those who support the youngest students.
Originality/value
The findings suggest that while school librarians hold strong pro-intellectual freedom views, they may need additional support to put these into practice. School librarians are undoubtedly in a challenging position, often being solo workers; they need support to find ways to uphold professional intellectual freedom principles within a school setting.
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Sarah Moore, Patricia Sikora, Leon Grunberg and Edward Greenberg
The purpose of this paper is to explore whether empirical support exists for two commonly held beliefs about the work‐home interface: women, and particularly managerial women, are…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore whether empirical support exists for two commonly held beliefs about the work‐home interface: women, and particularly managerial women, are prone to “super‐mother” or “super‐manage” in an effort to balance both career and child‐rearing, and these demands diminish markedly when children reach school age.
Design/methodology/approach
Via a survey mailed to their home, 1,103 managerial and non‐managerial men and women completed measures of work‐home and home‐work conflict, work‐related stress and strain, and reported their number of work, domestic, and leisure hours per week.
Findings
Somewhat consistent with the popular beliefs, the authors found that managerial women reported working significantly more in the home; measures of conflict and strain, however, while showing some effect were not impacted to the degree that managerial women's combined number of work and home hours per week might suggest. The authors also found that measures of hours, conflict, and strain did not diminish abruptly when children entered school, due perhaps in part to manager's increased work hours and managerial women's renewed work emphasis when children entered school. Measures of hours, conflict, and strain did show some reduction for parents of teenaged children, although they were still significantly higher than those of nonparents.
Originality/value
Aside from being one of the few empirical papers to examine the impact of child rearing on managerial women, our data show how these demands are not confined to working parents of preschoolers.
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The economics literature on gender has expanded considerably in recent years, fueled in part by new sources of data, including from experimental studies of gender differences in…
Abstract
The economics literature on gender has expanded considerably in recent years, fueled in part by new sources of data, including from experimental studies of gender differences in preferences and other traits. At the same time, economists have been developing more realistic models of psychological and social influences on individual choices and the evolution of culture and social norms. Despite these innovations, much of the economics of gender has been left behind, and still employs a reductive framing in which gender gaps in economic outcomes are either due to discrimination or to “choice.” I suggest here that the persistence of this approach is due to several distinctive economic habits of mind – strong priors driven by market bias and gender essentialism, a perspective that views the default economic agent as male, and an oft-noted tendency to avoid complex problems in favor of those that can be modeled simply. I also suggest some paths forward.
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Katie Turner, Shelagh Ferguson, Julia Craig, Alice Jeffries and Sarah Beaton
Are peaches, Caesar salad and chocolate masculine or feminine food? Literature suggests that there is a clear association between certain types of food, portion sizes and gendered…
Abstract
Purpose
Are peaches, Caesar salad and chocolate masculine or feminine food? Literature suggests that there is a clear association between certain types of food, portion sizes and gendered identities. This research paper and short film aims to explore the theory in practice of food consumption for young consumers, particularly impression management required to create/maintain an attractive identity to the opposite sex.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors adopt an interpretive approach to an in‐depth analysis of the food practices of an all male and an all female household. They use a theory in practice methodology to explore their food consumption.
Findings
It is found that despite enlightenment in many areas, gendered identities are still strongly associated with food consumption. The experiment in which each household consumed a meal associated with the opposite gender offers insight into the association between food consumption and gendered identity. The social implications of the research demonstrate that masculine identity is supported and negotiated through what he is eating, whereas feminine identity is being constructed by what she is not eating. It is concerning that an attractive feminine identity is premised on omission rather than consumption and traps many females into a negative and potentially harmful relationship with food consumption.
Originality/value
The use of videography allows insight into the negotiation of an underpinning cultural attitude where women eat less to be what consumer culture has defined as an attractive feminine identity which means being slimmer and smaller than males.
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Gad Yair and Orit Gazit
Studies of families and inequality in education have focused on the family as a preparatory institution for school. However, researchers have ignored the dynamic process of…
Abstract
Studies of families and inequality in education have focused on the family as a preparatory institution for school. However, researchers have ignored the dynamic process of engaging with academic learning at home on a daily basis and minimized the importance of homework and instruction in this setting. Home observations of Ethiopian families who immigrated to Israel are used here as a case to describe three distracting factors which alienate children from learning at home in lower-class, poor immigrant households: deprived physical settings, sensory bombardment, and emotional stress. By looking at learning at home, this study points at root causes of alienation from learning and thereby adds another perspective on reproduction in education. Our study casts doubt on the ability of home intervention programs to curb social inequalities in education.