Sonia Taneja, Scott S. Sewell and Randall Y. Odom
The purpose of this paper is to develop a model that identifies the strategies that have the ability to create a culture of employee engagement for global managers in making the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a model that identifies the strategies that have the ability to create a culture of employee engagement for global managers in making the tactical adaptations necessary to develop and implement global strategy in an increasingly complex and dynamic marketplace.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors focused on the global managers charged with the responsibilities of developing and creating a culture of employee engagement as an important strategy for the competitive advantage of organizations.
Findings
Employee engagement should be viewed as a long-term commitment between the employees and the organization, each supporting the other in an era of increasing international operations. In fact, employee engagement is an important strategy for long-term organizational sustainability in international markets.
Practical implications
Employee engagement is critical to the management and retention of talented employees in the organization. It can be achieved by managing global mobility in increasingly complex global workplaces; talent so that it enhances business results; training and development; rewards, recognitions and engagement; manager/employee communication and interaction; and leadership and development.
Originality/value
In today’s global society, it is critical for organizational leaders to focus on creating a culture of employee engagement to attract and retain quality employees in an increasingly competitive market. Engaged employees are more committed to their work and feel connected to the success of their organization. In addition, they are more likely to believe in their organization’s values, mission and vision. The increasing utilization of boundary less organizations poses a challenge for leaders who strive to create and maintain employee engagement within an organization.
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The author distinguishes between state, process, and object perspectives on institutions and institutionalization. While all-purpose process approaches dominate the literature…
Abstract
The author distinguishes between state, process, and object perspectives on institutions and institutionalization. While all-purpose process approaches dominate the literature, the author argues that these are analytically insufficient without theorizing the nature of “institutional objects.” Building on recently developed analytic disaggregations of the culture concept in cultural sociology, the author argues that doings, sayings, codes, and artifacts exhaust the broad classes of potential objects subject to institutionalization processes. The proposed approach provides a coherent ontology for future empirical work, features robust microfoundations, places institutional routines and practices in a material context, and acknowledges the importance of semiotic codes and vocabularies in organizational fields.
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In recent years, scholars have engaged in an especially sharp debate about the structural and ideological arrangements on which business organizations rely in their effort to…
Abstract
In recent years, scholars have engaged in an especially sharp debate about the structural and ideological arrangements on which business organizations rely in their effort to control the workers they employ. A key issue is the degree to which workers have retained the ability to resist such controls. In this chapter, I develop a critical analysis of the scholarly debate over domination and resistance at work, in an effort to clarify the tasks facing this field. My argument hinges on three major points. First, I argue that scholars have approached the control/resistance binary largely as a class relationship, thereby neglecting intersecting inequalities such as race, gender, and sexuality, which inevitably complicate or over-determine the forms that worker resistance assumes. Second, I argue that scholars have increasingly fixated on symbolic or discursive influences, privileging them at the expense of the material or structural conditions that shape managerial control and resistance to it. Third, I contend that much of the literature has failed to acknowledge the duality of managerial control – that is, its tendency not only to limit but also to enable resistance from below. These problems, taken together, explain why the debate has so often seemed to pursue a circuitous path, as if it were chasing its own tail. The chapter concludes by discussing the conditions that resistance presupposes, and by speculating about the emergence of novel forms of resistance that might be well suited to an age of flexible accumulation.
This chapter explores institution as a religious phenomenon. Institutional logics are organized around relatively stable congeries of objects, subjects, and practices…
Abstract
This chapter explores institution as a religious phenomenon. Institutional logics are organized around relatively stable congeries of objects, subjects, and practices. Institutional substances, the most general object of an institutional field, are immanent in the practices that organize an institutional field, values never exhausted by those practices, and practices premised on a practical belief in that substance. Like religion, an institution's practices are ontologically rational, that is, tied to a substance indexed by the conjunction of a practice and a name. Institutional substances are not loosely coupled, ceremonial, legitimating exteriors, but unquestioned, constitutive interiors, the sacred core of each field, unobservable, but socially real.
This chapter provides an extensive review of literature on the interaction between and interdependence of informal and formal working practices in various workplace settings. The…
Abstract
This chapter provides an extensive review of literature on the interaction between and interdependence of informal and formal working practices in various workplace settings. The aim of the chapter is to elucidate the organisational, managerial, human relations and social factors that give rise to informal work practices and strategies, on the shop-floor not only at workers and work group levels but also at supervisory and managerial levels. This chapter helps the reader to understand the informal work practice of making a plan (planisa) in a deep-level mining workplace.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine how academics resisted and accommodated changes towards the reform process in higher education institutions in Indonesia which has…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how academics resisted and accommodated changes towards the reform process in higher education institutions in Indonesia which has introduced market-driven principle of new public management and the principle of Neo-Weberian model. Using the theory developed by Scott concerning the resistance patterns by powerless or subordinated groups through “weapon of the weak”, this study aimed at mapping the resistance exhibited by Indonesian academics.
Design/methodology/approach
This study was a case study using semi-structured interviews conducted with 30 academics in three state universities in Indonesia.
Findings
The results of this study demonstrated that academics in Indonesian universities resisted and accommodated the policy reform using their discursive, unobtrusive tactics of resisting.
Research limitations/implications
The method of data collection used in this research was based on the interview alone. It would be useful to consider to deploy other forms of data collection such as, observation to allow the building up of strong trusthworthiness of the findings of this research.
Practical implications
The authors believed that this study may be useful to give better understandings for policy makers on implementing policies by considering aspects of behaviours of academics as street level bureaucrats in accepting, interpreting, and implementing policy imperatives. These results might also be beneficial for policy makers from other sectors outside higher education in effectuating policy imperatives.
Originality/value
The authors argued that, academics actively responded to external pressures which contradicted their own values and beliefs with their unique intellectual strategies by which have been overlooked in the formulation of policy.
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The aim of this chapter is to provide a relevant theoretical contribution to the field of entrepreneurship in cultural and creative industries (CCI) and suggestions for a research…
Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to provide a relevant theoretical contribution to the field of entrepreneurship in cultural and creative industries (CCI) and suggestions for a research agenda. Entrepreneurship research is characterised by an apparent fragmentation, even if scholars advocate the development of a ‘stronger paradigm’ to strengthen the discipline. Rather than making explicit what is specific to entrepreneurship in CCI, or delineating the boundaries of a new community of scholars, in this chapter, the author attempts to identify certain key ingredients of a ‘hodgepodge’. The Schumpeterian entrepreneur, the opportunity seeker, and the everyday entrepreneur are introduced as well as an action model in which the reciprocal agency–structure relationship finds a place. It is highlighted how theories such as the Theory of Planned Behaviour, Social Identity Theory, Institutional Theory, Practice Theory, and Paradox Theory (can) inform research on entrepreneurship in CCI.
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William Vuk Despotovic, Ruth McPhail and David Schmidtke
The peer-assisted study sessions program (PASS) – variously known as supplemental instruction, peer mentoring and peer-assisted learning – is regarded as a global phenomenon in…
Abstract
Purpose
The peer-assisted study sessions program (PASS) – variously known as supplemental instruction, peer mentoring and peer-assisted learning – is regarded as a global phenomenon in academic support interventions and has well established presence in higher education. The purpose of this study was to add to the body of knowledge of how PASS may add value to the employability of the student leaders, in relation to the CareerEDGE model.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative research was based on interviews from a sample of 18 former PASS leaders who have since obtained employment.
Findings
Findings demonstrate that being a PASS leader enhanced many of their competencies as defined by CareerEDGE model, for example subject related knowledge, interpersonal skills and some generic skills. However, many of the reported competency enhancements led to unexpected future career advancement.
Research limitations/implications
This study contributes to the body of knowledge relating to how PASS may add value to the employability of student leaders in relation to the CareerEDGE model using a sample of leaders who have already graduated and have obtained employment. Limitations of this study include: lack of generalisability of small geographically isolated sample; coding and analsysis not comparing findings from different demographic groups; only explores individual perceptions and relies on self-reported data.
Practical implications
The results of this study have implications for the development of future PASS programs and other similar academic support interventions. Given the global prevalence of such programs in higher education institutions, this research may have wide-scale transferability. Insights from this paper will allow future PASS leaders to proactively reflect and evaluate their experience and increase their confidence in pursuing their employment opportunities.
Originality/value
While there is much understanding on the role that PASS has in improving students grades and in improving retention rates, less is known about the value of this experience on improving student employability, and little attempt has been made in examining this within relevant employability models post-employment.
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Rebecca Jean Emigh and Dylan Riley
In this chapter, we review the historical development of elite theory, and then we propose a way forward beyond it. Elite theory emerged as a critique of democracy in the late…
Abstract
In this chapter, we review the historical development of elite theory, and then we propose a way forward beyond it. Elite theory emerged as a critique of democracy in the late 19th century. Although it used historical materials illustratively, it tended to be ahistorical theoretically because its primary aim was to demonstrate the perdurance of elites even in conditions of mass suffrage. Lachmann was the first scholar to develop elite theory as a truly historical and explanatory framework by combining it with elements of Marxism. Even Lachmann's theory, however, remained inadequate because it did not rest on a fully articulated theory of power. In this introduction, we suggest a “relational power theory” as a remedy to this situation, and we use it to formulate a general heuristic for the study of elites, nonelites, and their interrelationships. To illustrate its utility, we show how it can illuminate the chapters in this volume (though they were not necessarily written for these purposes).