Search results

This paper suggests that motives for engaging in affiliative‐promotive “helping” extra‐role behavior is related to cross‐cultural differences. The cultural dimensions of in‐group collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, performance orientation, and humane orientation, and their differential effect on helping extra‐role behavior in a diverse workforce are examined. Theoretical implications provide guidance for future empirical research in this area, and provide managers with more realistic expectations of employee performance in the workplace.

The results of a company‐wide quality improvement programme are usually new company policies. Implementation of these quality improvement policies can be extremely difficult, because employees may not comply with them. A survey of 67 middle managers and 174 front‐line workers was conducted in Hong Kong to investigate the role of social power in influencing compliance with quality policies. The results show that front‐line workers responded best to reward and legitimate power, with expert power receiving the lowest score. Managers were more responsive to expert and informational power and less to reward and legitimate power. The results also indicate that the response to coercive and referent power in both groups was fairly low.

Examines organizational objectives when conducting quality planning and how different planning objectives are related to its perceived performance. The sample included 42 firms representing five different planning objective orientations. Four distinct cluster groups emerged. The four orientations were named as “strategic impact and communication”, “product/process improvement”, “co‐ordination”, and “no clear objectives”, based on the interpretation of the planning objectives that loaded on each respective factor. The results suggest that certain quality planning objectives were associated with significantly higher perceived performance and the level of planning sophistication only influenced the planning performance of some groups.

Reports on a survey of 67 middle managers and 174 front‐line workers, conducted in Hong Kong, which aimed to investigate the perceived impact of total quality management (TQM) programmes on job satisfaction. Both middle managers and front‐line workers considered that the TQM programme had led to a variety of changes that made their jobs more demanding, gave them more responsibility but less job autonomy. TQM programmes did not make their jobs more interesting and they did not perceive any great change in salary, job security or promotion opportunities. However, middle managers perceived more changes than front‐line workers in terms of working relationships with employees, job responsibility and participation in decision making. Employees with different length of service in an organization were found to differ significantly in terms of perceptions of the impact of TQM on their jobs. New employees perceived less change when compared with employees with longer working experience in an organization.

Reports on the results of a survey of 220 front‐line supervisors in Hong Kong using the job descriptive index (JDI) to investigate the perceived impact of total quality management (TQM) programmes on job satisfaction. Shows that the respondents were much less satisfied with the work dimension than with other JDI dimensions such as supervision and co‐workers. TQM programmes seemed to have no impact on pay and promotion. The respondents perceived that the TQM programmes had led to a variety of changes which made their jobs more demanding, requiring greater individual skill and accuracy, but did not make their jobs more interesting and important. Discusses significance of these findings in the context of the need to provide employee satisfaction in total quality management.

This chapter explores a descriptive theory of multidimensional travel behaviour, estimation of quantitative models and demonstration in an agent-based microsimulation.

A descriptive theory on multidimensional travel behaviour is conceptualised. It theorizes multidimensional knowledge updating, search start/stopping criteria and search/decision heuristics. These components are formulated or empirically modelled and integrated in a unified and coherent approach.

The theory is supported by empirical observations and the derived quantitative models are tested by an agent-based simulation on a demonstration network.

Based on artificially intelligent agents, learning and search theory and bounded rationality, this chapter makes an effort to embed a sound theoretical foundation for the computational process approach and agent-based micro-simulations. A pertinent new theory is proposed with experimental observations and estimations to demonstrate agents with systematic deviations from the rationality paradigm. Procedural and multidimensional decision-making are modelled. The numerical experiment highlights the capabilities of the proposed theory in estimating rich behavioural dynamics.

The notion of achieving competitive advantage using a strategic customer service orientation (SCSO) has received increased research attention. The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of SCSO in the context of rapidly changing competitive market environments. An organization-wide SCSO can be implemented through lean manufacturing practices to achieve favorable operational and business performances (BPs).

This study employs survey methodology to examine a research model that theorizes eight hypotheses with respect to the relationships among SCSO, human and technical lean practices, and performance outcomes (operational and BPs). Data from 571 firms participating in the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS) IV are analyzed using structural equation modeling (AMOS 20).

The findings suggest that firms with a SCSO implement both human and technical aspects of lean manufacturing practices leading to better performance results. The findings also indicate that performance outcomes are indirectly influenced through the combined efforts of technical and human lean manufacturing practices.

Generalizations here are limited to manufacturing firms. SCSO beyond manufacturing firms like healthcare or high-tech organizations that implement lean practices in response to a SCSO have yet to be examined and provide fertile opportunities for future research.

These findings suggest practical insight into how to integrate service-driven value creation and delivery for achieving both cost effectiveness and quality performance outcomes.

The examination of the consequences of SCSO in manufacturing firms from multiple countries is a novel contribution in the field, as is the examination of technical and human lean practices. It comes at a time when manufacturing firms increasingly recognize the value of services for global competitiveness.

Scholars and practitioners in the OB literature nowadays appreciate that emotions and emotional regulation constitute an inseparable part of work life, but the HRM literature has lagged in addressing the emotional dimensions of life at work. In this chapter therefore, beginning with a multi-level perspective taken from the OB literature, we introduce the roles played by emotions and emotional regulation in the workplace and discuss their implications for HRM. We do so by considering five levels of analysis: (1) within-person temporal variations, (2) between persons (individual differences), (3) interpersonal processes; (4) groups and teams, and (5) the organization as a whole. We focus especially on processes of emotional regulation in both self and others, including discussion of emotional labor and emotional intelligence. In the opening sections of the chapter, we discuss the nature of emotions and emotional regulation from an OB perspective by introducing the five-level model, and explaining in particular how emotions and emotional regulation play a role at each of the levels. We then apply these ideas to four major domains of concern to HR managers: (1) recruitment, selection, and socialization; (2) performance management; (3) training and development; and (4) compensation and benefits. In concluding, we stress the interconnectedness of emotions and emotional regulation across the five levels of the model, arguing that emotions and emotional regulation at each level can influence effects at other levels, ultimately culminating in the organization’s affective climate.

This paper deals with the organizing of interactive product development. Developing products in interaction between firms may provide benefits in terms of specialization, increased innovation, and possibilities to perform development activities in parallel. However, the differentiation of product development among a number of firms also implies that various dependencies need to be dealt with across firm boundaries. How dependencies may be dealt with across firms is related to how product development is organized. The purpose of the paper is to explore dependencies and how interactive product development may be organized with regard to these dependencies.

The analytical framework is based on the industrial network approach, and deals with the development of products in terms of adaptation and combination of heterogeneous resources. There are dependencies between resources, that is, they are embedded, implying that no resource can be developed in isolation. The characteristics of and dependencies related to four main categories of resources (products, production facilities, business units and business relationships) provide a basis for analyzing the organizing of interactive product development.

Three in-depth case studies are used to explore the organizing of interactive product development with regard to dependencies. The first two cases are based on the development of the electrical system and the seats for Volvo’s large car platform (P2), performed in interaction with Delphi and Lear respectively. The third case is based on the interaction between Scania and Dayco/DFC Tech for the development of various pipes and hoses for a new truck model.

The analysis is focused on what different dependencies the firms considered and dealt with, and how product development was organized with regard to these dependencies. It is concluded that there is a complex and dynamic pattern of dependencies that reaches far beyond the developed product as well as beyond individual business units. To deal with these dependencies, development may be organized in teams where several business units are represented. This enables interaction between different business units’ resource collections, which is important for resource adaptation as well as for innovation. The delimiting and relating functions of the team boundary are elaborated upon and it is argued that also teams may be regarded as actors. It is also concluded that a modular product structure may entail a modular organization with regard to the teams, though, interaction between business units and teams is needed. A strong connection between the technical structure and the organizational structure is identified and it is concluded that policies regarding the technical structure (e.g. concerning “carry-over”) cannot be separated from the management of the organizational structure (e.g. the supplier structure). The organizing of product development is in itself a complex and dynamic task that needs to be subject to interaction between business units.