Wendy R. Boswell and John W. Boudreau
Aligning employees with the organization’s strategic goals has become increasingly important as organizations struggle to gain or sustain a competitive advantage. This article…
Abstract
Aligning employees with the organization’s strategic goals has become increasingly important as organizations struggle to gain or sustain a competitive advantage. This article defines “line of sight” as employee understanding of organizational objectives and how to contribute to those objectives. There has been much discussion among academics and practitioners, yet we have limited knowledge about what line of sight is, how to measure it, how it can be enhanced, and what it makes happen. Human resource professionals from leading organizations completed surveys and participated in focus groups to begin to explore these critical issues. Fruitful directions for future research and innovative practice are discussed.
Details
Keywords
Stephanie C. Payne, Margaret T. Horner, Wendy R. Boswell, Amber N. Schroeder and Kelleen J. Stine‐Cheyne
The purpose of this paper is to compare employee reactions to the use of an online performance appraisal (PA) system to the traditional paper‐and‐pencil (P&P) approach.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to compare employee reactions to the use of an online performance appraisal (PA) system to the traditional paper‐and‐pencil (P&P) approach.
Design/methodology/approach
A quasi‐experimental study is conducted comparing the reactions of a group of 83 employees evaluate with a traditional P&P PA instrument to the reactions of a group of 152 employees evaluated with an online version of the same assessment tool.
Findings
Employees rate with the online version reported significantly higher levels of rater accountability and employee participation than employees rate with the traditional instrument. They report no difference in perceived security of the ratings, utility of the ratings, or satisfaction with the PA. Online employees report significantly lower levels of quality for the PA ratings than traditional employees.
Research limitations/implications
The paper is limited to employees in one organization and the variables examined. In the future, researchers should examine supervisor and human resource (HR) manager reactions to the system, additional individual difference variables, variables related to technology acceptance and use, and additional PA reactions.
Practical implications
The findings inform HR managers about how one sample of employees' reacted to an online appraisal. It is important for organizations to ensure all system users are well‐trained in how to provide quality ratings and feedback through the system.
Originality/value
This is the first quasi‐experiment comparing employees' attitudes toward an online administration of PA to a traditional P&P administration.
Details
Keywords
Hannele Seeck and Marjo‐Riitta Parzefall
The purpose of this study is to examine what employee agency entails for psychological contract theory. The paper aims to explore how employee agency manifests itself, how it is…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine what employee agency entails for psychological contract theory. The paper aims to explore how employee agency manifests itself, how it is reflected in employees' perceptions of their psychological contract obligations, and what it implies for psychological contract theory.
Design/methodology/approach
The study draws on a qualitative interview study of employees from the mobile phone content production industry in Finland. The analysis is based on 15 semi‐structured employee interviews, which were supported by a discussion of the interviewees' weekly agendas.
Findings
This study reveals that employee agency manifests itself as self‐actualisation, action, influence and creativity, all of which have implications for employees' psychological contracts. Employees emerge as active parties to the psychological contract, consciously modifying and constructing it instead of simply reacting to employer behaviour, as is assumed in current research.
Originality/value
This study contributes to psychological contract theory by providing one of the few empirical attempts to demonstrate how employees actively manage the exchange relationship captured by the psychological contract. It highlights the importance of acknowledging employee agency in future psychological contract research.
Details
Keywords
Wendy Glaser and Tracy D. Hecht
The purpose of this paper is to examine associations between work‐family conflicts, threat appraisals, self‐efficacy, and emotional exhaustion. Threat appraisal was hypothesized…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine associations between work‐family conflicts, threat appraisals, self‐efficacy, and emotional exhaustion. Threat appraisal was hypothesized to mediate relations between work‐family conflicts (work‐to‐family and family‐to‐work) and emotional exhaustion. Self‐efficacy was hypothesized to moderate relations between work‐family conflicts and threat appraisal, with relations expected to be weaker for individuals high in self‐efficacy.
Design/methodology/approach
University employees (n=159; 67 percent female) participated in this non‐experimental study. Data were gathered via questionnaire. Two‐thirds of participants completed measures of work‐family conflicts and threat‐appraisal a few weeks prior to completing measures of self‐efficacy and emotional exhaustion; remaining participants completed one cross‐sectional survey.
Findings
Observed relations were consistent with predicted mediation hypotheses. Contrary to predictions, self‐efficacy did not moderate relations between work‐to‐family conflict and threat‐appraisal and the relation between family‐to‐work conflict and threat‐appraisal was stronger for those with higher self‐efficacy. Self‐efficacy was negatively related to emotional exhaustion.
Practical implications
Organizations should foster positive work‐family climates to help alleviate work‐family conflicts. Managers should demonstrate compassion when dealing with employees who have serious family concerns, as even efficacious individuals may find such situations threatening.
Originality/value
This research integrates stress theories with research on the work‐family interface. The relevance of threat appraisal and the role of self‐efficacy are highlighted.
Details
Keywords
Michal Biron, Wendy J. Casper and Sumita Raghuram
The purpose of this study is to offer a model explicating telework as a dynamic process, theorizing that teleworkers continuously adjust – their identities, boundaries and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to offer a model explicating telework as a dynamic process, theorizing that teleworkers continuously adjust – their identities, boundaries and relationships – to meet their own needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness in their work and nonwork roles.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses the lens of job crafting to posit changes teleworkers make to enhance work-nonwork balance and job performance, including time-related individual differences to account for contingencies in dynamic adjustments. Finally, this study discusses how feedback from work and nonwork role partners and one’s self-evaluation results in an iterative process of learning to telework over time.
Findings
This model describes how teleworkers craft work and nonwork roles to satisfy needs, enhancing key outcomes and eliciting role partner feedback to further recraft telework.
Research limitations/implications
The propositions can be translated to hypotheses. As such the dynamic model for crafting telework can be used as a basis for empirical studies aimed at understanding how telework adjustment process unfolds.
Practical implications
Intervention studies could focus on teleworkers’ job crafting behavior. Organizations may also offer training to prepare employees to telework and to create conditions under which teleworkers’ job crafting behavior more easily translates into need satisfaction and positive outcomes.
Social implications
Many employees would prefer to work from home, at least partly, when the COVID-19 crisis is over. This model offers a way to facilitate a smooth transition into this work mode while ensuring work nonwork balance and performance.
Originality/value
Most telework research takes a static approach to focus on the work–family interface. This study proffers a dynamic approach suggesting need satisfaction as the mechanism enabling one to combine work and domestic roles and delineating how feedback enables continuous adjustment in professional and personal roles.
Details
Keywords
THE end of October saw the return of most of our overseas visitors, continental and otherwise, to their homes, leaving with us pleasant memories of a mutually successful visit…
Abstract
THE end of October saw the return of most of our overseas visitors, continental and otherwise, to their homes, leaving with us pleasant memories of a mutually successful visit. The Englishman's proverbial difficulties with foreign tongues, even of neighbouring France, did not complicate matters unduly or reduce too much those interchanges which conference and school afforded. We can repeat our frequently‐expressed hope that there will be an ever increasing series of visits, both of the foreigner to England and of ourselves as foreigners to other countries. We would welcome longer stays in both cases. Nothing but good can come from them.
WE ask our readers to accept the old wish for a Happy Christmas, although we know that in some minds there may be a thought that happiness in such times as these is problematical…
Abstract
WE ask our readers to accept the old wish for a Happy Christmas, although we know that in some minds there may be a thought that happiness in such times as these is problematical. Yet we are, so far, a fortunate people, in spite of our difficulties. As a nation we survive and increase in Strength as in confidence. As librarians we have given the best of our men and women to the active services, and most of those who remain are immersed in one way or another in the national effort. We have lost fine libraries in a night, but the will to survive, to win and to create Still survives and kicks. The days are full of difficulties, problems to be solved, high fences and dangerous to be climbed, but we have got through so far, and are convinced we shall continue. It is the most absorbing age in human memory, and we are happy to be alive to overcome its challenges.
This study aims to examine the effect of restaurant employees’ challenge-hindrance appraisals toward smart technology, artificial intelligence, robotics and algorithms (STARA…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the effect of restaurant employees’ challenge-hindrance appraisals toward smart technology, artificial intelligence, robotics and algorithms (STARA) awareness on individual competitive productivity (ICP) and explore the mediating roles of employees’ work engagement and organizational commitment on the relationship between challenge-hindrance appraisals and ICP.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected through an online survey. One hundred and ninety employees who worked at full-time and non-management positions in the USA quick-service restaurants participated. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used for the data analysis.
Findings
The study identified that restaurant employees’ challenge appraisals toward STARA awareness positively influenced ICP. This relationship is positively mediated by employees’ work engagement.
Practical implications
This study makes practical contributions to human resource practices in restaurants. Employees’ challenge appraisals toward STARA awareness transmit the job insecurity stressor to a higher level of ICP. Restaurant managers should provide employees with adequate resources and support for non-management employees’ professional competency growth. Quick-service restaurants can enjoy a competitive advantage in the market by enhancing employees’ CP.
Originality/value
This study enriches the literature on the CP model, cognitive appraisal theory and person-environment fit theory. The study investigated employees’ challenge and hindrance appraisals toward emerging STARA awareness and emphasized their distinct characteristics to drive ICP in the quick-service restaurant sector.
Details
Keywords
Neha Garg, Wendy Murphy and Pankaj Singh
Reverse mentoring and job crafting are innovative, employee-driven job resources that can lead to positive organizational outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to explore the…
Abstract
Purpose
Reverse mentoring and job crafting are innovative, employee-driven job resources that can lead to positive organizational outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of work engagement in mediating the association of these resources with work performance and work withdrawal behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling on data obtained from 369 software developers in India.
Findings
Findings demonstrate that reverse mentoring and job crafting are positively related to work engagement, which, in turn, increase performance and decreases work withdrawal behaviors. Work engagement partially mediates the association of job crafting with both outcomes. In contrast, work engagement fully mediates the relationship between reverse mentoring and withdrawal behavior and partially mediates the relationship between reverse mentoring and work performance.
Research limitations/implications
This study is a cross-sectional, survey design in the understudied technical industry in India, which may limit generalizability. However, the authors also connect the previously unrelated literatures on reverse mentoring and work engagement and develop a scale for use in future reverse mentoring studies.
Practical implications
This study provides evidence to support practitioners in implementing resources for reverse mentoring and job crafting to increase work engagement among employees and subsequent positive outcomes.
Originality/value
Organizations can support reverse mentoring and job crafting as cost effective employee development tools. The research focuses on the mentors, who tend to be the less experienced and younger counterparts in a reverse mentoring pair and a critical part of the workforce for the growing IT industry.