That's Not Fair!: The Social Construction of Organizational (In)Justice among Professionals

Building on the work of organizational justice researchers, this research is an attempt to come to a greater understanding of the social construction of perceived injustice among professionals employed in large, bureaucratic organizational structures. It suggests that professional employees experience a perceived injustice in an organizational workplace outcome, procedure, or interaction when a likely, positive, and valued expectation has been violated or unfulfilled. These expectations are socially constructed from various organizational "stocks of knowledge" available to professionals. These include: (1) organizational cultural norms; (2) professional occupational subcultural norms; and (3) employee prior work experiences. The research suggests that in instances of perceived injustices in organizational outcomes, professionals'expectations are primarily rooted in organizational cultural norms for the allocation of such outcomes. In instances of perceived injustices in organizational procedures, professionals'expectations are primarily rooted in prior work experiences surrounding such procedures and processes, while in instances of perceived injustices in organizational interactions, professionals'expectations are primarily rooted in professional occupational subcultural norms surrounding such interactions.     

The Structure and Functions of Employee Assistance Programs in Higher Education

Abstract

Workplace stress can be defined as the change in one's physical or mental state in response to workplaces that pose an appraised challenge or threat to that employee. Research has shown that there are a number of factors that contribute to workplace stress. These factors include a toxic work environment, negative workload, isolation, types of hours worked, role conflict, role ambiguity, lack of autonomy, career development barriers, difficult relationships with administrators and/ or coworkers, managerial bullying, harassment, and organizational climate. Should the stressors continue, the employee is at significant risk of developing physiological and psychological disorders that can lead to increased absenteeism, organizational dysfunction, and decreased work productivity. Intervention strategies are discussed to help managers provide support and intervention to employees coping with workplace stress.     

Individual and environmental factors related to job satisfaction in people with severe mental illness employed in social enterprises

Objective: The purpose of this study was to enhance understanding of the impact of individual and environmental variables on job satisfaction among people with severe mental illness employed in social enterprises.Participants: A total of 248 individuals with severe mental illness employed by social enterprises agreed to take part in the study. Methods: We used logistic regression to analyse job satisfaction. A model with job satisfaction as the dependent variable, and both individual (occupational self-efficacy and severity of symptoms perceived) and environmental (workplace) factors (provision of workplace accommodations, social support from co-workers, organizational constraints) as well as external factors (family support) as predictors, was tested on the entire sample. Results: All findings across the study suggest a significant positive impact of both individual and environmental factors on job satisfaction. People with higher occupational self-efficacy who were provided with workplace accommodations and received greater social support were more likely to experience greater job satisfaction.Conclusions: These results suggest that certain features of social enterprises, such as workplace accommodations, are important in promoting job satisfaction in people with severe mental illness. Further studies are warranted to expand knowledge of the workplace features that support employees with severe mental illness in their work integration process.     

Understanding workplace deviant behavior in nonprofit organizations

Workplace deviant behavior has traditionally been studied with respect to business or for‐profit organizations. In this article, we argue that nonprofit organizations also experience deviance, and due to their unique characteristics, they deserve special attention for extending the understanding of workplace deviant behavior to other types of organizations. Based on a review of the literature on deviance, we develop a general model of workplace deviance that we apply to nonprofit organizations. Based on the integrative conceptual framework, we advance relevant propositions for understanding and explaining deviance in nonprofit organizations.     

Privacy,technology, and conflict: Emerging issues and action in workplace privacy

IV. Conclusion Growing employee awareness of the degree to which their personal privacy is compromised in the workplace, particularly with regards to information/telecommunicatton-system use and work monitoring, has created an organizational and political climate that may yield significant restrictions on employee monitoring and on how employers maintain and distribute employees’ personal information. While both federal and state governments have generally deferred to the right of the employer-as-owner to set conditions of employment that may include intrusions into employee privacy (Grodin, 1991), a number of statutory restrictions have been promulgated or proposed that will significantly expand employee privacy rights in the workplace. Additionally, it is probable that unions will aggressively assert employee privacy rights within the context of collective bargaining, potentially using employee dissatisfaction with privacy intrusions as a basis for organizing nonunion firms.     

Deviant Acts by Complex Organizations: Deviance and Social Control at the Organizational Level of Analysis1

The study of deviance and social control can be expanded to recognize that (1) organizations, not just individuals, commit deviant acts, and (2) other organizations have responsibilities for preventing or controlling that deviance. This paper focuses on these phenomena. It defines organizational deviance, applies Blau and Scot?s cui bono taxonomy to suggest types of organizational deviance, provides a categorization of controller organizations by the types of deviance they control, and considers the social control of organizational deviance. The paper concludes by suggesting that organizational deviance should be among the theoretical, empirical, and methodological interests of an increasing number of contemporary sociologists.     

Ingesting the organization: The embodiment of organizational food rituals

This exploratory paper asks: ‘how do organizational food and drink rituals shape, reflect or create organizational culture?’ Adopting an embodied approach based on Merleau-Ponty's [1945. Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by C. Smith, 2003. London: Penguin. New York: Routledge] phenomenological work, this paper explores the significance of food-based rituals. Data were collected from different organizations using mixed methods and an embodied, reflexive approach – which is relatively novel in organizational research. Embodied experiences are potent, and this paper proposes that workplace food and drink rituals can powerfully influence perceptions of organizational culture. The unique contribution is in showing how embodied organizational rituals create and sustain organizational culture by using the pre-reflective moment of food ingestion to shape cognitive reconstructions of organizational culture. However, food rituals can be controlled and shaped by the organization to specifically influence employee perceptions of organizational culture. Control of food rituals can be perceived as a deliberate effort to create a constructive culture and encourage reciprocity through employee loyalty and effort.     

Internal public relations’ role with workplace,spirituality, and religion

This article argues that public relations ought to lead the integration of spirituality and religion in an organization’s workplace. Because no model of this opportunity exists for internal public relations (a.k.a. employee relations or internal communication), this article looks at scholarship about spirituality and religion in the workplace to show links among organizational performance, employee engagement, and public relations operations, particularly that focused on employees. From this research-based approach, guiding principles for public relations’ lead role in integrating spirituality and religion in an organization’s workplace and an operational framework for internal public relations are given so public relations professionals can make the integration reality and effective for all.     

Chapter 9: Disaster Consequence Management

SUMMARY

The critical element in a workplace approach to consequence management for disaster, terrorism and other critical incidents is the integrated planning and response across numerous workplace functions including human resources, employee assistance, security and facilities, medical, occupational health, wellness and work-life. These corporate functions ensure the performance, health, safety and human continuity of the workplace. In this model, workplace professionals charged with the human capital and continuity of their organizations play new crucial roles that require an understanding of (1) the integration of mental health into a public health approach for managing the psychological and behavioral implications of terrorism; (2) the integration of operational continuity planning with human continuity resources; and (3) the integration of workplace preparedness into the larger sphere of population health interventions for the 21st century. This new role of workplace health and productivity professionals is necessary to the health and resiliency of our global community and its citizens in the workplace and at home.     

Personal assistance services as a workplace accommodation

This paper describes current US trends and practices regarding workplace personal assistance services (PAS) as part of available work accommodation options. Workplace PAS include task-related assistance at work, such as readers, interpreters, help with lifting or reaching, re-assignment of non-essential duties to co-workers, and other help related to performing work tasks; and personal care-related assistance such as helping someone with using the rest room, eating, or drinking while at work. The results reported here are based on forty-one telephone interviews conducted in 2004, which included 20 workplace PAS users and 21 US employers familiar with workplace accommodations. Employers and consumers described a range of workplace personal assistance currently used. Barriers to expansion of workplace PAS include negative co-worker or supervisor attitude, cost to employers and workers, waiting time for accommodations, employee attitude and knowledge, and confusing terminology. Development of organizational culture that encourages employment of people with disabilities and developing employer-employee partnerships in arranging for accommodations can contribute to workplace PAS solutions. The survey findings contribute to better understanding of current practices related to workplace PAS.     

Interactions between task repetition and psychosocial factors

Psychosocial factors, individual factors, workplace requirements, and workplace organizational factors have all been reported as being associated with the risk of musculoskeletal disorders [11]. Huang, Feuerstein, and Sauter [5] described the various concepts and models proposed to link occupational stress and work-related upper extremity disorders, as well as the difficulty in verifying the suggested linkages. Huang et al. [5] suggested that decomposing a complex model would be an appropriate method to begin the investigations of the proposed models. Task repetition is a workplace requirement that is considered a potential risk factor for cumulative trauma and its relationship to psychosocial factors was investigated. The study found only weak to no statistically significant relationship between task repetition and reported psychosocial factors of job stress in workers in Taiwan.     

Motivating Russian workers: analysis of age and gender differences

What motivates Russians to work? Two hypotheses govern this analysis. First, worker motivation is positively correlated with organizational commitment, where organizational commitment is captured by a series of statements related to the employee’s perception of their workplace and the satisfaction expressed about the workplace and job. Second, worker motivation is positively correlated to the expectation that a desired reward will be received in exchange for doing the job well. Using survey data collected in May/June 2000 from 1200 employees in three regions of Russia, this paper: (1) documents the nature and scope of organizational commitment among Russian workers as the transition process draws to a close; (2) identifies the relative importance of select job motivators, as well as the expectation that these motivators will be received in exchange for a job well done; and (3) analyzes the extent of gender and generational differences in organizational commitment and worker motivation. The results can be used not only to begin filling a gap in the motivation literature by extending previous analyses based on US workers, but also to inform Russian and foreign managers about monetary and non-monetary factors to include in designing an effective reward structure. The results also are suitable for use in management training programs in Russia and elsewhere which focus on developing ways to construct more effective teamwork at the workplace.     

Engaged at work? An employee engagement model in public relations

ABSTRACT

Engagement has emerged as an important concept in public relations scholarship. Yet a theoretically informed model with a clear and coherent explication of the construct is still lacking. By situating our study in the internal organizational context, we provided an updated conceptualization and operationalization of employee engagement, proposing a strategy-engagement-behavior three-step employee engagement model. Results from an employee survey (n = 568) supported our conceptual model, showing that organizational engagement strategies positively predicted employee engagement, which in turn accounted for employees’ positive and negative messaging behavior, as well as their contextual performance behavior. After controlling for significant demographic variables such as gender, age, organizational size, number of subordinates, and level of management position, we identified a complete mediation effect of employee engagement in our two-step structural equation modeling analysis.     

Illuminating gendered organization assumptions

One key to why organizations have been less successful at integrating a work–family agenda into their organizational cultures is that workplaces have failed to consider how gender assumptions influence workplace practices, policies and cultures. This paper presents a theoretical framework for considering how gender role assumptions have prevented organizational attempts to become family friendly. Further, this paper uses an organizational case study to illustrate this point. Specifically, a theory of gendered organizations is used to frame an analysis of 30 employee interviews. Data suggest that gendered organizational assumptions inherent to several workplace policies and practices contribute to employee strain associated with negotiating the demands of life on and off the job. Further, the findings show that these gendered organizational assumptions prevent organizations from developing workplace cultures responsive to employees' work, family and personal needs. A brief review of the interdisciplinary work–family field is presented, followed by a discussion of gendered organizations. Then, using interview data collected from management and ‘front‐line’ female and male workers employed at a municipal government, this paper examines how workplace practices, presumably gender neutral, affect employees and the organizational culture in which they work.     

Inclusion and commitment as key pathways between leadership and nonprofit performance

Given the projected growth of workforce diversity in the United States and the fact that heterogeneous workforces result in both positive (increased retention and performance) and negative (increased conflict and turnover) organizational outcomes, nonprofit leaders are faced with the challenge of effectively managing their workforces. Findings ways to ensure positive workplace outcomes, such as employee commitment (an emotional attachment to the organization) and performance, is especially critical for the overall functioning of nonprofit organizations. Using longitudinal multilevel path analyses, this study examined whether transformational leadership influenced work group performance through both creating a climate for inclusion and increasing employee affective commitment in a diverse nonprofit health care organization. Results indicate that transformational leaders help increase perceptions of inclusion, which improves employee commitment to the organization, and ultimately enhances perceived work group performance. This suggests inclusion and affective commitment as key factors for how leaders can increase nonprofit performance.     

Situational leadership and persons with disabilities

Does situational leadership style impact workers with disabilities? Situational leadership as a model and style of organizational management is defined. With a concentration on workers with disabilities, employer and employee perceptions of the workplace environment are analyzed as a contributing factor to the choice of leadership styles. Leadership style and its potential impact on workers with disabilities are included. Advantages of situational leadership style as an organizational model for managers that matches the intricate needs of workers with disabilities are argued. Methods for increasing awareness of the needs of persons with disabilities in the workplace and improving leadership models are discussed. Implications and potential outcomes for workers with disabilities based on the use of situational leadership by managers are discussed.     

Employee Assistance Programs:

Many people in the employee assistance field view the development and expansion of employee assistance programs (EAPs) as a direct result of occupational alcoholism programs. This paper assesses the early role of occupational social welfare as the precursor of social service programs in the workplace and emphasizes the importance of having a broader historical perspective of EAPs.     

The context of discrimination: workplace conditions, institutional environments, and sex and race discrimination charges

This article explores the organizational conditions under which discrimination charges occur. Drawing on structural and organizational theories of the workplace, the authors demonstrate how organizational conditions affect workers' and regulatory agents' understandings of unlawful discrimination. Using a national sample of work establishments, matched to discrimination-charge data obtained from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the authors examine how characteristics of the workplace and institutional environment affect variation in the incidence of workers' charges of sex and race discrimination and in the subset of discrimination claims that are verified by EEOC investigators. The findings indicate that workplace conditions, including size, composition, and minority management, affect workers' charges as well as verified claims; the latter are also affected by institutional factors, such as affirmative action requirements, subsidiary status, and industrial sector. These results suggest that internal workplace conditions affect both workers' and regulatory agents' interpretations of potentially discriminatory experiences, while institutional conditions matter only for regulatory agents' interpretations of those events.     

Sky Service: The Demands of Emotional Labour in the Airline Industry

Following Hochschild's The Managed Heart, which emphasized the problematic features that emotional labour had for women flight attendants, a critical literature emerged which focused on the more enjoyable aspects of emotional labour in service employee experience. This article draws on this literature and analyses emotional labour as a gendered cultural performance but takes issue with the individualizing and pluralistic tenor in the post‐Hochschild discussions. Using a qualitative and quantitative study of nearly 3000 Australian flight attendants, it focuses on organizational and occupational health and safety variables, as well as sexual harass‐ment and passenger abuse — factors barely discussed by Hochschild's critics. The qualitative data indicate that emotional labour is both pleasurable and difficult at different times for the same individual. Gender is still pivotal, as Hochschild suggested, linking emotional labour with sexual harassment. At the same time, the most significant predictors from the quantitative study of whether emotional labour would be costly were organizational. Variables such as whether flight attendants felt valued by the company show that the airline management context is highly influential in the way in which emotional labour is experienced. As a means of understanding the complex relations in this important and eroticized area of service work where flight attendants, airline crews, airline management and passengers have convergent and conflicting interests, the article also deploys a new concept: ‘demanding publics’, to refer to trangressions of the legitimate boundaries of the service worker.     

CAREER JOBS, SURVIVAL JOBS, AND EMPLOYEE DEVIANCE: A Social Investment Model of Workplace Misconduct

We examine the relationship between career stakes, or the fit between workers' current jobs and their long-term career plans, and employee deviance. Most prior research has focused on the link between job satisfaction and deviance, but career stakes may be a more salient and theoretically relevant measure of workers' investments in their present positions, particularly in young adulthood. We hypothesize that people whose current jobs match their long-term career goals have made a social investment with their employers that inhibits deviant behavior. We analyze data from the Youth Development Study (YDS), a longitudinal community sample of individuals now in their mid-twenties. Our results show that career stakes and job satisfaction exert independent effects on worker misconduct even when prior levels of general deviance and workplace deviance are statistically controlled.