Journal of Management & Organization

In two experiments, we examined the function of procedural justice in signaling individuals’ value to the group by arguing that individuals treated fairly are more likely to engage in proactive preventive behavior, a behavior that involves proactively revising or correcting the mistakes and intentional deceptions of coworkers. In addition, we extend Staw and Boettger’s (1990) work on task revision and demonstrate that procedural justice and goal setting have compensatory effects, such that procedural justice can be combined with performance goals to reap the valuable aspects of goal setting while minimizing some of the unintended side-effects. Our findings also contribute to the ongoing discussion of the mixed effects of goal setting, as well as the effects of multiple goal assignment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether different supervisory styles are relevant in facilitating or inhibiting job crafting, and whether job crafting plays a significant role in promoting self-competence and work performance. Data were gathered from 162 employees in a large manufacturing company. We found a positive relationship between promotive control and job crafting, and a negative relationship between restrictive control and job crafting. Some job crafting behaviors positively affect both self-competence and performance, while others have a negative effect. Our results suggest that organizations interested in promoting job crafting should encourage a promotive style of leadership.

This paper sets out 99 case studies of insider attacks that took place in the UK. The study involved interviewing investigators, heads of security, information technologists, law enforcement, security officers, human resource managers, line managers, and coworkers who knew the insider. The analysis elucidates how to identify insiders and pathways to these attacks. It also highlights examples of archetypal insiders, in addition to the ‘disgruntled employee’ (e.g., ‘the show off’, ‘the career criminal’, ‘the addict’, etc.). In contrast to other studies, this study highlights multiple pathways to an attack. A conceptual model is set out that considers indicators (both physical and cyber) that might be monitored in an insider risk detection programme. The model stressors need to continuously seek out methods to close down opportunities as well as to monitor behavioural change. It also elucidates potential deterrence and prevention strategies for organisations to consider in an ethical and legal manner.

Employers who are open to the establishment of a neuro-diverse workforce, including adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), often encounter challenges resulting from both personal characteristics and environmental barriers. Employees with ASD demonstrate evident abilities and a high motivation to work, yet their employment rate remains low. This qualitative phenomenological study explored the perspectives of 11 employers of individuals with ASD from the open labour market. Three themes emerged: employers’ perception of employees with ASD; their motivation to employ an employee with ASD; and accessibility of the work environment: reasonable adjustments. The findings support the importance of factors in the work environment that serve to either inhibit or facilitate the inclusion of people with ASD in the open labour market as much as their personal characteristics. The results relate to workplace accessibility within the context of the organization’s management and justice climate.

In business the future is not predetermined, and the unexpected often happens. So how should entrepreneurs (and businesses) try to address that future uncertainty? This paper suggests that there are two main options:

1. 1.The often-preferred approach seeks to reduce uncertainty by forecasting and planning, using ‘left-brained’ logic and analysis.
2. 2.The alternative way seeks to live with, and to benefit from, uncertainty by using ideas derived from exploration, effectuation, antifragility and ‘trial and error’.

This paper compares the two approaches and considers their rationales and potential effectiveness. It suggests that forecasting and planning has many drawbacks and is often not the best way to operate in uncertain conditions. Nevertheless, it is often advocated and its thinking seems to have been adopted as the default philosophy for business. Therefore if, as has been suggested, uncertainty is the norm, do we need to advocate adopting a different way of thinking?

Scholars often assume that reference groups are industry-wide, homogeneous, and stable. We examine this assumption and suggest hypotheses based on managers’ motivations such as self-enhancement and self-improvement, social identity, and affiliation-based impression management. We test hypotheses on failure-induced changes in reference groups and their direction in terms of upward and downward comparisons. An empirical examination of changes in reference groups for firms listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average Index between 1993 and 2008 shows that performance below social aspirations induces changes in reference groups and toward upward comparisons. The results indicate that managers can choose to change the reference group – a cognition-centered response – as an alternative to such action-centered responses as organizational search and risk-taking in response to poor performance from social aspirations and that upward comparisons may be the result of social performance shortfalls to give a better impression and to improve firm performance.

Autistic individuals often face significant challenges to obtaining and maintaining meaningful employment – more so than other disability groups. Work placements appear to be an important step to promote employment outcomes, yet there remains a lack of knowledge about the real-life experiences of those involved in such schemes. This study is the first to take a multi-informant, longitudinal approach to examine corporate work-placement schemes: specifically, an internship for autistic graduates at Deutsche Bank, UK. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with interns, their hiring managers and the colleagues who worked alongside them. Results demonstrated positive, meaningful experiences for the majority of those involved, however, some interns also reported anxiety, difficulties in judging communication and confusion regarding office rules. The current findings contribute to a better understanding of the experiences of skilled autistic individuals in work, and should inform the creation of subsequent programmes aimed to promote employment opportunities for autistic people.

Our study of entrepreneurial engagement within a depleted New Zealand community contributes to understanding the role of place and legitimacy in entrepreneurial practice. General decline characterised Stanton until a newcomer entrepreneur started several businesses that rejuvenated the town. She became a local economic hero to many stakeholders; but others deployed social narratives of place that drew on different values. Our analysis of interactions shows how perceptions of place legitimise or vilify and we demonstrate how place intercedes upon economically generated legitimacy of entrepreneurial practice. Social constructions of place and notions of embeddedness influenced this entrepreneurial enactment. Conceptually, we challenge ideas about universal legitimacy ensuing from economic entrepreneurial benefits. Our theoretical contribution offers socio-spatial propositions for understanding entrepreneurial legitimacy through place.

The objective of this paper is to understand the influence of emotional intelligence on creativity, considering the mediating roles of job resourcefulness, self-motivation and organizational commitment moderated by individual success. The investigation is based on data from 519 questionnaires collected from a sample of Portuguese workers. Structural equation modeling was used with multigroup analysis.The results show a positive influence of emotional intelligence on creativity and other behavioral variables, and individual success appeared to moderate most of the presented relationships. The sample used in this study is not probabilistic, thus the results are difficult to generalize. This investigation identifies several work-related outcomes of emotional intelligence and highlights its importance and raises new ideas for training programs, namely in the field of soft skills. This investigation is innovative in that we analyze the mediating effects of different variables, like job resourcefulness, on emotional intelligence’s relationship with creativity, moderated by individual success.

Local isomorphism constitutes the regulatory, cognitive and normative profile of a host country. The regulatory institutional setting reflects the rules and legislation governing collective bargaining agreements, trade unions, local content laws and employment relationships. The cultural or cognitive dimension supports the widely held cultural and social knowledge and the normative profile acknowledges the influences of social groups and organizations on acceptable normative behaviour. Earlier literature lends support to the importance of institutional profile and its influence on the design and implementation of multinational enterprises’ human resource management policies and practices. This paper seeks to advance the concept of local isomorphism and highlight the implications of local isomorphism for future research on the transfer of multinational enterprises’ human resource management practices across and between subsidiaries.

This study examines the effect of perceived organisational politics on organisational silence through the mediating role of organisational cynicism. In addition, it tests the effect of perceived support on this relationship. A quantitative (questionnaire survey) design was used to gather data from 346 employees in three public hospitals in Iraq. The structural equation model was used for data analysis. The results demonstrate that all the major hypotheses were accepted, and important role of perceived support in reversing the positive relationship between perceived organisational politics and organisational cynicism was also highlighted. Furthermore, the mediating role was clear in terms of organisational cynicism and the relationship between perceived organisational politics and organisational silence.

This paper examines the sources of knowledge workers’ work intensity and the self-leading strategies they apply to deal with it. The paper is based on focus group interviews with management consultants in a Danish management consultancy firm. Work intensity was identified as resulting from a combination of: (1) a results-only focus, (2) vagueness, (3) boundaryless work, and (4) low control of the quantitative load. A framework for self-leading strategies is developed based on the dimensions of reactive/proactive and self-focused/externally focused strategies in different combinations. The results indicate that while consultants expressed a belief in internal self-discipline strategies of a more reactive nature, in fact, external and proactive strategies were the most effective in practice. In conclusion, the paper contributes to an extension of self-leadership theory to better account for current research on self-control.

In this exploratory case study based on qualitative research, we explore the perspectives and experiences of autistic self-advocates in the Netherlands regarding autism, (self-)advocacy, and consumer-run organizations. The focus of our study is a consumer-run organization by and for adult Persons on the Autism Spectrum in the Netherlands: PAS-Nederland or PAS for short. Our analysis reveals four themes relevant to the acceptance and integration of adults with autism into society and work: (1) invisibility of autistic adults; (2) diversity of the autism spectrum; (3) autistic leadership; and (4) collaboration between people with and without autism. We discuss the practical implications of our findings for the inclusion of people with autism in work and society. Our study underscores the importance of putting autistic people at the center of decision-making processes and solutions aimed at improving their outcomes in society, in general, and in the workplace specifically.

Workgroup relationships are characterized by interdependence and intensity and can produce powerful norms that shape how work is performed. This study focuses on the effect of workgroup accord, defined as positive exchange, cooperation, and consensus among workgroup members, on change-oriented behavior in public service organizations. Change-oriented behavior denotes discretionary corrective or creative initiatives on the part of employees, and workgroup accord is hypothesized to increase change-oriented behavior both directly and indirectly via organizational commitment. The theoretical model is operationalized using survey data collected from employees of the Australian Public Service. The results of regression analysis are consistent with the hypothesis that workgroup accord positively influences organizational commitment, which in turn facilitates change-oriented behavior. However, a negative direct effect renders the total effect of workgroup accord on change-oriented behavior non-significant. Additionally, the findings suggest that innovation climate and employee performance agreement efficacy each positively moderate the negative relationship between workgroup accord and change-oriented behavior.

By introducing gender similarity as a contextual antecedent of coworker support, we examined the mediating role of coworker support for the relationship between workgroup gender similarity and job attitudes. In addition, we explored how a creative requirement, which is an occupational characteristic, can influence the relationship between coworker support and job attitudes above and beyond the role of supervisor support and organizational support. Results based on 975 full-time employees across a wide variety of occupations and industries indicated that as expected coworker support can serve as an underlying mechanism in the relationship between the relational demography of a workplace and employees’ job satisfaction and intention to quit. Furthermore, coworker support was significantly related to job satisfaction only for those occupations that required high levels of creativity. Finally, the creative requirement of an occupation moderated the indirect effect of gender similarity on job satisfaction through coworker support.

Based on the conservation of resource theory, this study investigated a moderated mediation model in which perceived co-worker support moderated the mediation of supervisory feedback avoidance between abusive supervision and help-seeking behaviour. Data from matching dyads of 220 house officers and 86 postgraduate medical staff were collected from several hospitals in Pakistan. Results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses supported the hypothesized model that abusive supervision first positively led to supervisory feedback avoidance, which in turn positively led to help-seeking from co-workers. Moreover, the mediating effect of supervisory feedback avoidance was stronger at the high value of co-worker support than that at the low value of co-worker support. This study contributes to the recently emerged notion in abusive supervision research that supervisees’ perception of abusive supervision may not always lead to abundantly reported negative work behaviours; instead, it may also lead to positive work behaviours, such as help-seeking behaviour that is highly beneficial for both supervisees and the organization.

Role incongruity, sex role stereotypes and candidate selection procedures which oversatisfy masculine role expectations evoke an underrepresentation of femininity in organisations. The author seeks to remedy this bad state of affairs. This study is designed based on an experiment with 288 young executives simulating self-organised work groups and manipulated the degree of gender-related (not sex-related) heterogeneity. Results generally show a curvilinear relationship with an upright U-shaped format between heterogeneity and performance, team identity and intrateam communication. The major contribution in specific is that highly homogeneous teams outperform other team types in the short run, whereas highly heterogeneous teams succeed in the long run. Consequently, this work recommends ‘femininity enrichment’ in firms and discusses manageable practical advice to do so. As for the laboratory character, findings and implications for practicing managers have to be treated with caution. Finally, the most promising avenues for further research are illuminated.

In this article, we explored the relationship between inclusive leadership and innovative work behavior with the mediating role of psychological empowerment. We collected data from employees in the information technology and cargo sectors within the United Kingdom and Canada. The results revealed that inclusive leadership was positively related to innovative work behavior both directly and indirectly through psychological empowerment. Cognitive evaluation theory was used to support the findings. Implications of the study were discussed.

Older workers make up a substantial portion of today’s labor force. Yet little is known about the beliefs held by this age group. Our study offers some much needed insights into intersectionality around this group, by investigating how older workers’ perceptions of supervisors performing a gendered leadership behavior are impacted by a supervisors’ sex, age, and gendered attributes. The results show that these supervisors are perceived most favorably when they possess communal qualities and/or when they are depicted as being older than their direct reports. Our results also reveal that, when these supervisors are not perceived as communal, male but not female supervisors, experience a backlash. Within this context, young female leaders appear to be at an advantage when compared with young male leaders. This study advances the literature on the ‘think manager–think male’ stereotype and has the practical benefit of offering insights into leader-follower interactions in today’s aging workplace.

On-demand and gig economy are names commonly used when discussing issues related to labor in the collaborative economy. Some of the specific digital platforms in this economy, including Uber and TaskRabbit, and Upwork are quite popular. The term digital labor market has been suggested to distinguish the work mediated by these platforms from that of the traditional labor market. The theoretical work conditions and characteristics of this digital labor market are similar to those of negative nonstandard work arrangements. However, more empirical evidence is required because most of the findings about work conditions are based on anecdotal evidence and the analysis of the platforms’ rules. This study collects the characteristics commonly attributed to the digital labor market and analyzes them based on data about 465 workers extracted from two important digital labor platforms. Our results confirm and refine some of the beliefs found in the literature.