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Human Relations preview: new OnlineFirst articles for the period 27 February to 9 April 2014

  • 1.  Human Relations preview: new OnlineFirst articles for the period 27 February to 9 April 2014

    Posted 04-10-2014 10:55

    Please find below details of recent Human Relations OnlineFirst articles that may be of interest to you.

     

    You can access a list of all Human Relations OnlineFirst articles here: http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/recent .

     

    Multiple legitimacy narratives and planned organizational change

    Dana Landau, Israel Drori, and Siri Terjesen

    http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/04/07/0018726713517403?papetoc

     

    Abstract

    This article explores the cultural narratives through which members of organizations define legitimacy during prolonged periods of change. We view legitimacy work as a cultural practice and interpretive process that takes the form of organizational narratives. We show how the shifting configurations of internal power relations shape both the choice and the meaning attached to the varied legitimacy narratives. We investigate the construction of legitimacy through a longitudinal case study based on participant observation of Gamma, a government Research and Development (R&D) organization, during a process of intense change. We provide theoretical insights into the construction and deconstruction of the legitimacy by analyzing the narratives in play during a process of planned change. We claim that legitimation narratives not only evolve in accordance with functional need or, in a sense, that older narratives give room to newer, more updated or relevant narratives, but also that multiple narratives are used by different organization actors alternately and interchangeably as part of internal contestation over legitimation of change.

     

     

    Writing materiality into management and organization studies through and with Luce Irigaray

    Marianna Fotaki, Beverly Dawn Metcalfe, and Nancy Harding

    http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/04/07/0018726713517727?papetoc

     

    Abstract

    There is increasing recognition in management and organization studies of the importance of materiality as an aspect of discourse, while the neglect of materiality in post-structuralist management and organization theory is currently the subject of much discussion. This article argues that this turn to materiality may further embed gender discrimination. We draw on Luce Irigaray's work to highlight the dangers inherent in masculine discourses of materiality. We discuss Irigaray's identification of how language and discourse elevate the masculine over the feminine so as to offer insights into ways of changing organizational language and discourses so that more beneficial, ethically-founded identities, relationships and practices can emerge. We thus stress a political intent that aims to liberate women and men from phallogocentrism. We finally take forward Irigaray's ideas to develop a feminist écriture of/for organization studies that points towards ways of writing from the body. The article thus not only discusses how inequalities may be embedded within the material turn, but it also provides a strategy that enriches the possibilities of overcoming them from within.

     

     

    Service employees and self-verification: The roles of occupational stigma consciousness and core self-evaluations

    Amanda Shantz and Jonathan E Booth

    http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/04/07/0018726713519280?papetoc

     

    Abstract

    Despite the growing number and importance of service occupations, we know little about how jobholders' perceptions of societal stigmas of service jobs influence their identification with and attitudes towards work. The present study presents a framework that accords key roles to research on occupational stigma consciousness and the verification of employees' self-views (i.e. core self-evaluations) to understand employees' responses to occupational stigmatization. Survey responses from call center employees revealed a negative relationship between occupational stigma consciousness and occupational identification and work meaningfulness and a positive relationship between occupational stigma consciousness and organizational production deviant behaviors for employees who have a positive self-view. Opposite patterns of results surfaced for employees who have a lower positive self-view.

     

     

    Thrilled by the discourse, suffering through the experience: Emotions in project-based work

    Monica Lindgren, Johann Packendorff, and Viviane Sergi

    http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/04/09/0018726713520022?papetoc

     

    Abstract

    In this article, we study emotional processes associated with the project management discourse. Employing a constructionist approach where emotions are experienced within an ordering discursive context, the study identifies four distinct emotional processes associated with the invocation of the project management discourse in daily work practices. From a study of theatre and opera house employees, we suggest that the project management discourse tends to normalize feelings of rigidity and weariness in project-based work, while emphasizing projects as extraordinary settings creating thrill and excitement. Moreover, we argue that this discourse is invoked in ways that lead individuals to internalize emotional states related to chaos and anxiety, while ascribing feelings of certainty and confidence to external organizational norms and procedures. The study highlights how employees construct project-based work as a promise of exciting adventures experienced under conditions of rational control, but also how the negative and suppressed aspects of project-based work are constructed as inevitable and to be endured. Through these emotional processes, the project management discourse is sustained and reinforced.

     

     

    Who is 'the middle manager'?

    Nancy Harding, Hugh Lee, and Jackie Ford

    http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/04/09/0018726713516654?papetoc

     

    Abstract

    Middle managers occupy a central position in organizational hierarchies, where they are responsible for implementing senior management plans by ensuring junior staff fulfil their roles. However, explorations of the identity of the middle manager offer contradictory insights. This article develops a theory of the identity of the middle manager using a theoretical framework offered by the philosopher Judith Butler and empirical material from focus groups of middle managers discussing their work. We use personal pronoun analysis to analyse the identity work they undertake while talking between themselves. We suggest that middle managers move between contradictory subject positions that both conform with and resist normative managerial identities, and we also illuminate how those moves are invoked. The theory we offer is that middle managers are both controlled and controllers, and resisted and resisters. We conclude that rather than being slotted into organizational hierarchies, middle managers constitute those hierarchies.

     

     

    The role of negative affectivity in the relationships between pay satisfaction, affective and continuance commitment and voluntary turnover: A moderated mediation model

    Alexandra Panaccio, Christian Vandenberghe, and Ahmed K Ben Ayed

    http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/04/07/0018726713516377?papetoc

     

    Abstract

    This study examines the mediating role of affective and continuance commitment in the relationship between pay satisfaction and voluntary turnover, and the moderating role of negative affectivity. Drawing from data collected at two points in time from a sample of human resource management professionals (N = 509), we found that affective and continuance commitment mediated the negative relationship of pay satisfaction to turnover. Moreover, pay satisfaction's indirect negative relationship with turnover via affective commitment was weaker among respondents high in negative affectivity, while its indirect negative relationship with turnover via continuance commitment was stronger among those with high negative affectivity. Finally, the residual negative relationship of pay satisfaction to turnover was stronger at high levels of negative affectivity. We discuss the implications of this study for our understanding of the role of affective commitment, continuance commitment and negative affectivity in the pay satisfaction–turnover relationship.

     

     

     

    With best wishes,

     

    Claire Castle

    Managing Editor, Human Relations 

    Telephone: +44 (0)7432740583

    Email: c.castle@tavinstitute.org

     

    Website: www.humanrelationsjournal.org

    OnlineFirst forthcoming articles: http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/recent

    Submission guidance: http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/submit_paper.html

     

    Human Relations 2012 Impact Factor:
    2-year impact factor: 1.938

    5-year impact factor: 2.901

    Source: 2012 Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters, 2013)

     




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