JUNE ISSUE ARTICLES ___________________________ Leader reactions to follower proactive behavior: Giving credit when credit is due Bryan Fuller, Laura E Marler, Kim Hester, and Robert F Otondo Human Relations June 2015 68: 879‐898, first published on January 21, 2015 doi:10.1177/0018726714548235 http://hum.sagepub.com/content/68/6/879?etoc Abstract In the present study, we rely upon an integration of proactive motivation and performance theories to investigate a neglected research question – when is proactive behavior likely to be rewarded or punished? Based upon a self‐determination theory perspective of proactive motivation, we hypothesize that leader feelings of responsibility for constructive change moderate the relationship between follower proactive behavior and performance evaluation. The results of a time‐lagged study support this hypothesis, indicating that follower taking charge behavior is rewarded with higher performance evaluations only when leaders feel responsible for constructive change. Following the discussion of findings, we discuss practical implications, potential limitations of the present study and directions for future research. How trust functions in the context of identity work Michaela Driver Human Relations June 2015 68: 899‐923, first published on January 13, 2015 doi:10.1177/0018726714548080 http://hum.sagepub.com/content/68/6/899?etoc Abstract The study develops a new perspective on trust in organizations by exploring trust in the context of identity work. An analysis of stories in which employees describe how they experienced when the employer violated their trust suggests that individuals draw on trust discourse to validate who they are. Using a psychoanalytically informed framework, the study examines the complexities of trust in the context of struggles with the conscious self and unconscious desire. Trust emerges as a placeholder for what is really wanted but impossible to attain. Based on this perspective, the study offers new insights on why individuals trust, why trust may be resilient, why trust may be engineered and how trust mirrors identity as an elusive and fleeting accomplishment. Advancing conceptualization and measurement of psychological capital as a collective construct Sarah Dawkins, Angela Martin, Jenn Scott, and Kristy Sanderson Human Relations June 2015 68: 925‐949, first published on February 10, 2015 doi:10.1177/0018726714549645 http://hum.sagepub.com/content/68/6/925?etoc Abstract Psychological capital (PsyCap) has been conceptualized as an individual‐level construct concerned with an employee’s state of positive psychological development. However, research has now started to examine PsyCap as a collective phenomenon. Although positive associations between team‐level PsyCap and team‐level functioning have been demonstrated empirically, there has been limited synopsis regarding the theoretical and measurement foundations of PsyCap at higher levels of analysis. This conceptual article extends collective PsyCap scholarship by applying a multilevel‐multireferent framework to explore alternate conceptualizations of collective PsyCap. The framework furthers understanding of PsyCap at higher levels by exploring unique antecedents and emergent processes relating to five proposed forms of collective PsyCap. A series of testable propositions pertaining to the antecedent network of collective PsyCap are offered to guide empirical multilevel PsyCap research. Ship‐shape: Materializing leadership in the British Royal Navy Beverley Hawkins Human Relations June 2015 68: 951‐971, first published on April 16, 2015 doi:10.1177/0018726714563810 http://hum.sagepub.com/content/68/6/951?etoc Abstract In this article, I contribute to posthumanist, actor‐network influenced theories of leadership, drawing empirically on qualitative data collected at a Royal Navy shore establishment in Great Britain. I demonstrate how a fluid network of hybridized relationships between people and things affords shifting and multiple possibilities for making leadership matter. As configurations of actants evolve these affordances are altered, and the blackboxing processes hiding the material actants co‐generating leadership effects are uncovered. A detailed explication of the politicized affordances within actor networks contributes to knowledge about how hybridized relationships co‐enable possibilities for action that bring to life, reinforce and call into question the human‐centred, gendered, colonialist web of assumptions and practices through which Royal Naval personnel understand and enact leadership. Trust, reflexivity and knowledge integration: Toward a conceptual framework concerning mobile engineers Anna Sankowska and Jonas Söderlund Human Relations June 2015 68: 973‐1000, first published on January 13, 2015 doi:10.1177/0018726714549646 http://hum.sagepub.com/content/68/6/973?etoc Abstract Reduced team membership intensity and flux have triggered the emergence of a new cadre of professional workers. In an increasing number of industries, mobile engineers and other types of flexible human resources contribute significantly to team processes and the integration of team members’ knowledge. Little is known about the factors influencing their knowledge integration performance. Addressing this gap by focusing on the transitional nature of their work, we introduce a conceptual framework that models the influence of trust on knowledge integration through reflexivity. Principally, we argue that social and technical reflexivity are processes that transmit the effects of trust on knowledge integration. The interaction between trust and the proposed construct of perceived value of the assignment affects reflexivity’s overall impact on knowledge integration through different constellations of social and technical reflexivity. This interaction explains the paradoxical situation that high trust levels do not necessarily translate into higher knowledge integration performance and accounts for mobile engineers’ varied outcomes as knowledge integrators. Something happened: Spectres of organization/disorganization at the airport Hannah Knox, Damian P O’Doherty, Theo Vurdubakis, and Christopher Westrup Human Relations June 2015 68: 1001‐1020, first published on January 7, 2015 doi:10.1177/0018726714550257 http://hum.sagepub.com/content/68/6/1001?etoc Abstract The article explores the practical accomplishment of organization at an international airport during the course of a number of ‘security alerts’ that disrupted routine ‘modes of ordering’ (Law, 1994). Airports, we suggest, invite us to re‐think ‘organization’ as the partial, contingent and always‐incomplete outcome of complex order(ing)s and disorder(ing)s played out across various spaces, agencies and materials. When ‘something happens’ we begin to see how spaces, agents and materials are subject to unexpected becomings: objects appear treacherous, spaces mutable, agencies ineffectual and informants unreliable. Following the work of Weick we might say that in such moments of uncertainty we are forced to reconsider our customary ways of thinking about objects, subjects and systems. We argue this thinking requires a relational understanding of organization so that we can better grasp how organizations are continuously being made and un‐made through an on‐going co‐creation and dispersal of parts. Respect as an engine for new ideas: Linking respectful engagement, relational information processing and creativity among employees and teams Abraham Carmeli, Jane E Dutton, and Ashley E Hardin Human Relations June 2015 68: 1021‐1047, first published on January 22, 2015 doi:10.1177/0018726714550256 http://hum.sagepub.com/content/68/6/1021?etoc Abstract In four studies we examine whether and why respectfully engaging with other organizational members can augment creativity for individuals and teams. We develop and test a model in which respectful engagement among organizational members facilitates relational information processing, which in turn results in enhanced creative behaviors. We found a similar pattern across all four studies – respectful engagement is indirectly related, through relational information processing, to creative behavior at both the individual and team levels. These findings underscore the importance of respectful engagement in facilitating relational information processing and fostering creative behaviors at both the individual and team levels. Human Relations Paper of the Year 2014 Award Human Relations June 2015 68: 1048, doi:10.1177/0018726715586766 http://hum.sagepub.com/content/68/6/1048?etoc __________________________________________________ PAPER OF THE YEAR 2014 – FREE ACCESS __________________________________________________ The Human Relations Paper of the Year Award is given to the paper that the Editorial Team considers best encapsulates broad readership appeal, sound methods, and whose theory advances our understanding of human relations at work. The editors looked at all the articles published in the 67th volume before arriving at a short list of nine articles for consideration for the 2014 Paper of the Year Award. These shortlisted papers covered a very wide variety of topics and methods. The editors read them all carefully before ranking them and total scores for each article revealed a clear winner: NGOs management and the value of 'partnerships' for equality in international development: What’s in a name? Alessia Contu and Emanuela Girei Human Relations 2014, 67 (2): 205–232 http://hum.sagepub.com/content/67/2/205.full.pdf+html Warm congratulations to Alessia and Emanuela – we hope you enjoy reading their paper. The prize for each author includes an Award Certificate, a free one‐year subscription to Human Relations and vouchers to spend on SAGE journals or books. View previous Paper of the Year winners (also free to access): http://hum.sagepub.com/site/paper_of_the_year/winners.xhtml __________________________________________________ THIS MONTH’S FREE ACCESS ARTICLE __________________________________________________ You can’t go home again: And other psychoanalytic lessons from crossing a neo‐colonial border Ajnesh Prasad Human Relations February 2014 67: 233‐257, first published on September 10, 2013 http://hum.sagepub.com/content/67/2/233.full.pdf+html Abstract The purpose of this article is to situate the nexus between reflexivity and fieldwork through autoethnographic analysis. Specifically, drawing on psychoanalytic and postcolonial thought, this article utilizes introspective data from field research conducted in the occupied Palestinian territories to explore how Qalandiya – a neo‐colonial militarized border crossing between Jerusalem, Israel and the West Bank’s twin cities of Ramallah and al‐Bireh – came to significantly alter the researcher’s conceptions of self and Other. Namely, drawing on first‐hand experiences at Qalandiya – reconstructed through monologue style voice recordings, emails with colleagues, telephone conversations, personal diary entries, and memory – this article illuminates the discursive impact the field has upon the researcher’s self. Finally, this article concludes with a discussion of the ontological, the epistemological, and the ethical implications of pursuing research at neo‐colonial sites in organization studies. This article will be free to access until 15 July. __________________________________________________ CALLS FOR PAPERS __________________________________________________ Special issue: Conceptualising flexible careers across the life course – submit by 1 March 2016 http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Flexible%20careers.htm
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ains.html Submit your review article to Human Relations Human Relations welcomes critical review papers that advance our understanding of social relationships at and around work. The journal seeks papers that contribute to the field through a new theory, new methods, a novel synthesis of extant evidence, or a combination of two or three of these elements. Reviews that identify new research questions and that make links between management and organizations and the wider social sciences are particularly welcome. Why publish in Human Relations? Human Relations is an A* journal – the highest category of quality – in the Australian Business Deans Council (ABCD) Journal Quality List 2013. It is also ranked 4 in the Association of Business Schools (ABS) Academic Journal Guide 2015. With an impact factor of 1.867, it is also ranked as one of the top 10 journals in social and interdisciplinary sciences (Source: 2013 Journal Citation Reports® Thomson Reuters, 2014). __________________________________________________ RECENT ONLINEFIRST PREVIEW ARTICLES __________________________________________________ Careering through academia: Securing identities or engaging ethical subjectivities? Caroline A Clarke and David Knights Human Relations 0018726715570978, first published on May 19, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726715570978 http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/05/19/0018726715570978.abstract Abstract This article reflects upon careering, securing identities and ethical subjectivities in academia in the context of audit, accountability and control surrounding new managerialism in UK Business Schools. Drawing upon empirical research, we illustrate how rather than resisting an ever‐proliferating array of governmental technologies of power, academics chase the illusive sense of a secure self through ‘careering’; a frantic and frenetic individualistic strategy designed to moderate the pressures of excessive managerial competitive demands. Emerging from our data was an increased portrayal of academics as subjected to technologies of power and self, simultaneously being objects of an organizational gaze through normalizing judgements, hierarchical observations and examinations. Still, this was not a monolithic response, as there were those who expressed considerable disquiet as well as a minority who reported ways to seek out a more embodied engagement with their work. In analysing the careerism and preoccupation with securing identities that these technologies of visibility and self‐discipline produce, we draw on certain philosophical deliberations and especially the later Foucault on ethics and active engagement to explore how academics might refuse the ways they have been constituted as subjects through new managerial regimes. Career scripts in clusters: A social position approach Annick Valette and Jean‐Denis Culié Human Relations 0018726715569515, first published on May 14, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726715569515 http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/05/12/0018726715569515.abstract Abstract This article examines the career scripts held by individuals working in clusters by studying the careers seen as desirable and possible by 42 micro‐nanotechnology and computer science researchers in the ‘Minalogic’ cluster, the French equivalent of Silicon Valley. We consider the links between the researchers’ career scripts and their social positions and identify six discrete career scripts that we label organizational nomad, entrepreneurial, organizational extension, cloister, escape and conversion. Central social positions in the cluster are linked with boundaryless career scripts (organizational nomad and entrepreneurial scripts), but individuals also use the resources associated with their central social positions to envisage both extending their careers and the range of tasks they undertake (organiza onal extension script) within their employing organiza ons. Others − those holding peripheral social posi ons − may be unable to match the cluster’s expectations, and so feel trapped in involuntary immobility (cloister script), constrained to leave the cluster (escape script) or to change their occupations or broaden their skill sets to advance their careers within it (conversion script). Our article goes beyond simply using scripts as descriptions to propose a more comprehensive approach by highlighting the social dimension of career scripts. Our results qualify the supposed predominance of the boundaryless career notion by confronting it with the wider generic notion of the career script, so proposing a more complete description of how a cluster shapes individuals’ career definitions and aspirations, as well as a more complex theorization of how those careers are influenced by the cluster context. Narrative identity construction in times of career change: Taking note of unconscious desires Patrizia Hoyer and Chris Steyaert Human Relations 0018726715570383, first published on May 14, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726715570383 http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/05/12/0018726715570383.abstract Abstract Working at the intersection of narrative and psychoanalytic theory, we present in this article an affective conceptualization of identity dynamics during times of career change, incorporating the notion of unconscious desires. We propose that frictions in career change narratives, such as the paradoxical co‐existence of coherence and ambiguity, allude to unconscious subtexts that can become ‘readable’ in the narrative when applying a psychoanalytic framework. We point to the analysis of 30 life story interviews with former management consultants who report upon a past and/or anticipated career change for illustration. By linking three empirically derived narrative strategies for combining coherence and ambiguity (ignoring the change, admitting the ambiguity and depicting a wishful future) with three conceptually informed psychoanalytic ego‐defenses (denial, rationalization and sublimation), we provide an analytic framework that helps to explain why workers in transition may try to preserve both coherence and ambiguity when constructing a sense of self through narrative. The analysis of unconscious subtexts reveals that, in times of career change, people’s identity constructions are driven by conflicting unconscious desires for self‐continuity on one hand and openness on the other. The exhausted short‐timer: Leveraging autonomy to engage in production deviance Raenada A Wilson, Sara Jansen Perry, Lawrence Alan Witt, and Rodger W Griffeth Human Relations 0018726714565703, first published on May 5, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726714565703 http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/04/29/0018726714565703.abstract Abstract This article explores the conditions under which autonomy may lead to production deviance (unsanctioned, non‐task‐focused behavior) rather than acting as a motivational job characteristic. In a study of 260 manual laborers, we applied Conservation of Resources Theory to propose an interaction among autonomy, emotional exhaustion and employment opportunity in predicting production deviance. We suggest that employees who experience emotional exhaustion may leverage autonomy to engage in production deviance in efforts to conserve and protect remaining energy reserves, particularly when they feel they can secure ‘better’ opportunities than their current job. Results of hierarchical moderated multiple regression analyses revealed that workers reporting high levels of autonomy, emotional exhaustion and employment opportunity also manifested the highest levels of production deviance. Unleashing angst: Negative mood, learning goal orientation, psychological empowerment and creative behaviour March L To, Cynthia D Fisher, and Neal M Ashkanasy Human Relations 0018726714562235, first published on May 5, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726714562235 http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/04/29/0018726714562235.abstract Abstract Emotion researchers have found that negative mood may either enhance or inhibit employee creativity. Little is known about this conundrum, however, and in particular when and why each effect occurs. To address this concern, we formulate and test hypotheses about likely moderators of the relationship between negative mood and creative process engagement. Results from an experience sampling study with 556 real‐time reports from 68 employees support our hypothesis that negative mood is most strongly and positively related to concurrent creative process engagement among employees who (a) have high trait learning goal orientation and (b) perceive that they are empowered. Our hypotheses and findings help to resolve the ongoing controversy surrounding the nature of the negative mood–creativity nexus. Identity, storytelling and the philanthropic journey [free access] Mairi Maclean, Charles Harvey, Jillian Gordon, and Eleanor Shaw Human Relations 0018726714564199, first published on April 28, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726714564199 http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/04/28/0018726714564199.full.pdf+html Abstract This article develops theoretical understanding of the involvement of wealthy entrepreneurs in socially transformative projects by offering a foundational theory of philanthropic identity narratives. We show that these narratives are structured according to the metaphorical framework of the journey, through which actors envision and make sense of personal transformation. The journey provides a valuable metaphor for conceptualizing narrative identities in entrepreneurial careers as individuals navigate different social landscapes, illuminating identities as unfolding through a process of wayfinding in response to events, transitions and turning‐points. We delineate the journey from entrepreneurship to philanthropy, and propose a typology of rewards that entrepreneurs claim to derive from giving. We add to the expanding literature on narrative identities by suggesting that philanthropic identity narratives empower wealthy entrepreneurs to generate a legacy of the self that is both self‐ and socially oriented, these ‘generativity scripts’ propelling their capacity for action while ensuring the continuation of their journeys. Proposing a culture‐centered approach to career scholarship: The example of subsistence careers in the US Arctic Rahul Mitra Human Relations 0018726715570100, first published on April 28, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726715570100 http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/04/28/0018726715570100.abstract Abstract In this article, I draw from the culture‐centered approach to explore contemporary negotiations of career and work, positing career as a form of cultural practice. Rooted in postcolonial theory and subaltern studies, the culture‐centered approach examines the active accomplishment of culture through everyday communicative practices, amidst the structural conditions that frame lived experiences, and focusing specifically on marginalized groups. I first trace how culture is conceptualized in extant career studies, in the psychological, sociological and communicative streams. Identifying both key gaps and paradoxes in the literature, I outline the culture‐centered approach, suggesting four key principles to reconceive career as cultural practice. Specifically: career draws on both structure and action; career agency is hybridized across individuals/collectives; career agency is layered and contested; and career is both discursive and material. The framework is illustrated using an example from an ongoing study on the negotiation of subsistence careers by Native Alaskans in the US Arctic. Management commitment to the ecological environment and employees: Implications for employee attitudes and citizenship behaviors Berrin Erdogan, Talya N Bauer, and Sully Taylor Human Relations 0018726714565723, first published on April 28, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726714565723 http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/04/28/0018726714565723.abstract Abstract In this article, we examine the implications of perceived management commitment to the ecological environment for employee attitudes and behaviors. Following deontic justice theory, which suggests that individuals are capable of feeling and expressing moral outrage when others are treated poorly, even if such treatment has no direct implications for themselves, we expected that employee attitudes and behaviors would be related to perceived organizational treatment of the environment. At the same time, we expected that these reactions would be moderated by how employees themselves were treated by the organization, in the form of perceived organizational support. In a study of employees and supervisors in a textile firm in Turkey, the results indicate that perceived organizational support moderated the effects of management commitment to the environment on organizational justice, organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors targeting the environment. What is critical appreciation? Insights from studying the critical turn in an appreciative inquiry Rory J Ridley‐Duff and Graham Duncan Human Relations 0018726714561698, first published on April 8, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726714561698 http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/04/08/0018726714561698.abstract Abstract Appreciative inquiry was developed in the late 1980s as a process to encourage social innovation by involving people in discovering the ‘best of what is’. Recent research has suggested that appreciative inquiry practitioners’ focus on positivity is now inhibiting appreciative inquiry’s focus on generative theory. This article responds by asking the question ‘what is critical appreciation?’, then seeks answers by studying the critical turn in a Big Lottery Research project. By tracking the narratives of research assistants as they describe the ‘life worlds’ and ‘systems’ in their community, we clarify the recursive processes that lead to deeper levels of appreciation. We contribute to the development of critical appreciative processes that start with a critical inquiry to deconstruct experience and then engage critical appreciative processes during the remainder of the appreciative inquiry cycle to construct new experiences. The initial critical inquiry establishes which system imperatives colonize the life world of participants whilst subsequent critical appreciative processes build participants’ aspirations to design new social systems. Sexual orientation discrimination in the United Kingdom’s labour market: A field experiment Nick Drydakis Human Relations 0018726715569855, first published on April 8, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726715569855 http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/03/31/0018726715569855.abstract Abstract Deviations from heteronormativity affect labour market dynamics. Hierarchies of sexual orientation can result in job dismissals, wage discrimination and the failure to promote gay and lesbian individuals to top ranks. In this article, I report on a field experiment (144 job‐seekers and their correspondence with 5549 firms) that tested the extent to which sexual orientation affects the labour market outcomes of gay and lesbian job‐seekers in the United Kingdom. Their minority sexual orientations, as indicated by job‐seekers’ participation in gay and lesbian university student unions, negatively affected their workplace prospects. The probability of gay or lesbian applicants receiving an invitation for an interview was 5.0 percent (5.1%) lower than that for heterosexual male or female applicants. In addition, gay men and lesbians received invitations for interviews by firms that paid salaries that were 1.9 percent (1.2%) lower than those paid by firms that invited heterosexual male or female applicants for interviews. In addition, in male‐ or female‐dominated occupations, gay men and lesbians received fewer invitations for interviews than their non‐gay and non‐lesbian counterparts. Furthermore, gay men and lesbians also received fewer invitations to interview for positions in which masculine or feminine personality traits were highlighted in job applications and at firms that did not provide written equal opportunity standards, suggesting that the level of discrimination depends partly on the personality traits that employers seek and on organization‐level hiring policies. I conclude that heteronormative discourse continues to reproduce and negatively affect the labour market prospects of gay men and lesbians. Times Higher Education, 8 April 2015 coverage of this article: Graduates still face job discrimination on sexuality, suggests study Casting the lean spell: The promotion, dilution and erosion of lean management in the NHS Leo McCann, John S Hassard, Edward Granter, and Paula J Hyde Human Relations 0018726714561697, first published on April 8, 2015 as doi:10.1177/0018726714561697 http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/03/31/0018726714561697.abstract Abstract Lean thinking has recently re‐emerged as a fashionable management philosophy, especially in public services. A prescriptive or mainstream literature suggests that lean is rapidly diffusing into public sector environments, providing a much‐needed rethink of traditional ways of working and stimulating performance improvements. Our study of the introduction of lean in a large UK public sector hospital challenges this argument. Based on a three‐year ethnographic study of how employees make sense of lean ‘adoption’, we describe a process in which lean ideas were initially championed, later diluted and ultimately eroded. While initially functioning as a ‘mechanism of hope’ (Brunsson, 2006) around which legitimacy could be generated for tackling longstanding work problems, over time both ‘sellers’ and ‘buyers’ of the concept mobilized lean in ambiguous ways, to the extent that the notion was rendered somewhat meaningless. Ultimately, our analysis rejects current prescriptive or managerialist discourses on lean while offering support for prior positions that would explain such management fashions in terms of the ‘life cycle of a fad’. Best wishes, Claire Castle Managing Editor, Human Relations Email: [email protected] Website: www.humanrelationsjournal.org OnlineFirst forthcoming articles: http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/recent Submission guidance: http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/submit_paper.html