Unmasking Reflexivity in HR Managers During the COVID-19 Lockdown in Italy

This paper explores how some Italian HR managers narrate the changes imposed by the COVID-19 threat in the workplace. Events since December 2019 have presented exceptional circumstances to which HR managers have reacted in very different ways. This study explored how HR managers came to introduce organizational changes aimed at coping with the emergency, as well as how employees were involved in those organizational changes. The article is based on a thematic analysis of some interviews with Italian HR managers whose companies decided to switch working from home on a massive scale. We wanted to offer some reflections on the actions taken by a few HR managers and Italian companies to keep working at a time when most workers were forced to respect the lockdown.

Analysis of Futile Events in Small Industrial and Production Workshops of Isfahan Province by Mort Method

Introduction: One of the important and growing organizational considerations is the staff health and safety. Workplace events cause death and disability in a large number of employees annually. So, employers have seriously focused their attention and organizational resources on this important issue. The purpose of this study was to investigate causes of the fatal industrial-production activities using the Morte's technique and to provide management solutions to reduce the incidents caused by the workshop in Yazd province, Iran. Methods: Initially, a total of 57 fatal accidents were identified and investigated in Isfahan industrial enterprises. Among this number, 12 cases of work-related incidents were studied. In the second stage, events were analyzed by Morte tree. This descriptive, correlational, and applied research was a fieldwork conducted as a library study to collect the required data. Results: The results showed that most causes of defect accidents were among the management system factors and covered 40.4% of the total causes. This was followed by the human errors and defects in working processes (36.5%), defects in fences and barriers (19.2%) in rescue process, and other causes of accidents (3.9%). Conclusion: By adopting safety measures in compliance with the protective regulations, extent and severity of the accidents can be reduced to a large extent. Many good practices can also be prevented by appropriate management measures.

Do High-Performance Work Systems Really Satisfy Employees? Evidence from China

Our study aims to examine the outcomes of Western-based high-performance work systems (HPWS) from two separate workplace events (job discretion and work intensification) in a Chinese context. Based on Affective Events Theory (AET), employee reactions and job satisfaction may vary depending on their working environment. We applied hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to analyze data collected from 34 human resources managers and 354 employees working in the Chinese manufacturing and service industries. Our study demonstrates that workplace events based on HPWS may influence employees’ feelings and job satisfaction. Job discretion makes employees feel positive and increases their job satisfaction while work intensification is seen as negative by employees and reduces their job satisfaction. However, results also show that HPWS fail to bring increased satisfaction to employees due to job discretion. This study supports previous studies that not all HPWS may lead to positive outcomes when internal stakeholders’ well-being is not considered. Without considering long-term investment in employees, it is challenging for organizations to maintain their competitiveness and meet their goals. Further research is suggested to include more study of different contexts and time frames while examining the outcomes of HPWS.

Coping With Perceived Abusive Supervision: The Role of Paranoia

Two studies (a cross-sectional survey of 90 U.K. workers and an experiment with 100 U.K. workers) examined the cognitive and behavioral effects of abusive supervision. Both studies confirmed the hypothesis that workers who experience abusive supervision show paranoia and that makes them more prone to a type of cognitive error called the “sinister attribution error.” This is where workers misattribute innocent workplace events such as tripping over something or hearing colleagues laughing to malevolent motives such as wanting to harm or mock them. Study 1 also showed that abusive supervision is associated with lower well-being. Perceived organizational support buffers these effects, and this is associated with workers making fewer sinister attribution errors, thereby protecting well-being. Study 2 explored the role of contextual cues by exposing workers to images of abusive supervision. This increased their paranoia and contributed to workers making sinister attribution errors when they were asked to interpret workplace events. Moreover, depending on the types of contextual cues, workers were more likely to express the intention of workplace deviance after thinking about past experiences of abusive supervision. We recommend that corporate ethical responsibilities include training managers and workers about the negative cognitive and mental health effects of abusive supervision.

Understanding and Managing Organisational Culture and Justice

This chapter highlights the importance of education for the development of excellence, expertise and knowledge leading to overall development in economy cannot be undermined. It focused on the understanding and managing organisational culture and justice: implications for higher education institutions. Organizational culture plays a critical role in creating a work environment where employees are committed and contribute to the success of the organization. Justice is a subjective and descriptive concept, in that it captures what individuals believe to be right, rather than an objective reality or a prescriptive moral code. As defined here, organizational justice is a personal evaluation about the ethical and moral standing of managerial conduct. Research has shown that employees appraise three families of workplace events. They examine the justice of outcomes (distributive justice), the justice of the formal allocation processes (procedural justice), and the justice of interpersonal transactions they encounter with others (interactional justice). Over the years, universities worldwide have come under increasing pressures to adapt to rapidly changing social, technological, economic and political forces emanating from the immediate as well as the broader post-industrial external environments. The unprecedented growth, complexity and competitiveness of the global economy with its attendant socio-political and technological forces have been creating relentless and cumulative pressures on higher education institutions to respond to the changing environment.

Understanding and Managing Organisational Culture and Justice

This chapter highlights the importance of education for the development of excellence, expertise and knowledge leading to overall development in economy cannot be undermined. It focused on the understanding and managing organisational culture and justice: implications for higher education institutions. Organizational culture plays a critical role in creating a work environment where employees are committed and contribute to the success of the organization. Justice is a subjective and descriptive concept, in that it captures what individuals believe to be right, rather than an objective reality or a prescriptive moral code. As defined here, organizational justice is a personal evaluation about the ethical and moral standing of managerial conduct. Research has shown that employees appraise three families of workplace events. They examine the justice of outcomes (distributive justice), the justice of the formal allocation processes (procedural justice), and the justice of interpersonal transactions they encounter with others (interactional justice). Over the years, universities worldwide have come under increasing pressures to adapt to rapidly changing social, technological, economic and political forces emanating from the immediate as well as the broader post-industrial external environments. The unprecedented growth, complexity and competitiveness of the global economy with its attendant socio-political and technological forces have been creating relentless and cumulative pressures on higher education institutions to respond to the changing environment.

Teams That Work: Preparing Student Teams For The Workplace

Organizations today often require collaboration in the form of work teams. Many tasks completed within organizations, whether in the workplace or in academia, however, can be beyond the capabilities of individuals alone. Productive teamwork and cooperative activities in business are expected and can begin very early in a person's career. The pedagogy for teamwork instruction in the classroom may not simulate real workplace events or parallel organizational behavior in order to attain a successful outcome. In universities, teamwork often breeds frustration and dysfunction, since the teams often do not perform at a high level or reach their full potential. This paper will provide best practices for creating productive teams in the classroom in preparation for the workforce. This insight will include ideas that will bond team members through collective values and goals, resulting in effective teams and a productive environment.