Culture-Based Green Workplace Practices as a Means of Conserving Energy and Other Natural Resources in the Manufacturing Sector

The purpose of this research is to analyze the role of organizational culture in fostering green practices in the workplace while investigating the mediating role of intrinsic motivation in the context of energy conservation. Based on a cross-sectional quantitative study with a sample of 203 employees from the manufacturing sector, the hypothesized relationships were verified. Based on the mediation analysis, statistical analyses revealed positive relationships between organizational culture and green workplace practices, as well as organizational culture and intrinsic motivation. Additionally, the study found that intrinsic motivation mediates the relationship between organizational culture and green workplace practices. This study supported the importance of organizational culture in enhancing green workplace practices aimed at conserving energy and natural resources. The underlying mechanism behind the significant positive effect of intrinsic motivation on proenvironmental behavior in the workplace was also identified. The research demonstrates the importance of an organizational culture to reinforce green practices in the workplace. Furthermore, based on the used models, this study illustrates the importance of each organizational culture dimension: leadership, sense of community, communication, collaboration, and structure in promoting green behavior. Additionally, the research suggests a key role of intrinsic motivation in this relationship. This study provides valuable guidance for the implementation of specific environmental measures in companies.

The power of balance: interplay effects of exploitative leadership style, work–family balance and family-friendly workplace practices on innovation implementation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the inverted U-shaped relationship that exists between exploitative leadership styles and innovation implementation. In addition, drawing on the social cognitive theory, the paper explores the effect of the three-way interaction between exploitative leadership style (ELS), work–family balance (WFB) and family-friendly workplace practices (FFWPs) on innovation implementation.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative study of 440 employees from 38 medium and large companies based in Italy and Croatia was conducted, using an online survey. The proposed hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression analysis.FindingsThe results show that there is an inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship between ELS and innovation implementation. Furthermore, the findings support the existence of the three-way interaction suggesting that the combination of high-level WFB and high-level FFWPs strengthens the relationship between ELS² and innovation implementation.Originality/valueThis is the first contribution that examines a curvilinear relationship between ELS and innovation implementation. Additionally, it contributes to the work–family literature by providing the first empirical examination of the joint impact of WFB and FFWPs in enhancing innovation implementation. Our results suggest that individuals who perceive a high level of WFB and who work in an organization with family-friendly practices are more accepting of an exploitative leader, and that the positive feelings from the family domain encourage the implementation of innovation. These results may change the attitudes of managers, encouraging them to consider WFB and FFWPs as important for the implementation of innovation.

Making Food Manageable – Packaging as a Code of Practice for Work Practices at the Supermarket

While packaging-free stores are in the uptake, single-use packaging remains a constitutive element in self-service supermarkets. Portraying packaging as an actor in workplace practices, the article provides novel explanations for the supermarkets’ struggle to reduce packaging. The ethnographic analysis shows that food packaging is crucial for the functioning of supermarkets. This is in contrast to engineering or marketing perspectives on packaging functions that often don’t take practical demands and habitual peculiarities of everyday work practices into consideration. Framed as a code of practice, packaging guides the daily management of food in three crucial ways. First, packaging is a multifunctional medium to present products to customers. Second, packaging is an indicator and transmitter to assess product quantities and qualities in the internal logistics of supermarkets. Third, packaging enables the management and reproduction of representative supermarket qualities like freshness and fullness. As a consequence, and in order to be successful, strategies for the reduction of packaging waste have to better acknowledge the diversity of roles packaging is playing within the framework of workplace practices. Planners of innovation processes need to consider the expertise of workers, the agency of packaging, the situational distribution of action, and the cultural framings of supermarkets.

Should children become key stakeholders in designing family-friendly workplaces?

PurposeThe purpose is to determine whether there is a gap between what children and youth expect from their parents' workplaces and the family-friendly business practices that employers apply, as well as whether COVID-19 has accelerated the introduction of these practices or contributed to any paradigm change.Design/methodology/approachDescriptive methodological research was done through electronic surveys with two target groups. The first group of respondents consisted of 1,279 children and youth who expressed their opinion on the impact of the parental workplace on them and what needs to be done to make companies more family oriented. The second survey involved 64 employers, who shared their views on achieving a balance between work and family and provided insight into the pre-pandemic and pandemic family-friendly workplace practices.FindingsAn apparent gap was identified between the family-friendly workplace practices offered by employers and the needs that children have regarding their parents' workplace. Although employers confirm that COVID-19 provides an opportunity to encourage FFW practices, during the outbreak of the virus, they demonstrated responsibility towards employees but neglected their family members.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings cannot be generalised to the entire business sector as the survey is not nationally representative. Also, the surveyed children do not come from the surveyed employers' work collectives, so it was not possible to intersect the findings.Practical implicationsThe research is vital for human resource managers as creators and implementers of family-friendly workplaces, as it indicates the need to involve the important but overlooked stakeholders in this process – the children of employees.Originality/valueThe research gap in the family-friendly workplace paradigm is addressed by comparing the attitudes of children with the employers' practices, before and during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Emotional competence at work

PurposeThe study investigated emotional competence at work and elaborated emotional competence in relation to sociocultural aspects of emotions at work.Design/methodology/approachEmotional competence at work was explored via interviews, surveys and observations. The study was conducted over one year, during which an emotion-training intervention was conducted within a medium-sized company, operating in the healthcare sector.FindingsThe study shed light on emotional competence at work, identifying three domains: individual emotional competence, emotional competence within interactions and emotional competence embedded in workplace practices.Research limitations/implicationsThis study was conducted in one organization.Practical implicationsOrganizational developers are recommended to implement activities such as training interventions in order to build emotional competence; this applies not only at the individual level but also to achieve interaction among members of the organization within collective workplace practices.Originality/valuePrevious studies on emotional competence have been limited to the individual level. The sociocultural approach to emotional competence adopted in this study recognizes – in addition to the individual and interactional level of emotional competence – emotional competence at work as related to practices at work.

Managers’ literacy and orality: How suited to the document-driven workplace?

For more than 50 years, scholars of managerial behaviour have described the oral more than print-oriented character of managers’ everyday worlds. Managers engage in almost incessant interpersonal interaction, seeking out oral communication with others and neglecting or mistrusting print sources of information. However, recently a revolution in workplace processes and communication has been occurring with the emergence of digitized, Internet-enabled texts throughout globalized enterprise, which are strongly influencing workplace practices. Managers rely heavily on oral modalities to do their work but increasingly they are expected to read and understand complex organizational texts, then from these sources, solve problems and make decisions. Using an assessment of managers’ literacy, this paper explores the implications for managers’ literate and oral performance at work, along with their ability to cope with the demands of the emerging document-driven workplace.