Workplace friendships while teleworking during COVID-19: Experiences of social workers in Australia

COVID-19 has shifted Australia’s social service delivery. Understanding the impact on workplace relationships is key. This article used a small-scale sample of social workers ( N = 37) to explore workplace friendship experiences while teleworking. Participants reported opportunities for friendships during COVID-19 but reported ongoing personal and professional concerns.

Workplace affective well-being: gratitude and friendship in helping millennials to thrive at work

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between gratitude and workplace friendship with affective well-being (AWB) at work amongst millennial employees. Specifically, it details the mediating effect of workplace friendship in explaining the linkages between gratitude and AWB at work. Design/methodology/approach This study used a sample of 272 millennial workers in this study. A survey invitation was sent out to all of the respondents through email. A 20-item job-related AWB (Van Katwyk et al., 2000) scale was used to measure AWB. Workplace friendship was measured using six-items of the workplace friendship scale (Nielsen et al., 2000) and gratitude was measured using McCullough et al.’s (2002) six-item gratitude questionnaire (GQ-6). Findings The study found that gratitude and workplace friendship enhanced workplace AWB among millennial workers. Workplace friendship functioned as a mediator, which delivered the effect from gratitude towards workplace AWB. Gratitude was found to positively predict workplace friendship and subsequently workplace friendship positively predicted workplace AWB. Practical implications Nurturing positive feelings at work through excellent psychosocial resources and healthy work friendships would improve millennial workers well-being. Henceforth, encouraging millennial employees to cultivate workplace friendships, can help the manager to enhance millennial employees’ feeling of belongingness, and thus, promote better AWB. Originality/value Investment on employee’s human capital and values can be valuable resources to increase millennial employees’ performance at work. Millennial workers are a unique generation that put emphasis on the subjective experience. Hence, capitalising on their subjective experience can be one of the keys to better increase their well-being and performance at work.

Expatriates' dual commitment: a serial multiple mediation model of workplace friendships and adjustment

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to advance the understanding of expatriates' psychological attachment toward both their parent company and its foreign subsidiary by highlighting how workplace friendships enhance the process of adjustment for expatriates and how these effects on adjustment subsequently translate into expatriates' dual commitment.Design/methodology/approachHypotheses were tested using a sample of 187 expatriates, working in managerial positions, in subsidiaries of multinational corporations, all of whom were assigned expatriates. Serial multiple indirect effects were tested.FindingsThe results indicated that the relationship between workplace friendships and interaction adjustment was supported, but the relationship between workplace friendships and work adjustment was not supported. The serial indirect effects of international adjustment and work adjustment on the relationship between interaction adjustment and expatriates' dual commitment were supported.Originality/valueThis study seeks to fill a gap in the research literature on expatriates by focusing on the issue of workplace friendships and expatriates' dual commitment. The findings help bolster the literature on relational schemas in that expatriates' workplace friendships establish scripts for expatriates' expected outlines of adjustment in work domains. This study also provides insights relevant to the literature on social interaction and adjustment, as the findings support our theory that expatriate commitment is not directly contingent on workplace friendships but rather on the mediating roles of both interaction adjustment and work adjustment.

Mentoring, Networks, and Leadership

Relationships of many kinds exist within organizations. They can be related to reporting structures, such as those with supervisors and direct reports, or they can result from work overlaps, such as relationships with co-workers in the department or colleagues on committees. Mentorship is a special kind of work relationship that is often tied to professional outcomes. Workplace friendships, both deep and casual, that cut across structural boundaries are not uncommon. These workplace relationships vary widely in terms of the benefits that accrue from them as well as the effort required in maintaining them. At the same time, managing work relationships has a critical impact on career experiences and career progress. In this chapter, the authors discuss research on various types of organizational relationships and their implications for Asian women.

Impact of wise leadership, workplace friendships on open innovation in family firms: a developing country perspective

PurposeThis study draws upon the hybrid approach of the resource-based view and social capital theory, and aims to develop and empirically validate a model that examines the relationship amongst wise leadership, workplace friendships and open innovation (OI) in family firms (FFs).Design/methodology/approachAn online survey was conducted to collect data from a sample of 381 firms from a developing country. Additionally, this study used AMOS software and structural equation model to empirically test the proposed hypotheses of the theoretical model.FindingsFindings show that wise leadership has a significant, positive indirect effect on stimulating OI in FFs via its influence on building workplace friendships and overcoming knowledge–strategic and collaboration–organisational challenges.Practical implicationsTo improve OI, top management teams of family businesses should encourage wise, intelligent, well-informed and strong leaders who drive change. Moreover, they should establish small group, “smart-world” networks for specialised innovation to facilitate friendship based on trust and competence, and develop the coordinating role of family leaders in these networks.Originality/valueThis study complements and advances previous research on OI in many ways. Firstly, the current study proposes a conceptual model that demonstrates the interrelationships amongst the main variables in Iraqi FFs. Secondly, this research explores the crucial mediating role of workplace friendship, which capitalises on the principles of friendship in the context of the acquisition, accumulation and exchange of knowledge, thereby overcoming the challenges associated with innovation.

The F Word: The Role of Women’s Friendships in Navigating the Gendered Workplace of Academia

This conceptual paper contributes a new perspective on the role of women academics’ friendships in helping them navigate and counter the masculine culture of academia. Drawing on Self-Determination Theory and Relational Cultural Theory, we contend that women’s friendships allow women to thrive by meeting core psychological needs that are threatened in a marginalized work environment. Women’s intra-gender friendships act as counterspaces that challenge deficit notions women often hold about themselves, which are particularly prevalent for early career academics and women of color. We examine these workplace friendships through the belief that the academy is a gendered workplace which results in women often experiencing significant challenges to their career success. Furthermore, we consider how women’s friendships can mitigate the effects of workplace marginalization and enhance well-being that results in career success. We conclude by challenging HRD scholars to consider how academia can make space for and value women’s friendships in the workplace to benefit both individuals and institutions.

Having Workplace Friends Is Not Always Fun

Workplace friendships can be joyful for employees and conducive to positive organizational outcomes. However, recent research has suggested that there are also dark sides and complexities associated with workplace friendships, which are not well understood. This exploratory critical incident study of 201 employees therefore focuses on conflicts that can arise among friends when work and friendship norms clash. Incidents were coded in terms of conflicting resources and broken friendship rules. Results showed that conflicts most often revolved around the resources status and affection. That is, hierarchies and promotions collided with friendship. Moreover, two friendship rules were broken frequently, the intimacy and the third-party rule. That is, either trust was betrayed, or a friend did not act like a friend when a third person, for example, a supervisor, became involved. In demonstrating potential downsides of workplace friendships, this study aims to help employees in understanding and maintaining good workplace relationships.

Can Gossip Buffer the Effect of Job Insecurity on Workplace Friendships?

Although previous research has documented a host of negative consequences of job insecurity, workplace interpersonal relationships have rarely been considered. This omission might be caused by the application of broad stress theories to the job insecurity literature without taking a nuanced perspective to understand the nature of job insecurity. To address this issue, we conceptualized job insecurity as a threat to employee social acceptance by their employer. This conceptualization, therefore, allows us to apply the multimotive model of social rejection to investigate a previously-overlooked outcome of job insecurity—workplace friendships. Specifically, we investigated the relationship between both job feature insecurity and job loss insecurity with workplace friendships. Based on stress coping theory and the fundamental differences between job feature insecurity and job loss insecurity, we further proposed that employees’ tendency to engage in positive gossip buffers the negative impact of job feature insecurity on workplace friendships, whereas employees’ tendency to engage in negative gossip buffers the negative impact of job loss insecurity on workplace friendships. Data collected from 286 working adults from Mturk supported our hypotheses. Our study opens the door for future research to take a more nuanced approach when examining nontraditional consequences of job insecurity.