EXPLORING MILLENNIAL GENERATION EMPLOYEES’ AND MANAGEMENTS’ PERSPECTIVES OF THE POTENTIAL OVERUSE OF SMARTPHONES IN THE WORKPLACE BY THE MILLENNIAL GENERATION

The Millennial Generation is entering the workforce at a rapid rate. This generation has grown up with technology and many Millennials have smartphones. As a result of the Millennial Generations knowledge and desire to use a smartphone, many organizations have begun exploring ways to embrace or combat smartphone behavior; however, many organizations are still struggling to recognize and understand the implications to both the employee and the company. This research study explored the potential overuse of smartphones in the workplace by the Millennial Generation. The study described the specific use of smartphones by this Generation to better understand whether they were used for non-work-related or work-related reasons. The study also explored managers’ perspectives on smartphone use by the Millennial Generation employees in their organizations. A basic qualitative research methodology was used to answer two research questions. Purposeful sampling was used to identify the Millennial and manager participants for this study. This included a total of 11 Millennials and eight managers of Millennials. The Millennials were also asked to keep a smartphone log of their usage viii during a full workweek. Using NVivo, the researcher analyzed the data and identified themes for the Millennials and managers of Millennials. The study yielded five major themes for each set of participants and these themes were then grouped together to identify similarities and differences. The study found that the Millennials did not believe they overused their smartphones during the workday while the manager participants believed overuse was prevalent

DIGITAL WORK VERSUS PRIVACY? A CONCEPTUAL MODEL ON EMPLOYEE PRIVACY CHALLENGES

Digital work is closely tied to the generation of employee data. In turn, increasing workplace digitalization leads to rising privacy challenges and corresponding employee privacy concerns. Understanding the role of privacy in digital workplaces is essential to enable digital work. On the one hand, the effects of employee privacy concerns are widely studied in research. On the other hand, little is known about what specific privacy challenges lead to employee privacy concerns in the first place. We interviewed 66 employees on their perceptions of privacy in digital workplaces. On this basis, this study proposes a conceptual model of privacy challenges that depicts mechanisms of digital work that influence employees’ privacy perceptions. Our findings underline the need to understand the emergence of employee privacy challenges to facilitate the changing nature of work

Walking Through Jelly: Language Proficiency, Emotions, and Disrupted Collaboration in Global Work

In an ethnographic study comprised of interviews and concurrent observations of 145 globally distributed members of nine project teams of an organization, we found that uneven proficiency in English, the lingua franca, disrupted collaboration for both native and non-native speakers. Although all team members spoke English, different levels of fluency contributed to tensions on these teams. As non-native English speakers attempted to counter the apprehension they felt when having to speak English and native English speakers fought against feeling excluded and devalued, a cycle of negative emotion ensued and disrupted interpersonal relationships on these teams. We describe in detail how emotions and actions evolved recursively as coworkers sought to relieve themselves of negative emotions prompted by the lingua franca mandate and inadvertently behaved in ways that triggered negative responses in distant coworkers. Our results add to the scant literature on the role of emotions in collaborative relationships in organizations and suggest that organizational policies can set in motion a cycle of negative emotions that interfere with collaborative work.

AUTHENTICITY, SUPPORT, AND IDENTITY MANAGEMENT IN THE WORKPLACE FOR TRANSGENDER EMPLOYEES

Prior research has established the importance of understanding topics such as identity management and authenticity in the workplace for the lesbian, gay, and bisexual communities. However, minimal research has been conducted on the unique experiences of transgender employees. Studying identity management for transgender employees can help researchers understand concealment and disclosure behaviors, which can impact employee work experiences. Efforts can be made to promote authenticity through a supportive environment inside the workplace and by encouraging inclusivity at work. Through interviews with 10 participants, this study identified precursors to authenticity for transgender employees, explored the support factors that influence the work experiences of transgender employees, and explored identity management among transgender employees in the workplace to inform organizations on how to move forward as a more inclusive workplace. The findings of this study suggest that support is tied to the positive and negative experiences of the participants regarding authenticity and identity management. Support was a central part of the participants\u27 positive experiences, and the negative experiences resulted from a lack of support in the workplace. This study also outlines some notable support factors that contributed to the participants\u27 experiences, such as support groups and inclusive policies and procedures. These findings suggest that organizational support is more than having supportive coworkers but entails much more, which is essential for creating an inclusive environment for transgender employees

The development of technological management model: A conceptualization of computer technology in the workplace

The purpose of this dissertation was to develop a model that would serve to assist scholars, business professionals, and employees manage the influence of computer technology in the workplace. This study also focused on mandated use environments given the paucity of research in this area. In doing so, Technology Management Model (TMM) was developed. Actor Network Theory (ANT; Callon, 1986; Latour, 1987; Law, 1987) and Social Cognitive Theory (SCT; Bandura, 1986) provided support for the multifactor design of TMM. As a result, TMM was comprised of three latent variables of technological, personal, and organizational factors though to influence the attitudes employees hold toward computer technology in the workplace. Further, these attitudes held by employees were then hypothesized to be positively related to their work related attitudes of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The results generally supported all of the correlational hypotheses and also indicated that the data fit the TMM. Implications for these findings are discussed with an emphasis on the value derived from the initial development of TMM including its simplicity, practicality, and its appeal to scholars, business professionals, and employees. Specifically, TMM appears to explain the influence technology has on the organization and its members in mandated use work environments

A Multicase Study Exploring the Motivation of Support Staff in the Office of the Registrar

Although a large body of research exists within higher education that focuses on factors related to faculty motivation and student motivation, there is limited research concentrated on the motivation of college and university administrative staff. This study examined how job duties, work processes, elements of the work environment, and leadership styles are related to employee motivation, specifically the motivation of front-line support staff who work in the Office of the Registrar. Additionally, I aimed to identify any disconnect between what support staff need and want from supervisors in the Office of the Registrar pertaining to motivation and supervisors’ behavior to encourage high levels of motivation. The theoretical framework utilized Hertzberg’s Hygiene-Motivation Theory and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. This study involved Office of the Registrar personnel at two regional, public, four-year, non-system affiliated institutions in the Four State Area (Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma) with a student population of no more than 10,000. The two institutions were randomly selected. The registrars from each institution participated in semi-structured, one-on-one interviews and document analysis. Additionally, four support staff members participated in semi-structured, one-on-one interviews and document analysis regarding the registrars’ leadership. Participants were asked to discuss their perceptions of current motivation levels of support staff in the office and how work responsibilities and the work environment affect motivation. Furthermore, participants were asked to discuss strategies used by registrars to motivate the staff and whether those motivators were successful. By coincidence, this study took place during the COVID-19 pandemic which strongly influenced the study results

Can I Have Your Attention? Implications of the Research on Distractions and Multitasking for Reference Librarians

The media have identified the last decade as “the age of distraction.” People today find it harder to work on long, sustained tasks because distractions are eroding their attention span, fostering a culture of discontinuity. Fields as diverse as psychology, business, education, human-computer interaction, and communication studies have produced a wealth of studies on interruptions, distractions, and multitasking–research that has important implications for reference librarians. The nature of our jobs invites interruptions by the public, requires familiarity with the latest technology, stimulates curiosity about a broad range of subjects, and demands adeptness at multitasking–all factors which can atomize attention

Seriously Though... Is Positive Workplace Humor A Help Or A Hindrance?: The Impact Of Coworker-employee Humor Interactions On Employee Well-being And Effectiveness

The prevalence and importance of humor in the workplace has been well-documented over the past several decades, with research consistently revealing its significant impact on employee well-being and effectiveness. During this same time period, organizations worldwide have begun embracing team-based work designs as a means for achieving success. As a result, the degree to which employees are engaging in both frequent and intensive interactions with their coworkers is rapidly increasing. Despite these trends, little research has been dedicated to investigating the ways in which employees’ well-being and effectiveness are influenced by the humor of their coworkers or the ways in which employees’ own humor interacts with that of their coworkers to determine these outcomes. The current study answered the need for such research by investigating the impact of coworker-employee humor interactions on employee strain and performance using a sample of undergraduate-level students engaged in a high-fidelity work simulation. In the current study, coworker humor was experimentally manipulated by pairing each participant with a study confederate who was trained to act as either a nonhumorous coworker or a humorous coworker throughout the duration of the work simulation. Results of a pilot study provided empirical evidence supporting the validity of this manipulation; showing that participants’ paired with a humorous confederate coworker rated their coworker significantly higher on positive humor, but no different on negative humor, than participants’ paired with a non-humorous confederate coworker. Based on theory and prior findings drawn from multiple streams of science, it was expected that positive coworker humor would have a significant impact on employees’ strain and performance, but that the nature of its influence on these outcomes would be contingent upon iv employees’ own dispositional humor. Specifically, it was hypothesized that employees paired with humorous coworkers would experience a lesser degree of perceived, affective, cognitive, and physical strain than employees paired with non-humorous coworkers if their own sense of humor was high but a greater degree of perceived, affective, cognitive, and physical strain than employees paired with non-humorous coworkers if their own sense of humor was low. In addition, it was expected that employees paired with humorous coworkers would demonstrate a higher level of interpersonal and task performance than employees paired with non-humorous coworkers if their own sense of humor was high but a lower level of interpersonal and task performance than employees paired with non-humorous coworkers if their own sense of humor was low. Finally, it was hypothesized that employees’ strain would partially mediate the effects of coworker-employee humor interactions on employee performance. In support of these hypotheses, analyses revealed that several indicators of employees’ perceived, affective, cognitive, and physical strain were in fact each significantly influenced by interactions between employees’ own humor and that of their coworkers. Specifically, high sense of humor employees who worked with a humorous coworker experienced a lesser degree of perceived, affective, cognitive, and physical strain than did those who worked with a nonhumorous coworker. This was evidenced by their lower self-reported perceived strain (an indicator of perceived strain), higher state-level positive affect and lower state-level negative affect (indicators of affective strain), higher anagram task performance and lower perceived task difficulty (indicators of cognitive strain), as well as their lower systolic blood pressure and lower state-level somatic anxiety (indicators of physical strain). In contrast, low sense of humor employees who worked with a humorous coworker experienced a greater degree of perceived, affective, cognitive, and physical strain than did those who worked with a non-humorous v coworker. This was evidenced by their higher self-reported perceived strain, lower state-level positive affect and higher state-level negative affect, lower anagram task performance and higher perceived task difficulty, as well as their higher systolic blood pressure and higher state-level somatic anxiety. Consistent with expectations, results revealed that the degree to which employees experienced job strain typically varied based on the degree to which there was a match between employee sense of humor and coworker positive humor levels. Similar levels of coworker and employee humor generally resulted in relatively low levels of employee strain whereas dissimilar levels of coworker and employee humor most often resulted in relatively high levels of employee strain. Contrary to expectations, however, coworkers’ positive humor and employees’ sense of humor did not interact to predict employees’ interpersonal or task performance. Instead, positive coworker humor had a significant positive main effect on both forms of employee performance. Although these findings are consistent with the study hypotheses in that positive coworker humor was expected to enhance high sense of humor employees’ performance, they run counter to the expectation that positive coworker humor would hinder low sense of humor employees’ performance. Because the interaction between coworker humor and employee humor was not a significant predictor of either type of employee performance, analyses were not conducted to test for mediated moderation. Findings from the current study offer a number of contributions to organizational science and, in addition, hold several implications for practice. Specifically, these results have relevance for and greatly expand the workplace humor, individual differences, PE fit, occupational health, and workgroup/team composition literatures. In addition, results contribute to the literature by elucidating the need for future research dedicated to exploring the direct and interactive effects of coworker characteristics, including humor, on employee well-being and effectiveness. Finally, vi results of this study serve to inform researchers and practitioners in matters related to several critical human resource functions, including matters in personnel selection, placement, and training, as well as in workgroup/team composition

COMMUNICATING INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE MINDFULNESS: UNDERSTANDING LISTENING AND SENSECHECKING AT WORK

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations made workplace changes, which added an additional challenge to employees’ communication. However, mindfulness may help members strengthen their workplace interactions. Mindfulness is an intentional open awareness to the present moment (Shapiro, 2009). The theoretical framework of collective mindfulness includes organizational mindfulness, which is mindfulness from a top-down approach and mindful organizing, which is a bottom-up approach to mindfulness at work. This dissertation extends research on collective mindfulness by including listening, individual mindfulness aspects, and sensemaking to examine how collective mindfulness members make meaning of changes due to COVID-19. I observed 26 meetings and interviewed 23 employees in an automotive organization in the East Coast of the United States (U.S.) that conducts annual leadership and communicating mindfully training. Findings indicate that (a) employees communicated collective mindfulness as they managed conflict through open discussions to solve problems, (b) employees communicated individual mindfulness practices of listening to form collective mindfulness by conducting their annual leadership training and creating open learning environments, (c) employees made sense together through a new term called sensechecking, and (d) employees made sense of changes due to COVID-19 by appreciating their company’s support and by being resilient. Sensechecking is an extension of sensemaking, in which employees check with their teams to understand how their message is perceived and ask their teams to make meaning collectively. The results of this dissertation also expand on the theoretical components of collective mindfulness by adding the following: focusing on the bright side of situations, building trust among employees, and making operations more efficient. Organizations may adopt trainings that teach employees how to mindfully communicate to create collective mindfulness. Additionally, employees may learn how to engage in the sensechecking process to strengthen team communication at work

Social Technologies and Informal Knowledge Sharing within and across Organizations

This doctoral dissertation is focused on both empirical and conceptual contributions relative to the roles social technologies play in informal knowledge sharing practices, both within and across organizations. Social technologies include (a) traditional social technologies (e.g., email, phone and instant messengers), (b) emerging social networking technologies commonly known as social media, such as blogs, wikis, major public social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn), and (c) enterprise social networking technologies controlled by a host organization ( e.g., SocialText). The rapid uptake of social technologies, combined with growing interest in their broader social implications, raises pertinent questions about uses for knowledge sharing in organizations. The work reported in this thesis is motivated by two broad phenomena: (1) the importance of informal knowledge-sharing in organizations and (2) the rapid rise in the variety and prevalence of social technologies. The empirical basis of this research is a field study focused on the uses of social technologies by knowledge workers, specifically those in consulting firms. Building from the theoretical lenses of sociomateriality, structuration, and technological frames, the findings from this work advances our understanding of: (1) the ways social technologies are used in combination as a suite of tools, (2) the ways in which organizational norms, policies, and arrangements shape the uses of social technologies for knowledge practices, and (3) the variations in uses of social technologies by different groups of knowledge workers. The theoretical contribution of this work is to conceptualize the suite of social technologies used to support and enable knowledge workers is a more useful approach than the single-technological-tool-in-isolation approach, which is the norm in studies of computing. A second contribution of this work is to situate social technologies-in-use through incorporating complementary theoretical concepts: technology-mediated knowledge practices, social structures of organizations, and workers\u27 distinct interpretations of social technologies (technological frames). Practical implications arising from this study both inform the ways social technologies can be collectively integrated in work practices and inform the design and implementation of social technologies for accommodating different needs and preferences of knowledge workers. This research also generates insight into how organizations can craft policies that realistically regulate the use of social technologies, while empowering individual workers to optimize their knowledge sharing capacity by supporting informal engagement via social technologies