Greece: statistical profile

Country statistical profile

Greece: mind the gap: employee perspective.

In this paper, we present information about employees perspective to their quality of employment in Greece. The information presented has been mainly selected from the 2005 European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) data set and the 2007 Fourth European Working Conditions Survey publication

Introduction - Managing people in small and medium enterprises in turbulent contexts

Managing People in Small and Medium Enterprises in Turbulent Contexts explores a range of human resource management (HRM) issues specific to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Based on a series of research studies and secondary sources of data, the book’s primary aim is to contextualise HRM issues in SMEs operating in a variety of national economic contexts that are (or have recently experienced) a turbulent situation. SMEs are the backbone of these economies. It is therefore critical that we study HR practices and concepts within such enterprises. The book covers HR practices in SMEs, such as recruitment and selection, training and development, performance evaluation and employee relations, by focusing on three types of turbulent economies: emerging market economies in Asia, the Pacific, Africa and Latin America; transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe; and crisis contexts in Southern Europe

Global trends and challenges to the HR profession.

The outsourcing of HR activities is a management strategy that may be adopted in response to a number of pressures that an organization is faced with. It is one aspect of business process outsourcing that is increasingly deployed by firms in order to enhance their organizational competitiveness. HR outsourcing can be defined as ‘placing responsibility for various elements of the HR function with a third-party provider’ (Turnbull, 2002, p.11). In spite of the perceived benefits of HR outsourcing and its growth predicted by consultancy firms and HR outsourcing market leaders, the growth of outsourcing remains cautious and the benefits of doing so prove limited. This paper provides an overview of reasons why firms outsource their HR activities, its growth trends, organizational change that may be triggered by the outsourcing decision, and the challenges that are presented to the HR function and professionals as a result. The paper argues that a number of conceptual ambiguities and operational pitfalls may dampen the effectiveness of HR outsourcing for user organizations

Creating positive employee change evaluation: the role of different levels of organizational support and change participation

Organizations are faced with fast-paced change and the need to ensure ongoing change intervention success. There is, however, evidence that employees who have experienced poor change management in the past are more likely to resist new changes. This is because poor change management is likely to create more adverse attitudes towards new changes, such attitudes in turn are likely to increase employees’ resistance to change, a key factor for change failure, which can further contribute to an employee’s perception of poor change management. We, in response to this, identify key elements which create positive change evaluations and adopt a socio-cognitive approach, the schematic approach, in discussing these. Bootstrapped mediation analysis of survey data collected from 228 employees suggests that different types of organizational support and change participation are key in creating a positive change evaluation. Specifically, the analysis shows that the relationships between perceived organizational support and supervisor support and change evaluation are mediated respectively fully and partially by change participation. Co-worker support, further, is directly related to employee’s change evaluations. These very elements of the change process, we argue, are directly modifiable by change agents and are, therefore, of real practical value when seeking to increase future change intervention success

Do not say a word! Conceptualizing employee silence in a long-term crisis context

Although research has emphasized the organizational and individual factors that influence employee voice and silence at work, it is less known how employee voice/silence is affected by the economic context, particularly when this context is one of intensive and long-term economic crisis in a country with weak institutional bases. In this study we explore how employee silence is formulated in long-term turbulent economic environments and in more vulnerable organizational settings like those of small enterprises. The study draws on qualitative data gathered from 63 interviews with employees in a total of 48 small enterprises in Greece in two periods of time (2009 and 2015). This study suggests a new type of employee silence, social empathy silence, and offers a conceptual framework for understanding the development of silence over time in particular contexts of long-term turbulence and crisis

Voice In Non-Traditional Employment Relationships: A Review And Future Research Directions

Research on employee voice has been widely documented for workers in traditional employment relationships (TERs) and has offered a broad understanding of how they express their ideas and complaints at work. However, an under-explored area concerns how workers express voice in non-traditional employment relationships (NTERs) characterised by flexibility, temporality, instability, and insecurity. Studying voice in NTERs is of high importance due to its increased potential proliferation and associated precariousness. In this paper, we expand the knowledge frontiers in the voice literature by conducting an integrative review of empirical studies that explore voice among workers in NTERs. We identify the forms of voice available to non-traditional workers, the issues they are interested in voicing, how effective their voice is in influencing management decisions, determinants, and outcomes of their voice. Future research agenda offered concerning how the neglected area of voice among non-traditional workers can be addressed

The determinants of project worker voice in project‐based organisations: An initial conceptualisation and research agenda

The growing projectification trend has brought to the forefront the importance of project-based organising as a work mode and of project-based organisations (PBOs) as key employers. However, research in certain human resource management (HRM) areas (including voice) has been limited in PBOs because of the decentralised and changing nature of HRM functions in these types of organisations. In dynamic project organisations, voice is highly important in recruitment, innovation and improvement; it therefore has to be conceptualised systematically. To this end, we focus on project workers as the key employee group and conceptualise the determining system factors that shape their voice in PBOs. The conceptual framework is based on a systematic review of peer-reviewed articles and contributes to employee voice theory as a vehicle for the study of voice in temporary employment relationships

The impact of global economic crisis and austerity on quality of working life and work-life balance: a capabilities perspective

This paper draws on the capabilities approach as a framework for examining the impact of the global economic crisis and austerity on quality of working life and work-life balance. Our paper focuses on Greece, an extreme case of a country in economic crisis, characterised by a weak institutional basis. We build on the work of Barbara Hobson and colleagues who first applied the capabilities approach to explore work-life balance capabilities. Our study contributes to the development of theory by emphasising the sense of entitlement concept within the capabilities approach and by proposing a modified conceptual framework that encapsulates the link between capabilities, agency, and the sense of entitlement, where the latter acts as a cognitive ‘filter’ that enhances or weakens an individual’s perception of her/his agency to enact on her/his capabilities. Drawing on the accounts of twenty Greek professional and managerial workers, we illustrate how the crisis and austerity measures have eroded working conditions and thus the sense of entitlement, leading to the weakening of our participants’ agency and capabilities to achieve quality of working life and work-life balance

A three-fold framework for understanding HRM practices in South-Eastern European SMEs

Purpose We study particular structural and organisational factors affecting the formality of human resource management (HRM) practices in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in South-Eastern European (SEE) post-communist countries, in particular Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) in order to understand the antecedents of formalization in such settings. Design/methodology/approach Adopting a quantitative approach, this study analyses data gathered through a survey of 168 managers of SMEs from throughout the region. Findings The results show that HRM in SMEs in the SEE region can be understood through a three-fold framework which includes: degree of internationalisation of SMEs, sector of SMEs and organisational size of SMEs. These three factors positively affect the level of HRM formalisation in SEE SMEs. These findings are further attributed to the particular political and economic context of the post-communist SEE region. Research limitations/implications Although specific criteria were set for SME selection, we do not suggest that the study reflects a representative picture of the SEE region because we used a purposive sampling methodology. Practical implications This article provides useful insights into the factors which influence HRM in SMEs in a particular context. The findings can help business owners and managers understand how HRM can be applied in smaller organisations, particularly in post-communist SEE business contexts. Originality/value HRM in SMEs in this region has hardly been studied at all despite their importance. Therefore, this exploratory research seeks to expand knowledge relating to the application of HRM in SMEs in SEE countries which have their business environments dominated by different dynamics in comparison to western European ones