Leeway for the loyal: a model of employee discretion

This article examines the factors underlying task discretion from an economist's perspective. It argues that the key axis for understanding discretion is the trade-off between the positive effects of discretion on potential output per employee and the negative effects of greater leeway on work effort. In empirical analysis using matched employer-employee data, it is shown that discretion is strongly affected by the level of employee commitment. In addition, discretion is generally greater in high-skilled jobs, although not without exceptions, and lower where employees are under-skilled. Homeworking and flexitime policies raise employee discretion. The impact of teamworking is mixed. In about half of cases team members do not jointly decide about work matters, and the net effect of teams on task discretion in these cases is negative. In other cases, where team members do decide matters jointly, the impact is found to be neutral according to employees' perceptions, or positive according to managers' perceptions. There are also significant and substantial unobserved establishment-level factors which affect task discretion

The influence of distributed leadership on teachers' organizational commitment: a multilevel approach

In the present study the effects of a cooperative leadership team, distributed leadership, participative decision-making, and context variables on teachers' organizational commitment are investigated. Multilevel analyses on data from 1522 teachers indicated that 9% of the variance in teachers' organizational commitment is attributable to differences between schools. The analyses revealed that especially the presence of a cooperative leadership team and the amount of leadership support played a significantly positive key role in predicting teachers' organizational commitment. Also, participative decision-making and distribution of the supportive leadership function had a significant positive impact on teachers' organizational commitment. In contrast, distribution of the supervisory leadership function and teachers' job experience had a significant negative impact

The relation between school leadership from a distributed perspective and teachers' organizational commitment: examining the source of the leadership function

Purpose: In this study the relationship between school leadership and teachers’ organizational commitment is examined by taking into account a distributed leadership perspective. The relation between teachers’ organizational commitment and contextual variables of teachers’ perceptions of the quality and the source of the supportive and supervisory leadership function, participative decision making, and cooperation within the leadership team are examined. Research Design: A survey was set up involving 1,522 teachers from 46 large secondary schools in Flanders (Belgium). Because the data in the present study have an inherent hierarchical structure, that is, teachers are nested into schools, hierarchical linear modeling techniques are applied. Findings: The analyses reveal that 9% of the variance in teachers’ organizational commitment is attributable to differences between schools. Teachers’ organizational commitment is mainly related to quality of the supportive leadership, cooperation within the leadership team, and participative decision making. Who performed the supportive leadership function plays only a marginally significant positive role. The quality of the supervisory leadership function and the role of the leadership team members in this function were not significantly related to teachers’ organizational commitment. Conclusions: The implications of the findings are that to promote teachers’ organizational commitment teachers should feel supported by their leadership team and that this leadership team should be characterized by group cohesion, role clarity, and goal orientedness. Recommendations for further research are provided

The relationship between the perception of distributed leadership in secondary schools and teachers' and teacher leaders' job satisfaction and organizational commitment

This study investigates the relation between distributed leadership, the cohesion of the leadership team, participative decision-making, context variables, and the organizational commitment and job satisfaction of teachers and teacher leaders. A questionnaire was administered to teachers and teacher leaders (n=1770) from 46 large secondary schools. Multiple regression analyses and path analyses revealed that the study variables explained significant variance in organizational commitment. The degree of explained variance for job satisfaction was considerably lower compared to organizational commitment. Most striking was that the cohesion of the leadership team and the amount of leadership support was strongly related to organizational commitment, and indirectly to job satisfaction. Decentralization of leadership functions was weakly related to organizational commitment and job satisfaction

Doing more with less: productivity or starvation? The intellectual asset health check

The recent wave of savings in public service expenditure comes at the risk of creating starved workplaces, depleted of intellectual assets. This paper examines the perils of starved workplaces and how to avoid them. Organizations that nurture their intellectual assets were found to outperform their peers with 13.3% higher productivity. These organizations created a ‘win–win situation’, achieving both productivity targets while sustaining high stocks of emotional and human capital

The MBA as Careerist: An Analysis of Early-Career Job Change

This study examined the job changes of 680 early-career business school graduates. Although a number of anecdotal articles characterize MBAs as overly “careerist” and oriented toward job-hopping, little empirical research has focused on this issue. The research included a direct comparison of job-hopping behavior of MBAs with bachelor S degree graduates, taking into account a number of control variables, including demographic and economic variables. Results indicated that MBAs changed jobs less frequently than bachelor 5 degree graduates, even when a variety of other factors were controlled.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Eyes wide open: perceived exploitation and its consequences

Drawing on the array of literature on exploitation from several social science disciplines, we propose a new way of seeing employer-employee relationships by introducing the concept of perceived exploitative employee-organization relationships, distinguish it from related concepts, and conduct five studies to develop a scale and test our theoretical model of the effects of such employee perceptions. Contributing to the Employee-Organization Relationships and workplace emotions literatures, perceived exploitation is defined as employees’ perceptions that they have been purposefully taken advantage of in their relationship with the organization, to the benefit of the organization itself. We propose and find that such perceptions are associated with both outward-focused emotions of anger and hostility toward the organization and inward-focused ones of shame and guilt at remaining in an exploitative job. In two studies including construction workers and a time-lagged study of medical residents, we find that the emotions of anger and hostility partially mediate the effects of perceived exploitation on employee engagement, revenge against the organization, organizational commitment, and turnover intentions, whereas the emotions of shame and guilt partially mediate the effects of perceived exploitation on employee burnout, silence, and psychological withdrawal

The link between job satisfaction and organizational commitment:differences between public and private sector employees

Employees in the public and private sectors experience different working conditions and employment relationships. Therefore, it can be assumed that their attitudes toward their job and organizations, and relationships between them, are different. The existing literature has identified the relationship between organizational commitment and job satisfaction as interesting in this context. The present field study examines the satisfaction–commitment link with respect to differences between private and public sector employees. A sample of 617 Greek employees (257 from the private sector and 360 from the public sector) completed standardized questionnaires. Results confirmed the hypothesized relationship differences: Extrinsic satisfaction and intrinsic satisfaction are more strongly related to affective commitment and normative commitment for public sector employees than for private sector ones. The results are discussed, limitations are considered, and directions for future research are proposed

Lean Manufacturing in Public Services: Prospects for Value Creation

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the utilization of lean manufacturing systems in public service operations for poten- tial added value. A case study of lean manufacturing implementation at a UK city council was carried out using in-depth interviews with key personnel coupled with documents collection. The Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ) was administered among front-line employees. Results show that lean manufacturing systems could create signi cant added value to the business and employees. A strong relation- ship was demonstrated between the lean manufacturing implementation and the a ective commitment level of employees. This paper is one of a few studies that demonstrate the applicability of manufacturing systems in other settings and that they can generate significant added value for the service department and its employees