The role of leadership practices in the relationship between role stressors and exposure to bullying behaviours – a longitudinal moderated mediation design

Role conflicts and role ambiguity have been identified as important risk factors for exposure to workplace bullying, particularly when combined with inadequate leadership practices. Even though role ambiguity theoretically can be considered a causal precursor to role conflicts, previous research has mainly examined these role stressors as concurrent predictors of workplace bullying. The present study provides a more nuanced analysis by investigating role conflicts as a mediator in the relationship between role ambiguity and exposure to bullying behaviours. Adding to the understanding of the bullying process we also considered the possible moderating roles of laissez-faire and transformational leadership in the role stressor–bullying relationship. Employing a national probability sample of 1,164 Norwegian workers, with three measurements across a 12-month period, the results showed an indirect effect of employees’ role ambiguity on subsequent exposure to bullying behaviours through employees’ experience of role conflicts. Moreover, laissez-faire leadership exacerbated, while transformational leadership attenuated, the indirect relationship between role ambiguity and exposure to bullying behaviours through role conflicts. In summary, the present data shows that when the management of organisations neglects its inherent responsibility to adequately address employees’ experiences of role ambiguity and role conflicts, the risk of exposure to workplace bullying is likely to increase.publishedVersio

Are transformational and laissez-faire leadership related to state anxiety among subordinates? A two-wave prospective study of forward and reverse associations

The aim of this study was to determine the direction of associations between perceived leadership styles of an immediate leader and state anxiety among subordinates using time-lagged data from a large and heterogeneous probability sample of Norwegian employees. It was hypothesised that high levels of transformational leadership would be associated with a decrease, whereas high levels of laissez-faire leadership would be associated with an increase, in subsequent levels of anxiety. Reciprocal associations were also expected in that higher levels of anxiety were hypothesised to be related to subsequent increase in reports of laissez-faire, and decrease in reported exposure to transformational leadership. The sample comprised 1149 Norwegian employees. The design was a two-wave full panel study with a six-month time interval between the baseline and follow-up assessments. Contrary to hypotheses, neither transformational nor laissez-faire leadership were significantly related to subsequent levels of state anxiety. In support of hypotheses, baseline low levels of state anxiety were associated with reporting the immediate leader as less transformational and more laissez-faire six months later. In conclusion, the findings challenge theoretical models that explain leadership as a one-way superior–subordinate influence process

Exploring Manufacturing System Development and the Use of Platforms to Reduce Time-to-Market

International audienceIn the development and launch of new products to the market, manufacturing companies are continuously pressured to reduce time and cost to sustain competitiveness. In this regard, the effective and efficient development and ramp-up of manufacturing systems is a critical factor. However, while agile methods for increasing the speed of product design and development have received wide attention in both research and practice, manufacturing system development has in contrary been less explored and generally regarded as a less systematic or as an ad-hoc task. Therefore, this paper presents a multiple case-study from a large Danish manufacturing company with the aim of exploring challenges in three different manufacturing system development projects. The within-case and cross-case findings indicate that manufacturing system development indeed is a critical task, where many challenges regarding product to manufacturing system interface and internal interfaces in the manufacturing system architecture exists. Furthermore, findings indicate that lack of interface management leads to the redesign of new manufacturing systems, rather than reuse and reconfiguration. Thus, the case findings suggest a potential in increasing the use and reuse of existing manufacturing systems and explicitly designing platforms for reducing development cost and time