Employee, Manage Thyself: The Potentially Negative Implications Of Expecting Employees To Behave Proactively

Previous research investigating proactive behaviour at work has generally focused on the ways in which proactive behaviour enables individuals and organizations to be more effective. Although it has been noted that some proactive behaviours may be undesirable or have potentially negative consequences, researchers have not examined the ‘dark side’ of proactive behaviour in any systematic way. In this conceptual paper, we explore the potentially negative individual and organizational implications of expecting employees to behave proactively. Specifically, at the individual level, we argue that expecting proactive behaviour in organizations may contribute to stress among employees and friction between proactive and less proactive employees. At the organizational level, we suggest that relying on proactive behaviour may cause harm to an organization by undermining its ability to socialize employees and foster its organizational culture, weakening its learning capability, and reducing its ability to develop future leaders. We conclude by discussing additional avenues for studies examining the potential costs of proactive behaviour for both individuals and organizations alike

We are in this together: Group psychological contracts, breach, and outcomes

For nearly two decades, researchers have often turned to the psychological contract as a framework for examining employer-employee relations. During this time, they have largely focused on examining the perceived obligations of employers to employees and the consequences of psychological contract breach (i.e., instances in which employees feel like the employer has failed to live up to its obligations). In this dissertation, I intend to integrate coworkers into the framework of reciprocal obligations and to introduce a new construct--namely, the "group psychological contract." To do this, I develop a model outlining the antecedents of the group-level psychological contract. The model also considers both the group- and individual-level outcomes of group psychological contract breach.Specifically, this model identifies two key antecedents of group psychological contracts: human resource practices (e.g., recruitment, performance appraisal, socialization, and information given to the employee) and group composition (e.g., size, tenure in the group, demographic differences, personality trait diversity, and individualism/collectivism level of the group). Then, drawing upon relative deprivation theory, the model addresses the feelings of fraternal deprivation which result from breach of the group psychological contract. Next, the consequences of fraternal deprivation (e.g., cohesiveness, group conflict, and citizenship behaviors) are discussed.In addition to these group-level outcomes, the model also describes the influence of group psychological contract breach on individual psychological contract breach. First, this research investigates how group psychological contract breach contributes to feelings of breach at the individual level. Then, the role of individual perceptions of group contract breach as a moderator of the relationship between group and individual psychological contract breaches is considered; specifically, the proposed model predicts that greater individual perceptions of group contract breach will increase the likelihood that group members who experience breaches in the group psychological contract will also experience individual psychological contract breaches. Further, when employees experience individual contract breach, the model proposes that employees will experience egoistic deprivation, which will result in certain individual-level consequences (e.g., citizenship behaviors, job stress, voice behavior, and dysfunctional group behaviors). Finally, I discuss the implications of this study and directions for future research

Employee, Manage Thyself: The Potentially Negative Implications Of Expecting Employees To Behave Proactively

Previous research investigating proactive behaviour at work has generally focused on the ways in which proactive behaviour enables individuals and organizations to be more effective. Although it has been noted that some proactive behaviours may be undesirable or have potentially negative consequences, researchers have not examined the ‘dark side’ of proactive behaviour in any systematic way. In this conceptual paper, we explore the potentially negative individual and organizational implications of expecting employees to behave proactively. Specifically, at the individual level, we argue that expecting proactive behaviour in organizations may contribute to stress among employees and friction between proactive and less proactive employees. At the organizational level, we suggest that relying on proactive behaviour may cause harm to an organization by undermining its ability to socialize employees and foster its organizational culture, weakening its learning capability, and reducing its ability to develop future leaders. We conclude by discussing additional avenues for studies examining the potential costs of proactive behaviour for both individuals and organizations alike

A universal basic income in the superstar (digital) economy

This paper argues that the structural logic of the digital economy is to widen inequality, not only through its increasing automation of jobs but also in its efficiency in delivering ever greater profits to a smaller number of already-enriched organisations and individuals. Remedial actions that might be taken to mitigate the effects of some of the digital economy’s structural flaws are interrogated here, with a particular focus on universal basic income (UBI) and stake-holding schemes. The paper considers whether the digital economy’s inherent problems are of such magnitude that some sort of financial support for workers to buttress long periods of idleness, or to enable them to take risks in increasingly volatile and unstable global markets, is both desirable and politically feasible

Research Vitality As Sustained Excellence: What Keeps the Plates Spinning?

Purpose - Research vitality addresses the perseverance that faculty members in the organization sciences experience in maintaining their research quantity and quality over an extended period of time. The purpose of this paper is to offer a theoretical model of research vitality. Design/methodology/approach - The authors propose a model consisting of individual and situational factors which influence the motivation and commitment of a professor to continue to conduct quality research over an extended period of time. Additionally, the authors identify benefits that may accrue when faculty members possess research vitality and discuss human resource management implications for schools engaged in hiring, tenuring, promoting, and socializing faculty members. A set of propositions about research vitality and contextual factors that influence this construct are presented and discussed. Findings - An individual-level construct that represents a time related measure of the quality and quantity of individual contributions to the scholarly discipline of management is developed. Every individual in the organizational sciences field has the capability to contribute in a meaningful way. Research limitations/implications - The model presented has a number of personal implications and departmental implications such as how to predict research vitality in junior faculty members. Practical implications The framework should be used for understanding one element of success in the organizational sciences. Originality/value - The paper develops a model of research vitality to explain why some faculty continue to be productive, even in the face of a challenging research process

Bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccine-mediated neuroprotection is associated with regulatory T-cell induction in the 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine mouse model of Parkinson's disease

We previously showed that, in the 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) mouse model of Parkinson's disease (PD), vaccination with bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) prior to MPTP exposure limited the loss of striatal dopamine (DA) and dopamine transporter (DAT) and prevented the activation of nigral microglia. Here, we conducted BCG dose studies and investigated the mechanisms underlying BCG vaccination's neuroprotective effects in this model. We found that a dose of 1 × 10(6) cfu BCG led to higher levels of striatal DA and DAT ligand binding (28% and 42%, respectively) in BCG-vaccinated vs. unvaccinated MPTP-treated mice, but without a significant increase in substantia nigra tyrosine hydroxylase-staining neurons. Previous studies showed that BCG can induce regulatory T cells (Tregs) and that Tregs are neuroprotective in models of neurodegenerative diseases. However, MPTP is lymphotoxic, so it was unclear whether Tregs were maintained after MPTP treatment and whether a relationship existed between Tregs and the preservation of striatal DA system integrity. We found that, 21 days post-MPTP treatment, Treg levels in mice that had received BCG prior to MPTP were threefold greater than those in MPTP-only-treated mice and elevated above those in saline-only-treated mice, suggesting that the persistent BCG infection continually promoted Treg responses. Notably, the magnitude of the Treg response correlated positively with both striatal DA levels and DAT ligand binding. Therefore, BCG vaccine-mediated neuroprotection is associated with Treg levels in this mouse model. Our results suggest that BCG-induced Tregs could provide a new adjunctive therapeutic approach to ameliorating pathology associated with PD and other neurodegenerative diseases