This research examined the validity of Performance Environment Perception Scales (PEPS), a new instrument designed to assess performance-relevant aspects of the work environment. A sample of 156 employees of an Australian university completed PEPS and their supervisors rated their task and citizenship performance. Confirmatory Factor Analysis showed PEPS to have a valid factor structure, and PEPS were found to be significantly correlated with citizenship performance, but not with task performance. Although this finding is consistent with theoretical predictions, PEPS are apparently the first measures of work environment perceptions that have confirmed this. Thus PEPS show promise as measures for use in future research and organizational development projects that focus on relationships between the work environment and performance. Limitations of the research and implications for the validity of PEPS, as well as for future research and practice, are discussed.

Writing from an autoethnographic perspective, in this paper I re-visit Erving Goffman's ideas to examine impression management tactics used by staff from a large Brazilian mining company. The analysis is based on a 6-week fieldwork trip to Brazil in 2008 for the purpose of gathering qualitative data for a study on corporate social responsibility in the extractivist sector. Post-fieldwork reflections prompted the insight that during the data gathering phase of my research, I was subject to a series of impression management ‘performances’ by my corporate informants, carried out to foster a positive image of their company. In the paper I juxtapose data obtained during fieldwork and my personal reflections with selected excerpts from Goffman's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.

The literature highlights two main approaches to designing an effective complaint management system: the mechanistic and the organic. The mechanistic approach emphasizes the establishment of guidelines for the correct processing, attention and resolution of complaints received. In contrast, the organic approach relies on creating a supportive internal environment for correct customer attention, made possible through training and empowering employees responsible for complaint management and by promoting extra-role behaviour among them. The present research aims to study the antecedents of adopting these two approaches. From a strategic perspective, we analyse the influence of organizational culture variables (the extent to which the firm is customer and innovation oriented) and the nature of the objectives pursued by complaint handling (defensive vs. improvement objectives). The proposed model is tested on a sample of 140 manufacturing firms. Findings indicate these antecedents shape the complaint management system in a diverse and significant manner.

In this case study we address the issue of CEO succession drawing directly on the experience of the board of directors of Air New Zealand. Despite extensive literature on CEO-board relations, there has been a scarce number of studies on managing the processes of CEO succession and appointment from the board perspective. Drawing on documentary sources as well as in-depth interviews with all board members and CEOs appointed in the period 2002–2013, we shed light on this important governance process primarily for teaching purposes. We emphasise the board’s role in the context of the transformation of the airline into an award-winning, financially performing company in a highly competitive and mature industry. The case study examines how the board developed, implemented, and managed a succession process for three CEOs that was sound in design and achieved its desired benefits. By focusing on board leadership and board processes our case study provides evidence that independent boards can shape a specific combination of governance practices which contribute to successful CEO transitions.

International alliances are important strategic vehicles to build geographic scope and enter foreign markets, especially for firms lacking the resources or facing limitations to direct foreign expansion. Addressing recent calls to study alliance structure, we investigate the design parameters of nonequity international alliances and their performance implications. Building on the resource-based view of the firm, we theorize the effect of three key structural dimensions – formalization, interface, and specialization – on firm effectiveness. Our empirical work focusses on the legal service industry where international interfirm alliances are common, and resources like expert workers and knowledge are essential. We study 121 French, German, Italian, and Spanish law firms; and our data include the structural features of the alliances to which they belong, as well as various measures of firm effectiveness. Our analyses via structural equation modelling point toward the importance of informality and strong interface for effectiveness in these contexts. This study contributes to a finer understanding of international alliances by directly addressing the structural variation among nonequity international alliances, and analyzes their implications for firms. We thus respond to calls to investigate structural dimensions of alliances, operationalizing relevant dimensions of alliance organizational structure. Second, we add to understanding of the performance effects of international alliances, showing the benefits of individual structural parameters for firm effectiveness. Finally, we extend research on the use of international alliances as a strategic vehicle to enter foreign markets, capturing essential aspects of the internal arrangements of these interorganizational collaborative relationships, and thus adding to understanding of this strategic entry mode.

This paper reflects on the latent organisational process that leads tothe scarcity of women in senior positions. Utilising characteristics of legitimisation, institutionalisation and self-determination theories the paper observes how women manage upward mobility. Subsequently, it was important to investigate the mid-level cohorts, as there lies the critical question triggering the anomaly. Focusing on the public sector with an interest in gendered organisations, the study examines law enforcement. Conversely, the aim of this paper is to focus on why there is a continued dearth in the number of policewomen at top level positions in USA and Australia. A qualitative study with a phenomenological approach is applied. Semi-structured interviews are conducted with 40 policewomen in mid-management positions in American and Australian law enforcement. It further aims to explore the linkages of the ongoing paucity of gendered leadership in organisations, questioning how these will influence women's ability to advance to higher-level positions.

Research on top management team (TMT) diversity suggests that diverse backgrounds improve technological exploration. However, this diversity may also cause demographic faultlines that break a team into subgroups and undermine team performance, and the status difference between CEO and top managers may change inter-subgroup dynamics. We predicted that TMT faultline had an inverted U-shape relationship with technological exploration. Further, we predicted that the effects of TMT faultline were more prominent when the CEO is in the minority subgroup than when the CEO was in the majority subgroup. Using a longitudinal sample from the US IT services industry, the results found that TMT faultline exhibited an inverted U-shape relationship with technological exploration only when the CEO was in the minority subgroup, and such relationship disappeared when the CEO was in the majority subgroup.

This paper builds on the creation of new ways of organizing work, where the freelance economy specifically targets the increasing number of skilled self-employed individuals collaborating for shared output. Through describing and discussing creativity within the freelance economy, this paper seeks to understand creativity in collaborations among these self-employed individuals. Drawing from a case study conducted in the advertising sector, the paper concludes that creativity within the freelance economy occurs between equal and inherently creative freelancers rather than being the product of individual traits, despite their respective skills. Creativity between individuals arises when processes are appropriately formalized, while the creative output is constrained by individual decisions and styles. The paper contributes to existing research by shedding light on the distinctive characteristics of the freelance economy and its paradoxical organizational nature. By doing so, it offers insights that contrast with prior studies on artistic creativity.

The environmental pollution caused by Advanced Semiconductor Engineering in October 2013 in Taiwan highlighted the fact that foreign investors tend to support the classical economic ideas of arbitrage and shareholder wealth maximization, which is in conflict with the fact that institutional investors in the current global capital market lean towards the stakeholder theory in ethical investments. Will local investors’ decision-making also be influenced by differences in the perceived ethics of negative environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR)? Compared to the remedial measures implemented by British Petroleum for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, another international corporation, decided to not respond to any news regarding the toxic wastewater incident. In contrast, Advanced Semiconductor Engineering only made clearer promises after extreme public pressure. This study investigated whether remedial measures for negative ECSR are an important factor influencing investors’ decisions. The purpose is to clarify the interactions among perceived moral intensity of negative ECSR, the implementation of remedial measures, and the intention of ethical investment. An experimental design was employed to test the hypotheses. The results indicated that perceived moral intensity has a significant negative impact on the intention of ethical investment. The implementation of remedial measures for negative ECSR affects investors’ intent to invest. Finally, positive ECSR remedial measures also serve as a key moderating variable in the relationship between perceived moral intensity and the intention of ethical investment. This study clarified whether the provision of remedial mechanisms can effectively recover or maintain investor investment intent when companies experience negative ECSR.

To better manage our work demands and family demands, we often erect mental or physical ‘boundaries’ to help manage our experiences. However, preferences for preserving these boundaries differ across individuals (e.g., some individuals may prefer to segment work/family roles, while others may prefer to integrate these roles) and employees may not always have similar preferences/values as their supervisors. Applying a resource framework from the job demands-resources model (JD-R; Bakker & Demerouti, 2007), we explicate the process through which supervisor–employee value congruence reduces work–family conflict, when supervisors provide valuable emotional and instrumental resources through family-supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB). Furthermore, we find evidence that supervisors can demonstrate adequate FSSB even when having incongruent values with employees by fairly allocating and individually tailoring family-support. With a diverse sample of 815 staff members from four southern US universities, we conduct mediation and moderation analyses to test our hypotheses.

Employer perspectives on work–life balance are under-developed and under-represented within the context of public debate on work and family. The current state of policy debate on work and family is grounded in the value of ‘choice’ and implicitly suggests that expanding the range of programs available will inevitably deliver a superior program for employees and employers. While diversity in program design is obviously an important priority for both parties, the current debate has not substantially increased knowledge or awareness of how best to assess program ‘fit’ nor evaluate program effectiveness for either party. This paper presents the experience of two organisations which have implemented successful work-life programs by focusing exclusively on workplace and workforce need, rather than policy rhetoric. Comparing the experience of these two organisations demonstrates that the needs of employers may be better served by a shift in the policy debate toward program ‘appropriateness’ and improved program evaluation techniques, and away from ‘choice’. Government rhetoric on ‘choice’ may actually serve to confuse rather than assist employers in the formation of an integrated and effective organisational wide work and family policy and program.

The case method of teaching and learning is prominent in management education. We know little about the processes involved in writing and learning through cases. One element that may help the beginning of a theoretical understanding of these processes comes from an experiment with students entering organisations and writing cases for use with other management students. Students not only gain more knowledge related to management and organisations than in using prepared cases, but they also gain substantial additional process skills that are far more generalisable and to do with life-long learning – than those developed using traditional case learning.

In recent years the Business Council of Australia (BCA) has drawn attention to the importance of the availability of a well-trained supply of employees for the Australian workplace. Specifically the BCA highlighted the benefits of a quality education imparting skills in the areas of collaboration, teamwork and leadership all of which greatly assist the effective practice of creativity, innovation and strategy. This paper makes a useful contribution to teaching practice in several ways. The paper links comments from the BCA to a significant and ongoing debate in the strategy literature on the best approaches to teaching the practice of strategy. The paper then demonstrates, with case studies from the RMIT University MBA and the Central Queensland University MBA programs, different approaches to how this can be done. This is followed by a critical discussion of the literature and case studies. Suggestions are made for future research and teaching practice.

This paper examines the learning process within collaborations from a political perspective and explores the implications of power for the process of learning. The central argument is that the processes of collaboration and collaborative learning are inherently influenced by dynamics of power that occur at the organisational, collaboration and collaboration-environment levels. These power dynamics develop as a consequence of the interactions among collaborating organisations and their power bases. The paper presents a theoretical basis for considering the nature and impact of power dynamics at the various levels on the collaborative learning process and outcomes and sets forth some propositions that provide an agenda for future research.

Arguing that it would serve scholars and practitioners better to view impression management (IM) from a coworker's perspective than from that of an actor's outcomes, this study demonstrates that IM by a coworker triggers a self-serving attributional process. The authors reason that denial of another's relative advantage leads the observing coworker to attribute this behavior to the actor's incompetence, consequently leading to counterproductive behavior toward them in efforts to reduce their own relative disadvantage. Data were collected at T1 and T2 from 142 service sector employees. Our results were consistent with our hypotheses. However, the moderated-mediation models for conditional effects of hostile attributional style were not supported. This study offers an integrated view of previously isolated domains of IM and attribution, suggesting future literature considers a similar perspective for more meaningful investigations.

Local isomorphism constitutes the regulatory, cognitive and normative profile of a host country. The regulatory institutional setting reflects the rules and legislation governing collective bargaining agreements, trade unions, local content laws and employment relationships. The cultural or cognitive dimension supports the widely held cultural and social knowledge and the normative profile acknowledges the influences of social groups and organizations on acceptable normative behaviour. Earlier literature lends support to the importance of institutional profile and its influence on the design and implementation of multinational enterprises’ human resource management policies and practices. This paper seeks to advance the concept of local isomorphism and highlight the implications of local isomorphism for future research on the transfer of multinational enterprises’ human resource management practices across and between subsidiaries.