Discrimination in Private and Public Organizations

Megan K. Leasher, manager of talent assessments with Macy’s Inc., in Cincinnati, Ohio and Corey E. Miller, associate professor at Wright State University, published “Discrimination Across the Sectors: A Comparison of Discrimination Trends in Private and Public Organizations” in the Public Personnel Management Summer 2012 issue. The paper warns of the dangers of discrimination in any organization, and ends by offering implications for training and awareness:

Individuals who feel as though they have been discriminated against in the workplace are less satisfied with their jobs, less likely to continue working for their current employer, and less likely to recommend their organization to others, as compared to individuals who do not believe they have been victims of employment discrimination.7 In addition, individuals who have been discriminated against are more likely to believe that their supervisors do not take a personal interest in them,8 feel burned out on the job, take less initiative, and care less about performing their tasks well.

Discrimination is also a large concern in workplaces because of the deteriorating effects it has on organizations. Not only are discrimination lawsuits costly, but accusations of discrimination damage employee morale and taints the reputation of the organization by making it unattractive to employees, customers, and partners.10 Alternatively, organizations that actively adopt diversity programs that aim to prevent workplace discrimination are more likely to have satisfied, loyal employees that speak positively about the organization with others.

Read “Discrimination Across the Sectors: A Comparison of Discrimination Trends in Private and Public Organizations” in Public Personnel Management, and click here to sign up for e-alerts so you don’t miss out on new research from PPM.

Top Five: Communication Skills

aussiegall (cc)

The latest most-read articles from Business Communication Quarterly cover topics including crisis communication, workplace interpersonal skills, employee engagement and well-being, and more. The articles are free to access through the end of May using the links below. Please share and enjoy!

Sam H. DeKay
Interpersonal Communication in the Workplace: A Largely Unexplored Region
December 2012

Melinda Knight
Communicating in a Crisis
March 2013

Judith Ainsworth
Business Languages for Intercultural and International Business Communication: A Canadian Case Study
March 2013

Geraldine E. Hynes
Improving Employees’ Interpersonal Communication Competencies: A Qualitative Study
December 2012

Karl L. Smart and Richard Featheringham
Developing Effective Interpersonal Communication and Discussion Skills
September 2006

Stay updated on the latest research in the field of business communication: subscribe to BCQ’s RSS feed, and click here to receive e-alerts about new articles and issues published online before they’re in print.

Using Games to Address Real-World Issues

The SUDAN GAME
via USC GamePipe Laboratory

A new article in Simulation & Gaming studies an avatar-based game that addresses a real policy challenge: peace in the Sudan.

The game, under development as part of a massively multiplayer online game at the University of Southern California’s GamePipe Laboratory, casts players as tribe members who can directly impact stability in an interactive model of the country:

…[W]e are proposing that intertribal hostility in Sudan can be understood as a function of differing perspectives on a variety of beliefs. To measure the stability of the country at a given point in the simulation, we calculate the average of each of the eight beliefs across the agents within each tribe. We then normalize these beliefs to be between 0 and 1, and calculate the differences between each tribe…The purpose of the Sudan model is to determine if a sequence of interventions could be carried out in Sudan to foster common beliefs among the tribes, decrease their differences, and thus increase the stability of the country as a whole.

The game has some unique attributes that should make it a valuable tool, according to Kathleen Carley of Carnegie-Mellon University, an author of the paper. “A major problem with games and with agent-based simulation is that they are very time consuming to instantiate,” Dr. Carley told Management INK. “Another major problem is that they are very difficult to repurpose for another issue.  This work shows how it is possible to link a massive multiplayer on-line game and and agent based simulation and then use readily available news data to instantiate generic characters.  This paves the way for auto-instantiation and repurposing.”

Read the article, “Games, Social Simulations, and Data—Integration for Policy Decisions: The SUDAN Game,” published by Peter Landwehr of Carnegie-Mellon University, Marc Spraragen of USC, Balki Ranganathan of USC, Kathleen M. Carley of Carnegie-Mellon University, and Michael Zyda of USC in the in the February issue of Simulation & Gaming, a symposium on simulations, games, and peace.

‘Make It a Real Reward’

Michael Lopez, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Biostatistics at Brown University, published an article about the National Hockey League in the Journal of Sports Economics which was highlighted in a recent issue of Sports Illustrated:

There are many ways to achieve victory in the NHL. Teams can win in regulation, overtime or a shootout and earn two points in the standings regardless of how victory is secured. Even when teams lose, they sometimes win — to an extent — by getting one point for falling in overtime or a shootout…

It’s a flawed system that incentivizes teams to play it safe, robbing the sport of dramatic finishes in the third period while creating artificial parity.

You can read the article written by Matt Gagne and Michael Lopez in Sports Illustrated here, and read the original research article in the Journal of Sports Economics here.

How Individuals Succeed in Complex Environments

Family enterprise advisors are individuals who play a unique role in the success of family businesses, which are major contributors to economies around the world. How do these professionals create and innovate their way to success in the highly dynamic, complex environment that is the family firm?

To answer this question, authors Walter D. Davis, Clay Dibrell, and Justin B. Craig joined Karen Vinton on the Family Business Review podcast to discuss their paper, “The Effects of Goal Orientation and Client Feedback on the Adaptive Behaviors of Family Enterprise Advisors,” co-authored by Judy Green. The paper is forthcoming in Family Business Review and now available in the journal’s OnlineFirst section. Click here to play or download the podcast interview, or subscribe on iTunes by following this link.

Walter D. Davis (Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology) is an Associate Professor of Management at The University of Mississippi, where he teaches courses in advanced human resource management, strategic management, and research methods. His research interests include employee proactivity, self-management, goal orientation, and strategic human resource management. His articles have been published in journals such as Journal of Management, Personnel Psychology, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Human Performance, Leadership Quarterly, and Group and Organization Management. He has served on the editorial review boards of Journal of Management, Journal of Business Research and The International Journal of Leadership Studies.

Clay Dibrell is an Associate Professor of Management at The University of Mississippi and a US Fulbright Scholar. Areas of research interest include family enterprises, innovation, and stewardship. His research has been published in leading academic journals including Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, Journal of Small Business Management, Family Business Review, Journal of Family Business Strategy, Journal of Business Research, Small Business Economics, Industrial Marketing Management, Management International Review, and Journal of World Business. He is an associate editor for the Journal of Family Business Strategy, and on the editorial review boards of Family Business Review and Journal of World Business, as well as a special issue guess editor for multiple journals.

Dr. Justin B. Craig is an Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship in the D’Amore McKim School of Business at Northeastern University. Dr. Craig holds a Ph.D. in the field of behavioral science as well as a Masters of Counseling and an Honors degree in Psychology, all with an intentional focus on entrepreneurial family businesses and those responsible for their stewardship. Professor Craig’s research has been published in leading international academic journals, including the Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Family Business Review, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Small Business Management, Small Business Economics, Journal of Family Business Strategy, and Journal of World Business, among others. He has been an Associate Editor of Family Business Review since 2010.

Karen L. Vinton, Ph.D., is a 1999 Barbara Hollander Award winner and Professor Emeritus of Business at the College of Business at Montana State University, where she founded the University’s Family Business Program. An FFI Fellow, she has served on its Board of Directors and chaired the Body of Knowledge committee. From 1997 through 2011, Vinton served on the editorial board of the Family Business Review, and is the current assistant editor. Before retiring, Vinton served as director for her own family’s business (negotiating its eventual sale)and had her own family business consulting practice, Vinton Consulting Services. Karen can be reached at klvinton700@gmail.com.

Book Review: Seeds, Science, and Struggle

Abby Kinchy. Seeds, Science, and Struggle: The Global Politics of Transgenic Crops. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2012. 240 pp. (hardcover). Price: $44.00 ISBN: 978-0-262-01781-7.

Read the review by Peter F. Eder of the World Future Society, published in the March issue of World Future Review:

Abby Kinchy, a social scientist working in the interdisciplinary field of Science and Technology Studies, has taken a critical look at the emerging industry of transgenic agriculture and its impact on specific major crops. The central question addressed is as follows: “What is the right way for governments to assess and regulate genetically engineered (GE, or transgenic) organisms that will be released into the environment?”

In the agricultural biotechnology industry, there are a wide range of cultural, economic, and ethical implications that cannot simply be reduced to scientific calculations of risk. The complex issues involved have generated major conflicts over intellectual property, organic standards, genetic diversity, global trade, corporate concentration, and the maintenance of food traditions.

Click here to read more and here to see the March issue Table of Contents, including articles, interviews, book reviews and more from World Future Review.

‘Wow, That Was Funny’: Humor Delivers the Message

AvoidtheStork.com

There is no doubt that humor captures people’s attention. For social marketers, who aim to change individuals’ behavior in order to achieve social good, humor can aid in effective messaging on sensitive health topics when other methods fail. Take this study from the current issue of Social Marketing Quarterly, which aimed to prevent unwanted pregnancies in young women age 18 to 30 with a campaign known as “Avoid the Stork”:

In a sample of college students (n ¼ 594), cross-sectional survey results indicated that campaign exposure and humor were significant predictors of talking with and/or showing the campaign to others. Based on our results, we suggest that campaign practitioners should consider humor-based campaigns as a way to generate not only exposure-based effects but also conversation-based effects. Specifically, humorbased campaigns can increase the reach of a campaign through sharing.

Click here to read the article, “‘Wow, That Was Funny’’: The Value of Exposure and Humor in Fostering Campaign Message Sharing” in the June issue of Social Marketing Quarterly–and stay current by signing up for e-alerts about new research from the journal.

Huddle Up! Team Learning In the Workplace

bibendum84 (cc)

Humans learn through social interaction. In the workplace, huddles–informal meetings of two or more people gathered to discuss work-related issues–play a critical role in the learning process that contributes to the success of the organization.  Ryan W. Quinn of Brigham Young University and J. Stuart Bunderson of Washington University in St. Louis explored this concept in the context of newspaper newsrooms in “Could We Huddle on This Project? Participant Learning in Newsroom Conversations,” forthcoming in the Journal of Management and now available in the journal’s OnlineFirst section:

The theory and results of this study offer important advances to the study of learning in social interaction. If the organic capabilities of an organization are created in the informal interactions in which its members participate (Morand, 1995), then learning how to huddle in ways that generate quality learning can contribute to the effectiveness and the adaptiveness of the organization as a whole. As cited earlier, “[H]uman learning in the context of an organization is very much influenced by the organization, has consequences for the organization and produces phenomena at the organizational level” (Simon, 1991: 126). A better understanding of huddles gives us new ways to understand and improve this learning.

Click here to continue reading “Could We Huddle on This Project? Participant Learning in Newsroom Conversations,” forthcoming in the Journal of Management.

SAGE Begins Publishing Public Personnel Management

We are pleased to announce that SAGE has begun publishing Public Personnel Management, an award-winning quarterly journal for human resource executives and managers in the public sector. Each issue contains in-depth articles on trends, case studies and the latest research by top human resource scholars and industry experts.

Founded by the International Public Management Association for Human Resources (IPMA-HR), PPM covers a broad spectrum of timely management issues and concerns at the local, state, federal, and international levels. Articles in the current issue include:

Leonard Bright, Texas A&M University
Where Does Public Service Motivation Count the Most in Government Work Environments? A Preliminary Empirical Investigation and Hypotheses

Salomon A. Guajardo, City University of New York
Workforce Diversity: An Application of Diversity and Integration Indices to Small Agencies

Charles E. Mitchell, Troy University-Atlanta
An Analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision in Ricci v. DeStefano : The New Haven Firefighter’s Case

“Public Personnel Management is committed to bridging the nexus between public administration practice and management research by providing a forum for the exchange of ideas between scholars from the academic and practitioner communities,” stated PPM editor Eddie French. “In our efforts to become one of the leading journals on the administration and management of public personnel, our primary emphasis will focus on research exploring all aspects of the work environments, organizations, individuals, and decisions that are part of the theory and practice of public human resource management.”

Dr. Eddie French is an Associate Professor and Graduate Coordinator in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration where he primarily teaches graduate classes in the Ph.D. and M.P.P.A. programs at Mississippi State University. He holds the title of Stennis Scholar for Local Government with the John C. Stennis Institute of Government, where he conducts survey research and consults with local governments throughout Mississippi. Dr. French has authored or co-authored over 45 refereed journal articles, books, and book chapters focusing mainly on human resource management and local government administration. His most current research focuses on public service/public sector motivation for local government employees.

24oranges.nl (cc)

Attention authors: Public Personnel Management is now accepting manuscripts from professionals across the globe. To submit a manuscript, click here.

Follow PPM on Twitter at https://twitter.com/PPMgmtJournal and the Editor: @DrPEdwardFrench.

The Cost of Unethical Behavior

KungPaoCajun (cc)

To join in celebrating Corporate Compliance and Ethics Week, we bring you an article from the Journal of Management that examines the link between unethical behavior and emotional exhaustion, a topic we covered last week:

Many employees feel ethically conflicted at work, but research has yet to identify the specific mechanisms that give rise to this sense of ethical conflict. The authors propose that ethical conflicts occur when companies encourage employees to behave counter to their own sense of right and wrong during the process of organizational socialization. Employees who are subject to these pressures experience psychological distress. The authors’ study of 371 early career lawyers found that divestiture socialization was positively related to ethical conflict and that ethical conflict was related to higher emotional exhaustion and lower career fulfillment. Ethical conflict partially mediated the relationship between divestiture socialization and emotional exhaustion. Narrative comments provided by respondents reinforced the relationship between divestiture socialization and ethical conflict.

Read “The Psychic Cost of Doing Wrong: Ethical Conflict, Divestiture Socialization, and Emotional Exhaustion,” published by John D. Kammeyer-Mueller and Lauren S. Simon, both of the University of Florida, and Bruce L. Rich of California State University, San Marcos in the Journal of Management May 2012 issue.