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Dear colleagues,

We are pleased to inform you of the 5th WORKSHOP ON TRUST WITHIN AND BETWEEN ORGANISATIONS, Madrid, January 28-29, 2010. This conference is organized in alternate years by the First International Network on Trust, under the auspices of the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management.  Our session is entitled:

CHAIRS

Aneil Mishra, Michigan State University, US
Karen Mishra, Meredith College, US

Organizational downsizing continues to remain a pervasive aspect of work. In the US, for instance, during the 12 years from 1996 through 2007 in which data have been collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there have been more than 63,000 extended mass layoff events, in which 12.5 million jobs have been eliminated. Although fourth-quarter figures were not available from the BLS at this time, 2008 will undoubtedly have even more downsizings and jobs eliminated than in 2007, with the number of extended layoffs being 25 percent greater during the first nine months of the year as compared with the same nine-month period in 2007 (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/mslo.nr0.htm). Although the financial services sector in 2008 had the largest number of layoffs in the first nine months of year, with more than 111,000 layoffs, downsizing was widespread in a number of industries including automotive (95,000 layoffs), government/non-profit (67,000), transportation (62,000), retail (51,000), computer (44,000), and health care/products (33,000) (New York Times, 10/25/08). With the continued downturn in the economy and poor retail sales figures for the 2008 holidays, both 2008 and 2009 will most likely exceed the annual downsizings for the three-year period 2000-2002 in which more than 1.25 million jobs were eliminated each year.

Even as organizations continue to downsize apace, the stated goals of downsizing efforts that have been documented (Mishra, Spreitzer & Mishra, 1998) remain: reducing total costs, increasing labor productivity, improving quality, and enhancing the efficiency with which capital is employed. During the downsizing process, Mishra, Spreitzer & Mishra (1998) advocated for openness and honesty about the state of the business, the reasons for the downsizing, the process by which the downsizing would take place, and the future of the business. This open and honest communication would be essential to building the trust and empowerment of both those who were designated to leave, as well as those who would remain to "survive." This trust and empowerment in turn would create a positive set of responses by the survivors to the downsizing, and mitigate any negative reactions by them (Mishra & Spreitzer, 1998)

In this track we explore the unexamined questions that remain about how trust is built or destroyed downsizing and other retrenchment efforts. With the global economy in such poor shape, we use the terms downsizing and retrenchment interchangeably here. Papers which further our understanding of any aspect of this topic are invited. In addition to empirical research and case studies, we welcome conceptual and theoretical papers which offer insights into existing relevant theory and research. Topics which would be of interest include:
• Who is responsible for inspiring trust in the workforce-top management or those front-line managers who are directly responsible for implementing retrenchment efforts?
• How can tensions and interests among customers, suppliers, and employees be managed as part of trust-building efforts during downsizing/retrenchment?
• How is human capital measured in an organization during retrenchment? How can these measures be integrated into downsizing or retrenchment decisions?
• How do job and task flexibility during retrenchment help or repair trust between employees and top management? How does such flexibility allow the stages of downsizing (Mishra, Spreitzer & Mishra, 1998) to be more fluid?
• What methods of communication best preserve trust during downsizing and retrenchment?
• How can front-line managers be supported as linking pins (Likert, 1967) to build and preserve the trust that exists between them and their employees?


Authors intending to participate are requested to upload an 800-1000 words abstract of their work by June 1 2009.
By June 20 they will receive a notification of acceptance/rejection. Final papers of 6.000-10.000 words and 1,5 spacing should be uploaded at this website by November 21 2009.

The following information is required in the abstract:
- Title of paper.
- Name, academic affiliation(s) and address of author(s).
- E-mail address of each author

If you want to submit an abstract to this special session, please go to the "call for papers" section and upload your abstract electronically.

Please do not forget to mention that it is submitted for THIS SPECIAL SESSION by using the 'scroll down menu' you will see when submitting.

Details of the workshop, including our track and the other 9 Special Tracks, can be found at http://www.eiasm.org/frontoffice/event_announcement.asp?event_id=669.

Thanks very much.

Aneil and Karen Mishra

Aneil K. Mishra, Ph.D.

Professor and Director of Executive Education (effective 7-09)

School of Labor and Industrial Relations

Michigan State University

403 S. Kedzie Hall

East Lansing, MI  48824

mmishraa@msu.edu

http://www.totaltrust.wordpress.com