Dear colleagues,
We are organizing two symposiums for the AoM 2018. If you have research that fits either the mentioned topics below and you are interested in participating our symposium(s), please contact Jing Hu (jing.hu14@rotman.utoronto.ca) or Dr. Jacob Hirsh (jacob.hirsh@utoronto.ca) before Nov 10th 2017. Please kindly include a brief description of (1) which symposium you want to participate; (2) your research topic and findings; (3) how you believe your research fits well with the symposium topic(s). Thank you very much for your attention, we look forward to reading your research and collaborating with you on the symposium(s)!
[1]
Work Meaningfulness: When does it help and when does it hurt?
Organizers: Jing Hu & Jacob Hirsh
University of Toronto
Having a meaningful job has long been argued to be a desirable thing. Almost all of the existing evidence supports the idea that perceiving one's work as meaningful is beneficial to organizations and employees alike. Nevertheless, higher levels of work meaningfulness are not always a good thing. Under certain circumstances, higher levels of perceived meaningfulness could have unintended negative consequences. Indeed, organizational scholars have begun to explore the conditions under which engaging in highly meaningful work can harm the performance of organizations or the well-being of employees (Hussain & Thau, 2017; Chadi, Jeworrek, & Mertins, 2016). In this symposium, we aim to present four research papers that focus on the boundary conditions of meaningful work as a source of positive outcomes, outlining the contexts in which it is beneficial and the contexts in which it can be troublesome. Given the growing interest among researchers and practitioners in this topic, our timely symposium could help to define the limits of promoting work meaningfulness as a managerial strategy.
We are looking for collaborators who have empirical studies that explore the boundary conditions of the effect of work meaningfulness on individual and organizational outcomes. Any empirical findings that do not examine this question directly but still have relevant implications for this topic are also welcomed!
[2]
Millennials in the Workplace
Organizers: Jing Hu & Jacob Hirsh
University of Toronto
Organizations are witnessing a fast-growing number of employees from younger generations. Specifically, a majority of the employees that enter the work force nowadays are known as Millennials. Millennials are those who were born between 1979 and 1994 (Myers & Sadaghiani, 2010). There have been a variety of opinions put forward about what Millennials think and value, how they behave in the workplace, and what organizations should do to manage them more effectively (Deal, Altman, & Rogelberg, 2010). However, empirical studies that explore these questions are still scarce, while theoretical explanations for generational differences are also lacking (Lyons & Kuron, 2014). Understanding Millennials in the workplace is of great importance because the managerial strategies what worked for Generation X or the Boomers may not work for Millennials (Caraher, 2016). Our symposium will present four papers on Millenials in the workplace, aiming to 1) enrich the empirical evidence on generational differences in the workplace, 2) facilitate our theoretical understanding of why Millenials in the workplace may differ from previous generations, and 3) inspire managers who wish to more effectively engage Millenial employees.
We are looking for collaborators who have empirical studies that explore the attitudes, values, perceptions, behaviours, performance, etc. of the Millennials in the workplace. We are also interested in papers that explore the mechanisms and/or the boundary conditions of generational differences in work-related variables. Any empirical findings that do not test these questions directly but still have implications for these questions are also welcomed!
Best wishes,