Apologies for any cross-posting.
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FREE ACCESS: FEATURED ARTICLE FOR MARCH
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Winner of the 2017 Colonel Lyndall F. Urwick Prize for outstanding of research relevant to management consultancy:
Reputation and identity conflict in management consulting
William S Harvey, Timothy Morris, Milena Müller Santos
Human Relations 70(1): 92 - 118
https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726716641747
Abstract
Based on a case study of a large consulting firm, this article makes two contributions to the literature on reputation and identity by examining how an organization responds when its identity is substantially misaligned with the experience and perceptions of external stakeholders that form the basis of reputational judgments. First, rather than triggering some form of identity adaptation, it outlines how other forms of identity can come into play to remediate this gap, buffering the organization's identity from change. This shift to other individual identities is facilitated by a low organizational identity context even when the identity of the firm is coherent and strong. The second contribution concerns the conceptualization of consulting and other professional service firms. We explain how reputation and identity interact in the context of the distinctive organizational features of these firms. Notably, their loosely coupled structure and the central importance of expert knowledge claims enable individual consultants both to reinforce and supplement corporate reputation via individual identity work.
Keywords: case study, identity, management, organizational theory, reputation
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MARCH ISSUE
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When does an issue trigger change in a field?
A comparative approach to issue frames, field structures and types of field change
Santi Furnari
Human Relations 71(3): 321‒348 First Published October 25, 2017 https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726717726861
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717726861
Abstract
Previous research has shown that institutional fields evolve around issues, but has devoted less attention to explain why certain issues trigger substantial field-level changes while others remain largely inconsequential. In this article, I argue that the extent to which an issue is likely to trigger field change and the type of field change triggered depend on the structure of the field and the ways in which the issue is framed. I develop a model linking two types of issue frames (adversarial vs collaborative issue frames) with two types of field structures (centralized vs fragmented). The model explains how the likelihood of field change and type of field change vary across four configurations of these issue frames and field structures. In particular, I highlight four types of field change that entail different re-distribution of power within a field (weakening vs reinforcing the field's elite; aligning vs polarizing fragmented actors). Overall, I contribute a much called-for comparative approach to institutional fields, explaining how the effects of issue frames on field change vary across different fields.
Keywords: frames, institutional change, institutional field, institutional theory, issue
Making connections: A process model of organizational identification
John AA Sillince and Ben D Golant
Human Relations 71(3): 349‒374 First Published November 21, 2017 https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726717733528
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717733528
Abstract
Organizational identification is conventionally defined as a sense of oneness. Yet this is static and inhibits a process view of identification, in which organizational identity is continuously adjusted. Most studies of organizational identification are of members and not stakeholders, despite evidence that suggests that stakeholders have a significant role and that organizational identity and image are reciprocally connected. We ask the question: how is organizational identification discursively constructed? We suggest that stakeholders play a key role in organizational identification processes. The forward movement of the process, from Performative to Instrumental to Interactional to Reciprocal, is one of reinforcement in which soft power enrols a virtuous circle of willing support. The backward movement of the process, from Reciprocal to Interactional to Instrumental to Performative, is one of functional justification involving hard power as coercion by communicating the organization's expectations to the individual.
Keywords: discourse, identification, identity, narrative, stakeholder, story
Mechanisms of biopower and neoliberal governmentality in precarious work: Mobilizing the dependent self-employed as independent business owners
Johanna Moisander, Claudia Groß, and Kirsi Eräranta
Human Relations 71(3): 375‒398 First Published September 8, 2017 https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726717718918
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717718918
Abstract
In the contemporary conditions of neoliberal governmentality, and the emerging 'gig economy,' standard employment relationships appear to be giving way to precarious work. This article examines the mechanisms of biopower and techniques of managerial control that underpin-and produce consent for-precarious work and nonstandard work arrangements. Based on an ethnographic study, the article shows how a globally operating direct sales organization deploys particular techniques of government to mobilize and manage its precarious workers as a network of enterprise-units: as a community of active and productive economic agents who willingly reconstitute themselves and their lives as enterprises to pursue self-efficacy, autonomy and self-worth as individuals. The article contributes to the literature on organizational power, particularly Foucauldian studies of the workplace, in three ways: (1) by building a theoretical analytics of government perspective on managerial control that highlights the nondisciplinary, biopolitical forms of power that underpin employment relations under the conditions of neoliberal governmentality; (2) by extending the theory of enterprise culture to the domain of precarious work to examine the mechanisms of biopower that underpin ongoing transformations in the sphere of work; and (3) by shifting critical attention to the lived experience of precarious workers in practice.
Keywords: biopower, enterprise culture, gig economy, managerial control, neoliberal governmentality, precarious work
Trust and betrayal in interorganizational relationships:
A systemic functional grammar analysis
Love Börjeson
Human Relations 71(3): 399‒426 First Published September 8, 2017 https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726717718916
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717718916
Abstract
What is it that we do when we say to our business partner that we trust them? Or when we hint that we would consider a withdrawal from cooperation a betrayal? Relying on a systemic functional grammar analysis, interorganizational relationships (IORs) are in this study shown to be characterized by a recurring dilemma: the involved partners are expected to be transparent and explicit regarding their intentions while at the same time being open to opportunities that the IOR may present. In the struggle to balance between these opposing demands, trust is used by trustees to promise both explicitness and opportunity. Conversely, trustors of IORs pressure the trustee to continue the cooperation by evoking latent accusations of betrayal. The intended result of these rhetorical strategies is to prolong the IOR until it can be properly evaluated. While this prolongation accrues to the systems of IORs and to participating organizations, the costs for the involved individuals can be considerable. The trustor risks feeling betrayed, and the trustee risks being accused of betrayal for reasons that are beyond his or her control.
Keywords: betrayal, dilemma, interorganizational relationships, systemic functional grammar, trust
Keeping up with the Joneses: Industry rivalry, commitment to frames and sensemaking failures
Federica Pazzaglia, Maeve Farrell, Karan Sonpar, and Pablo Martin de Holan
Human Relations 71(3): 427‒455 First Published November 10, 2017 https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726717719993
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717719993
Abstract
Drawing on a qualitative study of the banking crisis in Ireland, we examine how a cognitive frame of environmental conditions that is shared among industry rivals constrains their ability to act on the cues of slowly incubating threats. We find that shared frames are reinforced through social comparisons that prompt imitation and through their enactment that prompts a reconfiguration of internal control structures and power relationships. The reinforcement of a shared frame dulls the emerging cues of changing market conditions and weakens perception of the risks of staying the course. A core contribution of this study is to highlight the cognitive and political processes by which a shared frame solidifies within an industry, trapping organizations in their enacted environment and resulting in their collective failure.
Keywords: cognitive frames, crisis, cues, framing, politics, risk, rivalry, sensemaking
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FREE ACCESS: FEATURED ARTICLE FOR MARCH
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Social influence and the invocation of rights: The effects of accountability, reputation and political skill on legal claiming
Angela T Hall, Wajda Wikhamn and Robert Cardy
Human Relations 69(12): 2250‒2273, first Published May 10, 2016
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716642506
Abstract
Issues relating to litigation and other forms of employee legal claiming are at the forefront of the practice of human resource management. However, organizational scholars have paid scant attention to this important aspect of organizational life. Underrepresented in this collective research have been investigations into how social influence variables impact the legal claiming process. We add to the understanding of legal claiming by evaluating how perceived levels of accountability, reputation and political skill affect individuals' willingness to engage in contentious and non-contentious legal claiming. We also investigate the impact that social influence has on individuals' advice to other potential claimants. This study employed a longitudinal design utilizing both scenarios and survey data collection. Results from our study partially support the conclusion that individuals are more risk-averse in their own legal claiming considerations than they are in the advice they offer to similarly-situated others. Furthermore, accountability, reputation and interpersonal influence (one aspect of political skill) were found to significantly influence the likelihood of legal claiming. The pattern of results indicates that social influence variables play a role in determining whether legal claiming will be pursued and what type of claiming will be chosen.
Keywords: conflict, employee rights, employee voice, employment law, social influence
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CALL FOR PAPERS
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Special issue: Collective dimensions of leadership: The challenges of connecting theory and method – submit by 15 June 2018
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/LeadershipCollectiveDimensions.html
Special issue: Organizational change failure: Framing the process of failing – submit by 01 December 2018
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/ChangeFailure.html
NEW! Special issue: Careers in cities – submit by 31 January 2019
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/CareersInCities.html
Human Relations welcomes critical reviews and essays:
- Critical reviews advance a field through new theory, new methods, a novel synthesis of extant evidence, or a combination of two or three of these elements. Reviews that identify new research questions and that make links between management and organizations and the wider social sciences are particularly welcome. Surveys or overviews of a field are unlikely to meet these criteria.
- Critical essays address contemporary scholarly issues and debates within the journal's scope. They are more controversial than conventional papers or reviews, and can be shorter. They argue a point of view, but must meet standards of academic rigour. Anyone with an idea for a critical essay is particularly encouraged to discuss it at an early stage with the Editor-in-Chief.
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VIRTUAL SPECIAL ISSUES
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- Identities in Organizations NEW!
- Job crafting
- Knowledge and knowing in the study of organization: From commodity to communication
- Women, men, and work: Gender identity and gender differences in the workplace
- Diversity research: Theorizing the new frontier in sexual orientation diversity
- Change management
- Critical performativity
Editor's Choice Collections:
- Paper of the Year Award winners
- Classic papers from Human Relations
- Papers that have influenced Paul Edwards, former EIC
Celebrating 70 years: Reflections on the history of HR from Paul Edwards, FBA:
- Human Relations: The first 10 years, 1947–1956
- Human Relations: 1957–1966
- Human Relations: 1967–1986
- Human Relations: 1987–1996 and beyond
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RECENT ONLINE FIRST PREVIEW ARTICLES
Access all OnlineFirst articles here: http://hum.sagepub.com/content/early/recent
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Mission accomplished?
Organizational identity work in response to mission success
Sheila M Cannon and Karin Kreutzer
Human Relations 10.1177/0018726717741677 | First Published February 13, 2018
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726717741677
Abstract
How do nonprofit organizations reinvent their identities after they have accomplished all or part of their missions? This comparative case study of two Irish peacebuilding organizations explores what happens when their raison d'etre is fundamentally challenged. A successful peace process in Northern Ireland resulted in reduced support for peacebuilding organizations and a perception of mission accomplished. Conventional literature on nonprofit organizations portrays mission success as positive. We show that mission success paradoxically threatens the very existence of the organization as it may lead to member and donor dissociation. We find that mission success leads to identity ambiguity, which catalyses organizational identity work including different rhetorical strategies of self–other talk. We develop a process model illustrating competitive versus integrative approaches to organizational identity work to understand nonprofits adapting to mission success. We draw out lessons for practitioners. Focusing on a renewed mission that is consistent with the organization's history is more important than finding a quick financial fix. Social purpose organizations can efficiently and effectively be redeployed to address new challenges, rather than recreating new organizations each time.
Keywords: charities, comparative case study, mission success, not-for-profit organisations, organizational identity work
How do callings relate to job performance?
The role of organizational commitment and ideological contract
Sung Soo Kim, Donghoon Shin, Heather C Vough, Patricia Faison Hewlin and Christian Vandenberghe
Human Relations 10.1177/0018726717743310 | First Published February 13, 2018
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726717743310
Abstract
Do individuals with callings perform better than those without? Why or why not? There are not clear answers to these questions in the literature. Using a social exchange framework, we posit an intervening process between callings and job performance, focusing on the role of organizational commitment and ideological contract fulfillment – the degree to which organizations live up to their ideological promises. Specifically, individuals with callings will be more committed to their organization, and this commitment, in turn, leads to job performance. Further, this relationship of calling to job performance through commitment will be attenuated when employees perceive under-fulfillment of ideological contract. We found support for these hypotheses across three studies that utilized self- or supervisor-rated performance data from a non-profit organization and multiple for-profit organizations. Interestingly, while the relationship between commitment and performance did depend on fulfillment of the ideological psychological contract, contrary to our prediction, the calling-commitment relationship was not attenuated by under-fulfillment of ideological contract. Our findings deepen our understanding of the organizational implications of callings from a social exchange-based perspective. This study further informs practitioners as to hiring and motivating individuals with a calling.
Keywords: calling, ideology-based psychological contract, job performance, organizational commitment, social exchange
The teaching of the other:
Ethical vulnerability and generous reciprocity in the research process
Carl Rhodes and Arne Carlsen
Human Relations 10.1177/0018726717741530 | First Published February 10, 2018
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717741530
Abstract
How is it that researchers can engage with those they research ethically? In response to the challenge of this question, we articulate an ethics of research engagement based on vulnerability and generosity. This is explored with a special focus on the practicalities of organization studies research. Building on developments in reflexive methodology, we draw on Emmanuel Levinas' relational ethics to consider how research can be approached as receiving a 'teaching of the other'. Such teaching involves a radical openness to other people's difference such that knowledge arises from being affected by those others rather than claiming to know them in any categorical sense. The possibility that emerges is that of a reflexively ethical position from which to conduct research premised on letting go of the egotistical comforts of one's own epistemic authority. Self-reflexivity becomes rendered subservient to other-vulnerability in embodied research encounters that are open and generous. The promise for research is a deepening of our corporeal, affective and aesthetic engagement with others and an enlarged sense of the ethical meaning of research.
Keywords: Emmanuel Levinas, ethics, reflexivity, relationality, research methodology, vulnerability
Experimenting with work practices in a liminal space: A working period in a rural archipelago
Hanne Vesala and Seppo Tuomivaara
Human Relations 10.1177/0018726717744034 |First Published February 9, 2018
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717744034
Abstract
Lived experiences in organizational liminal spaces 'betwixt-and-between' have begun to attract scholarly attention, but the full potential of liminal spaces in contemporary mobile and fluid working life has remained unexamined. This article contributes to theory by showing how a liminal experience in an alternative work environment is created via three dimensions: the aesthetic experience of a different environment, situated practices, and changes to work and life rhythms. Interview material was gathered from creative professionals working temporarily in a rural archipelago environment. The results suggest that the contrast of working in a calm natural environment supported experimentation with work practices, nurtured the formation of a communitas, and spurred imagination and reflection. The arrangement's temporary nature heightened the intensity of participants' experiences. However, this intensity varied depending on work community configurations and participants' personal needs for change. This study deepens the current understanding of liminal spaces by showing how the nuances of physical and social spaces contribute to liminality and how liminality alters work rhythms. Future research should focus on how liminal workspaces can be created for individuals seeking a change in routine and increased community support.
Keywords: creativity, practices, rhythm, work community, work environment, workspace
Creative work and affect: Social, political and fantasmatic dynamics in the labour of musicians
Casper Hoedemaekers
Human Relations 10.1177/0018726717741355 | First Published December 7, 2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717741355
Abstract
How can we understand contradictory identifications within work to which one is passionately attached? This article explores how seemingly competing accounts of the self at work can not only appear side by side within the self-presentation of creative workers, but also how dominant patterns within the daily socio-economic realities of creative work are reproduced through faux-contestations of them. Following Glynos and Howarth, I will argue that such transgressive notions often recall earlier historical arrangements that have been displaced by current dominant social grammars, or were vital components of the institution of current social hegemony. In a study of musicians, I analyse how alongside dominant logics of employability and virtuosity, traditional notions of artists' craft and autonomy drive counter-identifications that allow dominant social logics to fill the gaps in the indeterminacy and ambiguity of everyday lived experience. By applying an understanding of discursive logics to creative work, this article seeks to contribute to literatures spanning work in the cultural industries, identification, affect and transgression at work, and commons and immaterial labour.
Keywords: affect, creative work, enterprising selves, freelance work, precarity
Performing accountability in health research: A socio-spatial framework
Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Mark Thompson and Marianna Fotaki
Human Relations 10.1177/0018726717740410 | First Published December 4, 2017
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018726717740410
Abstract
The article explores how spaces aimed at improving accountability in health systems are socially produced. It addresses the implications of an initiative to promote patient involvement in government-funded research in the context of a large cancer research network in England. We employ a socio-spatial theoretical framework inspired by insights from Henri Lefebvre and Judith Butler to examine how professional researchers, doctors and patients understand and perform accountability in an empirical context. Our data reveal fundamental tensions between formally required and routinely enacted dimensions of accountability as these are experienced by patients. Consequently, our analysis argues for a need to challenge abstract, professionalized discourse about accountability in health services by acknowledging embodied spaces of representation, in which patients themselves can contribute to making participatory accountability a reality. We suggest that such a shift will provide a more rounded appraisal of patient experiences within health research, and health systems more widely.
Keywords: accountability spaces, citizen participation, ethnography, health research, patient experience, performativity
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WHY PUBLISH IN HUMAN RELATIONS?
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Human Relations is included in the FT50 list of journals used by the Financial Times in compiling the FT Research rank, included in the Global MBA, EMBA and Online MBA rankings.
It is an A* journal – the highest category of quality – in the Australian Business Deans Council (ABCD) Journal Quality List 2013.
It is also ranked 4 in the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) Academic Journal Guide 2015.
Human Relations is a top 5 interdisciplinary social sciences journal (Source: 2016 Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters, 2017):
2-year impact factor: 2.622 Ranked: 4/96 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary and 58/193 in Management
5-year impact factor: 4.027 Ranked: 2/93 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary and 50/186 in Management
Read the journal's mission statement.
Claire Castle, Managing Editor, Human Relations, Tavistock Institute of Human Relations
Email: c.castle@tavinstitute.org Website: www.humanrelationsjournal.org
Human Relations is one of 50 Journals used by the Financial Times in compiling the FT Research rank, included in the Global MBA, EMBA and Online MBA rankings.
2-year impact factor: 2.622 Ranked: 4/96 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary and 58/193 in Management
5-year impact factor: 4.027 Ranked: 2/93 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary and 50/186 in Management
Source: 2016 Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters, 2017)