Management and Marketing - Research Publications
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ItemNo Preview AvailableDoes Procedural Justice Increase the Inclusion of Migrants? A Group Engagement Model Perspective(Academy of Management, 2018-07-09)Workforces have become more culturally diverse due to globalization, skilled labor shortages, aging societies, and hardships in developing countries. One critical challenge associated with managing a culturally diverse workforce is ensuring inclusion. Migrant workers often experience discrimination, social exclusion, and lower organizational identification. Further attention is required to address these challenges and create inclusive workplaces for migrants. We integrate research on migrant workers with research on the group engagement model to create a model for understanding and enhancing migrant worker inclusion. We test our model using data drawn from employees in a large-scale survey of Australian workplaces. The results of our multilevel moderated mediation analysis indicate that, consistent with the group engagement model, a procedurally fair work environment tends to increase organizational identification, which in turn is associated with higher levels of work engagement. Importantly, our results also indicate that procedural justice climate is more important for migrant than for native workers. Our work has clear implications for practice. Organizations should establish a procedurally fair work environment in which cultural minorities experience consistent and unbiased policies and procedures, are able to express their opinions, and participate in decision-making.
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ItemBetween fit and flexibility? The benefits of high-performance work practices and leadership capability for innovation outcomes(Wiley, 2021-04-01)The idea that human resource management (HRM) plays a strategic role in generating sustainable competitive advantage for organisations or intermediate outcomes such as innovation is a central tenet in HRM theory and research. Yet, the explanation for this relationship remains unclear. We contribute to understanding how HRM plays a role by integrating insights drawn from HRM and strategic management. We explore how configurations of high‐performance work systems (HPWS) and leadership competence (LC) provide micro‐foundations for organisational capabilities associated with innovation. We also examine the moderating role of external environmental conditions. We find support for the proposition that HPWS and LC contribute to capabilities associated with innovation. Importantly, in stable environments, the formation of the capabilities required for innovation is more strongly associated with HPWS, whereas in more dynamic environments, LC plays a more pronounced role. These findings have implications for understanding the strategic role HRM plays and for management practice.
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ItemBringing the Leader Back in: Why, How, and When Leadership Empowerment Behavior Shapes Coworker Conflict(SAGE Publications, 2020)With the diffusion of team-based work organizations and flatter organizational hierarchies, many leaders empower employees to perform their work. Empowerment creates an interesting tension regarding coworker conflict, enhancing trust and giving employees more autonomy to prevent conflict, while also increasing workload and the potential for coworker conflict. Recent conflict research has focused on how characteristics of individuals, groups, and tasks contribute to conflict among coworkers. We extend this work by exploring the role of leader empowerment behavior (LEB) in influencing coworker conflict. Our model integrates research on LEB and coworker conflict to help organizations manage coworker conflict effectively. To test our model at the workplace level, we utilize data drawn from matched surveys of leaders and employees in 317 workplaces. We find that LEB relates negatively to relationship and task conflict through affective and cognitive trust in leaders. We further find that LEB relates negatively to relationship and task conflict through reduced workload, but only when employees have a clear role description. In contrast, if employees have unclear roles, LEB has a U-curve relationship with workload: a moderate level of LEB reduces workload, but a high level of LEB increases workload, in turn increasing coworker conflict. Finally, relationship conflict has a direct negative effect on task performance, whereas task conflict has an indirect negative effect through relationship conflict.
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ItemLeadership at Work: Do Australian leaders have what it takes?(Centre for Workplace Leadership, The University of Melbourne, 2016)Fuelled by the resources boom, the Australian economy has enjoyed an unprecedented 25 years of economic growth, more than doubling in real terms over that period. But, now, the Australian economy is slowing. Productivity is sluggish, employment growth is weakening, and consumer confidence is faltering. Many economists are now predicting an extended period of slow economic growth and recovery. Organisations need to adapt and adjust to this unfolding reality, improve productivity and reduce costs. However, this is just one of a number of critical challenges that Australia faces. Slower economic growth globally has intensified competitive pressures. The rate of technological change is accelerating and is having increasingly disruptive consequences. Automation is destroying jobs at a faster pace and is beginning to hollow out middle-skill jobs across sectors as diverse as manufacturing, professional services and financial services. Technological advances are leading to an unprecedented rate of innovation in products and services, creating new sources of competitive pressure – as well as enormous potential for future growth, profitability and cost reduction. Technology is spawning a new class of business models, which are disrupting established ways of working and doing business – from Uber in the taxi industry, AirBnB in accommodation services, and the emerging FinTech sector, to the spread of online training in education services and an array of service providers able to offshore increasingly complex work. At the same time, organisations have contended with a seismic shift in the competitive and regulatory environment - from competition policy and consumer protection, to the decentralisation of industrial relations and enterprise bargaining. These fundamental changes in the way organisations organise and compete will impact Australian workplaces of all shapes and sizes – small and large, private and public, for-profit and not-for-profit, and across industries. If Australia is to maintain national competitiveness and generate growth and jobs, organisations need to navigate through a phase of increased uncertainty and ambiguity, disruption and change. To survive, organisations need to innovate and adapt, and to develop new capabilities and new sources of growth. A critical question is whether Australian organisational leaders are ready to meet these new challenges. Or whether the extended period of economic growth driven by the resources boom has made Australian organisational leaders complacent and unprepared for the future? Have Australian organisations invested adequately in their leadership and management capabilities to navigate through these complex and uncertain times? If not, will these various changes have adverse and lasting effects on future growth and prosperity? These questions have informed the surveys developed for this study.
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ItemCreating a high performance leadership culture: The case of a leading Australian financial services firm(Centre for Workplace Leadership, The University of Melbourne, 2016)The Centre for Workplace Leadership was invited by a leading Australian financial services firm to conduct research on the firm’s capacity to adapt and innovate in a rapidly changing economic environment. The research took place between 2014 and 2016. It involved analysis of proprietary documents, surveys, and interviews with employees and managers from frontline business to senior managers, the executive team and board members. Key Findings: The analysis of the firm’s systems for innovation and decision-making found the following factors were affecting the firm’s ability to innovate. These were: • Employees’ shared commitment to a strong, values-based culture created a stable and rewarding informal culture; • However, the firm’s culture was a ‘double-edged sword’: although it was a major strength in building cohesion, it also tended to block innovation and change; • In particular, ‘bureaucratic brakes’ impeded the spread of internal innovation and development; • Strong risk aversion tended to be used defensively against the possibility of change; • Positive examples of innovation highlighted the need to develop better mechanisms for knowledge diffusion and organisational learning. Each of these findings is described in more detail in the report, along with quotes from the interviews.
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ItemMiddle Managers - Leading for Performance The case of a major Australian retail business(Centre for Workplace Leadership, The University of Melbourne, 2016)The Centre for Workplace Leadership was invited by a major Australian retail business to conduct research on the company. The CEO wished to have a solid basis of evidence on which to improve communication, innovation and decisionmaking in the company. The research took place over a year between mid-2014 and mid-2015. It involved interviews with staff at all levels, from CEO to frontline business staff. Key Findings: The analysis of communication, innovation and decision-making processes found three main issues that were impacting organisational effectiveness. These were: • shifting to hierarchical leadership had reduced employee engagement; • increased bureaucracy had reinforced organisational silos; • top-down decision-making had crowded out collaboration and innovation. Each of these findings is described in more detail below, along with quotes from the interviews.