Business Administration - Research Publications
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ItemGender equality in the Finance industry: The challenging ‘last mile’(ANZAM, 2021-12-03)Organisational efforts to increase gender equality in leadership have had limited success, and Australia’s ranking in the global gender equality index has slipped since 2006. We call this challenging stage in gender equality efforts the ‘last mile’. To understand what hinders or assists organisational efforts in the ‘last mile’ we conducted an in-depth study of the diversity efforts in a business unit of a large Australian bank. Interviews, focus groups and archival data analyses demonstrated that the bank’s gender equality performance was better than their institutional field, and the workforce was more optimistic about gender equality outcomes than executives. Ironically, these illusions of progress hindered the bank’s ability to travel the ‘last mile’.
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ItemBenefit of the doubt: the buffering influence of normative contracts on the breach–workplace performance relationship(Routledge, 2021)This study investigates the influence of employees' perception of managerial breach of the normative relational contract (i.e. the psychological relational contract at the group level) on workplace performance. Many employees in Australia are employed on a permanent or continuing basis and have normative relational contracts whose terms are embedded in human resource practices. We use normative relational contract theory to hypothesise that where there is a mutually recognised high-quality normative relational contract – a strong contract – the emotional bonds of loyalty that are developed by collective sense-making constrained negative reactions to breach. We also hypothesise that, where managers offer high-quality contract terms that are not recognised by employees, the failure to elicit loyalty means that breach has negative performance consequences. Panel data are obtained from a two-stage national, multi-source study of employees (n = 1,733) and senior human resource managers (n = 57). Results from hierarchical moderator regression analyses support the hypotheses. They demonstrate that a strong normative relational contract ‘buffers’ employees’ negative responses to breach.
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ItemThe combined role of conscientiousness, social networks, and gender diversity in explaining individual performance in self-managed teams(Elsevier, 2020-01-01)Despite the prevalence and value of self-managed teams, questions remain about the factors that influence how team members perform in contexts where there is no formal leader to give advice and provide support. Drawing on social network, diversity and personality theories, this study enhances our understanding of the role of individual and group factors in shaping individuals' performance in these teams. Based on three time-lagged data collections, including two surveys from 70 self-managed project teams, we found that conscientious team members perform better because they have more instrumental network ties (i.e., they provide task advice). We also found that having more expressive ties (i.e., being liked) compensates when a team member is not able to give advice, most likely because s/he provides more socio-emotional support to team members. Finally, expressive ties are more important in gender homogenous teams, possibly because socio-emotional support has greater value when from similar team mates.