Organizational Dynamics最新文献

Gender inequity is globally present in the labor force and advocating for gender equality is not merely a fairness issue, but a benefit for organizations. In this paper, we identify common challenges for gender-diverse teams (i.e., turnover, discrimination, communication issues, conflict between team members, and low team cohesion). We also discuss the importance of inclusive leadership to overcome these challenges. Correspondingly, we provide practical actions for inclusive leaders to implement on their teams to address issues regarding diversity, and subsequently leverage its benefits.

Employees often compare themselves to the actions and performance of others in order to understand their relative standing and assess their likelihood of succeeding at future tasks. The challenge, however, is that managerial advice for facilitating informative comparisons is sparse. Accordingly, this article adopts the viewpoint that managers need to better understand how to facilitate useful comparisons between employees in order help them attain success. We provide suggestions that help managers direct employees in ways that develop their self-efficacy and assist with their goal attainment.

Organizations today are facing increasing amounts of turnover and evolving labor markets. When employees leave they become corporate alumni, which initial research suggests are an important and valuable part of an organization’s network. Corporate alumni can provide value as brand ambassadors, a source of employee referral, as a return employee (i.e. boomerang), or through knowledge sharing. One way to establish a strong network of alumni and achieve some of these benefits is to establish a corporate alumni program (CAP). Although CAPs are increasingly being recognized as beneficial for organizations, little is known about how to systematically design and implement these programs to enhance the likelihood of success. In this article, we utilize instructional systems design processes to offer guidance for how to strategically develop CAPs. We analyze existing programs to highlight common elements and use this research as a basis for creating the TRAILS typology, a way to designate practices for CAP implementation. We also suggest ways to evaluate and determine whether these programs are successful.

Although managers may not be aware of it, research suggests that 20%-30% of employees may be working while experiencing chronic pain. In this article, we review what is known about chronic pain and how it is experienced in the workplace. We argue that chronic pain is an issue that organizations need to deal with and we make specific recommendations for doing so.

Have you ever been micro-managed? Have you ever been told ‘to the letter’ what to do in a given situation? Or maybe as a leader you have also fallen into the trap of giving advice? We challenge the assumption that leaders should have the answer for everything. Occasionally, directing works, however, do it too often and at one point, it will turn out to be bad advice. The logical consequence is that leaders work on and increase the quality of the advice they give. We showcase that the alternative to leaders giving ‘bad’ advice is to not give advice at all. We shed light on the concept of leaders acting as coaches and how leaders can empower others to find their own answers. Specifically, we highlight four mind shifts in which leaders can engage if they want to use a coaching style: from ignoring emotions to empathy, from directing to empowering, from problem-focused to solution-focused and from weakness to strengths.

Our knowledge and practice of leader development is grounded mostly in leadership at work, with little focus on the common experience of leading both work and in a volunteer context. To better understand how leaders develop as a result of leading not only in work but also in volunteer roles, we interviewed 40 leaders and sought to understand their motivation to lead in multiple domains, their process of development, and their outcomes of development. Our findings show that leading in multiple domains – at work and in volunteering contexts – plays an important role in leader development. Specifically, leaders develop through both expected practices (such as learning and developing new skills) and through unexpected opportunities that represent new opportunities to lead, exposure to new people and ideas, and new perspectives. Further, as a result of leading in both work and volunteering contexts, leaders reported developing a more integrated sense of themselves as “whole persons” as they engaged in both expected and unexpected development. We discuss ways in which a volunteering-based approach to leader development may open other important avenues for leader development beyond intentional, workplace-based approaches.

Teams are complex relational systems. Effective team functioning depends on members willingness to coordinate and work together. Ground rules play a fundamental but frequently ignored role in this process. We define ground rules as the mutual agreements informally established by members to regulate team functioning. These agreements may subsequently be rendered formal or explicit. The nature and functions of ground rules (including as social-normative tools for handling paradoxes) are discussed, as well as the forms/types they assume. Rules for setting ground rules, as well as the role team leaders may play in facilitating the emergence of effective ground rules are also considered.

In recent times, there is growing recognition that the implications of technology are not a given; they result from how the social and technical interact to redefine work-related expectations. The sociomateriality lens highlights the inseparable and relational aspects of the social and technological systems. We draw upon sociomateriality to highlight cognitive tensions that technology work generates through two case studies. Based on these insights, we provide suggestions to practitioners to mindfully examine their digital transformation efforts and identify plans to mitigate the tensions.