The operation of criminal governance within formal-legal industrial contexts connected to global supply chains remains insufficiently theorized in management and organization studies (MOS). How such governance legitimizes violence against marginalized workers both within and beyond organizational boundaries also remains critically underexplored. By analysing the paradoxical normalization of criminality and violence within Bangladesh’s garment industry, this study exposes the systemic embeddedness of mastans , politically connected criminals, within export-oriented industrial governance. We conceptualize this entanglement as mastanocracy , a hybrid political formation of violent criminal governance that operates legitimately at the nexus of corruption, democratic erosion, elite power and social polarization, advancing the neoliberal economic and political agendas of dominant actors. This research extends MOS by broadening the boundary conditions under which criminal governance is legitimized in a formal-legal industrial environment in the Global South. It also advances the discourse on violence in contemporary organizations by revealing the broader cultural, social and political dynamics that normalize violence within and beyond organizational boundaries, compelling millions of marginalized workers to live and work under regimes of criminal governance.
{"title":"Mastanocracy: The legitimization of criminal governance and violence in Bangladesh’s garment industry","authors":"Shoaib Ahmed, Chandana Alawattage, Kelum Jayasinghe","doi":"10.1177/00187267251383441","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267251383441","url":null,"abstract":"The operation of criminal governance within formal-legal industrial contexts connected to global supply chains remains insufficiently theorized in management and organization studies (MOS). How such governance legitimizes violence against marginalized workers both within and beyond organizational boundaries also remains critically underexplored. By analysing the paradoxical normalization of criminality and violence within Bangladesh’s garment industry, this study exposes the systemic embeddedness of <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">mastans</jats:italic> , politically connected criminals, within export-oriented industrial governance. We conceptualize this entanglement as <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">mastanocracy</jats:italic> , a hybrid political formation of violent criminal governance that operates legitimately at the nexus of corruption, democratic erosion, elite power and social polarization, advancing the neoliberal economic and political agendas of dominant actors. This research extends MOS by broadening the boundary conditions under which criminal governance is legitimized in a formal-legal industrial environment in the Global South. It also advances the discourse on violence in contemporary organizations by revealing the broader cultural, social and political dynamics that normalize violence within and beyond organizational boundaries, compelling millions of marginalized workers to live and work under regimes of criminal governance.","PeriodicalId":48433,"journal":{"name":"Human Relations","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2025-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145310884","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-16DOI: 10.1177/00187267251379698
Ward van Zoonen, Monika E. von Bonsdorff, Beatrice I. J. M. van der Heijden
How do workers decide to comply with, alter, or resist algorithmic surveillance? We argue that decontextualization is a key, yet overlooked, mechanism that shapes workers’ responses to algorithmic surveillance. Research has widely critiqued algorithmic surveillance, focusing on diminished worker control and agency. However, the control-resistance mechanisms related to algorithmic surveillance are undertheorized and underexplored. We draw on socio-technical systems theory and micro-level legitimacy to examine mechanisms of surveillance and resistance in online crowdwork. Our findings, based on three-wave data from 435 European online crowdworkers, show that perceived algorithmic surveillance undermines trust and fairness, while increasing privacy concerns, which in turn inform workers’ intentions to comply, alter, or resist algorithmic surveillance. Perceived decontextualization moderates these relationships, exacerbating the adverse effects on trust and fairness while mitigating the effects on privacy concerns. These outcomes extend the view that individual outcomes are shaped by social and technical factors only by demonstrating that perceived decontextualization and micro-level legitimacy judgments—that is, trust, privacy concerns, and fairness—are important socio-technical mechanisms that also impact workers’ compliance. By highlighting the overlooked role of decontextualization in shaping resistance and compliance, this study challenges dominant control-centric narratives and offers a new lens on algorithmic governance.
{"title":"Algorithmic surveillance and workers’ compliance: The role of trust, privacy concerns, and fairness in online crowdwork","authors":"Ward van Zoonen, Monika E. von Bonsdorff, Beatrice I. J. M. van der Heijden","doi":"10.1177/00187267251379698","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267251379698","url":null,"abstract":"How do workers decide to comply with, alter, or resist algorithmic surveillance? We argue that decontextualization is a key, yet overlooked, mechanism that shapes workers’ responses to algorithmic surveillance. Research has widely critiqued algorithmic surveillance, focusing on diminished worker control and agency. However, the control-resistance mechanisms related to algorithmic surveillance are undertheorized and underexplored. We draw on socio-technical systems theory and micro-level legitimacy to examine mechanisms of surveillance and resistance in online crowdwork. Our findings, based on three-wave data from 435 European online crowdworkers, show that perceived algorithmic surveillance undermines trust and fairness, while increasing privacy concerns, which in turn inform workers’ intentions to comply, alter, or resist algorithmic surveillance. Perceived decontextualization moderates these relationships, exacerbating the adverse effects on trust and fairness while mitigating the effects on privacy concerns. These outcomes extend the view that individual outcomes are shaped by social and technical factors only by demonstrating that perceived decontextualization and micro-level legitimacy judgments—that is, trust, privacy concerns, and fairness—are important socio-technical mechanisms that also impact workers’ compliance. By highlighting the overlooked role of decontextualization in shaping resistance and compliance, this study challenges dominant control-centric narratives and offers a new lens on algorithmic governance.","PeriodicalId":48433,"journal":{"name":"Human Relations","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2025-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145310721","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-11DOI: 10.1177/00187267251386546
{"title":"HUMAN RELATIONS: Special Issue – Call for Critical Reviews (Targeted for 2027)","authors":"","doi":"10.1177/00187267251386546","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267251386546","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48433,"journal":{"name":"Human Relations","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2025-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145261576","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-10DOI: 10.1177/00187267251377415
Sharon Kishik, Justine Grønbæk Pors
Contemporary youth are increasingly exposed to work and career norms, and despite mounting inequality, instability and precarity, the promise of self-realisation through work has retained its allure and influence. Against this backdrop, this paper draws on a 4-year (2019–2023) longitudinal interview study ( n = 93) to explore how 16 young women ‘become workers’ by managing pressures to inhabit neoliberal and postfeminist norms of individuality, progress and aspiration that shape contemporary ideals of ‘successful’ work and career. Theoretically, the paper draws on Lauren Berlant to develop an understanding of work subjectivity as performed within attachments to the promissory object of future work and career. Through empirical analysis, we offer the notion of ‘the flailing self’ as a manifestation of youth work subjectivity amidst conditions of unclarity towards neoliberal and postfeminist norms. Flailing names an ambivalent mode of managing one’s future work and career where notions of ‘success’ are held both close and at a distance. By advancing the concept of the flailing self, the paper contributes new theoretical and empirical understandings of the complex relationship between young women, work and the self in the present historical moment.
{"title":"The flailing self: A study of how young women become workers","authors":"Sharon Kishik, Justine Grønbæk Pors","doi":"10.1177/00187267251377415","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267251377415","url":null,"abstract":"Contemporary youth are increasingly exposed to work and career norms, and despite mounting inequality, instability and precarity, the promise of self-realisation through work has retained its allure and influence. Against this backdrop, this paper draws on a 4-year (2019–2023) longitudinal interview study ( <jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 93) to explore how 16 young women ‘become workers’ by managing pressures to inhabit neoliberal and postfeminist norms of individuality, progress and aspiration that shape contemporary ideals of ‘successful’ work and career. Theoretically, the paper draws on Lauren Berlant to develop an understanding of work subjectivity as performed within attachments to the promissory object of future work and career. Through empirical analysis, we offer the notion of ‘the flailing self’ as a manifestation of youth work subjectivity amidst conditions of unclarity towards neoliberal and postfeminist norms. Flailing names an ambivalent mode of managing one’s future work and career where notions of ‘success’ are held both close and at a distance. By advancing the concept of the flailing self, the paper contributes new theoretical and empirical understandings of the complex relationship between young women, work and the self in the present historical moment.","PeriodicalId":48433,"journal":{"name":"Human Relations","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2025-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145261022","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-10DOI: 10.1177/00187267251379398
Soojung Han, Hyesoo (Hailey) Park, Joseph K. Kim, Kyle J. Emich
Despite frequent anecdotal accounts and media portrayals of unpredictable and/or inconsistent leaders, scholarly understanding of such leadership remains limited, mostly due to ambiguity surrounding its conceptualization and operationalization. Rather than focusing on employees’ direct experiences with unpredictable and inconsistent leaders, prior research has primarily measured changes in specific leader behavior over time or the interactive effects of seemingly opposing leader behaviors. Yet, this is not the same as perceiving that a leader has a consistently erratic style. Here, we conceptualize and systematically operationalize capricious supervision , defined as an employee’s perception of their leader’s frequent changes in decisions and treatment toward them. Across three studies with five employee samples, we develop a scale of capricious supervision (Study 1) and establish its discriminant and predictive validity by differentiating it from abusive supervision, justice variability (Study 2), and ambivalent leadership (Study 3) and examining its impact on employee outcomes (Study 3). Grounded in the stressor-strain model, we find that employees experiencing capricious supervision perceive their work as uncertain and frustrating, leading to emotional exhaustion, poor sleep quality, and counterproductive work behavior. Together, we provide a clear understanding of capricious supervision as a distinct leadership style, opening a conversation on its role in the workplace.
{"title":"What now? Defining capricious supervision and examining its impact on employee strain","authors":"Soojung Han, Hyesoo (Hailey) Park, Joseph K. Kim, Kyle J. Emich","doi":"10.1177/00187267251379398","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267251379398","url":null,"abstract":"Despite frequent anecdotal accounts and media portrayals of unpredictable and/or inconsistent leaders, scholarly understanding of such leadership remains limited, mostly due to ambiguity surrounding its conceptualization and operationalization. Rather than focusing on employees’ direct experiences with unpredictable and inconsistent leaders, prior research has primarily measured changes in specific leader behavior over time or the interactive effects of seemingly opposing leader behaviors. Yet, this is not the same as perceiving that a leader has a consistently erratic style. Here, we conceptualize and systematically operationalize <jats:italic>capricious supervision</jats:italic> , defined as <jats:italic>an employee’s perception of their leader’s frequent changes in decisions and treatment toward them.</jats:italic> Across three studies with five employee samples, we develop a scale of capricious supervision (Study 1) and establish its discriminant and predictive validity by differentiating it from abusive supervision, justice variability (Study 2), and ambivalent leadership (Study 3) and examining its impact on employee outcomes (Study 3). Grounded in the stressor-strain model, we find that employees experiencing capricious supervision perceive their work as uncertain and frustrating, leading to emotional exhaustion, poor sleep quality, and counterproductive work behavior. Together, we provide a clear understanding of capricious supervision as a distinct leadership style, opening a conversation on its role in the workplace.","PeriodicalId":48433,"journal":{"name":"Human Relations","volume":"72 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2025-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145260781","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-05DOI: 10.1177/00187267251371564
Zhaopeng Liu, Yamei Liu, Danting Chang, Yu Pan
Companies often recruit high-performing employees to tackle complex external competitive environments. However, research on the socialization process of high-performing newcomers is relatively scarce, especially regarding how these employees actively integrate into a new work environment. To address this gap, we integrated social influence theory and role expectation theory to examine the distinct reactions of leaders and coworkers to high-performing newcomers’ showing vulnerability. The results from 211 high-performing newcomers and their colleagues reveal that when high-performing newcomers exhibit vulnerability toward their leaders, it leads to a negative impact on the leaders’ perception of their ability, then results in decreased proactive support from the leaders. Notably, this mediating effect is negatively moderated by leader perfectionism. However, when high-performing newcomers display vulnerability toward their coworkers, it negatively influences the coworkers’ perception of potential threat, consequently leading to an increase in proactive support from them. This mediating effect is further negatively moderated by the group competition climate. Moreover, the research provides empirical evidence supporting the profound socialization impacts of proactive support from leaders and coworkers, affecting job performance, social adjustment, and promotability. In summary, this study has significant theoretical and practical implications for newcomer socialization, interpersonal influence strategies, authentic self-disclosure, and high-performing employee literature.
{"title":"Vulnerability in high-performing newcomers: Weighing benefits and drawbacks in the socialization process","authors":"Zhaopeng Liu, Yamei Liu, Danting Chang, Yu Pan","doi":"10.1177/00187267251371564","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267251371564","url":null,"abstract":"Companies often recruit high-performing employees to tackle complex external competitive environments. However, research on the socialization process of high-performing newcomers is relatively scarce, especially regarding how these employees actively integrate into a new work environment. To address this gap, we integrated social influence theory and role expectation theory to examine the distinct reactions of leaders and coworkers to high-performing newcomers’ showing vulnerability. The results from 211 high-performing newcomers and their colleagues reveal that when high-performing newcomers exhibit vulnerability toward their leaders, it leads to a negative impact on the leaders’ perception of their ability, then results in decreased proactive support from the leaders. Notably, this mediating effect is negatively moderated by leader perfectionism. However, when high-performing newcomers display vulnerability toward their coworkers, it negatively influences the coworkers’ perception of potential threat, consequently leading to an increase in proactive support from them. This mediating effect is further negatively moderated by the group competition climate. Moreover, the research provides empirical evidence supporting the profound socialization impacts of proactive support from leaders and coworkers, affecting job performance, social adjustment, and promotability. In summary, this study has significant theoretical and practical implications for newcomer socialization, interpersonal influence strategies, authentic self-disclosure, and high-performing employee literature.","PeriodicalId":48433,"journal":{"name":"Human Relations","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2025-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145246391","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-01DOI: 10.1177/00187267251368243
Martyn Bradley, Caroline Gatrell, Laura Radcliffe, Gary Brown
How do fathers navigate work and family in light of the conflicting ideals associated with breadwinning and involved fathering? Utilizing an ethnographic methodology and drawing upon Goffman’s work concerning dramaturgy and secrecy, we answer this question. We discover how fathers employed within the high-pressure UK legal profession develop a suite of strategic tactics to mislead colleagues into assuming that they are not fathers at all. We untangle and reveal how fathers achieved these impressions, highlighting the complex nature of covering and counter-uncovering moves that men used to conceal their paternity. We show how, when performing on the organizational front stage, fathers adopt the role of job-oriented ideal-worker, casting fathering, in Goffmanian terms, into the shadows as a dark secret (Jaworski, 2021). As a result, men restrict ‘involved fathering’ to the backstage of their home settings. In offering new perspectives on the choices that fathers make in relation to how they navigate the contradictory ideals of traditional and involved fatherhood, our paper challenges prevailing notions of workplace fatherhood, illuminating how fathers experience and respond to workplace glorification of the ideal-worker image, with important implications for theory and future research on work and family, and fathering practices.
{"title":"Secret fathers: Navigating fatherhood through workplace performance","authors":"Martyn Bradley, Caroline Gatrell, Laura Radcliffe, Gary Brown","doi":"10.1177/00187267251368243","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267251368243","url":null,"abstract":"How do fathers navigate work and family in light of the conflicting ideals associated with breadwinning and involved fathering? Utilizing an ethnographic methodology and drawing upon Goffman’s work concerning dramaturgy and secrecy, we answer this question. We discover how fathers employed within the high-pressure UK legal profession develop a suite of strategic tactics to mislead colleagues into assuming that they are not fathers at all. We untangle and reveal how fathers achieved these impressions, highlighting the complex nature of covering and counter-uncovering moves that men used to conceal their paternity. We show how, when performing on the organizational front stage, fathers adopt the role of job-oriented ideal-worker, casting fathering, in Goffmanian terms, into the shadows as a dark secret (Jaworski, 2021). As a result, men restrict ‘involved fathering’ to the backstage of their home settings. In offering new perspectives on the choices that fathers make in relation to how they navigate the contradictory ideals of traditional and involved fatherhood, our paper challenges prevailing notions of workplace fatherhood, illuminating how fathers experience and respond to workplace glorification of the ideal-worker image, with important implications for theory and future research on work and family, and fathering practices.","PeriodicalId":48433,"journal":{"name":"Human Relations","volume":"126 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145254630","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-09-17DOI: 10.1177/00187267251375821
{"title":"Corrigendum to “Poles and Germans: An international business relationship”","authors":"","doi":"10.1177/00187267251375821","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267251375821","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48433,"journal":{"name":"Human Relations","volume":"80 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145077991","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-09-12DOI: 10.1177/00187267251363341
Eun Su Lee, Betina Szkudlarek, Sophia Johnson, Chris Brewster
Scholarly interest in refugee employment often centers on the barriers faced by this group of jobseekers. This study shifts focus to employers, exploring how their practices address recruitment challenges. Our qualitative investigation of 39 Australia-based employers identifies two sets of barriers—proximal and distal—and the corresponding practices employers adopt to overcome them. We find that these barriers differ in the assumed scale, locus of influence, and the nature of impact. Through a practice theory lens, we demonstrate how employers’ responses to these barriers have the capacity to reproduce or alter the socio-structural conditions in which refugee employment takes place. While most employers focus on adaptive practices targeting proximal barriers, transformative practices aimed at tackling the distal barriers play a key role in rectifying structural disparities in the recruitment of disadvantaged groups. Our study advances refugee employment literature by demonstrating how employers’ assumptions around the barriers can deter employer engagement and limit impact. We highlight the managerial implications by demonstrating how employers can drive meaningful change in areas traditionally considered the domain of other actors, effectively addressing challenges in the employment landscape.
{"title":"Advancing inclusive recruitment: A practice lens on navigating barriers to refugee employment","authors":"Eun Su Lee, Betina Szkudlarek, Sophia Johnson, Chris Brewster","doi":"10.1177/00187267251363341","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267251363341","url":null,"abstract":"Scholarly interest in refugee employment often centers on the barriers faced by this group of jobseekers. This study shifts focus to employers, exploring how their practices address recruitment challenges. Our qualitative investigation of 39 Australia-based employers identifies two sets of barriers—proximal and distal—and the corresponding practices employers adopt to overcome them. We find that these barriers differ in the assumed scale, locus of influence, and the nature of impact. Through a practice theory lens, we demonstrate how employers’ responses to these barriers have the capacity to reproduce or alter the socio-structural conditions in which refugee employment takes place. While most employers focus on adaptive practices targeting proximal barriers, transformative practices aimed at tackling the distal barriers play a key role in rectifying structural disparities in the recruitment of disadvantaged groups. Our study advances refugee employment literature by demonstrating how employers’ assumptions around the barriers can deter employer engagement and limit impact. We highlight the managerial implications by demonstrating how employers can drive meaningful change in areas traditionally considered the domain of other actors, effectively addressing challenges in the employment landscape.","PeriodicalId":48433,"journal":{"name":"Human Relations","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145072539","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-09-12DOI: 10.1177/00187267251359199
Zhe Zhang, Xingze Jia
Why and when will people adopt bottom-line mentality (BLM) as an adaptive strategy? This research explores the dynamic triggers of BLM as an activated mental state, moving beyond static individual differences. Based on threat rigidity theory, we propose that time pressure can drive people to adopt BLM by fostering local processing—a narrow focus on immediate tasks. We further suggest that temporal leadership can moderate the relationship between time pressure and local processing, thereby mitigating subsequent BLM. Through three studies, we test this model: Study 1 uses a lab experiment with eye-tracking to confirm time pressure’s causal effect on local processing ( n = 120); Study 2, an online experiment, establishes the causal link between local processing and BLM by manipulating local processing ( n = 300); and Study 3, an experience sampling study with 101 employees over 10 workdays, validates the complete theoretical model. Our findings reveal how time pressure shapes BLM through local processing and highlight temporal leadership as a practical buffer. We discuss implications for managing workplace time pressure and propose future research directions to deepen understanding of the state-like nature of BLM in organizations.
{"title":"Time is hunting: Investigating time pressure and bottom-line mentality with an eye-tracking approach","authors":"Zhe Zhang, Xingze Jia","doi":"10.1177/00187267251359199","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267251359199","url":null,"abstract":"Why and when will people adopt bottom-line mentality (BLM) as an adaptive strategy? This research explores the dynamic triggers of BLM as an activated mental state, moving beyond static individual differences. Based on threat rigidity theory, we propose that time pressure can drive people to adopt BLM by fostering local processing—a narrow focus on immediate tasks. We further suggest that temporal leadership can moderate the relationship between time pressure and local processing, thereby mitigating subsequent BLM. Through three studies, we test this model: Study 1 uses a lab experiment with eye-tracking to confirm time pressure’s causal effect on local processing ( <jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 120); Study 2, an online experiment, establishes the causal link between local processing and BLM by manipulating local processing ( <jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 300); and Study 3, an experience sampling study with 101 employees over 10 workdays, validates the complete theoretical model. Our findings reveal how time pressure shapes BLM through local processing and highlight temporal leadership as a practical buffer. We discuss implications for managing workplace time pressure and propose future research directions to deepen understanding of the state-like nature of BLM in organizations.","PeriodicalId":48433,"journal":{"name":"Human Relations","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145072517","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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