International Journal of Manpower

Publisher:: Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Publication date:: 2021-02-01

ISBN:: 0143-7720

Issue Number

Latest documents

IJM 43.7 Obituary
Determinants of school to work transition and COVID-19
Purpose: This is Part 1 of the two special issues on the topic, “School to work transition around the world – the effect of the pandemic recession.” The first part focuses on the determinants of the school-to-work transition (STWT) and the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on the young worker and their response to uncertain labor market conditions. The second issue will explore the country-specific experiences around the globe in tackling the problem of a smooth STWT. The purpose of this introductory article is to elaborate on the transition of young workers in the labor market. Discussion on the status of various indicators of the youth labor market (unemployment, underemployment and not in employment, education and training [NEET]) is also integrated. The determining factors of school-to-work transition (STWT) and the role of technical and vocational institutions and universities are analyzed. Moreover, the impact of COVID-19 on the labor market is also evaluated. After the pandemic, there was a dreadful change in the job market; this study dives into those diverse factors and carves out the multiple impacts on youth unemployment. Design/methodology/approach: The study analyses relevant literature on STWT, NEET and COVID-19 implications for the labor market, based on the other papers in this special issue. Using the review method, the authors identified similar research articles and reports which helped in strengthening the study’s argument. The primary focus of the study was on the smooth transition of young workers in the labor market and the impact of the pandemic on youth unemployment. Hence, literature supported the authors in giving the justifications from various economies and societies. Findings: The paper finds that youth worldwide have suffered from the repercussions of COVID-19, especially in their early career (STWT). Skill mismatch, underemployment, job losses, salary cut downs, health issues, vocational education importance, vulnerable employment, etc. were some of the significant impacts the authors identified by analyzing the various reports and papers. Furthermore, this paper also discusses the role of active labor market policies and hiring incentives for promoting youth employment. Social implications: The paper finds that the times ahead are challenging ones. There is a dearth of productive job opportunities due to slow economic growth. The unemployment rate among youth and adults is high, and labor markets have become more competitive. The young generation is now left with no choice but to upgrade and improve their skill set or some other expertise. On the one hand, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and universities need to enhance their marketable knowledge and skills, and on the other hand, there is a need for active labor market policies to encourage their participation in the labor markets. Originality/value: This paper strongly contributes to highlighting the professional and societal hit backs faced due to the aftermath of COVID-19. The study summarizes the specific details of STWT and employment issues faced by youth in various parts of the world.
Labour standards in the Ghanaian construction sector: an investigation of the governance landscape
Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the governance of labour standards in the less-studied yet rapidly globalising Ghanaian construction sector. While incorporation into international production networks generates several opportunities for workers, the drivers of adverse incorporation originate at multiple levels of analysis. The study offers an investigation into such drivers and their interconnections. Design/methodology/approach: The authors utilise a multi-scalar framework and mixed methods of analysis. Both the qualitative and multi-level quantitative analyses rely on a primary dataset collected among 30 firms and 304 respondents, through semi-structured interviews. Findings: A composite yet unbalanced labour standards governance configuration emerges, where the absence of social governance combined with a weak role of the State leaves labour standards subject to the variegated landscape of firms' embeddedness in the sector. Originality/value: The construction industry is acquiring ever-increasing relevance in the economic trajectory of Ghana as well as that of several other African economies, not least for its large employment generation potential. Research on the governance of labour standards in the sector is, however, largely missing. The authors argue that labour incorporation dynamics represent a complex under-investigated regulatory challenge as well as a policy-making priority. The analysis is one of the first to offer a reconstruction of the governance landscape determining the challenges workers face in the Ghanaian construction sector, from both a qualitative and quantitative perspective.
Public management strategies for improving satisfaction with pandemic-induced telework among public employees
Purpose: The author examined the association between public employees' satisfaction with pandemic-induced telework satisfaction and job autonomy, organizational goal clarity, organizational justice, and performance-based culture. In addition, the author analyzed the moderating effects of generation and gender on the relationships between job autonomy, organizational goal clarity, organizational justice, performance-based culture, and pandemic-induced telework satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach: This study used survey data collected from 4,339 Korean public employees, comprising 1,983 central government officials and 2,356 metropolitan government officials, during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study conducted a structural equation model to test hypotheses. Findings: The author found that job autonomy, organizational goal clarity, organizational justice, and performance-based culture were positively associated with pandemic-induced telework satisfaction. In addition, this research found the moderating effects of generation and gender on the relationships between job autonomy, organizational goal clarity, organizational justice, performance-based culture, and pandemic-induced telework satisfaction. Originality/value: This study’s results can guide public organizations in developing public management strategies to improve pandemic-induced telework satisfaction. In particular, public organizations need to cope effectively with the broad prevalence of telework triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic by establishing high job autonomy, a performance-oriented culture, a fair evaluation system, and clear and measurable performance goals and adjusting telework according to the generational and gender characteristics.
Exploring the cornerstones of green, sustainable and socially responsible human resource management
Purpose: This study aims to delineate the fast-growing path of human resource management (HRM) research with a sustainable orientation and resolve confusion over the differences and interdependences of the various approaches that have emerged: green human resource management (GHRM), sustainable human resource management (Sustainable HRM), and socially responsible human resource management (SR-HRM). Design/methodology/approach: In this study, bibliometrics and science mapping were used to analyze the field's conceptual structure based on 587 related documents extracted from the ISI Web of Science database. Co-word analysis with SciMAT software enabled the authors to map the main themes studied and identify evolution, importance, and relevance. Findings: SR-HRM is the least developed of the three approaches analyzed and has been overlooked by the journals that publish the most work in the field of HR. The authors identify a lack of sustainability-related HRM studies on higher education and an ongoing need both to explore the role of culture in GHRM implementation and to explain further the potential non-green behavioral outcomes that can result from GHRM's use. Practical implications: This study demonstrates how human resource factors are key to managing challenges such as aging workforce, unstable employment relationships, implementation of green supply chain management, and Industry 4.0. Originality/value: This study explores in detail the interrelations among various emerging sustainable human resource approaches and subtopics derived from the interrelations to reveal hotspots, dilemmas, paradoxes, and research gaps.
Can strategic HRM bundles decrease emotional exhaustion and increase service recovery performance?
Purpose: Through the lens of conservation of resource theory and the model of ability, motivation and opportunity (AMO), this study tests the relationship between high performance work practices (HPWP), emotional exhaustion and service recovery performance (SRP). It examines the direct effect of AMO bundles on emotional exhaustion and the indirect effect of these bundles on SRP via emotional exhaustion. Design/methodology/approach: In a sample of 1,664 flight attendants from Canada, Germany and France, this study uses a quantitative method. Using AMOS V.24, CFA was used to test quality of scales, model fit as well as the direct effects. The method of Monte Carlo (parametric bootstrap) and more precisely bias corrected percentile method were used to test the mediation mechanism, based on 5,000 bootstrapping and 95% confidence intervals. Findings: Results show that all AMO bundles can be considered as a resource caravan passageway protecting employees against resources loss and allowing them to perform well and to recover service after a failure. They reveal that each bundle has a direct, negative link with emotional exhaustion, a health-related well-being and an indirect effect on SRP via emotional exhaustion. Research limitations/implications: The finding further highlights the need to distinguish between AMO dimensions in strategic HRM research and practice. The cross-sectional nature of this study limits the establishment of causal links between variables. The author encourages future researchers to adopt a research design enabling to collect data at two or three-time periods and involving multi-source data. Practical implications: Companies should be aware of the mechanisms through which HPWP influence the occupational health and performance of flight attendants and consider that “different bundles can have different effects” as important when they would redesign their HRM practices. In turn, it is rather opportunity enhancing HPWP (e.g. empowerment, work teams) that will be the most efficient in improving SRP. In a customer service context, and for flight attendants who work for prolonged hours with sometimes demanding passengers, it seems very important that airlines empower their flight attendants to use their skills and abilities to respond to problems arising onboard, either from service failures or any complaint a passenger may have. Employers should aim to create pools of practices designed to enrich and protect the resources of their employees allowing them to reduce emotional exhaustion. Originality/value: This research study contributes therefore to the HRM-well-being-individual and/or organizational performance debate in a very particular context, by using the AMO framework to test the proposed relationship. In doing so, this study advances the theoretical and empirical evidence on how HR systems and AMO framework can be applied in this setting. The findings allow distinguishing which bundle of HRM is the most influential on emotional exhaustion, which can advance the literature in strategic human resource management. The paper adds to the literature by addressing the role of emotional exhaustion rather than happiness-related measures of well-being. Thus, our results stress the importance of health-related well-being, and emotional exhaustion, as an important pathway through which AMO-bundles influence performance outcomes and confirm that there are different well-being pathways to consider in the HRM-performance relationship. By using different bundles of AMO, the study advances the literature by showing that each bundle could have a different effect as the findings show that only opportunity enhancing HPWPs still directly impacted SRP after introducing the mediator (emotional exhaustion).
Wage equation misrepresents gay wage discrimination: overlooked evidence from Russia
Purpose: Only data from developed countries were used to estimate the sexual orientation difference in wages. This paper is the first, which aims to identify the wage discrimination of gay men in Russia – a country where institutional discrimination and ignorance against gay men are known to present. Design/methodology/approach: Gays are identified as men who reported having sex with other men in several waves of the national household survey. A wage equation is used to estimate the gay wage penalty. Extending the wage equation to implement a difference-in-difference design, the paper also evaluates the effect of the gay-propaganda law of 2013 on gay wages. Findings: No wage discrimination is identified. The law also has no adverse effect on gay wages. Practical implications: Cross-country comparison and theoretical generalizations are premature, and better identification strategies are needed to understand sexual orientation differences. Social implications: Policymakers should be aware that in both discriminatory and equitable environments, there may be hidden inequality even if researchers do not detect it. Originality/value: The findings are implausible and add to existing evidence that gay discrimination measured with wage equation suffers from endogeneity and should be interpreted with caution. Particular caution should be exercised in cross-sectional and time-series comparisons, as a tendency to report the orientation honestly and unobserved confounders vary by location and time.
Support to sin: a moderated mediation model of perceived organizational support's effect on unethical pro-organizational behavior among Indian nationals
Purpose: The present research aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the mechanism underlying the potential harmful outcomes of perceived organizational support (POS) in instigating unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB). Integrating social exchange theory with social identity theory, the present study proposes the indirect effect of one's POS as the mechanism that leads an individual to commit UPB via organizational identification (OI). The authors also expect the role of an individual's moral identity (MI) in moderating the relationship between OI and UPB. Design/methodology/approach: The current research tests the proposed moderated mediation model by using two survey-based field studies consisting of 316 and 178 responses in study 1 and 2, respectively from working professionals of various organizations in India. Findings: The current research finds support for the proposed moderated mediation model where the POS leads to UPB through the indirect effects of OI. Also, an individual's MI plays a key role in moderating one's engagement in UPB. Originality/value: The current research integrates social exchange theory and social identity theory in the UPB literature in a logical and coherent manner. Furthermore, the current research also explains the role of multiple identities in enhancing and attenuating one's engagement in UPB.
Who uses deceptive impression management to succeed at job interviews? The role of ethical ideologies and work locus of control
Purpose: Drawing upon theories of ethical ideologies (idealism and relativism) and work locus of control, this study aims to examine how ethical ideology in job seekers influences their use of deceptive impression management (deceptive IM) behavior during job interviews. Design/methodology/approach: A time-lagged study was conducted with two measurement waves to test our hypotheses. AMOS-SEM, which included bootstrapping (5,000 re-sampling) procedures to analyze the data, was used. Findings: Results indicate that a job seeker's relativistic ethical ideology influences their use of deceptive IM behavior during job interviews and work locus of control – internal [WLOC (internal)] mediates this relationship. Exploring the relationship between ethical ideologies of job seekers and their deceptive IM behavior at job interviews, this study found that relativistic individuals with WLOC (internal) were more inclined to engage in deceptive IM. Originality/value: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies to explore the role of ethical ideology in influencing deception IM behavior during job interviews. Knowledge of the relationship between job seekers ethical ideologies and deception IM behavior at job interviews would alert HR managers to adopt additional screening processes to detect candidates who indulge in deceptive IM behavior to exaggerate their image to influence the interviewer's perception.
From traditional to smart human resources management
Purpose: The purpose of this article is to examine all the studies carried out within the scope of e-HRM and smart HRM, grouped according to the sub-functions of technical and HRM. The use of technology in HRM has started since the mid-1990s. However, this study focused on the articles published after 2014 in order to keep up to date. Any search strategy should allow for the completeness of the search to be evaluated. The terms “electronic-HRM”, “AI and HRM”, “Industry 4.0 and HRM”, “Society 5.0 and HRM”, “Human Resource Information Systems” and “Digital Technologies and HRM” “Human-robot interaction” has been questioned in IEEE Xplore, ALM digital library, Emerald Insight, SpringerLink, and Science Direct. The Web of Science and Scopus were also queried to double-check the findings and find other relevant articles in lesser-known libraries. Google Scholar was also used for forward and backward searches. These online databases have been chosen because they present the most important peer-reviewed full-text journals, conference proceedings, book chapters. Then, the references of each article were reviewed for additional articles on digital technologies and HRM. Each subsequent article is then reviewed for additional reference. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 5,580 articles have been reviewed. Duplicate items have been removed. The titles and abstracts of 3,500 articles have been scanned to identify potential articles. The full-text evaluation of 2,554 was based on compliance with the inclusion criteria. In addition, 2,458 studies have been excluded. In total, 96 studies have been selected for data extraction. Additionally, questionnaires and reviews have been used to provide comprehensive research on e-HRM and smart HRM. The search terms used are expected to cover most, if not all, of the studies involving e-HRM and smart HRM. Findings: The study carried out in this article is qualitative research. In the article, which methods are used and what has changed in e-HRM and smart HRM are examined. In particular, it has been thought about what can happen with the inclusion of human-machine interaction, AI, chatbots, industry 4.0 and information systems in HRM. Unlike previous studies, this review takes HRM from a broader perspective and groups it by topic, both by technical and HR functions. In addition, the reviewed articles provide brief information about the AI technologies used. In particular, criteria were taken into account according to the field, type and subject of the articles. Originality/value: This study has the distinction of being the first in the literature in terms of examining all the studies carried out within the scope of e-HRM and smart HRM and grouped according to the sub-functions of technical and HRM in line with its purpose. The article focuses specifically on research published after 2014. It is expected to contribute to the literature in terms of collecting all studies in a single article. Other contributions of this article can be summarized in four main articles: 1) it presents a summary of previous research by grouping the studies on e-HRM and smart HRM according to the interests of researchers. 2) It saves time for the reader as it provides a brief explanation of the studies on the subject. 3) Instead of explaining in detail the general details analyzed in other articles, it offers a practical perspective by focusing on the type, subject and field of the article. 4) With the digitalization of HRM, new, up-to-date research and techniques are introduced.