Employee engagement has been researched extensively in the management and human resource development (HRD) literature. However, the relationship between employee perceptions of HRD practices, ...engagement, and turnover intentions has not been sufficiently studied. In response, this two‐study research examined the extent to which employees' perceived support for participation in HRD practices (PSHRD), engagement, and turnover intent were associated with each other in the service sector. Two samples (nStudy 1 = 490 and nStudy 2 = 511) of U.S. service sector employees were used. Using structural equation modeling, the results of both studies confirmed the theorized partially mediated model. Study 2 expanded on the initial model by adding the moderating variable positive reciprocity beliefs between PSHRD and emotional engagement, which has not yet been empirically tested. However, the moderator was found to be statistically insignificant. Implications for HRD theory, practice, and future research are discussed.
PurposeThe theory of planned behavior was used as a guiding framework to explore how undergraduate business students, employed full-time, perceived the influence of their first class in business ...ethics on ethical awareness and ethical behavior in the workplace.Design/methodology/approachIn this qualitative study, the perceived influence of ethics education on ethical awareness and ethical behavior in the workplace was explored. The sample consisted of eight concurrently employed undergraduate business students at a university in the Southwestern US.FindingsInductive analysis of primary data collected in the study suggests that ethics education increased ethical awareness. The increased desire to correct unethical behavior is another step toward ethical behavior. However, the participants in the current study did not report an increase in actual ethical behavior despite their increased ethical awareness and intent. Ethical awareness is only one component in the multidimensional process of ethical decision-making, and the increase in ethical awareness alone may not increase ethical behavior. Instead, attitude toward ethical behavior and perceived behavioral control needs to be considered as well.Originality/valueThe literature indicates that ethics education increases awareness of ethical norms and cognitive moral development. However, the question remains about how ethics education transfers to ethical behavior at the workplace. This study sought to investigate this question.
Purpose
The purpose of this qualitative study is to conduct an exploratory investigation of the impact and sustainability of coaching on career and leadership development of students and later, ...alumni, in an Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) program.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample for this qualitative study consisted of 14 alumni of an EMBA program at a private university in the Southwestern US who graduated between January 2012 and May 2019. Eleven alumni participated in the focus groups, and three alumni participated in personal interviews.
Findings
The open coding of the data resulted in three emergent themes (personal development by overcoming personal deficiencies, coaching translates to learning about leadership and coaching motivates sustained change) that confirmed the positive long-term effect of coaching as part of an EMBA program.
Practical implications
By participating in an executive coaching engagement, the EMBA students learned a development process that they could repeat for themselves after graduation and transfer to others. In addition, the EMBA students were able to leverage knowledge gained from the coaching experience for the development of others.
Originality/value
While the positive impacts of coaching are well-documented, its long-term impact on EMBA students/alumni has not yet been studied. This study builds on other evaluative studies to identify the benefits of executive coaching.
A disconnect has long existed between what is typically taught in management education programs and what real-world organizations seek in their leadership candidates, particularly regarding ...interpersonal skills. Primary complaints from the business community revolve around issues of curriculum relevance and delivery methodologies that do not facilitate the transfer of skills learned in the classroom to the workplace. A review of the literature yields very few examples of business programs that have added courses, or topics within existing courses, that address interpersonal skills. We describe a graduate-level course designed to intentionally develop interpersonal skills to meet the needs of local hiring managers, maximize organizational outcomes, and enhance leaders’ career opportunities. The course is delivered via active, experiential instructional methodologies to facilitate the transfer of new knowledge and skills to the workplace. A pre- and post-test comparison of students’ results on a competency-based behavioral model of emotional intelligence showed an increase in students’ scores, indicating that the course has been effective in developing students’ practical interpersonal skills. This article describes the fundamental design and delivery elements of this successful leadership course that can be replicated and implemented at other universities to more effectively align what students learn with what organizations need.
Comparisons between groups are common in human resource development (HRD) studies, yet many researchers neglect a crucial prerequisite step before analyzing and interpreting what group differences ...might mean. In essence, how can HRD scholars be confident in knowing that mean group differences are attributable to actual differences between groups as opposed to differences in how each group interprets the constructs of interest? Measurement invariance (MI) provides insight into whether a measure or construct has the same meaning between groups or over time and is an important precursor to the evaluation of group differences. While MI testing has gained some traction within HRD studies, steps to take when partial MI testing is needed have received very little attention. The purpose of this article is to encourage HRD researchers and practitioners to embrace and utilize two techniques when partial invariance (i.e., noninvariance) occurs. There are several techniques one could use during partial MI testing; however, the two showcased herein, the factor‐ratio test and the list‐and‐delete procedure, are established, reliable, and proven within the confirmatory factor analysis framework. This article provides an illustrative example of how to use these techniques to identify invariance at the item level when noninvariance is found. Additionally, R syntax is included that allows for the automation of these techniques. The importance to theory and implications to researchers and practitioners of finding noninvariance and then testing for partial MI is also discussed.
Purpose This study responded to the call to empirically reconcile conflicting findings in unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) literature. It did so by examining the influence of ...organizational culture on the relationship between affective organizational commitment and UPB. Design/methodology/approach Using a sample of 710 U.S. service sector employees based on a three-wave data collection design, structural invariance assessment was utilized to evaluate the relationship between affective organizational commitment and UPB across organizational cultures with opposing effectiveness criteria (i.e. focused on stability vs flexibility). Findings The result indicated a statistically significant positive direct effect between affective organizational commitment and UPB for the stability-focused cultures, while finding a statistically insignificant effect for the flexibility-focused cultures. These results support organizational culture research, which shows that organizational cultures with opposing effectiveness criteria (i.e. stability vs flexibility) can either encourage or discourage ethical behavior. Practical implications While leaders and managers encourage employee commitment to the organization, it is important to understand that increased organizational commitment is not limited to positive outcomes. Cultivating elements of flexibility-oriented cultures, like promoting teamwork (as in clan cultures) or fostering innovation and adaptability (as in adhocracy cultures), can be a strategic approach to minimize the chances of UPB among committed employees. Originality/value By integrating insights from social exchange theory, Trevino’s interactionist model and the competing values framework, we have contributed to a nuanced understanding of how different organizational cultures can suppress or stimulate UPB.
A reliability generalization meta-analysis was performed to explore the relationship between study factors and levels of alpha reliability for the 15 subscales of the Motivated Strategies for ...Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). The MSLQ has been widely adapted over the past 25 years to investigate the role of motivation and strategies in learning, primarily at the postsecondary level. A literature search from the years 1991 to 2015 yielded 295 peer-reviewed journal articles and 1,369 alpha reliability coefficients. Articles were coded for six potential moderator study variables. A novel varying coefficient (VC) model was adopted to determine average reliabilities across studies for each subscale and to perform multiple regression analyses to identify study variables that may moderate alpha reliability estimates. Commonality analyses were used to aid in interpretation of regression results. Meta-analyzed alpha reliabilities were lower than values published in the test manual for all but three of the subscales. Ability of specific moderators to predict score reliability varied across subscales; however, studies in North America, in English, or using a 7-point response scale generally corresponded to increased reliability estimates. Knowledge of expected levels of score reliability under varying sample and study conditions may provide useful information for researchers planning future use of the MSLQ.
The purpose of the study was two‐fold. First, the study tested the claim suggested by Newman et al. (2011) (Human Resource Development Quarterly, 22, 37–47) that data from the Utrecht Work Engagement ...Scale appears to be redundant with the variance that is uniquely common to job satisfaction, affective organizational commitment, and job involvement. Second, the study tested the hypothesis that the variance in work engagement that is uniquely common to the set of job attitudes studied in Newman et al. is largely positive affect. Analyses not conducted in Newman et al. (2010) (Handbook of Employee Engagement: Perspectives, Issues, Research, and Practice, pp. 43–61) were performed to deconstruct the explained variance in work engagement into commonality coefficients representing all possible subsets of variables. The findings demonstrate that variance uniquely common to job satisfaction, affective organizational commitment, and job involvement did not dominate the regression effect as previously suggested. Further, the study found that almost 50% of the variance that was uniquely common to the job attitudes studied was common with positive affect. The results of this study will help scholars and scholar‐practitioners understand the complex relationships between work engagement, job attitudes, and positive affect.
This article presents a hierarchical map of analyses subsumed by canonical correlation and a shiny application to facilitate the connections between said analyses. Building on the work of other ...researchers who used canonical correlation analyses to unify analyses in the general linear model, we demonstrate that the hierarchy is not as flat as some have portrayed. While a simpler hierarchy may seem to be more accessible, it implies a lack of relationship between analyses that may cause confusion when learning the vast majority of univariate and multivariate analyses in the general linear model. Because it is not always intuitive how all the relevant analyses for a given data type can be conducted, we developed the Shiny application
canCORRgam
to demonstrate the hierarchical path of analyses subsumed by canonical correlation for 15 different models. The
canCORRgam
application provides emerging researchers evidence of the transitive properties implied in the map. Our work also promotes meta-analytic thinking and practice as we provide the tools, formula, and software to relate test statistics to effect sizes in addition to transforming relevant test statistics and effect sizes to equivalent test statistics and effect sizes.
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