Amplifying Voice in Organizations Bain, Kristin; Kreps, Tamar A.; Meikle, Nathan L. ...
Academy of Management journal,
08/2021, Volume:
64, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
We extend the field's understanding of voice recognition by examining peer responses to voice. We investigate how employees can help peers get a status boost from voicing, while also raising their ...own status, by introducing the concept of amplification-public endorsement of another person's contribution, with attribution to that person. In two experiments and one field study, we find that amplification enhances status both for voicers and for those who amplify voice. Being amplified was equally beneficial for voicers who framed their ideas promotively and prohibitively (improvement-focused and problem-focused, respectively; Study 1), and for men and women (Study 2). Furthermore, amplified ideas were rated as higher quality than nonamplified ideas. Amplification also helped amplifiers: participants reading experimentally manipulated meeting transcripts rated amplifiers as higher status than those who self-promoted, stayed quiet, or contributed additional ideas (Studies 1 and 2). Finally, in an intervention in a nonprofit organization, select employees trained to use amplification attained higher status in their work groups (Study 3). Overall, these results increase our understanding of how social actors can capitalize on instances of voice to give a status boost to voicers who might otherwise be overlooked, and help organizations realize the potential of employees' diverse perspectives.
The associations between proxy measures of cognitive reserve (CR) and cognition vary across studies and cognitive domains. This meta-analysis aimed to assess the relationship between CR and cognition ...in multiple domains (memory, executive function, visuospatial ability, and language). CR was considered in terms of three key proxy measures - educational level, occupational status, and engagement in cognitively stimulating activities - individually and in combination. One-hundred and thirty-five studies representing 128,328 participants were included. Of these, 109 used a measure of education, 19 used a measure of occupation, 31 used a measure of participation in cognitively stimulating activities, and 6 used a combination of these. All three proxy measures had a modest positive association with cognition; occupational status and cognitive activities showed the most variation across cognitive domains. This supports the view that the commonly used proxy measures of CR share an underlying process but that each additionally provides a unique contribution to CR.
Past research has posited that occupations are distinct and exclusive communities of workers and used single-entry questions in surveys to measure occupational self-identification. Our study ...challenges that view by reporting the existence of polyoccupationalism, or workers’ simultaneous identification with multiple occupations. We predict this phenomenon co-occurs with postindustrial forms of work organization and that its expression varies with workers’ position in the occupational structure. Using a survey on creative workers that uniquely allowed respondents to identify with multiple occupations, we find individuals report higher levels of polyoccupationalism when their work is more contract- and project-based, net of other individual and occupational attributes. We further show that polyoccupationalism takes different forms at the top and the bottom of the occupational hierarchy: whereas the polyoccupationalism of high-status “entrepreneurs” stretches expertise—they identify with occupations that are similar in status but functionally distinct—that of lower-status “hustlers” stretches status—the occupations they report involve similar tasks but stand farther apart on the occupational status scale. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding workers’ occupational identities and the dynamics of occupational hierarchies.
Wage/earnings inequalities are one source of overall inequality in a country. The former inequalities in turn are closely linked with differential occupational status either defined in a contractual ...or productive/skill sense. Using the Pakistan Standard Classification of Occupations PSCO (1994), this paper estimates Gini coefficients for three types (all types, employee, selfemployed) of individuals/earners by occupational status from the Pakistan Integrated Household Survey (PIHS) 2001-02 and Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) 2004-05. Long-term trends in earnings inequality from 1992-93 to 2004-05 are documented with the benchmark estimates in the Ahmad (2002) study, while the short-term trends are measured from 2001-02 to 2004-05 for self-employed and paid employee. The long- as well as the short-term trends indicate rising earnings disparities within each occupational category. Over the longer period, these disparities have risen in the range of 50 to 100 percent. Shifts across occupation and across employment status indicate doubling of the share of Shop and Market Sales and Services Workers and the transition towards becoming self-employed. A few tentative explanations for the observed increasing occupational inequalities at the individual level are: (a) Availability of credit and improved efficiency of capital market may have relaxed capital constraints of former employees and enabled them to transit as self-employed. Right-sizing and down-sizing in public organisations may also have pushed the previous employees into utilising the ‘golden handshake’ packages towards self-employment. Assuming that returns on capital (internal or borrowed) are higher and financial contracts are more lucrative than wage contracts, the situation can lead to wider disparities. (b) At the paid employee level, the fall in the share of workers in elementary occupations improved the wage contracts of those still remaining in this occupation, and thereby increased the income/earnings inequality within this category. (c) Premium on skills, education, experience, and talent, in spite of the entry of a large number of individuals in the Service, Shop and Market Sales Workers category, has widened the inequalities within this category.
The extant social undermining literature suggests that employees envy and, consequently, undermine coworkers when they feel that these coworkers are better off and thus pose a threat to their own ...current status. With the present research, we draw on the sociofunctional approach to emotions to propose that an anticipated future status threat can similarly incline employees to feel envy toward, and subsequently undermine, their coworkers. We argue that employees pay special attention to coworkers' past development in relation to their own, because faster-rising coworkers may pose a future status threat even if they are still performing worse in absolute terms in the present. With a set of two behavioral experiments (N = 90 and N = 168), we establish that participants react to faster-rising coworkers with social undermining behavior when the climate is competitive (vs. less competitive). We extended these results with a scenario experiment (N = 376) showing that, in these situations, participants extrapolate lower future status than said coworker and thus respond with envy and undermining behavior. A two-wave field study (N = 252) replicated the complete moderated serial mediation model. Our findings help to explain why employees sometimes undermine others who present no immediate threat to their status. As such, we extend theorizing on social undermining and social comparison.
The COVID-19 pandemic led to a lockdown in European countries in the first half of 2020, including stay-at-home orders and closure of non-essential businesses. To mitigate the detrimental effects on ...the financial stress of employees and households, the UK government implemented a furlough scheme that temporarily secured earnings up to 80 percent of regular pay. Other employees were at risk of reduced work hours or permanent job loss. Using data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study COVID-19 Supplement, this study examines the extent to which different earnings groups and sociodemographic groups (gender, race/ethnicity, class background) became exposed to economic hardship between March and May of 2020. Results indicate that lower earnings groups were more than twice as likely to experience economic hardship relative to top quintile earners. Furthermore, among pre-COVID employed individuals, men had a higher probability of being furloughed or dismissed from work, as well as whites in middle-income jobs. Analyses indicate that these gaps are to a large extent attributable to structural gender earnings inequalities within occupations and the fact that women and racial-ethnic minorities are employed in essential occupations.
Creativity is an increasingly important domain of performance largely based on knowledge held and exchanged among employees. Despite the necessity of knowledge exchange, individual employees tend to ...experience mixed motivation caused by the inherent social dilemma of knowledge sharing. To pragmatically explain how individuals deal with this motivational dilemma, we propose an expanded framework of knowledge management behavior (KMB) that includes knowledge sharing, hiding, and manipulation. Individual choices among these KMBs may be driven by dispositional goal orientations. We also propose that the effects of KMB on creativity of employees vary depending on their social status in a work group. Our analyses based on 214 employees from 37 teams reveal that (i) learning goal orientation increases knowledge sharing and decreases knowledge manipulation; (ii) avoiding goal orientation increases knowledge sharing and manipulation; and (iii) proving goal orientation increases knowledge hiding and manipulation. Knowledge hiding is negatively related to employee creativity, particularly for employees with high social status. Knowledge manipulation is positively related to creativity, particularly for those with high social status. This study develops and validates a theoretical framework explaining the formative process and distinct outcomes of the multifaceted and strategic approaches to KMB at the individual level.
Aim:
The aim of this study was to investigate the association between the COVID-19 pandemic and psychological fatigue as a mental health issue among the population of Istanbul, Turkey.
Participants ...and methods:
This is a cross-sectional study conducted in Istanbul, Turkey, between March and June 2020, where a total of 4,700 persons were approached and 3,672 (78%) of participants (64.4% males and 35.6% females) completed the Knowledge Attitude Practices (KAP) and Fatigue Assessment Scale (FAS) questionnaires.
Results:
In this study, 64.1% of participants were categorized as psychologically fatigued and 35.9% as normal. There was a significant difference between fatigued and normal participants with respect to age, educational level, occupational status, place of residence and number of family members (p < .001). Other differences related to knowledge of COVID-19 were symptoms, treatment, ways of spreading (p < .001), prevention by avoiding crowded places (p = .008) and isolation (p = .002). For attitudinal items, normal participants generally showed more positive attitudes than the fatigued in believing that COVID-19 will finally be controlled, satisfaction with preventive measures taken by the authorities, reporting suspected cases with symptoms and trusting that Turkey can overcome the COVID-19 pandemic (p < .001). Multivariate stepwise regression analysis indicated that level of education, avoiding going to crowded places, eye, nose and mouth organs are sensitive organs to the virus, keeping physical distance due to epidemic affect by COVID-19 virus, isolation and treatment of people reduce the spread of COVID-19 virus and 14-days period of time, COVID-19 is mainly transmitted through contact with the respiratory droplets of an infected person, occupational status, health education programme needed and antibody treatment variables were significantly associated with fatigue after adjusting for age, gender and income variables.
Conclusion:
The current study provides valuable information for policymakers and mental health professionals worldwide regarding associations between the mental health of individuals and the ongoing outbreak, COVİD-19.
Contrary to common stereotypes, loneliness is not restricted to old age but can occur at any life stage. In this study, we used data from a large, nationally representative German study (N = 16,132) ...to describe and explain age differences in loneliness from late adolescence to oldest old age. The age distribution of loneliness followed a complex nonlinear trajectory, with elevated loneliness levels among young adults and among the oldest old. The late-life increase in loneliness could be explained by lower income levels, higher prevalence of functional limitations, and higher proportion of singles in this age group. Consistent with an age-normative perspective, the association of income, relationship status, household size, and work status with loneliness differed between different age groups. In contrast, indicators of the quantity of social relationships (social engagement, number of friends, contact frequency) were universally associated with loneliness regardless of age. Overall, these findings show that sources of loneliness in older adults are well understood. Future research should focus on understanding the specific sources of loneliness in middle-aged adults.
The hidden face of job insecurity Gallie, Duncan; Felstead, Alan; Green, Francis ...
Work, employment and society,
02/2017, Volume:
31, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Drawing on nationally representative data for British employees, the article argues for a more comprehensive concept of job insecurity, including not only job tenure insecurity but also job status ...insecurity, relating to anxiety about changes to valued features of the job. It shows that job status insecurity is highly prevalent in the workforce and is associated with different individual, employment and labour market characteristics than those that affect insecurity about job loss. It is also related to different organizational contexts. However, the article also shows that the existence of effective mechanisms of employee participation can reduce both types of job insecurity.
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