Adela McMurray

Leadership, climate, psychological capital, commitment, and wellbeing in a non‐profit organization

Purpose – This exploratory study aims to examine the effects of leadership on organizational climate, employee psychological capital, commitment, and wellbeing in a religious/church‐based non‐profit organization.Design/methodology/approach – Leadership effects are investigated using established scales including the transformational leadership scale, (TLS), organizational climate questionnaire (OCQ), positive and negative affect scale (PANAS), psychological capital (PsyCap), and organizational commitment. It is a context‐based study that considers a unique organizational culture that comprises social, political, economic, technological, personnel, and personal facets. The survey was administered across a large religious/church‐based non‐profit organization.Findings – The findings show strong positive relationships between employee ratings of their immediate supervisors transformational leadership and employee ratings of organizational climate, wellbeing, employee commitment and psychological capital. Addi...

The impact of leadership on workgroup climate and performance in a non‐profit organization

Purpose – The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine the impact of leadership on workgroup climate and performance in a religious/church‐based non‐profit organization.Design/methodology/approach – The impact of leadership is investigated using a questionnaire comprised of established scales such as the transformational leadership scales (TLS), team climate inventory questionnaire (TCI), team effectiveness, workgroup cohesion, and interdependence scales. This is a context based study that considers the unique culture comprised of social, political, economic, technologic, personnel, and personal concerns. Descriptive, correlation, hierarchical regression, and SPSS macro developed by Preacher and Hayes were used as statistical techniques to assess the indirect effects (Sobel Tests) of variables.Findings – Transformational leadership was identified as a key variable for the functioning of workgroup performance whilst transactional leadership was identified as a key influencing factor of workgroup cli...

Determinants of organisational climate for academia

Being aware of the factors that develop a positive organisational climate is especially important in universities, where the academic members of staff are, in large measure, self-motivated. To identify the determinants of organisational climate for university academia, the validity and reliability of the first-order constructs of autonomy, cohesion and pressure were examined. These three constructs were found to have inadequate validity in this environment. The remaining five valid constructs indicated a second-order organisational climate construct organisational climate was influenced by support, followed by trust and fairness, and then by recognition and innovation. The findings of our study will assist university managers to identify areas to focus upon when developing their academic staff in the pursuit of improving the organisational climate.

Exploring Business Incubation from a Family Perspective: How Start-up Family Firms Experience the Incubation Process in Two Australian Incubators

Abstract This qualitative study explored how family start-up firms, housed in an incubator during their first three years of operation, experienced the business incubation process. There is limited research conducted on family business experiences during the start-up phase when money is tight, entrepreneurial activity is basic and business know-how is in its infancy (Dyer, 2003). Thus, the purpose of this study was to identify the reasons why start-up entrepreneurs choose to locate their firms in an incubator setting and how two incubators assisted the family firms to build their business going through the incubation process. The research sample consisted of twelve start-up entrepreneurial family firms of which seven were located in the Brunswick Business Incubator (BBI) and five located within the Monash Enterprise Centre (MEC) in Melbourne, Australia. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews then analysed using NVivo7 following a grounded theory approach. The findings showed the majority of start-up family firms moved into an incubator environment because they were not familiar with business practices, felt isolated working from home, were hoping to share business ‘know how’, to find other family business entrepreneurs, and hoping to find a small business ‘community in which they could participate and network. In addition, the findings revealed that for family start-ups, the boundaries between personal relationships and business relationships appeared to dissolve or overlap, and relationships with other tenants and the incubator manager developed from a strong trust base and camaraderie. The value of this study is threefold. First, the study’s findings contribute to Habbershon, Williams and MacMillans (2003) assertions that viewing family firms as a meta-system is meaningful, as it sheds light on the organisational behaviour of small family firms based within incubator environments. Secondly, Chua, Chrisman and Steiers (2003) and Dyer’s (2003) concerns that family variables are regularly omitted from the main stream management literature, and third, Hackett and Dilts’(2004a:56) observation that there is a shortage of variables “explaining how and why the incubation process leads to specific incubation outcomes”. The analysis uncovered emerging themes which were similar to each of the family businesses, yet there were subtle differences within each theme. These findings support Melin and Nordqvists (2007) assertion that whilst there is emphasis on similar characteristics displayed by family businesses, there are differences within the categories that researchers often underestimate. Given the lack of studies addressing both the ‘within family category research and family businesses located in incubators’ research, this field study identifies and addresses a gap in the family business literature whilst also contributing to incubation research.

Perspectives on the recruitment and retention of culturally and linguistically diverse police

Purpose: The aims of this paper are: to investigate the perceptions held by police (insiders) and community member (outsiders) of the recruitment and retention of culturally and linguistically diverse employees of Victoria Police; and, to develop a model that can assist in future recruitment and retention policy development.---------- Design/methodology/approach: Structured focus group interviews were conducted based on an instrument deduced from existing literature. Police and community members were interviewed separate cohorts. The discussions were thematically coded to themes and sub-themes.---------- Findings: Specific differences were identified in perceptions of the importance of recruiting culturally and linguistically diverse groups, barriers to recruitment, recruitment methods, and retention methods.---------- Research limitations/implications: Based on these perceptions, a propose a model addresses the importance of cultural diversity in policing and barriers to recruitment and retention of culturally and linguistically diverse employees. Further research is necessary to assess the broader applicability of this model.---------- Practical implications: The proposed model is may be used as the basis for future recruitment and retention activities, and human resource management policy development.---------- Originality/value: This is the first study in the Australian context of recruitment and retention of culturally and linguistically diverse police that addresses both community and police perspectives. Aligning the demographic profile of the police service with that of the community is beneficial to effective policing.

Entrepreneurial orientation within small firms: a critical review of why leadership and contextual factors matter

To better understand the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and performance, this paper conducted a major review of published work on the entrepreneurial process with a focus on small businesses. Following the review, it became evident that even though the extant literature indicated that both entrepreneurial orientation and transformational leadership influenced firm performance, there was limited literature examining how these two important organisational variables related to each other, and how they interacted to influence firm performance within the context of small businesses. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the extant literature on entrepreneurial orientation, transformational leadership and firm performance and then build a logical framework depicting the interrelationships between transformational leadership, entrepreneurial orientation and organisational effectiveness within the context of small businesses. Specifically, we advance a conceptual research framework, which explicates some pathways through which leader behaviours influence the firm entrepreneurial orientation and overall firm effectiveness. We conclude the paper by outlining a future research agenda for effectively leading entrepreneurial organisations within the small business sector.

A perspective on multiculturalism and policing

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between demographics and an employees understanding of and support for the recruitment of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) groups in a policing context. Design/methodology/approach – A multi‐method research approach was adopted where a postal survey, comprised of both closed and open questions, was distributed to 500 Victoria Police employees and yielded a response rate of 19.5 per cent.Findings – The findings show that gender and higher education have significant relationships to understanding CALD and lead to significant support for the recruitment of CALD employees. Results show that the instrument utilized in this study was highly reliable with a Cronbach Alpha value of 0.802. Alpha values for “understanding” and “support” were 0.813 and 0.788, respectively. Research limitations/implications – The limitation of this study is that the findings are based on a pilot study with 97 responses.Practical implications – The utility...

Aspects of sustainable procurement practices by public and private organisations in Saudi Arabia: an empirical study

ABSTRACT While Saudi Arabia has demonstrated tremendous efforts in achieving the objective of sustainable development by encouraging sustainable procurement practices by the public and private organisations, there still exist significant hurdles blocking the full implementation of these practices. This study is an effort to empirically investigate the aspects of sustainable procurement practices by Saudi Arabian public and private organisations, particularly the nature, extent and main barriers to implementing those practices at the organisational levels. It also determines and analyses the relationship between an organisation’s, whether public or private, sustainable procurement practices and the barriers to implementing those practices. Using a structured questionnaire survey with 202 procurement directors/senior managers of those Saudi Arabian organisations, we employed multivariate and multiple regression techniques to achieve the study objectives. Our empirical results suggest that regardless of the ownerships and types of organisations, the current state of sustainable procurement practices seems overly negative, and the attitudes of top management as well as the cultural aspects of the organisations pose the main barriers to effectively implementing sustainable procurement practices at the organisational levels. We believe that this study provides an important benchmark whereby one could measure the progress of sustainable procurement practices at the organisational levels, particularly in Saudi Arabia. Depending on the similarity of the aspects of the organisations in other countries with those in Saudi Arabia, the benchmark would have wider applicability.

The impact of leadership on workplace innovation in Thai and Vietnamese SMES

It is accepted that SMEs play an important role in economic growth in many Asian countries. For example, Vietnamese SMEs represent 97% of the number of businesses of the country; employ 77 percent of the workforce and account for 80% of the retail market. Similarly, Thai SMEs have significantly contributed to the Thai economy and account for 99% of all business establishment, nearly 75% of total employment, and nearly 40% of total GDP. Yet the question of whether small firms are more or less advantageous in their ability to be more innovative is still unclear. In Asia, SMEs have possessed a number of strengths that could contribute to their capacity to innovate. The study compares the perceptions toward leadership, work value ethics and workplace innovation in Thai and Vietnamese SMEs. A survey was completed by 696 respondents drawn from Thai and Vietnamese SMEs. The survey was comprised of the Design Leadership Questionnaire (DLQ), the Workplace Innovation Scale (WVE) and the Work Values Ethic (WVE) instrument. The Cronbach’s alpha values for each instrument were α - 0.911 (Design Leadership), α - 0.913 (Workplace Innovation), and α -0.798 (Work Value Ethic). T-test results found that there was a statistically significant difference in the mean scores of Leadership behaviour and all of its dimensions. Also, the significant differences are found in the mean scores of Workplace Innovation and all of its dimensions between Thai and Vietnamese respondents. However, there was no difference in the perception toward Work Values Ethic between the respondents of these two countries. The findings provide empirical evidence to advance our understanding of the impact of work values on leadership behaviour and workplace innovation and assists in developing Government policy to further SME leadership behaviour for Thai and Vietnamese managers to lead their subordinates towards innovation practices.

The role of organisational climate factors in facilitating workplace innovation

A firms ability to be adaptable, entrepreneurial and innovative may assist them to maintain, or achieve competitive advantage. We investigated the relationship between organisational climate and innovation in a consulting firm. Analyses of the 98 returned surveys showed significant relationships between organisational climate subscales of autonomy, worker cohesion and innovation with workplace innovation. Co-worker cohesion and pressure (negatively) predicted organisational innovation. Autonomy, innovation, cohesion and recognition predicted innovation climate. Autonomy and innovation predicted individual innovation while cohesion predicted team innovation. The results of the linear regressions revealed that organisational innovation, was the most significant model emerging, accounting for 40% of the variance. The study concluded that organisational strategies encouraging autonomy and co-worker cohesion were conducive to workplace innovation.