Dora Scholarios

Employees and High-Performance Work Systems: Testing inside the Black Box

Most work on high-performance work systems has examined only the direct relationship between a set of management practices and performance outcomes. This presumes that any connection operates through the incentive and motivational effects captured as ‘high-commitment’ or ‘high-involvement’ employee outcomes. No attempt has been made to examine the alternative, Labour Process conceptualization, which expects performance gains from new management practices to arise instead from work intensification, offloading of task controls, and increased job strain. Using data from WERS98, we tested models based on high-performance work systems and labour process approaches. Both were found wanting, and we consider the possible implications of these failures. This paper seeks to test the competing claims of theories advocating and criticizing so-called ‘high-performance work systems’ (HPWS) in order to advance the debates about the nature and outcomes of emerging approaches to labour management. In an attempt to fill gaps in past research, the analysis explores linkages from HPWS practices to employee outcomes and via these to organizational performance. The paper utilizes data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS98) to construct indicators of HPWS practices, of employee outcomes and of organizational performance as a means to explore associations between these phenomena.

Getting on or getting by? Employee flexibility and coping strategies for home and work

Recent speculation about the impact on family life of contemporary patterns of work has prompted considerable and concerted social research activity in which the workplace and household have figured prominently. This article extends these studies to examine employment in prototypical new sectors of the economy, namely call centres and software, which at the time of the study were enjoying spectacular growth. Employees in both sectors reported spillover from work to home, though the extent, nature and intensity of spillover varied significantly between the sectors. The study identified the different and hitherto unexplored ways in which employees in these different sectors attempt to cope with complex articulations between home and work, and the varying resources which they bring to bear in doing so. Contemporary work settings indicate little change from more established sectors in that gender, status and labour market strength are important factors in offering work boundary discretion.

Work-Life Imbalance in Call Centres and Software Development

The paper evaluates the centrality of work to employees in two growing employment sectors, call-centres and software development. It then examines evidence for extensions of work into household and family life in these two sectors. Extensions are identified as tangible, such as unpaid overtime, or intangible, represented by incursions imported from work, such as exhaustion and stress. The study finds that organizational pressures, combined with lack of work centrality, result in work intruding into non-work areas of employee lives, though intrusions manifest themselves in different ways according to type of work, levels of worker autonomy and organizational support.

Employability and the psychological contract in European ICT sector SMEs

This article explores the employability of information and communication technology (ICT) professionals from the perspective of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The first stage of analysis, based on over 100 interviews with managers of ICT supplier companies in seven European countries (Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and the UK), showed most SMEs to have a generally ad hoc approach to managing the employability of their ICT professionals. Assessment and development plans were used primarily to keep skills current to business needs; however, the more developed northern European markets showed greater awareness of the ‘high commitment’ benefits of a more sophisticated approach towards career management (e.g. through mentoring or career planning). A second stage of analysis based only on UK interviews builds on this to propose a model of positive employer influence on psychological contracts through career and employability management practices.

Selecting hotel staff: why best practice does not always work.

This paper considers the nature of “best practice” recruitment and selection in the hotel sector. Data from a sample of Scottish hotels indicate a reliance on informal methods, particularly in smaller hotels. In larger and chain hotels, structured procedures, including references, application forms and panel interviews, are evident, but, here too, these methods seem inadequate for dealing with recruitment and quality problems, especially in meeting temporary staffing needs. Case study evidence contrasts two alternative strategies: a successful holistic strategy based on management of social processes important for selection, and a more conventional bureaucratic strategy. Each strategy depends on a complex interrelationship between business and labour market considerations, the ownership and management structure of the hotel, and the tenure and experience of those responsible for selection. This evidence indicates that, for the hotel industry, the holistic strategy is an alternative to conventional notions

Revisiting Technical Workers: Professional and Organisational Identities in the Software Industry

This paper eradicates some of the myths of software workers as prototypes of the knowledge worker. Based on qualitative and quantitative research conducted in five Information Technology (IT) organisations, it examines how the factors of education, skill level and work role determine the opportunities presented to these workers, and how they are associated with differing levels of organisational identity. At the same time, the data reveal a consistently high professional identity, regardless of work role and qualifications.

‘Too Scared to Go Sick': Reformulating the Research Agenda on Sickness Absence

This article argues that our understanding of absence and absenteeism, deriving from seminal studies in the sociology of work and employment, has been overtaken by hugely significant developments in political economy, regulation and employment relations. A new research agenda that addresses the changed organisational politics of absence management and the consequences for employees is urgently required.

Anticipatory socialisation: the effect of recruitment and selection experiences on career expectations

Recruitment and selection experiences are part of a process of pre‐entry organisational socialisation, also known as anticipatory socialisation. Graduates are susceptible to such effects as their socialisation through exposure to professional employers begins during training. Employers’ practices are thought to contribute to the formation of realistic career expectations and the initial psychological contract between graduates and employers. The present study found that students in traditional professions reported greater exposure to employers than students in an emerging profession through work activities, more proactive engagement in recruitment events, and more extensive experience of selection processes at similar stages of study. Greater activity, in turn, was related to career expectations, including varying levels of commitment to and interest in the profession and career clarity.

Recruiting and Selecting Professionals: Context, Qualities and Methods

Evidence based on a survey of professional firms and in-depth interviews with decision-makers responsible for selection examines the most frequently used and valued methods for hiring qualified professional staff in a sample of Scottish accountancy, architecture, law, and surveying practices. The survey suggests an emphasis on personality, work experience and general attributes for senior posts, and that high value is placed on interviews and informal sources of information in assessing these qualities. Firm characteristics and context, particularly size of practice, the role of the partner in the selection process, labour supply, and perception of recruitment difficulties are shown to be related to the type of selection method used. Consistent with the view of selection as a social process, the case study evidence suggests that ‘informality’ may play an important role when partners responsible for selection have long tenure with their firm and when firms experience recruitment difficulties. More generally, informal networks and interview processes may act as effective information and communication vehicles for small and medium-sized professional practices.

The “rain dance” of selection in construction: rationality as ritual and the logic of informality

Purpose – Recruitment and selection in the construction industry is ad hoc – the search for workers to match immediate employment needs is unsystematic, usually conducted in a short‐termist manner, and often contributes to, rather than overcomes, persistent recruitment difficulties and skill shortages. The purpose of this paper is to explore the recruitment context and selection practice in the Scottish construction sector, and proposes a model of the selection decision process which may provide an explanation for this apparently unsystematic approach.Design/methodology/approach – A survey based on a sample from the 1998 Scottish Chambers of Commerce Business Survey database was used to examine the pattern of recruitment, contextual influences on recruitment, the qualities sought by employers, and the extent of use of various recruitment and selection methods. Further qualitative data was gathered from a subset of construction and surveyors firms to explore the nature of selection processes.Findings – The...