Ferry Koster

Organisational Citizens or Reciprocal Relationships? An Empirical Comparison

Purpose – This paper aims at contributing to the debate on organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) by developing a theory-driven measure of cooperative behaviour within organisations, called organisational solidarity (OS). Design/methodology/approach – Data are gathered through a survey among 674 employees from nine organisations. Scales are constructed using the multiple group method. OLS regression is used to test the hypotheses. Findings – The data analyses show that reciprocity is an important mechanism to bring about cooperation within organisations. Based on this, a distinction is made between horizontal and vertical OS. Research limitations/implications – The major shortcoming of this research is that some of the results may be influenced by same source bias. The research implies that cooperative types of employee behaviour – such as OCB – depend on the behaviour of others. Furthermore, these kinds of behaviour can be divided into a horizontal and a vertical dimension. Practical implications – The findings suggest that supervisors can play a facilitating role in creating and sustaining cooperative behaviour of employees. Originality/value – This paper contributes to the literature on OCB by examining how this kind of behaviour is affected by the behaviour of supervisors and co-workers. Secondly, whereas other articles focus on either horizontal or vertical dimensions of cooperative behaviour, this paper focuses on both dimensions simultaneously.

Europeanization and the political economy of active labour market policies

Previous studies show that reforms in labour market policies differ across countries. This may be partly owing to the impact of European integration on these policy reforms. Whereas most of these studies are qualitative case studies, the present study aims at explaining cross-national variation in expenditures on active labour market policies (ALMPs) quantitatively. Relying on pooled time-series data, the study tests whether and how Europeanization influenced activation. The analyses lead to the conclusion that the European Employment Strategy (EES) has contributed to shifts from passive to active labour market policies. Using new indicators, we trace the impact of specific mechanisms of the EES, resulting in evidence for the influence of mutual learning through the peer review programme.

Sticking together or falling apart? Solidarity in an era of individualization and globalization

This book examines, both theoretically and empirically, the impact of globalization and individualization on social solidarity. It focuses both on informal solidarity, such as volunteering, charitable giving, and informal care, and on formal solidarity, such as social benefits and development aid. It challenges the common belief that social solidarity is endangered by the increasing competition and capital flows between countries and by growing selfishness of modern citizens. The book scrutinizes the theoretical arguments that both informal solidarity and social solidarity organized through the welfare state are eroding. Empirically, it is the first thorough study of international comparative data on solidarity, globalization and individualization. The book concludes that, overall, solidarity is rising rather than declining. The impact of globalization and individualization is much more ambiguous than is often contended. While particular aspects of globalization and individualization might harm solidarity, other elements foster solidarity instead.

Support for redistribution and the paradox of immigration

This paper argues that immigration has varying implications for attitudes about government redistribution depending on the level at which immigration is experienced. Working in occupations with higher shares of foreign-born employees can raise individual economic insecurities in ways that might overwhelm the way high foreign-born shares of the population can reduce solidarity or increase fiscal burdens. Hence, experiencing more immigration in one’s occupation might more positively affect support for government redistribution than does experiencing more national-level immigration. We test this and other expectations on survey data in 17 European polities, focused on occupational and national measures of immigration. While national-level exposure to foreign-born populations tends to have little effect on support for government redistribution, occupational-level exposure to immigration tends to spur such support. These results suggest that immigration directly influences the politics of inequality, but in ways more complicated than recent scholarship suggests.

Solidarity Through Networks: The Effects of Task and Informal Interdependence on Cooperation within Teams

Abstract: Purpose – The aim of this paper is to investigate the effects of task and informal networks and their interaction on cooperative types of employee behaviour. Design/methodology/approach – Two studies are used to examine the research question. The first dataset consists of book-length ethnographies providing information at the team level. The second dataset is gathered through a survey across ten different organisations and provides information at the employee level. Both datasets are analysed using OLS regression. Findings – Cooperative behaviour is positively affected by task and informal interdependence relationships. However, when employees have task and informal interdependence relationships with co-workers, they may show less cooperative behaviour. Research limitations/implications – A major limitation of this study is that it was not possible to include information about the structure of the networks in which the employees are embedded. The study provides evidence for the existence of exchange relationships between the employee and the team. Besides that, the study shows the importance of including formal and informal networks to study cooperative behaviour of employees. Practical implications – The findings provide practical information about how to manage cooperation within teams. Cooperative relationships can be created by either creating task or informal interdependence. Besides that, managers should strike a balance between task and informal interdependence. Originality/value – Existing research tends to focus on the effects of one type of network on behaviour. This research shows that different networks may affect employee behaviour at the same time.

Welfare state values in the European Union, 2002–2008. A multilevel investigation of formal institutions and individual attitudes

This article investigates to what extent EU citizens support three dimensions of welfare state values – developed role of state, equal opportunities and equal outcomes – and whether national level institutions and social policies can explain cross-national variation in these values. Two different mechanisms are distinguished, namely that institutions can have a norm-shaping function and thus are associated with stronger public support or that the public opinion can function as a thermostat if they are dissatisfied with the current institutions. Using data from 150,000 citizens of 25 EU countries between 2002 and 2008, empirical evidence for both the norm-shaping and the thermostat functions are found. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

The preferences of users of electronic medical records in hospitals: quantifying the relative importance of barriers and facilitators of an innovation

BackgroundCurrently electronic medical records (EMRs) are implemented in hospitals, because of expected benefits for quality and safety of care. However the implementation processes are not unproblematic and are slower than needed. Many of the barriers and facilitators of the adoption of EMRs are identified, but the relative importance of these factors is still undetermined. This paper quantifies the relative importance of known barriers and facilitators of EMR, experienced by the users (i.e., nurses and physicians in hospitals).MethodsA discrete choice experiment (DCE) was conducted among physicians and nurses. Participants answered ten choice sets containing two scenarios. Each scenario included attributes that were based on previously identified barriers in the literature: data entry hardware, technical support, attitude head of department, performance feedback, flexibility of interface, and decision support. Mixed Multinomial Logit analysis was used to determine the relative importance of the attributes.ResultsData on 148 nurses and 150 physicians showed that high flexibility of the interface was the factor with highest relative importance in their preference to use an EMR. For nurses this attribute was followed by support from the head of department, presence of performance feedback from the EMR and presence of decisions support. While for physicians this ordering was different: presence of decision support was relatively more important than performance feedback and support from the head of department.ConclusionConsidering the prominent wish of all the intended users for a flexible interface, currently used EMRs only partially comply with the needs of the users, indicating the need for closer incorporation of user needs during development stages of EMRs. The differences in priorities amongst nurses and physicians show that different users have different needs during the implementation of innovations. Hospital management may use this information to design implementation trajectories to fit the needs of various user groups.

Able, willing, and knowing: the effects of HR practices on commitment and effort in 26 European countries

This study extends previous studies of human resource (HR) practices by examining how organizational commitment and work effort are related to the use of HR practices enhancing discretion and skills based on international comparative survey data from 26 European countries. By analyzing individual level data instead of the organizational level data that are examined in prior studies, this article allows investigating whether and how employee perceptions of HR practices are related to their attitudes and behavior. The multilevel analyses largely support the hypotheses that both the intensity and the consistency of these HR practices contribute to organizational commitment and work effort since they enhance the ability of employees and their willingness to cooperate and inform them about the expectations of the organization.

Serial solidarity: the effects of experiences and expectations on the co-operative behaviour of employees

Two contrasting theoretical perspectives are frequently mentioned in discussions concerning the effects of temporary employment relationships on the co-operative behaviour of employees. According to the first perspective, temporary employees show less co-operative behaviour than permanent employees because they have a narrowly defined exchange relationship with the organization. The other approach holds that temporary employees are motivated to achieve a permanent contract and hence show more co-operative behaviour than permanent employees. In this paper, we argue that both theoretical approaches can be incorporated by focusing on the ‘temporal embeddedness’ of the relationships employees have with their co-workers. Temporal embeddedness refers to the experiences employees have had with co-workers in the past and the likelihood of future encounters with co-workers. We use two studies – a survey and a vignette study – to examine these temporal effects. The findings show that the co-operative behaviour of employees can indeed be explained by the temporal embeddedness of the relationships they have with their co-workers.

EXPECTATIONS AND PERFORMANCE

In a changing and uncertain environment, the psychological contract becomes more important. This research attempts to explain of the degree of fulfilment of the psychological contract has an effect on solidarity behaviour of employees. Just as the psychological contract, solidarity behaviour is becoming more important. Employees have increasing responsibility for the quality of work and employers expect that employees work together and focus on mutual efforts to achieve the goals of the organization. A vignette-study, including a questionnaire with descriptions of specific situations, is used enabling an systematic and adequate analysis. Results support a positive effect between the degree of fulfilment of the psychological contract and organization solidarity. Theories of social exchange and justice play an important role in the explanation of this relationship. This finding shows that the psychological contract may be an important tool for the management of an organization to influence behaviour of employees. A finding of great value for the management of organizations.