Matthew Xerri

Building a proactive engagement culture in asset management organizations

This study developed a path model to examine the impact of perceived organizational support and leader-member exchange on organizational culture within asset management organizations in Australia. Additionally, a path from organizational culture to employee engagement was also examined. Survey responses from 90 technical and engineering employees within asset management organizations were analyzed using partial least squares modeling. The results provide support that perceived organizational support and leader-member exchange were positively and significantly related to organizational culture and that organizational culture was positively and significantly related to employee engagement. As a result, the findings from this study provide asset managers with insights to assist the movement from reactive to proactive organizational cultures and to enhance the engagement of asset management engineering and technical employees with optimizing the performance and competitiveness of their organizations.

Importance of Workplace Relationships and Attitudes toward Organizational Change in Engineering Asset-Management Organizations

Effective asset management is an important factor that can affect public well-being by reducing accidents and break-downs in public utilities. To be effective, asset managers, engineers, and technicians must be open to the continuous change involved in adopting best practice in the industry. The paper examined the impact of workplace relationships (perceived organizational support and leader-member exchange) on attitudes toward organizational change, affective commitment, and psychological well-being for Australian asset managers, engineers, and technicians working in physical asset management. Social exchange theory provided the theoretical framework, and a self-report survey was administered to examine 255 asset managers, asset management engineers, and asset management maintenance employees. The major findings from a structural equation model indicate that perceived organizational support was positively correlated with an employee’s attitude toward organizational change, and supervisor-subordinate relationships and perceived organizational support were positively correlated with an employee’s emotional attachment to the organization. Perceived organizational support, attitude toward organizational change, and affective commitment were positively correlated with employee psychological well-being. The implication of the findings is that Australian engineering asset management employees’ well-being and attitude toward organizational change is influenced more by their relationship with the organization, compared with the relationship with their supervisor. This research provides support for management seeking to enhance employee attitudes toward organizational change and employee outcomes in physical asset management organizations.

Person–organization fit and public service motivation in the context of change

Abstract This study examines public sector change, motivation and person–organization (P–O) fit in a stress context. The results provide empirical evidence that change initiatives produce change-induced stressors. However, change processes, including participation in change decision-making and the provision of change information, increase public service motivation, reduce change-induced stressors and ultimately improve P–O fit and job satisfaction. The results also depict that, in the context of change, public service motivation positively influences job satisfaction, with this relationship partially mediated by P–O fit. Implications for New Public Management and the importance of change processes for reducing workplace stress are discussed.

Examining the relationship between organisational justice, job satisfaction and the innovative behaviour of nursing employees

This research examines the impact of three organisational factors on the innovative behaviour of nurses. Social exchange theory is used as a framework to develop an understanding about a path from organisational justice, to the job satisfaction and innovative behaviour of nursing employees. This study uses a quantitative approach, surveying 210 nurses. The findings confirm that the procedural justice and job satisfaction of nursing employees are positively and significantly related to their innovative behaviour. In addition, the findings also outline that interactional justice directly effects job satisfaction and indirectly effects innovative behaviour through job satisfaction. This research adds to the current body of literature by providing insight into the impact of organisational justice and job satisfaction on the individual innovativeness of nurses. This research, therefore, provides implications for management who are aiming to develop positive perceptions amongst nursing employees, improve job satisfaction and in-turn foster innovative behaviour in the workplace.

NPM and Change Management in Asset Management Organisations

Purpose – Effective engineering asset management is essential in delivering public services safely whilst avoiding breakdowns and accidents. The purpose of this paper is to ensure asset safety and sustainability, public sector firms have to adopt new processes and practices. It is the role of supervisors to implement the changes, and as part of the new public management (NPM) public sector reforms, public sector asset managers have more discretionary power to implement further changes related to increased accountability. Design/methodology/approach – The paper explores the impact of management practices on supervisor-employee relationships and employees’ perception of autonomy, employees’ attitudes towards change and their perceptions of organisational culture within Australian public sector engineering asset management organisations, and in the context of NPM reforms and consequent changes in supervisory discretionary power. Social exchange theory provided the theoretical framework and a self-report surv...

Public–Private Sector Comparisons of Nurses’ Work Harassment Using Set: Italy and Australia

Abstract Using Social Exchange Theory, this study compared the impact of nurses’ workplace relationships with management and colleagues upon nurses’ work harassment, psychological well-being, and engagement within the public and private sectors in both Australia and Italy. Using survey data from 1,587 nurses, SEM findings indicated that public sector nurses in Australia had the lowest satisfaction with supervision, higher work harassment, and lower engagement and psychological well-being, than the other groups. The implications include that poor workplace relationships enable work harassment and therefore management upskilling is required along with changes in performance measures to ensure greater nurse well-being and engagement.

Work harassment and local government employees: Australia and USA

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to compare the impact of management and colleagues on the perception of work harassment and outcomes of local government employees in Australia and the USA. Design/methodology/approach – Completed surveys from local government employees (265 from the USA and 250 from Australia) were analysed using structural equation modelling and an ANOVA. Findings – The results depict support for the overall measurement and structural models showing that workplace relationships impact on work harassment, and in turn employee outcomes (psychological wellbeing and Organisational Citizenship Behaviour-Individual (OCB-I)), although not all paths were accepted for each country. Statistically significant differences were found between the Australian and USA samples for both the measurement and structural models, with the sample from the USA showing much higher levels of satisfaction with workplace relationships, higher levels of psychological wellbeing, OCB-I, and lower perceptions of wo...

THE ROLE OF INFORMAL AND FORMAL NETWORKS: HOW PROFESSIONALS CAN BE INNOVATIVE IN A CONSTRAINED FISCAL ENVIRONMENT

One way of circumventing issues associated with constricted resources is to use organisational social resources embedded within both formal and informal social networks to provide increased support for proactive and innovative employee behaviour. Social exchange theorists argue that informal working relationships with non-line management provides an additional power source alongside traditional management relationships to foster proactive and innovative behaviour even when resources are scarce. About 272 Australian engineers, asset managers and technical employees were surveyed from public and private sector organisations, and data was examined using structural equation modelling. The findings depict that formal and informal leader–employee, organisational–employee relationships explained almost 53% of resource adequacy and resource adequacy explained 60.5% of the proactive engineering asset management organisational culture and 28.1% of innovative behaviour. This paper contributes insight into another hierarchical workplace relationship that employees can use to gain access to resources, and be proactive and innovative in the workplace.

Antecedents and outcomes relating to public and private nurses’ use of intuition in England

This paper examines public and private sector nurses’ use of intuition in England using structural equation modeling. Leader–member exchange (LMX) and perceived organizational support (POS) correlated positively with nurses’ perception of discretionary power and use of intuition. Nurses’ perception of discretionary power and use of intuition were positively correlated with their engagement. Further, differences were identified between private sector and public sector nurses in relation to the impact of workplace relationships (POS and LMX) and intuition onto perceived discretionary power and employee engagement. The results are important for all hospital managers seeking to foster employees’ use of intuition, perception of discretionary power, and engagement.

The importance of informal professional networks in developing a proactive organizational culture: a public value perspective

Public value theory was used by the authors to investigate informal professional networks, perceived discretionary power, and the organizational culture that forms in physical asset management organizations. The results, from a structural equation model, indicated that informal professional networks are positively associated with higher discretionary power and a proactive asset maintenance organizational culture. In the absence of public managers promoting public value, professionals use their informal networks as a source of power to be proactive and contribute to asset reliability and public safety (public value).