Miguel Pereira Lopes

Weblog-Technology as a Trigger to Elicit Passion for Knowledge

The practice of Weblogging as a new social and technological phenomenon in society and business is gaining a growing number of supporters. In short, a Weblog is a website where individual thoughts are publicly displayed in the form of a diary. In this paper, we seek to illustrate the impact of Weblog technology on peoples passion for knowledge. We start from the assumption that successful knowledge management requires the engagement of people in knowledge-related practices. We introduce a famous agglomeration of Weblogs that deal with the development of a commercial software. Based on an exploratory study, we suggest that the specific features and character of this novel technology have an impact upon the passion for voluntary knowledge work, which is triggered by experiences of flow states, as well as extrinsic stimuli.

Who is more proactive, the optimist or the pessimist? Exploring the role of hope as a moderator

This research tested the existence of a moderation role of hope on the effects of optimism and pessimism over proactive coping in a sample survey of 343 subjects. The results showed that optimism explained proactive coping, independent of hope. However, hope appeared to moderate the relationship between pessimism and passive coping, a criterion variable that emerged from the psychometric analysis of the proactive coping measure. Specifically, for individuals low in pessimism, being high or low in hope did not impact coping, but for individuals high in pessimism, having higher levels of hope reduced passive coping. A deeper analysis also indicated that this was particularly due to the moderating role of the pathways dimension of hope. We discuss these results in light of different adaptive strategies of optimists and pessimists and draw implications for psychological research and practice.

Doing compassion or doing discipline? Power relations and the Magdalene Laundries

We address the Magdalene Laundries. On the one hand this institution was constituted as a compassionate response to managing troubled young women; on the other hand it was seen as a disciplinary apparatus imposing total institutional life on its inmates. The antinomy of views about the institution is evident in the analysis we make of 116 comments by 66 commenters on an online newspaper article about the Magdalene Laundries. We analyse these comments in the context of broader concerns about contemporary approaches to the topic of organizational compassion. We argue that organizational compassion is a complex social process embedded within power relations that can be disciplinary in nature and create ambivalent rather than wholly positive outcomes.

The best of two worlds

Abstract Policies have been introduced in the public sector to increase efficiency. Following a privatization, there is a split between operational and strategic control. In this study, we explored how a public organization restores its identity after losing its operational structure. Based on a case study of a seaport, we found that when the self-defining properties were lost, the organizational identity dissolved into a managerial public identity. The organizational meaning that provided security and guided behavior was lost and the new identity was unable to serve as a provider of meaning. Implications for new public management policy and practice are discussed.

Leading to Crafting The Relation Between Leadership Perception and Nurses’ Job Crafting

Whenever individuals adapt their jobs to make them closer of their personal preferences, they are performing job crafting. This study aims to investigate if the way nurses perceive their leaders’ behaviors is related with job crafting development. To do so, a quantitative analysis was conducted among a group of 325 Portuguese nurses. Results indicate that the perception of an empowering leader was found to be strongly related with the increase of challenges in the work environment, and with the development of stronger relations with direct managers and co-workers, which are two job crafting dimensions. The perception of a directive leader was found to be positively related with the avoidance of performing hindering tasks. Strengthening relations with direct managers and co-workers was found to be particularly related to leadership perception. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Integrating positivity and negativity in management research

Purpose – Much of management research has been based on what can be called a “deficit‐based” approach. In contrast, there is the recent emergence of a new paradigm shift with the appearance of positive organizational studies. This paper aims to discuss how to integrate knowledge coming from both sides of the fence and exemplify it by testing a model that looks for the intricate and paradoxical relationships between optimism and pessimism.Design/methodology/approach – Using cluster analysis, a theoretical model is developed that includes the existence of a paradoxical type of personality beyond the dichotomous optimistic and pessimistic profiles. The validity of this model is tested in a sample of 343 workers of a company.Findings – The data evidenced a good fit with the four cluster theoretical model and showed that almost half of the sample (46.36 percent) were clustered as “paradoxical optimists”, individuals that simultaneously reported optimistic and pessimistic expectations towards the future.Researc...

Crafting a Calling

Despite the emerging interest in the job crafting construct, researchers know little about its dimensions and their potential benefits for organizations. In a quantitative investigation, using a self-report questionnaire among a group of 189 Portuguese nurses and nursing assistants, we analyze how job crafting can be strongly related to workers’ sense of calling and turnover intention. The results indicate that sense of calling totally mediated the negative relation between the increase in challenging job demands and turnover intention. Although traditional assumption is that a sense of calling leads workers to craft their jobs, we theorize about the potential reverse path, given that our results support the possibility that sense of calling may be triggered when workers increase their own challenging job demands. We recommend further research to provide additional insight into job crafting formation mechanism.

The Authentic‐Machiavellian Leadership Grid: A Typology of Leadership Styles

In a world increasingly critical of leadership, we propose a grid representing five primary leadership styles derived from Machiavellian and Authentic Leadership archetypes. We argue that Authenticity and Machiavellianism are independent constructs and not two sides of the same coin as implied in the literature. We conclude suggesting some implications of our grid for leadership accountability and decision-making.

Training for happiness: the impacts of different positive exercises on hedonism and eudaemonia

Abstract Theoretical conceptions on happiness have generally considered two broad perspectives: hedonic enjoyment and eudaemonia. However, most research on how to improve people’s happiness has focused primarily on the enhancement of hedonic happiness. In this longitudinal experimental study we test the differential impact of two positive exercises—Best Possible Selves and the Lottery Question—on hedonic and eudaemonic happiness. The hypothesis that the practice of the Best Possible Selves exercise would increase hedonic happiness was confirmed. This effect was immediate and maintained a week after the exercise. Furthermore, this exercise also increased eudaemonic happiness. However, its effect decreased after a week. Contrary to what was expected the Lottery Question exercise decreased both eudaemonic happiness and hedonic happiness over time. We discuss implications of this study for the literature on positive psychological and behavioral interventions to increase happiness.

Rebuilding Lisbon in the aftermath of the 1755 earthquake

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to draw on available data regarding the historical event of the major Lisbon earthquake of 1755 in order to understand the governance structure that was set to rebuild the city of Lisbon, as well as to elaborate on Max Weber’s theory of authority. Design/methodology/approach – The present study aims to extend our knowledge on the role of leadership in organizational transformation, by examining the authority structure of governance in the aftermath of a major catastrophic event, using the study of an extreme case to generate new management theory. Findings – The study founded evidence that the successful rebuilding of Lisbon after the earthquake was accompanied by a certain kind of governance structure that included an authority structure that simultaneously incorporated Weber’s authority types of charisma, tradition and rationality; and there was a clear distinction between the roles of each kind of authority, as well as the inviolable respect and sacredness of each...