Nuttawuth Muenjohn

A Review of Diversity Conceptualizations Variety, Trends, and a Framework

In an attempt to develop a means for researchers to reach a common understanding of the substantive meaning of diversity, this article first reviews different approaches to diversity conceptualizations, identifying three common threads that are incorporated in various diversity definitions. Our discussion examines the variety of diversity conceptualizations by addressing the three key aspects that present two general trends that emerge in the literature. We then propose a framework to unify the fragmented definitions and understandings of diversity. The implications for practice and future research are also discussed.

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.

Religiosity as a source of influence on work engagement: a study of the Malaysian Finance industry

Abstract The majority of work engagement studies have been conducted using a quantitative approach with limited attention to the institutional and social contexts. Meanwhile, the role of religion in shaping people’s philosophy and behaviour in life and work has been gaining attention from management researchers. Studies have revealed the positive impact of religiosity on a number of human resources and organizational outcomes. However, few studies treat religious belief as a job or personal resource from a HRM perspective. This study fills part of this research gap by focusing on the relevant factors that may affect work engagement in the Malaysian Islamic context. Drawing on data from 41 semi-structured interviews with mid-ranking professionals from the finance sector, this study responds to calls for more focus on contexts and for deeper qualitative investigations into individual dynamics that concern religiosity and work engagement. It provides evidence that religiosity plays an important role in work engagement. Our findings have implications for people management in organizations that have a diverse workforce representing multiple religions.

UNLOCKING THE BLACK BOX OF THE CONCEPTUAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HRM SYSTEM AND ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

Despite the promising relationship that has been reported between HRM and Organization Performance (OP) in the last two decades, it is found that good HRM system and practices do not directly lead to better organization performance. However, questions remain about what factors mediate the HRM-OP relationship, which is commonly referred to as the “black box”. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to develop and propose a conceptual model that captures the mediating effects of organizational factors such as “AMO” (skills and Abilities, Motivation, and Opportunity to participate), employees’ attitudes, and employees’ behaviors on the relationship between the HRM system and organizational performance. The proposed model intends to integrate both the content and the process approach to HRM. The paper, as a part of a project, uses an operationalization method to develop a theory-based model. The model development process involves a large amount of review of the literature in the field of HRM and OP. Analysis of the key concepts is conducted. The potential association and relationship among the factors are identified through integration of the findings in the mainstream literature. In the second stage of the project, the proposed model will be empirically tested by quantitative method. A questionnaire survey will be carried out to collect primary data using random sampling method. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) technique will be utilized for data analysis. Validity and reliability tests will be performed. Drawing on literature review, this paper supports the assertion that the impact of HRM on OP is indirect. Such impacts are achieved through its impacts on employees. Based on the operationalization, a conceptual framework is presented to represent the mediating effects of the factors on the relationship between the HRM system and organizational performance. The proposed framework argues that employees’ AMO, attitudes and behavior should be sequentially considered as the mediating factors in the HRM-OP relationship. Moreover, shared perceptions among employees (strong climate) towards the HRM system should have a significant moderating effect on the HRM-AMO relationship. It is expected that the findings from this paper and project can partially unlock the “black box” in the HRM-OP relationship. The proposed framework can help organizations realize that good HRM policy does not directly lead to expected OP. Policies and systems should be in place to monitor whether and how HRM system help achieve OP through its influences on employees.

Developing leadership curriculum for business education program in Asia

With the strong demands and challenges in the leadership components in the curriculum of management education, most transnational business education programs need to ensure the quality of learning and teaching, materials and resources, assessment strategy and content is at an optimal level. The importance of leadership training, beginning at the undergraduate level, has been recognized by many business schools worldwide. The focus on leadership knowledge, skills and action requires special understanding of both local and international contexts in each program. In many transnational education programs the understanding and implementation of various local cultural contexts that influence various aspects of leadership are not taken seriously by the providers of international business education programs. Hence, in this study, we question what should be done to improve the quality of leadership education in the transnational education program. In order to comprehend this complex business education question, a questionnaire survey was conducted with students, who enrolled in the leadership course in an Australian transnational program in Hong Kong and Singapore. In total, 582 students from Singapore and 282 students from Hong Kong participated in this study. Questionnaires were developed by research team members and pilot tested in Australia prior to the fieldwork in Hong Kong and Singapore. Eight curriculum components and outcomes were focused in this study. They included learning objectives; activities, resources, assessment, teaching and learning strategy/approaches, content, internationalisation, and educational technologies. The results from 271 respondents showed numerous differences that were significant in terms of student’s perceptions toward the curriculum between students from Singapore and Hong Kong. When it the generic descriptive statistics were analysed, the results showed that there was no consistency of a statistical mean position among students from Hong Kong and Singapore. The scores of standard deviation among Singaporean students were, in general, larger than those from Hong Kong. The larger standard deviations suggested that there were greater differences in participants’ perception towards curriculum components. The key differences among students in terms of quality were within leadership education include teaching strategy, technology in learning and teaching, assessment, learning activity, and learning resources. This study confirms that practical learning is important in leadership education. In the transnational education context, there is a profound need to integrate the local and international practical aspects into leadership education. More importantly, students’ diversity plays pivotal roles in the effectiveness of leadership education.

The effect of human resource management system on employees’ commitment: The mediating role of the AMO model

ABSTRACT:Although the field of Human Resource Management has been extensively studied in the previous decades, still remaining theoretical and methodological questions are yet to be answered. These questions were found to evolve around how to conceptualize and operationalize HRM as well as the mechanism through which HRM affects performance. Consequently, numerous models were proposed to address these questions and among which the AMO model is considered the one that grasp the attention of many scholars. The current study, therefore, aims to address these questions by investigating the mediating effect of employees’ Ability (A), Motivation (M), and Opportunity to participate (O) model on the relationship between HRM system and employees’ affective commitment. An abstract level of HRM system was operationalized and hypothesized to have an indirect effect on employees’ affective commitment via the AMO model. A cross-sectional data was gathered through a questionnaire survey distributed to 800 employees working in the telecommunications sector in Kuwait. Structural equation modelling (SEM) via AMOS22 was used to build and test the hypothesized model. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) has revealed that the abstract level HRM system is better conceptualized as having three categories namely, Skill enhancing HRM practices, Motivation enhancing HRM practices, and Empowerment enhancing HRM practices. Moreover, the results have indicated that HRM system significantly and positively affect employees’ ability, motivation, and opportunity to participate. More importantly, the results have supported that the relationship between HRM system and employees’ affective commitment is partially mediated by the AMO model. This study has contributed to the field of Human Resource Management by empirically justifying the critical role that employees’ ability, motivation, and opportunity to participate (AMO) have in increasing employees’ affective commitment. Accordingly, the current study is directing the attention of the telecommunications companies’ managers toward designing their HRM system in ways that increase the three dimensions of the AMO model, which inn turn could result in increased level of commitment.

Leadership, design process, and team performance: A comparison between the Japanese and Australian R&D teams

Background: Design-oriented innovations can build long-term competitive advantage for businesses. Creative and innovative designs can lead to superior business performance and better team satisfaction. Public and private firms hence are strategically focusing on creative designs and innovations through an enormous investment in research and development (R&D). However, there has been little empirical research that defines the concept of design leadership and establishes its role in shaping design process. This study therefore aims to: a) examine the nature of design leadership, design process, team performance and satisfaction as perceived by Australian and Japanese R&D teams; and b) compare the perceptions of Australian and Japanese R&D teams toward the four variables. Research Methodology: This study implemented a quantitative survey targeting managers or supervisors of R&D teams in Japan and Australia. The survey contained 18 items capturing four components of Design leadership; namely ‘envisioning the future’ (5 items), ‘directing design investment’ (4 items), ‘manifesting strategic intent’ (4 items) and ‘creating and nurturing an environment of innovation’ (5 items). Design process was measured by three key stages namely; ‘idea generation’ (3 items), ‘design development’ (4 items) and ‘evaluation of design’ (4 items). 600 questionnaires were distributed with 165 questionnaires returned, representing approximately 27.5% response rate. Key dimensions of design leadership were extracted using the reliability test of Cronbach alpha. Statistical analyses were carried out to test the difference in design leadership between Australian and Japanese R&D teams. Research Results: The results show that Australian respondents perceived that their leaders exhibit higher levels of design leadership as compared to Japanese respondents. Design leaders from Australian firms are more likely to embed leadership in various stages of design process and thus help enhance team performance and satisfaction. However, the Japanese respondents perceived design development dimension as the most important stage in the design process. They perceived the process of bringing the idea into actual prototype of the design is critical to the success of design process. Implications: Significant differences found in design leadership between Australian and Japanese R&D teams provide evidence base for devising strategies to improve design process in shaping firm’s strategic intent. Managers can be trained in design leadership to help enhance team performance and satisfaction.

Attitudes and behaviors as predictors of service quality in the telecommunications sector context

Purpose Service quality is considered an organizational performance indicator that largely depends on employees’ attitudes and behaviors. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the mediating effect of employees’ citizenship behaviour (OCB) on the relationship between affective commitment (AC) and service quality (SQ). Design/methodology/approach The current study has relied on two questionnaire surveys to gather cross-sectional data from 800 employees and 400 customers of telecommunications companies in Kuwait. Structural equation modeling via AMOS22 was used to build and test the hypothesized model. Findings The results show that OCB significantly and positively affect SQ dimensions except empathy which demonstrates insignificant association. Also, affective commitment was found to be a strong predictor of OCB. More interestingly, the results show that affective commitment does not show any effect on either responsiveness or empathy, while a partial mediation was found between affective commi...

Innovation in public sector organisations

Abstract Public sector organisations around the globe consider the development of new ideas and innovation paramount and inevitable. This is attributable to the intense global competition and rapid technological development. Innovation is the successful implementation of ideas and processes to tackle existing problems and develop new opportunities. The in-depth literature review identified leadership behaviours, the impact of organisational climate and culture on innovation, and barriers to overcome in order to promote innovation in the public sector. A conceptual model illustrates the relationships between innovation and other critical concepts identified throughout the paper.

The effect of demographic characteristics on leadership behaviour

To date, the relationship between demographic characteristics and leadership behaviour is overlooked in the literature. The current study considered the effect of the demographic characteristics on leadership behaviour in terms of transformational and transactional leadership. The importance of this study stems from the association between the demographic characteristics of the leaders and their leadership behaviour. The data was collected from 438 leaders in the banking industry via a survey. Results identified that educational level had the greatest influence on leadership behaviour than any other demographic characteristics. In addition, the occupational category had a negative correlation with leadership behaviour. The findings are discussed along with suggestions for future research.