Rod Farr-Wharton

Women entrepreneurs, opportunity recognition and government‐sponsored business networks: A social capital perspective

Purpose – This paper uses a social capital theoretical framework to examine how the relational dimension of business networks affects the networking activities of female entrepreneurs. In particular, the study examines the role of trust on womens networking behaviour and the part played by government business development officers in supporting women entrepreneurs opportunity recognition behaviour.Design/methodology/approach – The research used mixed methods to gather and analyse data. A survey instrument was used to gather quantitative data and qualitative data was gathered from interviews and written responses to open‐ended questions included in the survey.Findings – The quantitative findings suggest firstly that approximately 20 per cent of the reason why women entrepreneurs belong to formal business networks is to search for business opportunities; however, their experience of trusting significantly affects their perception of the potential benefits of networking activities. Moreover, government deve...

Does the talk affect your decision to walk: A comparative pilot study examining the effect of communication practices on employee commitment post‐managerialism

There is an assumption that the implementation of managerialism within public sector organisations has improved the efficiency and effectiveness of their management of processes and the outcome achieved. The aim of this pilot study was to compare the impact of changes post managerialism to organisational processes on outcomes for different types of employees. The findings suggest that the implementation of managerialism within the Australian public sector organisation has been significantly different depending on the type of employee examined. The implications for management in general are that most of the outcomes were counterintuitive and further research is required to examine the impact of the implementation of managerialism within different types of public sector organisations.

The impact of management on the engagement and well-being of high emotional labour employees

Australia, like many other countries, suffers high turnover of nurses and police officers. Contributions to effectively manage the turnover challenge have been called for, and there are few Australian studies of nursing/policing turnover intentions. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of supervisor–subordinate relationships and perceived organisational support (POS) upon engagement, well-being, organisational commitment and turnover intentions. Second, we examined the similarities and differences between nursing and policing work contexts. The retention of nurses/police has been investigated from traditional management perspectives; however, we used a different theoretical approach – social exchange theory – and evaluated its utility as a framework. Findings are from Australian data collected during 2010–2011 from 510 nurses and 193 police officers, using a survey-based, self-report strategy. Partial least squares path modelling was used to analyse these data. Results indicated that for both samples, engagement predicts well-being and then, well-being predicts affective commitment and intentions to leave. MANOVA results suggested that nurses had significantly higher levels of satisfaction with their supervisor–subordinate relationships, POS, engagement, well-being and affective commitment than police officers. Only the intention to leave was similar for both groups. Given that turnover can be influenced by supervisors/management, this study provides new knowledge about targeted retention strategies.

Supervisor-nurse relationships, teamwork, role ambiguity and well-being: Public versus private sector nurses

This paper uses a leader—member exchange theoretical framework to compare the relationship of the supervisor—subordinate relationship upon nurses’ satisfaction with teamwork and their perceived levels of role ambiguity, and in turn, their perceptions of well-being. Data were collected using a survey-based, self-report strategy from 1138 nurses, of whom 901 worked in private sector hospitals and 237 were from the public sector.Using path analysis, the findings from this study identify that supervisor—nurse relationships affect nurses’ perceptions of teamwork, role ambiguity and well-being, although the association is different for public sector compared with private sector nurses. However, of the two groups, private sector nurses were the most satisfied with their supervisor—nurse relationship and teamwork, and had higher perceived levels of both role clarity (instead of role ambiguity) and consequent well-being.

The impact of NPM on the job satisfaction of a range of Australian public sector employees

Most western democracies have undertaken significant public sector reform with the aim of getting their public sector organisations to adopt new public management (NPM) reforms. NPM refers to the adoption of private sector management tools by public sector organisations and its implementation has led to change in the work environment of most public sector employees - both professional and other employees. This paper compares the level of satisfaction with the work experiences of three groups of public sector employees: nurses (N = 91), police (N = 178) and administrative employees (N = 115). The findings suggest that professional employees have a significantly different work experience compared with other public sector employees. Moreover, the research findings suggest that recent reforms have led to breaches in the professional dimension of professional employees delivering essential social services. These breaches are likely to impact negatively on their productivity, thereby negating the stated official goals associated with implementing public sector reforms.

Comparing the impact of leader–member exchange, psychological empowerment and affective commitment upon Australian public and private sector nurses: implications for retention

This study uses Leader–Member Exchange (LMX) theory to test the associations between the supervisor–subordinate relationship, psychological empowerment and affective commitment amongst 1283 nurses working in Australian public and private hospitals. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected, analysed and presented. The findings show that the quality of LMX is more important in public sector nursing contexts than in the private sector with regard to the relationship between empowerment and affective commitment. Furthermore, the relationship between empowerment and affective commitment is stronger for nurses in public sector organisations with low-quality LMX than for nurses in public sector organisations with high-quality LMX. As empowerment and affective commitment are both predictors of staff retention, the findings can assist in developing targeted current and future retention strategies for healthcare management.

Supervisor relationships and perceptions of work—family conflict

Social capital theory (SCT) is used as a lens for operationalising the impact of one type of workplace relationship — the supervisor—subordinate relationship (measured using leader—member exchange ...

The role of management post‐NPM in the implementation of new policies affecting police officers' practices

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the impact of resources, accountability, management practices and organisational culture on the implementation of a policy (in this case, a domestic violence policy/program) within an Australian state police department. The paper argues that successful implementation requires a synergy between the established goals and beliefs, the level of resources and accountability provided to support the implementation process, and a performance‐based rather than process‐oriented type of management practice.Design/methodology/approach – A mixed methods approach was used.Findings – The findings suggest that successful implementation of policies requires that senior and lower managers must be in congruence in relation to the stated goals and objectives of a new policy. This is because the role of senior managers is to determine the goals and resources that accompany a new policy. On the other hand, if first‐level managers perceive a lack of synergy between a written policy and the s...

Female entrepreneurs as managers: the role of social capital in facilitating a learning culture

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to use a social capital and learning organisation theoretical framework to clarify two issues: how female entrepreneurs manage interactions with employees and whether they learn about new business opportunities from workplace networks. The qualitative findings demonstrated that female entrepreneurs used a relational approach to manage their employees which social capital theory (SCT) predicts should have promoted a workplace environment‐based on trust and reciprocity of ideas, information and resources.Design/methodology/approach – Data were obtained from semi‐structured phone and person‐to‐person interviews. The qualitative questions sought to solicit information about how female entrepreneurs managed (particularly their staff) and whether they used workplace processes to be innovative and learn about new venture opportunities from within their firms.Findings – The paper provides support to previous research that argues female entrepreneurs traditionally use a relat...

Comparing the impact of management support on police officers’ perceptions of discretionary power and engagement: Australia, USA and Malta

Abstract This paper uses Social Exchange Theory as a lens for comparing the impact of management support upon police perceptions of discretionary power and employee engagement, across three countries. A survey-based, self-report process collected data from 193 police officers in Australia, 588 from the USA, and 249 from Malta. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data. The findings suggest a significantly different management support context across the three countries, as well as significantly different perceptions of discretionary power. Across the three countries, police perceived relatively poor satisfaction with organizational management support and only some engagement levels. However, USA police perceived significantly more discretionary power than the other country samples. These findings provide greater clarity about the link between management support, discretionary power and engagement for the police officers. Since employee engagement likely affects policing outcomes, the findings suggest that poor management support of police officers could negatively affect the provided service. Potential strategies to enhance police engagement include (a) training police managers about how to manage so as to promote greater engagement, and (b) modifying police managers’ performance indicators in line with achieving better police engagement.