Vincent Cassar

Perceptions of and about women as managers: investigating job involvement, self‐esteem and attitudes

Purpose – To investigate specific barriers that might be hindering Maltese women from achieving a managerial position.Design/methodology/approach – This study is based on research by Cromie. Barriers are classified into two main categories; internal and external barriers. Job‐involvement and work‐based self‐esteem are considered to be internal barriers, whereas attitudes towards women in management are considered to be external barriers. The total population was 200, consisting of male and female middle managers, female and male employees and B. Commerce students.Findings – Results indicate no differences between job involvement and work‐based self‐esteem of male and female managers. On the other hand, both male employees and students seem to hold more stereotypical attitudes towards women in management than their female counterparts.Research limitations/implications – One of the basic limitations of this study was the sample size since small samples make it difficult to generalize. Further research may f...

Violating psychological contract terms amongst Maltese public service employees: occurrence and relationships

The psychological contract is the construct through which one attempts to explain the quality of the employment relationship from the point of view of each of the contract party with regards to obligations and inducements and can be employed to explain organizational change dynamics. Failing to provide promised obligations is termed as violation. This study examined the occurrence of contract violation amongst 132 Maltese public service employees at a time when radical changes in practices were being proposed. Violation was conceptualised in two ways: under‐fulfilled employer obligations and over‐fulfilled employee obligations. Results show that whereas employees were likely to report that their employer violated obligations, they themselves were more likely to over‐fulfil their obligations towards their employer. In addition, contract term violations were related to important work outcomes and generally in a different way for the two forms of violation. Results are discussed and future research suggestions highlighted.

Can leader direction and employee participation co‐exist?

Employee participation is an important construct in contemporary organisations. Recently, the argument has concentrated on whether leader direction and participation can co‐exist. It is argued that leader direction is perceptually acceptable by employees at the strategic level of the decision process but is interpreted as intrusive at the tactical (task) level. This study examined the possibility of any interaction effects between leader direction at the task level and participation, and whether this exacerbated the relationship between participation and favourable work‐related attitudes. A total of 108 middle managers were surveyed using measures for both dimensions of leader direction, participation, job satisfaction, commitment and intrinsic motivation. Separate two‐step moderator regression analysis was conducted to test the hypothesis. Results indicate that while participation predicts significantly all work‐related attitudes, both leader direction variables exacerbated the relationship between participation and job satisfaction. Implications of the results and future research are also discussed.

Psychological contract breach, organizational justice and emotional well-being

Purpose – Psychological contract breach, which represents instances when organizations fail to fulfil their side of the employment bargain, has been associated with salient concepts in strategic human resources management. The purpose of this paper is to investigate moderated mediated relationships involving breach, organizational (procedural and interactional) justice and emotional well-being. Design/methodology/approach – The study draws upon quantitative data collected by means of a questionnaire that was administered to 620 full-time technical and shop-floor employees in an automobile-parts company in Malta. The questionnaire included psychometrically validated scales on breach, justice and well-being. Findings – Breach partially mediated the relationship between justice and well-being while justice levels did not differentiate this mediating effect except for interactional justice. Finally, the interaction between procedural and interactional justice failed to explain the mediating role of breach ove...

Psychological contract ‘breach’: A multiple component perspective to an over-researched construct?

Abstract The majority of studies investigating psychological contract breach ask participants to indicate the degree of unfulfillment of an organizations commitment to its employer obligations. However, very little systematic evidence exists about what participants understand by ‘unfulfillment’. This study sought to investigate this aspect. Using a series of in-depth interviews, results indicate that there are at least five component forms that characterize the general notion of unfulfillment: magnitude, delay, type/form, inequity and reciprocal imbalance. These results warrant a multi-dimensional investigation of contract breach. Implications and limitations are also discussed.

The Maltese university student’s mind‐set: a survey of their preferred work values

Work values help to shape cognitions and motivations and are therefore essential in one’s process of searching for employment and remaining employable. The present study explored the typical work values preferred by university students in Malta. Gender and faculty differences as well as gender differences within faculties were explored. Twenty‐four work values divided into three modalities (cognitive, affective and instrumental), derived from Elizur’s (1984) categorisation, were assessed. Gender differences were present amongst eleven specific work values with higher scores being shared by female students. Thirteen value items also differed across faculties such that students in the social science and humanities faculty clusters generally scored lower on these specific values than the other clusters. Finally, value item differences across gender were least accentuated within faculties than across faculties. The results imply both the role of features outside university circles in shaping student work value preferences but also the relative faculty influences in shaping and influencing the kind of work values that will ensure graduates are successful in the contemporary world of work. Hence, the role of faculty influence in this regard is highlighted.

Contextualizing the features of the psychological contract: the case of Malta

Purpose – The psychological contract is defined as a perceived exchange agreement of promissory obligations between employee and organization. Most approaches to this concept ignore the role of context in shaping its features. However, others have pointed out the need to evaluate the features of the construct within the context in which it is studied. Three salient features of the construct include the use of the term “promises” versus “obligations”, its implicit nature and reference to the “other” party, and the exchange content. Rousseau and Schalk suggest that these features are weighted and interpreted differently across different countries. The purpose of this paper is to test this proposition in the island state of Malta, a European Union micro‐state.Design/methodology/approach – Semi‐structured interviews are used. Three questions are addressed: do employment obligations vary from promises in this context? Are employment obligations in this context necessarily explicited? Who is considered the empl...

What's in a broken promissory obligation? Developing and testing a multiple component form measure of psychological contract breach

While the literature has suggested the possibility of breach being composed of multiple facets, no previous study has investigated this possibility empirically. This study examined the factor structure of typical component forms in order to develop a multiple component form measure of breach. Two studies were conducted. In study 1 (N = 420) multi-item measures based on causal indicators representing promissory obligations were developed for the five potential component forms (delay, magnitude, type/form, inequity and reciprocal imbalance). Exploratory factor analysis showed that the five components loaded onto one higher order factor, namely psychological contract breach suggesting that breach is composed of different aspects rather than types of breach. Confirmatory factor analysis provided further evidence for the proposed model. In addition, the model achieved high construct reliability and showed good construct, convergent, discriminant and predictive validity. Study 2 data (N = 189), used to validate study 1 results, compared the multiple-component measure with an established multiple item measure of breach (rather than a single item as in study 1) and also tested for discriminant validity with an established multiple item measure of violation. Findings replicated those in study 1. The findings have important implications for considering alternative, more comprehensive and elaborate ways of assessing breach.

“THE TIMES THEY ARE-A-CHANGIN”: RECONSTRUCTING THE NEW ROLE OF THE STRATEGIC HR MANAGER

Abstract Much has been said about elevating the HRMgt function to strategic levels. Adopting a more evidence-based approach through the use of data analytics is considered an important driver in this direction. This provides a more potent decision-making resource that enables less biased and harder evidence which ultimately is more convincing. But will Strategic HRMgt adopting data-driven strategies require people in the profession to adopt new skills? This exploratory project is work-in-progress and presents initial interview results. Interviewees report that the use of HRMgt data analytics can certainly improve the strategic value of HR and that while the use of data can drive HR decisions more convincingly, HRMgt itself cannot be reduced or substituted by data. The participants also reported that HR professionals would require learning new skills, amongst them IT, analysis and interpretation of data. The project aims to eventually draw a number of attributes or skill-sets to this effect.

Investigating the psychometric properties and assessment capabilities of the short version of the Health and Safety Executive’s Management Standards Indicator Tool

Abstract Policies on psychosocial hazards at work are gaining importance. Subsequently, a number of indicators have been proposed to assess the phenomenon such as the Management Standards Indicator Tool (MSIT). This study focuses on the short-version of the MSIT and aims to evaluate the convergent and discriminant validities of the measures, explore whether these measures can be represented by a higher-order factor of work-related stress and to contribute towards better understanding of its concurrent validity. Data were obtained from 452 full-time managerial-grade employees working in a multinational manufacturing plant in Malta. The study shows that the original 25-item MSIT measures have convergent and discriminant validity issues. Following the removal of five items, the revised indicator demonstrated good construct validity and was well-represented by a higher order factor. Additionally, the second-order factor of the modified MSIT mediated the relationship between psychosocial safety climate and psychological well-being and slightly interacted with engagement to explain improved well-being in the mediational pathway. This study suggests that the modified MSIT is effective in assessing psychosocial factors in stress-management interventions. The MSIT has good prospects to be further adopted in the process of developing better policy and standards for the improvement of psychological conditions at work.