Exploring the relationship between customer loyalty to the service worker and customer citizenship behaviors to the service organization

This paper conceptualizes the positive relationship between customer loyalty to the service worker (personal loyalty) and customer citizenship behaviors to the service organization including: positive word of mouth; suggestions for improvements; customer participation in activities; benevolent acts of service facilitation; customer policing; customer flexibility; customer voice and displays of relationship affiliation.

Organization, decoration

While organizational decoration has been of interest to those who study organizational artefacts, we suggest four ways in which decoration is worthy of fuller attention in organizational studies. First, decoration, ornament and embellishment are not only what we see, but also what we do as managers, consultants, writers and designers of both physical and project spaces. Second, and drawing on the art/craft debate, we note that decoration occupies contested and even liminal aesthetic position and that ‘decorative art’ lies betwixt and between fine art and craft. Neither fully accepted nor fully marginalized, decoration is ‘only applied’ and embodies shifting tensions between form and function. Third, we review the particular negotiations of these tensions at the Bauhaus, a controversial and highly influential aesthetic organization in early 20th century Germany. Fourth, we suggest that decoration, like disorganization, provides a source of complication for organizational studies that are neither pure nor parsimonious.

Organizational decoration : a new metaphor for organization development

The authors call for the introduction of a new metaphor, organizational decoration, to provide a way of conceiving organizational development (OD) as an aesthetic endeavor. First, this is a response to recent calls for fresh and more interdisciplinary approaches to thinking about the practice of OD. Second, it is a provocation, for their choice of decoration is also a call for greater humility in OD’s ambitions. Rather than seek a more strategic or architectural role for OD, organizational decoration works instead at the surface and in the realm of the aesthetic. And within that realm the authors have deliberately chosen decoration over design (a term far more familiar to OD) because decoration more closely represents the ordinary and often temporary contributions that the authors advocate. Implications of moving OD down-market are discussed.

Excess and mimesis in organization theory: emancipation from within?

In organizational analysis it can be argued that 'radical separatism'—in the guise of the original 'agenda' for Radical Organization Theory (see Benson, 1977a; Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Clegg and Dunkerley, 1980) or more recently that for Critical Management Studies (see Alvesson and Willmott, 1992; Fournier and Grey, 2000; Casey, 2002; Grey, 2004)—has failed to breach the hegemony of functionalist orthodoxy, and notably so when it comes to practice. Given this failure, we speculate, upon the potential for a different emancipatory approach, one based theoretically on the fluid process of 'undecidability'. Unusually our approach attempts to undermine the conventions of functionalist organization theory from within. In brief, we speculate upon the adoption and enactment of Luce Irigaray's (1985, 1991) strategy of mimicry as a means to illuminate the notion of 'excess' in organization theory. To liberate the feminine, Irigaray mimics the symbolic representation of the female body to excess so as to expose the contradictions of phallocentric discourse. When applied to organization theory, this sees a deliberate mimicking of critiques of radical separatism so as to make explicit the latter's imprisonment within functionalism. Through excessive mimicking of the functionalists' critique, the radical/critical organization theorist may become cognizant of, but perhaps not so subjugated by, the hegemony of functionalist discourse.

Employer matters in 2006

If 2005 was a watershed year with the passing of the Work Choices legislation, then 2006 may well be considered year zero, symbolizing the beginning of a new era of Australian industrial relations under the employer friendly legislative regime. Employer groups were actively engaged in lobbying the Federal Government for further industrial relations reform, particularly in relation to the award rationalization process, and in pressuring the government for codification of the definition of `independent contractors', as a means of immunizing them from many of the rigours currently imposed by employment and labour law. Key employer groups made significant submissions to the newly formed Australian Fair Pay Commission in the lead up to its inaugural minimum wages decision, and though generally urging caution in raising minimum wages, there were nevertheless some differences of emphasis and approach apparent between a number of them. Despite an absence of widespread industrial disputation, the year witnessed a number of employers exercising their newfound powers — including some enhanced legal options — to either by-pass unions or to constrain union activity.

Ties to the past in organization research : a comparative analysis of retrospective methods

This paper addresses a traditionally neglected area of management and organizational studies—retrospective research. It identifies, describes and analyses four positions on retrospective research: Controlling the Past, in which attempts are made to maximize accurate recall or to reveal potential sources of error or bias; Interpreting the Past, in which understanding of the present is informed by the construction of past reality; Co-opting the Past, in which causal explanations link the past and the present; and Representing the Past, which involves the problematization of time and research on time. These positions are compared in terms of, for example, method, philosophy, examplars and potential contribution. Finally, implications are drawn for the practice of retrospective research in management and organization studies.

Monitoring employees emails without violating their privacy right

The capability of an employee to violate the policy of an organization is a concern for an employer. Monitoring is a measure taken by an employer to discourage an employee from acting inappropriately. However, current monitoring techniques tend to raise privacy issues because they violate the privacy rights of employees. Applying a monitoring technique without violating the privacy of employees is the aim of this paper. We propose a design and a protocol which give an employer the opportunity to monitor employee email in order to detect company policy violations. This can be achieved without violating the privacy of honest employees, while at the same time revealing evidence about the illegal actions of dishonest employees.

The sustainability of health promotion interventions for different levels of social organization

In health promotion, enthusiasm for sustainability has frequently overshadowed critical reflection with regard to whether this aim is warranted, let alone feasible. Consequently, the not insubstantial body of literature on sustainability in health promotion is not particularly helpful to decision makers. In this paper we seek to provide some guidance for the development of sustainability for health promotion interventions, arguing that it is necessary to be able to differentiate between (i) levels of social organization which are the focus of change, (ii) the programmes and agencies which are the means employed to achieve change, and (iii) the outcomes or effects that are achieved. Furthermore, funding allocations need to be congruent with programme characteristics if one is serious about achieving sustainability.

Design management in a design-construct organization

As clients have become more aware and demanding of the construction industry, they are also less tolerant of the management of its problems and the risks involved in the delivery of major projects. Identification and allocation of risk is one of the most critical processes in the early stages of project development. Often it is the deciding factor in the selection of the building process and of the type of procurement method adopted to manage the various project risks. The emergence of different forms of procurement, and in particular, design-construct and novation, requires the design construct contractor to not only accept the risks associated with the construction of the works, but also of the design management during the design development of the project. With the increasing requirement for design-construct contractors to balance the cost management issues and design development through the various stages, the role of the design manager as information manager has evolved and expanded in importance. This paper presents a case study of design management within a design-construct organization on a large residential apartment project. It identifies and analyses issues concerned with the organization, responsibilities, relationships and stages of development in a typical design-construct project.

A platform for dynamic organization of agents in agent-based systems

In most agent-based systems, different middle agents are employed to increase their flexibility. However, there are still three issues remain unsolved. In centralized architecture with single middle agent, the middle agent itself is a bottleneck and suffers from single point failure; middle agents in distributed architecture lack capability of dynamic organization of agents; The reliability is not strong because of the single point failure and lack of effective architecture. We introduce a platform with ring architectural model to solve all above problems. In the platform, multiple middle agents are dynamically supported for solving the first problem. For solving the second problem, middle agents dynamically manage the registration and cancellation of service provider agents and application teams, each of which includes a set of closely interacting requester agents to complete an independent task. Redundancy middle agent technique is proposed for solving the third problem. All middle agents are of the feature of proliferation and self-cancellation according to the sensory inputs from their environment. For organizing the middle agents effectively, a ring architectural model is proposed. We demonstrate the applicability of the platform by its application and present experimental evidence that the platform is flexible and robust.

Codes of ethics in Sweden's largest public sector organizations : communicating the intent of the code within the organization

The aim of the study was to examine the ways that public sector organizations in Sweden communicated the intent of their codes of ethics to their employees. Primary data was obtained via a self-administered mail questionnaire distributed to a census of the top 100 organizations.

The study identified a range of methods used by organizations to integrate the ethos of codes into corporate culture. These methods included communication of the code, company induction of new staff, consequences for a breach of the code, ethical performance, an ethics ombudsman, the support of whistleblowers, a standing ethics committee, ethics education, and an ethics education committee.

Whilst many organizations have instituted ethical behaviour initiatives, activities specifically targeted at exposure, education and support for staff to perform ethically were found to be underdeveloped.