Reconceptualising employee silence: problems and prognosis

A growing literature has emerged on employee silence, located within the field of organisational behaviour. Scholars have investigated when and how employees articulate voice and when and how they will opt for silence. While offering many insights, this analysis is inherently one-sided in its interpretation of silence as a product of employee motivations. An alternative reading of silence is offered which focuses on the role of management. Using the non-union employee representation literature for illustrative purposes, the significance of management in structuring employee silence is considered. Highlighted are the ways in which management, through agenda-setting and institutional structures, can perpetuate silence over a range of issues, thereby organising employees out of the voice process. These considerations are redeployed to offer a dialectical interpretation of employee silence in a conceptual framework to assist further research and analysis.

Non-union employee representation, union avoidance and the managerial agenda

Non-union employee representation is an area which has attracted much interest in the voice literature. Much of the literature has been shaped by a dialogue which considers NERs as a means of union avoidance. More recently however scholars have suggested that for NERs to work in such contexts, they may need to be imbued with a higher set of functionalities to remain viable entities. Using a critical case study of a union recognition drive and managerial response in the form of an NER, this article contributes to a more nuanced interpretation of the literature dialogue than hitherto exists. A core component of the findings directly challenge existing interpretations within the field; namely that NERs are shaped by a paradox of managerial action. It is argued that the NER failed to satisfy for employees because of a structural remit, rather than through any paradox in managerial intent.

Effects of the Interaction Between Reaction Component of Personal Need for Structure and Role Perceptions on Employee Attitudes in Long-Term Care for Elderly People

This study examined the interaction of reaction component of personal need for structure (reaction to lack of structure, RLS) and role perceptions in predicting job satisfaction, job involvement, affective commitment, and occupational identity among employees working in long-term care for elderly people. High-RLS employees experienced more role conflict, had less job satisfaction, and experienced lower levels of occupational identity than did low-RLS employees. We found individual differences in how problems in roles affected employees' job attitudes. High-RLS employees experienced lower levels of job satisfaction, job involvement, and affective commitment, irrespective of role-conflict levels. Low-RLS employees experienced detrimental job attitudes only if role-conflict levels were high. Our results suggest that high-RLS people benefit less from low levels of experienced role conflicts.

Social capital at work as a predictor of employee health: Multilevel evidence from work units in Finland

The majority of previous research on social capital and health is limited to social capital in residential neighborhoods and communities. Using data from the Finnish 10-Town study we examined social capital at work as a predictor of health in a cohort of 9524 initially healthy local government employees in 1522 work units, who did not change their work unit between 2000 and 2004 and responded to surveys measuring social capital at work and health at both time-points. We used a validated tool to measure social capital with perceptions at the individual level and with co-workers' responses at the work unit level. According to multilevel modeling, a contextual effect of work unit social capital on self-rated health was not accounted for by the individual's socio-demographic characteristics or lifestyle. The odds for health impairment were 1.27 times higher for employees who constantly worked in units with low social capital than for those with constantly high work unit social capital. Corresponding odds ratios for low and declining individual-level social capital varied between 1.56 and 1.78. Increasing levels of individual social capital were associated with sustained good health. In conclusion, this longitudinal multilevel study provides support for the hypothesis that exposure to low social capital at work may be detrimental to the health of employees. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Association of impulsivity with sleep duration and insomnia in an employee population

Clinical studies have linked impulsivity and insomnia in patients, but little is known about this association in non-clinical settings. This study examined whether impulsive temperament is associated with sleep duration and insomnia complaints in a large cohort of hospital employees (535 men and 4014 women). Linear regression models were related to prospective data from two surveys conducted in 1998 and 2000. Adjustments were made for age, marital status, education, shift work, smoking, alcohol consumption, body mass index, physical activity, minor psychiatric morbidity, social support, somatic disease, depression and other psychiatric disease in 1998. In men, higher impulsivity predicted shorter sleep duration and waking up several times per night independent of baseline characteristics. In women, higher impulsivity predicted having difficulty falling asleep and waking up feeling tired after the usual amount of sleep after adjustment for most of covariates. However, these associations turned out to be non-significant after adjustment for somatic and psychiatric disease. These results support the hypothesis that impulsive temperament could be a risk factor for insomnia in men. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Employer occupation of regulatory space of the Employee Information and Consultation (I&C) Directive in liberal market economies

This article shows how both employers and the state have influenced macro-level processes and structures concerning the content and transposition of the European Union (EU) Employee Information and Consultation (I&C) Directive. It argues that the processes of regulation occupied by employers reinforce a voluntarism which marginalizes rather than shares decision-making power with workers. The contribution advances the conceptual lens of ‘regulatory space’ by building on Lukes’ multiple faces of power to better understand how employment regulation is determined across transnational, national and enterprise levels. The research proposes an integrated analytical framework on which ‘occupancy’ of regulatory space can be evaluated in comparative national contexts.

Regulating for mutual gains? Non-union employee representation and the Information and Consultation Directive

Interest in ‘mutual gains’ has principally been confined to studies of the unionised sector. Yet there is no reason why this conceptual dynamic cannot be extended to the non-unionised realm, specifically in relation to non-union employee representation (NER). Although extant research views NER as unfertile terrain for mutual gains, the paper examines whether NER developed in response to the European Directive on Information and Consultation (I&C) of Employees may offer a potentially more fruitful route. The paper examines this possibility by considering three cases of NER established under the I&C Directive in Ireland, assessing the extent to which mutual gains were achieved.

Patterning employee voice in multinational companies

Employee voice has been an enduring theme within the employment relations literature.This article profiles the incidence of a range of direct and indirect employee voice mechanisms within multinational companies (MNCs) and, using an analytical framework, identifies a number of different approaches to employee voice. Drawing from a highly representative sample of MNCs in Ireland, we point to quite a significant level of engagement with all types of employee voice, both direct and indirect. Using the analytical framework, we find that the most common approach to employee voice was an indirect voice approach (i.e. the use of trade unions and/or non-union structures of collective employee representation). The regression analysis identifies factors such as country of origin, sector, the European Union Directive on Information and Consultation and date of establishment as having varying impacts on the approaches adopted by MNCs to employee voice. © The Author(s) 2010.

The impact of union presence and strategic human resource management on employee voice in multinational enterprises in Australia

In this article, we examine the use and character of employee voice mechanisms of foreign-owned multinational enterprises operating in Australia, as well as the influence of a strategic human resource management approach and union presence. Findings indicate that foreign-owned multinational enterprises are high-level users of the full range of employee voice mechanisms, with the exceptions of use of employee suggestion schemes, trade union recognition and the use of joint consultation committees across all sites. Using logistic regression analysis, findings show that trade union presence, a strategic human resource management approach, greenfield site and country of origin impact the employee voice approach adopted. High trade union presence is associated with an indirect employee voice approach. A low trade union presence is associated with a direct or a minimalist approach to employee voice. Moreover, a strategic human resource management approach is associated with both direct and dualistic approaches to employee voice. Implications are drawn for theory and practice. © Australian Labour and Employment Relations Association (ALERA) SAGE Publications Ltd, Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC.

Employee 'words' on high involvement work practices, value congruence and burnout

This article examined the impact of perceived high involvement work practices (HIWPs) on person-organization value congruence (P-O fit) and long term burnout. The study was conducted in a Canadian general hospital. Findings from structural equation modeling (N = 185) revealed that perceived HIWPs were significantly positively associated with P-O fit. While there was no direct effect of HIWPs on burnout, P-O fit fully mediated the relationship between perceptions of HIWPs and burnout. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of HIWPs influence on P-O fit and burnout.