PurposeThe purpose of this study is to elucidate the relationship between perceived employee influence and organizational commitment by applying a multidimensional approach that includes influence perceived to stem from the individual and the team, as well as affective and normative commitment.Design/methodology/approachA total of 526 out of a population of 732 employees (72 percent reply rate) from four Danish companies in different industries and with different types of teams participated in the questionnaire study.FindingsResults of bootstrapping mediation analyses reveal that a relationship between perceived influence of the team and affective commitment is fully mediated by perceived individual influence. Results of multiple regression analyses show a positive relationship between team and individual influence, and that normative commitment moderated the relationship negatively. The results are to suggest that influence of the team may stimulate employees’ individual influence, and in turn their affective commitment, if their normative commitment is not very high.Research limitations/implicationsGeneralization of the results to cultures, which are dissimilar to the Danish should be cautiously considered and further studies are needed to elucidate causality between the variables.Originality/valueThe identification of normative commitment as a variable that can potentially hinder that employees experience their teams to enhance their individual freedom elucidates the conditions that may be behind different current findings in the literature. The finding that suggests that employees need to perceive that they benefit from their team's influence in order to feel more affective committed to their organization adds to knowledge about team work's possible effects for employee attitudes.

PurposeThe aim of this article is to supply grounded empirical insights into the forms of negative word‐of‐mouth by front‐line, customer contact employees.Design/methodology/approachThe article adopts a qualitative approach through interviews with 54 front‐line employees in three retail organizations: food, clothing and electronic goods.FindingsThe paper finds four different forms of negative word‐of‐mouth behaviours which are labelled customer‐oriented, anti‐management/firm, employee‐oriented and anti‐competitor word‐of‐mouth. The paper shows how each of these behaviours varied in terms of the target audience (the intended listeners), the focus of attention (the focal point of comments), the motivation (the perceived rationale for the behaviour) and the extent to which employees perceived their own comments to be truthful.Research limitations/implicationsThe article calls for an expansion of research horizon to incorporate a fuller understanding of the dynamics of employee (mis)behaviour in the workplace in relation to resistance, subjectivity, instrumentality and clandestine control of certain aspects of workplace dynamics.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that managers should be concerned with front‐line employee negative word‐of‐mouth especially because some of the examples which were uncovered are potentially damaging to both financial and non financial performance measures.Originality/valueThe article contributes insights into the neglected area of employee negative word‐of‐mouth. The article argues that the identification of the forms of employee negative word‐of‐mouth is an important step towards developing a theory of employee negative word‐of‐mouth that is especially pertinent to front‐line service work. The article develops a series of propositions which future researchers may find useful in advancing research in this area.

PurposeIt is ironic that in stressful economic times, when new ideas and positive behaviors could be most valuable, employees may not speak up, leading to reduced employee participation, less organizational learning, less innovation and less receptiveness to change. The supervisor is the organization's first line of defense against a culture of silence and towards a culture of openness. The purpose of this paper is to ask what helps supervisors to hear prosocial voice and notice defensive silence.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a cross‐sectional field study of 142 supervisors.FindingsThe results indicate that prosocial voice is increased by supervisor tension and trust in employees, while defensive silence is increased by supervisor tension but reduced by unionization of employees and trust in employees. This indicates that, as hypothesized by others, voice and silence are orthogonal and not opposites of the same construct.Research limitations/implicationsThe data are measured at one point in time, and further longitudinal study would be helpful to further understand the phenomena.Practical implicationsThis research highlights the potential for supervisors in stressful situations to selectively hear voice and silence from employees.Social implicationsThis research also has implications for supervisors who work in a unionized environment. Although seemingly counter‐intuitive, there is a value to employee unionization in terms of either reducing the level of actual defensive silence, or at least reducing supervisors’ perceptions of defensive silence.Originality/valueThe paper adds to our knowledge of prosocial voice and defensive silence by testing supervisors’ perceptions of these constructs during difficult times. It provides valuable empirical insights to a literature dominated by conceptual non‐empirical papers. Limited research on silence might reflect how difficult it is to study such an ambiguous and passive construct as silence (often simply viewed as a lack of speech). The paper contributes also to trust literature by identifying its role in increasing supervisor's perceptions of prosocial voice and reducing perceptions of defensive silence.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of non‐violent protest (satyagraha) in a multinational automobile plant in India that has suffered from considerable employee relations problems.Design/methodology/approachThe paper employs a case study of a Japanese‐owned company using data obtained from 30 personal interviews and from internet media sources.FindingsIt is found that workers initially pursued their protests through satyagraha‐style methods before taking on a more violent posture when company management refused to accept any notion of jointly seeking a new harmony. The reasons for these developments are explored.Practical implicationsThe paper has implications for the manner in which scholars and practitioners view the respective roles, significance, and management of satyagraha and non‐satyagraha protest in Indian companies.Originality/valueThe importance of satyagraha in Indian employee relations is under‐researched in comparison with other factors, and is especially significant for culturally‐unaware multinational companies in successfully understanding and managing protest in the workplace context.

Purpose – Restructuring has assumed a significant importance across Europe due to the growing pressures of internationalisation affecting transnational capital. By drawing from two case‐studies in the public health service and the manufacturing sector in Belgium, this paper aims to present evidence of the local unions' capacity to strategically use the industrial relations institutional framework, which foresees the rights of employee representatives to make a proposal for an alternative plan to restructuring, in order to fight redundancy at the workplace.Design/methodology/approach – The study uses a new institutionalist approach in social science and political economy which emphasises social agency and actor capacity to influence and shape their institutional context. The research design was based on two case studies. The methodology was qualitative and comparative.Findings – There is diversity in the process of collective resistance to company restructuring, highlighting different combinations of exter...

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate labour market practices in a transition economy in relation to broader institutional configurations.Design/methodology/approachThrough a review of relevant literature and the analysis of statistical data the paper reveals some specific factors influencing labour market practices in a transition economy.FindingsThe paper establishes a link between inefficient enforcement and the emergence of compensating institutional arrangements on the one side and the unusually broad implementation of flexible working time and flexible pay on the other as a crucial factor that made the stabilization of employment in Russia possible.Originality/valueThe paper reveals how a formal regulatory system, which on the face of it is similar to what is a norm in the majority of European countries, may coexist with a distinctive labour market model and explores issues of relevance to academics, researching in the field, policy‐makers, human resource managers, employers and employees.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe a normative perspective of employment relations in Islam.Design/methodology/approachThe perspective on employment relations offered in this paper is based on a reading of the principal Islamic texts (the Qur'an and the hadith) and a review of the literature on Islamic economics.FindingsDespite varied interpretations and practices of the economic system in Islam, it is possible to identify a common emphasis on ethical conduct of employers and employees and social justice in Islamic ideology.Originality/valueGiven the paucity of research on employment relations in Islam, the paper offers an original perspective on this topic.

PurposeThis paper aims to describe the role of human resource management (HRM) in targets' coping with workplace bullying.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws on a study rooted in van Manen's hermeneutic phenomenology, conducted with agents working in international facing call centres in Mumbai and Bangalore, India. Exploring targets' lived experiences, conversational interviews and sententious and selective thematic analyzes were undertaken.FindingsTargets' experiences were captured by the core theme of “protecting my interests” which subsumes four themes, experiencing confusion, engaging organizational options, moving inwards and exiting the organization. The findings highlight targets' attempts to deal with the experience of bullying, relying on their personal and social resources as well as on organizational options in order to ensure that their emotional well‐being, task‐related performance and long‐term career goals were not hampered by victimization. Participants' endeavours displayed two prominent features: the presence of turning points and the critical role of HRM in influencing multiple facets of the experience.Research limitations/implicationsThe study achieves theoretical generalizability but further research is needed to establish statistical generalizability.Practical implicationsThe engagement of HRM as a truly unitarist ideology, the development of effective employee redressal mechanisms and the relevance of pluralist approaches and collectivization endeavours emerge as crucial areas for application.Originality/valueIn addition to breaking new ground in empirically uncovering the organization's etiological role in workplace bullying, going beyond the existing work‐environment hypothesis and organization as bully conceptualization, the findings provide a new perspective on targets' exit coping response. To the authors' knowledge, workplace bullying has not been studied in India.