New Employee Orientation: Make it Pay Dividends for Years to Come

First impressions do count, especially to new employees. By properly managing first impressions and the entire orientation process of new hires, IS managers can create an organization in which employees are more productive and to which they feel more connected. the most effective employee orientation programs are often the most creative ones, and this column helps IS managers be innovative when orienting new staff members.     

Enterprise social networking usage as a moderator of the relationship between work stressors and employee creativity: A multilevel study

Enterprise social networking (ESN) techniques have been widely adopted by organizations to provide a platform for public communication among employees. Based on the job demand–control–support model and communication visibility theory, this study investigates how the relationships between the perceived work stressors of employees (i.e., challenge and hindrance stressors) and their creativity are moderated by team task- and relationship-oriented ESN usage. We used the hierarchical linear model to test this multilevel model. Results of a survey of 260 employees in 72 groups indicate that two ESN usage types differentially moderate the relationship between work stressors and employee creativity. Specifically, task-oriented ESN usage positively moderates the effects of the two types of stressors on employee creativity, whereas relationship-oriented ESN usage negatively moderates the relationship between hindrance stressors and employee creativity. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.     

Employee creativity in war zones: Empirical evidence from small firms in Afghanistan

The major concern of employees during times of war and conflict is apparently physical survival. But how are top managers of small‐sized companies enhancing the generation of novel and useful ideas by their employees in such physically dangerous business environments? In Afghanistan, as a war‐torn country, this research examined for the first time how getting closer to employees—which is conceptualized as internal marketing orientation culture in our study—directly affects the generation of novel and useful ideas by employees in the workplace. Our analysis is based on survey data from 81 newly established small‐sized companies in Afghanistan. Results indicate a mediating role of employees' perceived psychological safety on the relationship between internal market orientation culture and employees' creative work involvement. Moreover, we discuss the impact of employees' creative work involvement on small‐sized firm competitiveness improvement in general. Finally, we extend our implications in the context of the componential theory model of creativity, which might also serve as a framework for future research.     

Employee Creativity and R&D: A Critical Review

Employee creativity is one of the most important components to measure a company's human capital, particularly in knowledge‐intensive companies. However, the complexity of the conception of creativity means that the measurement of employee creativity has become difficult. Reflecting discussions and contributions on Creativity in R&D as presented at the 2006 R&D Management Conference held in Taiwan, this short thematic paper reviews four different and critical approaches to creativity, namely the evolutionary approach, the cross‐disciplinary science approach, the social system approach and the social network approach. This paper concludes that the four approaches provide complementary contributions in understanding the measurement of creativity in an R&D context, but that the interaction of the socio‐cultural context with employee creativity needs to be taken into account.     

Leader Self‐Reported Emotional Intelligence and Perceived Employee Creativity: An Exploratory Study

This research studies the relationship between six dimensions of leaders' emotional intelligence and two dimensions of employee creativity. A sample of 138 managers from 66 organizations reported on their own emotional intelligence and the creativity of their teams. Our results point out two main findings: (a) leaders' emotional intelligence explains significant variance of both creativity dimensions; (b) emotional intelligence dimensions with higher predictive power are self‐control against criticism and empathy. The findings suggest that emotionally intelligent leaders behave in ways that stimulate the creativity of their teams.     

Employee job attitudes and organizational characteristics as predictors of cyberloafing

Cyberloafing is the personal use of the Internet by employees while at work. The purpose of this study is to examine whether employee job attitudes, organizational characteristics, attitudes towards cyberloafing, and other non-Internet loafing behaviors serve as antecedents to cyberloafing behaviors. We hypothesize that the employee job attitudes of job involvement and intrinsic involvement are related to cyberloafing. In addition, we hypothesize that organizational characteristics including the perceived cyberloafing of one’s coworkers and managerial support for internet usage are related to cyberloafing. We also hypothesize that attitudes towards cyberloafing and the extent to which employees participate in non-Internet loafing behaviors (e.g., talking with coworkers, running personal errands) will both be related to cyberloafing. One hundred and forty-three working professional from a variety of industries were surveyed regarding their Internet usage at work. As hypothesized, the employee job attitudes of job involvement and intrinsic involvement were negatively related to cyberloafing. Also as predicted, the organizational characteristics of the perceived cyberloafing of one’s coworkers and managerial support for internet usage were positively related to cyberloafing. Finally, results showed that attitudes towards cyberloafing and participation in non-Internet loafing behaviors were positively related to cyberloafing. Implications for both organizations and employees are discussed.     

Network centrality,knowledge searching and creativity: The role of domain

This study aims to determine the role of knowledge searching on creativity in the fields of science research and technology development. Creativity is a process of knowledge combination, thus internal and external knowledge searching is important for creativity in both fields, particularly in the open innovation age. However, the nature of the work across these fields is different. While science research aims to solve theoretical problems and generate new knowledge, technology development aims to apply new knowledge to solve practical problems. Compared to science research, technology development has clear task goals, which make it easier to identify the related external knowledge and integrate this knowledge and in turn improve employee creativity. Thus, employees' attention to external knowledge as well as the influence of external knowledge on creativity might be different in the two fields. Results based on an empirical study of 211 employees from science research and 257 employees from technology development showed that external knowledge searching increased employee creativity in the field of technology development but not in science research. Furthermore, employees' centrality in the intra‐team problem‐solving network moderated the relationship between external knowledge searching and creativity in the science research field. Suggestions about employee creativity management in science and technology fields are discussed.     

Employee dispositions to job and organization as antecedents and consequences of information systems use

Organizations implement information systems to improve employee productivity and engender favourable organizational outcomes. Although there is evidence of positive outcomes of system use, research has suggested that system use may lead to negative consequences for employees and organizations. There has been limited research that focuses on how employees' use of information systems in the workplace is associated with their positive and negative dispositions to job and organization. We develop and test a model that posits that dispositions to job (ie, job satisfaction, job security, job anxiety, and emotional exhaustion), and organization (ie, organizational commitment and organizational trust) will play a dual role of antecedents and consequences of system use. We conducted 2 longitudinal studies in the context of 2 different systems—a functional system and an enterprise system—and found support for our hypotheses (N = 257 and 181, respectively). We found that preimplementation job and organizational dispositions significantly predicted both lean and rich measures of system use. Further, we found that rich measures of system use (ie, cognitive absorption use and deep structure use) had differential impacts on postimplementation employee dispositions—functional system use had a positive impact and enterprise system use had a negative impact. Overall, our findings offer a comprehensive understanding of system use, and its antecedents and consequences for employees in organizations.     

The Employee Suggestion System: A New Approach Using Latent Semantic Analysis

Employee suggestion systems are often used as a way to improve participation from members of the organization to help solve problems that cannot be solved through traditional organizational practices. In the government sector, employee involvement programs are the most difficult to implement mainly because management regularly changes with new administration and these changes bring about many short‐term management practices and systems. Toyota's approach to employee suggestion programs has been widely benchmarked and studied, yet there is little research to show that these practices can be applied or are successful in the public sector. This work uses a statistical data‐mining technique to compare which types of human resource management practices are prevalent in employee suggestion programs at Toyota and a target government organization. This work shows that Toyota emphasizes organization‐centered factors to stimulate employee participation in solving small problems that relate to an employee's job. On the contrary, government organizations tend to emphasize employee factors that make conditions right for employees to make larger improvements in their jobs that lead to improvements outside their work areas. Findings suggest that Toyota's approach to employee suggestion programs is not a way to weaken management's obligation to perform problem solving, but instead is another medium to highlight problems that do not require management's intervention. These new insights and others provide an increased understanding of employee suggestion programs in the public sector that are unique to manufacturing. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The impact of connecting with Professional Virtual Forum,team member and external person on R&D employee creativity

Accessing external knowledge is an important part of work for Research and Development (R&D) employees to get high creative performance. Currently, Professional Virtual Forum (PVF) in internet is becoming an important virtual knowledge source for R&D employees. However, up to now the impact of R&D employees’ connect with PVF on their creativity still waits to be explored. Furthermore, the interactive effects of connect with PVF and person-to-person knowledge sources on creativity are not clear. This paper empirically studied the 163 R&D employees came from 16 companies in China, and the results turned out that the R&D employees’ frequency of connect with PVF and intra-team, as well as with external person all significantly improved their creativity. Frequency of connect with PVF moderated the relationship between centrality of intra-team knowledge network and employee creativity, in such that when the frequency of connect with PVF was higher, the positive influence of centrality of intra-team knowledge network on employee creativity was also higher. Suggestions for future study on PVF and creativity are discussed.     

Employee turnover: a neural network solution

In today's working environment, a company's human resources are truly the only sustainable competitive advantage. Product innovations can be duplicated, but the synergy of a company's workforce cannot be replicated. It is for this reason that not only attracting talented employees but also retaining them is imperative for success. The study of employee turnover has attempted to explain why employees leave and how to prevent the drain of employee talent. This paper focuses on using a neural network (NN) to predict turnover. If turnover can be found to be predictable the identification of at-risk employees will allow us to focus on their specific needs or concerns in order to retain them in the workforce. Also, by using a Modified Genetic Algorithm to train the NN we can also identify relevant predictors or inputs, which can give us information about how we can improve the work environment as a whole. This research found that a NNSOA trained NN in a 10-fold cross validation experimental design can predict with a high degree of accuracy the turnover rate for a small mid-west manufacturing company.     

Managers’ and Employees’ Differing Responses to Security Approaches

ABSTRACT

Modern organizations face significant information security threats, to which they respond with various managerial techniques. It is widely believed that “one size does not fit all” for achieving employee information security policy compliance; nevertheless, it is yet to be determined which techniques work best to different organizational employees. We further this research stream by finding that different levels of users might be effectively motivated by different types of coercive and empowering techniques that are suitable to their level and position in the organizational chart. Our results suggest that participation in the ISP decision-making process might prove to be a more effective approach to motivate lower-level employees toward compliance and that enhancing the meaningfulness of policy compliance could be the preferred method among higher levels of management. Members within each level of the organization can be effectively influenced to comply with ISPs when such strategies are customized for their level.     

Employee Creativity and Suggestion Programs: An Empirical Study

This paper takes a closer look at a functional strategy known as the innovation or creativity strategy. It is used by growing numbers of companies to take advantage of the imaginative capacities of their entire workforce instead of relying on a handful of specialists or fostering the emergence of a few marginal “heroes” within the organization. The strategy involves the introduction of an improvement program based on employee suggestions. The goal of the research described in this paper was therefore to document twenty two such programs introduced by manufacturing companies in Quebec, to describe the operating methods used, and to summarize and analyze the results. Twelve large companies (more than two hundred employees) and ten SMEs (Small and Medium Sized enterprises with between twenty five and two hundred employees) took part in the survey.     

A Review of Employee Well‐Being and Innovativeness: An Opportunity for a Mutual Benefit

By drawing on the Job Demands and Resources Model, this review article develops a conceptual framework to advance theoretical understanding of the relationship between job‐related demands and resources, employee well‐being and innovativeness. In conditions characterized by too high levels of demands, employees may suffer from burnout. When job resources are high, they are likely to feel engaged with their work. Burnout in turn can be seen as an inhibitor of innovativeness, and work engagement as an antecedent to innovativeness, mediating the effects of resources and demands at work on innovativeness. We further argue that innovativeness can function as a resource or a demand, depending on how it is managed. In addition to understanding the dual role of innovativeness, the identification of job‐specific demands and resources is central to supporting employee well‐being and, subsequently, innovativeness. The implications of the proposed conceptual framework for academic researchers and managers are discussed.     

Employee churn prediction

Customer churn is a notorious problem for most industries, as loss of a customer affects revenues and brand image and acquiring new customers is difficult. Reliable predictive models for customer churn could be useful in devising customer retention plans. We survey and compare some major machine learning techniques that have been used to build predictive customer churn models. Employee churn (or attrition) closely related but not identical to customer churn is similarly painful for an organization, leading to disruptions, customer dissatisfaction and time and efforts lost in finding and training replacement. We present a case study that we carried out for building and comparing predictive employee churn models. We also propose a simple value model for employees that can be used to identify how many of the churned employees were “valuable”. This work has the potential for designing better employee retention plans and improving employee satisfaction.     

Dimensions of Employee Energy and Their Differences: Evidence from Chinese Insurance Companies

The purpose of this research is to explore the structure of employee energy and analyze its differences in demographic variables as well as the differences between groups. The study collected 294 questionnaires of employees in Chinese insurance companies. Confirmatory factor analysis and one‐way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used in the data analysis. The results showed that employee energy is a three‐dimensional concept that comprises basal energy, growing energy, and behavioral energy. Employee energy only has significant differences on monthly income and the level of positions, and the employees who have high employee energy share the characteristic of both high monthly income and the level of positions. Respondents were divided into four groups: 1) high‐positive‐energy, 2) low‐positive‐energy, 3) low‐negative‐energy, and 4) high‐negative‐energy employees. High‐positive‐energy employees showed the characteristics of high basal energy, high growing energy, and high behavioral energy, showing a feature of plump wings. Finally, this research put forward suggestions to provide a reference for energy management. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The effect of social media use on work‐related learning

The increasing use of social media at work offers organizations new opportunities for employee learning on the job. This study investigated the relationship between social media use and learning activities undertaken by employees. It was expected that social media use relates to higher levels of learning and that this relationship is stronger when employees perceive higher levels of an organization culture that stimulates dialogue and inquiry. A total of 590 respondents of three multinationals based in the Netherlands completed a survey. As expected, results showed that the more often employees used social media in their job, the more often they participated in learning activities. Contrary to expectation, this relationship was not influenced by culture of dialogue and inquiry. Instead, the perception of a culture of dialogue and inquiry directly related to learning on the job. The findings suggest that organizations could consider stimulating the use of social media among employees to support work‐related learning.     

Positive Work‐Related Identity as a Mediator of the Relationship between Compassion at Work and Employee Outcomes

Our purpose in this study was to examine an explanation of how experienced compassion relates to employee outcomes, such as affective organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, and turnover intention. The model tested suggests that compassion at work influences these organizational outcomes by developing positive work‐related identity, which in turn prompts employees to accelerate affective commitment toward their organizations and organizational citizenship behavior, while at the same time decreasing turnover intention. The findings of our study demonstrate that compassion at work is an antecedent to positive work‐related identity, which in turn fully mediates the relationship between compassion at work and organizational outcomes (i.e., affective organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, and turnover intention).     

The interaction effects of proactive personality and empowering leadership and close monitoring behaviour on creativity

In today's hurried information‐oriented business environment, it is crucial to examine under what conditions individuals may perform for creativity. Taking an interactional perspective, this study investigates how the interactions of proactive personality and empowering leadership or close monitoring behaviour may influence employee creativity in opposite directions. Data from 163 samples indicate that proactive personality promotes creativity, while close monitoring behaviour lowers creativity. Furthermore, the study shows that proactive employees are likely to engage in creativity when their leaders demonstrate high levels of empowering leadership. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Lean Production—An Evaluation of the Possibilities for an Employee Supportive Lean Practice

Lean is a contested concept. It has been praised for empowering employees, and it has been criticized for intensifying work and impairing the health and well‐being of employees. This article is reviewing the literature on the relations between lean and employees, and suggests ways for the development of an employee‐supportive lean practice. There is good evidence of lean's adverse consequences for low‐skilled employees in the auto industry and other assembly type manufacturing work, but there are also examples of more positive outcomes. It is important to emphasize that, not only lean thinking, but also the context and implementation of lean have consequences for employee outcomes. Research is still needed to demonstrate it in real life, but this analysis of lean thinking, context, and implementation suggests possibilities for developing a lean practice that is genuinely employee‐supportive. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.