Abstracts

Managing employee-organisation relationships in the 21st century

Professor Jacqueline Coyle-Shapiro
London School of Economics, United Kingdon

The nature of the employee-employer exchange relationship is undergoing significant change; developing and maintaining positive employee-organisation relationships in a turbulent and uncertain context is a key challenge facing organisations.

I will review current theorising and empirical evidence in the context of addressing whether what we know provides a solid foundation for practitioners and managers in managing employee-organisation relationships to achieve positive functional outcomes in the future.

In the talk, I will outline a number of challenges that organisations and practitioners face and the type of research questions academics need to answer to facilitate managing such a fundamental relationship as the employee-organisation one.

How do leaders enhance both safety and productivity in organisations?

Professor Mark Griffin
University of Western Australia, Australia

Employee safety continues to grow as a central concern for Australian organisations in sectors such as health, resources, and construction. Changing technology, work design, and markets mean safety requirements do not stay constant. Leaders play an important role in maintaining and improving safety in this context, yet little research provides a systematic view of safety leadership in complex organisations.

Mark will present recent work to develop a better theoretical understanding of the way leaders integrate safety into the broader culture and performance of organisations. Drawing on studies from a range of industries, the presentation will highlight some of the challenges for safety leadership and suggest new directions for improving leadership and safety.

In particular, the presentation will outline new models for understanding the capabilities organisations need to develop that will best support the integration of safety and productivity in dynamic environments.

The illusions under which we labour:  A practical challenge to organisational psychology

Timothy A. Judge
University of Notre Dame, USA

Organisational psychology—and to a similar extent the social sciences in general—focuses on contexts, environments, cultures, intervention, change. One might ask to what degree this focus is valid (based on a correct premise), or productive (leads to the outcomes that are desired).

How important is the environment in shaping behavior? To what extent are actions within and outside of organisations influenced by these environments? What are the methods by which one might go about answering these questions? What do the results tell us as reconciled against organizational psychology research and practice?

Beyond addressing the aforementioned questions, the purpose of this talk is to challenge the foundation (much) of organisational psychology by questioning the degree to which the situation (operationalised in terms of environment, intervention, and change) influences behavior in organisations and in society. I review research on the effects of the environment, interventions, and change on individual behaviors.

From this critique, I present an alternative theory of organizational behavior that challenges much of contemporary management research and practice. The goal is a constructive one: Can we be better management researchers and practitioners by having a more realistic understanding of what really causes people to think, feel, and act as they do?

Strategies for managing a stigmatised identity in the workplace

Professor Ann Marie Ryan
Michigan State University, USA

Individuals who possess potentially stigmatised identities (e.g., ethnic minorities, disabled individuals, sexual minorities) are faced with choices as to how to manage those identities in the workplace, including when and how to discuss one's identity. Assumptions regarding generalisation of advice regarding identity management strategies across identity groups can be problematic.

In this talk, I will discuss frameworks for integrating research on managing a stigmatised identity in the workplace. Specific studies that examine antecedents and consequences of various identity management strategies will be presented in the context of evaluating how and when aspects of identity management generalise. Practical advice for organisations concerned with workforce diversity, as well as for individuals, will be discussed.

The workforce of the future - human resource challenges and opportunities

Mr Serge Sardo
Australian Human Resources Institute, Australia

There is resounding evidence that the world of work is on the cusp of a whole new paradigm of how people are lead, and how workplaces are structured and managed. Many of the world’s most admired companies are exploring bold new ways of organising people and work and achieving enormous success.  Drawing on global and Australian research this presentation will explore the various factors that are influencing the need for dramatic change in how we work.  Taking a Human Resource Management perspective this presentation will further identify what these changes are and how workplaces can be redefined to remain competitive in a new economic landscape.

The uncertain leader - a more realistic assessment of leadership skill

Dr Randall White
Executive Development Group and Duke University, USA

"I hired you to run the rollercoaster, not ride it!"
—Spoken to the director of emergencies for an NGO by his boss

Since the global meltdown of 2008, we have been bombarded by any number of commentators telling us how the world’s markets and its leaders are faced with unprecedented levels of ambiguity, uncertainty and confusion. Global media lead with story after story illustrating the loss of certainty and the concomitant rise in confusion coupled with dire predictions of what the immediate and long-term future holds for various populations.

As leadership development professionals, however, should we not consider these questions: Hasn’t it always been this way? Doesn’t the very definition of leader suggest the ability to forge into the unknown?

Smoothly functioning organisations are often merely an illusion, akin to curve smoothing in statistics and the averaging out the rough spots to give us a picture stability, predictability and certainty.

Yet, our collective view of leadership sees leaders as stewards of safe, secure institutions, driving change in an orderly and well-thought-out manner. We tend to believe that leaders know where to go and how to get there. To our mind this characterisation is just as illusory.

Leadership has always been about dealing with uncertainty and confusion. Our work is based on understanding certain behavioral traits that help establish a more realistic and psychologically informed view of what leaders do and how they do it, while offering a means of assessing and developing leaders to succeed amidst ambiguity.