This study investigates the relative impact of utilizing various forms of work flexibility on mothers' retention in full-time jobs. Drawing from a model of work reentry for new mothers and Human Ecology Theory (HET), we theorize that mothers' flexibility needs influence retention through flexibility use and that top management support strengthens this process. Using a cross-sectional Qualtrics online survey, we recruited a diverse sample of 213 women across the United States who stayed with or left their full-time jobs after childbirth or adoption. Using relative weights and path analysis, we compared six forms of flexibility. Schedule, career, and leave flexibility emerged as stronger predictors of retention than other forms of flexibility, with schedule flexibility explaining the largest proportion of variance. For most flexibility types, the need for flexibility increased usage, which, in turn, raised the likelihood of staying in a full-time position. Strong top management work-life support further strengthened the relationship between need and use for certain forms of flexibility. We extend the work reentry framework beyond early motherhood by including mothers in later career and parenting stages. Our results also extend HET by demonstrating that top management support is a critical environmental factor influencing whether flexibility need translates into actual use by working mothers. This suggests that working mothers use flexibility to shape their work environment to meet personal needs, and top management support signals that the use of flexibility effectively addresses these needs. From a practical standpoint, organizations can use these insights to design flexibility policies that more effectively support working mothers in their full-time jobs.

The United States (U.S.) is the only advanced nation that does not mandate paidparental leave; when U.S. organizations fill this gap, women are more likely thanmen to receive it. Drawing on signaling theory, we argue that paid parental leave (maternity and paternity leave) sends signals of inclusivity and support that enhanceemployee attitudes, with effects depending on whether employees are intendedsignal targets, find it personally relevant, and expect such signals. Using a pre-testpost-test 'control group' quasi-experiment design, data were analyzed from amultinational firm that implemented paid parental leave in the U.S. Using propensity (maternity and paternity leave) sends signals of inclusivity and support that enhanceemployee attitudes, with effects depending on whether employees are intendedsignal targets, find it personally relevant, and expect such signals. Using a pre-testpost-test 'control group' quasi-experiment design, data were analyzed from amultinational firm that implemented paid parental leave in the U.S. Using propensityscore matching, we matched U.S. and U.K. samples and compared changes inorganizational commitment (T1 to T2). Commitment significantly increased for thefirm's employees, but significantly more for U.S. than U.K. employees, suggestingbroad signals of inclusivity and support, but a stronger effect on intended targets. T2 commitment was significantly higher for the U.S. employees most likely to find thepolicy personally useful (based on age) and U.S. men under 50 - who likely woulduse the benefit but not expect it - as compared to U.K. counterparts. We discusstheoretical and practical implications.

As educators, we seek engaging ways to demonstrate the crucial importance of developing appropriate management (HR) practices when undertaking international expansion. In this exercise, teams are asked to formulate and justify human resource/talent management policy modifications that contribute to a competitive advantage for a hypothetical North American niche grocery chain (Friendly & Fresh Foods) planning expansion into China. The exercise's unique value is its focus on the interconnectedness between business strategy, talent management, and culture in helping to “win” the local challenge when entering an unfamiliar territory where global leaders may need to adapt both competitive strategy and cultural practices to achieve business entry success. Recommendations are honed after consideration of their assigned home country's business model (differentiation or cost leadership) and the host country's culture. The choice of China as the expansion country serves to magnify the “distances” that must be examined when expanding internationally, in this case when a North American operation decides to expand its operations to China. The exercise's theoretical foundation is informed by international business, global human resource management, and cultural research. The exercise's effectiveness is well supported by graduate students who have experienced the exercise and by faculty evaluations of team presentations.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to develop the “ethical student scale” to understand the underlying factors that lead to the decisions of cheating and plagiarism and where business students are developmentally from a moral perspective and to help academic institutions assess how best to develop ethical education throughout the curriculum. This three-dimensional nine-item scale based on Kohlberg’s moral development model is proposed to serve as a valuable tool for educators who are struggling with identifying the best approach to help their students make ethical choices both within and outside of the walls of their educational institutions and once they join the workforce. Design/methodology/approach Four survey design studies were conducted to determine what factors had previously been identified to both negatively and positively impact the propensity of a university student to engage in cheating and/or plagiarizing (Study 1, N = 179), to preliminarily validate the three dimension nine item scale that emerged from Study 1 (Study 2, N = 87); to test the construct validity of the three-dimensional nine-item scale (Study 3, N = 235); and to test the nine-item scale for convergent, divergent and predictive validity (Study 4, N = 201). The four surveys were administered to undergraduate students at two universities in the Northeast in the USA. Findings To shed light on the underlying factors that lead to the decisions of cheating and plagiarism, the authors propose three factors that are engaged when students make these types of ethical decisions: rules and enforcement as an external control, personal morality as an internal control and social influences as a social control (Kohlberg, 1976). Through four studies, this paper presents a three-dimensional nine-item scale based on Kohlberg’s moral development model to determine the factors that influence the propensity of a university student to engage in cheating and/or plagiarizing. The proposed scale showed strong reliability across the three dimensions. Research limitations/implications The limitations of the scale are that this research was restricted to an academic setting. The relationship between the academic environment, the resulting behaviors of students and the subsequent behavior of these students as managers also needs investigation to determine if business ethics education does have an impact on increasing ethical decision-making. Practical implications The ethical student scale attempts to measure the development stage of students in a university setting and has the potential utility to help higher education institutions better understand the moral development of their students and what drives their decisions to engage in an ethical manner. Being a short yet reliable tool, ethical student scale may help business schools develop programs beyond a single business ethics course to instill ethical decision-making in students. Social implications One of the goals as business educators is to produce ethical managers. The ethical student scale can help us develop a more integrated approach to business ethics education. As the students become managers and leaders in organizations, the social implications for more ethical decision-makers and organizations are widespread and vital to the community and the economy. Originality/value Ethical student scale is an attempt to quantify what types of controls (external, social, or personal) help develop ethical students and ethical managers. Based on Kohlberg’s moral development model, this three-dimensional nine-item scale which shows strong reliability will serve as a valuable tool for educators who are struggling with identifying the best approach to the issue of unethical decisions and behaviors as they try to create strategies to help their students make ethical choices both within and outside of the walls of their educational institutions and once they join the workforce.

Organizational restructuring that follows mergers can be stressful for employees. Heterogeneous team structures may intensify merger-related stressors, as legacy company serves as a faultline, which can create conflict and disunity. However, findings from diversity studies suggest that team heterogeneity has some advantages. We addressed a major shortcoming in the team stressor research, which has insufficiently considered the roles of team heterogeneity (vs. homogeneity) in perceptions of stressors. We explored how team composition (based on legacy company) shapes perceptions of merger-related stressors. Qualitative analysis of employee comments post-merger revealed that stressors varied across team compositions. Heterogeneous teams were not unequivocally stressful and results differed by employee legacy company. Homogeneous acquired teams were most disadvantaged. Homogeneous acquiring teams were least stressed. Accordingly, we created labels that describe each team's unique context, which can advance team stressor research and help leaders properly support employees in a post-merger environment based on their teams' composition.

Purpose - Notwithstanding the rise of contingent faculty, tenured and tenured track faculty continue to play vital roles in US higher education and the tenure decision is central to the lives of many academics. While the literature is replete with anecdotes about faculty complaining about the process to which they were subject, there has been surprisingly little empirical research on faculty perceptions of the clarity and fairness of the tenure process and the relationship of these perceptions to work outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to examine the motivational impact of these processes on faculty who are pre-tenure as well as those who had successfully navigated the tenure process.Design/methodology/approach - Self-reported survey data were collected from 410 full-time pre-tenured and tenured faculty at three universities in the Northeastern USA. Participants were assessed on their uncertainty and their perceptions of justice in the tenure process as well as their affective and continuance organizational commitment and work engagement. Data were subject to exploratory factor analysis, correlation, and hierarchical regression.Findings - The results indicated that there was a lack of clarity with respect to both the criteria for tenure and the procedures by which institutions made tenure decisions. The results indicated no gender differences in the perception of clarity, but the results suggest women perceived the tenure process as being less just than men do. Perceived justice was positively related to both affective organizational commitment and work engagement with affective commitment fully mediating the relationship with there being no relationship between continuance commitment and perceived justice. These relations held for both tenured and later career faculty and pre-tenured and earlier career faculty.Research limitations/implications - The study extends understanding of the dimensionality of justice perceptions in higher education setting. The design was cross-sectional and data common was self-report.Practical implications - The results provide empirical support to anecdotes of faculty feeling that tenure processes often lack clarity and appear to be capricious and unfair. It provides evidence that the negative impact of a process being viewed as unfair may affect the dedication and effort that the faculty who are granted tenure and remain at their institutions for decades afterward. At a time, when higher education is resource challenged, it behooves both faculty and administrators to critically review their tenure processes against best practices.Originality/value - This study adds to the limited empirical literature on the tenure process and does so from a motivational perspective.

Promoting ethical decisions and behaviors is challenging for any organization. Yet managers are still required to make ethical decisions under conditions which deplete their self-control resources, such as high stress and long hours. This study examines the relationships among symbolic and internal moral identity, self-control, and ethical behavior, and investigates whether self-control acts as the mechanism through which moral identity leads to ethical behavior. Findings indicate that internal moral identity overrides symbolic moral identity in the relationship with self-control and that self-control fully mediates the relationship between internal moral identity and ethical behavior. The implications for organizations is that while rules, procedures, and ethics training are useful, managers with a strong moral compass will be more likely to practice self-control leading to more ethical behaviors.

Synopsis “Jessica’s dilemma: honesty or loyalty” is the true story of a Staff Accountant, Jessica, who discovered embezzlement by the controller, Michael. Jessica worked at a US subsidiary of a multinational organization. One of the company’s vendors contacted Jessica regarding unpaid invoices. Following up on the inquiry, Jessica found suspicious manual journal entries in the general ledger. When she questioned her boss, Michael, about her findings, he first denied the situation, then blamed another employee, and ultimately tried to intimidate Jessica so that she would not press the issue. Jessica’s investigation led to the discovery that Michael had been embezzling money from the company. To complicate matters, Jessica and her husband had a close relationship with Michael and his wife outside the office. Jessica had to make a choice between being loyal to a family friend and being honest and loyal toward her employer. Research methodology The authors obtained the information for this case from the staff accountant and her husband via a series of interviews. The information was verified via publicly available news articles on the presented case. Additionally, legal documents, which were publicly available, were also used for information. The name of the company and the names of the individuals in the case were changed to protect the identities and privacy of the involved parties. Relevant courses and levels An instructor can use this case in business ethics, introductory management, human resource law or accounting courses targeting undergraduate or introductory MBA students. This case is best used in the beginning of the suggested courses, as the instructor introduces ethical dilemmas, ethical frameworks, and stakeholder theory. The case is designed so that students do not need a background in business or business ethics to be able to successfully complete the case analysis. Additionally, the case provides a platform to discuss the differences in an ethical vs an unethical manager and how to respond to such a situation. Theoretical bases Many employees are afraid to report ethical wrongdoing to upper management, or to engage in ethical dissent. When upper management is receptive to reports of wrongdoing, ethical dissent within the organization to upper-level management has more organizational benefits than when the issue is shared with coworkers or external agencies. This is because upper management has the power to make a difference in the situation and may be able to keep the situation within the organization to eliminate possible reputation problems for the organization. The presented case can be utilized to discuss the importance of feeling safe in an organization as it pertains to reporting wrongdoing within the organization and how organizational culture and leadership can enhance or diminish that feeling.

Self-employment is often viewed as a more desirable work arrangement than working as an employee for a firm. Women are pushed into self-employment due to organizational factors, such as a shrinking workforce or limited job opportunities, while being attracted to self-employment by the many psychological and social benefits (e.g., independence, flexibility, work-life balance, job satisfaction). Despite more women moving into self-employment, this type of employment still has different financial consequences for men and women. This article investigates whether a pay gap exists for self-employed women after controlling for industry, occupation, and hours worked and seeks to quantify the gender wage gap for the self-employed. A sample of 467 self-employed independent contractors in the United States was examined from the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce. The results indicate a large financial disparity between self-employed women and men. On average men earned $54,959 as compared to women who earned on average $28,554. Regardless of the parity in education, work experience, number of hours worked, or occupations, women earn less than men in self-employment. Findings suggest the existence of the glass cage‐a phenomenon whereby self-employed women earn significantly less than self-employed men with limited abilities to narrow the economic inequality.

This paper examines the drivers of job satisfaction acro ss f ur cultural regions— Asia, Europe, North America, and Latin America. Using H ofstede’s theory, determinants were used to predict job satisfaction for each r egion and then compared to determine significant differences. Data was co llected from a proprietary industry survey on employee work attitudes. T he sample consisted of over 70,000 employees from 4 large multinational organiza tions. Data was analyzed using regression analysis and comparison testing across models. There are significant relationships between job characteristics and job satisfaction across all regions of the world, with a sense of achievement univ ersally the most important driver. Although job characteristics impact job satisfaction across all regions, there are significant differences in the relative importance of job characteristics on job satisfaction, consistent with Hofstede ’s cultural dimensions. The findings have implications for tailoring human resourc e management practices across locations within multinationals.This research is believed to be the first cross-cultural study of the job determinants affecting job satisfaction using multiple organizations and industries.

Hofstede’s research on cultural differences and its implication for management style has been reviewed and acknowledged for decades. His findings suggest cultural dimensions have strong impact on expected behavior of supervisors and subordinates. The GLOBE survey identified leadership styles that work in any cultural environment. There is a strong indicator that in addi-tion to cultural specific leadership styles there is also a universal one. The leadership categories identified by GLOBE as universally effective, were very similar to the dimensions of transforma-tional leadership. This paper analyzes nationality as a predictor of Transformational Leadership style with a sample of 250 managers from Luxembourg; an EU country with a highly interna-tional workforce comprised of 69.5% foreigners. The results based on regression show, that there is no prediction of national culture regarding preferred leadership style. This finding is of high implication for a multicultural business environment as it is in Luxembourg. This research sug-gests a diminishing influence of national culture in such a multicultural business environment.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to determine the effect of high-performance human resource practices on job satisfaction across four cultural regions – Asia, Europe, North America, and Latin America. High-performance human resource practices were used to predict job satisfaction for each region and then compared to determine significant differences. Hofstede's cultural dimensions were employed as a basis for structuring hypothesized differences across cultural regions.Design/methodology/approach– Data were collected from a proprietary industry survey on employee work attitudes. The sample consisted of over 70,000 employees from four large multinational organizations with at least four offices in each of the four regions. Data were analyzed using regression analysis and comparison testing across models.Findings– There are significant relationships between job characteristics and job satisfaction across all regions of the world, with a sense of achievement universally the most important driver. Although job characteristics impact job satisfaction across all regions, there are significant differences in the relative importance of job characteristics on job satisfaction, consistent with Hofstede's cultural dimensions.Practical implications– The findings have implications for tailoring human resource management practices across locations within multinationals.Originality/value– This research is believed to be the first cross-cultural study of human resource practices affecting job satisfaction using multiple organizations and industries.

This paper examines the drivers of job satisfaction across four cultural regions— Asia, Europe, North America, and Latin America. Using Hofstede’s theory, determinants were used to predict job satisfaction for each region and then compared to determine significant differences. Data was collected from a proprietary industry survey on employee work attitudes. The sample consisted of over 70,000 employees from 4 large multinational organizations. Data was analyzed using regression analysis and comparison testing across models. There are significant relationships between job characteristics and job satisfaction across all regions of the world, with a sense of achievement universally the most important driver. Although job characteristics impact job satisfaction across all regions, there are significant differences in the relative importance of job characteristics on job satisfaction, consistent with Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. The findings have implications for tailoring human resource management practices across locations within multinationals.This research is believed to be the first cross-cultural study of the job determinants affecting job satisfaction using multiple organizations and industries.

Employees ( N = 291) of various industries and companies were surveyed to study how individual factors (coping and personality) affect work–family conflict: strain-based work-to-family conflict (S-WFC), time-based work-to-family conflict (T-WFC), strain-based family-to-work conflict (S-FWC), and time-based family-to-work conflict (T-FWC). As expected, passive coping was related to significantly higher levels of S-WFC, S-FWC, and T-FWC. Unexpectedly, active coping was related to higher levels of S-WFC. As hypothesized, social support coping was negatively related to work–family conflict, but only for T-WFC. Venting was positively related to S-WFC. As predicted, neuroticism was positively related to S-WFC, T-WFC, and S-FWC. Passive coping mediated the positive relationship between neuroticism and S-FWC. Neither internal locus of control nor extraversion was related to work–family conflict. Implications and suggestions for further research are discussed.