Working with emotions: cultural employee perspectives to service management expectations

PurposeDrawing on the emotional labour theory, the purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of cultural orientation on emotion regulation and display processes for service employees.Design/methodology/approachBased on a Nigerian study where literature is scarce, data were gathered from semi-structured interviews conducted with 40 call centre service agents.FindingsThe findings identified three key values around reinforcing social cohesion, anticipated self-curtailment, hierarchy and expressions of servility based on broader societal needs to promote relational harmony when managing customer relations during inbound calls into the call centre.Research limitations/implicationsThe extent to which the findings can be generalised is constrained by the limited and selected sample size. However, the study makes contributions to the service work theory by identifying the extent to which communication of emotions is informed in large parts by local culture and seeks to incite scholarly awareness on the differences of emotional display rules from a developing country other than western contexts.Originality/valueThis paper is among the first to focus on the interface between culture and emotional labour from a Sub-Saharan African context.

Influence of News Tonality on Credit Market during Sanctions Period

Russian economy was influenced by western sanctions in many spheres. Russian credit market was significantly impacted as well. The presented work suggests that except for the strict influence in form of financial restrictions and assets freezing, sanctions also had indirect impact. Emotional presentation of Russian sanctions in abroad media can be claimed as one of the indirect factors, which form banking management expectations of economic situation and influences people to have loans and place money into deposits. The aim of research is to estimate the influence of news about Russian sanctions tonality in foreign media on the level of credit and deposit interest rates in Russian commercial banks. To achieve this goal, the following hypotheses were claimed: there is a connection between the way in which sanctions against Russia are presented in foreign media and the level of interest rates; there is a difference in the impact of positive and negative news texts on the expectations, determining changes in interest rates. «Bag of words» technique and a special dictionary, which helps to identify the emotional tonality of the text, were used to achieve the declared aim. Advanced modeling of interest rates was carried out using the vector autoregression (VAR) model, supplemented by the construction of the impulse response function and the calculation of the rate dispersion decomposition. As a result, a hypothesis about the influence of news tonality on commercial bank interest rates’ was approved.

A frog in boiling water? A qualitative analysis of psychiatrists’ use of metaphor in relation to psychological trauma

Objective: Tensions about the definition, diagnostics, and role of psychological trauma in psychiatry are long-standing. This study sought to explore what metaphor patterns in qualitative interviews may reveal about the beliefs of psychiatrists in relation to trauma. Method: A qualitative inquiry using systematic metaphor analysis of 13 in-depth interviews with Australian psychiatrists. Results: Three themes were identified: a power struggle between people, trauma, and psychiatry; trauma is not a medical condition; and serving the profession to protect society. Conclusions: Metaphors present trauma as a powerful force that people can manage in different ways. Psychiatrists may view trauma as a social rather than medical issue. Psychiatrists experience role pressure associated with trauma including incongruence with risk management expectations of their roles.

Business Strategy, State-Owned Equity and Cost Stickiness: Evidence from Chinese Firms

This paper investigates the relationship between business strategy and cost stickiness under different ownership. Using the data from listed firms in China from 2002 to 2015, we find that first, firms with different strategies exhibit different cost behavior. The cost stickiness of choosing a differentiation strategy is higher than that of choosing a low-cost strategy. Second, management expectations will affect cost stickiness. Optimistic expectations will increase cost stickiness, while pessimistic expectations will reduce cost stickiness. Third, management expectations can adjust the relationship between business strategy and cost stickiness in terms of government-created advantages (GCAs). If management expectations tend to be optimistic, the cost stickiness is higher with a differentiation strategy than with a low-cost strategy. If management expectations tend to be pessimistic, then cost stickiness is higher with a low-cost strategy than with a differentiation strategy. Finally, the state-owned equity affects the extent of the effect of a differentiation strategy on cost stickiness. State-owned firms, which receive more GCAs than non-state-owned firms, have stronger cost stickiness than non-state-owned firms, even if both categories of firms use more differentiation strategy.

ESG and bank regulation

The evaluation of data based on environmental, social sustainability and respon-sible corporate governance-related factors (together: ESG), and the assessment of companies and of investments made in them on this basis, has hitherto es-sentially taken place within a market-based evaluative framework developing in an entirely evolutive manner. However, ESG has gained so much importance on capital markets in recent years that the voices calling for some of its aspects to be regulated anyway have grown increasingly louder. This is particularly the case in the banking sector, where – contrary to asset man-agement – ESG has seldom been in the spotlight thus far. As a reaction to this, the ESG approach is set to gradually materialise within EU bank regulation in the coming years, primarily in the context of risk management expectations and re-porting requirements, as well as in bank supervision. The new rules may present a significant challenge on less developed markets, and thus for Hungarian banks, principally in the area of data collection. Compliance will nevertheless have the positive benefit of enabling credit institutions to gain a more accurate picture of how sustainably their clients operate, and how resistant they are to climate change and other megatrends, as well as to the related sweeping and profound economic, social and regulatory changes.

INFLUENCE OF MANAGEMENT ON EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCES

The study of human resources and employee performance in an organization has been directed towards different directions, but the goal remains unchanged, namely the effectiveness of human resource management in achieving better employee performance. Most organizations are aware of the importance of employee performance, enhancing their performance, or finding ways that they can improve or enhance employee performance. Management's role in managing and evaluating employee performance is concerned with organizational strategy, policies and practices, in establishing and implementing expected employee performance, with simultaneous monitoring and evaluation of results. Performance management is a process by which management ensures that the activities of employees and their outputs contribute to the goals of the organization. The performance management process itself requires knowledge of what activities and outputs are desired, monitoring when they occur, and providing feedback to employees in order to help them meet management expectations. Feedback is crucial for both parties, because at that point both staff and management can identify problems that are or are expected to emerge in the near future, as well as establish ways for possible solutions to those problems. . The role of management in evaluating employee performance is not only seen in the preparation of employee appraisal, their evaluation and performance appraisal, although in most organizations it is the most commonly used method of performance appraisal management. Employee performance management is a process of creating a work environment in which employees will be able to perform the tasks assigned to them in the best possible way, applying all of their abilities and skills. By evaluating employee performance, management is capable of making decisions to support certain employees in terms of training, career development, compensation, transfer, promotion, and termination of the employment contract. What is crucial in terms of employee performance is that there is a great need for establishing a clear, understandable and precise performance management system, a system that management will clearly follow and respect, and in turn contribute to attraction. and retaining key employees. Also, management must constantly focus on the needs and observations of employees. If all of the above is followed, it will significantly contribute to improving the overall business of the organization and will provide a strong and firmly built manager-employee system that will enable the company to achieve its goals. The mission of management is to bring employees together by making efforts to develop and improve the factors that enhance employee performance.

Factors Affecting Business and Information Technology Alignment at the Lower Levels of a Public Organisation

This article describes how the alignment of business and information technology (IT) strategies impact organisational performance. The alignment involves an entire organisation. However, much of the research has focused on the factors affecting alignment at the senior executive level, and there appears to be less attention placed upon factors that affect the lower operational levels. This article attempts to address this gap in the literature through a case study of a healthcare organisation. Semi-structured interviews with ten employees at an operational level were qualitatively analysed to elucidate factors. Organisational culture, management expectations, communication, and the provision and recognition of skills were identified as main factors that may affect the alignment of business and IT strategies at the lower levels

Segregation of Job Duties and Types of Personalityin Responding the Risks

This study aims to analyze the implementation of tasks separation associating with analysis of personality. The object in this study consists of organizational structure and job description of employees in a credit department at one of the banks in Indonesia. This research uses a descriptive method that designed to collect data that describes characteristics of an interesting variable in a certain situation. Data collection consists of literature studies and field research and specific techniques that developed from field research including interviews, questionnaire collection, and field observation. The results show that placement of employees related to functions separation at Relationship Banking Officer unit in credit department does not meet management expectations. This unit has too many employees with various personality types and different respond to risks. Meanwhile, the employee placement at Account Officer unit in credit department has met the management expectation as well as the employee placement at Administration Staff Credit unit. It can be concluded that the procedure of function separation in credit department has been done in accordance with the criteria of the management.