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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine whether management supports police officers adequately, or whether police have to rely on their individual attributes, specifically psychological capital (PsyCap), to cope with red tape and stress. Work outcomes/consequences examined were discretionary power, affective commitment and turnover intentions.Design/methodology/approachA cross-sectional design using a survey-based, self-report strategy was used to collect data from 588 police officers from USA, who are most engaged with the public. The data were analysed using AMOS and a structural model to undertake structural equation modelling.FindingsTwo significant paths were identified Path 1: management support to red tape to discretionary power to affective commitment and turnover intentions; and Path 2: supervisor relationships to PsyCap to stress to affective commitment and turnover intentions. Further, management support predicted PsyCap, red tape and police stressors. Red tape increased police stressors and turnover intentions.Research limitations/implicationsThe use of self-report surveys is a limitation, causing common methods bias. Using Harmon’s one-factorpost hoctest, the authors were able to provide some assurance that common method bias was of no major concern.Originality/valueAs far as is known, this study is the first to examine, for police officers, how PsyCap impacts upon negative factors (stress and red tape) and enhances positive drivers for employees. Examining the impact of an individual attribute – PsyCap – provides an important piece of the organizational puzzle in explaining the commitment and turnover intentions of police officers. By examining the impact of both organizational and individual factors, there is now more knowledge about the antecedents of police outcomes.

The research examined the impact of management upon employee outcomes (perceptions of discretionary power, well-being, engagement, and affective commitment), comparing public and private sector nurses in Australia, the United Kingdom, and Italy. Overall, 1,945 nurses participated in a self-report survey within these core- and laggard-New Public Management countries. While management influenced employee outcomes for each country, there were significant differences between the public and private sectors, with private sector nurses reporting higher perceptions of outcomes. Importantly, nurses’ engagement was affected by management practice for each country. This study raises important implications for nurse managers, especially public sector managers, described within.

Purpose: To investigate forms of abusive supervision, namely personal at- tacks, task attacks, and isolation, and their links to outcomes for nurses, in- cluding job satisfaction, psychological strain, and intentions to quit.Design: Cross-sectional survey design. Data collected from July to November 2012.Methods: Two hundred and fifty public sector nurses employed at five gen- eral acute Australian hospitals completed the survey (response rate of 33%).Findings: Structural equation modeling on the forms of abusive supervision (personal, task, isolation) and nurse outcomes indicated goodness of fit statis- tics that confirmed a well-fitting model, explaining 40% of the variance in intent to quit, 30% in job satisfaction, and 33% in strain. An indirect relation- ship from personal attacks to intentions to quit, via strain, was observed. Task attacks were related directly, and indirectly via job satisfaction, to increased intentions to quit. Surprisingly, isolation was positively related to job satisfac- tion.Conclusions: Abusive supervision impacted nurse outcomes. Specifically, personal abuse had personal and health impacts; work-focused abuse had work-oriented effects. Applying appraisal theory suggests that personal attacks are primarily assessed as stressful and unchangeable; task-oriented attacks are assessed as stressful, but changeable; and isolation is assessed as benign. The findings highlight the impact of abusive supervision, especially task attacks, on outcomes important to nurse retention.Clinical Relevance: The findings can be used to devise programs to educate, train, and support supervisors and their subordinates to adhere to zero toler- ance policies toward antisocial workplace behaviors and encourage reporting incidents.Key wordsAbusive supervision, cognitive appraisals, Intent to quit, job satisfaction, stressNurses are a high-risk occupational group for a range of antisocial behaviors in the workplace (e.g., Hegney, Plank, & Parker, 2003; Quine, 2001). Despite being con- sidered a substantial issue in many organizations (Tepper, 2000), much of the research on hostile workplace behav- ior has focused on antisocial behaviors from co-workers (e.g., McKenna, Smith, Poole, & Coverdale, 2004) or ag- gression from those external to the organization (e.g., Demir & Rodwell, 2012; Duxbury & Whittington, 2005), with few studies specifically focusing on abusive super- vision (Tepper, Moss, Lockhart, & Carr, 2007), an issue that can have important detrimental effects, especially in health care (Whitman, Halbesleben, & Shanine, 2013).Abusive supervision refers to subordinates' perceptions of their supervisor's display of sustained verbal or non- verbal hostile behavior, such as intimidation through the use of threats, invasion of privacy, or humiliation (Tepper, 2000). Research in this area has examined abu- sive supervision consisting of personal attacks, demon- strating that these attacks lead to reduced job satisfaction, as well as increased psychological strain and intent to quit (e.g., Bowling & Michel, 2011; Tepper et ah, 2009; Tepper, Duffy, Hoobler, & Ensley, 2004). Little attention in abusive supervision research is paid to other behaviors related to employee work tasks (e.g., excessively moni- toring work tasks or being allocated meaningless tasks), which are assessed in the closely related and overlap- ping constructs of petty tyranny (Ashforth, 1994, 1997) and supervisor undermining (Duffy, Ganster, & Pagon, 2002). There is also a lack of research examining the consequences of different forms of abusive supervision. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate a wider range of forms of abusive supervision, particularly those involving task attacks, personal attacks, or a combination of these, such as isolating behaviors, and how different forms of abusive supervision might be linked to different health and work outcomes for nurses. …

This paper reports comparative research comparing the relationship between supervisor-subordinate relationships, teamwork, role ambiguity and discretionary power for nurses working in public and private sector hospitals in Australia and the UK. The findings indicate that the four factors accounted for approximately a quarter of the variance for nurses in the UK and almost a fifth of the variance for nurses working in public sector hospitals. Moreover, the findings identify a significant difference across all variables for nurses working in public sector hospitals compared with private sector with nurses in the private sector having higher satisfaction levels and perceiving lower levels of role ambiguity. There were fewer differences for nurses working in Australian hospitals compared with UK hospitals with nurses in Australia perceiving a better supervisor-subordinate relationship and nurses in the UK perceiving greater satisfaction with teamwork.

Within the Australian context of a shortage of skilled professionals, this article uses the Harvard model of human resources management (HRM) to conceptualise how changes in stakeholder interests coupled with changes to situational factors affect public sector HRM policy choices that in turn affect HRM outcomes for different types of public sector employees. The findings obtained using path analysis suggest that the proposed model explained almost 50% for nurses and less than 14% for police officers. In the case of nurses, the strong significant relationship between HRM inputs and outputs may provide a further plausible explanation for one of the long-term consequences of new public management – namely, the inability to retain skilled employees (especially those in the health sector) across numerous OECD countries. The implication of these findings is that the present public sector HRM policy choice should be re-examined because of its impact on HRM outcomes. Moreover, public sector employees should not b...

PurposeSmall to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) continue to make a major contribution to the Australian economy. However, research into organisational processes within SMEs has been limited to date. This study aims to examine the links between communication processes and organisational effectiveness in SMEs.Design/methodology/approachThis quantitative study uses social capital theory as a framework to investigate whether employees' level of satisfaction with organisational communication processes affects organisational outcomes within three high growth manufacturing SMEs in one area of Australia.FindingsResults indicate that organisational communication processes does affect employees' levels of ambiguity regarding customers, job satisfaction and commitment to their firms.Research limitations/implicationsWhile generalisability is limited because of the small number of SMEs participating in the study, the research indicates great potential for developing theoretical and practical insights into Australian SMEs that would assist industry and employees overall.Practical implicationsImplications for the growth strategies of SMEs, particularly in relation to the current skilled labour shortage, are discussed.Originality/valueThe paper contributes much needed theoretical development and research into SMEs.

One strategy used by some Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) governments to stimulate national competitiveness is to encourage innovation via programmes aimed at assisting firms to collaborate. Economic Development Officers operate within a multi-government bureaucratic maze in order to implement these programmes. This paper examines what factors affect the way Economic Development Officers implement an array of government policies that foster collaboration amongst firms and the implications of those factors. The findings suggest that a number of factors compromise their ability to implement these policies effectively, especially since the implementation of New Public Management. In particular, the findings suggest that organisational bureaucratic communication processes moderate the way Economic Development Officers' perceive a chronic lack of resources and multi-stakeholder accountability. The findings reiterate the importance of ensuring that there is synergy between business policy goals and resourcing and accountability mechanisms for those expected to implement the programmes intended to foster collaboration amongst firms.

Aims. The study used Social Exchange Theory as a lens to examine associations between nurses' support antecedents (supervisor-nurse relationships and perceived organizational support) and their job attitudes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment and engagement). Background. Similar to many other westernized countries, there is a shortage of nurses working as nurses in Australia. The attrition of nurses from the workplace continues to be a challenge for many countries, with resultant calls for improved retention rates. 2 Design. The design employed in this study was a Survey. Methods. A self-report survey of 1600 nurses employed in five private sector hospitals throughout Australia was completed during 2010-2011, resulting in 510 completed surveys. Results. A mediation path model was developed to test the hypotheses and results of Partial Least Squares analysis showed that both support antecedents (supervisor-nurse relationships and perceived organizational support) positively led to engagement and job satisfaction. Subsequently, nurses more satisfied with their jobs were also more committed to their organizations, ultimately leading to lower intentions to quit. In addition, job satisfaction was found to mediate the relationships between organizational commitment and turnover intentions, plus between supervisor-subordinate relationships and turnover intentions. Conclusion. In the context of a shortage of nurses and higher than average turnover rates, the findings suggest that it is important to improve nurses' job satisfaction and organizational commitment to improve retention. However, the findings also suggest that workplace relationships and organizational management are currently far from ideal.

In the Australian healthcare sector, many changes in the public sector have affected nurse management and thereby, nurses. Yet it is unclear whether such efficiency measures, based on private sector business models, have impacted private sector nurses in similar ways. This paper examines four important issues for nurses: supervisor–subordinate relationships; perceptions of autonomy; role clarity in relation to patients; and job satisfaction. The paper uses an embedded mixed methods research design to examine the four issues and then compares similarities and differences between public and private sector nurses. The findings suggest supervisor–subordinate relationships, patient role clarity and autonomy significantly predict job satisfaction. The private sector nurses reported more satisfaction than public sector nurses with their supervisor–subordinate relationships, plus higher perceptions of patient role clarity and autonomy, and hence, higher levels of job satisfaction. The findings raise questions about whether present management practices (especially public sector) optimise service delivery productivity.