Coffey, M (2010) The attitude of construction employees towards authority and employers. In: Egbu, C (ed.) Proceedings of 26th Annual ARCOM Conference, 6-8 September 2010, Leeds, UK.
Abstract
Employee attitudes constitute an important part of the employee-employer relationship in every organization and have a significant effect on the success of the relationship and of the organization as a whole. Developing a non-confrontational attitude amongst employees has been recognized as an essential part in the development of employee commitment and provides the basis for effective workplace relations that enable firms to compete and survive in competitive business environments. In the construction industry, employee commitment has also been recognized as a necessary and important part in the achievement of the modernization demanded by its customers and formally initiated by Latham (1994) and Egan (1998) and the like. The initial findings from a study of employee attitudes of site-based tradesmen employed by a medium-size construction contractor, show that employees accept the authority of the employer and the authority structure in place on site. The findings also show that employees retain an independent attitude, essential for problem-solving and continuous improvement, which did not threaten the authority of the employer, but did contribute to the effective management of the work.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | authority; human resources management; labour; organizational culture; organizational psychology |
| Index terms: | Latham, construction employee, continuous improvement, commitment, employee attitude, human resource, organizational psychology, competitive busines, organizational culture, construction industry, construction contractor |
| Subjects: | performance measurement, management, industry policy reports, sociology, industry analysis, practitioner, psychology, business management |
| Topics: | Roles and Professions, Governance, Business Strategy, Research Practice, Organizational Design, Human Resources, Quality Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCT |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here