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PurposeThis study explores how compassionate managerial leadership style can help to mitigate workplace stressors and alleviate stress experiences among employees — particularly in an extreme situation, such as the current global COVID-19 pandemic. The study's context is Nigeria's banking, manufacturing and healthcare sectors, which have a history of high employee stress levels.Design/methodology/approachUsing a qualitative, interpretive methodology, the study adopts the thematic analysis process (TAP) to draw and analyse data from semi-structured telephone interviews with 10 banking, 11 manufacturing and 9 frontline healthcare workers in Nigeria.FindingsIt was found that a compassionate managerial leadership can drive a considerate response to employees' “fear of job (in)security”, “healthcare risk” and concerns about “work overload, underpayment and delayed payment”, which respondents considered to be some of the key causes of increased stress among employees during the current COVID-19 pandemic.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is limited to exploring the relationship between compassionate managerial leadership and an organisation's ability to manage employee stress in the COVID-19 situation, using 30 samples from organisations operating in three Nigerian cities and sectors. Future studies may involve more Nigerian cities, sectors and samples. It may also possibly include quantitative combination to allow generalisation of findings.Practical implicationsIn order to survive in extreme situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, organisations are forced to take drastic and often managerialist-driven work measures which can trigger high stress levels, low productivity and absenteeism among employees. Hence, organisations would benefit from implementing compassion-driven policies that are more inclusive and responsive to the workplace stressors facing employees.Originality/valueEmployee stress has been widely explored in many areas, including definitions, stressors, strains, possible interventions and coping strategies. There remains, however, a dearth of scholarship on how management-leadership compassion can help to reduce employee stress levels in extreme conditions, such as the COVID-19 pandemic — particularly in emerging economies.

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.

Previous research have been intrigued to assess the mechanisms used by employees to cope with tedious work schedules and other areas of their non-work lives. While there are yet to be sufficient studies that explore the countries in the Middle East, this paper aimed to explore the realities of WLB among professionals in the education sector in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). We further considered the implications of workplace and family support, and organisational culture on employees’ WLB and productivity. The study employs the use of qualitative data generated from semi-structured interviews of 41 lecturers across seven higher education institutions in Dubai, UAE aimed at investigating the various contexts of WLB.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of organisational culture (OC) on leadership styles in Nigerian universities. The study utilises the cultural dimensions theory (Hofstede’s insights) and the social exchange concept as theoretical lenses to examine the phenomena. Design/methodology/approach Using an exploratory qualitative approach, 40 interviews were conducted with senior academics and non-teaching staff working in Nigerian universities. Findings The findings reveal hierarchical, patriarchal, servile, and interdependent values as the underlying characteristics of organisation culture, shaping the choice of leadership styles in the management of Nigerian universities. As a result, it emerged from the study that positional, formalised exchanges, paternalism, relational approach and gendered reactions to leadership were typically adopted in university administration in this context. Research limitations/implications The study relies on a small qualitative sample size, which makes the generalisation of findings difficult. However, the study provides a good understanding of cultural hegemony, framing leadership styles different from those of western cultures. Originality/value The findings of this study help to bridge the research gap concerning the implications of OC, and its influence on leadership behaviours in the Sub-Saharan African context. Research within this subfield in Africa is rare. Specifically, the study also enriches our understanding of cultural dimensions, informing the leadership methods adopted in higher education institutions.

This study critically examined the dynamics of the policies and practices of labour contracting within the Nigerian oil and gas sector as operated by some selected multinational organisations, namely: Mobil, Shell and Chevron. The study examined the nature of labour contracting, how and why it was adopted; and the implications of MNCs using such policies and practices in managing Nigerian workers. The study shed light on labour contracting arrangements and emerging employment relationships, as well as tensions among workplace actors. The research methodology was qualitative and was essentially driven by a subjective philosophy. It has an ontological undertone embedded with social constructionist approach. The target population for the study, therefore, was all the randomly selected contract workers of the three MNCs, the contractors of the user firms, and the two trade unions—NUPENG and PENGASSAN who were given survey questionnaires to complete and were engaged in semi-structured interviews. The study found that there are increased tensions in the working relationship. Other findings from this study include: the challenges that come with the entry point (recruitment); pronounced disparities in the remuneration packages between contract staff and permanent employees; contracted labour being faced with poor working conditions; and increase in the precarious nature of job security.

The study examined the impact of industry specialisation on strategic Social Capital Building (SCB) among the Nigerian Medium-sized firms. We hypothesised that organisational/industry specialisation has no impact on strategic SCB, and that indicators of organisational social capital building are not industry specific. A survey of 449 HR practitioners from seven sub-sectors of Nigerian economy was undertaken and data collected was subjected to regression and correlation analysis as well as descriptive statistics in testing the formulated hypotheses. Industry specialisation was measured using the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) 2014 sector classification; whilst strategic social capital building was measured using Likert-scale questionnaire that was developed based on the indicators of Organisational Social Capital Building (OSCB). Study results suggest a strong variation in strategic social capital building from one industry specialisation to the other. The study also found that HR practitioners in education and health and social work sectors have positive attitude towards all the seven indicators of OSCB and are more likely to use recruitment/selection and training/development functions to build OSC for their firms. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2015.v4n3p163

The ability to compete in today’s turbulent, complex, fluid and highly dynamic business environment depends, to a large extent, on the innovative, creative and knowledge sharing capacity of employees in firms; especially for medium-sized enterprises with its peculiar characteristics. Creative/innovative and knowledge sharing capacity of firms has been attributed to the level of Employees’ Social Interactions (ESI) and Helping Behaviours (HB) at work. However, discourse in existing literatures on ways through which Medium-sized Enterprises (MEs) can acquire requisite creative and innovative and employee knowledge-sharing needed to build competitive advantage, most especially through their human resource practices, are minimal. This paper examines the perception of Human Resource (HR) practitioners in Nigerian MEs to building/sustaining competitive advantage for their firms through ESI and HB. The study carried out exploratory survey of 453 HR practitioners from seven sub-sectors of Nigerian MEs sectors; data collected was subjected to descriptive statistical analysis to justify the study’s specific objectives. HR practitioners’ attitude to ESI and HB was measured with the administration of questionnaires using Likert Scale based on identified indicators of organisational ESI and HB to sustaining competitive advantage. The study infers that Nigerian HR practitioners in education and health and social work sector are more likely to ensure ESI at work as a means of building competitive advantage. It was also found that HR practitioners in all the subsectors examined exhibit positive inclination towards encouraging HB amongst employees as a means of building sustainable competitive advantage.