IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jbuset/v152y2018i4d10.1007_s10551-016-3270-z.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Perceived Acceptability of Organizational Layoffs and Job Alliances During a Recession: A Mapping of Portuguese People’s Views

Author

Listed:
  • Joana Margarida Sequeira Neto

    (University of Oporto)

  • Etienne Mullet

    (Institute of Advanced Studies (EPHE))

Abstract

The present study aimed to explore and map the views of Portuguese laypersons regarding the acceptability of downsizing and restructuring measures during a recession. Two hundred and seven participants with various levels of training in economics were presented with a number of realistic scenarios depicting various measures, and were asked to indicate the extent to which they considered them to be acceptable. The scenarios were created by varying three factors likely to have an impact on people’s views: the magnitude of a company’s reduction in net sales, the magnitude of planned downsizing, and the way in which downsizing would be implemented, either through layoffs, job alliances or both. Six qualitatively different personal positions were found. Four of these following positions were expected: (1) never acceptable (15 %), (2) mainly depends on the magnitude of downsizing (22 %), (3) mainly acceptable (17 %) and (4) job alliance (8 %). Two unexpected positions were also observed: (5) drastic measures (8 %) and (6) undetermined (29 %).

Suggested Citation

  • Joana Margarida Sequeira Neto & Etienne Mullet, 2018. "Perceived Acceptability of Organizational Layoffs and Job Alliances During a Recession: A Mapping of Portuguese People’s Views," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 152(4), pages 1149-1157, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:152:y:2018:i:4:d:10.1007_s10551-016-3270-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-016-3270-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-016-3270-z
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10551-016-3270-z?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carneiro, Anabela & Portugal, Pedro & Varejão, José, 2014. "Catastrophic job Destruction during the Portuguese Economic Crisis," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 39(PB), pages 444-457.
    2. Chaness, Gary & Levine, David I., 1999. "Changes in the Employment Contract? Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt4p535308, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    3. Gary Charness & David I. Levine, 2000. "When are Layoffs Acceptable? Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 53(3), pages 381-400, April.
    4. Marco Heimann & Étienne Mullet & Jean-François Bonnefon, 2015. "Peoples’ Views About the Acceptability of Executive Bonuses and Compensation Policies," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 127(3), pages 661-671, March.
    5. Hyo-Sook Kim, 2009. "Examining the Role of Informational Justice in the Wake of Downsizing from an Organizational Relationship Management Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 88(2), pages 297-312, August.
    6. Charness, Gary & Levine, David I., 2002. "Changes in the employment contract?: Evidence from a quasi-experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 391-405, April.
    7. Christian Pfeifer, 2007. "The Perceived Fairness of Layoffs in Germany: Participation, Compensation, or Avoidance?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 74(1), pages 25-36, August.
    8. Conover, Pamela Johnston & Searing, Donald D. & Crewe, Ivor M., 2002. "The Deliberative Potential of Political Discussion," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 32(1), pages 21-62, January.
    9. Haferkamp, Alexandra & Fetchenhauer, Detlef & Belschak, Frank & Enste, Dominik, 2009. "Efficiency versus fairness: The evaluation of labor market policies by economists and laypeople," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 527-539, August.
    10. C. Lakshman & Aarti Ramaswami & Ruth Alas & Jean Kabongo & J. Rajendran Pandian, 2014. "Ethics Trumps Culture? A Cross-National Study of Business Leader Responsibility for Downsizing and CSR Perceptions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 125(1), pages 101-119, November.
    11. Joeri Hofmans & Etienne Mullet, 2013. "Towards unveiling individual differences in different stages of information processing: a clustering-based approach," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 455-464, January.
    12. Olivier Blanchard, 2007. "Adjustment within the euro. The difficult case of Portugal," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 6(1), pages 1-21, April.
    13. Joana Margarida Sequeira Neto & Etienne Mullet, 2016. "Perceived Legitimacy of Executives Bonuses in Time of Global Crisis: A Mapping of Portuguese People’s Views," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 133(3), pages 421-429, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kihun Kim & Zulfiquer Ali Haider & Zhenyu Wu & Junsheng Dou, 2020. "Corporate Social Performance of Family Firms: A Place-Based Perspective in the Context of Layoffs," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 167(2), pages 235-252, November.
    2. Ionela Andreicovici & Nava Cohen & Silvia Ferramosca & Alessandro Ghio, 2021. "Two Wrongs Make a ‘Right’? Exploring the Ethical Calculus of Earnings Management Before Large Labor Dismissals," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 172(2), pages 379-405, August.
    3. Paramita, Widya & Purnomo, Boyke R. & Virgosita, Risa & Wibowo, Amin, 2022. "Small is beautiful: Insights from the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions on layoff decision in micro and small enterprises," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 18(C).
    4. Stefano Amato & Alessia Patuelli & Rodrigo Basco & Nicola Lattanzi, 2023. "Family Firms Amidst the Global Financial Crisis: A Territorial Embeddedness Perspective on Downsizing," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 183(1), pages 213-236, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sohr, Tatjana, 2005. "Wenn die Karriereleiter wegbricht: Fairness und der Abbau von Hierarchieebenen (When the career ladder is removed * fairness and the elimination of hierarchical levels)," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 38(1), pages 68-86.
    2. Sohr, Tatjana, 2005. "Wenn die Karriereleiter wegbricht: Fairness und der Abbau von Hierarchieebenen (When the career ladder is removed * fairness and the elimination of hierarchical levels)," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 38(1), pages 68-86.
    3. Pfeifer, Christian, 2004. "Fairness und Kündigungen : eine theoretische und empirische Analyse (Fairness and layoffs * a theoretical and empirical analysis)," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 37(2), pages 127-145.
    4. Christian Pfeifer, 2007. "The Perceived Fairness of Layoffs in Germany: Participation, Compensation, or Avoidance?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 74(1), pages 25-36, August.
    5. Gerlach, Knut & Levine, David I. & Stephan, Gesine & Struck, Olaf, 2005. "The Acceptability of Layoffs and Pay Cuts: Comparing North America with Germany," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt1k21d0rg, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    6. Sohr, Tatjana, 2005. "Wenn die Karriereleiter wegbricht: Fairness und der Abbau von Hierarchieebenen (When the career ladder is removed * fairness and the elimination of hierarchical levels)," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 38(1), pages 68-86.
    7. Ananish Chaudhuri & Tony So & Erwann Sbai, 2017. "Pay cuts and layoffs in an experimental minimum effort coordination game," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(3), pages 2181-2197.
    8. Gesine Stephan & Sven Uthmann, 2014. "Wann wird negative Reziprozität am Arbeitsplatz akzeptiert? Eine quasi-experimentelle Untersuchung," Working Paper Series in Economics 321, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    9. Pfeifer, Christian, 2004. "Fairness und Kündigungen : eine theoretische und empirische Analyse (Fairness and layoffs * a theoretical and empirical analysis)," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 37(2), pages 127-145.
    10. Danielson, Anders J. & Holm, Hakan J., 2007. "Do you trust your brethren?: Eliciting trust attitudes and trust behavior in a Tanzanian congregation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 255-271, February.
    11. Arnaldo Camuffo, 2002. "The Changing Nature of Internal Labor Markets," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 6(4), pages 281-294, December.
    12. Martins, Pedro S., 2016. "Can Overtime Premium Flexibility Promote Employment? Firm- and Worker-Level Evidence from a Labour Law Reform," IZA Discussion Papers 10205, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Martins, Pedro S., 2017. "Economic effects of overtime premium flexibility: Firm- and worker-level evidence from a law reform," GLO Discussion Paper Series 102, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    14. Gary Charness & David I. Levine, 2000. "When are Layoffs Acceptable? Evidence from a Quasi-Experiment," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 53(3), pages 381-400, April.
    15. Stephan, Gesine, 2006. "Fair geht vor: Was die Leute von Entlassungen und Lohnkürzungen halten," IAB-Kurzbericht 200601, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    16. Koch, Christian, 2021. "Can reference points explain wage rigidity? : Experimental evidence," Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 55(55), pages 1-.5.
    17. Olivier Blanchard & Pedro Portugal, 2017. "Boom, slump, sudden stops, recovery, and policy options. Portugal and the Euro," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 16(3), pages 149-168, December.
    18. Abraham, Martin & Collischon, Matthias & Grimm, Veronika & Kreuter, Frauke & Moser, Klaus & Niessen, Cornelia & Schnabel, Claus & Stephan, Gesine & Trappmann, Mark & Wolbring, Tobias, 2022. "COVID-19, normative attitudes and pluralistic ignorance in employer-employee relationships," Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 56, pages 1-19.
    19. Marta C. Lopes, 2016. "Using the variation in potential duration of unemployment benefits to estimate the causal effect of unemployment duration on re-employment wages," Nova SBE Working Paper Series wp608, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics.
    20. Gary Charness, 2004. "Attribution and Reciprocity in an Experimental Labor Market," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(3), pages 665-688, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:152:y:2018:i:4:d:10.1007_s10551-016-3270-z. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.