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One of the primary responsibilities of managers is to make informed decisions that promote company progress and enhance performance. Unfortunately, not all managers adhere to appropriate decision-making standards. Some managers may resort to subjective criteria instead of relying on objective performance metrics. The purpose of this study is to investigate employees’ perceptions of cronyism and how organizational cronyism influences decision-making in pharmaceutical manufacturing companies in Jordan. A quantitative approach was employed, using a structured questionnaire to gather employee responses. The questionnaires were collected from employees of the top five pharmaceutical companies, which are considered the most dynamic and competitive in the Jordanian market. A total of 452 usable questionnaires were included in the analysis. The results indicate that all three dimensions of organizational cronyism, including paternal cronyism (β = 0.295, t = 5.382, p > 0.000), in-group bias (β = 0.277, t = 3.514, p > 0.000), and reciprocal exchange of favor (β = 0.321, t = 3.866, p > 0.000), have a significant impact on decision-making. Regarding the moderating impact of ethical organizational culture, the results reveal a weak impact on the relationship between the dimensions of organizational cronyism and organizational culture. Unprejudiced decision-making can be a crucial factor in fostering an ethical culture and reducing organizational cronyism.

PurposeThe practice of cronyism is a pervasive problem for most businesses and a great hindrance for employees, but empirical literature on its outcomes is scant. In light of such gaps, the objective of this study is to examine the relationship between organizational cronyism and employees' silence behavior through the mediating role of felt violation and the moderating role of continuance commitment.Design/methodology/approachA time-lagged cross-sectional survey comprising 226 respondents is carried out in a metropolitan city of a developing country (Lahore, Pakistan). The respondents were selected using the convenience sampling technique.FindingsThe findings reveal that organizational cronyism influences employees' silence (acquiescent and quiescent) both directly and indirectly (via felt violation). However, continuance commitment was noted to work as a boundary condition only between felt violation and quiescent silence.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough the study deals with common method bias by collecting data in two waves, it may restrict causality. The findings not only have implications for the academicians, but also contribute to the conservation of resources theory. This study suggests organizations develop and implement a comprehensive intervention strategy that focuses on both prevention and damage control as a result of organizational cronyism.Originality/valueDrawing upon the conservation of resources theory, this study adds value to the literature by empirically investigating the outcomes of cronyism at work. Moreover, the outcomes and mechanisms under consideration have largely been ignored in the literature.

In modern business, the phenomena of “nepotism” and “cronyism” are often observed, which are usually associated with corruption in the public sector and abuse of public resources. However, these phenomena are international in scale, and no country or sector of the economy is free from them. Existing research does not identify shared and contradictory interests of individuals based on nepotism or cronyism. This study aims to fill this research gap. A research hypothesis was developed and tested in order to determine a point from which nepotism and cronyism are not beneficial to their perpetrators. The research data included Poles and Albanians. According to Transparency International (2022), the obtained results showed that Polish society is currently less vulnerable to corrupt practices than Albanians. Moreover, it was substantiated that relative altruism operates as the mechanism that explains nepotism or cronyism practices. Individuals involved in nepotism or cronyism perceive these practices as a tool to reduce the risk of their operations failing. However, the phenomena lead to long-lasting reciprocity, like in the case of corruption. This study contributes to a better contextual diagnosis of organizations and helps develop preventive strategies.

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to test the mediating influence of workplace ostracism in the relationship between organizational cronyism and social capital. In addition, the authors posited that workplace incivility would interact with cronyism to directly influence social capital, and indirectly through its effect on workplace ostracism.Design/methodology/approachUsing data collected in four waves, with a time interval of six weeks between each wave, from 358 university faculty members, the authors used the PROCESS macro to test the proposed moderated mediation model.FindingsResults indicated that workplace ostracism mediates the influence of organizational cronyism on social capital, and that workplace incivility interacts with cronyism to influence social capital directly, and indirectly through its effect on workplace ostracism.Originality/valueMost studies of social capital are theoretical. The few empirical studies have focused on factors that contribute to social capital and virtually no research exists on factors that undermine social capital. Based on the premise that negative interpersonal relationships are far more powerful in explaining outcomes relative to positive interpersonal relations and the notion that “bad is stronger than good,” the authors draw on social exchange theory and the norm of negative reciprocity to test a moderated mediation model and identify a mechanism and the condition under which social capital is undermined. The results have important implications for theory, research and practice.

This research focuses on how entrepreneurs utilize cronyism to acquire resources. A case study method allowed us to explore three firms in the private property development industry in China. These firms uniquely cultivated cronyism and achieved distinctly different outcomes. Our findings highlight Chinese entrepreneurs in start-up ventures and later-stage enterprises employ cronyism. The underlying rationale for using cronyism have common and heterogeneous motivations. The similarity and distinguishing rationale also apply to the impact of cronyism. We also find two contingency working mechanisms for cronyism: entrepreneurial characteristics and a staged model for cronyism. With the firm’s growth, cronyism remains important, but firms with more community involvement outperform others. This research contributes to the theory on strategic network utilization for resource acquisition during entrepreneurial development stages. We investigate how entrepreneurial strategies can assist in adapting to the “rules of the game” while utilizing resources within the set contextual constraints.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to introduce the concept of workplace camaraderie and to investigate the mechanism through which workplace camaraderie influences incivility at the workplace. The study is explained by taking the sequential mediation of personal biases leading to cronyism and favoritism. Social identity theory is used as the underpinning theory to explain the framework adopted. Design/methodology/approach Positivism research philosophy followed by the deductive approach is followed to meet the objectives of the current study. In total, 171 employees working in public sector organizations were taken as the respondents to the study. A purposive sampling technique was used to collect the data through self-administrated questionnaires. Path model is used through Mplus to generate the results and test hypotheses. Findings The results suggested that workplace camaraderie significantly affects incivility at a workplace with the sequential mediation of personal biases leading to cronyism and favoritism. Originality/value Although several researchers have studied the link between camaraderie and other employees’ related attitudinal and behavioral outcomes, few have explored the roles of personal biases, cronyism and favoritism in the relationship to incivility. This study thus posits a novel sequential mediation mechanism, based on the social identity theory, through which camaraderie is translated into civil behavior. Moreover, this study adds value by investigating this model in the public sector, where camaraderie can come up with important consequences.

PurposeThis paper aims to explore how female academics use cronyism to cope with the lack of emancipative support resulting from their intense teaching and research duties, poor representation at senior administrative levels and their exhausting familial commitments.Design/methodology/approachQualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 female academics working full-time at four public universities in Egypt.FindingsThe findings showed that the low action resources (considering their unreasonable teaching loads, research requirements and supervision engagements), emancipative values (the unfair representation of female academics at senior administrative levels) and civic entitlement (universities not serious about promoting gender equality) are perceived by female academics as a lack of empowerment that necessitates their adoption of cronyism as their main coping strategy. Moreover, in male-dominated societies, female academics who do not have the power to shape their work-related status tend to use undesirable behaviours such as cronyism to mitigate the negative consequences of the shocks they encounter.Originality/valueThis paper contributes by filling a gap in human resources management in which empirical studies on the relationship between cronyism, emancipation and career shocks have been limited so far.

PurposeThe main objective of this study was to understand why employees engage in time theft behavior and what is the behavioral consequence of this deviant behavior. To do this, the conservation of resources theory helps to examine the role of organizational cronyism behind employee time theft behavior and decreased proactive behavior.Design/methodology/approachA three-wave self-administered employee survey was used for data collection. The data were collected through an adopted questionnaire from nurses working in the public sector hospitals of Pakistan. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze data collected from 256 respondents.FindingsThe results of this three-wave study supported the hypotheses which are: (1) Organizational cronyism positively predicts employee involvement in time theft behavior. (2) Employee time theft behavior negatively impacts their proactive behavior. (3) Organizational cronyism is detrimental to employee proactive behavior. (4) The relationship between organizational cronyism and proactive behavior is mediated by time theft.Practical implicationsIn the presence of organizational cronyism, employees use time theft as a dysfunctional coping strategy to conserve their valued resources rather than allowing the organization to consume them. Organizational leaders of public sector hospitals must promote merit-based HRM practices to discourage time theft behavior as well as to improve the proactive performances of the nurses.Originality/valueThis study is one of the initial attempts to extend the scant literature on the antecedents and consequences of time theft behavior and its dimensions in the South Asian context.

Knowledge hiding is a negative workplace phenomenon that needs to be controlled for effective organizational functioning. Therefore, researchers are increasingly trying to identify its antecedents and outcomes in organizational settings. The objective of this study is to examine the impact of cronyism on job performance. Besides, evaluate the mediating role of different dimensions of knowledge hiding behaviors (evasive hiding, playing dumb, and rationalized hiding) between cronyism and job performance. These data were collected in three-time lags through a self-administered questionnaire from 299 research-oriented academic staff from public sector universities of Pakistan. A partial least squares-structural equation modeling approach was used for data analysis. The results confirm the significant negative association between cronyism and job performance. The evasive hiding and playing dumb partially mediate the negative impact of cronyism on job performance. However, rationalized hiding behavior controls the negative impact of cronyism and positively impacts job performance. The implications of the findings of this study are beneficial to the workplaces where knowledge creation and sharing activities are regularly performed, i.e., universities. The management of these institutions should control organizational workplace cronyism to discourage knowledge hiding behavior and improve the job performance of employees.