Browsing by Author "MacLachlan M"

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    Mind the gap: How much pay is too much in your organization, and what to do about it?
    (Elsevier B.V., 2024-11-05) Carr SC; Hopner V; Iverson N; MacLachlan M
    Today a majority of the global workforce is struggling to make ends meet, battling a cost-of-living crisis and inadequate wages. Meanwhile a minority of higher level executives have reportedly never had it so good. Understandably, remuneration at both ends of the wage spectrum has become a polarizing issue, not only for society but also for workplace relations and organizational performance. We all probably need some form of guidance to better be able to design fair, sustainable and effective wage systems. Gauging where your gap is at, and if it is too much doing something to fix it, is the overall purpose in this article. Finding the ‘right’ gap, from your organization’s own wage ceiling to its floor and in-between, is a question for organizational dynamics and performance. Minding that gap entails finding ‘what works here,’ in your own wage context, including for all staff and organization alike. Societal debates on inequality often overlook this organizational and dynamic, performance-based perspective, even though research warns us not to. Between countries, inequality is rising, driven in part by unequal wages. It is also rising within countries, often occurring between - and more importantly for us - within organizations. Managing that gap is the ultimate aim and objective in this article.
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    Worlds Apart? – The Challenges of Aligning Brand Value for NGO’s
    (Springer Nature, 2022-09-01) Hand K; Murphy R; MacLachlan M; Carr SC
    Brands are increasingly part of how international aid and development Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) operate, but there are challenges in aligning NGO brand value across diverse stakeholders. This research explores how key decision makers within one major NGO – Oxfam—construct the challenges of brand value alignment, using an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis methodology. Three master-themes emerge demonstrating key tensions around aligning NGOs brand value: the difficulty of balancing competing stakeholder needs, the internal cultural conflict around branding, and the existential dilemma underlying the societal effectiveness of NGOs. This paper proposes that NGOs can better navigate these intra—brand tensions using Brand-as-Purpose as an organizing principle; framing shared identity, creating a dynamic container for stakeholder interests and cultivating Moral Capital strongly anchored in increasing recipient wellbeing. This paper is one of the first pieces of research which explores how NGOs make sense of aligning brand value in the context of complex stakeholder cultures and recipient sovereignty. Brand-as Purpose is put forward as an organizing principle to help balance three key tensions around brand value alignment. This paper proposes that Moral Capital anchored in recipient wellbeing underpins NGO brand value and societal legitimacy and needs to be paramount in how NGO’s establish and legitimize their brands.