Business Commons^™

The Organisational Climate Of Sustainability: A Survey, Anke Arnaud, Janet K. Tinoco, Dawna L. Rhoades

Dr. Anke Arnaud

This study describes three dimensions of the climate of sustainability and the development of a survey for assessing these dimensions. The authors report the results of two studies conducted to measure the climate of sustainability dimensions of sensitivity to sustainability (six items), motivation for sustainability (six items), and responsibility for sustainability (five items). Results support that the climate of sustainability is a reliable instrument and demonstrate the convergent and discriminant validity of each survey dimension. Furthermore, results show the criterion-related validity of the climate of sustainability with respect to innovation strategy and employee attitudes including satisfaction and turnover intentions. Implications …

Building And Rebuilding Trust: Why Perspective Taking Matters, Michele Williams

Michele Williams

[Excerpt] There is growing interest surrounding the function of perspective taking in social interactions and organizational life. In this chapter, I examine the role of perspective taking in trust building and trust repair. Whereas some researchers focus on the ability of perspective taking to elicit sympathy, concern, and cooperative behavior (Batson, Turk, Shaw, & Klein, 1995; Parker, Atkins, & Axtell, 2008; Parker & Axtell, 2001), others focus on the strategic impact of perspective taking (Epley, Caruso, & Bazerman, 2006; Galinsky, Maddux, Gilin & White, 2008; Galinsky & Mussweiler, 2001). I build on both streams of research by examining work that …

Perspective Taking Building Positive Interpersonal Connections And Trustworthiness One Interaction At A Time, Michele Williams

Michele Williams

There is growing interest in the role of perspective taking in organizations. Perspective taking has been linked to enhanced interpersonal understanding and the strengthening of social bonds. In this chapter, I integrate research from sociology, communications, and psychology to provide insight into why, when, and how perspective taking facilitates the relational resources of positive connections and trustworthy actions. I introduce the importance of a three-dimensional view of perspective taking for building relational resources and present data validating this conceptualization. I conclude with directions for future research.

Occupations, Organizations, And Boundaryless Careers, Pamela S. Tolbert

Pamela S Tolbert

[Excerpt] The central premise of this chapter is that, as organizations become less important in defining career pathways and boundaries, occupations will become increasingly more important. While occupational demarcations have always had a significant, albeit often unacknowledged, impact on individual career patterns, the significance of such demarcations for careers is likely to be heightened by current trends in employment relationships. In this chapter, then, I review the sociological literature on occupational labor markets and on the structure of professional occupations, in an effort to shed light on a number of issues associated with occupationally based careers. Of specific concern are …

On Organizations And Oligarchies: Michels In The Twenty-First Century, Pamela S. Tolbert, Shon R. Hiatt

Pamela S Tolbert

[Excerpt] A central problem for those interested in studying and explaining the actions of organizations is how to conceptualize these social phenomena. In particular, because organizations are constituted by individuals, each of whom may seek to achieve his or her interests through the organization, questions of how decisions are made in organizations and whose preferences drive those decisions are critical to explaining organizational actions. Although early organizational scholars spent much time wrestling with these questions (e.g. Barnard 1938; Simon 1947; Parsons 1956; March and Simon 1958), more recent work in organizational studies has tended to elide them, adopting an implicit …

Cynicism In Negotiation: When Communication Increases Buyers’ Skepticism, Eyal Ert, Stephanie J. Creary, Max H. Bazerman

Stephanie J. Creary

The economic literature on negotiation shows that strategic concerns can be a barrier to agreement, even when the buyer values the good more than the seller. Yet behavioral research demonstrates that human interaction can overcome these strategic concerns through communication. We show that there is also a downside of this human interaction: cynicism. Across two studies we focus on a seller-buyer interaction in which the buyer has uncertain knowledge about the goods for sale, but has a positive expected payoff from saying “yes” to the available transaction. Study 1 shows that most buyers accept offers made by computers, but that …

Thinking About You: Perspective Taking, Perceived Restraint, And Performance, Michele Williams

Michele Williams

Conflict often arises when incompatible ideas, values or interests lead to actions that harm others. Increasing people’s willingness to refrain from harming others can play a critical role in preventing conflict and fostering performance. We examine perspective taking as a relational micro-process related to such restraint. We argue that attending to how others appraise events supports restraint in two ways. It motivates people to act with concern and enables them to understand what others view as harmful versus beneficial. Using a matched sample of 147 knowledge workers and 147 of their leaders, we evaluate the impact of appraisal-related perspective taking …

Affect, Emotion And Emotion Regulation In The Workplace: Feelings And Attitudinal Restructuring, Michele Williams

Michele Williams

[Excerpt] Almost 40 years after publishing A Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations in 1965, the fields of negotiations and organizational behavior experienced an “affective revolution” (Barsade, Brief and Spataro 2003). Although Walton and McKersie could not have predicted the widespread academic and public interest in emotion and emotional intelligence, they foreshadowed this affect-laden direction in the section of their book on attitudinal structuring, which identified the dimension of friendliness-hostility as a critical aspect of the relationship between negotiating parties in the workplace and other settings.

The Impact Of Culture On Creativity: How Cultural Tightness And Cultural Distance Affect Global Innovation Crowdsourcing Work, Roy Y. J. Chua, Yannig Roth, Jean-François Lemoine

Roy CHUA

This paper advances a new theoretical model to understand the effect of culture on creativity in a global context. We theorize that creativity engagement and success depend on the cultural tightness—the extent to which a country is characterized by strong social norms and low tolerance for deviant behaviors—of both an innovator’s country and the audience’s country, as well as the cultural distance between these two countries. Using field data from a global online crowdsourcing platform that organizes creative contests for consumer-product brands, supplemented by interviews with marketing experts, we found that individuals from tight cultures are less likely than counterparts …

Innovating At Cultural Crossroads: How Multicultural Social Networks Promote Ideas Flow And Creativity, Roy Y. J. Chua

Roy CHUA

Diversity in social networks is often linked to enhanced creativity. Emerging research on exposure to diverse informational resources (e.g., ideas and knowledge) however has painted a more complex picture regarding its effect on individuals’ creative performance. This research examines the effects of culturally diverse networks on the flow of ideas and individuals’ creativity. Combining social network analysis with experimental methods, two studies using different samples found that a culturally diverse network increases the likelihood of receiving culture-related novel ideas (but not other types of novel ideas) from network contacts, whether or not these contacts share one’s own culture of origin. …

Generational Diversity Can Enhance Trust Across Boundaries, Michele Williams

Michele Williams

In interorganizational project teams, generational diversity among team members undermines the experience of trust within demographically similar dyads but enhances the experience of trust within demographically dissimilar dyads.

Ports And Ladders: The Nature And Relevance Of Internal Labor Markets In A Changing World, Paul Osterman, M. Diane Burton

M. Diane Burton

[Excerpt] Many believe that the nature of careers has changed dramatically in the past twenty years. One scholar writes that internal labor markets have been 'demolished', while a human resources manager at Intel comments that, in contrast to the past, today, 'You own your own employability. You are responsible' (Knoke 2001: 31). The idea of the 'boundaryless career' seems increasingly popular (Arthur and Rousseau 1996). If it is in fact true that the old rules for organizing work have disappeared, this would represent a fundamental change for employees. It would also have major implications for how scholars think about the …

Being Trusted: How Team Generational Age Diversity Promotes And Undermines Trust In Cross-Boundary Relationships, Michele Williams

Michele Williams

We examine how demographic context influences the trust that boundary spanners experience in their dyadic relationships with clients. Because of the salience of age as a demographic characteristic as well as the increasing prevalence of age diversity and intergenerational conflict in the workplace, we focus on team age diversity as a demographic social context that affects trust between boundary spanners and their clients. Using social categorization theory and theories of social capital, we develop and test our contextual argument that a boundary spanner’s experience of being trusted is influenced by the social categorization processes that occur in dyadic interactions with …

Workplace Dignity: Communicating Inherent, Earned, And Remediated Dignity, Kristen Lucas

Kristen Lucas

A State-Sponsored Approach To Quality Improvement In Nursing Homes: Insights From Providers, Kathleen Abrahamson, Priscilla Arling, Greg Arling

Priscilla Arling

In 2006, the Minnesota Performance-based Incentive Payment Program (PIPP) was launched to fund provider-initiated quality improvement (QI) projects addressing a wide range of persistent quality issues in nursing homes (eg, falls, pain, mobility, psychotropic medication reduction, care transitions). In this article, the authors describe the perceptions of nursing home providers who participated in a PIPP-funded QI project and completed a survey addressing a variety of QI-related concerns. Respondents noted the importance of support from top leadership, reported being challenged by resource constraints, and generally thought that their project positively impacted quality within their facility. These findings highlight the importance of …

Communication And Effectiveness In A Us Nursing Home Quality-Improvement Collaborative, Priscilla Arling, Kathleen Abrahamson, Edward J. Miech, Thomas S. Inui, Greg Arling

Priscilla Arling

In this study, we explored the relationship between changes in resident health outcomes, practitioner communication patterns, and practitioner perceptions of group effectiveness within a quality-improvement collaborative of nursing home clinicians. Survey and interview data were collected from nursing home clinicians participating in a quality-improvement collaborative. Quality-improvement outcomes were evaluated using US Federal and State minimum dataset measures. Models were specified evaluating the relationships between resident outcomes, staff perceptions of communication patterns, and staff perceptions of collaborative effectiveness. Interview data provided deeper understanding of the quantitative findings. Reductions in fall rates were highest in facilities where respondents experienced the highest levels …

Does Self-Efficacy Influence The Application Of Evidence-Based Practice?, Kathleen Abrahamson, Priscilla Arling, Jenna Gillette

Priscilla Arling

Background: Implementation of Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) is complex and consequently, even within organizations that have made efforts to promote EBP use, EBP is often underutilized by individual clinicians. Purpose: The aim of our study was to better understand the relationship between self-efficacy and EBP implementation in clinical environments that have undergone efforts to increase EBP utilization. We suggest that EBP is a set of behaviors that result from individuals acquiring, applying, and sharing new knowledge with others in the organization. We hypothesize, based upon a social cognitive theoretical approach, that these behaviors are influenced by clinician perception of self-efficacy. Methods: …

Knowledge Sharing And Knowledge Management System Avoidance: The Role Of Knowledge Type And The Social Network In Bypassing An Organizational Knowledge Management System, Susan A. Brown, Alan R. Dennis, Diana Burley, Priscilla Arling

Priscilla Arling

Knowledge sharing is a difficult task for most organizations, and there are many reasons for this. In this article, we propose that the nature of the knowledge shared and an individual's social network influence employees to find more value in person-to-person knowledge sharing, which could lead them to bypass the codified knowledge provided by a knowledge management system (KMS). We surveyed employees of a workman's compensation board in Canada and used social network analysis and hierarchical linear modeling to analyze the data. The results show that knowledge complexity and knowledge teachability increased the likelihood of finding value in person-to-person knowledge …

State Uses Financial Incentives To Fund Nursing Home–Initiated Quality Improvement Projects Through Competitive Bidding Process, Leading To Better Care, Valerie Cooke, Greg Arling, T. Lewis, Kathleen Abrahamson, Priscilla Arling, H. Davila, C. Mueller

Priscilla Arling

Authorized in 2006 by the State legislature, Minnesota’s Performance-Based Incentive Program funds nursing home–initiated quality improvement projects for 1 to 3 years through increases of up to 5 percent in the operating per diem rate charged to Medicaid and private-pay residents. Funding decisions are made through a competitive bidding process administered annually by the Department of Human Services, with recommendations from a review committee. Program staff provide support to nursing homes during and after the application process. Nursing homes that do not achieve project-specific performance targets can lose up to 20 percent of the incentive payments. The program has engaged …

Squeezed In The Middle: The Middle Status Trade Creativity For Focus, Michelle M. Duguid, Jack Goncalo

Jack Goncalo

Classical research on social influence suggested that people are the most conforming in the middle of a status hierarchy as opposed to the top or bottom. Yet, this promising line of research was abandoned before the psychological mechanism behind middle status conformity had been identified. Moving beyond the early focus on conformity, we propose that the threat of status loss may make those with middle status more wary of advancing creative solutions in fear that they will be evaluated negatively. Using different manipulations of status and measures of creativity, we found that when being evaluated, middle status individuals were less …

[Review Of The Book Sustainable Prosperity In The New Economy? Business Organization And High-Tech Employment In The United States], Rosemary Batt, Jae Eun Lee

Rosemary Batt

[Excerpt] Best known as a business and economic historian, William (Bill) Lazonick may often escape the view of academics in human resource studies, organizational behavior, and labor relations. This is a mistake. Lazonick's new book, Sustainable Prosperity in the New Economy?, is a must-read for scholars and students in these fields. He has chosen to study an important problem in the real world, has marshaled detailed empirical evidence to support his argument, and has used this evidence to critique conventional theory in economics and management.

Organizational Performance In Services, Rosemary Batt, Virginia Doellgast

Rosemary Batt

The question of performance in service activities and occupations is important for several reasons. First, over two-thirds of employment in advanced economies is in service activities. Second, productivity growth in services is historically low, lagging far behind manufacturing, and as a result, wages in production-level service jobs remain low. In addition, labor costs in service activities are often over 50% of total costs, whereas in manufacturing they have fallen to less than 25% of costs. This raises the question of whether management practices that have improved performance in manufacturing, such as investment in the skills and training of the workforce, …

Productivity Standards, Marriage And Family Therapist Job Satisfaction, And Turnover Intent, Gilbert Ernest Franco

Gilbert Ernest Franco

Turnover among mental health professionals is high, which can have a direct impact on access to services and continuity of care. Informed by goal-setting theory, social-cognitive theory, and self-efficacy, this quantitative study investigated how California community mental health agency productivity standards were related to self-efficacy, job satisfaction, and marriage and family therapist (MFT) turnover intent among 141 MFTs. Participants completed a Demographic and Productivity Questionnaire, Job Self-Efficacy Scale, Job Satisfaction Scale, and Turnover Intention Scale. The relationship between participant age, gender, experience, number of work hours, licensure status, and job site with job satisfaction and turnover intent were assessed using …

A Brief Tutorial On The Development Of Measures For Use In Survey Questionnaires, Timothy R. Hinkin

Timothy R. Hinkin

The adequate measurement of abstract constructs is perhaps the greatest challenge to understanding the behavior of people in organizations. Problems with the reliability and validity of measures used on survey questionnaires continue to lead to difficulties in interpreting the results of field research. Price and Mueller suggest that measurement problems may be due to the lack of a well-established framework to guide researchers through the various stages of scale development. This article provides a conceptual framework and a straightforward guide for the development of scales in accordance with established psychometric principles for use in field studies.

An Analysis Of Variance Approach To Content Validation, Timothy R. Hinkin, J. Bruce Tracey

Timothy R. Hinkin

Although procedures for assessing content validity have been widely publicized for many years, Hinkin noted that there continue to be problems with the content validity of measures used in organizational research. Anderson and Gerbing, and Schriesheim, Powers, Scandura, Gardiner, and Lankau discussed the problems associated with typical content validity assessment and presented techniques that can be used to assess the empirical distinctiveness of a set of survey items. This article reviews these techniques and presents an analysis of variance procedure that can provide a higher degree of confidence in determining item integrity and scale content validity. The utility of this …

A Multilevel Analysis Of The Effect Of Prompting Self-Regulation In Technology-Delivered Instruction, Traci Sitzmann, Bradford S. Bell, Kurt Kraiger, Adam Kanar

Bradford S Bell

Two studies were conducted to examine the effect of prompting self-regulation, an intervention designed to improve learning from technology-delivered instruction. In Study 1, trainees who were prompted to self-regulate gradually improved their declarative and procedural knowledge over time, relative to the other conditions, whereas test scores declined over time for trainees who were not prompted to self-regulate. In Study 2, basic performance remained stable over time and strategic performance improved over time for trainees who were prompted to self-regulate, relative to the other conditions, whereas performance declined over time for trainees who were not prompted to self-regulate. Trainees’ cognitive ability …

Collective Failure: The Emergence, Consequences, And Management Of Errors In Teams, Bradford S. Bell, Steve W. J. Kozlowski

Bradford S Bell

The goal of the current chapter is to examine the emergence, consequences, and management of errors in teams. We begin by discussing the origin and emergence of errors in teams. We argue that errors in teams can originate at both the individual and collective level and suggest this distinction is important because it has implications for how errors propagate within a team. We then consider the paradoxical effects of errors on team performance and team learning. This discussion highlights the importance of error management in teams so that errors can prompt learning while at the same time mitigating their negative …

Rigor And Relevance, Bradford S. Bell

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] As the incoming editorial team, our goal is to build on this position of strength and to advance both the reputation and readership of the journal. One way in which we intend to do this is by staying true to the mission that has guided P-Psych since its inception, which is to publish rigorous psychological research centered around people at work. Over the years, this focused mission has enabled the journal to publish seminal articles in personnel selection (Barrick & Mount, 1991), person-organization fit (Schneider, 1987), organizational citizenship behavior (Organ & Ryan, 1995), and many other areas of industrial-organizational …

The Impact Of Culture On Creativity: How Cultural Tightness And Cultural Distance Affect Global Innovation Crowdsourcing Work, R.Y.J. Chua, Y. Roth, J. Lemoine

Roy CHUA

No abstract provided.

Hedonic And Transcendent Conceptions Of Value, Joel M. Podolny, Marya Besharov

Marya Besharov

In this paper we introduce a conceptual distinction between a hedonic and transcendent conception of value. We posit three linguistic earmarks by which one can distinguish these conceptions of value. We seek validation for the conceptual distinctions by examining the language contained in reviews of cars and reviews of paintings. In undertaking the empirical examination, we draw on the work of M.A.K. Halliday to identify clauses as fundamental units of meaning and to specify process types that can be mapped onto theoretical distinctions between the two conceptions of value. Extensions of this research are discussed.