Organizational Behavior and Theory Commons^™

The Relational Ecology Of Identification: How Organizational Identification Emerges When Individuals Hold Divergent Values, Marya Besharov

Marya Besharov

This research builds on theory about how identification develops when members differ in which organizational values they hold to be important. It is relatively well established that conflict and dis-identification arise under such conditions. In the socially responsible retail company I studied, in contrast, I found identification as well as dis-identification. Both outcomes emerged from members’ interactions with others whose values and behaviors differed from their own. Identification arose when managers interpreted and enacted organizational values for frontline employees by developing integrative solutions, removing ideology, and routinizing ideology. Dis-identification developed in the absence of these practices. The resulting process model …

Creativity From Constraint? How Political Correctness Influences Creativity In Mixed-Sex Work Groups, Jack Goncalo, Jennifer Chatman, Michelle Duguid, Jessica Kennedy

Jack Goncalo

Most group creativity research is premised on the assumption that creativity is unleashed by removing normative constraints. As work organizations become increasingly diverse in terms of gender, however, this assumption needs to be reconsidered since mixed-sex interactions carry a high risk of offense. Departing from the assumption that normative constraints necessarily stifle creativity, we develop a theoretical perspective in which creativity in mixed-sex groups is enhanced by imposing a norm to be politically correct (PC)—a norm that sets clear expectations for how men and women should interact with one another. We present evidence from two group experiments showing that the …

The Ethical Climate And Context Of Organizations: A Comprehensive Model, Anke Arnaud Dr., Marshall Schminke

Dr. Anke Arnaud

Traditional approaches to understanding the ethical context of organizations often focus on ethical work climate, which reflects the collective moral reasoning of organization members. However, such approaches overlook other components of the ethical environment that may influence how ethical judgments translate to ethical behavior. This study extends our understanding of the ethical context of organizations by considering how three distinct aspects of that context collective moral reasoning (ethical climate), collective moral emotion, and collective ethical efficacy interact to influence ethical behavior. Results from 117 work units support our hypotheses. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Is It Me Or Her? How Gender Composition Influences Interpersonally Sensitive Behavior On Collaborative Cross-Boundary Projects, Michele Williams

Michele Williams

This paper investigates how professional workers’ willingness to act with interpersonal sensitivity is influenced by the gender and power of their interaction partners. We call into question the idea that mixed-gender interactions involve more interpersonal sensitivity than all-male interactions primarily because women demonstrate more interpersonal sensitivity than do men. Rather, we argue that the social category “women” can evoke more sensitive behavior from others such that men as well as women contribute to an increase in sensitivity in mixed-gender interactions. We further argue that the presence of women may trigger increased sensitivity such that men can also be the recipients …

Developing Soft Skills To Manage User Expectations In It Projects: Knowledge Reuse Among It Project Managers, Stacie Petter, Adriane Randolph

Adriane B. Randolph

This research explores information technology (IT) project managers' reuse of knowledge associated with soft skills when managing user expectations. Through interviews with IT project managers, several themes emerged: novelty of problems, conditions within the organization, types of available knowledge, and methods for reusing knowledge. Within this study, we discovered the need for additional research on how social norms and organizational conditions encourage or inhibit knowledge reuse. Furthermore, we identified a difference in the usefulness of knowledge captured in formal repositories according to levels of project management experience. The findings confirm, extend, and illuminate the current research associated with knowledge reuse …

Effects Of Cultural Ethnicity, Firm Size, And Firm Age On Senior Executives’ Trust In Their Overseas Business Partners: Evidence From China, Crystal X. Jiang, Roy Y. J. Chua, Masaaki Kotabe, Janet Y. Murray

Roy Chua

We investigate trust relationships between senior business executives and their overseas partners. Drawing on the similarity-attraction paradigm, social categorization theory, and the distinction between cognition- and affect-based trust, we argue that executives trust their overseas partners differently, depending on the partners’ cultural ethnicity. In a field survey of 108 Chinese senior executives, we found that these executives have higher affect-based trust in overseas partners of the same cultural ethnicity as themselves; cognition-based trust is associated with affect-based trust differently when overseas partners are of the same or different cultural ethnicity. We also examine the role of relative firm size and …

Esochoice: The Self-Manipulation Of Tastes By Chameleonic Decision Makers, Brian J. Gibbs

Brian J. Gibbs

No abstract provided.

Multiple Institutional Logics In Organizations: Explaining Their Varied Nature And Implication, Marya Besharov, Wendy K. Smith

Marya Besharov

Multiple institutional logics present a theoretical puzzle. While scholars recognize their increasing prevalence within organizations, research offers conflicting perspectives on their implications, causing confusion and inhibiting deeper understanding. In response, we propose a framework that delineates types of logic multiplicity within organizations, and we link these types with different outcomes. Our framework categorizes organizations in terms of logic compatibility and logic centrality and explains how field, organizational, and individual factors influence these two dimensions. We illustrate the value of our framework by showing how it helps explain the varied implications of logic multiplicity for internal conflict. By providing insight into …

Mindfulness At Work: Antecedents And Consequences Of Employee Awareness And Absent-Mindedness, Jochen Reb, Jayanth Narayanan, Zhi Wei Ho

Jochen Reb

The present study examines antecedents and consequences of two aspects of mindfulness in a work setting: employee awareness and employee absent-mindedness. Using two samples, the study found these two aspects of mindfulness to be beneficially associated with employee well-being, as measured by emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction, and psychological need satisfaction, and with job performance, as measured by task performance, organizational citizenship behaviors, and deviance. These results suggest a potentially important role of mindfulness at the workplace. The study also found that organizational constraints and organizational support predicted employee mindfulness, pointing to the important role that the organizational environment may play …

The Influence Of Mindful Attention On Value Claiming In Distributive Negotiations: Evidence From Four Laboratory Experiments, Jochen Reb, Jayanth Narayanan

Jochen Reb

We examined the effect of mindful attention on negotiation outcomes in distributive negotiations across four experiments. In Studies 1 and 2, participants who performed a short mindful attention exercise prior to the negotiation claimed a larger share of the bargaining zone than the control condition participants they negotiated with. Study 3 replicated this finding using a different manipulation of mindful attention. Study 4 again replicated this result and also found that mindful negotiators were more satisfied with both the outcome and the process of the negotiation. We discuss theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and future directions.

A Voice Is Worth A Thousand Words: The Implications Of The Micro-Coding Of Social Signals In Speech For Trust Research, Benjamin Waber, Michele Williams, John Carroll, Alex Pentland

Michele Williams

While self-report measures are often highly reliable for field research on trust (Mayer and Davis, 1999), subjects often cannot complete surveys during real time interactions. In contrast, the social signals that are embedded in the non-linguistic elements of conversations can be captured in real time and extracted with the assistance of computer coding. This chapter seeks to understand how computer-coded social signals are related to interpersonal trust.

The Leap Model: Perceptions Of Emergency Service Leaders Of Legitimacy, R. Jeffery Maxfield, John Fisher

Dr. John R. Fisher

This study adds to the qualitative data showing how leaders in the emergency services perceive legitimacy and the bases of power. The study examines the perception of leaders and their perspective on why subordinates view their leader as legitimate and/or authentic. Two definitions of legitimacy are presented: the traditional viewpoint of French and Raven (1959) associating legitimate power “with having status or formal job authority” and the other proposed by Maxfield (2012) in the LEAP leadership model basing legitimacy or authenticity more on the characteristics and skills leaders bring to their positions. Emergency service students interviewed leaders in their career …

Decelerating The Diminishing Returns Of Citizenship On Task Performance: The Role Of Social Context And Interpersonal Skill, Kemp Ellington, Erich Dierdorff, Robert Rubin

Erich C. Dierdorff

Recent scholarship on citizenship behavior demonstrates that engaging too often in these behaviors comes at the expense of task performance. In order to examine the boundary conditions of this relationship, we used resource allocation and social exchange theories to build predictions regarding moderators of the curvilinear association between citizenship and task performance. In a field study of 366 employees, we examined the relationship between the frequency of interpersonal helping behavior and task performance, and tested for the moderating influences of three social context features (social density, interdependence, and social support) and of employees’ levels of interpersonal skill. Results provided corroborating …

The Experience Of Failed Humor: Implications For Interpersonal Affect Regulation, Michele Williams, Kyle Emich

Michele Williams

The purpose of this study was to investigate failed interpersonal affect regulation through the lens of humor. We investigated individual differences that influenced people’s affective and cognitive responses to failed humor and their willingness to persist in the interpersonal regulation of positive affect after a failed attempt.

Research Collaboration And Team Science: A State-Of-The-Art Review And Agenda, Barry Bozeman, Craig Boardman

Craig Boardman

No abstract provided.

Does Consistency Pay? The Effects Of Information Sequence And Content On Women’S Negotiation Outcomes, Carol T. Kulik, Mara Olekalns, Emma T. Swain

Mara Olekalns

Women are usually perceived as warm or competent, but rarely both. This research investigates how the sequence and content of warmth-relevant relational information and competence-relevant performance information affects female negotiators’ social (perceptions of their warmth and competence) and economic outcomes. Female employers (but not male employers) rated a negotiating female employee as high warmth when they received relational information first and were able to discount the employee’s competence with a team-based relational attribution (E1) or when they received performance information first and were convinced the employee’s warm behavior was genuine (E2). The sequence and content of warmth-relevant and competence-relevant information …

Sweet Little Lies: Social Context And The Use Of Deception In Negotiation, Mara Olekalns, Carol T. Kulik, Lin Chew

Mara Olekalns

Social context shapes negotiators’ actions, including their willingness to act unethically. In this research, we test how three dimensions of social context – dyadic gender composition, negotiation strategy, and trust – interact to influence one micro-ethical decision, the use of deception, in a simulated negotiation. To create an opportunity for deception, we incorporated an indifference issue – an issue that had no value for one of the two parties – into the negotiation. Deception about this issue was least likely to be affected by trust or negotiation strategy in all-male dyads, suggesting that dyads with at least one female negotiator …

The Local Corporatist State And Ngo Relations In China, Jennifer Yj Hsu, Reza Hasmath

Reza Hasmath

Anticipated Regret In Time-Based Work-Family Conflict, J. Bagger, Jochen Matthias Reb, A. Li

Jochen Reb

The primary purpose of this research was to investigate the role of anticipated regret in time-based work-family conflict decisions. A total of 90 working parents responded to a decision making problem describing a time-based conflict between a work event and a family event. Participants' preference for which event to attend constituted the dependent variable. Independent variables were participants' work and family centralities. Anticipated regret for choosing the work option and anticipated regret for choosing the family option were measured as hypothesized mediators. Structural equation modeling revealed that anticipated regret for choosing the family option mediated the relationship between work centrality …

Corporate Social Responsibility In A Remedy-Seeking Society: A Public Choice Perspective, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Written for the Chapman Law Review Symposium on “What Can Law & Economics Teach Us About the Corporate Social Responsibility Debate?,” this Article applies the lessons of public choice theory to examine corporate social responsibility. The Article adopts a broad definition of corporate social responsibility activism to include both (1) those efforts that seek to convince corporations to voluntarily take into account corporate social responsibility in their own decision-making, and (2) the efforts to alter the legal landscape and expand legal obligations of corporations beyond traditional notions of harm and duty so as to force corporations to invest in interests …

Determinants Of Employee Commitment For Organizational Performance, Peter Adoko Obicci Esq.

Peter Adoko Obicci

Employee commitment is the terminology used to describe whether employees have a strong belief and accepts organizational goals and values. The thesis of this study is founded on the conviction that an organization cannot be expected to perform effectively and efficiently when its employees are not committed. There are many measurable support that employee commitment is a critical factor that determines the performance of an organization. Using the Ministry of Public Service in Uganda, as a case, this study sought to establish the affective, continuance and normative commitments of the employees for organizational performance. Quantitative data was collected from 96 …