Tag Archives: culture

Organizational Attraction – It’s more than the Money!

1

Topic: Staffing, Culture, Work Environment
Publication: Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (2010)
Article: Fit with What? The Influence of Multiple Self-Concept Images on Organizational Attraction
Authors: K. P. Nolan, C. M. Harold
Reviewed By: Lauren A. Wood

What attracts a potential employee to a specific organization – salary, benefits, promotion opportunities? Yes, in part, but attraction also stems from something deeper – an employee’s own self-image. Self-image consists primarily of two parts: the actual self (or the compilation of traits and attributes that an individual believes him or herself to possess) and the ideal self (or the collection of traits and attributes that an individual would like to acquire).

According to image congruity theory, customers are likely to purchase products that reflect both their actual as well as ideal self-image. Expanding this theory, individuals on the job hunt should favor organizations that emphasize both actual and ideal self-image qualities of the candidate. But, these same candidates should be the most attracted to organizations which emphasize their ideal self-image qualities, because this should inflate self-esteem by making the candidate feel closer to achieving his or her ideal self-image.

Continue reading →

Group Culture and Speaking Up

1

 Topic: Culture, Teams, Leadership
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (JAN 2011)
Article: Speaking Up in Groups: A Cross-Level Study of Group Voice Climate and Voice
Authors: E.W. Morrison, S.L. Wheeler-Smith, & D. Kamdar
Reviewed By: Ben Sher

Think of the last time you had an important suggestion to make while at work.  Did you say it?  According to research by Morrison, Wheeler-Smith, and Kamdar (2011), the answer may reveal as much about the beliefs of the people you work with as it does about you. 

Research has traditionally focused on employee voice from the perspective of the individual.  Employee voice means the willingness to make extra suggestions or comments to help improve something.  For example, researchers have always wondered what motivates people to speak up more often, and what factors people consider when deciding if they should voice their opinions.  This new research goes one step further.  It says that employee voice will be more likely to occur when certain beliefs are shared by the entire work group as a whole.

After conducting a survey of distinct work groups within a single company, the authors identify two factors that create a group voice climate, or the type of setting which will encourage employees to speak their minds.  The first factor they call group voice safety beliefs.  This is whether all people in the group feel safe to voice controversial opinions, or if they fear punishment for doing so. 

Continue reading →

Organizational Culture: Attracting Job Applicants by Advertising the “Softer Side”

Reply

Topic: Culture, Recruiting, Gender
Publication: Journal of Business and Psychology (WINTER 2010)
Article: The impact of organizational culture on attraction and recruitment of job applicants
Authors: D. Catanzaro, H. Moore, T.R. Marshall
Reviewed By: Rebecca Eckart

As top talent becomes sparse but human capital continues to be a chief competitive advantage, the ability to recruit highly skilled applicants is paramount. Additionally, modern organizations have the added hurdle of attracting job applicants that also fit well with the values of the organization. Organizational culture is typically described as the collective set of values and norms shared by members of an organization. Recently, researchers have started to categorize organizational cultures as either being “supportive” or “competitive” in nature. Supportive cultures value collaboration, equality, supportiveness, and work-life balance, whereas organizations with a competitive culture typically value individualism, ambition, rewards, and a focus on one’s career.  

In a recent study, Catanzaro, Moore, and Marshall (2010) examined how beliefs about the organization’s culture impacts male and female applicants’ job pursuit, organizational preference, and organizational choice. They found that both men and women would rather pursue a job with a supportive organization, even if that meant accepting less compensation. However, when presented with a job in a competitive organizational culture, men are more likely than women to pursue the job.

Continue reading →

Exhausted Employees? They May be Reacting to Your Goal-Oriented Leadership

Reply

Topic: Employee Satisfaction, Culture, Personality
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (NOV 2010)
Article: The Downside of Goal-Focused Leadership: The Role of Personality in Subordinate Exhaustion
Authors: S.J. Perry, L.A. Witt, L.M. Penney, and L. Atwater
Reviewed By: Mary Alice Crowe-Taylor

The heart of goal-focused leadership (GFL) is to elicit goal-oriented behavior from employees by emphasizing goal achievement. In theory, GFL should contribute to employee’s resources for handling stress at work by clarifying goals, suggesting ways to achieve goals, structuring tasks and verifying attainment. However, depending on the employee’s personality, this emphasis on goal achievement may or may not be perceived as supportive.

In employees who are less conscientious (less achievement oriented), can GFL cause exhaustion? Yes, if these employees also have low emotional stability. That is, if they are more often distracted by worry and are prone to pessimism. Inherently, these employees have the least “resources” to assist them, and goal-focused leadership may produce exhaustion, through an inability to cope with the stress demands.

Continue reading →

Are there cultural differences in the “Think Manager, Think Male” phenomenon?

3

Topic: Leadership, Gender, Culture
Publication: Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology
Article: Causal Attributions About Feminine and Leadership Roles: A Cross-Cultural Comparison
Authors: R. Garcia-Retamero and E. López-Zafra
Reviewed By: Samantha Paustian-Underdahl

Even though gender stereotypes have been changing recently, men are still perceived to be more characteristic of managers than are women (Eagly, 2007). However, little research has examined how these perceptions may differ depending on the traditional or progressive nature of different societies. Garcia-Retamero and López -Zafra (2009) examine the question of whether there are cultural differences in people’s causal attributions about male and female leaders in the workplace.

The authors examined two countries whose residents might hold different views about women as potential leaders: Germany and Spain. German society generally maintains gender egalitarianism as a social value to a greater extent than Spanish society (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, & Gupta, 2004). That is, Germans prescribe differentiated gender roles less often than Spaniards and Germans generally place women in a higher status in their society.

The participants for this study consisted of 180 undergraduate students from the University of Granada (Spain; 90 men and 90 women) and 180 undergraduate students from the Free University of Berlin 
(Germany; 90 men and 90 women). The authors analyzed whether the sex of a candidate for a leadership position, the type of industry in which he or she works (male- oriented, female-oriented, or unspecified), and participants’ nationality and gender influence the perception of incongruity between the leadership role and the feminine gender role. Garcia-Retamero and López -Zafra (2009) found that:

· Spanish participants showed more prejudice toward the female candidate than German
participants did. Their expectations about the female candidate’s potential for promotion when she worked in an industry incongruent with her gender role were much lower than those of the German participants.

· All participants (regardless of country) who predicted that the female candidate would be promoted generally made an external causal attribution to explain such promotion (e.g., luck). This was especially the case when the female candidate worked in the incongruent industry but also in the unspecified industry.

· In general, participants (regardless of country) made an internal causal attribution (e.g., ability) to explain the male candidate’s success even if he worked in a female-congenial environment.

· Spanish participants were more likely than German participants to make an external
causal attribution (e.g., luck), when predicting that the female candidate would succeed in getting the promotion.

· When predicting the female candidate’s failure to obtain the promotion, Spanish participants more often than German participants chose an internal causal attribution (e.g., lack of skills).

In sum, organizations should consider the different societal expectations and status categories in place when developing leaders globally. There may be particularly difficult challenges in countries that have traditional gender-role stereotypes, and industry-specific standards. The authors maintain some hope, however, that the prejudice against female leaders may change over time. Their research suggests that when women have less traditional roles and people hold a less traditional view of women, the prejudice is diminished.

Garcia-Retamero, R., & López-Zafra, E. (2009). Causal attributions about feminine and
leadership roles. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 40, 492-509.

Culture Matters When it comes to Stressors and Strains

Reply

Topic:  Culture, Self Efficacy, Work Environment
Publication: Applied Psychology: An International Review (JAN 2010)
Article: A cross-national examination of self-efficacy as a moderator of autonomy/job
strain relationships
Authors: M.M. Nauta, C. Liu, and C. Li
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger

In work settings, autonomy refers to the degree of control that employees have over their work.  While research has generally shown that low levels of autonomy are stressful to employees (i.e., leads them to experience strain), this is not necessarily true for all employees.  Indeed, employees who are confident in their ability to exercise control over their lives and work environments (i.e., high generalized self-efficacy) appear to be buffered from the negative effects of low autonomy.  However, most of the research on this topic has been conducted in North America and it is unclear whether these findings are consistent across cultures. Recently, Nauta, Liu, and Li (2010) explored whether culture plays a role in determining how employees respond to low (vs. high) levels of autonomy and self-efficacy. The authors chose to compare American and Chinese employees because they typify individualistic and collectivistic cultures respectively.

That is, employees in the U.S. tend to be more individualistic and place a heavier focus on independence, while Chinese employees tend to be more collectivistic and place a heavier focus on the needs of the group to which they belong. Nauta, Liu, and Li collected data from a wide range of university employees working at a large university in the U.S. and three universities in China.

Much like U.S. employees, low levels of autonomy appear to make highly efficacious Chinese employees uncomfortable. In other words, for employees who feel confident that they can effectively exert control over their work environment, not being able to do so is stressful (regardless of culture).

However, Nauta et al. discovered an interesting difference in how American and Chinese employees, low in self-efficacy, react to autonomy. In other words, American employees who lack confidence in their ability to exert control over their work find low levels of autonomy stressful, while Chinese employees who lack such confidence find high levels of autonomy stressful.

These findings are particularly pertinent to organizations operating globally. If nothing else, Nauta et al.’s study is a reminder that management policies and job characteristics in one country or culture may not have the same effects in another country or for another culture.

Nauta, M.M., Liu, C., & Li, C. (2010). A cross-national examination of self-efficacy as a moderator of autonomy/job strain relationships. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 59(1), 159-179.

Are Cultural Minorities Less (or More) Committed to their Organizations?

Reply

Topic: Culture, Job Attitudes
Publication: Journal of Business and Psychology (MAR 2010)
Article: Commitment of cultural minorities in organizations: Effects of leadership and pressure to conform
Authors: J. Rupert, K.A. Jehn, M.L. van Engen, and R.S.M. de Reuver
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger

Several organizational theories suggest that cultural minorities (employees born in a country different from the country of the host organization) may have lower levels of commitment to their organizations than majority group members.  This also implies that cultural minorities may be less effective performers, more likely to quit, etc., than majority group employees. To provide a much-needed test of this general hypothesis, Rupert and colleagues (2010) surveyed 107 employees of a multinational corporation in the Netherlands.  About 21% of the participants were considered cultural minorities.  In addition to comparing the commitment of minority and majority group members, the authors also explored two factors (leadership and pressure to conform) that may help explain the degree of commitment cultural minorities tend to have to their organizations.

Contrary to what has been suggested by past theories, Rupert et al. found that the cultural minority group employees actually had higher levels of affective (feel emotionally attached) and normative (feel obligated) organizational commitment than the majority group employees. Their results also suggest that cultural minorities may be more affected by pressures to conform and task-oriented leadership than majority group members.  The authors suggest that this may be due to the possibility that cultural minorities are more heavily focused on how they should behave at work, than majority group members (who presumably already know how they should act at work).

Rupert et al. note that care should be taken when interpreting their results, given the very small number of cultural minority group members surveyed in their study. Nevertheless, Rupert et al.’s results clearly refute the general notion that cultural minorities automatically have lower levels of commitment to their organizations. In fact, it may be that they are sensitive to task-oriented leadership and pressures to conform (more so than majority group members) and thus develop higher levels of normative organizational commitment. The reason for their higher levels of affective commitment remains unclear.

Rupert, J., Jehn, K.A., van Engen, M.L., & de Reuver, R.S.M. (2010).  Commitment of cultural minorities in organizations: Effects of leadership and pressure to conform. Journal of Business and Psychology, 25, 25-37.

What do Job Ads Say About Your Organizational Culture?

2

Topic: Compensation, Culture, Motivation, Rewards, Organizational Reputation
Publication: The International Journal of Human Resource Management
Article: Compensation as a Signal of Organizational Culture: The Effects of Advertising Individual or Collective Incentives
Author: K. Kuhn
Reviewed By: Lit Digger

It is commonly assumed that compensation and rewards systems reflect the cultures of the organizations that implement them, but what type of message is being received by your organization’s job applicants?

Kristine Kuhn (2009) conducted an experimental study to investigate how job advertisements’ simple statements about an organization’s compensation structure would affect applicant perceptions of organizational culture. In the same article, Kuhn conducted an additional study to see how job advertisement differences in compensation structure statements would affect applicants when they were forced to choose one organization over another. (Yes, this article was two-for-one – jam-packed with researchy goodness!)

Kuhn found that applicants were more likely to perceive an organization’s culture as individualist when that organization’s compensation structure statement suggested that employees would be rewarded for individual performance or skill. In contrast, applicants were more likely to view an organization’s culture as collectivist when that organization included a compensation structure statement suggesting that employees would be rewarded with profit  sharing across the company or from taking part in a high-performing team.  This is a notable finding because, aside from commonly held assumptions, little empirical research exists on this topic.

Kuhn also noted that some job seekers may be more likely to be high on idiocentrism, meaning that they would view themselves as, in her words, “independent entit[ies]” such that personal achievements would naturally take precedence over group achievements. (For you curious cats, the alternative to this would be allocentrism, which involves viewing yourself in relationship to others and having a more interdependent worldview).  Regarding this idea, Kuhn found that the relationship between idiocentrism and the applicant’s attraction to a company was affected by the applicant’s perceptions of the company’s culture in the following way:

· If I perceive the company’s culture to be highly individualistic, and the more idiocentric I am in my worldview, the more likely I am to be attracted to that company.

· On the other hand, if I perceive the culture as not very individualistic, and the less idiocentric I am in my worldview, the chances are greater that I will be attracted to that
company.

So perceptions of organizational culture MATTER, especially when job applicants are forced to choose one organization over another (Sound like the real world to you?  Sure does to me).  And if perceptions of organizational culture are affected in part by the language used in job advertisements, editors beware! If you’re sending the wrong message to your job applicants, you’ve just missed your first (fairly inexpensive and easy) opportunity to give that potential newbie a realistic job preview, and you’re risking one more head on your end-of-the-year turnover count.

So think of this as an opportunity. Consider your organization’s compensation structure, the message it’s sending to your current employees, and the message that’s being received by your job applicants.  If all of the above are in alignment with your organization’s values and intentions, proclaim away… and may the best applicant win.

Kuhn, K. (2009). Compensation as a signal of organizational culture: The effects of advertising individual or collective incentives. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 20 (7), 1634-1648.

Imitating the Expert’s Behavior Can Diminish Organizational Performance: Here’s Why

3

Topic: Culture
Publication: Academy of Management Journal (APR 2009)
Article: The Enactment-Externalization Dialectic: Rationalization and the Persistence of Counterproductive Technology Design Practices in Student Engineering
Authors: P.M. Leonardi, M.H. Jackson, A. Diwan
Reviewed By: Katie Bachman

What makes for an expert? In many workplaces, the idealization of an expert employee is a maverick—an independent, autonomous individual who is not subject to “best practices.” This person can take a problem and solve it without input from instruction manuals or other people. However, this conceptualization of expert behavior often leads employees to engage in behaviors that are counterproductive to success.

Doing things the hard way can become the culture when people internalize the maverick ideal and begin to behave accordingly. Take, for example, procrastination. The ability to start a project at the last minute and complete it successfully takes an expert. However, procrastination hurts productivity when workers submit poor or incomplete work due to rushing. As another example, working in collaborative teams may be seen by those who ascribe to the maverick ideal as a waste of time, particularly when individual contributions are not seen as important. However, teamwork often leads to better solutions and outcomes.

Bottom line: this research supports the assertion that in the workplace, the “expert” may not be the best employee. Instead, a worker who has the ability to collaborate effectively with others and can follow instructions and deadlines may be your stronger player. Employers should attempt to create a culture that appreciates employees who engage in productive behaviors, but in many cases they’ll have to do so in the midst of romanticized ideals about the behaviors of those mavericks that paved the way for the organization’s success.

Leonardi, P. M., Jackson, M. H., & Diwan, A. (2009). The enactment-externalization dialectic: Rationalization and the persistence of counterproductive technology design practices in student engineering. Academy of Management Journal, 52, 400-420.

How Can You Be So Rude!?

Reply

Topic: Job Performance, Work Environment, Culture
Publication: Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (MAY 2009)
Article: Overlooked but not untouched: How rudeness reduces onlookers’ on routine and creative tasks
Authors: Porath, C. L. and Erez, A.
Reviewed By: Benjamin Granger

Now here’s a topic that might make you ball your fists: Rudeness in the workplace. Have you ever been treated rudely by a coworker or supervisor?  Have you ever seen rude behavior at work? If so, you are not alone. Perhaps as many as 25% of employees report witnessing rudeness on a daily basis (For some reason, the DMV crosses my mind).

One intriguing idea that may not have crossed your mind is that rudeness not only adversely impacts the victims, but onlookers as well. To explore this idea, Porath and Erez (2009) conducted three experiments to find out if and how witnessing rudeness affects employees’ task performance, citizenship behaviors (going above and beyond what is required at work), and creative performance.

Interestingly, the results of studies one and two suggest that witnessing either a supervisor or peer exhibit rudeness to another had a negative impact on the onlookers’ performance. Specifically, compared to those in the control groups (witnessed no rudeness), those who witnessed rude behavior performed less well on a creative task and reduced their citizenship behaviors (e.g., helpfulness).

In the third study, Porath and Erez found that the effect of witnessing rudeness depends on the competitive context. That is, when onlookers were in competition for resources with a peer, witnessing that peer being treated rudely did not have as strong an effect on performance as opposed to a cooperative context. In other words, witnessing a competitor being treated rudely doesn’t bother us so much.

All in all, Porath and Erez’s results suggest that simply witnessing rudeness at work can negatively impact employees’ performance (scary, right?). At the very least, these findings should be a warning to organizational leaders that rudeness within the workplace can be even more detrimental to the workforce than they might have thought.

Porath, C.L. & Erez, A. (2009). Overlooked but not untouched: How rudeness reduces onlookers’ on routine and creative tasks. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 109, 29-44.