Quest Pile

Status-based discrimination (part 1 of 2)

2014-02-13T21:02:00.001-08:00

Here are some notes from the article "Getting A Job: Is There A Motherhood Penalty" by Correll and colleagues (2007).

Summary
Employed mothers suffer wage penalty, and the pay gap between mothers and nonmothers is larger than the pay gap between men and women.

Mothers are also perceived as less competent, less committed, less dependable, less authoritative and more irrational.

Explanation for motherhood penalty can be classified into:

Worker explanations (differences in traits, skills and behaviors between mothers and nonmothers)
Discrimination explanation (differential preference for or treatment of mothers and nonmothers)

Past research, which have focused on worker or productivity explanations , do not fully account for motherhood penalty.

Some empirical evidence for discrimination explanation exists, but is inconsistent with predictions.

Purpose & hypothesis

To evaluate the hypothesis that cultural status beliefs account for motherhood penalty, at least partially, by leading evaluators to unconsciously perceive that mothers are less competent and less committed.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Two approaches: Lab study and Audit study; in both studies job relevant qualifications are experimentally held constant for a pair of fictitious applicants.

Lab experiment: Evaluators rate the applicants in terms of perceived competence, workplace commitment, hireability, promotability, and recommended salary.

Audit study: Positive responses to from actual employers applicants based on the number of callbacks are measured.

Theoretical explanation

Based on Status characteristics theory (Berger et al., 1977)

Motherhood is seen as a devalued status in workplace settings

Cultural beliefs associate motherhood with less ability and less committed to work than nonmothers, and therefore believed to put less effort.
The conception of “ideal worker” is seen to be incompatible with the “good mother” role. This perceived cultural tension is suggested to result in devalued status for motherhood.
“Good father” is not seen as incompatible with “ideal worker.” They enjoy a “fatherhood premium”

Status-based discrimination

Since mothers are perceived to be less committed and competent, evaluation decisions (hiring, salary and promotion) are biased against them.
Mothers are also evaluated by harsher standards than nonmothers.
Status-based discrimination is different than statistical discrimination . According to status-based discrimination, evaluation standards used is biased in favor of high-status groups. Statistical discrimination, arising from lack of information, assumes evaluators are rational and apply unbiased standards

Findings

Lab study

Mothers were judged as less competent and committed than nonmothers
Mothers were held to harsher performance standards
Recommended starting salary for mothers was $11,000 less than for nonmothers
Mothers were rated less promotable and less likely to be recommended for management
Mothers, not fathers and nonmothers, were held to higher ability standards
Fathers were rated more committed than childless men
Fathers were offered lower salary than childless men
Nonmothers were rated more competent than nonfathers
84% of nonmothers, but only 47% of nonmothers were recommended for hiring
Fathers were 1.83 times more likely to be recommended for management than childless men
Childless women were 8.2 times more likely than mothers to be recommended for management
No impact of participant gender was found. But female participants held all female applicants to higher standards than male participants did. But they penalized mothers slightly less
Both African-Americans and white experienced motherhood penalty
Competence and commitment ratings partially mediate the effect on evaluations

Audit study

Childless women received 2.1 times as many callbacks as equally qualified mothers.
Fathers were called back at a higher rate (1.8 times) than equally qualified childless men. But the difference was insignificant.
Motherhood penalty interaction was significant. This indicates that being a parent lowers the odds of callback for woman as compared to a man.
Parenthood status was not significant. Therefore, no evidence of fatherhood bonus.
Female applicant status was significant implying that childless women were significantly more likely to receive a callback than childless men.
Mothers are disadvantaged in actual job hiring decisions. Since applicant qualification was equivalent, employer discrimination is responsible for disadvantages found.

Limitations

Salience (i.e. parenthood differentiates applicants) is a scope condition for the theoretical explanation provided.

Study evaluated the status-based discrimination mechanism for a high-status job (i.e. midlevel marketing position). Whether similar type and magnitude of discrimination results for low-status or for varying gender-typed jobs is to be explored.

Study examines discrimination only at the point of hire. Whether similar type and magnitude of discrimination occurs at other critical junctures (e.g. promotion, voice in decision making, firing, etc.) in organizational context need to be evaluated.

Study examines only one avenue of applying for job (responding directly to employers’ advertisements). But would discrimination type/magnitude through other channels (e.g. referee) be different is not examined.

The audit study design could not explain why actual employers discriminate against mothers; Ratings of commitment, competence and performance standards were not possible to be collected from actual employers.

Contributions

Provides converging evidence across two studies that status-based discrimination explains motherhood penalty over a broad range of measures (hiring and salary decision).

Provides explanation for inconsistent effects of motherhood status on dependent measures found in past studies by offering a complete account of status-based discrimination.

First article to use audit study method to demonstrate that real employers discriminate against mothers in hiring (i.e. established causal mechanism).

Footnotes

Becker’s (1985) work-effort hypothesis proposes that mothers may in fact be less productive at work because they have dissipated their reserve of energy caring for their children
Human capital, occupational and household resource variables account for 24% of motherhood penalty (Anderson et al., 2003).
One study found no difference in competence ratings between employed fathers and employed mothers (Cuddy et al., 2004); Another found no reliable effects of gender and parental status on perceived applicant’s commitment (Fuegen t al., 2004)
"Ideal worker" is seen as committed who drops all else for work, devote greater face time and work late nights or weekends
"Good mother" is seen as one who prioritizes meeting needs of children above all else
Statistical discrimination: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_discrimination_(economics)

Reference

Correll, S. J., Benard, S., & Paik, I. (2007). Getting a Job: Is There a Motherhood Penalty? 1. American journal of sociology, 112(5), 1297-1339.

(continue to part 2/2)

Are high-status actors opportunistic or fair?

2014-02-10T03:50:00.001-08:00

Two of the recent research - one, an article by Graffin & Colleagues (2013) and another by Blader and Chen (2012) - seem to offer contradicting propositions on the relationship between status and fairness perceptions.

In the former, the authors examining the 2009 British Member of Parliament(MP) scandal, hypothesized that high-status is associated with a sense of invulnerability and feelings of entitlement, and thereby with more opportunistic behaviors that further self-interests. Though no evidence was found for the proposed "elite opportunism," the article nevertheless outlines the reasons for absence of such a relationship in their study, and contends that such a self-serving behavior is plausible.

On the other hand, the latter study proposes that high-status individuals are more likely to enact justice due to their "status maintenance" concerns. While the article, through five experimental studies, provides consistent evidence for positive relationship between status and justice towards others, it does find that this relationship does not hold good under when the individual also has high power.

When the two studies are taken in conjunction, there appears to be scope for some "consensus building" and empirical replications. Some thoughts that come to mind:

In the Blader & Chen (2012) study, it is not clear what the fairness ratings of high-status actors would have been if the partner in the dyadic negotiation was aware of actor's status. Since status is consensual in nature, I am not sure why the study was designed to keep the partner unaware of actor's status. Also,as Graffin & Colleagues (2013) show in their article, high-status individuals are more scrutinized than others for the same behaviors and are held to higher standards of conduct. Lab settings could perhaps be more useful in disentangling the unique effects of "elite opportunism" and "elite targeting."
The Graffin & Colleagues (2013) study does not account for possible effects of perceived power of the MPs in the scandal engagement. Were some MPs targeted because they had greater power and/or higher status? Perhaps as shown in the experimental study, actor's power may be more dominant in its effect than status on the partner's perceptions of justice.
In the MP study, the elite targeting was a result of attention by media. This audience was not in the same "status hierarchy" as the MPs, and hence this third-party's fairness perceptions may be different from those of low-status actors in the same hierarchy (e.g. non-MPs who were unelected or aspiring politicians). It would be interesting to study these two, perhaps distinct, perceptions in a lab setting.

In sum, are high status individuals actually more fair in their actions or are they perceived to be distributively and procedurally more fair than low-status actors? Hope to read studies that provide a theoretical explanation for the effects of "psychology of status" on justice enactments.

References:
Blader, S. L., & Chen, Y. R. (2012). Differentiating the effects of status and power: A justice perspective. Journal of personality and social psychology, 102(5), 994.

Graffin, S. D., Bundy, J., Porac, J. F., Wade, J. B., & Quinn, D. P. (2013). Falls from Grace and the Hazards of High Status The 2009 British MP Expense Scandal and Its Impact on Parliamentary Elites. Administrative Science Quarterly, 58(3), 313-345.

Learning to experiment

2014-02-09T09:09:00.003-08:00

Though I have been fascinated by the potential of controlled experiments since the first time I learnt about Milgram and Stanford prison experiments, it is only in last few days that I have begun to get initiaited into this methodology. Incidentally most of the research on power and status in the recent past have used lab experiments to establish causal effects. With a scope for greater creativity, experiments somehow seem more exciting than the typical field survey method. Of course a study that best combines experimental design with "reality check" (as in the Motherhood Penalty study) or a quasi-experimental design (as the famous blind auditions for symphony orchestra) seem to be even more interesting.

Anyways, as I begin to work with my research mentor on how one such experiment can be designed for studying the differential effects of power on various group outcomes, I seem to be stuck with one fundamental question. Consider an experimental design where one would like to study the effect of psychology of power on various negotiation outcomes. It appears from the literature that there are many ways to get the subject into condition of high power. But does when and how the subject is power-primed have differential impact.

For instance, consider a buyer-seller negotiation context. In one scenario, a subject playing the role of buyer can be primed with high power (e.g. through semantic prime or making him/her recollect a situation where he/she felt powerful, such as in interactions with subordinates or partner) before he/she gets into the negotiation context and takes the assigned role. Alternatively, the subject could be directly assigned to the negotiation context, with his/her buyer-role described as powerful (perhaps due to lesser dependency on seller or due to past successes in similar negotiations).

Some questions stemming from this -

Are the two manipulations of power-priming different? If so, why?
Are the activated self-concepts in subjects different in either cases?
In the latter case, does the power manipulation continue to remain active even after negotiation role-play?
What happens when a combination of both approaches is used? For instance, subject is semantically power-primed, but the buyer role he/she plays is described as low-power?

Perhaps, it is time to read more and brainstorm.

Conflict-power-status perspectives of group

2014-01-27T00:15:00.000-08:00

The recent research apprenticing under Prof. Ruchi Sinha, various brainstorming sessions and purposive readings have made me realize that my prime fascination is with the social influence processes, i.e. power and status, dynamics of social hierarchies, resource inequalities, intragroup struggles, and challenges confronting the agents and targets of downward, lateral and upward influence. Here are a few areas that I am particularly keen to explore in the coming times:

Salience of hierarchy

When could the positive psychological effects of social hierarchy (e.g. motivation and cognitive conservation) be outweighed by its darker repercussions (e.g. negative affect and stress)?
Do individuals hold some social hierarchies (in work or non-work domains) more salient than others – i.e. are individuals more attuned to their social power, status, influencing capacity and upward mobility in some hierarchies as compared to others
What personal characteristics, situational factors, stereotypes and cultural contexts predict salience of hierarchy?
Does hierarchy salience, besides socio-structural perceptions (perceived legitimacy, stability and permeability), determine whether power and status seekers tolerate or protest against the established system?

Status gain and loss

How does loss of status in one hierarchy affect actor’s ranks in other status hierarchies, and how differential is this effect is for high- and low-status actors?
Do some actors intentionally keep a low profile in select contexts to avoid pressures of performance expectations?
How do actors deal with self-perceptions of status varying across contexts (e.g. within and outside work domains) and over time within the same context (e.g. after a status loss in a workgroup? What determines such behavioural plasticity across status hierarchies?
How do status hierarchy dynamics unfold with a newcomer’s entry, especially into groups with “too many stars”?

Social construction of justice

Do higher and lower social power of an influencer differentially affect the fairness perceptions in the target?
How do formal influence (i.e. exerted by those with legitimate power) and less formal influence (i.e. lateral influences by peers and upward influences by subordinates) affect the various dimensions of justice?
Do hierarchical ranks of social actors predict their tendencies to adhere to or violate justice rules?
Do those higher up in an organization draw greater scrutiny of fairness and stringency of judgments of their actions by both internal and external stakeholders?

Justice, trust and social influence

Does interpersonal trust explain the relationship between justice and social influence?
What justice dimensions affect the perception of trustworthiness, and how does this perception in turn predict dyadic trust, deference and social influence?
Are some individuals (so called “Shane Battiers”) and dyads at the structural core of trust relationships in teams?
Are the determinants and processes of leader-based and coworker-based trusts distinct?

Emotions and social influence

How do specific emotions associated with power and status affect appraisal process and thereby predict phenomena such as justice, commitment and conflict that are central to organizations?
What mechanisms determine the effectiveness of emotional displays and affect infusion tactics in influencing targets?
Does perceived illegitimacy of rank order in a group effect different type and intensity of emotions in members depending on the salience of social hierarchy to self?

Group composition and conflict

How do actual and perceived diversity (based on characteristics such as traits, demographics, opinions and abilities) result in and are results of conflicts?
How do power and status struggles manifest as task, process or relationship conflicts in small groups?

Status in organizational literature: A JOM review

2014-01-26T10:07:00.000-08:00

From my limited knowledge, the recent paper by Piazza and Castellucci (2014) is one of the few articles that reviews the phenomenon of status as it appears in the organizational literature. The authors have reviewed the extant literature (from 1993 to 2012) on the status at the macro, meso and micro levels. The review also classifies the literature based on how the scholars see the role the status in organizations - signal, intangible asset or mobile resource.

Highlights:

Sociology scholars were publishing articles on status as early as in 1930s. Subsequent research has focused on phenomena such as: status organizing, status crystallisation and status inconsistency
According to Weber (1978), status, along with power and wealth, is one of the fundamental determinants of social inequality
Most management research draws on theories in sociology to explain status in organizations
The precise definition and empirical usage of status are still debated.
Status plays three critical roles: signal, intangible asset and mobile resource
Status is viewed as either: (a) relationship between groups; or (b)hierarchical relationship among individuals
Definitions on status referred to in the paper:
- social status is a subjective judgement of social rank based on a hierarchy of values"
- status is a signal of quality
- status is socially constructed, intersubjectively agreed-on and accepted ordering or ranking of individuals, groups organizations, or activities in a social system
Status is different from cognate concepts such as legitimacy and reputation
Status conceptually and empirically differs from reputation; status, unlike reputation, generates privileges not related to performance.
Status is different from legitimacy; the latter relates to degree of consistency with societal expectations
It is argued that status is not only a means, but an end in itself.
Status needs to be socially shared through consensus
At macro level, status compensates for uncertainty in markets and translates to cost advantage
High-status actors gain more from subsequent high-status affiliations than low-status actors
Status inconsistency refers to both negative and positive influence of social position on status
Status loss can occur purely as a result of organizational policies too.
Status could hamper performance because of complacency and distraction.
Organizations can provide context for societal-level status characteristics to be re-activated/de-activated.
Expertise assessment can be conceptualized as status-organizing process.
Status measures can be clustered into: (a) deference; (b) certification; and (c) ranking
At the macro level, status is measured as Bonacich's centrality - in which status of an actor is dependent on the status of others he/she is connected to.
Potential areas of future research:
- status and social networks
- status homophily
- status hierarchy emergence
- multilevel status effects

Quick comments:

The article, perhaps due to limitation of space, does not provide for:

conceptual/empirical distinctions of status from reputation, legitimacy, respect, prestige, esteem and honour at the micro level
relationship and difference between power and status
evaluation of applications of sociological theories (particularly status characteristics and status value theories) to organizational context
measures of status used at micro-level
specific questions for future research at the micro-level

Are informal hierarchies based on power and status in organizations different? Do they merge into one hierarchy at some stage of group evolution?
When do high-status actors benefit from low-status affiliations?
When does status become more a liability than an asset? What unique challenges confront high-status actors?
Does Matthew Effect apply to status?
How does status transfer from one domain to another (work or nonwork)?

Reference paper:

Piazza, A., & Castellucci, F. (2014). Status in Organization and Management Theory. Journal of Management, 40(1), 287-315.

Variance on power dimensions

2014-01-25T23:59:00.000-08:00

Below is a list of dimensions related to power on which I think the group members might vary -

Bases of power (or source of power);
Need for power (or power motive);
Sense of power (or self-perceptions of power);
Use of power (or actual power);
Willingness to use power (or influence): According to Anderson and Spataro (2005), perceived capacity to influence others and willingness to influence others are not highly correlated;
Perceived power consistency: This could be defined as the extent to which an individual has a similar sense of power within and outside the group contexts;
Plasticity of sense of power: As Anderson & Spataro (2005) suggested this could be defined as the flexibility of self-perceptions of power:
- from one context to another; or
- across time within the same context;
Perceptions of other members’ power: This could be defined as the perceived capacity of a focal member of the group to influence self or other group members. However, not sure whether this is orthogonal to sense of power (as greater sense of power implies lesser dependency on others, and hence lesser power of others);
Perceived power of group: This could be defined as the perceived capacity of the group as a whole to influence others (such as clients) or to influence the members within the group;
Perceptual accuracy (overestimation/underestimation) of:
- Sense of power;
- Other members’ power;

Who is a good inquirer?

2013-12-31T09:16:00.000-08:00

As I begin to prepare applying for the Doctoral programmes, I seem quite unsure of what aspects of my profile is pertinent to be underscored. While at this juncture what best impresses upon the admissions committee should be salient, some fundamental doubts seem to prod me in a different direction.

In particular, I wonder whether my "world view" gained in more than a decade of work experience will constrict my ability to undertake academic inquiry. For one, I am afraid whether I become inclined towards only those interpersonal encounters, phenomena and contexts that have intrigued me along; and two, whether I knowingly or unknowingly search for confirmatory scientific evidence to those that I have brooded over.

I am not anxious about the prospect that these inquiries get shunned by the sentinels of knowledge, or whether the knowledge eventually begotten is deemed "unscholarly". However, what is disconcerting is what do I, as a thus-far-practitioner, bring to the domains of theorizing and disseminating.

This brings me to a few questions:

Is "true" knowledge beyond the relativity of the knower, the known and the process of knowledge?
If so, what qualifies a good researcher? What cognitions,emotions and volitions characterize such an individual?
How critical is being passionate about the subject, but dispassionate about the findings of inquiry?

I acknowledge that I have a long way in attaining meaningful cessations on these fronts. For now, I better get some good sleep before tomorrow's TOEFL!

High/low status group members

2013-10-22T12:25:00.000-07:00

Some questions that occurred while reading papers by Earley (1999), Aquino and Douglas (2003), and Tyler and Blader (2002).

Earley (1999) suggests that high status members in certain cultures influence group efficacy beliefs. Are there other group mechanisms that high status members differentially influence? For example, do high status team members differentially influence the group norm formation or group performance?
Can group performance variation be explained by the status dimension used for hierarchy formation? For example, say one group basing a status hierarchy on educational background, and the other on work experience
Extending the suggestion by Aquino & Douglas (2003), could high/low status members differentially engage in OCBs and CWBs?
How does high/low status of an individual influence conflict and conflict resolution? For example, in lines of the study by Aquino & Douglas (2003), if engaging in frequent relationship conflicts is perceived to diminish status, then high status members may engage less in such conflicts.
How do those high on diffuse status characteristics react to low status conferral in a group? Similarly, how do individuals who have high status outside the group react to low status conferral in the group? In particular, does diffuse-specific status characteristic inconsistency within a group predict status conflicts?

Is ‘power struggle’ different from ‘status conflict’?

2013-10-22T12:12:00.000-07:00

The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines struggle as either a competition or a conflict. If we agree that struggle is a broader concept, then the distinction between struggle and conflict, essentially boils down to the nuanced distinction between competition and conflict.

Now to differentiate conflict from competition, we could refer to the paper by Schmidt and Kochan (1972). According to this paper, since goal incompatibility is a necessary precondition of both conflict and competition, it appears that

Struggle involves goal incompatibility
Competition does not involve goal interference
Conflict as opposed to competition is characterized by not just perceived goal incompatibility, but also shared resources, interdependent activities and perceived opportunity for interference

Thus struggle, depending on whether it takes the form of conflict or competition, may or may not involve goal interference.

A recently co-authored paper with Dr Ruchi Sinha theoretically explores this distinction further. The paper has been selected for oral presentation at the 3rd Indian Academy of Management Conference.

Paper summary:
Power and status, two distinct yet related bases of social hierarchy, are intensely sought resources in groups. In this article, we propose a theoretical framework that examines how power and status motives of individuals lead to intragroup struggles. We differentiate between power/status contest and power/status conflicts, and present propositions on how they are related to one another. Drawing on tenets from sociology and psychology, we integrate these phenomena, and propose a process by which they shape group dynamics. We examine how perceptions of socio-structural variables (legitimacy, stability and permeability of hierarchy) moderate the effect of power struggle on status struggle, and power/status contest on conflict. Lastly, we highlight the implications for intragroup conflict research.

What happens to status when new member joins a group?

2013-10-22T11:44:00.000-07:00

(Few questions parked for future delving)

Consider a new member joining an existing group -
In a such a scenario,how is the new member’s status and hence his/her position within existing hierarchy consensually arrived at? Do high-status group members determine the new member’s status, which is unquestioned by low-status group members? Could the new member’s status alter the very basis (or bases) of existing status hierarchy? If so, when is it likely to occur?

It seems that the new member’s status rank could be one of the following –

Rank 1, 2, 3 or 4 (where he/she joins others);
A rank higher (i.e. 5);
A rank lower (i.e. 0); or
A rank that is intermediate (say 2.5)
How do group processes change in each of the above cases? Is conflict more likely in one scenario over others?

Benefits/detriments of conflict

2013-05-30T23:39:00.000-07:00

Reference paper:

Jehn, K. A. (1995). A multimethod examination of the benefits and detriments of intragroup conflict. Administrative science quarterly, 256-282.

Abstract:

(A quick summary from my understanding)

Examines whether intragroup conflict can be beneficial at both individual and group levels
Shows that whether intragroup conflict is beneficial depends on task type, task interdependence and group norms
Shows that
- Relationship and task conflicts were negatively associated with individuals' satisfaction, liking of other group members, and intent to remain in the group
- In groups performing very routine tasks, disagreements about the task were detrimental to group functioning. In groups performing nonroutine tasks, disagreements about the tasks did not have a detrimental effect, and in some cases, such disagreements were actually beneficial.
- Impact of task interdependence and group conflict norms on the relationship between conflict and various group outcomes were quite complex.
- Norms encouraging open discussion of conflict were not always advantageous

Quick Notes/queries:

What are the different emotional reactions (ex: threat and anxiety) to conflict (task and relationship)? If and how do they mediate the effect of conflict on individual and group outcomes?
What differentiates interpersonal problems, from interpersonal differences and interpersonal incompatibilities?
Are not disagreement and conflict different constructs? If so, what defines each and how are they related?
Relationship conflict was measured here by items such as “How much friction is there among members in your work unit?” Would it be different, and more or less useful to measure the friction of a focal team member with every other member in the group, and then aggregate it to the group level?
Is conflict with leader accounted for when measuring intragroup conflict?
Similar to individual satisfaction, is there a group satisfaction construct? Is there a utility of measuring it in the conflict context?
Who is more likely to perceive individual interactions as disagreement or conflict?
When or who is likely to ignore conflict vis-a-vis attempt to resolve conflict or attenuate its effects?
How do different individuals cope with relationship conflict in an organizational setting?
What determines tolerance for conflict in an individual?
How do individuals form and confirm their perceptions of relationship conflict (for example, from other than direct interaction episodes)?
How does TMX between two individuals who perceive a similar relationship conflict with a particular employee shape up (similar to enemy of enemy is a friend philosophy in political science)?
When are relationship conflicts good for groups? For example, by providing opportunities to understand the core values of the individuals and the degree to which they differ from the desired?
Do some dyadic relationship conflict perceptions (for example, with an individual with greater workgroup centrality) impact satisfaction/performance at individual and group levels more than the general relationship conflict perceptions?
What group norms other than those promoting openness can be investigated in the conflict context?
What are implicit theories one holds about conflicts? How are they different across cultures? (For example, from a sociology perspective, divorce as a conflict outcome is seen more as a taboo in Asian culture)
Does individual performance mediate the effect of conflict on group performance?
How does conflict relate to contextual performance and CWB?
When do task and relationship conflicts lead to each other?
What typology of tasks (other than routine and nonroutine) could be observed from a conflict perspective? For example, McGrath's (1984) Circumplex model of tasks (planning, creativity, decision-making, etc.)
How do latent and manifest conflicts differ?

Is it better to keep a low-profile?

2013-05-28T01:16:00.000-07:00

Some thoughts that came across while trying to understand the status characteristics and expectation-states theories -

In a goal-oriented group setting, especially in the formative stages of the group, we seem to very quickly form notions of competency of other members, even before any interaction occurs. This notion seems to be based on status characteristics that we believe is relevant to the group's goal achievement. It is based on these competency notions, that we form individual performance expectations for the members.

For example, consider a group engaged in high-technology R&D. In such a group, based on an individual's distinct characteristics, such as educational attainment and past scientific achievements, his/her competency is ranked. This competency rank is later translated to performance expected from him/her. This process invariably results in high-performance expectations from those who are perceived to be more competent, and low performance expectations from those perceived to be less competent.

As the group members begin to interact, individual actual performance is likely to be compared to his/her expected performance, and evaluative judgements are made. It is in this context that a few questions arise -

When actual performance is lower or higher than expected, how do the competency notions change?
How do these re-calculated competency notions impact the individual member's future performance expectations and thereby future actual performances?
Are performance expectations formed proportionately for every member according to their competency ranks? Or is it disproportionate for those in the higher and lower ranks?
How do individuals arrive at performance expectations for self? Do they reconfigure their expectations based on competency notions of others and where they fall in that rank hierarchy?
What judgements are likely when high-competency ranked individuals perform lower than expected? Similarly, what judgements are likely when low-competency individuals perform better than expected?
What attributions - external or internal - are likely to be made for performance deviance by high-ranked and low-ranked members?
Who are more likely - high or low competent members - to be penalized in such a process?

Hope to get more insights into these in the coming days.

Work Life Interference

2013-04-30T01:41:00.000-07:00

Reference paper:

Keeney, J., Boyd, E. M., Sinha, R., Westring, A. J., & Ryan, A. M. (2013). From “Work-family” to “Work-life”: Broadening Our Conceptualization and Measurement. Journal of Vocational Behavior.

Abstract:

(A 50-word quick summary from my understanding)

The paper moves beyond 'work-family conflict' by conceptualizing interference of 'work with life'. The work- interference-with-life (WIF), defined as difficulty in participating in non-work domains by virtue of participating in the work domain, was measured using eight life domains and based on two forms of interference: time-based and strain-based.

Quick Notes/queries:

This paper focuses on one direction of interference (work to life) as that has been found to be stronger. While family boundary is more permeable than work boundary, what does research indicate about the permeability of other life domains (such as health) in relation to work domain?
The authors state that the importance of a domain is factored into individual's judgement of work interference with that domain, and hence it is redundant to measure the weights attached to life domains. While greater the weight one attributes to a particular life domain, the greater the likelihood of the work interference perceived on that domain, is there not any utility in measuring the weights separately? For example, consider an employee for whom the health domain is less important. Though he/she might indicate a lesser perceived work interference on health, the objective measures might indicate otherwise.
Has there been any studies on the relationship between personality and WIF (any dimension of life other than family)? Similarly, any research on organizational identification and WIF?
Similar to work-family facilitation and work-family enrichment constructs, can other concepts be defined in terms of work-life?
How do work-family conflict, work-family facilitation and work-family enrichment concepts relate to each other? Are they orthogonal constructs?
How about breaking work domain similar to life domains? For example, an employee who engages in high levels of OCB may have built a social network that positively influences certain life domains.
How does behavioral-based interference influence WIL? For example, a work context that requires an individual to use high levels of impression management may lead him/her to adapt such behaviors in life context, which may in turn negatively affect his/her social relationships outside work domain.
Has there been any research on WIL in informal economy?

For further reading

Allen Tammy D (2012),The Work and Family Interface.Work-family.The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Psychology, Volume 2.

Affective underpinnings of voice effectiveness

2013-03-31T23:27:00.000-07:00

Based on the a paper on dual tuning effects of positive and negative emotion on creativity by Jennifer M. George and Jing Zhou, here are some initial thoughts on how to me affect seems to influence employee voice effectiveness.

What influences voice effectiveness?

2013-03-25T23:13:00.000-07:00

Based on inputs by my research guide and mentor, I began looking at the question of when is employee voice effective. Here are some of my initial thoughts -

Pertinent realities

2012-11-24T21:51:00.001-08:00

A couple of days back I began my morning browsing the headline story on the closely guarded hanging of one of the accused terrorists. A skeptic that I am, I wondered whether the accused was really hanged or was he still kept secretly alive for some reason that a common man such as I may not fathom. As the question soon faded, a more basic one popped up - "Do I really care about the veracity of the matter?". In so questioning I did not realize that I had inadvertently embarked on a journey toward understanding truth.

Truth, I reckon, is one of the most widely analyzed subjects among philosophers for centuries. Yet, a quick glance of the sheer number of theories put forth both in traditional and contemporary philosophical literature shows that the concept and the nature of truth continues to puzzle even the best minds. Or rather it appears that each school of thought has arrived at its own version of "truth" that is indubitable to it, but controversial to all others.

Ideally, given this context, I should have begun my pursuit with a fundamental question "What is truth?". However, owing to my admittedly unmethodical approach, I have started with the following that seems to be more pertinent at this moment - "What realities to me are critical to be ascertained?". I realize that unfortunately no one else but I can take a stab at this, and so I did.

Here's a brief of the quest trip that I took -

On a self-reflection I find that I live in a world unto myself, quite unlike that of anyone else. This unique space, like the physical earth, is inhabited by many beliefs. By belief I mean anything that is accepted as real or true. For example, that 'I exist', 'I can think', '2+2=4', 'my family loves me', etc. are all what I accepted as true at some stage in my life. These beliefs and the world they inhabit seem very peculiar for following reasons -

First, no belief exists or takes birth in here by chance. At any point of time, all the beliefs that exist in this world are those that have been explicitly consented to be so;

Second, while a few of these beliefs continue to exist unto eternity in their initial form, most change with time. These latter beliefs are either caused to alter into something "better" or are deliberately deprived of existence. However, I must confess that the "natural death" of any belief at this moment seems uncertain to me;

Third, the act of permitting a belief to occur, change or cease is based on logic (or system of reasoning);

Fourth, the logic that "governs" the beliefs in this world are continually evolving. This evolution is caused by the very beliefs that the logic at some point permitted to occur. As an example, the logic of addition evolved perhaps after I accepted the first sum that was told to me (such as 2+2=4).

And lastly, at any instance the system of reasoning and the beliefs in this world seem to be in disequilibrium. So, this world is continually seeking for new beliefs that aid in harmonizing.

It appears that it is this world of mine that determines what truth to me is critical to be ascertained. As mentioned above, this world is constantly seeking a perfect harmony. So any new "information" that I come across and its veracity become relevant and important only if it helps bring homeostasis in this world. It is the system of reasoning, which I alluded to earlier, that determines this relevance and importance, and accordingly decides whether the belief set needs to be altered in some way (by adding a new belief to the set,and/or resulting in existing belief(s) to change or to cease).

So, in conclusion, the truth of the news headline that the terrorist was hanged does not matter to me at this moment in time. Whether this "fact" is true or false does not help me in altering the imbalance of my current world.

Workflow centrality and Voice

2012-11-23T05:12:00.000-08:00

Reference paper:

Venkataramani, V., & Tangirala, S. (2010). When and why do central employees speak up? An examination of mediating and moderating variables. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(3), 582–591. doi:10.1037/a0018315

Abstract:

(A 50-word quick summary from my understanding)

Employees' workflow centrality is positively related to frequency of voice behaviors, with personal influence mediating this relationship. Workflow centrality is more strongly related to personal influence when employees had higher task performance, and personal influence was more strongly related to voice behaviors when employees had higher levels of workgroup identification.

Quick Notes/queries:

Related to paper

What centrality, other than workflow centrality (extent to which employees are critical to task-related interaction networks), could be conceptualized in the working context? For example, Daniel Brass (1984) mentions about 3 social networks - a) Workflow network; b) Communication network; and c) Friend network;
Does contextual performance moderate centrality (workflow centrality or other centralities) and personal influence relationship? For example, some employees though may not be central to the task workflow, may be perceived as influential owing to the degree of their contextual performance (such as helping). Such employees owing to this influence may exhibit greater frequency of voice behavior (such as voice directed at workers).
Why were other measures of workflow centrality not used? For example, Daniel Brass (1984) mentions about 3 measures noted by Freeman (1979) - a) degree or number of contacts (number of other points to which a given point is directly connected - measures activity); b) betweenness (extent to which a point falls between pairs of other points - measures control of information); and c) closeness or proximity(sum of length of shortest paths from one point to all other points - measures independent access to others).
Would some employees, with high work-flow centrality and personal influence, be motivated to maintain these 'positions' at any cost? If so, would not such employees resort to as much unconstructive criticisms, allegations and/or gossips as voice behaviors? If so, what personality or psychological antecedents identify such employees who misuse their centrality and influence?
The domain of personal influence was specified as the "everyday work activities of the branch". Why was this not restricted to "everyday work activities of the workgroup"?
How do the independent variable (work-flow centrality), mediating variable (personal influence), and moderating variables (workgroup identification and task performance) relate to voice directed at coworkers, supervisor and organization?
Personal influence as a construct here is defined as the ability to impact group decisions and convert other unit members to their points of view. However by asking "How influential do you think this person is in your branch?", would not the personal interpretation of "influential" differ from the above?
How does perceived expertise relate to 'Workflow centrality-> Personal influence -> Voice' relationship?

For further reading

Social network approach;
Multilevel data modeling (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002);
Power distance;
Collectivism;

Reactions to unfair events

2012-11-22T21:55:00.000-08:00

Reference paper:

Tangirala, S., & Alge, B. J. (2006). Reactions to unfair events in computer-mediated groups: A test of uncertainty management theory. Organizational behavior and human decision processes, 100(1), 1–20.

Abstract:

(A 50-word quick summary from my understanding)

Due to information uncertainty, fairness from authorities is more salient to members of computer-mediated groups, and these groups tend to react more negatively to unfair events than do face-to-face groups. The difference in reactions between these groups increases over time.

Quick Notes/queries:

Related to paper

How does fairness perceptions relate to most practical scenarios of communication context which are a mix of computer-mediated and face-to-face?
Would a computer-mediated multimedia communication (ex: Skype video chat) where visual anonymity would not be present influence the outcomes differently as compared to pure text-based communication?
In the experimental design, what would have been the impact of any discussions that happened outside the scheduled sessions?
Would the outcomes have been different if the experimental design was restricted to either distributive or procedural unfairness?
Would the outcomes have been different if the experiment was designed closer to reality where the individuals in the group were physically geographically dispersed, and could only interact through computer-mediated communication?Also, how different would it be if the participants were not aware that this was a research study?
Would the participants' cognizance that they were participating in a research study, although on a "real-life" task, impact the outcomes?For ex - an individual realizing that the fairness events were not "real" and were "experimental", could possibly underplay his/her reaction towards these events. Also, the individual might guess the hypothesis and attempt to play either ways. Would the likelihood of this be higher in a face-to-face group where the interactions are more rich?
Over longer periods of time (beyond T2 in this study) would the difference in fairness perceptions between F2F and computer-mediated communication reduce?

Others

How does computer-mediated communication influence voice and silence behavior?
How does availability of social information ('perceptions of information richness' and 'familiarity with group members') impact voice behaviors?
Are there any studies on "socially meaningful experiences" in common spaces, and their consequences on various individual, group and organizational level outcomes?
Is it ethically required for the researchers to let the participants know that they are part of a research study?

For further readings

Procedural justice rules (Leventhall, 1980);
Controlled lab studies vs correlation studies (Van den Bos, 2001);
Uncertainty management theory (Lind & Van den Bos, 2002);
Fairness heuristic theory (Jones & Skarlicki, 2005);
Perceptions of information richness (Carlson and Zmud, 1999);
Lubricants of virtuality (Handy, 1995);
Evaluation extremity;

Two + two

2012-11-21T09:02:00.000-08:00

Of late, there are a few questions that are taking up too much of my mind share. The commonality of these questions is that they appear elementary and seem to frequent more often than due. Every time they occur they cajole me into unfolding them, and in the process they beget more questions and leave me increasingly embittered by my inadequacies to find any reasonable answers.

One such question haunting me is "How do I know for sure that 2+2=4?".

Let me tell you frankly that this question did not chance on me from nowhere. Perhaps, a few philosophical and spiritual books that I have begun to simultaneously leaf through are to blame. This curiosity, I must admit, has not yet been attended to with a sufficient degree of perusal or contemplation.

What mystifies me is not this question by and of itself, but that I can hardly recollect any instance in my past when a question of such fundamental nature cropped up. It is not that today I am any more skeptical than before in the fact that 2+2=4. But what confronts me now is when did I first acquire and how did I come to accept the veracity of this statement?

Why did I not ever attempt to question this fact, and more so, my belief in this fact? Why do I assume an absolute truth in this proposition, but have an undulating skepticism in other propositions, for example, in the existence of anything supranatural? (If my memory has not failed, my orthodox upbringing has not at any time let any inkling of suspicion on the latter "fact" come close to me.)

Have I reasoned that 2+2 ought to be 4? Or have I observed empirically it to be so? Or is it a testament that I have never learnt to question?

I hope to know. But, what is that whereby I can arrive at truthfulness of such statements?

Defining entrepreneurship

2012-11-17T20:24:00.000-08:00

The term 'entrepreneurship' first appeared in the French Dictionary 'Dictionnaire Universal de Commerce' in 1723. Richard Cantillon is considered to be the first economist to define who an entrepreneur is. In his seminal book 'Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en Général', considered the first complete treatise on economics, he defines entrepreneur as non-fixed income earner who pays known costs of production but earns uncertain incomes, due to the speculative nature of pandering to an unknown demand for his/her production (Wikipedia). Since then, perhaps no other term has been redefined, reinterpreted and conveniently adapted with such plasticity across theory and practice.

To define something is to state or describe exactly its nature, scope or meaning (Oxford Dictionary). "A good definition", as an editorial note in the Academy of Management Review (AMR) puts it - "should accomplish several tasks. First, the definition should effectively capture the essential properties and characteristics of the concept or phenomenon under consideration.Second, a good definition should avoid tautology or circularity...Third, a good definition should be parsimonious" (AMR, 2010). It appears to me that a definition of such nature for the term 'entrepreneurship' is yet to be arrived at.

The scholarly study of entrepreneurship as a phenomenon, though dates back to late 17th century, gained a much greater academic currency in 1930s owing to the works of the economist Joseph Schumpeter. Since then many scholars have attempted theory building of this phenomenon through a variety of disciplinary lenses - economics, sociology, psychology and management.

It is interesting to note that the first ever course in entrepreneurship - Management of Small Enterprise(MSE)- was offered way back in 1947 by Professor Myles Mayes at the Harvard Business School. The first conference on small businesses was held at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland in 1948. The first journal in entrepreneurship- Explorations in Entrepreneurial History - was started in 1949. The first academic conference on entrepreneurship research took place at Purdue University in 1970. But it was the 1980s and 90s that marked a turning point in the field of entrepreneurship. Owing to many global trends and institutional reforms, the role of small businesses became more pronounced. This period saw emergence of many new academic journals, such as the American Journal of Small Business (renamed Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice), Journal of Business Venturing,Small Business Economics,Small Business Strategy, Family Business Review, and Entrepreneurship and Regional Development. The first comprehensive overview of entrepreneurship as a field was published in 1990 by Casson (Carlsson et al, 2012).

Post 2000s, there has been an exponential growth in interest in the field of entrepreneurship. The increasing academic interest is evidenced by the below data on the number of publications with 'entrepreneurship' or 'entrepreneur' in the publication title.

Figure 1: Academic interest in entrepreneurship (Google Scholar Search, dt:Nov 16, 2012)

It must be noted that the entrepreneurship has gained such momentum in the scholarly domain despite a lack of consensus on what it precisely means. One approach to conceptualization of 'what entrepreneurship entails' has been to first define 'who an entrepreneur is'. This is based on the view that the entrepreneur causes entrepreneurship. Within this school of thought, while some have adopted the trait approach to define an entrepreneur, others have taken a behavioral perspective. The trait based approach distinguishes an entrepreneur from the rest (including small business owners) through such psychological profiles as locus of control, risk-taking, achievement orientation and open to innovation. The behavioral perspective on the other hand views creation of an organization as a contextual event and entrepreneur as part of a complex process of new venture creation. As Gartner writes in his widely cited article 'Who is an Entrepreneur? Is the Wrong Question', a baseball player is not something one is, it is something one does (Gartner, 1988).

To me both these approaches to understanding entrepreneurship by knowing who an entrepreneur is or what he/she does seem as difficult as understanding what philosophy is from who the philosopher is or what he/she does. In other words, how could we possibly explain the intricacies of a Chess game by merely knowing more about a Chess player?

It appears that the many definitions of entrepreneurship is still being vigorously debated on when one looks at the number of articles listed by Google Scholar for the phrase 'defining entrepreneurship'.

Figure 2: Academic interest in defining entrepreneurship (Google Scholar Search, dt:Nov 16, 2012)

However, in the recent past, most definitions seem to fall into either of the two broad school of thoughts - one defines entrepreneurship as the identification, evaluation and exploitation of opportunities, and the other defines entrepreneurship as the study of firm formation. Reflecting on his co-authored article that recently won The 2010 AMR Decade Award, Professor Scott Shane writes - "..if the field is to advance, we need to do a better job of deciding on our definition of entrepreneurship and aligning conceptual and operational definitions in empirical work" (Shane, 2012).

It must be emphasized that this scholarly debate on the definition is not merely a semantic exercise critical and urgent to advance the theory construction in entrepreneurial studies. With unprecedented buzz around entrepreneurship across the globe as an engine of growth, many practitioners and policy makers are attempting to measure entrepreneurial activities and are undertaking comparisons across regional contexts (Marcotte, 2012). This is evidenced by many surveys, indexes and datasets such as that by Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), EIM COMPENDIA, World Bank Group Entrepreneurship Survey, Legatum Institute Survey of Entrepreneurs, GEINDEX and OECD-Eurostat Entrepreneurship Indicator Programme that have been created in the recent years.

With such indexes increasingly feeding into regional and national policy decision making, the importance of what the indexes precisely measure becomes even more pronounced. The nuances of entrepreneurship, and how the construct could be measured and operationalized are more critical now than ever before. However, as an editorial note in the AMR puts it a good construct should not only offer clear boundaries and scope, but also be sufficiently 'linguistically ambiguous' to spark new connotative relationships (AMR, 2010).

Until we arrive at a pragmatic clarity of what entrepreneurship is, let us hope that the billions of dollars being spent across the countries in nurturing entrepreneurship has perhaps not been always chasing rainbows.

References

CLARITY, C. (2010). Editor’s comments: Construct clarity in theories of management and organization. Academy of Management Review, 35(3), 346–357.

Gartner, W. B. (1988). “Who is an Entrepreneur?” is the Wrong Question. SSRN eLibrary. Retrieved from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1505236

Marcotte, C. (2012). Measuring entrepreneurship at the country level: A review and research agenda. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 1–21. doi:10.1080/08985626.2012.710264

Reflections on the 2010 AMR Decade Award: Delivering on the Promise of Entrepreneurship As a Field of Research. (n.d.). Retrieved November 15, 2012, from http://amr.aom.org/content/37/1/10.full.pdf+html

Shane, S., & Venkataraman, S. (2000). The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research. Academy of management review, 217–226.

The Evolving Domain of Entrepreneurship Research. (n.d.). Text.Preprint. Retrieved November 17, 2012, from http://swopec.hhs.se/cesisp/abs/cesisp0284.htm

The History of Entrepreneurship at HBS - New Business - Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship. (n.d.). Retrieved November 17, 2012, from http://www.hbs.edu/entrepreneurship/newbusiness/history.html

Deciding to voice

2012-11-14T01:42:00.000-08:00

Voice behavior, which is defined as discretionary communication of ideas, suggestions, concerns, or opinions about work-related issues with the intent to improve organizational or unit functioning (Morrison, 2011), is considered potentially risky (Liu et al, 2010). It is due to the high degree of riskiness involved in voice behavior that employees usually engage in calculated and deliberate decision-making process before speaking up, which helps them evaluate cost-benefits of the voice behavior (Ashford et al., 1998; Detert & Burris, 2007; Morrison & Milliken, 2000).

The literature in this field emphasizes prosocial as the driving motive for voice, and two key outcome related considerations - perceived efficacy of voice (judgement about whether speaking up is likely to be effective) and perceived safety of voice (judgement about the potential negative outcomes) - as moderating the relationship between the driving motive and behavior (Morrison, 2011).

It is this inherent aspect of decision-making involved in a voice behavior that brings up several questions in my mind, the curiosity primarily stemming from the process involved in and the principles governing such consequential decision-making. In short, how does the individual carry out this task of deciding to speak?

"Human behavior's basic mechanisms may be relatively simple, and I believe they are, but that simplicity operates in interaction with extremely complex boundary conditions imposed by the environment and by the very facts of human long-term memory and of the capacity of human beings, individually and collectively, to learn."

- Herbert Simon, Nobel Prize Lecture, 1978

One central aspect of a decision-making is a choice set - alternative courses of action that the decision maker canvasses before choosing on the one. While at the outset it might seem that silence (Milliken et al., 2003) and exit (Hirschman, 1970) are the only alternatives to voice, other wide range of alternatives become clear when one puts the individual's motives for voicing and underlying objectives in a closer perspective.

For example, consider a scenario where an employee strongly believes that she has an idea or a suggestion that if effectively acted upon could make a significant positive difference to the collective. While speaking up, i.e voice behavior where the target of voice is supervisor, is one choice, the other alternative course of actions that she possibly considers include speaking up to others higher up in the hierarchy, speaking out, i.e voice behavior directed to peers (Liu et al, 2010), and postponing the decision to a definite point in the future when the perceived context favorability is better.

Further, based on the perception of dysfunctional social-psychological consequences of speaking up, she could also resort to voicing through alternative channels, such as computer-mediated communication (Kiesler et al., 1984), or influencing other members, who are perceived to be more effective, to voice on her behalf. Of course, like in other decision making process, deciding to voice could pressure the individual, eventually resulting in her ending up with a defensive avoidance, i.e. either procrastinating or inventing rationalizations to ignore the worrisome doubts that make for decisional conflicts(Irving Janis & Leon Mann, 1977).

Over and above the alternative courses of action outlined here, adopting other behaviors in the Organizational Citizenship Behavioral (Organ, 1988) to achieve the underlying objectives is a possibility too. For example, consider an employee who perceives that the work distribution in the collective is sub-optimal and that it could be reconfigured to significantly enhance the collective performance. While one option is to voice the concern to the supervisor, the other is taking charge (Morrison & Phelps, 1999) by piloting a strength-based employee development approach (Clifton & Harter, 2003) and demonstrating its utility. It is possible that factors influencing the decision for taking charge compared to voice differ (Chiaburu et al., 2008). Alternatively the employee could volunteer to help coworkers in their job and work-related problems hoping that the collective outcomes are thereby enhanced above the sub-optimal levels.

From my reflection on practice, voice does not seem to be a single-valued decision - that is,those intended to achieve only a single objective. Morrison (2011) points out that scholars have moved from viewing the primary motive for voice as the removal of personal dissatisfaction to viewing it as a form of prosocial behavior (i.e less self-focused and more other-focused). This dual focus form of the voice behavior leads to the possibility that the decision to voice, like other decisions in the organizational context, often involves, as scholars point out, multiplicity of conflicting objectives (Irving Janis & Leon Mann, 1977). The objectives of a voice behavior could possibly range from "positive outcomes for the collective", "individual performance" and "career growth potential", to other intangible gains such as "good will" and "acceptability within the organization".

If, as outlined in the above example, the alternative strategies, distinct behaviors including Organizational Citizenship Behaviors(OCB) and multiplicity of objectives are indeed in the repertoire of the employee deciding to voice, then it brings to the fore many questions in my mind that need to be answered to develop a better understanding of voice and other OCB behaviors. Given the need for processing information on a range of alternative courses of action and objectives, and positive and negative consequences, it seems important to understand the strategy adopted by employees when deciding to voice.

At this point, some questions confronting me include: What are the alternatives of voice? Under what conditions are employees most likely to adopt voice over other behaviors? What conditions lead one to adopt affiliative as against challenging, and promotive as against protective behaviors? When and why do individuals fail to look into alternatives of voice? How do the individuals deal with unanticipated setbacks resulting from one alternative? Does adopting a behavior at one stage preclude the use of another behavior at a later stage? For example, when taking charge turns ineffective in achieving the desired objectives, does the employee still resort to voice? What strategies, such as vigilant, satisficing and quasi-satisficing (Irving Janis & Leon Mann, 1977), do individuals adopt to arrive at a decision? What influence do individual differences, cognitive biases and past experience have on such decision-making? Lastly, what managerial interventions could facilitate better approaches to decision-making involving OCB behaviors?

In the time to come, I wish to get a better understanding of pertinent theoretical frameworks, both from normative (what should be) and descriptive (what actually is) perspectives, in the context of above questions. In my limited readings in last couple of weeks, I have come across two relevant scholastic studies: one, on how the perceived consequences of voice contribute to silence (Milliken et al., 2003) and two, a conceptual model that explicates cognitive processes as antecedents to employee voice behavior (Chiaburu et al., 2008).

The quest for further understanding of the search, deliberation and selection procedures typically used by employees in deciding to voice has only begun.

References

Ashford, S. J., Rothbard, N. P., Piderit, S. K., & Dutton, J. E. (1998). Out on a limb: The role of context and impression management in selling gender-equity issues. Administrative Science Quarterly, 23–57.

Chiaburu, D. S., Marinova, S. V., & Van Dyne, L. (2008). Should I do it or not? An initial model of cognitive processes predicting voice behaviors. Citizenship in the 21st century, 127–153.

Detert, J. R., & Burris, E. R. (2007). Leadership behavior and employee voice: is the door really open? The Academy of Management Journal ARCHIVE, 50(4), 869–884.

Hirschman, A.O. (1970). Exit, voice, and loyalty: Responses to decline in firms, organizations,
and states. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Kiesler, S., Siegel, J., & McGuire, T. W. (1984). Social psychological aspects of computer-mediated communication. American psychologist, 39(10), 1123.

Janis, I. L., & Mann, L. (1977). Decision making: a psychological analysis of conflict, choice, and commitment. Free Press.

Liu, W., Zhu, R., & Yang, Y. (2010). I warn you because I like you: Voice behavior, employee identifications, and transformational leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 21(1), 189–202. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2009.10.014

Milliken, F. J., Morrison, E. W., & Hewlin, P. F. (2003). An Exploratory Study of Employee Silence: Issues that Employees Don’t Communicate Upward and Why*. Journal of Management Studies, 40(6), 1453–1476.

Morrison, E. W. (2011). Employee Voice Behavior: Integration and Directions for Future Research. The Academy of Management Annals, 5(1), 373–412. doi:10.1080/19416520.2011.574506

Morrison, E. W., & Milliken, F. J. (2000). Organizational silence: A barrier to change and development in a pluralistic world. Academy of Management Review, 706–725.

Morrison, E. W., & Phelps, C. C. (1999). Taking charge at work: Extrarole efforts to initiate workplace change. Academy of management Journal, 403–419.

Organ, D. W. (1988). Organizational citizenship behavior: the good soldier syndrome. Lexington Books.

SIMON, H. A. (1992). Rational Decision-Making in Business Organizations. Economic sciences, 1969-1980: the Sveriges Riksbank (Bank of Sweden) prize in economic sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel, 1, 343.

To envisage

2012-11-12T21:24:00.000-08:00

Great leaders across centuries and across institutions - political, social and economic - have astutely used the "power of imagery" in stirring a group of people. The power of envisaging an inspiring future and energizing the constituents towards realizing it seems indisputable. In an organizational context too, the implications of a "shared vision" has received considerable attention both on theoretical and practical fronts.

Some of the seminal management literature such as The Fifth Discipline, Built to Last and Good to Great emphasize the importance and define an approach to having a shared vision in the organization context. Pioneers in the leadership studies, such as Warren Bennis, have also examined this motif and related concepts such as "visionary leadership". In fact the inter-relatedness of two - organizational vision and visionary leadership - has also been discussed by several authors such as Henry Mintzberg. As Bennis says "A great organization has an inspiring purpose and appealing values, and effective leaders use this core ideology as an instrument to move people and organizations forward."

Is visioning exercise a process of discovery? How do organizational values interplay with organizational vision? How does alignment with vision correlate with organizational effectiveness?

The construct of a future imagery is known by various names - vision, mission and purpose. As academician Gary McLean points out there is no commonly accepted distinction between these. Based on my own experience of working with various organization settings, I tend to agree with the lack of clarity on this front. Most practitioners that I have come across believe that quibbling over these semantics is only a petty exercise. In fact, one of the leading OD consultant that I worked with strongly believed that the distinction is irrelevant as long as the organization knows the "Why" (why they exist), the "What" (what they intend to do) and the "How" (how they plan to do).

One intriguing aspect for me is whether envisaging a future scenario is fundamentally a creative or discovery process. Second, do people come before a shared vision or vice versa? Jim Collins believes great organizations get right people on the bus, wrong people off the bus and then decide where to take the bus. Third, how do "vision" and "values" interplay? Are organizational values fundamentally to be discovered? If so, what role does it play in the visioning process? According to Collins and Porras the core values and core purpose are the foundations of an effective vision.

The reason for my curiosity on these above aspects also stems from a practical standpoints. I have often seen that during a organizational visioning exercise, there is either some degree of agreement, a total apathy or a vehement disagreement by existing organization members. Is building a consensus towards a shared vision essential for an organization? If so, to what levels in the hierarchy? What correlation, if any, exist between degree of alignment with shared vision and organizational effectiveness?

For now, the paper Effective organizational vision: implications for human resource development by Foster and Akdere is where I have begun to get a better understanding of academic literature on this subject.

Social entrepreneurship: A distinctive domain?

2012-11-04T11:50:00.000-08:00

Though 'social entrepreneurship' as a phenomenon that integrates economic and social value creation has had a long presence, it does not seem to have attracted wide scholarly attention. A review of the social science literature found despite spanning a period of nearly 20 years, just 152 journal articles on social entrepreneurship and 10 key areas of future research (Short, Moss and Lumpkin, 2009). Some researchers remain unconvinced about the legitimacy of social entrepreneurship as an independent domain of inquiry (Dacin et al, 2011) and have posited that the proliferation of academic interest in this space is a result of skillfully crafted rhetoric (Pascal Dey, 2006). Further the lack of a consistency and clarity in the boundaries of 'social entrepreneurship' both in theory and practice only aggravates the skepticism.

Does social entrepreneurship represent a distinctive context for research in the organizational behavior domain?

While the prospects of this domain of inquiry remains terra incognita, I must admit that the possibility of a number of research areas and research questions makes it very appealing. Let me clarify that the definition of social entrepreneurship that I subscribe to is that it is a process of combining resources in new ways intended primarily to explore and exploit opportunities for creating social value (Mair and Marti, 2006). It is in the organizational behavioral (OB) context of this process that several questions arise in my mind.

First and foremost, I am curious to understand whether social entrepreneurship represents a distinctive context for research in OB. Reflecting on my experience in working with social enterprises there seems to be several distinguishing features as compared to other organizations. For one, as compared to those in other organizational types, the leaders of NGOs and social enterprises seem to have distinctive ideologies and innate attributes. Two, owing to distinctive nature of problem scope and opportunities pursued, the work group behavior seems to reflect a different set of norms. Third, the organization dynamics seems to be shaped by more divergent interests from stakeholders and dual forces of social and financial impact. Lastly, the process of influencing the followers or rather the psychological contracts that exist in such organizations seem different at the outset.

In the social entrepreneurship context, I would also like to understand the concept of organizational effectiveness, indicators reflecting this, and the conceptual linkage between the broad indicators of organizational performance and social impact.

Lastly, I am keen to understand where the organization boundaries could be drawn in the continuum of social value creation.

Leadership effectiveness

2012-11-02T10:04:00.000-07:00

A cursory glance at the academic literature shows that the phenomenon of leadership has intrigued scholars across domains, particularly those from social psychological and organization behavioral disciplines. In fact, a Google Scholar search for the word "leadership" in the title of the article yields more than 150,000 results. I have had a fascination for this phenomenon for a long time now, in particular on the aspects of the leadership effectiveness - what traits make a leader effective? And how do effective leaders bring about the desired attitudinal and behavioral changes in the followers?

What is leadership effectiveness? How do we measure it? How is it correlated to organization performance?

One school of thought proposes measuring leadership effectiveness in terms of organizational productivity indices such as return on investment,cost savings, units produced etc (Yukl G, 1998). The critics argue that such organizational productivity measures are inappropriate owing to their contingencies on environmental factors over which the leader may have little or no control. They advocate that the leadership effectiveness should instead be measured in terms of follower outcomes, which is a function of follower's relation with leader and follower's relation to task (Conger, Kanungo and Menon, 2000). While this latter school of thought seems convincing to me, it triggers many lines of thought.

First, is there an unequivocal link between leadership effectiveness and organizational performance (or productivity or effectiveness)? Second, to what extent could the leadership effectiveness predict the success or failure of an organization? Third, how different is the leadership effectiveness phenomenon in various organizational contexts - commercial and social nature, small and large size, early and late stages of growth? Lastly, is there a correlation between organization effectiveness and leadership effectiveness beyond the tenure of the leader?

In their groundbreaking study in 1972 Stanley Lieberson and James O'Connor argued that leaders have little impact on organizational performance as they are constrained by situational factors. Later, some academicians such as AB Thomas have provided evidence that individual leaders do make a difference. Other scholars, such as Noam Wasserman, Bharat Anand, and Nitin Nohria, have attempted to answer to a seemingly more fundamental question "When does leadership matter?".

For now, there is a quite a lot of parallel threads that I need to explore. Well, in the meanwhile let us wait to see how Apple performs in post Steve Jobs era.

Institutions and Entrepreneurship

2012-11-01T02:06:00.000-07:00

Douglass C North's essay on "Institutions", published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives (Vol 5, Winter 1991), was a compulsory reading during my MBA days. But as many B-school students, I too graduated barely managing to flip through the many seminal essays such as this. It was only two years thence on joining a small nonprofit outfit that was set-up to advance institutional development in the social entrepreneurship space,that this essay arouse a genuine curiosity. Fortunately now as part of academia, I have the opportunity to further my understanding of this concept of "institutions". Of late, my interests are particularly in studying the implications of institutions on the field of entrepreneurship and vice versa.

If institutions are, as Douglass North puts it, humanly devised formal rules (such as laws and constitutions) and informal constraints (such as customs,taboos and code of conduct) that structure political, economic and social interactions,then there is definitive reason to believe that institutions shape entrepreneurs and their choices. Consider for example the influence of religion on entrepreneurship. One empirical research conducted by David et al in 2007 highlighted that Christians are 2.9 percent, Muslims are 7.9 percent and Jains 27 percent more likely than Hindus to be self-employed. It concludes that Hindu religious values in fact have a bearing on this inhibited entrepreneurship. While this particular research talks about the entrepreneurial inclinations, it brings to question the influence of ethnicity on entrepreneurial success. Are entrepreneurs from certain ethnic background inherently better at spotting and tapping new opportunities? If so, can some of these practices be embedded in other ethnic groups?

How do institutions impact entrepreneurship? How do entrepreneurs advance institutional changes? What motivates entrepreneurs to advance institutionalization?

Similarly, entrepreneurship has been instrumental in bringing about institutional changes. One could see this in practice in the field of micro-finance. By demonstrating the financial sustainability of lending to the poor, entrepreneurs in the micro-finance space brought legitimacy to the field of financial services for the poor. This institutionalization, or a new social reality, has been the result of embedding new operating procedures and policies in existing financial institutions.I am curious to study the kind of enterprises that have brought about similar institutional changes. How do these enterprises effectuate such a change? Under what conditions should/would entrepreneurs act to influence institutions?

It is at this intersection of institutions and entrepreneurship that I intend to gain additional understanding. The answer to these definitely seem to have implications in both theory and practice.