Counterproductive Responses Research Articles

Overcoming unintended consequences of social impact accountability: How to avoid counterproductive responses of individuals and groups in organizations

AbstractThis contribution aims to explain when and why policies that increase social accountability are likely to have unintended and counterproductive effects on the social performance of organizations. The Behavioral Regulation Model applies insights from social identity theory to recent research on moral psychology. This elucidates that deep concerns about social approval for one's morality and good intentions, raise “the paradox of morality”: The motivation to signal endorsement of social values and good intentions prompts people to justify and defend shortcomings in these domains, instead of addressing them. We demonstrate how this approach and research supporting it can help recognize and understand a range of defensive responses organizations and their representatives are likely to show. Subsequently, we specify how policymakers, regulators, and other stakeholders can circumvent these counterproductive effects and help people in organizations to show more constructive responses toward social impact improvement.

Regulating other people’s moral behaviors: Turning vicious cycles into virtuous cycles

This contribution addresses the relation between moral values, moral choices, and moral behaviors. We build on prior research that has revealed the “paradox of morality”: on the one hand people are highly motivated to do what is moral and to appear moral in the eyes of others. On the other hand, this makes them reluctant to consider moral shortcomings of themselves and self-relevant others—which are considered socially costly and difficult to repair. Here, we highlight the implications this has for those who aim to improve the moral values, choices, or behaviors of others. We posit that the paradox of morality easily introduces a vicious cycle. This happens when people disagree with the moral values of others, criticize their moral choices, or remind them of their inadequate moral behaviors. We review a program of research documenting the counterproductive cognitive, emotional, and behavioral effects that are raised in this way. We then examine how other people’s moral values, choices, and behaviors may be addressed in ways that circumvent such counterproductive responses, resulting in a vicious cycle. We present initial evidence of manipulations and interventions that make people more open to the possibility of reconsidering their moral values and help them improve their moral choices and moral behaviors. The model we present, and empirical validation of implicit mechanisms that distinguish vicious from virtuous cycles has practical implications, and gives rise to new theory and predictions to be tested in future research.

Perceived organizational politics, organizational disidentification and counterproductive work behaviour: moderating role of external crisis threats to work

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to unpack the relationship between employees’ perceptions of organizational politics and their counterproductive work behaviour, by postulating a mediating role of organizational disidentification and a moderating role of perceived external crisis threats to work.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical assessment of the hypotheses relies on survey data collected among employees who work in a large banking organization.FindingsPerceptions that organizational decision-making is marked by self-serving behaviour increase the probability that employees seek to cause harm to their employer, because they feel embarrassed by their organizational membership. This mediating role of organizational disidentification is especially prominent when they ruminate about the negative impact of external crises on their work.Practical implicationsThis study details an important danger for employees who feel upset with dysfunctional politics: They psychologically distance themselves from their employer, which then prompts them to formulate counterproductive responses that likely make it more difficult to take on the problem in a credible manner. This detrimental dynamic is particularly risky if an external crisis negatively interferes with their work functioning.Originality/valueThis study adds to prior research by detailing an unexplored but relevant mechanism (organizational disidentification) and moderator (external crisis threats) by which perceived organizational politics translates into enhanced counterproductive work behaviour.

Does Exchange Rates Swings Affect Trade? Evidence from an Emerging Open Economy

The volatility of the exchange rate is commonplace for every open economies. If excessive, it would have severe implications for the country’s international trades. Using the ARDL and cointegration bound tests on quarterly data [2000:Q2–2022:Q3], the study empirically explore how exchange rate volatility and other macroeconomic variables impacts real exports and imports demands for Nigeria. The evidence identify cointegration and the trade’ parsimonious models disclose a negative as well as significant short run effects of the exchange rate volatility. The estimated convergence ECM regressions indicate that exchange rates volatility cause significant decline in real exports and imports in the long run. Under this circumstance, the study supposes measures that will curb fluctuations beyond economic fundamentals. In particular, monetary authority should expand periodic exchange rate intervention to curtail excessive swings. This should be maintained intuitively and regularly appraise to avoid creating any counter-productive response.

Prompting and Punishing Transgressions: Interpersonal Causes and Consequences of Unethical Behavior

Unethical behavior has disastrous consequences for organizations and society. Inspired by the conference theme “Creating a Better World Together”, this symposium brings together novel empirical insights on how people prompt and punish others’ unethical behavior. How does one person’s actions and emotions affect another’s unethical behavior? How do people react to others’ unethical behavior with constructive or counterproductive responses? The first two presentations examine how individuals intentionally or unintentionally prompt others to act unethically by giving advice (Helgason & Effron) and displaying anxiety (Yip & Lee). The next three presentations examine how people respond, often unfairly and counterproductively, to others’ unethical behavior with punishment (Kundro, Nurmohamed, Kakkar, & Affinito), ostracism (Smith-Crowe & Burns), and feedback (Frey & Green). By focusing on behaviors available to individuals regardless of their formal role, such as advice, feedback, and ostracism, this symposium provides implications for how ethically-conscious employees can not only behave ethically themselves, but also inspire ethical behavior from others in their organization. Vice Advice: Taking Advice to Justify Unethical Behavior Presenter: Beth Anne Helgason; London Business School Presenter: Daniel A. Effron; London Business School Fretting Invites Fraud: Expressing Anxiety Elicits Deceptive Behaviors by Perceivers Presenter: Jeremy Yip; McDonough School of Business Georgetown U. Presenter: Kelly Lee; - Crime, Time, and Punishment: Time Lags Exacerbate the Severity of Third-Party Punishment Presenter: Timothy Kundro; U. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Presenter: Samir Nurmohamed; The Wharton School, U. of Pennsylvania Presenter: Hemant Kakkar; Fuqua School of Business, Duke U. Presenter: Salvatore J. Affinito; Harvard Business School Out with the Racists: Understanding Ostracism in Response to Racist Acts Presenter: Kristin Smith-Crowe; Boston U. Presenter: Nicholas Burns; Boston U. Questrom School of Business Mistake or Misconduct: Type of Violation Influences Feedback Motivations and Content Presenter: Erin Frey; U. of Southern California -Marshall School of Business Presenter: Paul Isaac Green; U. of Texas at Austin

Sustainable futures: an agenda for action

Studying climate change and our insufficient and counterproductive responses can easily lead to despair. In his new book, Raphael Kaplinsky sets out to offer an explicitly optimistic guide to addressing climate change, based on an analysis of economic growth cycles and the ‘techno-economic paradigms’ that drive them. Kaplinsky, therefore, aims his book at both an academic and a popular audience, especially policy-makers. In doing so, some of the more complex and hotly debated issues and suggested prescriptions in environmental politics and transition studies are set aside. The text can be separated into three sections. The first, consisting of chapters one to five, deals with the origins of our contemporary crises. Here, the primary contribution of Sustainable futures is found in its novel deployment of the techno-economic paradigm concept to historicize and diagnose the climate emergency. Techno-economic paradigms are constellations of social, political, economic and technological relations that form a ‘synergistic fit’ and define economic and social activity for a period typically lasting five to six decades. Each paradigm is characterized by a heartland technology, ‘which has ubiquitous use … offers major reductions in cost and the possibility of new products … and has no physical limits to its supply’ (p. 3). Arguably, the most recent dominant paradigm, that of ‘mass production’, is giving way to an emergent ‘information and communications technology’ (ICT) paradigm.

The "Ladder of Inference" as a Conflict Management Tool: Working with the "Difficult" Patient or Family in Healthcare Ethics Consultations.

Conflict resolution is a core component of healthcare ethics consultation (HEC) and proficiency in this skill set is recognized by the national bioethics organization and its HEC certification process. Difficult interpersonal interactions between the clinical team and patients or their families are often inexorably connected to the normative disputes that are the catalyst for the consult. Ethics consultants are often required to navigate challenging dynamics that have become entrenched and work with patient-provider or family-provider relationships that have already broken down. The first step in conflict resolution is diagnosing the source of the conflict. Because so many interpersonal and normative conflicts rest on misunderstanding and mischaracterization, the diagnosis of the problem requires untangling the actual positions and perspectives of the conflicting parties from the fallacious assumptions made about the parties' respective positions and views. Developed in management science, the Ladder of Inference (LOI) is a diagnostic tool for assisting stakeholders in re-examining the process they used to form beliefs about others involved in the conflict. The LOI is a device that detects errors in reasoning, including implicit racial bias, that lead to false judgments and counterproductive responses to those judgments. The LOI is an instrument that can be used by ethics consultants to help resolve contentious bedside conflicts, but the LOI can also be employed as a teaching tool used by healthcare ethics consultants in training the clinical staff in how to avoid such conflicts in the first place.

Septopia and the wastialized Other: Allegorizing neo-liberalism in the age of COVID-19

ABSTRACT Sepsis, septic tank, septum – these terms help to locate phantasmatic representation of waste spaces in cinema, which is here termed “septopia”. Those who inhabit septopia are positioned as broken, fractured, or discarded identities. Amid COVID-19, septopia becomes more relevant to political realities, where people rebel against sanitized spaces and lockdown policies. Using Fredric Jameson’s concept of the political unconscious and theorization of allegory, this article navigates how media and film can map anxieties and clashes surrounding pandemic measures. It first explains the concepts of septopia as a mode of political commentary in the 2000s post-apocalyptic movies: Wall-E, District 9, and Land of the Dead. It then explores how “septopia” and wastiality contribute to expressions of the political pandemic’s unconscious, superstructurally mediating peoples’ responses to lockdown. The article argues that attempting to understand why people protest against COVID measures can help avoid counterproductive responses and counter increased social abjection.

Moral hazard in Sudan’s ‘Two Areas’ – humanitarianism that perpetuates civil war

ABSTRACT This article examines how the conflict since 2011 in Sudan’s ‘Two Areas’, the states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, has been prolonged by a well-intentioned but counter-productive international response. The United States and other western countries, motivated by humanitarianism, imposed sanctions against Sudan’s regime and provided aid to rebel regions. This western response was fostered partially by disinformation – about the genesis of the conflict, the regime’s use of force, and the causes and extent of the humanitarian crisis. Western support incentivized the rebels to perpetuate their hopeless military campaign, which prolonged the displacement of an estimated one-third of civilians in the Two Areas. Only after the United States lifted some sanctions in 2017, and a popular revolution overthrew the regime in 2019, did U.S. officials belatedly identify rebel leader Abdelaziz al-Hilu as an obstacle to peace. The article concludes with lessons for ending the conflict in Sudan’s Two Areas and mitigating such civil wars elsewhere.

Renewing the Debate on Nuclear No-First-Use: The Wait is Far from Over

A Biden presidency certainly ensures the revisiting of the debate on whether the United States should pursue the implementation of a No First Use (NFU) policy. Today, the United States follows a negative security assurance policy, only threatening first use in “extreme circumstances” against states with nuclear capabilities or those who are not in compliance with their Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations. While the ultimate goal of the United States' nuclear policy should be in the direction of a policy of no first use and a severe reduction of the role of nuclear capabilities in security measures in order to reduce the chances of a nuclear conflict, a premature NFU would cause counter-productive responses to our goal of nuclear non-proliferation while also risking critical assets. Nuclear declaratory policy is all but a waiting game; with adversaries ever-increasing in power, allies concerned with the United States’ level of commitment, and the evolution of non-strategic military technologies, the wait for no first use is far from over.

Assessment of Problem-Solving Skills and Inhibitory Control in Mice Using Water Escape Detour Test.

Despite the importance of emotional intelligence, its biological mechanism is still not well understood. For this reason, we have developed a rodent detour task which requires an animal to reach a highly desired object placed directly behind a transparent barrier that blocks the direct route to the target. This apparently simple task is highly dependent on the emotional control that is necessary to inhibit prepotent and counterproductive responses driven by the sight of a desired object. The water escape detour task designed for mice enables testing the ability to solve emotionally challenging problems, as well as identification of an impairment termed perseveration. Such a maladaptive reaction to a challenging situation is characterized by difficulty in terminating an unsuccessful response, leading to persistent repetition of inappropriate behavior. This issue is important because perseveration is associated with schizophrenia, drug abuse, and aging. © 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC. Basic Protocol: Water escape detour task Support Protocol 1: Preparation of escape platform Support Protocol 2: Preparation of the transparent barrier Alternate Protocol: Water escape detour task for testing acute effects.

Political dynamics and governance of World Heritage ecosystems

Political dynamics across scales are often overlooked in the design, implementation and evaluation of environmental governance. We provide new evidence to explain how interactions between international organizations and national governments shape environmental governance and outcomes for 238 World Heritage ecosystems, on the basis of a new intervention–response–outcome typology. We analyse interactions between the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and 102 national governments responsible for implementing ecosystem protection under the World Heritage Convention between 1972 and 2019. We combine data on the reporting, deliberation and certification of individual ecosystem-level threats, with data on national governance quality, economic complexity and key stakeholder perspectives. We find that the extent of threatened ecosystems is seriously underestimated and that efforts to formally certify threatened ecosystems are often resisted by national governments. A range of responses to international intervention, including both productive and counterproductive responses, generates material impacts at the ecosystem level. Counterproductive responses occur in nations dependent on limited high-value natural resource industries, irrespective of overall level of economic development. We identify new political approaches to improve environmental governance, including how to overcome the problem of regulatory capture. Our findings inform how we can better anticipate and account for political dynamics in environmental governance.

The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and the Roman Catholic Church

The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse received more reports of sexual abuse of minors from victims of personnel from the Catholic Church than from any other source. It looked beyond the circumstances of the individual reports, to the response of Church leaders. It then took the inquiry to the more fundamental issue of the elements of the Church’s structure and its unique culture that enabled sexual abuse and supported the hierarchy’s counter-productive responses. This commentary looks at the structural and cultural aspects of the institutional Church most directly connected to sexual abuse by clerics and the ensuing cover-up and it examines their theological and historical foundations. The reality that sexual abuse by clerics was not only known but condoned and covered up cannot be justified but it can be explained in great part by the Church’s justification for its own structure and the role of its clerics.

Turning the Sword: How NPD Teams Cope with Front‐End Tensions

Front‐end new product development (NPD) is fraught with tensions that fuel and inhibit innovation. According to paradox theory, tensions pose a double‐edged sword, sparking learning and creativity or anxiety and counterproductive responses. NPD teams' shared understandings—how they think about (cognition) and approach (motivation) tensions—turn the sword. Existing literature examines innovation tensions and their management. Yet scholars call for deeper dives, seeking research that unpacks cognitive and motivational drivers underlying how NPD teams cope with tensions. This paper responds, presenting a four‐year inductive study of five NPD consultancies. Across cases, findings explicate the roles of paradoxical cognitive frames and regulatory motivational focus. Across firms, the front‐end NPD teams framed tensions paradoxically. Three frames—guided freefall, benevolent dictatorship, and cohesive diversity—helped teams develop shared understandings of tensions as paradoxical, posing competing yet interdependent demands. Teams varied, however, in their regulatory focus, influencing how they applied the frames to approach tensions. In the most innovative case, teams applied a promotion focus, energized to explore tensions in search of more creative alternatives and synergies. In less innovative cases, teams applied a prevention focus, motivated to avoid risk and loss. Together, paradoxical frames and regulatory focus shaped teams' coping behaviors and resulting innovation. Resulting theory posits the interplay among cognitive, motivational, and behavioral drivers of innovation. Results offer three contributions. First, this study extends understanding of antecedents to team innovation and front‐end NPD. Second, findings deepen insights into team cognition and paradoxical frames. Last, the theoretical framework explicates how cognitive‐motivational interactions enable coping behaviors that foster innovation. The conclusion poses managerial and research implications. Building from paradox theory this study suggests means to foster shared paradoxical frames and promotion focus in NPD teams. Further, study limitations highlight opportunities to extend its generalizability and elaborate underlying drivers of innovation.Practitioner Points Paradoxical frames and a promotion focus help teams at the front end of NPD cope with tensions and fuel virtuous cycles of innovation. Training front‐end NPD leaders and team members in paradoxical thinking will help them frame competing demands as synergistic and tap into the energizing potential of tensions. Positive messaging about NPD tensions that emphasizes gain, risk, and movement over cautiousness and vigilance, aids adoption of a promotion focus—motivation that helps further mobilize front‐end innovation.

Developing Student Skills to Actively Engage in Feedback Conversations: A Pilot Study

Purpose: Students often have passive or counterproductive responses to feedback. The aim of this pilot study was to evaluate a feedback training module containing online learning and live simulation. It was hypothesized that 1) student confidence in feedback skills would increase following the module, and 2) compared with a control group who undertook the module after their clinical placement, the feedback group who undertook the module before their placement would perform better on clinical placement on the sections of the Assessment of Physiotherapy Practice related to communication, but those related to clinical skills would not be affected. Methods: A convenience sample of all 68 students in the first of two years of a masters graduate-entry physiotherapy program in Australia was recruited for the study. The feedback group (N=46) received the module before their 5-week orthopaedic clinical placement, and the control group (N=22) received the module after their placement. The module included two-hours of online independent learning and three-hours of simulated learning activity. Students provided and received feedback and were facilitated in developing skills to explore the understandings and attitudes underlying behaviours. Results: All students rated the module as having a large impact on their feedback abilities. The increased confidence in feedback skills was significant for the feedback group. Compared with the control group and with the previous two cohorts undertaking the same placement, the feedback group had improved performance at the mid-point, but not at the end of their five week placement. Conclusions: A focussed feedback module, including a simulated learning activity, increased student confidence and was perceived by students as having a positive impact on their feedback skills. There was a positive impact of the module on student performance during but not at the end of their clinic placement. An incidental finding was the suggestion that a time gap between on-campus learning and the related clinical placement may have a detrimental effect on student performance.

Hate Spin: The Twin Political Strategies of Religious Incitement and Offense-Taking

Religious intolerance manifests itself periodically in ways that test democracies' commitment to freedom of expression. Responding to this challenge requires a conceptual clarity that is often lacking. This article proposes a corrective lens in the form of a new concept, hate spin. Hate spin absorbs the familiar concept of hate speech, or incitement, and combines it with the less understood strategy of offense-taking or manufactured indignation. The two sides of hate spin—incitement and offense-taking—are used by political entrepreneurs to mobilize supporters and coerce targeted groups. Incitement may warrant legal intervention, but censorship is a counterproductive response to offense. The article explicates the concept of hate spin, identifies its key characteristics, and suggests directions for further research.

Role of Institutions in Sustainable and Socially Equitable Development

The objective of this brief communication is to start a conversation about the critical role that institutions play in sustainable development and how each of us as can assist with the development and nurturing of institutions. Our goal is to nurture equitable and sustainable economic and social development. There is so much to be done, especially when change triggers violence and tension among those who feel threatened by progress. Cyrus Institute of Knowledge (CIK) offers positive and constructive alternatives to such horrific and counterproductive responses. CIK is an educational and scientific secular and nonpartisan institute, dedicated to peace, cooperation, harmony, and nonviolence. CIK’s mission and values are shown in the banners put up in this conference. While here I touch upon a few issues, there are interesting papers in the conference which will analyze many issues in-depth.

Perceived intent of supervisor as a moderator of the relationships between abusive supervision and counterproductive work behaviours

This study examined the relationship between perceived intent of supervisors and subordinates' counterproductive responses to abusive supervision. Data were collected in two waves approximately one month apart from 268 full-time employees from the United States and in various occupations. Two forms of perceived intent of abusive supervision were assessed: hostile intent (i.e. abuse believed to be intended to cause harm to the subordinate) and motivational intent (i.e. abuse believed to be intended to motivate good performance from the subordinate). In general, subordinates who reported greater frequency of abusive supervision of both types at Wave 1 were more likely to engage in counterproductive work behaviours (CWBs) at Wave 2 than those who reported less abuse. As hypothesized, abusive supervision was more strongly associated with CWBs when perceived hostile intent was high rather than low. Contrary to expectations, abusive supervision was also more strongly associated with CWBs when perceived motivational intent was high rather than low. Our findings show that abuse by supervisors can result in CWBs by subordinates even if those subordinates believe that the abuse is intended to be motivational.

Students' conceptual change in electricity and magnetism using simulations: A comparison of cognitive perturbation and cognitive conflict

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to investigate Ethiopian physics undergraduate students' conceptual change in the concepts of electric potential and energy (EPE) and electromagnetic induction (EMI). A quasi‐experimental design was used to study the effect of cognitive perturbation using physics interactive simulations (CPS) in relation to cognitive conflict using physics interactive simulations (CCS). Data were collected by using the modified Diagnostic Exam of Electricity and Magnetism (DEEM). ANCOVA was conducted on the scores of 45 students on the modified DEEM test to compare the effectiveness of the CCS and CPS. The results showed a significant difference between the two classes of the post‐test scores on the DEEM test, (1, 36) = 4.66, p = 0.04, partial eta squared = 0.12. Consequently, it was concluded that there is a statistically significant difference between CPS and CCS in changing students' alternative conceptions towards scientific conceptions favoring CPS. Medium practical difference between the two classes was estimated by the partial eta squared effect size. To characterize and compare improvement of the students' conceptual learning in both treatment classes, Hake's average normalized gain 〈g〉 from pre‐ to post‐scores were analyzed. It is suggested that in abstract conceptual areas of electricity and magnetism, in which most students have inappropriate and counterproductive responses, cognitive perturbation through interactive simulations is more effective than cognitive conflict through interactive simulations in facilitating conceptual change, and, thus, can improve classroom instruction in the area. Recommendations are also suggested for guiding future research in this area. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach

Global Environmental Change and Human Security

Review: Global Environmental Change and Human Security By Matthew, Richard A., Barnett, Jon, McDonald, Bryan and L. O'Brien, Karen (Eds.) Reviewed by Jan Kunnas European University Institute, Florence, Italy Matthew, Richard A., Barnett, Jon, McDonald, Bryan and L. O'Brien, Karen (Eds.). Global Environmental Change and Human Security. Cambridge, Massachusetts & London, England. The MIT Press, 2010. 328 pp. ISBN 978-0-262-51308-1. paperback alk. paper US $25.00/£18.95. This book is not for those who want easy answers to the relationship between global environmental change and human security. We can though also ask ourselves whether such answers even exists, when already global environmental change refers not only to climate change, but also to several other interconnected issues such as biodiversity loss, destruction of stratospheric ozone layer, depletion of freshwater sources, impairment of food-producing ecosystems and worldwide dissemination of various chemicals and heavy metals. Human security again is defined: “…as something that is achieved when and where individuals and communities have the options necessary to end, mitigate, or adapt to threats to their human, environmental, and social rights; have the capacity and freedom to exercise these options; and actively participate in pursuing these options” (p. 18). For those with patience enough this book gives a detailed examination of the complex social, health, and economic consequences of environmental change across the globe. In the introductory chapter the editors of the book trace the evolution of recent thinking about the relationship between people, the environment and security towards an increasing recognition that there are a wider range of risks to the sovereign integrity of the state than just that of military invasion. In the following fourteen chapters the consequences of environmental change are examined at different scales and in different places from the vulnerability of urban dwellers to the decade-long Nepalese civil war and from a case study of Hurricane Katrina to the relationship between sustainable economic development and democracy. We learn the importance of preventive measures as opposed to reactive efforts in wide ranging issues like human health and global environmental problems like climate change. We receive a call for a move beyond the north-south divide as “…the local and regional inequities related to climate change impacts and adaption are not exclusive to developing countries” (p. 166). Furthermore mischaracterizing population growth as a danger to northern security might justify misguided and in some cases counterproductive policy responses: “…when the developed countries perceive the developing world to be a site of future wars fought over scarce resources, that perception most likely leads to security responses that increase the likelihood of war” (p. 311).