Exchange Ideology Research Articles

Collectivist orientation and the psychological contract: Mediating effects of creditor exchange ideology

As organizations globalize, culturally based variation in the ways employees conceptualize their relationships with their employers increases in importance. In the competition for talent, organizations must understand employee preferences and expectations regarding their treatment by the firm. Recently, culture's influence on the psychological contract (individual perceptions of employer obligations) has been noted with regard to the extent that employees perceive their psychological contracts as relational or transactional. We provide results from a survey conducted in a multinational corporation (MNC) indicating that the cultural value of collectivist orientation likely has its effect on the psychological contract through beliefs about the nature of social exchange. Data were consistent with creditor exchange ideology (appropriateness of giving more than has been received) mediating the relationship between collectivist orientation and perceptions of a relational psychological contract. By examining this relationship empirically, we go beyond the demonstration of cultural effects to describe an intermediate mechanism through which culture operates. Exchange norms are likely to play a mediating role in a variety of cross-cultural relationships, and may be used by managers as a lever to improve relationships with employees, as opposed to engaging in attempts to change individual cultural orientation.

Coworker Knowledge Sharing and Employee Task Performance: The Moderating Role of Exchange Ideology

While prior evidence has demonstrated that employee-organization reciprocation is influenced by employee’s exchange ideology, we know very little about if and how employees’ exchange ideology has a...

Social and economic exchanges with the organization: do leader behaviors matter?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which leader behaviors (authentic, directive, and transactional) predict subordinates' conceptualization of exchanges with their organization (i.e. social and economic exchanges).Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 165 employees in various organizations within the USA using questionnaires.FindingsResults showed that authentic leadership was positively related to social exchanges. Further, directive leadership was positively related to economic exchanges. Contrary to the authors' prediction that transactional leadership would be a positive predictor of economic exchanges, transactional leader behaviors predicted both social exchanges (positive relationship) and economic exchanges (negative relationship). Several of the relationships between leader behaviors and follower exchange relationships were mediated by employee attitudes (i.e. job satisfaction) and beliefs (i.e. exchange ideology).Research limitations/implicationsFurther research is necessary to elucidate the reasons why leader transactional behaviors drive social exchanges, and through what mechanisms.Practical implicationsOrganizations and practitioners can use these finding to select leaders who foster desired employee behaviors. Coaching or training efforts to develop authentic leaders may also be beneficial. Organizations and practitioners may benefit by implementing leadership training initiatives that develop managers' authentic leadership.Originality/valueThe paper's results position authentic and directive leader behaviors as positive and negative predictors of social and economic exchanges, respectively. It also identifies mechanisms through which leader behaviors influence employees' perceptions of exchanges.

Engaging employees to their jobs: Role of exchange ideology as a moderator

This article examines whether employees’ perceptions of supervisor support, distributive justice, procedural justice, and participation in decision-making are related to their job engagement. It also establishes if exchange ideology moderates between the relationships. A primary survey of 160 employees in Malaysia revealed that the four antecedents were positively and significantly related to employees’ engagement to their jobs. It also showed that unlike procedural justice, the relationship between distributive justice and job engagement was stronger, when employees have high, rather than low exchange ideology. Likewise, the relationships between employees’ perceptions of supervisor support and job engagement, as well as between employees’ participation in decision-making and job engagement were stronger when their exchange ideology were high. The implications of the research findings, limitations of this study, and suggestions for future research are also discussed. Key words: Job engagement, exchange ideology, perceived supervisor support, distributive justice, procedural justice, participation in decision-making, Malaysia.

Social influence of a coworker: A test of the effect of employee and coworker exchange ideologies on employees’ exchange qualities

Integrating social comparison and social influence perspective within a social exchange theoretical framework, we examine how the exchange ideologies of employees and their coworkers affect the quality of the employees’ social exchanges. Drawing from social exchange theory, we hypothesize that the exchange ideology of a focal employee has a negative relationship with the quality of his/her social exchange with the organization (i.e., felt obligation) and the quality of his/her social exchange with a leader (i.e., leader–member exchange), both of which are related to task performance. Furthermore, we propose that a coworker close to the employee acts as a social referent and provides cues to exert influence on these relationships. Using data collected from 374 (employee–coworker–manager) triads in Hong Kong, we find support for the aforementioned relationships as well as the moderating roles of a coworker’s exchange ideology.

Does serving the community also serve the company? Using organizational identification and social exchange theories to understand employee responses to a volunteerism programme

Little is known about how employees might respond to their company's socially responsible business practices. Hypotheses derived from organizational identification and social exchange theories were tested to explain why employees (N=162) may respond positively to their company's volunteerism programme, a programme through which employees could spend time volunteering during their paid work hours. Support was found for mediated effects suggesting that employees' attitude towards the volunteerism programme ultimately predicted outcomes (e.g., intentions to stay) through its effect on organizational identification. Results also showed that exchange ideology moderated the effects of volunteer‐programme attitudes on supervisor‐reported organizational citizenship behaviour measured 6 months later, suggesting that some employees reciprocate the benefits they receive from a volunteerism programme. The implications of these findings are discussed for theory and research, and for leveraging volunteerism programmes and other socially responsible business practices to benefit companies and their employees.

Learning Virtual Community Loyalty Behavior From a Perspective of Social Cognitive Theory

Drawing upon social cognitive theory (SCT), this research postulates several personal and environmental factors as key drivers of virtual community loyalty behavior in online settings. An empirical testing of this model, by investigating undergraduate students' participation in communities of online games, reveals the applicability of SCT in virtual communities. The study's test results show that the influences of both affective commitment and social norms on community loyalty behavior are significant, whereas the influences of both exchange ideology and social support on community loyalty behavior are insignificant. This research contributes to the online community literature by assessing critical antecedent factors to the unexplored area of community loyalty behavior, by validating idiosyncratic drivers of community loyalty behavior and by performing an operationalization of affective commitment and social norms in a virtual world. Last, managerial implications and limitations of this research are provided.

Predicting Committed Behavior: Exchange Ideology and Pre‐entry Perceived Organisational Support

A longitudinal field study conducted in a military setting examined the effects of exchange ideology, pre‐entry Perceived Organisational Support, and their interaction, on initial and long‐term committed behavior. The effect of exchange ideology was compared to that of a solidly validated biodata score which was assessed with a structured interview. The sample consisted of 1,276 conscripts to military service. Results showed that exchange ideology had effects on both initial and long‐term committed behavior; these effects were stronger than those of pre‐entry Perceived Organisational Support, and comparable to those of the biodata structured interview.Une recherche de terrain longitudinale conduite dans un contexte militaire a porté sur les effets de l'idéologie de l'échange, du soutien organisationnel perçu avant l'intégration et de leur interaction sur l'implication initiale et à long terme. Les retombées de l'idéologie de l'échange ont été comparées à celles d'un score biodata correctement validéévaluéà partir d'un entretien structuré. L'échantillon était constitué de 1276 conscrits. Les résultats montrent que l'idéologie de l'échange présente un impact à la fois sur l'implication initiale et à long terme, cet impact étant plus fort que celui du soutien organisationnel perçu avant l'intégration et comparable à celui de l'interview structuré portant sur les biodata.

The Effects of Perceptions of Performance Measurement Characteristics on the Workforce

The strategic performance measurement system (SPMS) is a useful tool for communicating valuable information to an organization’s most important resource, its human capital (Taylor 2007). This study merges SPMS literature with an important lever of organizational success—its human capital, and investigates how self-efficacy, psychological contracts, and exchange ideology can explain when and why characteristics of SPMSs matter. Using survey data collected in the field, we analyze data on 306 employees of a financial services firm. Our results provide support that self-efficacy and psychological contracts mediate the relation between perceptions of SPMS characteristics and organizational justice. Furthermore, we find that the relation between both SPMS characteristics and procedural justice depend on exchange ideology. These results have both theoretical implications in terms of integrating psychological literature with organizational theory and practical implications in terms of extracting benefits from a costly managerial tool.

Predicting OCB Role Definitions: Exchanges with the Organization and Psychological Attachment

Purpose To investigate the relationship between trust in the organization and employees’ exchange beliefs (i.e., exchange ideology) and both psychological attachment and role definitions.

Exchange Ideology as a moderator of Knowledge Sharing in virtual teams: a social exchange theory perspective

The objective of this study is to examine how individual Exchange Ideology (EI) influences the relationship between perceived economic and social benefits and Knowledge Sharing (KS) behaviour in the context of virtual teams. It draws on social exchange theory to test whether EI would positively moderate the relationship between three perceived benefits (i.e., extrinsic rewards, reciprocity, and reputation) and virtual team members' KS behaviour. Contrary to the theory of team-member social exchange, the findings suggest that in virtual KS contexts, EI negatively moderates the relationships between extrinsic rewards, reciprocity and KS, but has no effect on reputation and KS.

転職志向は組織施策に起因するか個人特性に制約されるか，それとも両方か―キャリア発達の見込みの媒介作用と社会的交換観念のモデレータ効果―

The present study examined the relationships among career development opportunities within organizations, employees' perception of the opportunities, and their turnover intention. It was hypothesized that organizational career supportive policies (e.g., organizational support and supervisory support) and career development practices (e.g., internal promotion policies and empowerment instruments) would provide incentives for employees and positively affect the perception of the career development opportunities, which in turn would affect their turnover intention negatively. Additionally, we included in the causal model an individual's social exchange ideology as a moderating variable. Specifically, we investigated whether the ideology would affect the effects of organizational career supportive policies or development practices on career development perceptions, and the effects of career development perceptions on turnover intention. A series of hierarchical regression analyses were employed to test the causal relationships.Data were collected from a local job agency and a Japanese investment firm in the southern part of China. The results indicated that the effects of organizational career development practices on turnover intention tended to be mediated throughindividuals' perception of the career development opportunities. Moreover, it was found that individuals with strong emphasis on social reciprocity and equivalence tended to respond positively to the organizational career supportive policies. The implications of the results and future research directions are discussed.

Are Organizational Justice Effects Bounded by Individual Differences? An Examination of Equity Sensitivity, Exchange Ideology, and the Big Five

This study explored the extent to which two theoretically derived individual differences (equity sensitivity and exchange ideology) moderated the effects of injustice on behavioral reactions. Participants ( N = 707) completed hypothetical vignettes that manipulated distributive, procedural, and interpersonal justice and assessed potential reactions in terms of task performance, citizenship, withdrawal, and counterproductive behavior. Results showed that exchange ideology, but not equity sensitivity, emerged as a significant moderator of several justice-outcome relationships. In addition, a usefulness analysis comparing the moderating potential of the more narrow equity sensitivity and exchange ideology variables to the broader Big Five revealed that the two narrow variables were more impactful moderators than were the Big Five, though these differences were because of the effects of exchange ideology.

To share or not to share: modeling knowledge sharing using exchange ideology as a moderator

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to propose important determinants of knowledge sharing, including co‐worker congruence, received task interdependence, organizational commitment and participative decision‐making. Exchange ideology is considered a moderator in this study.Design/methodology/approachA two‐step procedure of structural equation modeling is applied for data analysis. The moderating effects are simultaneously examined using data from employees across different industries.FindingsThis study suggests the influence of co‐worker congruence on knowledge sharing is stronger for individuals with low exchange ideology than for those with high exchange ideology, while the influence of received task interdependence on knowledge sharing is stronger for individuals with high exchange ideology than for those with low exchange ideology. The influence of participative decision‐making on knowledge sharing is stronger for individuals with high exchange ideology than for those with low exchange ideology.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitations may relate to the possibility of a common method bias and causal ordering between knowledge and its determinants.Practical implicationsManagement who wish to increase the incentive to share knowledge should first establish a harmonious atmosphere that fosters interpersonal congruence among employees and encourages employees to work closely together. A culture that arouses employees' organizational commitment and encourages employees to participate in decision‐making is most likely to increase willingness to share knowledge. Finally, the implications for moderating effects of exchange ideology are also provided.Originality/valueThis paper clarifies the moderating impacts of exchange ideology and guide management to design a variety of strategies for different staffs and thus obtain successful knowledge sharing in an organization.

Extra‐role behaviors challenging the status‐quo

PurposeThe paper aims to investigate the antecedents of taking charge, an extra‐role behavior (ERB) directed at challenging the status‐quo.Design/methodology/approachThe hypotheses were tested using regression analysis on data obtained by surveying 211 employees in one work organization.FindingsSupport was found for the distinctiveness of taking charge, a type of ERB that challenges the status‐quo, from traditional ERB, such as organization‐directed and individual‐directed organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBO, OCBI, respectively), and from in‐role behaviors (IRB). In addition, individual‐related factors, such as propensity to trust, employee exchange ideology, and their interaction, predict taking charge. Supervisor‐related factors, such as output control by the direct manager, are also significant predictors.Practical implicationsPractitioners interested in interventions to enhance taking charge behaviors can rely on these findings by either selecting employees (based on the employees' propensity to trust and exchange ideologies) or by providing appropriate organizational controls.Originality/valueThe findings are valuable for those engaged in theory building and testing and for practitioners. From a theoretical perspective, the paper proposes and tests novel predictors of taking charge on a sample of administrative and line employees. In addition, if the results are properly validated in other organizational contexts, practitioners can use these ideas to design specific interventions.

Gifts of Labour

The article focuses on how the workers of a small tool factory located in Endcliffe - an area of urban deprivation in Sheffield, UK - conceptualize, experience, and talk about the value of their labour and how changes in the wider politico-economic environment affect their notion of labour value. The article combines a Marxist analysis of the capitalist labour process with an anthropological focus on the ideology of gift and commodity exchange, and explores the cultural specificity of processes of labour commodification. It argues that the combined effect of state neoliberal policies and extensive subcontracting by local steel corporations in Sheffield have turned small factories into hybrids between economic and welfare institutions, with mixed commodified and non-commodified labour on the same shopfloor. In challenging much of the recent anthropological literature on alienation, the article claims that alienation is the consequence of the workers’ (con)fusion of the ideology of labour as a free gift and the ideology of labour as a purely utilitarian activity, rather than of their sharp separation.

Exchange Ideology and Member-Union Relationships: An Evaluation of Moderation Effects.

Based on studies of unionized nurses and water workers in the United Kingdom, perceived union support was associated with union commitment, union citizenship behaviors, and intent to quit union membership and switch unions. Instrumentality was less significant as an antecedent of most of these outcomes. In contrast to earlier findings on organization-employee exchange, although accounting for a relatively small percentage of variance, exchange ideology negatively moderated several of the relationships between support and instrumentality, on one hand, and commitment and union citizenship behaviors, on the other.

The psychological contract and individual differences: The role of exchange and creditor ideologies

The present study examines exchange and creditor ideologies (two dispositional characteristics that are strongly related to exchange relationships) and their moderating effects on the psychological contract. Five hundred public-sector employees were studied over a 3-year period. Respondents’ were surveyed as to their perceptions of what they believed their employer owed them (e.g., job security, training, involvement in decision making, etc.) and the extent to which these “employer obligations” had been met. In addition, we assessed respondents’ perceptions of their own obligations to their employer (e.g., agreeing to work extra hours, volunteering for non-job-related activities, working unpaid hours, etc.) and the extent to which they believed that these “employee obligations” had been fulfilled. The results indicate that creditor ideology related positively to employee perceptions of their obligations to the employer and the extent to which they fulfilled those obligations while exchange ideology related negatively to employee obligations and fulfillment of obligations. Exchange ideology moderated the effects of perceived employer obligations on employee obligations and fulfillment of obligations while creditor ideology moderated the relationship between perceived employer fulfillment of obligations and employee obligations. This article provides preliminary evidence to the benefits of examining the role of individual dispositions in psychological contract research—a previously neglected topic—and discusses the potential implications for the practice of management.

The interactive effects of organizational politics and exchange ideology on manager ratings of retention

This study examined the moderating effect of exchange ideology on the relation between perceptions of organizational politics and manager-rated retention. Data collected from 178 employees of a distribution services organization indicated that employees’ perceptions of organizational politics related negatively related to manager assessments of retention. However, the variables were only related among employees with a moderate to strong exchange ideology. These individuals were more sensitive to a political environment than individuals with a weak exchange ideology. Implications for employees seeking to actively manage their careers are discussed.

“These young chaps think they are just men, too”: redistributing masculinity in Kgatleng bars

In the 19th century the BaKgatla polity was a chiefdom with a redistributional economy based on mixed agriculture. Sorghum beer was symbolic not only of the patrilineal core of their descent system and of the ideologies of reciprocity and redistribution, but also of masculinity and patriarchal control. With the establishment of a market economy, an industrial brewery and individual access to income, both beer and the act of drinking have been symbolically reconstructed. The ideology of redistribution was well suited to the support of the BaKgatla gerontocracy via alcohol production and consumption. The limits on production and consumption of beer inherent in the agricultural cycle and the control of young men's access by elders made alcohol an effective symbol of managerial competence from the limited context of household authority to that of the chiefdom as a whole. Today, young men's greater control of cash income has given them access to beer beyond the control of elders. As a result, the contrasting ideology of market exchange and competitive distribution of beer has contributed to the degradation of the power of seniors. After reviewing the historical background, this paper explores those changes. It argues that while the observed infrastructural changes have had a predictable impact on drinking behaviors and the symbolic structure of “seniority/masculinity”, constructions of the “masculine community” in BaKgatla bars demonstrate continuity in key areas of mens’ identities. If as anthropologists we see obvious discontinuities in behavior and ideology, the BaKgatla build selective bridges to “tradition” which seemingly ground the experience of change in relatively seamless continuity.