Organizational Behavior Theory Research Articles

Developing an organizational learning‐based model for risk management in Chinese construction firms

PurposeThe features of construction projects, characterized by their transient nature, multi‐players, and strong dependency on local natural and human environment, highlight the difficulties of risk management in construction firms. This is particularly crucial when a construction firm ventures overseas where the risk exposure is high. However, it is unclear how Chinese construction firms would behave organizationally or if they have adopted appropriate risk management best practices, especially when they operate outside of Mainland China. Moreover, it is also unclear if such firms have formally documented risk management lessons for the purpose of organizational learning to share both success and failure so that similar mistakes can be avoided in the future. This paper primarily aims to establish a conceptual framework linking organizational learning with risk management, focusing on the organizational behavior of Chinese construction firms when they operate in both Mainland China and overseas.Design/methodology/approachThe research agenda proposes the use of questionnaire surveys and in‐depth case studies of Chinese contractors with operations both in Mainland China and Singapore.FindingsAn outcome of the study is the formulation of a research agenda that will eventually lead to the development of a knowledge‐based decision support system (KBDSS) linking organizational behavior with risk management for supporting organizational learning in Chinese construction firms.Practical implicationsThe outcomes of the research agenda can help chinese contractors gain “sustainable competitive advantage” against contractors from other developed countries in the global market.Originality/valueThis is possibly the first ever study to correlate organizational behaviour (OB), technical, organizational, project and external (TOPE) risks, CQ‐SET and mitigate, accept, avoid or transfer (MAAT) within the context of Chinese construction firms operating both in Mainland China and the overseas market of Singapore. As part of the research agenda, theories of organizational behavior and risk management would also be applied to the empirical findings to draw inferences.

Why Not Partner With Local Government?

Service delivery partnerships with local government offer both opportunities and challenges for nonprofit agencies, but the normative and institutionalist tendencies of the collaboration literature tend to downplay the rationales for avoiding partnerships and the influence of managerial characteristics on the decision to collaborate. Nonprofit executive directors across the state of Georgia were asked about factors that might inhibit them from collaborating with local government agencies. Principal components analysis created four dependent variables from these answers, which were regressed on various respondent, organizational, and community characteristics. The resulting analysis finds that managerial attitudes about collaboration are not monolithic: They reflect underlying political and social dynamics that should be understood as distinct constructs, linked to experience and personal background. The findings suggest that future research should specify the exact nature of collaborative barriers, examine the individual backgrounds of those charged with collaborative responsibility, and integrate theories of organizational and human behavior.

Taxonomy of Organizational Theories

This research presents a taxonomy of 16 organizational theories that represent both germinal and current approaches. The author has used methodologies used by Miner (2005; 2006) and Vibert (2004) for purposes of classification of theories in macro level and micro level categories. Macro level theories are aimed at describing the design, behavior and paradigms of the organizations, whereas Micro level theories are focused on the description of individual behaviors and interactions within the organization. This taxonomy has identified nine theories that represent Eurocentric and traditional thought; three theories that represent global approaches and four theories considered non-traditional, identifying their creators and developers and the year of publication. These selected are organized in three tables, identifying theories of organizational behavior, organizational design, and organizational paradigms.

How Passive 'Face Time' Affects Perceptions of Employees: Evidence of Spontaneous Trait Inference in Context

We examine how and why passive face time (being passively observed at work) might affect perceptions of employees in professional settings. Findings from a qualitative study suggest that passive face time exists in two forms: (1) being seen at work during normal business hours - or expected face time, and (2) being seen at work outside of normal business hours - or extracurricular face time. These two forms of passive face time appear to affect employee perceptions because they lead to trait inferences. Expected face time leads to inferences that an employee is dependable, while extracurricular passive face time leads to inferences that an employee is committed. Findings from an experimental study provide confirmation of our qualitative findings and suggest that trait inferences are made spontaneously. We discuss the implications of our findings for theories of organizational citizenship behavior and trait inference, and for the practice of performance evaluation.

Organization Development : Problems & Prospects

The forces of globalization, technological change and deregulation have made change management an integral part of managing business today. Over the years, the discipline of change management has evolved from a set of practical descriptive and prescriptive tools to models and frameworks based on theory and empirical research. Recent research in the related disciplines of organizational behavior and organization theory provides a sophisticated understanding of change issues and how to manage them more importantly, research in organization theory has also highlighted the cost and risks associated with change.

Too stressed out to participate? Examining the relation between stressors and survey response behavior.

Despite the use of survey-based organizational data in many studies of organizational behavior, survey response behavior and nonresponse are rarely studied phenomena. This study expands on previously proposed survey response and nonresponse frameworks by integrating the job stress literature. The authors investigated whether overload, role ambiguity, and role conflict experienced by individuals relate to survey response behavior. Using organizational citizenship behavior theory and social exchange theory as theoretical frameworks, the authors proposed that nonrespondents experience higher levels of stressors than respondents. Data collected in a longitudinal field study partially supported the hypotheses. As hypothesized, overload increased the likelihood of nonresponse. Contrary to hypotheses, role ambiguity decreased the likelihood of nonresponse. Role conflict was not significantly related to nonresponse.

Exploring the Human Rights Implications of Microfinance Initiatives

This Article explores Microfinance and microcredit (“MFI”) programs from several perspectives, with particular emphasis on human rights issues. These programs involve making small loans to people who would otherwise be unable to borrow money to facilitate them starting their own businesses: frequently, the programs focus on women borrowers in developing countries. The emphasis of MFI programs on women in developing countries makes it important to consider these programs in terms of both women's and indigenous rights, while MFI as an approach to poverty merits a discussion of economic rights. Part I of the article will explore the concept and scope of current MFI programs, describing key components of these programs and assessing comments from both fans and critics. The Grameen Bank, which has been studied extensively and has acted as a model for several other programs, will be examined in detail. Part II of this Article considers MFI in the context of human rights considerations, including economic, indigenous, and women's rights. One particular aspect of Grameen's program, namely the use of Sixteen Decisions, is also critiqued, applying organizational behavior theory. Part III will compare MFI with other approaches to poverty, inclu property rights initiatives, women's cooperatives and social enterprise approaches.

NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT VALUES AND PERSON‐ORGANIZATION FIT: A SOCIO‐PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH AND EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION AMONG PUBLIC SECTOR PERSONNEL

This paper takes a socio‐psychological approach to NPM and its value‐based theory in public administration. We develop a model for the study of NPM values based on the idea of Person‐Organization Fit (POF) and examine it empirically. Findings, based on a survey of 205 Israeli local governance personnel, revealed that the POF of several core NPM values (that is, responsiveness, transparency, innovativeness, and achievement orientations) was positively related with job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and service climate, as reported by these public personnel. The findings suggest that, beyond modern strategies and effective policies for the public sector, lies an essential quest for NPM value‐fit with public personnel. Consequently, the study advocates a better theoretical and practical understanding of the socio‐psychological interfaces, such as POF, in public administration. Implications and directions for future studies are discussed, both in the context of public administration research and in the generic field of organizational behaviour theory and practice. The detailed results of the factor analyses are available directly from the authors.

Learning from preventable adverse events in health care organizations

Preventable adverse events represent learning opportunities. Indeed, understanding and learning from preventable adverse events are the new organizational imperatives in health care. However, health services researchers note that there is a dearth of research on learning from failure in health care and, in industry, a limited capacity to learn from incidents and failure. We address the gap between awareness of preventable adverse events and knowledge that relates to how to respond to them effectively. We develop a multilevel model of learning and theorize factors that influence learning from preventable adverse events. Drawing upon theories of organizational learning and organizational behavior, we develop a multilevel model of learning from failure, where perceived characteristics of the events, group composition and dynamics, and the behavioral and structural arrangements of health care organizations are proposed to play important roles. Our model highlights factors that facilitate learning from failure and others that impede it. Awareness and attention to these factors can help health care managers extract learning from failures, like preventable adverse events, and may ultimately contribute to reducing the occurrence of preventable adverse events and improving quality of care.

F. J. Roethlisberger and the Elusive Phenomena of Organizational Behavior

In 1961, Fritz Roethlisberger, coauthor of the landmark Hawthorne studies, wrote a memorandum sketching his understanding of the nascent field of organizational behavior. The memo's purpose was to discuss the relationships of theory and practice in the field, identifying in particular some of the tensions and contradictions that the field poses for the relations of theory and practice. This article reprints Roethlisberger's memo in its entirety and comments point for point on the contemporary relevance of his assertions about the relations of theory and practice. Roethlisberger's observations are even more relevant today than they were in 1961, given the growth of academic theory and research in organizational behavior and the explosion in organizations of ever more complex and intractable problems of managerial leadership. The article will be of interest to anyone interested in the relations of theory and practice and particularly to younger scholars who are shaping their research programs and teaching philosophies.

Social networks and the cognitive motivation to realize network opportunities: a study of managers' information gathering behaviors

AbstractInformation gathering is central to a variety of organizational behavior theories, but researchers have suggested that our understanding of the actual information gathering behaviors of managers is underdeveloped. Social network characteristics are theorized to be a key determinant of information gathering behaviors, but social network research has been criticized for: (1) not measuring the intervening mechanisms by which network characteristics are theorized to have their effects and (2) not considering how actors' motivation affects what network benefits are realized. This article addresses these concerns through an empirical study of the actual information gathering behaviors of managers. It posits that individual differences in a personality variable called need for cognition capture differences in actors' cognitive motivation to realize the potential information benefits that exist in their social networks. Results show that network characteristics do affect information benefits, but these effects are stronger for managers motivated to take advantage of them. These findings both support social capital theory and suggest the important role that personality can play in augmenting social network analyses. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Performance of information system implementation based on coupling-cohesion among subunits

The intermediate information system benefit and the coupling-cohesion of subunits are presented to study the performance of information system implementation. Based on the organizational information processing theory and the organizational behaviour theory, a theoretical model is established from the perspective of coupling-cohesion of subunits. The reliability and validity of the model are checked up with the structural equation models and the data collected with questionnaires. The results of the study give some theoretical and practical guidance.

A review of social identity theory with implications for training and development

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to review social identity theory and its implications for learning in organizations.Design/methodology/approachThis article is a conceptual paper based on a multidisciplinary review of the literature on social identity theory. This article explains the theoretical concepts, constructs, and findings of an identity‐based view of learning in organizations. The article describes the theoretical foundations of social identity theory and its elaboration as self‐categorization theory, along with some of the limitations of the theory. Important implications for workplace learning are presented.FindingsAlthough multiple factors influence how people work, social identity theory portends to be a unifying theory of organizational behavior because what and how people think as members of social groups influences subsequent behavior and attitudes in social systems. This influence has important implications for workplace learning..Practical implicationsThe social identities in organizations serve as important drivers of performance. How people think as members of groups affects the outcomes of learning interventions. Therefore, social identity is a key input to or driver of learning and performance in organizations.Originality/valueTraining and development have focused primarily on the individual and occasionally the organizational levels with little attention to the identity‐based dynamics of group behavior in organizational settings. This paper offers insights from social identity theory for training and development.

Character and Environment: The Status of Virtues in Organizations

Using evidence from experimental psychology, some social psychologists, moral philosophers and organizational scholars claim that character traits do not exist and, hence, that the philosophical tradition of virtue ethics is empirically inadequate and should dispose of the notion of character to accommodate the empirical evidence. In this paper, I systematically address the debate between dispositionalists and situationists about the existence, status and properties of character traits and their manifestations in human behavior, with the ultimate goal of responding to the question whether virtue ethicists need to abandon the very enterprise of building a character-based moral theory in business ethics and organizational behavior. In the course of this paper, I shall defend the claim that the situationist argument relies on a misinterpretation of the experimental evidence.

Hacia estudios del comportamiento organizacional con mayor pertinencia local

Las teorías del comportamiento organizacional se han originado principalmente en América del Norte. Al probar su aplicabilidad en otras regiones culturales, debe prestarse atención a las diferencias en los ambientes y en los valores de los empleados locales. Dentro de Latinoamérica, la prevalencia de altos niveles de colectivismo y distancia al poder es particularmente importante. En ese sentido, se ha demostrado que el apego de los empleados hacia su organización difiere dentro de las culturas colectivistas. El argumento se ilustra por dos estudios latinoamericanos. En el primero, se compara la forma en que los gerentes manejan los eventos laborales dentro de México, Colombia, Brasil, Chile y Argentina. En el segundo, se examinan los problemas laborales transnacionales de los empleados de estos países. Los resultados enfatizan la necesidad de utilizar medidas que capturen aspectos localmente importantes.

Labor markets and organizations: A screening theory of hiring networks and racially homogeneous employment

This theoretical analysis uses three relationships between individual and organizational performance to help explain when organizations will use different labor markets to organize employment and when they will use different hiring networks. Granovetter's [Granovetter, M. (1973). The Strength of Weak Ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78, 1360–1381] distinctions about job seekers’ networks are combined with Jacobs’ [Jacobs, D. (1981). Towards a theory of mobility and behavior in organizations: An inquiry into the consequences of relationships between individual performance and organizational success. American Journal of Sociology, 87, 684–707] and Marsden and Campbell's [Marsden, P. V., & Campbell, K. E. (1990). Recruitment and selection processes: The organizational side of job searches. In R. Breiger (Ed.), Social mobility and social structures (pp. 59–79). New York: Cambridge University Press] work on employers’ recruitment and screening strategies to develop insights about when weak or strong ties will be used in the hiring process. Strong ties between a job seeker and an intermediary and between the intermediary and an employer are possible without also assuming a tie between the job seeker and the employer. This is possible because the tie between the job seeker and the intermediary exists in a different kind of network than the tie between the intermediary and the employer. When employees can only hurt collective efforts and employers are concerned about the quality of information about job seekers, administrators will prefer strong ties. These ideas also explain when ethnic homogeneity in hiring will be most prevalent.

Trust and cross‐cultural dissimilarities in corporate environment

PurposeThe paper aims to show how Latin American corporate executives are faced with a serious problem, low trust and peer confidence. The factors of criticism in the workplace, increased corporate controls, and growing expectations for improved performance and accountability, have accompanied this decline in trust. Traditional approaches to corporate governance, epitomized by organizational behavior theories, have focused on short‐term profits and organizational systems, which fail to achieve desired results. This paper presents the analysis of behavioral dimensions of cross‐cultural team performance in corporate environment in Mexico.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is based on a literature review of previous research contributions focused on the managers of multinational companies operating in Latin American countries in a cross‐cultural environment. The success of the corporate ventures in Mexico has been evaluated from the perspectives of economic and relational attributes. The discussion in the study revealed that the degree of fit between a corporate parent and venture affects the success of the venture.FindingsThe paper finds that corporate venturing as a strategy for international business development has become significant in view of the process of globalization resulting in the free trade and business development opportunities for multinational companies. The success is associated with high levels of commitment, competitive skills and dynamics in functional management of the venture. In the study the variables of economic and relational dimensions of external and internal fit have shown greater association with venture success. It has also been found that ventures opt for greater autonomy and less economic dependency with their parent ventures for leading success and this finding makes intuitive sense.Practical implicationsThe paper shows that the success in corporate venturing is associated with high levels of commitment, trust, group dynamics and skills in functional management of the venture. The discussions in the paper offer analytical insights for the managers to develop an operational balance in the team to achieve higher performance.Originality/valueThe thesis of the paper is developed around the issues of the cross‐cultural variables affecting workplace environment in reference to trust, team work and gender sensitivity required for achieving efficiency in a business ventures. The paper explores and maps the symbiosis between the cognitive drivers of team member personality and organizational work culture.

Reducing patient mortality in hospitals: the role of human resource management

AbstractDeveloping effective health care organizations is increasingly complex as a result of demographic changes, globalization, and developments in medicine. This study examines the potential contribution of organizational behavior theory and research by investigating the relationship between systems of human resource management (HRM) practices and effectiveness of patient care in hospitals. Relatively little research has been conducted to explore these issues in health care settings. In a sample of 52 hospitals in England, we examine the relationship between the HRM system and health care outcome. Specifically, we study the association between high performance HRM policies and practices and standardized patient mortality rates. The research reveals that, after controlling for prior mortality and other potentially confounding factors such as the ratio of doctors to patients, greater use of a complementary set of HRM practices has a statistically and practically significant relationship with patient mortality. The findings suggest that managers and policy makers should focus sharply on improving the functioning of relevant HR management systems in health care organizations as one important means by which to improve patient care. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Integrating Traditional Organizational Behavior Theories and Issues for Employee Assistance Practice

Demands placed on the 21st century organizations because of the changing environment of work have increased the need for employee assistance practitioners to become knowledgeable in organizational assessment and development. This article presents some of the current issues facing organizations and discusses some of the major organizational behavior theories and management models. Such knowledge can add significantly to employee assistance programs (EAPs) in helping meet organizational needs most effectively and efficiently. Since organizational problems can contribute to employees' problems, an integrated system where the organization and the EAP work together will produce the greatest benefits to the organization and employees.

Entrepreneurial Behaviour in a Large Traditional Firm: Exploring Key Drivers

Innovative use of resources to pursue opportunities has become vital for all organizations. Even large traditional firms operating in stable and mature markets increasingly stress entrepreneurial initiative as a key element in their strategic long-term orientation. While traditional management literature has identified contextual features that foster entrepreneurial activity, little research has looked at why -in the same objective organizational context- some managers act entrepreneurially and others do not. I recognize the importance of context in shaping managerial behaviour. However, while differences in the behavioural context might explain variance in entrepreneurial behaviour between companies, they fail to explain variance within the same company. Drawing on literature in entrepreneurship, strategic management, organizational behaviour and social cognitive theory, I present a model on the micro-foundations of entrepreneurial behaviour in large traditional organizations. I propose that entrepreneurial behaviour is largely affected by managers' subjective interpretations of their supportive context and their set of cognitive and emotional characteristics. Furthermore -acknowledging a proactive role of individuals in controlling their own behaviour and cognition- I introduce entrepreneurial self-efficacy beliefs -defined as managers' perceived capability to perform entrepreneurial tasks- as a critical influencer of actual entrepreneurial behaviour. I empirically test this model and use structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze data from 150 middle managers of a large European financial service company striving to become entrepreneurial. Preliminary findings reveal that managers' subjective interpretations of their sociopolitical support and access to resources significantly stimulate entrepreneurial behaviour. Contrary to the predictions of the literature, individual cognitive and emotional characteristics do not affect entrepreneurial behaviour directly, but are critical in shaping managers' perceptions of their playground for action. Furthermore, findings suggest that managers' entrepreneurial self-efficacy beliefs are a powerful predictor of entrepreneurial behaviour. They are critical to translate perceptions of context and individual characteristics into behaviour, and represent an important cognitive and motivational device to steer and regulate entrepreneurial behaviour. Based on an explorative yet rigorous research design, this study broadens our understanding of the main determinants of entrepreneurial behaviour within established organizations and consolidates various streams of literature. Last but not least, it offers valuable insights for managerial practice on how to encourage entrepreneurial behaviour across multiple levels of the organization.