Ad van Iterson

Value incongruence, job autonomy, and organization-based self-esteem: A self-based perspective on organizational cynicism

Combining the perspectives of person-environment fit and self-theory, a model was postulated in which both the incongruence between personal and perceived organizational values and job autonomy precede organizational cynicism, while organization-based self-esteem, as a psychological explanation for cynicism, was hypothesized to mediate both relationships. The model and corresponding hypotheses were tested on a sample of 174 Dutch workers. Polynomial regression results indicated that value incongruence and job autonomy add significantly to the prediction of organizational cynicism. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the hypothesized mediating effect of organization-based self-esteem. Results indicated that self-esteem partially mediates both relationships. These results support the conceptualization of organizational cynicism as a self-defensive response to problematic events and circumstances in the work environment.

Gossip in Organizations: Contexts, Consequences, and Controversies:

This article examines the key themes surrounding gossip including its contexts, the various outcomes (positive and negative) of gossip, as well as a selection of challenges and controversies. The challenges that are highlighted revolve around definitional issues, methodological approaches, and ethical considerations. The authors’ analysis suggests that the characteristics and features of gossip lend itself to a process-oriented approach whereby the beginning and, particularly, end points of gossip are not always easily identified. Gossip about a subject or person can temporarily disappear only for it to resurface at some later stage. In addition, questions pertaining to the effects of gossip and ethical-based arguments depend on the nature of the relationships within the gossip triad (gossiper, listener/respondent, and target).

The politics of gossip and denial in interorganizational relations

Organizational gossip has largely been discussed in terms of effects at the individual level. In this article we turn our attention to the organization level. The article makes a research contribution that addresses gossip that spreads fact-based rumours about organizations in terms of their shifting role in circuits of power. The research question asks what happens when organizations officially formulate themselves as doing one thing while other organizational actors that are influential in significant organizational arenas (in which these formulations circulate) counter that these formulations are patently false. Theoretically, we draw on the literature on organizational gossip and rumour as well as on the politics of non-decision-making. Our argument is advanced by reference to a case study of the Australian Wheat Board and UN Resolution 661. Basically, organizational gossip plays a key role in the production of interorganizational power dynamics, an insight previously neglected.

When Do CEOs Versus Top Management Teams Matter in Explaining Strategic Decision-Making Processes?: Toward an Institutional View of Strategic Leadership Effects

Theory on strategic leadership effects gives short shrift to the institutional context in establishing the impact of chief executive officers (CEOs) and top management teams (TMTs) on strategic decision making processes. In this article we develop the argument that the institutional context of the country in which they are embedded centrally shape the extent to which CEO or TMT characteristics provide more accurate predictions of strategic decision-making processes. We develop a set of exemplary propositions to substantiate this thesis and trace its implications for theory and testing on strategic leadership effects on the firm.

How adaptive and maladaptive humor influence well-being at work: A diary study

Abstract In this paper, we investigate how adaptive and maladaptive humor influence well-being in the workplace. In particular, this study examines the extent to which reactions from others (i.e., humor targets) can moderate the relationship between humor and well-being. Unlike prior research, we adopted a withinperson research design. We used data from a two-week-long diary study of 57 Dutch individuals employed in the automotive sector. Our hierarchical linear modeling analysis found that employees are more engaged on days when they express adaptive humor, while they appear more emotionally exhausted on days when they express maladaptive humor. Reactions from humor targets do not moderate the effects of humor. Using a within-person design, this study makes an important contribution to the humor at work literature, which has focused almost exclusively on inter-individual differences.

When Task Conflict Becomes Personal The Impact of Perceived Team Performance

Although potentially beneficial, task conflict may threaten teams because it often leads to relationship conflict. Prior research has identified a set of interpersonal factors (e.g., team communication, team trust) that help attenuate this association. The purpose of this article is to provide an alternative perspective that focuses on the moderating role of performance-related factors (i.e., perceived team performance). Using social identity theory, we build a model that predicts how task conflict associates with growth in relationship conflict and how perceived team performance influences this association. We test a three-wave longitudinal model by means of random coefficient growth modeling, using data from 60 ongoing teams working in a health care organization. Results provide partial support for our hypotheses. Only when perceived team performance is low, do task conflicts relate with growth in relationship conflict. We conclude that perceived team performance seems to enable teams to uncouple task from relationship conflict.

Differences in work goals among regions of the Netherlands and Germany: functional, institutional and critical event influences

We use World Values Survey data from the Netherlands and Germany to compare the importance of within-nation region differences with nation differences in work goals. These two nations have historical relationships and internal differences that are especially useful for testing hypotheses about nation compared to within-nation region differences. We develop hypotheses about the implications of religious heritage and urbanization for work goals based on functional, institutional and critical event explanations for regional culture differences. A number of work goals (notably extrinsic goals like pay) show too little difference between either nations or within-nation regions to consider them. For those work goals that do show region differences, the largest differences, those for job security goals and goals for working with pleasant people, are associated with region differences between rather than within the two nations. Regional differences in some work goals are also related to religious heritage. Regional differences in work goals have implications for the kinds of HR programs that managers may wish to promote in different locations. For example, the results suggest that HR managers have reason to anticipate that policies promoting job security may receive especially positive responses in Germany, whereas programs promoting social relationships may be best received in the Netherlands. Similarly, organizations that operate in both the north and south of each country should be alert to a number of possible within-nation differences in local optimal HR policies, but the within-nation differences found here are small enough that they should be carefully checked in specific organizations.

“Friends and Followers”: The Social Organisation of Firms’ Online Communities

Business managers are recognising the potential of firm-initiated online communities to monitor user preferences, enhance brand awareness, advertise new products, and react to feedback. We explore the social organisation of such virtual communities via in-depth interviews with German online community managers about their daily work and their self-presentation. Norbert Elias’s insights into long-term changes in self-constraint and self-expression in occidental societies serve as heuristic framework. We argue that online community managers’ behaviour is typical of the trend towards informalisation, which can also be observed in for-profit relations.