Anat Rafaeli

ORGANIZATIONAL DRESS AS A SYMBOL OF MULTILAYERED SOCIAL IDENTITIES

Qualitative data collected in a rehabilitation unit of a large hospital reveal how organization members used dress to represent and negotiate a web of issues inherent to the hybrid identities of the unit and the nursing profession. As different issues were considered, dress took on various and often contradictory meanings. Thus, a seemingly simple symbol such as organizational dress is shown here to reveal the complex notion of social identity, which is argued to comprise multiple layers of meaning. We discuss the implications of this thesis for theory and research on organizational identity, organizational symbolism, organizational dress, and ambivalence.

Organizational Routines as Sources of Connections and Understandings

Organizational routines are increasingly identified as an aspect of organizations that allows them to achieve the balance between adaptability and stability. We contribute to this discussion by showing that the connections that organizational routines make between people contribute to both stability and the ability to adapt. We argue that the connections between people that are formed as they engage together in organizational routines are important for developing understandings about both what needs to be done in a specific instance of performing a routine and about the goals of the organization that routines presumably help accomplish. Together the two sets of understandings influence organizational performance by affecting the ability of organizations to adapt to changing circumstances. These arguments lead to a general recognition of the importance to organizations of connections and the suggestion that the connections, themselves, may be an important outcome of organizational routines.

Store environment, emotions and approach behaviour: applying environmental aesthetics to retailing

This exploratory study examines the influence of store environment on emotions and behaviour tendencies. The study brings insights from research on external environments to the study of store environment. We combined the idea of three distinct dimensions of emotions (pleasantness, arousal and dominance) and the role of mediating approach-avoidance behaviours with two variables taken from the field of environmental aesthetics – complexity and order. Twenty-four colour photographs of four sections of two grocery stores were rated by a sample of 43 subjects on their degree of complexity and order. A second sample of 87 subjects rated the same photographs on emotions and approach-avoidance tendencies. The relationship between complexity and order and reported pleasantness and arousal was consistent with findings regarding external environments. The three emotional dimensions mediated an inverted ‘U’ relationship between complexity and approach behaviour tendencies, as expected. Order had a positive correlation with approach behaviour tendencies. The study suggests the importance of examining general variables (such as complexity and order) in the context of retail environments and provides ideas for extensive research.

The Effects of Queue Structure on Attitudes

Waiting is examined here as a psychological experience, through propositions regarding the relationship between the design of a queue and the emotions and attitudes of people waiting. Propositions are tested using a paradigm that both controls features of queue structure and allows collection of real-time data from people waiting. Data collected from 134 participants confirm that people closer to a service agent are more pleased than those further away. But people waiting in a single-queue structure are shown to feel more predictability and arousal than those waiting in a multiple-queue structure. Waiting in a multiple-queue structure is, however, shown to produce a sense of lack of justice, even when no objective inequalities exist. The study suggests a useful paradigm for evaluating alternative queue structures in a laboratory setting and provides insights about psychological aspects of waiting. Both the method and the results suggest an extensive agenda for future research.

The Impact of Call Center Employees' Customer Orientation Behaviors on Service Quality

The authors identify specific customer orientation behaviors (COBs) of call center employees and show that these behaviors relate to customer evaluations of service quality. Using qualitative, inductive analyses of 166 telephone service interactions in a retail bank call center, they identify five types of COBs associated with helping customers. The COBs are (a) anticipating customer requests, (b) offering explanations/justifications, (c) educating customers, (d) providing emotional support, and (e) offering personalized information. Using deductive analyses, the authors show that customers rate the quality of service interactions higher when service providers employ COBs. The qualitative findings contribute to the understanding of the specific employee behaviors associated with service quality, and the quantitative findings validate the importance of these behaviors.

Instrumentality, aesthetics and symbolism of physical artifacts as triggers of emotion

Building on qualitative data collected from three groups of professionals who assessed the green colour of a public transportation bus, this paper develops a model of the relationship between physical artifacts and emotions. The model suggests that artifacts need to be analysed according to three conceptually distinct aspects: instrumentality, aesthetics and symbolism. These three aspects are suggested to arouse emotion through different mechanisms: a hygiene, a sensory and an associative mechanism. The model opens an arena for extensive future research on the role and influence of physical artifacts in general and on emotions in particular.

Aesthetics and Professionalism of Virtual Servicescapes

The authors document the effects of the aesthetics and professionalism of virtual servicescapes on customer feelings of pleasantness, satisfaction, and approach toward service interactions. Data were collected using an experimental manipulation of the physical setting (the servicescape) viewed by customers during a service interaction in a virtual (remote) service situation. Participants interacted with the service provider and reported their reactions through a specially developed interactive program. Experimental conditions varied in the aesthetics and professionalism of the virtual servicescape in which the employee was seated and viewed. Aesthetics were found to influence feelings of pleasantness, satisfaction, and approach toward a service interaction. In this experimental manipulation, professionalism was found to influence satisfaction but not feelings of pleasantness or approach toward a service interaction. However, perceptions of professionalism did influence these variables. Also as predicted, feelings of pleasantness mediated the relationship between aesthetics and satisfaction and between aesthetics and approach toward a service interaction, but not the relationship between professionalism and these variables. The implications of the findings for research and practice are discussed.

Instrumentality, Aesthetics, and Symbolism of Office Design

This article suggests that the analysis of physical environments in organizations should recognize three separate dimensions: instrumentality, aesthetics, and symbolism. A theoretical framework is presented based on an expansive survey of multiple bodies of literature that study the effects of physical environments of organizations. Two different methodologies are employed to study employee perceptions of the physical environment of their office space and to test and support the three-dimension framework. In a qualitative study, narratives of in-depth interviews relating to office design are evaluated. In a quantitative study, data collected in a survey of 148 office employees provide evidence for the construct validity of three separate dimensions. The three-dimension model described and validated in this study may facilitate the planning and evaluation of office design.

Numbers or apologies? Customer reactions to telephone waiting time fillers.

The authors examined the effect of time perception and sense of progress in telephone queues on caller reactions to 3 telephone waiting time fillers: music, apologies, and information about location in the queue. In Study 1, conducted on 123 real calls, call abandonment was lowest, and call evaluations were most positive with information about location in the queue as the time filler. In Study 2, conducted with 83 participants who experienced a simulated telephone wait experience, sense of progress in the queue rather than perceived waiting time mediated the relationship between telephone waiting time filler and caller reactions. The findings provide insight for the management and design of telephone queues, as well as theoretical insight into critical cognitive processes that underlie telephone waiting, opening up an important new research agenda.

Emotion display rules at work in the global service economy: the special case of the customer

– The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how emotion display rules are influenced by relational, occupational, and cultural expectations., – The authors compare these influences by assessing anger and happiness display rules toward customers, coworkers, and supervisors across four cultures., – Overall, the findings suggest that anger can be expressed with coworkers, can be slightly leaked to supervisors, but must be almost completely suppressed with customers. In contrast, happiness expression is most acceptable with coworkers. Moreover, though culture dimensions (i.e. power distance and collectivism) do predict display rules with organizational members, display rules with customers are fairly consistent across culture, with two exceptions. French respondents are more accepting of anger expression with customers, while American respondents report the highest expectations for expressing happiness to customers., – The results support that several countries share the “service with a smile” expectations for customers, but these beliefs are more strongly held in the USA than in other cultures. Thus, importing practices from the USA to other culturally distinct countries may be met with resistance. Management must be aware of cultural differences in emotions and emotion norms, as outlined here, to improve the experience of employees of globalized service organizations., – The authors integrate social, occupational, and cultural theoretical perspectives of emotional display rules, and build on the small but growing research identifying variation in display rules by work target, specifically speaking to the globalized “service culture.”