Batia M. Wiesenfeld

Organizational identification among virtual workers: the role of need for affiliation and perceived work-based social support

Organizational identification, which reflects how individuals define the self with respect to their organization, may be called into question in the context of virtual work. Virtual work increases employees’ isolation and independence, threatening to fragment the organization. This study finds that virtual workers’ need for affiliation and the work-based social support they experience are countervailing forces associated with stronger organizational identification. Furthermore, perceived work-based social support moderates the relationship between virtual workers’ need for affiliation and their strength of organizational identification. Thus, when work-based social support is high, even workers with lower need for affiliation may strongly identify with the organization.

Factors contributing to virtual work adjustment

We explore factors associated with employee adjustment to virtual work. In particular, we explore structural factors (i.e., work independence and evaluation criteria) and relational factors (i.e., trust and organizational connectedness) as predictors of adjustment to virtual work. Additionally, we explore age, virtual work experience and gender as moderators of the relationships. We find that structural and relational factors are important predictors of adjustment and that the strength of the relationship is contingent upon individual differences. We explore the implications of these findings for future research and for practice.

Communication Patterns as Determinants of Organizational Identification in a Virtual Organization

Recent advances in information technologies provide employees the freedom to work from any place and at any time. Such temporal and spatial dispersion, however, threatens the very meaning of firms. We suggest that organizational identification may be the critical glue linking virtual workers and their organizations. We explore the role that information technologies play in the creation and maintenance of a common identity among decoupled organization members.

Technology Enabled Work: The Role of Self-Efficacy in Determining Telecommuter Adjustment and Structuring Behavior

We explore factors associated with employees ability to cope with the challenges of telecommuting—an increasingly pervasive new work mode enabled by advances in information technologies. Telecommuting can trigger important changes in employees job responsibilities, especially with respect to the degree of proactivity required to effectively work from a distance. Survey responses from a sample of 723 participants in one organizations formal telecommuting program were used to examine the inter-relationships between telecommuter self-efficacy and extent of telecommuting on telecommuters ability to cope with this new work context. Results indicate that there is a positive association between telecommuter self-efficacy and both employees behavioral strategies (i.e., structuring behaviors) and work outcomes (i.e., telecommuter adjustment). Moreover, these positive relationships are accentuated for employees who telecommute more extensively. Implications for research and practice concerning the effect of technology on jobs and careers are presented. 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.

4 Towards a “Fairer” Conception of Process Fairness: Why, When and How More may not Always be Better than Less

Abstract Process fairness refers to people’s perceptions of how fairly they are treated in the course of interacting with another party. Conceptually distinct from outcome fairness, it subsumes procedural fairness, interpersonal fairness, and the like. As recipients of decisions, we generally want to be treated with more rather than with less process fairness. As agents of decisions, we often would rather plan and implement them with more rather than with less process fairness. Whereas the organizational justice literature generally extols the virtues of high process fairness, recent theory and research suggest that when it comes to process fairness, more is not always better than less. We discuss why, when, and how people’s general tendency to desire higher process fairness over lower process fairness may be attenuated, eliminated, or even reversed. Our analysis is organized by the notion that under some conditions, receiving or acting with high process fairness prevents people from satisfying some of th...

On the reciprocal relationship between basic and applied psychological theory

Good theory in organizational psychology is not only novel and interesting but also has the potential to extend existing theory. We suggest that organizational psychology can most effectively contribute to theory in the broader discipline of psychology when it leverages features that make organizations distinct from other social entities, such as families and communities. We identify several of these distinctive features and provide examples to illustrate how they can serve as a foundation for advancing theory.

Procedural unfairness and managers surviving layoffs: Self-threat and coping in the context of organizational change

The affective and cognitive responses of managers who survive layoffs are explored. Evidence from two field studies suggests that managers who perceive that their organization was procedurally unfair exhibited greater anxiety than their nonmanagerial counterparts. Also, managers who perceived that the organization was unfair were more likely to withdraw from the organization, as measured by reduced organizational identification. Evidence that managers’ degree of identification with their managerial role moderated this relationship provides evidence of the psychological process driving these reactions to unfairness. Implications for the research and practice of organizational change are offered.

The Social Life of Emotions: Studies in Emotion and Social InteractionTiedensLarissa Z.LeachColin Wayne, eds. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 360 pp.

This volume is clearly intended for a psychology audience. Most of the theoretical perspectives taken in the chapters are anchored in psychological theory, many employ methodologies common in psychological research, such as laboratory studies, and with few exceptions, the chapters do not consider the practical and organizational implications of the work reviewed. Targeting a psychology audience is appropriate, however, because the main thesis of the book—that emotions are an important interface with the social world—is a taken-for-granted assumption of research on emotions in other fields such as sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and organizational behavior. Such work in other disciplines is cursorily mentioned in the editor’s introduction and frequently omitted from other chapters in the book. The chapters instead focus on how psychology research can integrate a social approach to the study of emotions.