Elizabeth C. Ravlin

Individual Values in Organizations: Concepts, Controversies, and Research

The values of managers and employees in organizations are phenomena that have captured the interest of researchers, practitioners, social critics, and the public at large. Despite this attention, there continues to be a conspicuous lack of agreement on what values are and how they influence individuals. In this article we discuss how values have been defined and conceptualized. Focusing on values as desirable modes of behavior, we describe how they affect individuals in organizations and discuss some of the salient controversies that characterize contemporary research on values. Finally, we report on a comprehensive review of the most recent literature in this area.

The Design and Activation of Self-Regulating Work Groups:

This paper reviews the literature on self-managing work groups as implemented in organizations, and briefly reviews relevant laboratory and other non-SR WG research. A model is developed exploring the processes of SR WG implementation and operation. Task, organization, and personnel preconditions to implementation are identified, including appropriate expectations by managerial personnel. Design features should include heterogeneous composition and minimal status differences. Activation mechanisms are thought to smooth the way for the successful group, which exhibits the positive process criteria of variety in group member responses, coordination of members, and commitment to group success.

Value Congruence between Co-Workers and its Relationship to Work Outcomes

Value congruence between co-workers is an important dimension of an individuals fit with the work environment. This study examined the relationship of value congruence between co-workers and various work-related outcomes in an industrial setting. Findings indicated that tenure moderated the relationship between value congruence and facet satisfactions and attendance, such that value congruence related positively to beneficial outcomes for lower tenured employees. The relationship between value congruence and performance outcomes was moderated by the extent to which the job required that individuals work closely with others. When job interdependence was high, value congruence had a positive relationship with a supervisory performance rating.

The Measurement of Work Value Congruence: A Field Study Comparison

Although research and practice involving a large number of individual and organizational-level processes requires making comparisons between different work-related values or sets of values (i.e., work value congruence), there is an absence of research dealing with how value congruence should be conceptualized and measured. This study examined a number of issues involving the conceptualization and measurement of work value congruence using interpersonal value comparisons. Comparisons were made for supervisor-subordinate pairs using work value congruence indexes composed of single versus multiple value measures and specific versus general value measures. These comparisons were made for actual and squared indexes and for indexes that were corrected for association with their component value measures. Results showed that a squared congruence index using a more inclusive rank order measure was most appropriate for assessing the effect of value congruence on affective outcomes.

Status and Stratification Processes in Organizational Life

Although status and stratification processes have been studied extensively at the societal level in the sociology literature, they continue to be neglected in the study of management and organizational life. This review begins by questioning why this neglect has occurred. The authors then focus on the theoretical perspectives and empirical findings related to ascribed and achieved status, their interrelationships, how status hierarchies are established and maintained in organizational settings, and the role of culture in these processes. They conclude with an agenda for future research and implications for management practice.

A Meta-Analytic Examination of Realistic Job Preview Effectiveness: A Test of Three Counterintuitive Propositions

Abstract We present a model of realistic job previews (RJPs) and, using separate meta-analyses, examine three counterintuitive hypotheses about their operation. We found modest support for two of the three hypotheses. Findings indicate that RJPs reduce the rate of job acceptance among persons with prior exposure to the job and increase the rate of job acceptance among persons with no prior exposure to the job. Results also indicate that RJPs can be more effective in reducing turnover if the organization is able to restrict the exit of new employees for a period of time after the RJP. Finally, RJPs show a pattern of being more effective in reducing turnover after longer periods of time following administration of the RJP; however, this pattern failed to reach conventional significance levels.

Culture and Ethics Management Whistle-blowing and Internal Reporting within a NAFTA Country Context

This article examines the relation of culture to the propensity for, and potential effectiveness of, both internal reporting and whistle-blowing as ethics management tools within a North American context. Samples from a total of 10 regions in the US, Canada and Mexico increased the accuracy and meaningfulness of the findings. Hofstedes cultural dimensions uncertainty avoidance and power distance had the most consistent and significant relationship to propensity for both whistle-blowing and internal reporting, while collectivism was not found to be significantly related to either ethics management tool. Managers who better understand the cultural links to ethics management are more likely to craft the most effective organizational ethics strategies. Researchers can gain from increased insight, allowing departure from assumptions to an empirically based examination of how cultural dimensions might influence ethics management instruments.

Psychological Contracts across Cultures

This paper explores the relationship between national culture and individuals’ psychological contracts. Predicted relationships were drawn from prior theory that identified cognitive and motivational mechanisms through which culture manifests its influence. The dominant forms of psychological contracts were evaluated against predictions based on the national-level cultural values of vertical and horizontal individualism and collectivism in four countries. Results of interviews with 57 participants indicated that French interviewees (vertical individualist) described their psychological contracts as primarily exploitive, Canadians (horizontal individualist) as primarily instrumental, Chinese (vertical collectivist) as primarily custodial and Norwegians (horizontal collectivist) as primarily communitarian. Exploration of the conditions under which patterns deviated from those predicted by the theory indicates potential areas for future theoretical development.

Development of the cultural intelligence assessment

The construct of cultural intelligence has recently been introduced to the management literature as an individual difference that may predict effectiveness and a variety of interpersonal behavior in the global business environment. This construct has enormous potential in helping to explain effectiveness in cross-cultural interactions. However, progress has been limited by the adequacy of existing measures. In this chapter, we describe the development and preliminary validation of a web-based assessment of cultural intelligence based on our conceptualization of cultural intelligence.

When Does It Hurt to Tell the Truth? The Effect of Realistic Job Reviews on Employee Recruiting.

Increasing competition for new employees may limit the use of realistic (i.e., negative as well as positive) job information by employers during recruiting because it might reduce job acceptances. We examined this issue in a study of job acceptances among state correctional officers and in a comprehensive review of earlier studies in public and private organizations. Since research indicated that previous job exposure could influence how one processes information about a job, we also considered the impact of prior job exposure. Our study showed that persons who had prior exposure to the job they were applying for overemphasized negative job information, resulting in reduced job acceptances. However, those with no prior job exposure showed increased job acceptances. When categorized according to prior job exposure, the findings of previous realistic job preview studies supported this conclusion.