Hongseok Oh

Inside the Iron Cage: Organizational Political Dynamics and Institutional Changes in Presidential Selection Systems in Korean Universities, 1985-2002

This paper explores why and how organizations respond to external pressures for institutional change in terms of organizational political dynamics. The focus on organizational political dynamics is important in understanding a period of institutional change when multiple groups of actors are involved in the dynamic political processes of promoting each groups goals, interests, ideologies, and institutional logic. We propose a social movement framework of organizational political dynamics that focuses on political interactions between two sets of actors—incumbents and challengers—in an organization to explain the micro-foundation underlying the decline and emergence of organizational practices in an organizational field. A longitudinal study of changes in the presidential selection systems of Korean universities illustrates how organizational political dynamics between incumbents (a board of trustees at a private university or government agents at a public university) and challengers (faculty councils) shaped the process of replacing the conventional appointment system with a new system of direct voting during the period 1985 to 2002. The general implications for organizational political dynamics, institutional change, differences in organizational responses to external pressures, and micro foundations of macro institutional phenomena are discussed.

Essential precursors and effects of employee creativity in a service context

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how the emotional labor strategies of service employees differently influence the level of their creativity, and whether creative employees consequently benefit from that creativity in terms of achieving a high level of job performance. Design/methodology/approach – The authors surveyed flight attendants from an airline in South Korea. The authors distributed 150 questionnaires to flight attendants, received 126 responses, and finally obtained 119 usable data. The authors used Mplus 7.13 to evaluate validity and test the hypotheses. Findings – Whereas employees using deep acting were found to be less emotionally exhausted and more affectively committed toward their organization, which produced a high level of creativity, those who selected surface acting were shown to suffer more emotional exhaustion and have less affective commitment, which generated a low level of creativity. Customer service personnel behaving creatively resulted in superior official jo...

The Multilevel Effects of Network Embeddedness on Interpersonal Citizenship Behavior

Interpersonal citizenship behavior (ICB) in organizations is an inherently relational and multilevel phenomenon. Using a multilevel framework, this study investigates the different levels of social network antecedents of ICBs. Specifically, the authors examine the effects of individual-level network characteristics (centrality and transitivity) and group-level network properties (density and centralization) on individuals’ ICBs. From a sample of 846 individuals in 149 work groups, the authors find that individual centrality and the network density of a group increased group members’ ICBs and note the positive joint effect of both predictors. Furthermore, consistent with their prediction, the tendency for individuals embedded in a local triad to display less ICB is greater in the decentralized group. This result shows a possible trade-off between structural positions in local and global networks in facilitating individuals’ ICBs.