Joanne Martin

The Uniqueness Paradox in Organizational Stories.

We wish to thank James Baron, Mary Douglas, Elisabeth Hansot, Meryl Louis, James March, Jeffrey Pfeffer, Edgar Schein, Art Stinchcombe, and Eugene Webb fortheir helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Organizational cultures, and in particular stories, carry a claim to uniqueness-that an institution is unlike any other. This paper argues that a cultures claim to uniqueness is, paradoxically, expressed through cultural manifestations, such as stories, that are not in fact unique. We present seven types of stories that make a tacit claim to uniqueness. We show that these seven stories occur, in virtually identical form, in a wide variety of organizations. We then suggest why these stories have proliferated while others have not.

Organizational culture and counterculture: An uneasy symbiosis

Joanne Martin Caren Siehl cA? our sentences capture the essence of much of the recent organizational culture research. First, cultures offer an interpretation of an institution’s history that members can use to decipher how they will be expected to behave in the future. Second, cultures can generate commitment to corporate values or management philosophy so that employees feel they are working for something they believe in. Third, cultures serve as organizational control mechanisms, informally approving or prohibiting some patterns of behavior. Finally, there is the possibility, as yet unsupported by conclusive evidence, that some types of organizational cultures are associated with greater productivity and profitability. Most of this research shares a single set of simplifying assumptions. First, the perspective of the organization’s top management is assumed because the functions studied serve to (1) transmit top management’s interpretations of the meaning of events throughout the organization, (2) generate commitment to their practices and policies, and (3) help them control behavior in accordance with their objectives. Second, the functions of culture are portrayed as integrative, unifying the diverse elements of an or-

Moral outrage and pragmatism: Explanations for collective action☆

Abstract Two explanations for collective behavior were contrasted. The first, exemplified by relative deprivation theory, stresses the importance of feelings of moral outrage and perceived economic injustice. The second focuses on more pragmatic considerations, such as the availability of resources for mobilization. The present study examines these explanations for collective behavior in a laboratory setting. Subjects were members of a disadvantaged group. In a 3 × 2 factorial design two independent variables were manipulated. The magnitude of pay inequality between the disadvantaged group and a more advantaged group was manipulated to be large, moderate, or small. Mobilization resources available to the disadvantaged group were manipulated to be either present or absent. In accord with predictions based on relative deprivation theory, as the magnitude of the inequality increased, stronger feelings of deprivation were expressed. However, contrary to relative deprivation theory, larger magnitudes of inequality and stronger feelings of deprivation were not associated with greater willingness to engage in legitimate or illegitimate forms of collective behavior. Instead, as predicted by some critics of relative deprivation theory, willinginess to engage in illegitimate forms of collective behavior was affected only by a gragmatic consideration: the presence or absence of mobilization resources.

Bread and roses: Justice and the distribution of financial and socioemotional rewards in organizations

Two studies tested the hypothesis that organizational decision makers attempt to counterbalance contribution-based distributions of financial/material rewards (a “merit” system that creates monetary inequality) with need- and equality-based allocations of socioemotional rewards, in effect allocating “roses” in lieu of more “bread”. Experiment 1 had a two-factor design (Reward Type × Magnitude of Income Inequality); 67 subjects were given a managerial in-basket exercise in which they expressed their preferences for a variety of distributive justice rules for seven different types of rewards. Experiment 2 (N=39) had the same design, with a stronger manipulation of magnitude of inequality. Results of the two experiments were consistent with the counterbalancing hypothesis, irrespective of magnitude of income inequality; financially related rewards (e.g., profit sharing, office space, company cars) were distributed with more emphasis on contribution rules (i.e., performance, status), while more socioemotional rewards (e.g., help for an employees spouse, friendliness) were allocated with more emphasis on equality among individuals, equality across groups, and personal need.

The Fairness of Earnings Differentials: An Experimental Study of the Perceptions of Blue-Collar Workers

The relationship between interclass pay equity and product quality is examined in a sample of 102 corporate business units. A small pay differential between lower-level employees and upper-echelon managers (after controlling for inputs) is theorized to ...

A Garbage Can Model of the Psychological Research Process.

Journal articles and the more conventional methodological textbooks present a rational model of the process of doing psychological research. Consider the headings in a typical journal article: survey of literature, hypotheses, methods, results, and discussion. Many methodological textbooks structure the presentation of the research process in a similar fashion. For example, one text lists chapters on the selection and formulation of a research problem, research design, general problems in measurement, data collection, analysis, and interpretation (Sellitz, Jahoda, Deutsch, and Cook, 1959). The steps in the research process, implied by the order of these journal headings and chapter titles, are labeled in this article as

Catalysts for Collective Violence

Acts of collective violence, such as riots and rebellions, have immediate and devastating physical and economic consequences. Consider, for instance, the riots that occurred in Miami in May, 1980. One 3-day spree of violence and bloodletting left 15 dead and almost 400 injured. Initial estimates of property damage were

Cultures in Organizations: Three Perspectives

100 million, most of it resulting from the spread of fires caused by arson.