Myria W. Allen

Legitimation endeavors: Impression management strategies used by an organization in crisis

The impression management strategies embedded in the external discourse of an organization in crisis are identified and a typology of impression management strategies used by organizations is developed. Existing documents were used to collect 799 statements dealing with how stakeholders presently viewed or should view the organization. Ingratiation was the primary strategy appearing in the statements, with most ingratiation being self‐enhancing communication. No apologies were present. Different impression management strategies occurred in messages directed to different stakeholders. Intimidation was used with special interest groups. Denouncement strategies were embedded in messages to competitors, special interest groups, and suppliers. Results are discussed in light of institutional theory and the impression management literature.

Information Technology Employees in State Government: A Study of Affective Organizational Commitment, Job Involvement, and Job Satisfaction

This article explores the affective organizational commitment, job involvement, and job satisfaction of an increasingly important segment of the public sector workforce: information technology (IT) employees in state government. We propose a model that explores job characteristics and work experiences variables that together influence affective organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and job involvement. Using canonical correlation analysis, we find that role ambiguity, perceived organizational support, leader—member exchange, and task variety are the independent variables that together explain most of the variance in the affective organizational commitment and job satisfaction of IT employees working for one-state government. In contrast to findings based on private sector IT employees, our analysis does not identify major gender differences. Taken together, these findings advance our understanding of affective commitment and job satisfaction within the public sector and provide agency managers actionable ideas on how to retain valuable IT employees.

Communication concepts related to perceived organizational support

This study examines the relationship between communication concepts and perceived organizational support using questionnaire data gathered from 113 employees at two engineering consulting firms. Employee perceptions regarding top managements general expressions of support for employees, formal positive feedback directed toward individuals, and decision‐making input were strongly related to perceived organizational support. Employees indicated they talked more frequently about their organizations support of its employees with co‐workers than with superiors. However, conversations with superiors strongly correlated with perceived organizational support. The superior‐subordinate and co‐worker communication concepts did not explain a significant portion of the variance in the perceived organizational support concept.

Total Quality Management, Organizational Commitment, Perceived Organizational Support, and Intraorganizational Communication

As the Total Quality Management (TQM) movement sweeps through American businesses, much of the practitioner-oriented TQM literature discusses ways to improve intraorganizational communication while enhancing employee attitudinal organizational commitment and perceived organizational support. This study investigates such claims comparing employee responses from an organization which was not implementing TQM with those from two organizations which were implementing TQM. Organizational commitment and perceived organizational support were significantly higher in the organizations implementing TQM. Employees in the organizations implementing TQM indicated more positive employee-top management and coworker communication relationships, as well as more quality information from top management. Further, these communication elements explained more of the variance in organizational commitment and perceived organizational support in the organizations implementing TQM. However, different communication elements were important in commitment and perceived organizational support regressions depending on the TQM or non-TQM setting.

Workplace Surveillance and Managing Privacy Boundaries

According to communication privacy management (CPM) theory, people manage the boundaries around information that they seek to keep private. How does this theory apply when employees are monitored electronically? Using data from 154 face-to-face interviews with employees from a range of organizations, the authors identified various ways organizations, employees, and coworkers describe electronic surveillance and the privacy expectations, boundaries, and turbulence that arise. Privacy boundaries are established during new-employee orientation when surveillance is described as coercive control, as benefiting the company, and/or as benefiting employees. Correlations exist between the surveillance-related socialization messages interviewees remember receiving and their attitudes. Although little boundary turbulence appeared, employees articulated boundaries that companies should not cross. The authors conclude that CPM theory suppositions need modification to fit the conditions of electronic surveillance.

Financial Attitudes and Family Communication About Students' Finances: The Role of Sex Differences

Past research has shown that men value money more than do women and men are less dependent on their parents in financial matters. Men and women also display different patterns of communication, with women engaging in higher levels of self-disclosure. We examined these issues in the context of young college students communicating with parents about their financial situation by conducting a multistate survey (N = 1317). Results revealed women to be more open with their parents about financial matters even after controlling for financial dependence, which also was related to openness. Financial attitudes were related to family openness.

Social support and acculturative stress in the multicultural workplace

Abstract Organizational dynamics are changing due to cultural variability among employees. Little communication research explores ways in which organizations attempt to adapt to multicultural issues such as cultural stereotyping, language barriers, and employee attempts to acculturate. This study explores cultural differences in employee perceptions of social support received from sources in a multicultural organization. In addition, the study explores the relationship between Hispanic employees’ emotional acculturative stress and the social support they perceive receiving from organizational sources. Hispanics reported receiving more social support from their Hispanic coworkers than Anglo‐Americans reported receiving from that source. No differences were found in either groups perceptions of the amount of social support received from Anglo‐American coworkers and persons in supervisory positions. Social support received from Anglo‐American coworkers was found to be significantly related to Hispanics’ emo...

The Role of Mentoring and Supervisor Support for State IT Employees' Affective Organizational Commitment:

This article assesses the effects of psychosocial and career mentoring, leader—member exchange (LMX), and gender on the affective organizational commitment (AOC) of information technology (IT) employees working in one state government. Few studies have examined the relationship between mentoring and associated antecedents of the AOC of IT employees, and none has examined these relationships for public-sector workforces. The research finds that when both psychosocial and career mentoring are considered, only psychosocial mentoring was significant in predicting the AOC of state government IT employees. When considering just LMX, it was significant in predicting AOC. Neither psychosocial mentoring nor career mentoring was significant in predicting AOC if LMX is also considered. No gender differences were found for any of the variables examined.

Barriers facing women in the IT work force

The percentage of women working in Information Technology (IT) is falling as revealed by the 2003 Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) Blue Ribbon Panel on Information Technology (IT) Diversity report; the percentage of women in the IT workforce fell to 34.9% in 2002 down from 41% in 1996. Several studies have indicated this issue is reaching a crisis level and needs to be explored. Women working in IT at a Fortune 500 company were asked what workplace barriers they faced that had influenced their voluntary turnover decisions or the decisions of their female counterparts. Revealed causal mapping was used to evoke representations of the cognitions surrounding the barriers women face in the IT field. A causal map was developed that indicated womens actual turnover was linked to their views of their family responsibilities, the stresses they face within the workplace, various qualities of their jobs, and the flexibility they were given to determine their work schedule. Their statements regarding the barriers they faced in terms of promotion opportunities (both perceived and actual) were linked to the same four concepts. Interestingly, there was no link between promotion opportunities and voluntary turnover. Reciprocal relationships were identified between managing family responsibility and stress, work schedule flexibility and stress, managing family responsibility and job qualities, and job qualities and stress. Discrimination and lack of consistency in how management treated employees, while important, were not central to how the women in this sample thought about issues related to promotion and voluntary turnover.

Social support, Hispanic emotional acculturative stress and gender

Gender differences in employee perceptions of the social support they received from sources in a multicultural organization are explored using a sample of employees born in Mexico and El Salvador currently working in the United States. Men reported receiving significantly more help with personal problems, praise, and job‐related help than women reported receiving. The relationship between emotional acculturative stress and perceived social support also was explored. Women experienced significantly more emotional acculturative stress than men reported. Intraorganimtional social support was unrelated to the emotional acculturative stress of women. Social support in the form of praise was significantly related to mens emotional acculturative stress.