Levels, processes, and social-issues in organizations: integrative introduction

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Managerial Psychology, Volume 30, Issue 5.

Social issues have always been a central subject in organizational life (Lukaszewski and Stone, 2012). Nevertheless, the last decade has seen a growing awareness of its centrality. For instance, Journal of Managerial Psychology published various Special Issues dedicated to job loss (Issue No. 8, 2012); facilitating age diversity in organizations (Issue Nos 7/8, 2013); ethnic privilege and power at work (Issue No. 4, 2014). Studying social issues as an important part of organizational life should be analyzed through three different perspectives: level, process, and topics. At the individual level, theory,and research focussed on subjects such as perceptions (Rosopa et al., 2013), attitudes (Ajzen, 2012), and behaviors (Moore et al., 2012). At the group level, theory, and research focussed on subjects such as group climate (Rupp and Paddock, 2010), shared perceptions (Li et al., 2009), level of trust (Fulmer and Gelfand, 2012). At the organizational level, various cultures become a main issue of investigation (Gelfand et al., 2012). For instance, Van Vianen et al. (2011) studied 48 work units in order to investigate whether and how climate strength and quality are related to employee commitment above and beyond individual climate perceptions.

Regarding the process perspective, a point of departure could be the CODIFY framework (Tzafrir et al., 2013) emphasizing the various mechanisms through which the interaction between external and internal environment takes place. CODIFY stands for the following components: communication, observation, diffusion, interaction, friction, and yearning, all of which will be discussed and elaborate further on. Finally, specific topics related to organizational population, settings,and behaviors (Stone et al., 2013) are analyzed and discussed. Stone et al. (2013) mentioned the challenges facing organizational research given the increasing complexity of society today and its impact on the effectiveness of organizations. Thus, the current Special Issue is dedicated to exploring process, topics, and levels in a socially integrative way.

Kozlowski and Klein (2000) have asserted that organizational science is moving toward the development of a paradigm that can bridge the micro-macro gap in theory and research. The current Special Issue is one step toward this goal. An integrative approach to social issues in organizations as microfoundations (Barney and Felin, 2013; Tzafrir et al., 2015) representing individual, group, and organizational levels, various forms of social interactions, and the process dynamics involved (Ferris et al., 1998). Therefore, our integrative approach utilizes the CODIFY framework by which formal and informal mechanisms specifically impact attitude, intentions, and behaviors in organizations.

The “C” stands for all facets of communication. Communication may have a positive or negative impact on the behavior of an organization’s members. For instance, in the current issue Korzynski’s paper “Online social networking and employee engagement”focus on the role of online networks in employee engagement and the influence of leaders’ involvement in such networks. This study involved team leaders, managers, and directors working in Fortune 500 companies in the USA using LinkedIn (a professional online networking platform). Data were collected through structured surveys delivered through LinkedIn to randomly selected users in leadership roles in September, October, and November 2012. The paper presents the impact of various levels of setting as a facet on the internal environment and their influence on employee behavior. A practical implication of this study focusses on human resource management system as a functional tool for future employee management adjustment. For instance, organizations that seek ways to facilitate their leaders in internal online networking need to organize training as well as support leaders and employees in the use of online networking platforms.

The “O” stands for “the way actors view, monitor, watch, and perceive other actors and themselves. It may be from inside the organization or from outside.” In their paper entitled: “Learning by Hiring or Hiring to Avoid Learning?” Tzabbar and colleagues focus on organizations seeking to expand their knowledge base through recruiting talent from other organizations. The authors examined the degree to which an organization’s incumbent inventors are affected by the hiring of an inventor from another firm. One claim in the literature is that organizations hiring external talent are expanding their knowledge base through the observation and learning that those hired conducted in their previous workplace. However, their results indicate that by hiring inventors, organizations essentially “buy” access only to the hired inventor’s knowledge rather than to the broader range of knowledge developed by the inventor’s prior employer.

The “D” stands for the interchange of norms, practices, and behaviors, across the boundaries of systems and subsystems. In her paper, “Employee benefits and high-tech fatherhood,” Blumen deals with work-family benefits that underscore the value of working time. Employee benefits offer a valuable opportunity to foster relations between organizations and their socio-cultural environment. The diffusion process, in her study, occurs through and between the high-tech managerial position and the fatherhood role of the employees. Managers construct a salient image of high-tech fatherhood well embedded in the ideology of the separate spheres. Workplaces contain relations between people inside and outside organizations, barring the outdated association of fatherhood with breadwinning that misrepresents the changing social reality. Such relations act as membranes separating the work environment from the family environment, as well as between sub-systems within the organization. In this context, Blumen describes confusing behaviors regarding daily communication, tolerance of grievances, leisure, educational activities, and the gap between overbearing practices that defend traditional fatherhood and thoughtful expressions of empathy. Yet, through diffusion, the pressures equalize by creating a modest social change, suggesting the emergence of a “new,” more willingly involved father.

The “I” stands for the interaction of all omnibus and discrete contexts (Johns, 2006). In that, interaction refers to frameworks of perception and activity between and among the various stakeholders, systems,and subsystems of which the organization and its environment consist. In the paper by Araujo: “How do working mothers negotiate the work-home interface?” the tactics that mid-career professional working mothers use to improve their work-home balance is explored. Araujo’s paper may serve as a mirror image of Blumen’s paper and together they present two perspectives, or aspects,of a traditional family system analysis. The author suggests four dimensions of boundary work tactics (behavioral, temporal,physical, and communicative) that mid-career working mothers adopted to construct a satisfying level of segmentation or integration between workplace and home. This paper explores the idea that the separation of a specific event (boundary violation) from a more generalized state (work-family conflict) might foster a more focussed understanding of how the conflict is produced and overcome.

The previous two papers discussed, aside from incorporating issues of Diffusion and Interaction, simultaneously incorporate friction of demands between home and workplace. The “F” stands for the friction that appears in all organization environments. Friction refers to conflicts, misunderstandings, and communication flaws between two or more actors. McDaniel, Ngala and Leonard discuss in their paper “Does competency matter? Competency as a factor in workplace bullying,” the mediating relationship between the victims’ self-perception of competency and victim’s reactions to bullying. The authors suggest that victim responses can be more positive if the victim has a self-perception of competence, given adequate positive responses available within the organization. In their conceptualization, it is the prevention of bullying that is essential. Managers may work to prevent all forms of incivility, harassment, bullying, and mobbing. As suggested by Enosh et al. (2013), in the spirit of a contextual approach (Johns, 2006), managers need to take into account the micro, meso, and macro levels of the organization, while trying to confront the issue of aggressiveness. Leonard and McDaniel added to the literature the need to look at the strength of the ties between bullying and competence, and then to the recourses that victims consider taking in response to the bullying.

Employment social environment (ESE) is a microfoundation (Barney and Felin, 2013) representing individuals’ characteristics, various forms of social interactions, and the process dynamics involved (Ferris et al., 1998) in different levels of organizational analysis. Issues of bullying and workplace aggression bring us the sphere of values and norms, presenting the dark side of the social arena. The other side may relate to positive constructs, values and virtues,inherent in the yearning of each and all of us for a better world, or at least, a better place to work at. The “Y” stands for yearning. Yearning refers to the universal longing for the fulfillment of higher values such as equity, justice, cooperation,well-being, and social responsibility. This aspiration is expressed in the work of Farndale and her colleagues “Job resources and employee engagement: a cross-national study.” Their study presents an investigation of job resources and engagement in three culturally diverse countries – Mexico, the Netherlands, and USA. National culture is found to be a useful lens through which to theorize and explain differential job resources-engagement relationships. The authors found that in large power distance collectivist societies (Mexico), there is great respect for those in senior positions, and subordinates are fearful of judgmental feedback from their superior. In low power distance societies (the Netherlands, USA), people are less accepting of the views of superiors, and prefer to participate in evaluations. Last but not least, concentrating on the positive side of ESE, Nienaber and her colleagues in their paper: “A qualitative meta-analysis of trust in supervisor-subordinate relationships,” concentrate on a systematic overview of the central antecedents and consequences that influence the trust relationship between supervisors and subordinates. The authors suggest that more heterogeneous studies of trust between supervisors and subordinates are needed,both in terms of theoretical perspectives and methodological designs.

The call for heterogeneity in the study of ESE is part of the wider trend presented in the current volume. The current volume expands the breadth of social issues in organization as a microfoundation (Barney and Felin, 2013) representing individuals’ characteristics, various forms of social interactions, and the process dynamics involved (Ferris et al., 1998) in different levels of organizational analysis (Kozlowski and Klein, 2000) and in different cultural contexts (Gelfand et al., 2011). In this regard, the primary purpose of the introductory paper is to raise awareness regarding the challenges facing researchers dealing with ESEs. These challenges can only be answered by taking into account the complexity of conducting research at different levels, cultures,and topics of ESEs in organizations, and the amalgamation of different methodological approaches.

Dr Shay Tzafrir, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel

Dr Emma Parry, Cranfield School of Management, Cranfield University, Cranfield, UK, and

Dr Guy Enosh, School of Social Work, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel

References

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Further reading

Li, A., Cropanzano, R. and Bagger, J. (2013), “Justice climate and peer justice climate: a closer look”, Small Group Research, Vol. 44 No. 5, pp. 563-592