The social life of the novel idea: What did social psychologists ever do for us?

Purpose - The paper presents the extant literature relating to the social processes of innovation in built environment design teams. The paper connects the relevant and significant work in the field of Social Psychology and Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) to derive a theoretical framework which can be used to direct further research, towards development of the behavioural facet of design management. Design/methodology/approach - First, we establish which aspects of social processes of innovation are already present within the AEC field and examine concepts/ideas in Social Psychology that are likely to be important in understanding group processes within AEC, applying three emergent themes of 1) social climate; 2) risk attitudes and 3) motivation and reward. Second, we identify which elements of Social Psychology may be used to expand, consolidate and develop our understanding and identify gaps in AEC specific knowledge. Findings - The paper suggests that whilst the AEC literature has supplanted some key elements of Social Psychology, this discipline offers a further and significant theoretical resource. However, whilst some aspects of social climate and motivation/reward are well-represented in the AEC field, these have not yet been fully explored. Furthermore, how collective attitudes to risk can influence design decision-making is identified as having a limited presence. Originality/value - This paper is the first to bring together the two disciplines of AEC and Social Psychology to examine the social aspects of innovative design performance in built environment teams. The paper fulfils an identified need to examine the social processes that influence innovative design performance in constructio

Extrinsic Rewards and Intrinsic Motives: Standard and Behavioral Approaches to Agency and Labor Markets

Employers structure pay and employment relationships to mitigate agency problems. A large literature in economics documents how the resolution of these problems shapes personnel policies and labor markets. For the most part, the study of agency in employment relationships relies on highly stylized assumptions regarding human motivation, e.g., that employees seek to earn as much money as possible with minimal effort. In this essay, we explore the consequences of introducing behavioral complexity and realism into models of agency within organizations. Specifically, we assess the insights gained by allowing employees to be guided by such motivations as the desire to compare favorably to others, the aspiration to contribute to intrinsically worthwhile goals, and the inclination to reciprocate generosity or exact retribution for perceived wrongs. More provocatively, from the standpoint of standard economics, we also consider the possibility that people are driven, in ways that may be opaque even to themselves, by the desire to earn social esteem or to shape and reinforce identity.agency, motivation, employment relationships, behavioral economics

Construction and impact of leader identity of dynamic work selves at social enterprises: Linkage of the intrapersonal and interpersonal processes with motivational work outcomes

Three empirical studies conducted for this Ph.D. project investigated the intrapersonal and interpersonal processes related to leader identity construction of employees working at the hybrid institutional work context of social enterprises. Identity work as an intrapersonal process, which is closely linked to leader identity development, has rarely been empirically investigated through experimental studies of leaders-to-be who have motivation to lead. The field experiments in Study 1 (N = 34) and Study 2 (N = 26) examined the employees’ leader-role claiming process that led to leader identity construction

Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Overprescribing Goal Setting

Goal setting is one of the most replicated and influential paradigms in the management literature. Hundreds of studies conducted in numerous countries and contexts have consistently demonstrated that setting specific, challenging goals can powerfully drive behavior and boost performance. Advocates of goal setting have had a substantial impact on research, management education, and management practice. In this article, we argue that the beneficial effects of goal setting have been overstated and that systematic harm caused by goal setting has been largely ignored. We identify specific side effects associated with goal setting, including a narrow focus that neglects nongoal areas, distorted risk preferences, a rise in unethical behavior, inhibited learning, corrosion of organizational culture, and reduced intrinsic motivation. Rather than dispensing goal setting as a benign, over-the-counter treatment for motivation, managers and scholars need to conceptualize goal setting as a prescription-strength medication that requires careful dosing, consideration of harmful side effects, and close supervision. We offer a warning label to accompany the practice of setting goals

Successful Negotiations: A Phenomenological Study of the Lived Experiences of Superintendents Who Successfully Negotiate Teacher Contracts

New York State has a long history related to teachers’ unions. Superintendents are often the main players for school districts when negotiating teachers’ contracts. While much has been researched about negotiations, there is a gap in the literature in relation to the motivating factors of superintendents to successfully negotiate teachers’ contracts. The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to describe the lived experiences of school superintendents who have successfully negotiated teachers’ contracts within suburban areas of New York State. The central research question was: What are the lived experiences of school superintendents who have successfully negotiated teachers’ contracts in public school districts in suburban New York? Sub-questions explored motivations, external factors, and internal or personal characteristics of the superintendents who have lived experience. The theories guiding this study included the negotiation theory (Zartman, 1978) and the self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000b). The methodology that was utilized was a transcendental phenomenological design that includes purposeful sampling of participants, data collection obtained through questionnaires, interviews, and document analysis for 11 participants. Data analysis utilized Moustakas’ (1994) prescribed procedures for constructing thematic portrayals of the lived experiences of the participants. When the data were analyzed, four themes emerged: negotiations processes, opportunities of negotiating, obstacles of negotiating, and effectuation of success. Results described the lived experiences of superintendents and how these experiences play a role in administration, with teachers’ unions and within the community

Designing online role plays with a focus on story development to support engagement and critical learning for higher education students

Online role plays, as they are designed for use in higher education in Australia and internationally, are active and authentic learning activities (Wills, Leigh & Ip, 2011). In online role plays, students take a character role in developing a story that serves as a metaphor for real-life experience in order to develop a potentially wide range of subject-related and generic learning outcomes. The characteristics of these stories are rarely considered as factors in the design―and success―of these activities. The unspoken cultural assumptions, norms and rules in the stories that impact on the meanings students make from their experiences are also rarely scrutinised in the online role play literature. This paper presents findings from a case study of an asynchronous text-based online role play involving politics and journalism students from three Australian universities. The findings highlight the centrality of students’ collaborative story-building activity to their engagement and learning, including their development of critical perspectives. The study underlines the importance of certain aspects of the role play\u27s design to support students\u27 story-building activity

Exploring the interactions among external reference price, social visibility and purchase motivation in pay-what-you-want pricing

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the direct and indirect effects of social visibility (private vs public), purchase motivation (intrinsic vs extrinsic vs altruistic) and external reference price (ERP) (absent vs present) on consumers’ pricing decisions in pay-what-you-want (PWYW) context. Design/methodology/approach: Two empirical studies with a fitness gym as the research setting were used to test all the hypotheses; first, a lab experiment with undergraduate student participants and, the second, an online experiment with a consumer panel. Findings: Both studies show that consumers allocate a higher share (RATIO) of their internal reference prices (IRPs) to the prices to be paid (PTP) in PWYW context, in private under intrinsic purchase motivation and in public under extrinsic or altruistic motivation and this effect is more pronounced in the absence of ERP. Research limitations/implications: Future research may validate and extend the findings of this paper with other product or service categories, different manipulations for the key variables, other research methods such as field experiments and expand our model by including other relevant variables. Practical implications: The findings of this paper will help managers understand how individual customers’ purchase motivation and the social visibility in the PWYW setting affect their pricing decisions and how providing external pricing cues may moderate these effects. Originality/value: Prior research on PWYW shows mixed findings about the direct effects of many variables on consumers’ pricing decisions, but it ignores the differences in consumers’ purchase motivations and offers mixed evidence about the influence of social visibility and ERPs on payment decisions. The authors address all these gaps in this paper

Motivating online engagement and debates on energy consumption

Several studies and official reports argue that changing people’s behavior towards energy consumption is a vital part of our fight against climate change. Engaging people into this issue is the first step towards a social change. However, it has been shown that information campaigns and technology alone are insufficient to achieve such engagement. Understanding what motivate people, in which contexts and combinations, and for which individuals, is therefore key to engaging the public more successfully in such crucial debates. This work investigates the role and impact of motivational strategies on promoting engagement in online energy debates. We report our results from running an experiment in the workplace, in which 33 people contributed to an online discussion on reducing energy consumption. A public and tangible feedback of contributions to the online debate, as well as social comparison and competition were analyzed as motivational strategies. Our results point out that engagement goes beyond intrinsic motivation, and that a set of interplaying factors influenced by the social context was found to be the stronger motivational force of engagement