Ethics and Ethos: The Buffering and Amplifying Effects of Ethical Behavior and Virtuousness

Logical and moral arguments have been made for the organizational importance of ethos or virtuousness, in addition to ethics and responsibility. Research evidence is beginning to provide, empirical support for such normative claims. This paper considers the relationship between ethics and ethos in contemporary organizations by summarizing emerging findings that link virtuousness and performance. The effect of virtue in organizations derives from its buffering and amplifying effects, both of which are described.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/42524/1/10551_2004_Article_5273953.pd

Resilient personality: Is grit a source of resilience?

Resilience, the ability to function under adversity, is important in most aspects of life, but especially so in organizations (Britt et al., 2016; Caza and Milton, 2012). Workers face mounting stress from chronic issues such as employment uncertainty, growing work demands, 24/7 connectivity, and blurring work boundaries (Ashford et al., 2018; Kolb et al., 2012; Kossek and Perrigino, 2016). Moreover, acute workplace crises may be increasing in severity and frequency (Williams et al., 2017). As a result, it seems hard to overstate the importance of being able to recover from challenges at work. Indeed, resilient individuals have been found to enjoy many positive outcomes, including greater wellbeing, better mental health, higher life satisfaction, and more self-efficacy (Lee et al., 2013; Liu et al., 2017; Mayordomo et al., 2016). Resilience is also positively associated with important attitudes and behaviors such as job satisfaction, engagement, organizational commitment, and job performance (Elitharp, 2005; Kossek and Perrigino, 2016; Cooke et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2017)

Transformational leadership across cultures: Follower perception and satisfaction

Leading people from diverse cultures is centrally important in organizations. This study investigates the extent to which transformational leadership behaviors are universal: by examining if leaders and followers perceive transformational leadership behaviors the same way across cultures; and by determining if the magnitude of satisfaction that followers derive from transformational leadership behavior is the same across cultures. Survey data from 71,537 leaders and their direct reports (n = 203,027) from 77 countries were analyzed. Respondents represented hundreds of different organizations, 12 functional areas, 26 industries, and all management levels. Cultural universality was examined by comparing internal reliability scores and using multilevel mixed coefficient models to assess the similarity of effect sizes in across cultures. Regardless of culture, when interacting with leaders from their own culture, followers were universally alike in their perceptions of transformational leadership behavior and in their satisfaction with such behavior

Ethics and ethos: The buffering and amplifying effects of ethical behavior and virtuousness

Logical and moral arguments have been made for the organizational importance of ethos or virtuousness, in addition to ethics and responsibility. Research evidence is beginning to provide, empirical support for such normative claims. This paper considers the relationship between ethics and ethos in contemporary organizations by summarizing emerging findings that link virtuousness and performance. The effect of virtue in organizations derives from its buffering and amplifying effects, both of which are described

The missed promotion: An exercise demonstrating the importance of organizational justice

Treating employees fairly produces many positive outcomes, but evidence suggests that managers’ efforts to be fair are often unsuccessful because they emphasize the wrong aspects of justice. Managers tend to emphasize distributive justice, though employees may be most concerned with procedural and interactional justice. Organizational justice theory offers a framework for correcting this problem and assisting managers in their efforts to be fair. To this end, the authors describe the Missed Promotion exercise, a two-person role-play for introducing students to organizational justice theory. It provides a way to have students experience the importance of organizational justice, while teaching them about the three dimensions of justice and why managers often fail to be perceived as fair. Although the Missed Promotion exercise is simple enough to be completed in a single class session with students of any level, it reliably produces realistic responses and experiences, which allows for a useful discussion of the role of organizational justice in managerial fairness

Psychological capital and authentic leadership: Measurement structure, gender comparison, and cultural extension

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to test the measurement properties of the psychological capital questionnaire (PCQ) and the authentic leadership questionnaire (ALQ). Both scales' properties are tested in a diverse sample of working adults, compared across genders, and assessed for their performance in a new national culture. Design/methodology/approach: This paper uses survey data from a random, nationally representative sample of working New Zealand adults. Structural equation modeling is used to conduct confirmatory factor analysis and to test for measurement invariance in both scales. Findings: The results confirm the hypothesized second-order factor structure of both scales, with psychometric properties comparable to those in samples from other cultures. The results further suggest that the PCQ and ALQ exhibit measure equivalence for men and women. Originality/value: This paper provides the first test of both scales in a diverse representative sample. It demonstrates that the PCQ and ALQ are useful for diverse samples and equally valid for both genders, as well as performing as expected in other cultures

Positive organizational scholarship: A critical theory perspective

Positive organizational scholarship (POS) is considered an alternative approach to studying organizations; it is argued that POS plays a critical theory role in contemporary organizational scholarship. By using essays on critical theory in organizational science to consider POS research, and drawing from the principles of Gestalt psychology, it is argued that the important distinctions between POS and traditional organizational scholarship lie in POS's emphasis on positive processes, on value transparency, and on extending the range of what constitutes a positive organizational outcome. In doing so, it is concluded that the primary contribution of POS is that it offers an alternative to the deficit model that shapes the design and conduct of organizational research

From insult to injury: Explaining the impact of incivility

Previous research has demonstrated that violence, harassment, and discrimination have negative consequences for individual well-being. However, this literature has focused less on subtle forms of mistreatment, such as incivility. The current study addresses this gap by developing and testing a conceptual model of incivility, as experienced in institutions of higher education. A survey of 1,043 university students revealed that over 75% had experienced uncivil behavior from other members of their institution in the prior year. Structural equation analyses suggest that these incivility targets endured psychological distress, dissatisfaction with and disengagement from their institution, and performance decline. We also identified perceptions of injustice and ostracism as key mediators in this process, which operated somewhat differently depending on the formal institutional status of the incivility instigator. Implications for theory and research are discussed

See the Benefit: Adversity Appraisal and Subjective Value in Negotiation

Negotiation scholars know relatively little about how negotiators can overcome adverse circumstances and end negotiations with an enhanced sense of satisfaction. Using a series of two negotiations simulations, we tested whether cognitive reappraisal influences negotiators' responses to adverse experiences. After completing a negotiation in which they either did – or did not – encounter difficulties, participants identified a challenging moment and wrote about either the benefits or harms they associated with that moment. They then completed a second negotiation and reported their post-negotiation satisfaction using the Subjective Value Inventory. Compared to negotiators who did not encounter adversity, those negotiators who did encounter challenges and engaged in benefit finding reported higher levels of process and relationship satisfaction than those who engaged in harm finding. We also found that negotiators reported greater process and relationship satisfaction under adverse circumstances (hard negotiation or harm-finding appraisal) when their partners used inclusive language (we, ours, us) in the second negotiation

The stories that make us: Leaders’ origin stories and temporal identity work

The stories we tell about our origins can shape how we think and act – helping us make sense of and communicate who we have “become” over time. To better understand the role that origin stories play in individuals’ work lives, we explore how 92 men and women leaders make sense of “becoming” a leader (origin stories) and “doing” leadership (enactment stories). We find that, despite the uniqueness of their experiences, their narratives converge around four frames, being, engaging, performing, and accepting, through which they understand, articulate, and enact their leader identities. We theorize that these narrative frames serve as sensemaking and identity work devices which allow them to create temporal coherence, validate their leader identity claims, and offer them behavioral scripts. Our findings also unearth key gender differences in the use of these frames, in that men used the performing frame more often and women tended toward the engaging frame. These findings provide novel insights into the ways in which the gendered context of leadership becomes embedded in leaders’ understandings of who they are and what they intend to do in their roles. We discuss the theoretical implications of our findings on scholarly conversations around identity, leadership, and gender