DICTATORS AND THEIR VIZIERS: ENDOGENIZING THE LOYALTY–COMPETENCE TRADE‐OFF

The possibility of treason by a close associate has been a nightmare of most autocrats throughout history. More competent viziers are better able to discriminate among potential plotters, and this makes them more risky subordinates for the ruler. To avoid this, rulers, especially those who are weak and vulnerable, sacrifice the competence of their agents, hiring mediocre but loyal subordinates. Furthermore, any use of incentive schemes by a personalistic dictator is limited by the fact that all punishments are conditional on the dictator’s own survival. We endogenize loyalty and competence in a principal‐agent game between a dictator and his viziers in both static and dynamic settings. The dynamic model allows us to focus on the succession problem that insecure dictators face.     

THE HIDDEN COSTS AND RETURNS OF INCENTIVES—TRUST AND TRUSTWORTHINESS AMONG CEOs

We examine experimentally how Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) respond to incentives and how they provide incentives in situations requiring trust and trustworthiness. As a control we compare the behavior of CEOs with the behavior of students. We find that CEOs are considerably more trusting and exhibit more trustworthiness than students—thus reaching substantially higher efficiency levels than students. Moreover, we find that, for CEOs as well as for students, incentives based on explicit threats to penalize shirking backfire by inducing less trustworthy behavior—giving rise to hidden costs of incentives. However, thxe availability of penalizing incentives also creates hidden returns: if a principal expresses trust by voluntarily refraining from implementing the punishment threat, the agent exhibits significantly more trustworthiness than if the punishment threat is not available. Thus trust seems to reinforce trustworthy behavior. Overall, trustworthiness is highest if the threat to punish is available but not used, while it is lowest if the threat to punish is used. Paradoxically, however, most CEOs and students use the punishment threat, although CEOs use it significantly less. (JEL: C91, C92, J30, J41)     

Unjust punishment in organizations

What causes leaders to punish subordinates unjustly? And why might leaders keep punishing subordinates unjustly, even when this increases workplace misconduct? In the current paper we address these questions by suggesting that power and status cause leaders to punish unjustly. We review evidence on the effects of power and status on punishment, review how unjust punishments foster misconduct, and highlight how this creates a self-perpetuating feedback loop—leaders are more likely to punish in an unjust manner when subordinates engage in misconduct, but subordinates’ misconduct is partly caused by unjust punishments. We also discuss how leader-subordinate distrust may be at the heart of this phenomenon and how organizations may counteract unjust punishments. We draw attention to research areas that have received little attention and draw up an agenda for future research. Taken together, we integrate the literatures on power, status, punishment and trust, review evidence on when unjust punishments become perpetuating, challenge research suggesting that leaders are cautious when punishing, and guide future research on the topic of punishment in organizations.     

What do we Expect from our Friends?

We conduct a field experiment in a large real‐world social network to examine how subjects expect to be treated by their friends and by strangers who make allocation decisions in modified dictator games. Although recipients' beliefs accurately account for the extent to which friends will choose more generous allocations than strangers (i.e., directed altruism), recipients are not able to anticipate individual differences in the baseline altruism of allocators (measured by giving to an unnamed recipient, which is predictive of generosity toward named recipients). Recipients who are direct friends with the allocator, or even recipients with many common friends, are no more accurate in recognizing intrinsically altruistic allocators. Recipient beliefs are significantly less accurate than the predictions of an econometrician who knows the allocator's demographic characteristics and social distance, suggesting recipients do not have information on unobservable characteristics of the allocator. (JEL: C73, C91, D64)     

Turning change resistance into readiness: How change agents’ communication shapes recipient reactions

As employees’ support for an organizational change is critical for its success, change agents require guidelines on how to initiate change recipients’ endorsement. Accordingly, there is a need for an evidence-based understanding of which communication behaviors drive positive versus negative change reactions, as well as about the psychological mechanisms that explain effective communication. To advance our knowledge about successful change communication, we tested how autonomy-supportive communication, autonomy-restrictive communication, and reflective listening are associated with change recipients’ reactions. Building on Self-Determination Theory, we also tested the mediating mechanism of the satisfaction of recipients’ psychological needs between change agents’ actions and change recipients’ reactions. In three studies, we explored how change agents can use their communication to enhance recipients’ change readiness, as manifested in increased energy-saving intentions. In Study 1, we separately examined the effect of each communication behavior on change readiness. We coded dyadic change conversations for autonomy-supportive (vs. autonomy-restrictive) communication and reflective listening. Results showed that autonomy-restrictive communication negatively impacted recipients’ change readiness. Study 2 used an online experiment to distinguish between the effect of change agents’ autonomy-supportive and -restrictive communication. We found an indirect effect of change agents’ communication behaviors on recipients’ change readiness via psychological need fulfillment. In Study 3, we investigated how change agents “in the field” responded to recipients’ expressed resistance. Findings indicated that change agents use more autonomy-restrictive than -supportive communication, suggesting that their communication typically undermines rather than facilitates recipients’ change readiness.     

Leadership with Imperfect Monitoring

This paper provides experimental evidence on how monitoring intensity shapes the impact of leadership instruments like leading-by-example and punishment. The results show that, with low monitoring intensity, neither leading-by-example nor punishment increases cooperation if the leader can already send nonbinding signals about desired behavior. We identify two different reasons for this effect. Regarding leading-by-example, it is the cautiousness of the leader. Leaders are reluctant to recommend cooperative behavior and act accordingly, even though followers are particularly reciprocal in this context. Regarding punishment, it is the level of monitoring that matters. Monitoring of individual follower behavior increases the cooperation of leaders and followers across all treatments, but in particular, if the leader can punish uncooperative behavior. This result implies that monitoring in itself does not have a negative impact on the inclination to cooperate. It suggests that any motivational crowding out effect derives from a leader’s choice of monitoring, as it signals low trust in the followers. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications.     

Confidence Matters: Self‐efficacy Moderates the Credit that Supervisors Give to Adaptive and Proactive Role Behaviours

In complex and uncertain work environments, employees need to not only be proficient in carrying out their core duties, but also to be adaptive (able to cope and respond to unpredictable events) and proactive (able to anticipate the situation and act in a self‐directed way) in their work roles. In this study we investigate the extent to which supervisors actually give credit to adaptive and proactive role behaviours when they judge employees’ overall job performance. Drawing on attribution theory, we propose that the extent to which these role behaviours are valued by supervisors will be enhanced by employees’ confidence for relevant role behaviours. Support for these ideas is provided using data from junior doctors and their supervisors in a hospital emergency department. Adaptive role behaviours positively influenced supervisors’ judgements of overall job performance. This relationship was stronger for employees with high self‐efficacy for achieving outcomes. Engaging in proactive role behaviours while also lacking role‐breadth self‐efficacy resulted in supervisors’ giving employees less credit for their proactive role behaviours. Findings support the argument that employees’ self‐efficacy for specific role behaviours provides attributional cues about capability that modify how adaptive and proactive role behaviours are interpreted and valued.     

The economic evaluation of time: Organizational causes and individual consequences

People acquire ways of thinking about time partly in and from work organizations, where the control and measurement of time use is a prominent feature of modern management—an inevitable consequence of employees selling their time for money. In this paper, we theorize about the role organizational practices play in promoting an economic evaluation of time and time use—where time is thought of primarily in monetary terms and viewed as a scarce resource that should be used as efficiently as possible. While people usually make decisions about time and money differently, we argue that management practices that make the connection between time and money salient can heighten the economic evaluation of time. We consider both the organizational causes of economic evaluation as well as its personal and societal consequences.     

Driving Forces Behind Informal Sanctions

This paper investigates the driving forces behind informal sanctions in cooperation games and the extent to which theories of fairness and reciprocity capture these forces. We find that cooperators' punishment is almost exclusively targeted toward the defectors, but the latter also impose a considerable amount of spiteful punishment on the cooperators. However, spiteful punishment vanishes if the punishers can no longer affect the payoff differences between themselves and the punished individual, whereas the cooperators even increase the resources devoted to punishment in this case. Our data also discriminate between different fairness principles. Fairness theories that are based on the assumption that players compare their own payoff to the group's average or the group's total payoff cannot explain the fact that cooperators target their punishment at the defectors. Fairness theories that assume that players aim to minimize payoff inequalities cannot explain the fact that cooperators punish defectors even if payoff inequalities cannot be reduced. Therefore, retaliation, i.e., the desire to harm those who committed unfair acts, seems to be the most important motive behind fairness‐driven informal sanctions.     

化被动为主动:共享型领导对员工主动变革行为的影响及作用机制研究

如何让员工将其工作角色外的行为,如主动变革行为,视为其角色内的行为越来越受到学者和管理者的关注。主动变革行为是指个体通过自愿的和建设性的努力来影响组织功能改变的行为,属于一种挑战性的组织公民行为。尽管以往研究对员工主动变革行为的影响因素进行了一些探讨,但主要聚焦于正式垂直领导和个体因素,鲜有研究关注团队情景因素对其的作用效果。通过问卷调查法,以69个部门和262名员工的配对数据为样本,本研究考察了共享型领导对员工主动变革行为的影响及作用机制。跨层次分析结果表明:(1)共享型领导对员工主动变革行为有积极影响;(2)主动变革行为的角色定义与和谐工作激情会分别中介共享型领导与员工主动变革行为之间的关系;(3)领导-成员交换质量会分别调节共享型领导与员工角色宽度自我效能与和谐工作激情之间的关系,领导-成员交换质量越高,共享型领导对员工角色宽度自我效能与和谐工作激情的积极作用越显著;(4)领导-成员交换质量会调节共享型领导通过角色宽度自我效能对员工主动变革行为的间接作用,领导-成员交换质量越高,这一间接作用越显著。     

LYING ABOUT WHAT YOU KNOW OR ABOUT WHAT YOU DO?

We compare communication about private information to communication about actions in a one‐shot 2‐person public good game with private information. The informed player, who knows the exact return from contributing and whose contribution is unobserved, can send a message about the return or her contribution. Theoretically, messages can elicit the uninformed player's contribution, and allow the informed player to free‐ride. The exact language used is not expected to matter. Experimentally, however, we find that free‐ride depends on the language: the informed player free‐rides less—and thereby lies less frequently—when she talks about her contribution than when she talks about the return. Further experimental evidence indicates that it is the promise component in messages about the contribution that leads to less free‐ride and less lying.     

Leader intention,misconduct and damaged relational follower identity: A moral decision making perspective

We demonstrate the value of a moral decision making paradigm for investigating the effects of intention and harm on followers' reactions to leaders' wrongdoing. We also introduce damaged relational identity as a mediator of these effects. Participants were assigned to one of four conditions in which intention to harm and harm were manipulated. The study was conducted using a stochastic, incentivized economic game that involved real monetary consequences for the followers. The results indicated that intention to harm was the primary determinant of followers' withdrawal behavior while actual harm had no effect on withdrawal. A desire to punish the offending leader was influenced by both intention and harm. Damaged relational identity mediated the effect of intention on withdrawal behavior and punishment. In contrast, harm's effect on punishment was direct. We hope that our study stimulates additional research on leader misconduct using intention and identification processes as linchpins.     

How to motivate yourself and others? Intended and unintended consequences

To achieve goals, individuals and organizations must understand how to effectively motivate themselves and others. We review three broad strategies that people employ to increase motivation: giving feedback, setting goal targets, and applying incentives. Although each of these strategies can effectively motivate action under certain circumstances and among certain people, they can also result in unintended consequences: not helping or even hurting motivation. For example, employers may give positive feedback that leads employees to relax their effort or negative feedback that undermines employees’ commitment, organizations may set goals that are overly ambitious and consequently reduce motivation, and certain incentives might appear attractive before pursuing an action but uncertain incentives better motivate action during goal pursuit. By identifying when and how these common motivational strategies work versus fail, we are able to prescribe a specific set of guidelines that will help people understand how to motivate themselves and others.     

Unfair,uncertain, and unwilling: How decision-making unfairness and unclear job tasks reduce problem-focused voice behavior,unless there is task conflict

In an attempt to expand extant literature devoted to employees' voice behavior, the current research unpacks the connection between their experience of procedural unfairness, such that organizational decision-making lacks transparency, and their problem-focused voice behavior. In this link, the authors predict that job ambiguity functions as a mediator, and coworker task conflict takes a moderating role. Survey data, collected among employees in a large Portuguese retail organization, affirm that perceptions about unfair decision policies can curtail employees’ propensities to raise their voice about organizational failures, because they develop the belief that their employer is failing to provide sufficient job-related information. If they can exchange conflicting viewpoints with others though, this detrimental process might not proceed. Organizations should take care to avoid accusations of unclear job roles, because they create a route by which frustrations about opaque decision-making can escalate into employee complacency; they also should encourage productive idea clashes within their ranks to help block that route.     

The role of idealized influence leadership in promoting workplace forgiveness

We integrated research in psychology on employee responses to mistreatment with the leadership literature to examine whether leadership can promote forgiveness in the workplace. Drawing on these literatures, we theorized that leaders who heighten follower collective identity—those who display idealized influence—should facilitate forgiveness among employees. The results of an experimental study and a 2-part field survey support our theorizing. The field study also demonstrated that idealized influence leadership suppressed two employee antisocial responses (avoidance, revenge). Of note, whereas idealized influence leadership had the predicted effects, transactional leadership did not. This dissociation is consistent with our reasoning regarding the mediating role of follower collective identity in the relation between idealized influence leadership and employees responses to unfair events. Together, our findings suggest that idealized influence leaders may motivate employees to respond to instances of workplace mistreatment in ways that are beneficial to themselves, others, and the organization.     

Gender and nationality pay gaps in light of organisational theories

This paper analyses wage inequality with respect to gender and nationality within German establishments. It is a large-scale analysis based on linked employer-employee data from the Institute for Employment Research (LIAB). Wage inequality is measured as the intra-establishment pay gap by gender and nationality, taking into account that human capital may not be equally distributed across the different groups of employees. Consistent with economic theories of discrimination we find significant pay gaps by gender and nationality, even taking into consideration employees’ qualifications. We can show that pay differentials between men and women are much larger on average than those between Germans and non-Germans, and that both pay gaps exhibit a tremendous variation across establishments. Drawing on organisational theories we inquire as to how selected firm characteristics are related to the variation of these intra-firm pay gaps and derive hypotheses about which establishments have a greater incentive and/or are more able to pursue wage equality in their workforces. By use of regression analysis we then investigate whether variables that reflect the firms’ social, institutional and cultural environment and their resource requirements are empirically related to the sizes of the pay gaps. The results are rather ambiguous, suggesting larger, innovating and foreign-owned establishments with a larger share of non-German employees and with a collective bargaining agreement to have smaller gaps, particularly with respect to gender.     

机会公平、倾斜政策与不对称锦标赛:一项实验研究

采用实验研究的方法评价机会公平规则和倾斜政策对员工努力水平及雇主收益的影响.利用对130个被试进行的7个实验,本文获得了如下研究结论:与基准实验相比,在不公平锦标赛实验中,被试的努力水平有所降低;在不对称锦标赛实验中,随着代理人能力不对称程度逐渐增加,有利被试和不利被试选择的努力水平均会减少;在倾斜政策实验中,实施倾斜政策并没有增加员工的总产出,因而也没有提高雇主的收益.文末从企业组织和政府政策两方面分析了研究结论的实际意义.     

Punctuated incongruity: A new approach to managing trade-offs between conformity and deviation

Micro and macro scholars alike have long warned about “incongruent” work environments that sow confusion by sending inconsistent normative signals to employees. We argue that these warnings rest on the debatable assumption that employees do not have cognitive bandwidth and emotional resilience to do more than single-mindedly pursue internally consistent goals. Challenging this assumption, we argue that employees in today's complex knowledge economies often face tasks that require balancing opposing risks such as those of conforming too closely to standard practices against those of deviating too far. Given this reality, we explain how congruity can sometimes be maladaptive and incongruity, adaptive. Congruent combinations of process accountability and collectivism can trigger excessive conformity and congruent combinations of outcome accountability and individualism can induce excessive deviation. But incongruent combinations can motivate employees to rethink tacit assumptions and explore better ways of reaping the benefits of conformity (deviation) at a lower cost of the other value. That said, managing tradeoffs can be exhausting—and congruity affords needed guidance. Organizations should therefore introduce incongruity in carefully calibrated quasi-experimental doses. The likelihood of successful implementation of this advice hinges on managers’ ideological resistance to incongruity as well as their ability to mobilize employee “buy in.” Our chapter highlights the dialectical interplay between incongruity which encourages mindfulness and congruity which provides a respite from the burdens of choice.     

‘Employees response to corporate social responsibility: Exploring the role of employees’ collectivist orientation’

Since the extant literature largely ignores the conditions that moderate the impact of CSR on employees’ related outcomes, we examine the moderating effect of employees’ collectivist orientation on the relationship of CSR. Most specifically, this study explores how individual employee differences moderate the influence of CSR on employee behavior. Using self-reports of 378 employees we examined how employees’ collectivist orientation moderates the relationship of CSR on knowledge sharing behavior through organizational identification. Three of the four components (i.e., community, employees, and consumers) of CSR positively affect employees’ organizational identification and knowledge-sharing behavior. However, while the effects of community-related CSR actions on the employees’ outcomes are stronger for individualistic employees, the effect of employee-related CSR actions on organizational identification is stronger for collectivist employees. The findings are unique in the sense that we show empirically that different employees are influenced by different types of CSR actions. The study therefore suggests that the internal affects of CSR activities depend on the nature of the employees witnessing them.