Ideal Values and Counter‐ideal Values as Two Distinct Forces: Exploring a Gap in Organizational Value Research

Motives and values at work have long been key topics of business and management studies. In a focused review of the literature on the nature of human values, this paper identifies a disconnect with the literature on human motivation, despite the otherwise inherent relatedness of the two fields. Specifically, extant theory and research have conceptualized values generally in terms of ideals, namely desired end‐states that individuals strive to approach. Although values, by this definition, express motivational concerns, theories of human motivation suggest that there are two forces to consider, i.e. approach and avoidance motivation. By applying this ‘two forces’ perspective to value research, this paper identifies a gap in the literature on values: namely, the idea that individuals are also influenced by counter‐ideal values, i.e. end‐states that they deliberately seek to avoid. The identification of this gap opens up new opportunities for value research in general and organizational value research in particular. To pave the way for future research, this paper critically discusses the few studies that have taken first steps in that direction and outlines research questions that may follow for issues such as employer branding and person–organization fit. This paper closes by providing suggestions on how to tackle the issue in organizational practice.     

The age of exploration and exploitation: Younger-looking leaders endorsed for change and older-looking leaders endorsed for stability

The current contribution extends theorizing on leadership and the exploration–exploitation dilemma using an evolutionary perspective. A theoretical connection is made between the exploration–exploitation dilemma and age-biased leadership preferences for exploratory change versus stable exploitation. For the majority of human evolution our species was semi- or entirely nomadic and the trade-off between exploration versus exploitation had substantial physical- and experience-based requirements which align with leadership opportunities as moderated by age. Thus, given the consistency and importance of correctly assigning leadership for the exploration–exploitation dilemma, human evolution has likely selected for age-biased leadership endorsement. Across three experiments we find that younger-looking leaders are endorsed for times of exploratory change and older-looking leaders for stable exploitation. Further, our results indicated that older leaders are endorsed for leading conservative exploitation of nonrenewable resources and younger leaders for exploration of renewable alternatives (i.e., green leadership). The results introduce an age-biased leadership endorsement hypothesis.     

PREFERENCES FOR REDISTRIBUTION AND PERCEPTION OF FAIRNESS: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY

We conduct a laboratory experiment to study how demand for redistribution of income depends on self‐interest, insurance motives, and social concerns relating to inequality and efficiency. Our choice environments feature large groups of subjects and real‐world framing, and differ with respect to the source of inequality (earned or arbitrary), the cost of taxation to the decision maker, the dead‐weight loss of taxation, uncertainty about own pretax income, and whether the decision maker is affected by redistribution. We estimate utility weights for the different sources of demand for redistribution, with the potential to inform modeling in macroeconomics and political economy     

The effectiveness and specificity of change management in a public organization: Transformational leadership and a bureaucratic organizational structure

There is an extensive private sector literature on organizational change management. However, recent studies have suggested that the specific context of public organizations may have consequences for the management organizational change. This study examines to what extent different change approaches and transformational leadership of direct supervisors contribute to the effective implementation of organizational change in public organizations, and to what extent the bureaucratic structure of public organizations makes the implementation of organizational change s3pecific. The implementation of an organizational change in a Dutch public organization is studied using quantitative methods and techniques. The results indicate that bureaucratic organizations may effectively implement organizational change with both planned and emergent change approaches. The contribution of transformational leadership depends on the type of change approach and organizational structure. Transformational leadership behavior of direct supervisors contributes little to planned processes of change, but is crucial in emergent processes of change in a non-bureaucratic context. Although the literature on change management mostly emphasizes the leadership of senior managers, the leadership role of direct supervisors should not be overlooked during organizational change in public organizations.     

Quality costing: a management review

This paper relates a review of the English language literature on quality costing and traces its historical development; it provides authoritative reading on the subject. The review also has a focus on collection and use of quality-costing methods, quantitative cost data and the role and views of accountants in the task of quality-cost collection and reporting. Amongst the main findings is the preoccupation with the prevention – appraisal – failure categorization of quality costs and lack of guidance on definitions. The considerable impact of the American quality profession on the development of quality costing is pointed out along with the increasingly positive stance of accountants.     

The Job Demand-Control (-Support) Model and psychological well-being: a review of 20 years of empirical research

The Job Demand-Control (JDC) model (Karasek, 1979) and the Job Demand-Control-Support (JDCS) model (Johnson, and Hall, 1988) have dominated research on occupational stress in the last 20 years. This detailed narrative review focuses on the JDC(S) model in relation to psychological well-being. It covers research from 63 samples, published in the period 1979-1997. In the review a distinction is drawn between two different hypotheses prevailing in research on the models. According to the strain hypothesis of the JDC model, employees working in a high-strain job (high demands-low control) experience the lowest well-being. The buffer hypothesis states that control can moderate the negative effects of high demands on well-being. Translating these hypotheses to the expanded JDCS model, the iso-strain hypothesis predicts the most negative outcomes among workers in an iso-strain job (high demands-low control-low social support/isolation), whereas the buffer hypothesis states that social support can moderate the negative impact of high strain on well-being. Although the literature gives considerable support for the strain and iso-strain hypotheses, support for the moderating influence of job control and social support is less consistent. The conceptualization of demands and control is a key factor in discriminating supportive from nonsupportive studies. Only aspects of job control that correspond to the specific demands of a given job moderate the impact of high demands on well-being. Furthermore, certain subpopulations appear to be more vulnerable to high (iso)strain, whereas others benefit more from high control. On the basis of the results of this review, suggestions for future research and theoretical development are formulated.     

Context Matters: Explaining How and Why Mobilizing Context Influences Motivational Dynamics

The emphasis in the social-psychological collective action literature is on why individuals take part in collective action; however, it does not elaborate on how different mobilizing contexts may appeal to distinct motivational dynamics to participate. The present study connects the microlevel of motivational dynamics of individual protesters with the mesolevel of social movement characteristics. To do so a field study was conducted. Protesters were surveyed in the act of protesting in two different demonstrations in two different town squares simultaneously organized by two social movements at exactly the same time against the same budget cuts proposed by the same government. But with one fundamental difference, the movements emphasized different aspects of the policies proposed by the government. This most similar systems design created a unique natural experiment, which enabled the authors to examine whether the motivational dynamics of individual protesters are moderated by the social movement context. Previous research suggested an instrumental path to collective action, and the authors added an ideology path. The authors expected and found that power-oriented collective action appeals to instrumental motives and efficacy and that value-oriented collective action appeals to ideological motives, and, finally, that efficacy mediates on instrumental motives and motivational strength, but only so in power-oriented action.     

Who Holds the Stakes? A Case Study of Stakeholder Identification at Two Nuclear Weapons Production Sites

Traditional risk assessments, including those involving the United States Department of Energy (USDOE), are often criticized for producing useless or noncredible management responses because they did not meaningfully involve the public. The first step to involve the public is to identify appropriate active participants (stakeholders). This study was done to understand the processes used to identify stakeholders to serve on advisory boards established at the two largest remediation sites in the United States: the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The Hanford stakeholder identification process produced an interest-based board whereas the Savannah River Site strategy produced population-based representation. The basic goals of the stakeholder advisory groups were similar. However, different processes were used to identify the participants for the groups in part because of distinctly different social and cultural conditions in the areas affected by the operations of the two facilities, and in part because of the different level of trust of the USDOE and their contractors at Hanford compared with Savannah River. The discussion analyzes their different needs and potential for successful citizen participation.     

Freedom of choice and diversity of options: Some difficulties

This paper explores the possibility for a (non-preference-based) freedom ranking of opportunity sets that is sensitive to the diversity of the options. It turns out that how distances between sets and alternatives are measured is crucial to the derivation of such a ranking. Several proposals are examined, each of which is shown to lead to impossibility results. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at conferences in Kortrijk, Osnabrück, Oisterwijk, Caen and Pavia. I thank the participants at these conferences for their comments. I would also like to thank Steven Hartkamp, Theo Kuipers, Clemens Puppe and especially Kotaro Suzumura for their helpful comments. Furthermore, I am very grateful to Somdeb Lahiri for pointing out a mistake in a previous version of this paper.