Search results

Conflict and resistance on the part of employees assigned to teams have accompanied the recent increase in the use of work teams in organizations. Previous empirical research identified several sources of employee resistance including violations of fairness, increased work‐load concerns, uncertain manager support, unclear role definitions, and lack of team member social support. From a literature review, we identified additional sources of employee resistance including trust, cultural values, and low tolerance for change. Empirically, we conducted a content analysis of 1,060 open‐ended comments of employees in two Fortune 50 organizations who were newly assigned to self‐managing work teams (SMWTs). The results suggest that employees' concerns did reflect issues of trust and low tolerance for change, but not cultural values. We discuss the implications of our findings for conflict management scholars as well as managers who are charged with handling increased conflict due to employee resistance to teams.

Justice research has established that voice enhances procedural justice—a phenomenon known as the ‘voice effect’—through both instrumental and non‐instrumental mechanisms. However, limited research attention has been devoted to the underlying motivational bases for the operation of one or the other explanatory mechanism in a given situation. We report the findings of two laboratory studies examining situational, motivational, and attributional underpinnings for the voice effect. We found that motivation to voice varied with characteristics of the authority to whom a grievance is directed. In both studies, an interaction revealed that non‐instrumental motivation for voice is more important when instrumental motivation is lacking or unavailable. In Study 2, we introduce the role of social attributions into research on the voice effect, finding that grievants' judgments about their objectives in using voice vary with the attributions they make about the motives behind the authority's actions. We discuss implications of our findings for both theory and practice.

In a field study, we build on previous research examining employee theft, which has focused on the influence of job dissatisfaction and pay inequity (distributive injustice). In a survey of employees at 18 fast food restaurants, where employee theft was a problem, we examine the relationship between employee‐observed theft and justice perceptions (distributive, procedural, and interactional justice), employees' job satisfaction, and judgments regarding the deviancy of theft. As expected, perceptions of procedural justice and employees' judgments regarding the deviancy of theft explained a significant amount of variance in employee‐observed theft; the other predictor variables did not. Theoretical and practical implications for managing employee theft are discussed.

In a study consisting of 202 currently‐employed undergraduate students, we examined relationships between employees' perceptions of organizational justice and the styles they use for managing conflict with their supervisors. Regression analysis of questionnaire data indicated that distributive, procedural, and interactional justice were generally positively related to the use of more cooperative conflict management styles (i.e., integrating, obliging, and compromising). Two 2‐way interaction effects were observed as well, such that higher interactional justice was related to greater use of the integrating style primarily when distributive justice was low and procedural justice was high. Additionally, distributive justice was positively related to use of the avoiding style. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

The paper aims to investigate why organizations often opt to reject Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)-sponsored mediation of employment disputes (in contrast to employees who tend to readily agree to it). It is guided by recent research associated with Shapiro and Kirkman’s (1999, 2001) theory of “anticipatory justice”, whereby (in)justice is anticipated, or expected, when people think about an event they have not yet experienced whose likely fairness they are questioning. In contrast, “organizational justice” reflects people’s retrospective assessments of how fair they have been treated to date.

The paper relied upon data made available by the mediation program administered by the US EEOC. The EEOC provided the names and contact information for the officially designated EEOC contacts for each dispute. The authors distributed surveys to each of these organizational representatives and received completed surveys from 492 organizations (a response rate of 85.8 per cent).

The authors tested the extent to which organizational representatives’ decision to accept or reject mediation as a means of settling discrimination claims is influenced by representatives’ expectation of more versus less fair treatments – by the opposing party as well as by the third-party mediator – during the mediation procedure. The pattern of findings in the study support all hypotheses and, thus, also the expectation-oriented theories that have guided them.

The study relies on self-reports. However, this concern is somewhat lessened because of the salience and recency of events to the time of surveying.

The paper provides new insights on the need for organizations to implement rules, policies and procedures to constrain decision-maker choices consistent with organizational goals. The authors offer specific procedural proposals to reduce this organizational tendency to reject mediation.

Employee grievances are costly to organizations in terms of finances, reputation and to the emotional climate of the organization. Moreover, it is similarly costly to employees. This study provides new insights to better understand why employees (as opposed to organizations) are almost three times more likely to elect mediation of employment disputes. As such, it offers some promising ideas to narrow that gap.

The paper investigates a little-studied phenomenon – the differential participation rate of employees versus organizations in EEOC-sponsored mediation.

In this paper, findings from the negotiation literature are tested in the context of mergers. Firms' relative threat capacity, surveillance by constituents, accountability to constituents, and the attractiveness of initial offers are shown to predict management's resistance to mergers in a manner consistent with theories in the negotiation literature. The pattern of predicted two‐way and three‐way interactions support speculations and findings previously reported in the negotiation literature as well. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the causes, impact, and resolution of ideological conflicts in the workplace. By integrating research on organizational justice, the paper aims to argue that ideological discord is engendered though the interaction of distributive, procedural, and interactional (un)fairness.

Using a longitudinal field study, the ideas were tested with a sample of 77 claimants, undergoing mediation through the USA. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

The results were generally supportive of all predictions, suggesting that, though injustice may cause troublesome ideological conflicts, fair dispute resolution interventions can provide a remedy.

The research documented in this paper is particularly important because it suggests that justice can be restored through the intervention of a neutral mediator.

This paper reports the findings of a study regarding the reactions of 492 line‐level employees from two Fortune 500 organizations in response to the organizations’ recent implementation of self‐managing work teams (SMWTs). As predicted, we found that anticipatory injustice was significantly positively related to change‐resistance and turnover intentions; and significantly negatively related to employees’ commitment; and that procedural justice can mitigate the latter relationships. Implications for managing change are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether negative emotions mediate the relationship between supervisor rudeness and subordinates' retaliatory reactions and how the reactions to supervisor rudeness differ between US Americans and Koreans and between in‐group and out‐group supervisors.

A survey involving 197 employees from USA and South Korea. MANCOVA was used to analyze the data.

Employees who were rudely (rather than politely) treated when receiving explanations for organizational decisions were more likely to engage in retaliation. The latter tendency was partially mediated by the negative emotions that the employees felt about their rude treatment. In addition, the rudeness‐retaliation effects became stronger when the supervisor was dissimilar (rather than similar) to them, and the latter two‐way interaction effect was even stronger to those who highly value vertical collectivism. Surprisingly, however, Koreans were more likely to retaliate against their supervisor rather than US Americans.

Previous scenario‐based studies contrasting Koreans and US Americans have yielded findings suggesting that Koreans and US American employees may differ in their responses to supervisory rudeness. Additionally, the tendency of people to be more attracted to similar rather than dissimilar others (consistent with the similarity‐attraction paradigm) suggests that the (dis)similarity of a supervisor is likely to influence the rudeness‐retaliation effect. Future research needs to examine when, how, and why employees retaliate against supervisory rudeness to better understand the retaliation dynamics in organizations.

This is the only study that has examined how, in the context of receiving rude treatment from a supervisor, retaliatory reactions by US American versus Korean employees may differ and why (i.e. via emotional mediating variables), and whether US American‐Korean differences in retaliation under these circumstances are influenced by the supervisor's perceived (dis)similarity.

With globalisation and the opening of China’s borders, there has been increasing business and government interaction between China and the US. Given US interest in China’s market and the cultural distance between these two countries, it is imperative for US business persons not only to understand Chinese values, but also to examine how Chinese relate to US values. To this end, this study examines the attitudes of a sample of Chinese with regard to 10 US core values and compares their attitudes to those of a sample of US Americans. Despite some significant differences, the results of this study point out that the Chinese and US respondents exhibited many similarities in their attitudes.