Search results

Central to the fit concept is that congruence between individual and environmental attributes leads to improved outcomes. However, when discussing fit, researchers often describe congruence as alignment between distinctive or unique individual and environmental attributes. We suggest that current approaches to examining fit do not adequately account for this assumption of distinctiveness because they fail to consider normative expectations and preferences. As such, we propose an alternative theoretical and methodological approach to conceptualizing and measuring fit.

We introduce the normative theory of fit, outline how researchers can decompose fit into distinctive and normative components and identify areas for future research.

Management researchers have largely ignored the importance of decomposing fit into distinctive and normative components. This shortcoming necessitates additional research to ensure a more accurate understanding of fit and its relationship with outcomes.

We provide a clarification and critical examination of a pervasive construct in the field of management by introducing the normative theory of fit, identifying areas where researchers can employ this theoretical lens and suggesting a reevaluation of the importance placed on differentiation that is traditionally employed in practice.

The gift-giving literature has documented several cases in which givers and recipients do not see eye-to-eye in gift-giving decisions. To help integrate this considerable segment of the gifting literature, this paper aims to develop a social norms-based framework for understanding and predicting giver-recipient asymmetries in gift selection.

Five experimental studies test the hypotheses. Participants in these studies evaluate gifts used in previous research, choose between gifts as either gift-givers or gift-recipients, and/or indicate their level of discomfort with choosing different kinds of gifts. The gifts vary in ways that allow the authors to test the social norms-based framework.

Gift-giving asymmetries tend to occur when one of the gifts under consideration is less descriptively, but not less injunctively, normative than the other. This theme holds for both asymmetries recorded in the gift-giving literature and novel ones. Indeed, the authors document new asymmetries in cases where the framework would expect asymmetries to occur and, providing critical support for the framework, the absence of asymmetries in cases where the framework would not expect asymmetries to emerge. Moreover, the authors explain these asymmetries, and lack thereof, using a mechanism that is novel to the literature on gift-giving mismatches: feelings of discomfort.

This research has multiple theoretical implications for the literatures studying gift-giving and social norms. A limitation of this work is that it left some (secondary) predictions of its model untested. Future research could test some of these predictions.

Billions of dollars are spent on gifts each year, making gift-giving a research topic of great practical importance. In addition, the research offers suggestions to consumers giving gifts, consumers receiving gifts, as well as marketers.

The research is original in that it creates a novel framework that predicts both the presence and absence of gift-giving asymmetries, introduces a psychological mechanism to the literature on giver-recipient gift choice asymmetries, and unifies many of the mismatches previously documented in this literature.

In this chapter, we examine social influence in groups by considering three distinct aspects of the complex process: the force, the source, and the message. The force instantiates the internal drivers that are activated to change group members' public and private positions. These drivers relate to a desire for accuracy (i.e., informational influence) or a desire for group harmony (i.e., normative influence). The source of social influence includes influence attempts from a majority or a minority of group members. Finally, influence messages can contain evidence in support of a position (i.e., informational statements) or group member preferences (i.e., normative statements). These aspects are frequently conflated with informational influence strongly linked to minorities and informational statements and normative influence similarly linked to majorities and normative statements. We review research consistent with this position. However, we argue that each aspect should be considered separately. Thus, we also explore how majorities and normative statements generate informational influence and how minorities and informational statements lead to normative influence.

The purpose of this paper was to empirically integrate the structural and perceptual control programs in the identity theory. This integration involved examining how the structural concepts of prominence and salience moderate the impact that the perceptual control process of nonverification has role-specific self-esteem.

We use survey data from normative and counter-normative conditions in the parent and spouse identities to test a series of structural equation models. In each model, we test the direct impacts of prominence, salience, and nonverification on worth, efficacy, and authenticity. We also test interaction effects between prominence and nonverification as well as salience and nonverification on the three self-esteem outcomes.

Out of the 24 possible interaction effects, only three were significant. By contrast, the expected positive effects of prominence on worth were supported among all identities, while the expected positive effects of salience on self-esteem were supported only among normative identities. Also as expected, the negative effects of nonverification on self-esteem were supported, though most strongly among counter-normative identities.

Our findings indicate that the structural and perceptual control concepts have independent effects on self-esteem. Thus, future research should incorporate both programs when examining identity processes on self-esteem. However, depending on the normativity or counter-normativity of the identities of interest, research may find it useful to focus on concepts from one program over the other.

This paper is a test of integration of the two research paradigms in the identity theory, which addresses the micro–macro problem in a unique way.

Theories of management require normative justification; that is, they rely on some conception of what is morally good, right, and just. This chapter examines some of the normative reasons for adopting a stakeholder theory of management and for rejecting the once, and perhaps still, “dominant” shareholder-centric approach. This chapter then surveys some of the prominent “normative cores” that are used to ground stakeholder theory, that is, Kantian, contractarian, feminist ethics, and ethical pragmatism, and the moral obligations that each normative approach generates. Some pressing questions are raised with respect to each normative approach. To what extent ought we to recognize imperfect obligations to shareholders? Are contractarian hypernorms morally substantive? How exactly should we care about stakeholders, and is care even an appropriate attitudinal response? Without some commitment to objective ethical standards, how can pragmatists resolve stakeholder conflict?

Allen’s critique of current Frankfurt School theory presents the joint methods of “problematizing genealogy” and “metanormative contextualism” as alternative for the normative grounding of critical theory. Through a close reading of Allen’s critique, I investigate whether Allen’s identification of philosophy of history is an accurate diagnosis of the problems of the normative grounding of current Frankfurt School theory, whether Allen’s distinction between metanormative and normative levels is tenable for critical theory, and whether Allen’s methodology constitutes a viable alternative for the normative grounding of critical theory. As an alternative, I suggest scrutinizing the grounding strategies of current Frankfurt School theory to expand beyond their genealogy in Enlightenment thought, and address the question of what made the affirmative form of thought underlying current Frankfurt School theory a historical possibility. Expanding on Allen’s reiteration of the mediated nature of categories, I suggest that the stark contrast between forms of thought underlying first- and second-generation Frankfurt School critical theory needs to be understood not in relation to philosophy of history but against the backdrop of the specific context of the European historical present that informs its normative universe.

An assessment of Axel Honneth’s reception and appropriation of Hegel’s theory of normative reconstruction as presented in his Freedom’s Right (Columbia University Press, 2014).

A comparative assessment of Honneth’s and Hegel’s approach to normative reconstruction focusing on three basic issues: general methodology, understandings of the logic and program of the Philosophy of Right, and analyses and assessments of modern market societies as detailed in Hegel’s account of civil society (bürgerliche Gesellschaft).

For Honneth, normative reconstruction consists in reworking modes of social rationality already realized in modern institutions. By contrast, Hegel is shown to advance an approach to reconstruction in which an account of social rationality is properly fashioned only in the reconstruction process itself. In this way Hegel is also shown to proffer an approach to normative reconstruction that is at once more robustly reconstructive and more robustly normative than is the case with Honneth.

The paper demonstrates the ongoing value of Hegel’s thought for social and political theory. It illuminates Hegel’s uniquely dialectical approach to immanent social critique, dedicated not only to explicating existing tensions and “bifurcations” (Entzweiungen) but – with the help of a distinctive account of Bildung (cultivation or formation) – to engaging those tensions and bifurcations in order to delineate the conditions for their constructive supersession. It also elucidates different ways in which critical social theorists, committed to notions of “immanent transcendence,” draw on the resources of market societies to mount normative challenges to the aporias of those societies.

Measuring the normative obligation to obey the police, a key component of police legitimacy, has proven difficult. Pósch et al.’s (2021) proposed scales appear to overcome the problems associated with traditional measures. This study introduces new items for these scales and empirically assesses whether such additions have the desired effects on scale performance.

This study uses data from a national online survey administered in July 2022 (N = 1,494). Measures of internal consistency and factor analysis were used to evaluate the properties of the obligation to obey scales. Linear regression was used to test the hypothesized effects.

The results show that adding the new items to the existing scales increased the level of internal consistency and improved how well the factor model fit the data. In terms of antecedents, procedural justice and bounded authority concerns were correlated with normative and non-normative obligations to obey the police in the expected direction and relative magnitude, findings that held for both the original and expanded scales. Although both normative obligation scales were significantly associated with willingness to cooperate with the police and significantly mediated the effect of procedural justice on cooperation, the relationship for the expanded scale was stronger and the mediation more pronounced.

This study extends previous research working to overcome some of the setbacks associated with measuring a crucial feature of police legitimacy. Effectively navigating this challenge will help advance legitimacy studies in criminal justice settings.

The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of distributive justice on normative commitment, both directly and indirectly through job satisfaction. Instead of integrating all the components of justice and commitment, distributive justice and normative commitment have been given prominence.

The data were collected through standardised scales from the 305 executives working in the top eight cement organisations located in the central part of the Indian subcontinent. Structural equation modelling (SEM) with bootstrapping was employed to evaluate the hypotheses.

The results proved that distributive justice helps increase normative commitment and affects job satisfaction positively. Additionally, job satisfaction acts as a mediator between distributive justice and normative commitment.

Due to the adaptation of self-reported questionnaires, the chances of method bias cannot be completely denied. However, the Harman’s single-factor analysis was conducted to handle it. Moreover, the data were obtained from a single source, i.e. the cement industry.

HR practitioners may use the outcomes of this study to promote distributive justice while allocating their sources. It also helps in implementing specific strategies to improve job satisfaction and commitment.

The study proposed a more complex linear model that included job satisfaction as a mediator. Moreover, the study is conducted in emerging economies, which addresses the research gaps in the existing body of literature.

The study aims to highlight and understand, and bring the human agency into the debate on the theory of normative control. While, the previous literature has highlighted the problem of the missing subject. However, the actual human agency in terms of agential properties has not been seriously addressed. This study is an attempt to overcome this problem of the missing subject.

A two-phase design inspired by retroductive inference was adopted for this study. In the first phase, abduction was used to explore the literature on normative control to highlight the forces of attraction, which may pull the employees to participate willingly within normative control systems. In the second phase, following retroductive inference, agential explanations of the forces of attraction identified in the first phase were explored by venturing into other related fields, e.g. psychology and sociology.

The study highlights four strategies used by organizations using normative control, i.e. comfort zoning, relational bonding, moral trapping and elitist appeal. These strategies rely on attractive forces. These forces of attraction pull employees to participate in the normative control system. The attractive element in the identified strategies is due to the fact that these strategies target specific agential properties, i.e. the need for comfort, sense of belonging, moral agency and pride. Overall, the findings suggest that individuals drive their concerns from culture but in relation to their capacity as needy beings for being enculturated.

Theoretically, this study adds conceptual strength to the explanations of normative control. It is suggested that neglect of human agency renders explanations conceptually weak. The study fills this gap in the research. Practically, this study would be beneficial for better design and implementation of normative control. Several studies have pointed out that normative control does not yield the intended results. Out of many reasons, a lack of understanding of human agency is a major cause of unsuccessful attempts to normatively control employees. This study provides some basis to understand the human subject for better design of soft systems of control.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research study that explores agential properties with reference to normative control systems. This study is important for researchers and practitioners.