Search results

The aim of this paper is to critically explore the behavioral assumptions of organizational politics, as well as to reconsider and redefine the premises of political behavior in the workplace. The main objective is examination of the presuppositions associated with the possibility of constructive politics in organizational settings.

The deficiencies of explaining managerial activity as solely regulated by self‐interest are discussed, as well as a revised version of self‐interest that may enrich current understanding of workplace politics. Drawing on the respective literature, the authors develop some propositions and suggest, assess and discuss a conceptual framework that integrates self‐interest and constructive politics.

The paper represents an attempt toward inferring positive political behavior through adopting an alternative view of established behavioral assumptions. This view purports to reduce the existing discrepancy between different types of political behavior in defending the possibility of an inclusive, participative and welfare‐enhancing political process, founded on the pro‐social and reciprocating aspects of human interaction. Boundedly selfish organizational members are expected to demonstrate these qualities that are in position to transform the very nature of political activities to the direction of greater organizational good.

The paper reevaluates the self‐interested nature of organizational politics through the introduction of a bounded self‐interest assumption as more representative of actual human behavior. This new construct embodies those constraints that make trust formation, networking and reciprocities operative in environments effectively embedding political behavior in broader, organizational goal‐oriented processes and structures.

The Neoclassical approach to analysing personal choice is compared with an approach contained in a Biblical Christian mode of analysis. This paper compares the Neoclassical and Christian positions via analysis of characteristics of the Neoclassical rational choice model. The main characteristic examined is a basic assumption of the rational choice model that human choice is explained as the optimisation of utility via rational self‐interest. The two positions are compared in terms of how they treat self‐interest and rationality, the degree to which basic assumptions about human behaviour are specified, the importance they attach to the realism of assumptions underlying their models, and the explanatory and predictive purposes for which the models are used. The conclusion of the comparison is that the Biblical Christian perspective encompasses the variables regarded as important in Neoclassical explanation, but presents them in the context of a more embracing worldview perspective than the Neoclassical. This Christian belief perspective is applicable to human behaviour in both “economic” and “non‐economic” domains.

The affinities of Smith′s invisible hand notion and Hegel′s cunning of reason are examined through a study of all the key locations in which the invisible hand and cunning of reason are introduced. Despite their differences in orientation and philosophy, both writers reach similar conclusions regarding the play of self‐interest and the emergence of the social good. Specifically, each requires a deus ex machina – Providence or Geist – to generate the necessary telosthat supplements their respective logical arguments concerning the concrete play of interest. At the same time, each view provides little to explain how individualism creates the greater social good, so that recourse in each argument to an extra‐social entity obscures the actual functioning of the social order. The common approaches of the two very different thinkers thus reflects on the general requirements and dilemmas of arguments concerning the social good and individual interest.

A species of moral malaise afflicts the professions today, a malaise that may prove fatal to their moral identities and perilous to our whole society. It is manifest in a growing conviction even among conscientious doctors, lawyers, and ministers that it is no longer possible to practice their professions within traditional ethical constraints. More specifically, the belief is taking hold that unless professionals look out for their own self‐interest, they will be crushed by commercialization, competition, government regulation, malpractice actions, advertising, public and media hostility, and a host of other inimical socio‐economic forces. This line of reasoning leads the professional to infer that self‐interest justifies compromises in, and even rejection of, obligations that standards of professional ethics have traditionally imposed.

This paper is devoted to the question of what motivates man in his pursuit of economic activities. Particular attention is given to the notion that economic activities of individuals may not be motivated by their self‐interest alone.

Using literary analysis, the paper first reconsiders the role of self‐interest and non‐selfish motives in the historical schools. Then it is demonstrated that at least some non‐selfish motives were incorporated in the voluntary exchange theory of public economy. Next it is shown that during the evolution of the theory of public goods these non‐selfish motives were lost and that the modern theory of public goods rests entirely on the self‐interest hypothesis. However, over the last two decades results of public goods experiments have cast considerable doubt on the pure self‐interest hypothesis.

A major finding of this paper is that several non‐selfish motives of man that show up in recent public goods experiments were already discussed by representatives of the historical schools.

An agenda for future research on the topic is sketched in the final section.

Practical implications include that the allocation of many goods, not just public goods, may improve if agents pay more attention to non‐selfish motives of man.

The paper adds to the existing body of related writings by linking developments in the evolution of theory of public goods, in particular recent findings from public goods experiments, to a specific aspect already advocated by representatives of the historical schools, that is, the notion that man in his pursuit of economic activities is not motivated by his self‐interest alone. To this extent, the paper is of interest for researchers working on public goods theory, experimental economics and the history of economic thought.

Analyses self‐interest and sympathy in game‐theoretic terms. Evaluates the relative weight of self‐interest and sympathy in the theories of Hobbes, Hume and Adam Smith in an economic framework. Demonstrates through game‐theoretic tools that sympathy as an actuating motive in human nature gives rise to human interaction having other and, for organizations and societies, more beneficial characteristics than does merely self‐interested interaction. Uses the emphasis on the time factor and the importance of the future in Hume’s more than in Hobbes’ theory to show how co‐operation can emerge in large organizations. Introduces government or an organizational structure to further induce co‐operative behaviour.

This explorative study aims to compare and analyze the behavior of a traditional and an emerging donor, namely, Germany and South Korea, in the field of climate change-related official development assistance (ODA). It analyzes their ODA projects in 2013 in four Southeast Asian countries severely affected by climate change, namely, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. It also adapts the existing framework to categorize ODA allocation according to receiving countries’ need and merit and donors’ self-interest.

The paper first describes both countries’ policies and activities. It then uses a country’s vulnerability to climate change as a measure of its need, its climate change readiness as a measure of its merit and its bilateral trade volume in environmental goods with donor countries as a measure of donors’ self-interest to analyze the allocation of climate-related ODA.

Results suggest that Korean ODA in the field of climate protection is driven more by receiving countries’ need and merit, but self-interest seems to be important for both donors. In addition, many projects labeled as adaptation or mitigation projects only have a weak link to these goals. There are limitations to the present paper. First, it could only analyze projects in 2013 because there are no earlier project data available in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Creditor Reporting System. Second, because of the simplifying assumptions of the need–merit–self-interest framework, possible other determinants of aid allocation were deliberately ignored. Finally, this explorative study is restricted to four vulnerable countries in Southeast Asia.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to compare a traditional and an emerging donor’s behavior and to explore the allocation of climate-related ODA using the need–merit–self-interest framework.

The purpose of the paper is to critically question conventional views of the one‐dimensional, mechanistic and negative image of human nature of Scientific Management. Both for worker behavior and for managerial behavior positive aspects of an image of human nature are reconstructed in organizational economic terms.

Through institutional economic reconstruction, drawing on the methods and concepts of organizational and institutional economics, the portrayal of workers and managers by Scientific Management is critically assessed.

It is suggested that a conceptual asymmetry exists in Taylor's writings regarding the portrayal of human nature of workers and managers. Whereas for workers a model of self‐interest was applied (through the concepts of “systematic soldering” and “natural soldiering”), Taylor portrayed managers through a positive, behavioral model of human nature that depicted the manager as “heartily cooperative”. The key thesis is that by modeling managers through a rather positive image of human nature Taylor could no longer methodically apply the model of economic man in order to test out and prevent interaction conflict between potentially self‐interested managers and workers.

The paper focused on Scientific Management to advance the thesis that the portrayal of human nature has been ill approached by management and organization theorists who were apparently pioneering an institutional and organizational economics. Future research has to broaden the scope of research to other pioneers in management and organization research, but also to critics in behavioral sciences, such as organization psychology, who may misunderstand how economics approaches the portrayal of human nature, in particular regarding self‐interest.

Taylor's portrayal of managers as naturally good persons, who were not self‐interested, caused implementation conflict and implementation problems for Scientific Management and led to his summoning by the US Congress. By modeling managers as heartily cooperative, Taylor could no longer analyze potentially self‐interested behavior, even opportunistic behavior of managers in their interactions with workers. Scientific Management had thus no remedy to handle “soldiering” of managers. This insight, that managerialism needs to be accounted for in a management theory, has manifold practical implications for management consultancy, management education, and for the practice of management in general. Students and practitioners have to be informed about the necessary and useful role a model of self‐interest (economic man) methodically plays in economic management theory.

The paper reconstructs the portrayal of human nature in early management theory, which seemingly anticipated the advances – and certain pitfalls – of modern institutional economics. The paper unearths, from an economic perspective, conceptual misunderstandings of Taylor regarding his image of human nature of workers and managers.

The purpose of this paper is to reconcile alternative managerial views regarding self‐serving behavior in organizations: while some propose that such behavior is commonplace and detrimental to performance, and suggest policies to counteract such conduct, critics contend that such policies generate distrust and diminish performance. The authors integrate elements from agency and interactional justice theories, and hypotheses that managerial attitudes not related to self‐interest can influence behaviors often attributed to the desire to curb self‐interest, and vice‐versa.

The authors employ structural equation modeling based on survey data from 387 team‐leaders from both Brazil and the USA.

An asymmetric relation is found in the aforementioned theoretical “cross‐talk:” managers concerned with self‐interest tend to devise policies solely focused on curbing self‐interest, while managers concerned with justice not only adopt justice‐enhancing practices but also certain incentivizing agency‐related practices which jointly increase performance.

By proposing and testing theoretical interactions between agency and justice theories, support is found for both enthusiasts and critics of self‐interestedness, but pointedly they occur in different domains.

The results suggest that managers should foster interactional justice, promoting incentivizing agency‐related behaviors that may be interpreted as justice‐seeking, while avoiding those that send a message of distrust.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is one of the first empirical papers directly addressing the ongoing debate raised by Ghoshal and others on the merits of managerial theories based on the assumption of self‐interest.

Despite the attention being paid to business ethics, it seems the behaviour of business leaders and employees has not improved. This paper takes a different approach to understanding why this is the case. A distinction made in the higher education literature between surface and deep approaches to learning is adapted to provide an insight into the reason for the difference between the rhetoric concerning ethics and actual business practice. It is argued that a surface approach to ethics, which is associated with self‐interest, will not promote ethical behaviour, while a deep approach, motivated by the desire to do the right thing, does have the potential to do so. The difference between the rhetoric and business practice suggests that most businesses either intentionally or unintentionally adopt a surface approach to ethics.