The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Lavelle, J. J., Brockner, J., Konovsky, M. A., Price, K. H., Henley, A. B., Taneja, A., & Vinekar, V. (2009). Commitment, procedural fairness, and organizational citizenship behavior: A multifoci analysis. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 30, 337-357.

Organizational citizenship behaviors, or OCBs, play a significant role in the success of many organizations. OCBs are those behaviors which go beyond what is required of employees. Because of this, OCBs are sometimes called extra-role behaviors. Employees are not formally rewarded for such behaviors, but are generally motivated to perform for the sake of the recipient.

There are two broad directions toward which OCBs are targeted: OCB toward the organization (OCB-O) and OCB toward individuals (OCB-I).

Examples of OCB-O include:

• Promoting one’s organization to outside individuals and organizations
• Avoiding unnecessary absences from work
• Participating in voluntary meetings

Examples of OCB-I include:

• Bringing treats to work to share with coworkers
• Voluntarily helping a coworker with an assignment
• Avoiding conflict with others

Because OCBs are important to work climate and functioning, it is important to understand what factors influence them. Two such factors are  procedural justice and commitment.

Procedural Justice

Procedural justice involves the extent to which decisions are perceived to be made in a fair and consistent manner. Perceptions of procedural justice are often important in managing employee relations, especially when making difficult decisions such as layoffs.

Commitment

Procedural justice can enhance or hinder employee commitment, either to an organization or to a specific individual or group. Commitment is an important antecedent to OCBs, as being committed to an organization or person(s) often motivates an employee to engage in extra-role behavior.

OCB – Target Similarity

Target similarity refers to examining procedural justice, commitment, and OCBs that are either organization-focused or individual(s)-focused. That is, it is most effective to understand OCB-Os by examining how procedural justice conducted by the organization affects employee commitment to their organization, and OCB-Is by examining how procedural justice conducted by individuals influence employee commitment to those individuals.

When these distinctions are made, research has shown that organizations perceived to be fair when dealing with layoffs had more employee commitment, which resulted in greater OCB-O.

To predict OCB-Is in the context of teamwork, though, fairness in decisions made by teams resulted in greater commitment to one’s teammates, which lead to greater OCB-I.

Implications for Practice

Based on these findings, we at the DeGarmo Group offer the following recommendations.

• Raise or maintain perceptions of procedural justice in your organization. This includes perceptions of the organization as well as perceptions regarding supervisors/ coworkers. Implement policies and procedures that establish ground rules for behavior and expectations and ensure employees at all levels of the organization are aware of them.
• Take special care to insure policies are perceived as fair when dealing with sensitive issues such as layoffs.
• Monitor feedback from employees to discover whether they feel procedures are fair and consistently followed. Employee
  surveys, focus groups, or even anonymous suggestion boxes can be used to gauge employee perceptions.
• Investigate perceptions of procedural injustice to determine their root causes. Are such perceptions based on rumors, ignorance of company policy, or actual transgressions by the organization or employees? Consider education, discipline, or procedural revisions as ways to improve justice perceptions.
• Incorporate OCB-O and OCB-I in evaluations of performance when such behaviors are important to the functioning of the workplace, such as not being chronically absent or tardy and cooperating with coworkers on team-based assignments.
• Take steps to monitor and improve employee commitment to organizations and coworkers, supervisors, and subordinates.

Interpretation by:

Donnie Johnson

DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Parish, J.T., Cadwallader, S., & Busch, P. (2008). Want to, need to, ought to: Employee commitment to organizational change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 21(1), 32-52.

Organizations are under constant pressure to change. Employee commitment to necessary changes is of paramount importance for such changes to be effective.

Understanding commitment to change (C2C)

Commitment to change (C2C), an essential component of a successful change implementation, is best described as a state of mind that ties a person to a particular course of action.

C2C is influenced by organizational commitment, and can be thought of as being comprised of three components:

• Affective commitment (AC2C): feelings of attachment to the organization, and desire to support change initiatives.
• Normative commitment (NC2C): sense of obligation to be supportive of the organization’s plans for change.
• Continuance commitment (CC2C): fear of costs of leaving or resisting organizational changes.

These three components interact with other important antecedents that can affect employees C2C.

The quality of an employee’s relationship with his/her manager, level of job motivation, fit with the organization’s vision, and the level of role autonomy experienced can influence how committed an employee is to change initiatives.

How components of C2C influence success

Each of the components of C2C relate to the antecedents and outcomes of change initiatives.

The three components of commitment to change have real and robust relationships with important organizational outcomes such as improved performance, learning, and implementation success, which are all important for presenting a positive view of the particular change to customers.

Overall recommendations for improving C2C

Understanding and managing C2C is crucial to successful change implementation. Some of the most important steps an organization can take to improve commitment to change include:

• Illustrating to employees how change implementations relate to the “big picture” or overall vision and direction for the organization
• Making efforts to help employees understand the relationship of the change initiatives to the overall success of the organization
• Maintaining strong relationships between employees and management helps employees feel more attached, which makes them feel more obligated to support change initiatives
• Motivating employees in anticipation of change initiatives should be included as part of an implementation plan

Interpretation by:

Kathleen Melcher

DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Christian, M.S., Bradley, J.C., Wallace, J.C., Burke, M. J. (2009). Workplace safety: A meta-analysis of the roles of person and situation factors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 1103-1127.

Occupational accidents account for several thousand fatalities and several million injuries and illnesses each year. Ensuring that employees are performing safety behaviors on the job is one way that employers can help create a safe working environment. The more employees engage in safe working behaviors, the fewer accidents occur on the job. There are two broad factors that directly relate to employees’ safety performance:

• Safety Knowledge – An employee’s knowledge about how to perform proper safety behaviors on the job.
• Safety Motivation – An employee’s motivation to act in accordance with safety precautions.

Each employee’s safety knowledge and motivation are influenced by a number of personality traits and situational factors that help determine his or her propensity to perform safety behaviors.

Personality Traits

The personality traits that relate to safety behaviors are inherent to individual employees and vary from person to person.

• Conscientiousness – Includes responsibility, dependability, and the proclivity to set and achieve personal goals. Highly conscientious employees are more likely to have high safety motivation.
• Locus of control – Individuals with an internal locus of control tend to see themselves as being in control of their environment. These employees will likely be higher in safety motivation because they feel that they have the ability to take control of their own safety in the workplace by increasing their safety knowledge. Employees with an external locus of control do not view themselves as being in control of events in their lives, and may have lower motivation to learn about ways to stay safe at work.
• Risk-taking – An individual’s desire to take risks and act impulsively. Employees with higher tendencies towards risk-taking may be more likely to behave in unsafe ways. Employees with less desire to take risks will likely be less likely to behave in an unsafe way at work.

Situational Factors

Situational factors are environmental influences occurring in the workplace. These can come from the organization itself or from others within the organization, like supervisors or peers.

• Safety Climate – Employees’ perceptions of their organization’s safety policies and procedures. The perceived emphasis that the organization places on safety can have a great impact on how individual employees view the importance of safety in the workplace. A positive safety climate will increase employee safety knowledge through training and supportive policies and will increase safety by offering implicit or explicit rewards for behaving in a safe way.
• Leadership – Perceptions of organizational leaders’ behavior; employees who have positive relationships with their supervisor are more likely to engage in safety behaviors. Employees who view their supervisor in a positive way will be more inclined to reciprocate with positive behaviors, including engaging in safety behaviors.

Implications for Practice

Because worker safety is influenced by person and situation factors, employers can improve worker safety through multiple avenues. The authors of this study make several suggestions about how to do so:

• Conscientiousness, locus of control, and risk-taking influence employees’ performance of safety behaviors. Including assessments for these personality variables in the selection process can help determine which employees will be more likely to engage in proper workplace safety behaviors.
• Use training, both formal (such as classroom training) and informal (information-sharing through supervisors and coworkers), to increase safety knowledge and encourage employees’ safety motivation.
• Improve safety climate to increase employee safety performance behaviors. Do this by establishing organizational safety policies and related practices and communicating the organization’s commitment to employee safety.
• Ensure that managers are properly trained and supported. Remember that when leaders and employees have a positive relationship, employees are more likely to engage in safety behaviors.

Interpretation by:

Michelle Toelle

DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Tangirala, S., & Ramanujam, R. (2008). Exploring nonlinearity in employee voice: The effects of personal control and organizational identification. Academy of Management Journal, 51, 1189-1203.

When you think of employee voice, what do you think of? Do you think of a dissatisfied employee voicing his issues to his supervisor? Do you think of an innovative employee voicing her ideas for a new process? Both are valid examples of employee voice. Voice is defined as employee communication on issues of work processes. Two key factors influencing the likelihood of an employee engaging in voice are personal control and organizational identification.

How Does Personal Control Relate to Voice?

Personal control is defined as perceptions of autonomy and impact in the employee’s work environment.  Therefore, when an employee has autonomy in his workplace, meaning he feels a sense of independence and choice in his work, and has a sense of impact or control over the outcomes in the workplace, he can be considered to have high personal control. If an employee feels like he has no control over his work or the organizational outcomes, he can be said to have low personal control.

Employees with high and low personal control both often demonstrate high levels of employee voice. The difference is in the motivations underlying the voicing.

• Low personal control. Employees with low personal control are often motivated to improve their situation or status. This is a dissatisfaction-based motivation, meaning the employee is dissatisfied with the current situation and wants to change it.

• High personal control. Employees with high personal control tend to believe their actions have impact and feel great sense of autonomy to act; therefore, they are motivated to seek the opportunity to improve organizational outcomes by voicing their ideas for change. This is called an expectancy-based motivation, meaning the employee expects to make a difference.

• Neither high nor low personal control? In this case, the employee doesn’t have a strong motivation to voice for change, therefore he or she often engages in low levels of voice.

The Role of Organizational Identification

Organizational identification is the connection and loyalty an employee has toward the organization, such that the employee intensely feels its successes and failures.

Organizational identification affects the motivations behind employee voice differently (i.e., dissatisfaction-based and expectancy-based). Organizational identification dampens the dissatisfaction-based motivation and reinforces the expectancy-based motivation to engage in voice.

Employees with strong organizational identification and low personal control may overlook aspects of their job that are dissatisfying, because they trust that the situation will change on its own. In turn, they will be less likely to voice their concerns for change (motivation dampened).

On the other hand, those with high organizational identification and high personal control will likely be much more motivated to voice their ideas to improve the organizational processes, because they want to see the organization succeed and expect that they can play a role it doing that (motivation reinforced).

Implications for Practice

Due to the complexities of the workplace, managers often rely on employees’ opinions and suggestions for innovations and changes to organizational processes. Therefore, it is important to understand the factors that contribute to motivating and empowering employees to voice their ideas. Below are some ways that personal control and organizational identification can be modified to influence voice.

• Increasing personal control. Personal control can be increased by job enrichment, meaning giving employees meaningful tasks that challenge them and utilize their skills and abilities. Giving employees the proper training and resources to take ownership of their work, and developing a clear and valued reward system based on their performance, will lead to a sense of personal control and, in turn, an increase in voice.

• Avoiding moderate personal control. Because moderate levels of personal control lead to no motivation for employees to engage in voice, it is important not to implement interventions that provide moderate personal control (e.g., halfway interventions that send mixed messages to employees).

• Increasing organizational identification. Implementing practices that increase organizational identification (e.g., fostering employee pride in what the organization stands for) along with interventions to increase personal control will likely lead to an increase in voice.

• Purposefully reducing voice. On the other hand, by implementing practices to increase organizational identification along with inventions that restrict personal control (e.g., delegating little authority to employees or soliciting limited employee input with making decisions) will lead to reduction in employee voice. Reduced voice may be desired at certain times. For example, voice may be disruptive when the implementation of idea is important rather than a generation of new ideas.

Efforts to enhance voice can also lead to other positive organizational outcomes. Organizational identification-enhancing practices can result in greater employee loyalty and commitment.  Also, efforts to increase personal control can also lead to an increase in job satisfaction, reduction of stress, and improved job performance.

Interpretation by:

Lexy Adkins

DeGarmo Group

The following article is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Holtz, B. C., & Harold, C. M. (2009). Fair today, fair tomorrow? A longitudinal Investigation of overall justice perceptions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 1185 – 1199.

It is commonly thought that employees’  overall justice perceptions (global evaluations of an organization or supervisor based on previous experiences with that entity) are, barring any major changes or events occurring in the workplace, stable over time. However, contrary to this belief, in the absence of major changes and events, each employee’s perceptions are still variable over time.

The good news is that there are known factors that influence overall justice perceptions, including individual justice dimensions and trust in the organization and supervisor. With knowledge of these factors, organizations can work to mitigate changes in the negative direction and sustain greater perceptions of fairness in the workplace.

How Much Do These Perceptions Vary?

The most relevant aspects that feed into overall justice perceptions are the employees’ perceptions of the fairness of their organization, overall organizational justice, and perceptions of the fairness of their supervisor, overall supervisory justice perceptions. Although coworkers and customers also contribute to employees’ overall justice perceptions, the supervisor and organization are the biggest contributors, as they are perceived to be most responsible for workplace events and environment.

Previously it was thought that once these perceptions were formed, they were unchanging. However, recent research has shown there is variability in both an employee’s overall organizational justice and supervisory justice perceptions over time. Particularly, the average rating of fairness shifts back and forth from greater perceptions of fairness to less perceptions of fairness.

These shifts could occur due to new information being obtained (possibly from coworkers), different experiences within the organization or with the supervisor, or differing moods of the employee.

What Predicts Overall Justice Perceptions?

To clear up the mystery of why overall justice perceptions change over time, we now highlight the factors that help predict these perceptions.

Overall organizational justice has been shown to be best predicted by:

• Organizational Trust
• Interpersonal Justice (level of respect and dignity shown to employees during interactions)
• Distributive justice (fairness of outcomes and distribution of resources)
• Procedural Justice (fairness in decision making and procedures to allocate resources)

Overall supervisory justice is best predicted by:

• Supervisor Trust
• Interpersonal Justice

What is particularly important here is that employees who trust their organizations and supervisors have less rapid change in overall organizational and supervisory justice perceptions, respectively. When employees trust an organization or a supervisor, they expect them to be fair. Thus, their expectations of fair treatment (or unfair treatment) predispose the employees to view the organization and supervisor as fair (or unfair) in the future.

Supervisor-focused interpersonal justice proves to be a strong predictor of overall supervisory justice perceptions. A possible explanation for this phenomenon is that interactions with the supervisor occur so often in organizations that the treatment in these interactions becomes more meaningful to employees than other forms of justice (i.e., distributive, procedural, and informational justice).

Interestingly enough, supervisor-focused interpersonal justice helps predict not only overall supervisory justice perceptions, but also overall organizational justice perceptions. This most likely occurs because employees typically view the supervisor as a representative of the organization, thus viewing the fairness of their supervisor to be representative of the fairness of the organization as a whole.

Implications for Practice

Because trust proves to be the best predictor of overall justice perceptions, organizations and supervisors should continually work to build trust with their employees.

It is in DeGarmo Group’s opinion that trust can be cultivated early in an employee’s time with an organization. By following through with what is promised to an employee, even during the selection process, the employee will gain trust in the organization and supervisor’s word.

Similarly, organizations should always employ fair decision-making practices and procedures for distributing resources to employees. However, it is the interactions with supervisors that play an even greater role in determining the employees’ overall justice perceptions. We advise organizations and supervisors to be respectful in their day-to-day interactions with their employees, as disrespectful treatment leads to a decrease in the employees’ overall justice perceptions.

In sum, employees’ overall justice perceptions should not be taken for granted and viewed as unchanging. Because greater overall justice perceptions lead to positive work outcomes (e.g., high job satisfaction, organizational-directed and supervisor-directed citizenship behaviors, organizational commitment), an organization should continually strive to gain trust, be respectful during interactions, and be fair when making decisions and allocating resources.

Interpretation by:

Lexy Adkins

The DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Andrews, J., Cameron, H., & Harris, M. (2008). All change? Managers’ experience of organizational change in theory and practice. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 21(3), 300-314.

Managing organizational change is much more complex than traditionally taught in management courses. The unique environment and culture of each organization presents challenges to practicing organizational change theories outside of a classroom setting.

Traditional change management courses present various challenges with generic solutions, however, the complexity in each organizational setting often presents unique challenges. Research on organizational change has identified some common issues that can help the change managers anticipate challenges and effectively overcome them in almost any situation

Common issues surrounding implementing and managing organizational change:

Asking those involved with implementing organizational change about their experiences identifies a number of potential problems which affect the success of a change implementation program. The most common issues identified are:

• Politics involved in coordinating different teams/departments in the organization.

Many times change initiated by one part of an organization will have effects in other parts. The politics between different parts of an organization can either help or hinder the change process. Understanding which areas are likely to be change proponents or opponents is essential.

• Ingrained organizational cultures and norms that may be resistant to change.

Many times there are aspects of organizational culture that are openly resistant to change. Successfully navigating an organization’s culture involves identifying the norms and aspects that will be most resistant to change implementation initiatives.

• Resistance and obstacles to change stemming from colleagues or subordinates.

Not only are different areas of an organization resistant to change efforts, but many times one’s own coworkers and direct subordinates will be resistant to change. A key to successful change implementation will be assisting those closest to implications to come to terms with accepting the changes.

• Emphasis on the speed in which a change should be implemented.

One of the most difficult issues surrounding organizational change is the expectation that it be implemented quickly. Often times, the quicker a change is implemented, the more difficult it is for those affected to adjust. The conflict between management’s needs (quick implementation) and the needs of organization membership (more time to adjust) make it difficult to strike an appropriate balance.

• Existing organizational values that conflict with those implied by the need for organizational change.

Often sweeping organizational changes will imply that the values currently held by organization members are somehow “incorrect”, or that the organization will no longer value the same things after the change is implemented. While this may be the case in some instances, many times it is not. Helping others reconcile these differences (real or perceived) will be essential for successful implementation.

How to overcome obstacles to change implementation:

Many organizations miss opportunities to learn from organizational change processes – by failing to monitor or evaluate the outcomes of changes that were implemented. Not taking the time to analyze the strengths/weaknesses of change implementation programs, increases the likelihood for repeated procedural mistakes.

Learning how others experience organizational change and put theories into practice can be helpful, particularly for those new to positions responsible for implementing and managing organizational change.

Two overarching themes are related to overcoming each of the potential issues identified earlier:

• Adopt an advocacy role:

Act as a mentor/advocate for others by sharing your knowledge to help them understand why change is needed and what the implications are.

• Involve stakeholders:

Those affected by change will be more likely to accept its implications if they are given a voice in the implementation process. Including both internal and external stakeholders at all steps of the process will ensure they feel a sense of ownership and support for efforts.

Both of these themes will help others understand the context for why change is needed and help motivate them to move forward with the process despite the challenges associated with it.

Interpretation by:

Kathleen Melcher

DeGarmo Group

DeGarmo Group announced today that Anthony Adorno will be facilitating  an HR.com webcast titled “More Than a Mission Statement: The Importance of Corporate Work Values“. The session will be held on August 10, 2010 at 11am ET.  Provided below is a description of the session, as well as registration information.

Session Overview

Just about every organization has a mission statement that includes some reference to a set of work values, but how many organizations really believe in their values and use them to drive organizational success?

During this session, we’ll talk about the importance of core work values, how to measure them, and how to improve alignment between the organization and its employees through talent acquisition and development.

Specifically, this session will focus on the results of research conducted with more than 1,200 people in the United States, U.K., and Philippines on work value alignment and important outcomes such as organizational commitment, job satisfaction, job performance, and employee turnover.

What will participants learn?

1.  How work value alignment impacts corporate profitability.

2.  Metrics used for determining whether an organization’s leaders agree on the importance of work values.

3.  An approach for improving alignment in work values through both staffing and development models.

4.  How the impact of value alignment varies based on job level, job category or work experience.

Who should attend?

1.  Executives who determine and drive the values of their organizations.

2.  Recruiters, Managers, Directors, VPs, etc., responsible for HR, Staffing, Talent Acquisition and/or Organizational Development.

3.  Those interested in understanding how alignment with corporate values drives organizational success.

Registration Information

If you are already a member of HR.com, please login to register for the webcast.  If you are not a member of HR.com, you will need to sign up for a FREE HR.com membership, this will only take you a moment to fill in the required information. Once you have confirmation of your membership, you will be able to register for this complimentary webcast.

Tuesday, August, 10th, 11:00AM – 12:00 PM ET

Register Here!

The following article is a summary of the research and practice implications from:

Many organizations across the globe are seeing continuous changes.  Change can range from leadership changes, new technology implementation, or extensive mergers and acquisitions.

With change, employees are impacted throughout the process by the leadership they experience.  Without proper leadership, employees will not follow their leader and the leader will not establish “buy-in.”

The leadership role in managing employees’ responses to organizational change is critical for establishing successful change.  Generally, two leadership styles can be used to manage organizational change: transformational and change leadership.

Transformational v. Change Leadership

Transformational Leadership refers to a long-term relationship established between the leader and the employee through many interactions.  Transformational leaders have a more organizational or strategic orientation and tend to engage in transformational behaviors that paint a vivid, positive picture of the future that typically focuses more on change in the “big picture” sense, which can have an impact on attitudes about specific changes at work.  Transformational leaders also tend to encourage employee empowerment in general.

Change Leadership refers to the “here-and-now”, with a focus primarily on enacting the specific change at hand and how the leader is handling it from a tactical point of view.

Change leadership involves the engagement of behaviors where the goal is to efficiently implement change. However, some change leadership behaviors that can be linked to the transformational processes include: communicating the plan for change, building rapport, and providing support and developing a rationale for change.  This does not imply that this is the core of change leadership, but merely different tactics to implement change.

Therefore, transformational leaders manage by establishing a relationship with employees and building a common “vision” for change.  Change leaders, on the other hand, focus on the specific change occurring and how to effectively implement the change.

Overall, although each style shares some commonalities, the differences of each style have a differential impact on establishing employee commitment to change; specifically, transformational leadership yields the best outcomes in establishing commitment to a change.

Developing Commitment to Change

Employees want to feel confident in their leader’s commitment to change and rely on the views of their leader.  They want solid answers to their questions:

• Do I buy into the leader’s vision?
• Is the leader credible?
• Do I share values with the leader?
• Is this the kind of leader who can help me navigate the turbulent waters of change?

Through the ability to engage employees and motivate support for the leader’s decision, transformational leaders build the confidence of followers, thereby establishing more “buy-in” in times of change.

Implications for Practice

Organizations implementing change should consider the following:

• Ensure the proper leadership in times of change.   Generally, transformational leadership will establish more “buy-in” and increase the effective implementation of change.
• Establish the ability within leaders to display the characteristics of a transformational leader.  This can be done through training that educates managers on their current styles and enables them to alter their behavior to fit transformational leadership behaviors.
• Evaluate employees’ commitment to change in times of change.  This can be done by simple paper and pencil evaluations which establish employees’ feelings toward the change in process.

Although transformational and change leadership styles share some similarity with regards to establishing employee commitment to change, transformational leadership is more effective.    Transformational leadership may not be as focused specifically on a given change at hand, but through the ability to engage and motivate employees transformational leaders build the confidence of and rapport with those around them. The result is increased employee “buy-in” to effectively implement the change.

Interpretation by:

Adam Bradshaw

The DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Marler, J. H., Fisher, S. L., & Ke, W. (2009). Employee self-service technology acceptance: A comparison of pre-implementation and post-implementation relationships. Personnel Psychology, 62, 327-358.

Employee self-service (ESS) technology is a term used to describe a group of emerging web-based technologies that are quickly gaining popularity. These technologies empower employees to perform a variety of data management and transaction processing functions that once required the use of separate personnel resources, such as HR or administrative staff.

Examples of ESS include technologies that allow employees to manage benefits, register for trainings, update personal information, or report on hours worked. The benefits of these technologies can add up quickly in the form of cost savings and efficiency gains for an organization.

Challenges

Though advantageous to the organization, ESS technologies are usually less directly beneficial to employees, particularly because the ESS technology is rarely related to employees’ essential job functions. This can result in reduced motivation by some employees to fully learn and adopt the technology. In order to maximize cost and efficiency gains, organizations need as many employees as possible to utilize the full functionality of ESS technologies.

There are two broad factors that influence employees’ acceptance of, and intent to use, new ESS technologies: attitudes toward the technology and managerial influence.

Attitudes

Employee attitudes are extremely predictive of intentions to learn and adopt a new technology. Attitudes towards a new technology are influenced by how useful the technology is perceived to be and how easy the technology is to use.

• Perceived Usefulness – If employees believe that the use of a new technology will enhance their job performance, they will be more likely to hold positive attitudes toward that technology.
• Ease of Use – The easier a new technology is to use, the more likely employees will hold positive attitudes toward that technology.

Managerial Influence

Managers play an important role in setting expectations for the use of a new technology. In addition, employees who perceive that they are supported and valued by their organization are more likely to be influenced by managerial pressure to adopt new technologies.

Practical Applications

As ESS technologies become more prevalent in the workplace, managers should be aware of several strategies they can use to increase employee adoption of these technologies.

• Because perceived usefulness plays such an important role in employees’ attitudes about new technologies, organizations should focus on providing their employees with information about how the new technologies can benefit them.
• Provide adequate training to employees about how to utilize new technologies. This will increase perceptions of ease of use and increase adoption of the new technology. After initial implementation of the technology, provide periodic training updates or refreshers.
• Managers should use their influence to encourage organizational norms about the adoption of new technologies.
• Increase perceptions of organizational support in order to increase the level of influence that managers have over adoption of new technologies.
• Organizational norms and perceived support remain relevant after the introduction phase of the new technology. In fact, managerial influence may be more important during this time. Managers should continue to support organizational norms about the use of ESS technologies.

Employee self-service technologies are great ways to increase efficiency and cut down on administrative costs. By adequately preparing and supporting employees during the implementation of these new technologies, organizations can ensure a successful adoption.

Interpretation by:

Michelle Toelle

DeGarmo Group

The following is a summary of the research and practice implications from: Brown, M. E., & Trevino, L. K. (2009). Leader-follower values congruence: Are socialized charismatic leaders better able to achieve it? Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 478-490.

Person-organization fit focusing on values has become a hot topic recently. Values are personal beliefs about what is important and what actions ought to be done (or not done). These beliefs help shape personal goals and the behaviors directed towards achieving those goals. Value fit occurs when organizations and their employees share similar values and is associated with several important work outcomes, such that greater fit is related to higher performance and less turnover.

However, because basic values are deeply rooted and difficult to transform, leaders can have an arduous time trying to align employee values to be consistent with organizational change initiatives. Recent research indicates that a particular type of leadership, called socialized charismatic leadership, can affect the success leaders will achieve in developing new values in their subordinates.

What is “Socialized Charismatic Leadership”?

Socialized charismatic leadership (SCL) is a type of leadership characterized by a leader’s altruistic intent and helping others internalize his or her values. SCL is part of the broader concept of transformational leadership, which involves leaders inspiring their followers and acting as ideal figures after which others can model themselves.

The Role of Occupations in Value Fit

As mentioned above, values are deeply rooted and have a strong influence on behavior. An example of the influence of values on behavior is occupation or career choice. People are attracted to and stay in occupations that are driven by values that are similar to their personal values. For example, people who strongly believe in helping others are more likely to become therapists, social workers, nurses, or doctors. People who strongly value competition are likely to seek out jobs in industries where those values can be pursued, such as sales or marketing.

SCL and Organizational Change

The key to understanding how successful changes in organizational values will be transmitted to employees is knowing that failure will result if the new values are in conflict with deeply held employee values. Leaders high in socialized charisma are better able to align new values with employee-held values than are leaders low in SCL.  Socialized charismatic leaders may be good at achieving this alignment because they frame the organization’s values in such a way that they are consistent with or complement employee values. Framing values in this way can help followers be more accepting of change than they otherwise might be.

Implications for Practice

Some suggestions for how to utilize the concepts of SCL and value fit for organizational change include:

• Consider value fit in recruitment and selection. Employees are attracted to jobs and organizations that match their values and withdraw from those that don’t. Be upfront about your organization’s values in order to attract those with the greatest likelihood of staying and thriving in their jobs. Also, consider using validated selection measures to hire those applicants who best fit with the organization’s core values.
• Understand the values underlying each position. In order to successfully screen based on values, it is first necessary to understand what values are associated with the work in question. Determine if the work is associated with helping others, getting ahead of others, accumulating wealth, creating new innovations, etc.
• Don’t promote values that contradict commonly held employee values. Understanding employees’ underlying values is also important when organizational change initiatives are being developed. Conflict may be reduced or preempted by framing company values in such a way that they are likely to be regarded as complementing those held by employees.
• Identify organization change leaders. In times of change, it is important for the organization to have champions that can build support for the needed transformations (i.e., leaders high in SCL). Have systems in place for identifying, mentoring, and grooming such champions so that they can be in positions of leadership to best move the company forward through transition periods.

Achieving value alignment between leadership and employees can be difficult in times of change. An organization can help maximize its success by having policies in place that bring the best fitting employees on board and develop internal charismatic leaders to make current and future changes to the status quo go as smoothly as possible.

Interpretation by:

Don Johnson

DeGarmo Group