Psychology in Organizations

S Alexander Haslam

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781446229491
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Psicología
• Subtopic: Psicología social

Alex Haslam has thoroughly revised and updated his ground-breaking original text with this new edition. While still retaining the highly readable and engaging style of the best-selling first edition, he presents extensive reviews and critiques of major topics in organizational psychology - including leadership, motivation, communication, decision making, negotiation, power, productivity and collective action - but with much more besides.

Key features of this 2nd Edition:

· An entirely new chapter on organizational stress which deals with highly topical issues of stress appraisal, social support, coping and burnout.

· New, wider textbook format and design making the entire book much more accessible for students.

· Wide range of pedagogical features included - suggestions for further reading included at the end of each chapter; comprehensive glossaries of social identity, social psychological and organizational terms.

1

ORGANIZATIONS AND THEIR PSYCHOLOGY

Humans are social animals. No one who reads this book lives entirely alone, remote from the influence of society and other people. We each seek out contact with others, in the knowledge that this has the capacity to enrich our lives in different ways. This contact usually appears to be natural and uncomplicated, but most of it is highly structured. It is regulated, coordinated and managed. This is partly because much of our day-to-day activity involves dealing with people who are acting as members of organizations. As well as this, a great deal of our own behaviour is determined by our place within an organization. Today you may encounter a shop assistant, a bus driver, a lecturer, a newsreader, a politician, and you may also act, and be treated by others, as a student, a teammate or a fellow worker. Precisely because these sorts of interactions are aspects of organizational behaviour, they are – at least to some extent – purposeful, predictable and meaningful.

Understanding the psychological underpinnings of individuals’ behaviour in organizations is a particular focus for researchers in two subdisciplines: organizational psychology and social psychology. Among other things, both fields examine and attempt to understand the mental states and processes associated with behaviour in structured social groups and systems. This chapter discusses in more detail what organizations are and how they have been studied by organizational and social psychologists, before going on to outline how the social psychology of organizational life will be examined in this book.

A central question that provides a backdrop to the issues addressed in this chapter, and in the book as a whole, is how we should understand the contribution that groups make both to the psychology of individuals within organizations and to the functioning of organizations as a whole. Do groups detract from individual motivation and performance or do they augment it? Do groups introduce error and bias into judgement and decision making or are they sources of validation and validity? Are individual products and behaviour superior to group output and collective action? More importantly, when and why are different answers to these questions correct? This book’s goal is to answer questions of this form, and in so doing to come to grips with issues at the heart of both organizational and social psychology. At its core is an assumption that we have to have a satisfactory appreciation of the psychology of group behaviour in order to understand how and why organizations are (or aren’t) effective.

WHAT IS AN ORGANIZATION?

In their seminal text, Katz and Kahn (1966) note that organizations have classically been defined as ‘social device[s] for efficiently accomplishing through group means some stated purpose’ (p. 16). However, they note that this definition, like many others, runs into problems because the stated purpose of an organization may be incidental to the function that it actually fulfils. The stated purpose of a religious movement may be to enhance the spiritual well-being of its followers, but it has a number of other functions that may be considered more important: to provide social support, exercise social control or generate revenue for various other purposes.

As an alternative to this definition, Katz and Kahn (1966) prefer to think of organizations as social systems that coordinate people’s behaviour by means of roles, norms and values. Roles relate to the particular place and functions of an individual. These are defined within a system that is internally differentiated in ways relevant to the system’s operation. These can be thought of as group-based categories of position and activity. Thus universities contain academics and administrators who each have different tasks to perform and there are further sub-divisions within these categories (lecturers, accountants and so on). Roles are categorical in the sense that the individuals who fulfil them are functionally interchangeable and equivalent. Norms are attitudinal and behavioural prescriptions associated with these roles or categories. They create expectations about how a person or group of people ought to think, feel and behave. They tend to be defined externally (in formal job descriptions or informal codes of conduct, for example), but are internalized by individual group members (Sherif, 1936). Thus lecturers are expected by others, and expect themselves, to run courses and mark exams, while accountants are expected and expect to monitor and administer budgets. Finally, values are higher-level principles that are intended to guide this behaviour and the organization’s activity as a whole (see Peters & Waterman, 1995). Lecturers should be well informed and studious, accountants should be honest and prudent, a university should advance knowledge and reward scholarship.

Partly because of their regulatory function, the precise constellation of roles, norms and values within any particular organization serves to create shared meaning for its members. This provides each organization with a distinct organizational culture (Bate, 1984; Deal & Kennedy, 1982; Ellemers, 2003; Freytag, 1990). A person’s ability to work effectively within any organization is generally highly dependent on their understanding on this culture and, for this reason, familiarization with its distinct features generally plays a major role in the socialization of new employees by older ones (for a vivid account of this process see Bourassa & Ashforth, 1998).

However, it is still clear that in organizations this system of roles, norms and values exists for some purpose and indeed that it generally works to direct and structure individuals’ activities in relation to this purpose (Tannenbaum, 1966). Leaving aside the issue of whether this purpose is explicit or implicit (or is manifest or latent – see Merton, 1957), this point is fundamental to most definitions. So, for example, Stogdill (1950) defines an organization as ‘a social group in which the members are differentiated as to their responsibilities for the task of achieving a common goal’ (p. 2). However, Smith (1995b) elaborates on this type of definition by adding that:

Awareness of membership, or self-categorization, is critical in that we cannot, from a psychological point of view, attribute the effects of organizational life to the organization unless we can be sure that the organization is psychologically ‘real’ [for its members]. (p. 425)

It is also important to recognize that internal differentiation exists not only because individuals in organizations have different roles, but also because they belong to different groups within organizations. In all organizations there is therefore an internal system of social relations between such groups (Alderfer & Smith, 1982; Levine & Moreland, 1991; Turner & Haslam, 2001). This means that departments or teams within an organization are typically differentiated not only in terms of their own shared roles, norms, values and culture but also in terms of their power and status.

On the basis of observations like those above, Statt (1994) abstracts three core features of organizations from a range of different definitions. He suggests that an organization is: (a) a group with a social identity, so that it has psychological meaning for all the individuals who belong to it (resulting, for example, in a shared sense of belonging; LaTendresse, 2000); (b) characterized by coordination so that the behaviour of individuals is arranged and structured rather than idiosyncratic; and (c) goal directed, so that this structure is oriented towards a particular outcome. Obviously, though, the precise character of these features varies from organization to organization and for this reason careful study of the concrete features of any specific organizational context will always be important (Turner & Haslam, 2001).

When most people think about organizations they think about the places where people work. Indeed, such places are the focus of the present text and most others that have the word ‘organization’ in their title. However, it is clear that the above characteristics define organizations more generally as any internally differentiated and purposeful social group that has a psychological impact on its members. In these terms, sporting teams, clubs, societies, even families, are all organizations. Of course, people do perform work in all these groups, but they are also a focus of leisure and recreation. It is the fact that organizations relate to this breadth of experience that gives them such relevance to our lives and that in turn makes attempts to understand their psychological dimensions so important, so complex and ultimately so interesting.

STUDYING ORGANIZATIONS

Researchers interested in the psychology of organizations study an array of topics and questions almost as broad as the discipline of psychology itself. Nonetheless, the area has been of particular interest to: (a) social psychologists who study the interplay between social interaction and individuals’ thoughts, feelings and behaviour; (b) clinical psychologists who examine the basis and consequences of individuals’ dysfunctional processes and states; and (c) cognitive psychologists who look at how people process information in their environment in order to think, perceive, learn and remember.

This breadth of issue coverage is enlarged further by the fact that organizations are not only of interest to psychologists. Sociologists, economists, anthropologists, historians and political scientists are all interested in how organizations work and in their products and impact. People in all these areas make an important contribution to understanding organizations, and the nature of this contribution is important to bear in mind as we progress through this book. This is for two quite different reasons: first, because work in these other fields often provides a distinct way of approaching a particular topic; but also, second, because the way psychologists think about organizations is profoundly influenced by work in other disciplines. The study of productivity, for example, is heavily influenced by economic theories, which tend to define output in financial rather than social terms.

This book, however, is largely concerned with the social psychology of organizations. What it has to say has relevance to, and draws on, work in other areas of psychology and in other disciplines, but it is largely concerned with the way in which the psychological processes of individuals contribute to, and are affected by, organizational life. On reflection, we can see that organizational behaviour is quite an amazing accomplishment. What features of our psychological make-up make this accomplishment possible? How exactly does membership of organizations affect the way we think, feel and behave?

Given the scope of these questions, it should not be surprising to discover that they have been answered in a number of different ways. Yet, since the start of the twentieth century, psychologists have tended to answer them using only a few relatively circumscribed forms of answer, or paradigm (Brown, 1954; Pfeffer, 1997, 1998; Viteles, 1932). In the first part of that century these focused on the distinct underpinnings of organizational behaviour in economic motivation, individual differences and human relations, but more recently there has been an upsurge of interest in the cognitive aspects of organizational life (Landy, 1989).

The following sections look in turn at the historical foundations of each of these four paradigms. We will consider these in some detail for a number of reasons. First, because in many respects the ideas and work of pioneers in organizational enquiry represent the bedrock of later work in the field. The studies they conducted are rightly considered classics and all are widely discussed and commented on in just about every organizational text (though sometimes in a rather disjointed and fragmentary way). For that reason it is important to consider closely their methods and ideas, in order to get a clearer picture of ‘where they were coming from’ and what they were attempting to do. Even though these ideas are now rarely applied in their original form, their impact on the field has been considerable and most will be recognizable in some guise when we deal with specific content areas in later chapters. Finally, this early work is still immensely interesting to read and reflect on, not least because the researchers had an enthusiasm and vigour that were genuinely infectious.

PARADIGMS FOR STUDYING ORGANIZATIONS AND THEIR PSYCHOLOGY

The economic paradigm

The economic paradigm is closely associated with the work of Frederick Taylor at the start of the twentieth century. Despite the fact that he had previously passed the entrance examination for Harvard, Taylor entered the Midvale Steel Company as an unskilled yard labourer at the age of 22 in 1878. Six years later, in the process of rising to the position of chief engineer, he had laid the groundwork for a theory of scientific management (other-wise known as Taylorism) that revolutionized the industrial workplace and had enormous impact on the study of organizational behaviour.

At the heart of this theory was a rejection of the idea that workers should learn how best to do their jobs through experience, informal training or their own insight. In short, Taylor believed that the management of workers and their work was an exact science and that the job of any manager was to perfect and implement that science – to discover and implement ‘the one best way’ of doing any particular job. This doctrine was set out in a number of texts, most notably Taylor’s (1911) Principles of Scientific Management (see also Person, 1911/1972, pp. 5–7). Here the four principal duties of managers, corresponding to the four main principles of the theory, were listed as follows:

First They develop a science for each element of a man’s work, which replaces the old rule-of-thumb method.

Second They scientifically select and then train, teach and develop the workman, whereas in the past he trained himself as best he could.

Third They heartily cooperate with the men so as to ensure all of the work is being done in accordance with the science which has been developed.

Fourth There is an almost equal division of work and the responsibility between the management and the workmen. The management take over all the work for which they are better fitted than the workmen, while in the past almost all of the work and the greater part of the responsibility were thrown upon the men.
(Taylor, 1911, pp. 36–7).

Yet, over and above these principles, Taylor (1911/1972) considered scientific management to be a psychological enterprise involving ‘a complete mental revolution both on the part of management and on the part of men’ (p. 29).

On reading Taylor’s work, one of its most salient features is the zeal with which his ideas were promoted, a zeal that was shared by other members of the movement that he founded. One quirky illustration of the level of Taylor’s commitment is that his 1911 book ends with an invitation for any reader sufficiently interested in scientific management to call in on him at his house in Philadelphia. Such enthusiasm led, among other things, to the foundation of the Taylor Society, an organization that vigorously discussed and religiously promoted Taylor’s ideas.

Central to this zeal was a disapproval of human and financial waste and a particular (some have argued pathological – Kakar, 1970, p. 188) dislike of the practice of ‘soldiering’ or loafing. Taylor believed that this led to collective under-achievement, usually as a deliberate coordinated act. He identified this as ‘the greatest evil with which the working-people of both England and America are now afflicted’ (Taylor, 1911, p. 14) and suggested three roots to the problem. First, he argued that workers were often poorly selected for the jobs they performed, so that a failure to achieve their maximum potential was inevitable. Second, he pointed out that, under most existing systems of ‘initiative and incentive’, it made sense to loaf because workers were discouraged by the fact that targets were continually raised once they had been achieved. Finally, third, Taylor (1911) believed that loafing was a tendency that arose naturally from ‘the loss of ambition and initiative … which takes place in workmen when they are herded into gangs instead of being treated as separate individuals’ (p. 72).

Corresponding to each of these problems, Taylor proposed three remedies. First, he argued that workers needed to be systematically selected for any job they were to perform in a manner that weeded out all but the ‘first-class men’ (as per the second principle of scientific management). Typically this meant going through a process of exhaustive testing that might lead a company to retain only one worker in ten from an existing workforce. Taylor acknowledged that this strategy appeared to be hard on those workers who were not up to scratch, and that, left to their own devices, workers themselves would never enforce or endure decimation of this form. He added, though, that sympathy for those who lost their job was ‘entirely wasted’, as the strategy was a necessary step towards finding work for which they were properly suited and therefore ‘really a kindness’ (Taylor, 1911, p. 64).

The second strategy Taylor devised was to introduce a ‘piecework incentive system’. This involved rewarding each worker for higher productivity and ensuring that the worker had faith that pay rates would not subsequently be adjusted. Taylor was critical of employers who went back on their word in this regard (citing it as one major contributor to the touted failure of his principles), but he also counselled against increasing workers’ pay by much more than 60 per cent – noting that beyond this level of increase many workers ‘will work irregularly and tend to become more or less...