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- All Subjects: Organizational Behavior
- All Subjects: Character
- Creators: Baer, Michael D
- Creators: Corley, Kevin
Description
After decades of dormancy, character is re-emerging as an important research topic among organizational leadership researchers in response to the need to better explain the source of certain exemplary and ethical leader performance (Hannah & Avolio, 2011; Leonard, 1997; Thompson & Riggio, 2010; Wright & Goodstein, 2007). However, efforts to operationalize character are criticized for their abstract and idealistic trait-based conceptualizations that fail to capture the reality of leadership and situational dynamics (Conger & Hollenbeck, 2010). The purpose of this study is to develop a more robust theoretical approach to character that is empirically grounded in the real life complexities of leadership. Combat provides the context for this study because the adversity of such an extreme context tends to make character a more salient and readily observable phenomenon than in more conventional organizational contexts (Wright & Quick, 2011; Hannah, Uhl-Bien, Avolio, & Cavarretta, 2009). I employed an ethnographic grounded theory design to gain a unique insider's perspective absent in many studies of leader character (Charmaz, 2009; Parry & Meindl, 2002). Data collection involved (1) physically embedding for six months with U.S. Army small unit infantry leaders operating in combat in Afghanistan; (2) participant observation in the full range of combat activities engaged in by these leaders; and (3) in-depth semi-structured interviews with key informants. An important contribution of this study is that the emergent concept of leader character is fully situated in the leader's social and environmental context represented by the leader's inner struggle to resist the adversity of combat and uphold the standards of leadership. In this dialectical framework, certain agentic resources important to resolving this inner struggle emerge as the locus of leader character. This agency-based concept of character is rooted in the internalization of the standards of leadership through identity-conferring normative commitments and entails particular motivational and volitional capacities. These produce a distinct mode of functioning--a strong form of personal moral agency--characterized by the leader's willingness to sacrifice in upholding standards in the face of adversity. This primacy of leader agency over adversity is the hallmark of leader character--what I call the character to lead.
ContributorsJennings, Peter L. (Author) / Corley, Kevin (Thesis advisor) / Waldman, David (Thesis advisor) / Hannah, Sean T (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Recently, philosophers have charged that Aristotelian-based virtue theories are empirically inadequate because the conception of character in which they are grounded is largely unfounded by findings in psychology. These philosophers argue in favor of situationism, the theory from social psychology that situational rather than dispositional differences among individuals are in large part responsible for human behavior. Situationists dispute the existence of traits that remain consistent across time and diverse situations and argue that features of situations can better explain and predict human behavior. After analyzing the psychological literature and historical cases put forth as evidence for situationism as well as the basic premises grounding arguments against situationism, I make some conclusions about the best responses to situationism. I agree with situationists that Aristotelian-based virtue and character are not quite empirically adequate but disagree that human behavior owes more to situational rather than dispositional determinants. Basing my theory on literature from social psychology, I argue instead that a concept of character grounded in social-cognitive theory is more psychologically realistic and can explain and predict human behavior and ground a character-based virtue theory. A social-cognitive conception of character would highlight the dynamic role between situations and individual psychological factors like beliefs, values, desires and the way that an individual perceives a situation. I sketch out a non-ideal theory of virtue based in a social-cognitive conception of character that is partially dependent on social networks for its maintenance and is fragmented, or contextualized to particular types of psychological situations. However, fragmented and socially dependent virtue is not an optimal type of virtue because it is vulnerable to situational features that place strong psychological pressures on agents to behave in various ways, including ways they would not have normally endorsed. I agree with Aristotelian virtue ethicists that argue that a type of practical wisdom can help to counter the often unwanted and dangerous influence of these strong situations but also maintain that some measure of moral luck is inevitably involved, even in the development of practical wisdom.
ContributorsValadez, Mayra (Author) / Calhoun, Cheshire (Thesis advisor) / Walker, Margaret U (Committee member) / French, Peter A. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Research suggests that behaving in an ingratiatory manner towards one’s supervisor is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, ingratiation is a powerful tool through which employees develop positive social exchange relationships with target audiences (i.e., supervisors) and subsequently obtain desired outcomes at work. On the other hand, third party observers of ingratiation often view this behavior (and the people enacting it) in a negative manner, thereby hindering ingratiatory employees’ ability to develop high quality social exchange relationships with these individuals. However, this research primarily focuses on how organizational actors perceive of ingratiatory employees while neglecting the social context in which this behavior occurs. This is an important limitation because there are compelling reasons to believe that the social context plays a crucial role in how individuals react to ingratiation. Specifically, the social context may influence the extent to which ingratiation is salient, valued, and/or perceived as normative behavior by organizational members both within and external to the ingratiator-target dyad, which in turn affects how this behavior relates to relationship quality with the target and observers. The objective of my dissertation is to address this limitation by integrating a social context perspective with social exchange theory to build a “frog-pond” model of ingratiation. To that end, I propose that employees’ ingratiation relative to their team members, rather than absolute levels of ingratiation, drives positive exchange quality with supervisors. Furthermore, I hypothesize that congruence between the focal employee’s ingratiation and other team members’ ingratiation increases employees’ social exchange quality with team members. I also shed light on the asymmetrical nature of ingratiation (in)congruence by investigating how different types of congruence and incongruence impact social exchange quality with team members in different ways. In addition, I examine how relative ingratiation indirectly influences supervisors’ citizenship behavior toward the focal employee via focal employee-supervisor social exchange quality, as well as how ingratiation congruence indirectly affects team members’ citizenship behavior toward the focal employee through social exchange quality between the two parties. I test my hypotheses in a multi-wave multi-source field study of 222 employees and 64 teams/supervisors.
ContributorsKim, Ji Koung (Author) / LePine, Jeffery A. (Thesis advisor) / Zhang, Zhen (Committee member) / Baer, Michael D (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Forty-four million U.S. workers hold a flexible work role in the “gig economy” in conjunction with a traditional work role. This supplementary work role is known as a side-hustle, or income-generating work performed on the side of a full-time job. Whereas organizations and scholars have tended to view side-hustles as an activity that diminishes employee performance, employees may enjoy benefits from side-hustles. Indeed, research points to the benefits of accumulating multiple roles outside of work (e.g., volunteering or family roles). I investigate these disparate perspectives about the positive and negative implications of a SHR for performance in full-time work. To do so, I draw on boundary theory, which suggests that the degree of similarity between two roles, whether different from one another or blurring together, shapes how roles affect attitudes and behavior. I tested my predictions about how SHRs influence full-time work performance in a four-wave field study of 276 employees and 170 supervisors. Specifically, I address similarity between a SHR and FWR (SHR-FWR similarity), or the number of similar requirements between a SHR and FWR and extent of those similarities. I argue that SHR-FWR similarity has a negative relationship with boundary negotiation efforts because transitions between similar roles require little psychological effort. This relationship was not supported by my findings. I also assert that SHR-FWR similarity decreases psychological detachment from full-time work as similar roles blur together and limit recovery from full-time work. This relationship was supported by my findings. I further argue that side-hustle meaningfulness moderates the relationship between SHR-FWR similarity and boundary negotiation efforts and psychological detachment from full-time work. This prediction was supported for the effect on psychological detachment from full-time work. Finally, I examined how the effects of SHR-FWR similarity carry through to full-time work performance via exhaustion. These indirect effects were not supported. A supplemental polynomial regression analysis in which I examined status consistency was more fruitful. I found that status inconsistencies between a SHR and FWR led to increased role stress within full-time work. I conclude with a discussion of alternative approaches to understanding the confluence of SHRs and FWRs and practical implications.
ContributorsSessions, Hudson (Author) / Nahrgang Craig, Jennifer (Thesis advisor) / Baer, Michael D (Committee member) / Welsh, David T (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Individuals have multiple identities, and several of them may be simultaneously driving enacted behavior in a given context. Scholars have suggested that intrapersonal identity networks – the combination of identities, relationships between identities, and identity characteristics – influence enactment. However, very little is known about the process by which several components of one’s identity network result in a single stream of enactment. This is important because different factors (e.g., leader actions) may impact this process and, in turn, change the way people act in organizations and interpret the actions of others. I examined a healthcare system designed to surgically treat cancer patients. Taking an inductive interpretivist approach, and using grounded theory methodology, I developed a process model of intrapersonal identity network enactment that also takes into account interpretations of other system members’ enactment. My findings contribute to the social identity literature by suggesting that a common, highly central identity is not enough to align behavior in organizations. Instead individuals may enact a common “higher-order” identity in combination with the rest of their identity network in ways that actually work against each other, even as they genuinely work toward the same purpose. I also extend the literature on multiple identities by explicating a process by which four different identities, and four characteristics of each identity, foster enactment toward the surgical system. Finally, I show how one’s intrapersonal identity network influences how they interpret the enacted behavior of others. In doing so, I extend the identity threat and opportunity literature by showing how one person’s identity threat is another’s identity opportunity, even when they share a common higher-order identity. In short, my study shows how individuals can work against each other, even when they are genuinely working toward the same purpose.
ContributorsFenters, Virgil (Author) / Ashforth, Blake (Thesis advisor) / Corley, Kevin (Committee member) / Luciano, Margaret (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020