No abstract

By combining quantitative and qualitative methods of study, we develop a comprehensive model of top management behaviors, perceived management credibility, and employee cynicism and outcomes. Specifically, we identify managerial behaviors that affect employees’ perceptions of two components of top management’s credibility — trustworthiness and competence — and examine how each of those components relates to employee cynicism. Top management competence and trustworthiness relate to different components of employee cynicism (cognitive, affective, and behavioral cynicism), and these dimensions of cynicism differentially relate to organizational commitment and self-assessed job performance. Content analysis of critical incidents revealed that different sets of managerial behaviors generate attributions of competence, incompetence, trustworthiness, and non-trustworthiness. This study and the resulting model open the door to more finely distilled research on management credibility and employee cynicism.

No abstract

No abstract

In this paper we attempt to bridge the gap between theory and practice by developing the concept of `resourceful sensemaking'.1 Resourceful sensemaking is the ability to appreciate the perspectives of others and use this understanding to enact horizon-expanding discourse. Using a critical events technique, we assess the resourcefulness of the sensemaking activities of individuals in interdisciplinary product development teams. Data include researchers' and stakeholders' observations of teams in action, careful reviews of documents and questionnaires completed by team members and selected stakeholders, and interviews with team members and other stakeholders during, and six months after completion of, the projects. We focus attention on the articulation of the resourceful sensemaking concept rather than on the formulation of testable propositions. We end the paper with a discussion of the implications of our study for work organizations using interdisciplinary product development teams.