This study investigates a pressing topic, related to the connection between employees’ perceptions that the COVID-19 pandemic represents a pertinent threat for their organization on one hand, and their exhibited creativity, a critical behavior through which they can change and improve the organizational status quo, on the other. This connection may depend on their work-related task conflict, or the extent to which they reach out to colleagues to discuss different perspectives on work-related issues, as well as their collectivistic orientation. Data were gathered from employees working in the real estate sector. The results inform organizational practitioners that they should leverage productive task conflict to channel work-related hardships, such as those created by the coronavirus pandemic, into creative work outcomes. This beneficial process may be particularly effective for firms that employ people who embrace collectivistic norms, so they prioritize the well-being of others.
PurposeThe goal of this research is to examine the link between employees' beliefs that organizational decision-making processes are guided by self-serving behaviors and their own turnover intentions, as well as how this link may be buffered by four distinct resources, two that speak to the nature of peer exchanges (knowledge sharing and relationship informality) and two that capture critical aspects of the organizational environment (change climate and forgiveness climate).Design/methodology/approachQuantitative survey data were collected among 208 employees who work in the oil and gas sector in Mozambique.FindingsThe results indicate that employees' beliefs about dysfunctional political games stimulate their plans to quit. Yet this translation is less likely to occur to the extent that their peer relationships are marked by frequent and informal exchanges and that organizational leaders embrace change and forgiveness.Practical implicationsFor organizations, these findings offer pertinent insights into different circumstances in which decision-related frustrations are less likely to escalate into quitting plans. In particular, such escalation can be avoided to the extent that employees feel supported by the frequency and informal nature of their communication with colleagues, as well as the extent to which organizational leaders encourage change and practice forgiveness.Originality/valueThis study adds to extant research by explicating four unexplored buffers that diminish the risk that frustrations with politicized decision-making translate into enhanced turnover intentions.
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