Complementary or competing climates? Examining the interactive effect of service and ethical climates on company-level financial performance.

Abstract

By bending rules to please their customers, companies with high service climates may be less ethical but ultimately more profitable. In this article, we pose the question of whether being ethical comes at a cost to profits in customer-oriented firms. Despite the organizational reality that multiple climates coexist at a given time, research has largely ignored these types of questions, and the simultaneous analysis of multiple climate dimensions has received little empirical attention to date. Given their scientific and practical importance, this study tested complementary and conflicting perspectives regarding interactions between service (outcome-focused) and ethical (process-focused) climates on company-level financial performance. Drawing on a sample of 16,862 medical sales representatives spread across 77 subsidiary companies of a large multinational corporation in the health care product industry, we found support for a complementary view. More precisely, results revealed that profitability was enhanced, not diminished, in service-oriented firms that also stressed the importance of ethics. Results suggest studying the interactive effects of multiple climates is a more fruitful approach than examining main effects alone. (PsycINFO Database Record

Does Reducing Male Domination in Teams Attenuate or Intensify the Harmful Effects of Perceived Discrimination on Women's Job Satisfaction? A Test of Competing Hypotheses

“…That is, when women are on less male‐dominated teams, yet perceive gender discrimination, this may send a conflicting message that the organisation does not truly value diversity, exacerbating the effects on job satisfaction. This idea is consistent with research on leaders’ behavioural integrity (e.g., Davis & Rothstein, ; Simons, ) and on complementary versus competing messages that organisational climates may convey at work (e.g., Myer, Thoroughgood, & Mohammed, ).…”

Clash of the climates: Examining the paradoxical effects of climates for promotion and prevention

“…However, theoretically and empirically considering the meaning and influence of this organizational likelihood is (cf. Myer, Thoroughgood, & Mohammed, ), despite the prevalence of competing priorities in organizations (Lewis, ; Sjoberg, ). Though seemingly at odds with the organizational paradox and ambidexterity literatures (e.g., O'Reilly & Tushman, ; Smith & Lewis, )—which theorize that satisfying competing strategic demands can be beneficial for organizations—we use social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, ; Turner, , ) and related conceptual work on organizational identity (Albert & Whetten, ; Ashforth & Mael, ; Gioia, ) to theorize that the existence of competing climates for promotion and prevention may ultimately hamper organizational effectiveness.…”

“…First, we extend research on collective regulatory focus (Johnson et al., ) by introducing climates for promotion and prevention as overarching climates that should exist and have meaning across a variety of organizational contexts; this represents a higher order conceptualization of organizational climates that is more broadly applicable than most commonly examined domain‐specific climates (e.g., climates for safety, ethics, customer service). Second, we address the oft‐posed, but rarely heeded, call for exploring the interactive effects of simultaneously existing climates (Kuenzi & Schminke, ; Schneider, Ehrhart, & Macey, ; Zohar & Hofmann, ); we extend existing research on such interactions (Jiang & Probst, ; Jiang, Hu, Hong, Liao, & Liu, ; Myer et al., ) by theorizing and testing the sophisticated interplay that climates created by competing directives can have on collective commitment and performance. In doing so, we improve on previous tests of climate interactions by using polynomial regression with response surface analysis to test our hypotheses.…”

Information security policy noncompliance: An integrative social influence model

“…Supporting this argument, researchers have increasingly emphasized the potentially important role of the more encompassing climate on domain specific issues. Studies have found important cross‐domain implications from ethical work climate to service outcome (Myer, Thoroughgood, & Mohammed, ), from climate regarding employee relations, organizational support, and leader‐member exchange to workplace safety (Hofmann & Morgeson, ; Wallace, Popp, & Mondore, ) and to customer service outcome (Schneider, White, & Paul, ). Researchers have also highlighted the relevance of ethics in the security, privacy, and IS domain (Lowry, Dinev, & Willison, ; Mingers & Walsham, ).…”

“…Studies have found important cross-domain implications from ethical work climate to service outcome (Myer, Thoroughgood, & Mohammed, 2016), from climate regarding employee relations, organizational support, and leader-F I G U R E 1 An integrative model of information security policy (ISP) noncompliance member exchange to workplace safety (Hofmann & Morgeson, 1999;Wallace, Popp, & Mondore, 2006) and to customer service outcome (Schneider, White, & Paul, 1998). Researchers have also highlighted the relevance of ethics in the security, privacy, and IS domain (Lowry, Dinev, & Willison, 2017;Mingers & Walsham, 2010).…”