Hierarchy in Organizations

Tannenbaum, Arnold S.; Kavčič, Bogdan; Rosner, Menachem; Vianello, Mino; Wieser, Georg

doi:10.1097/00006216-197701040-00011

Cited by 61 publications

(46 citation statements)

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“…1 This pioneering work was subsequently extended by other workplace democracy theorists (e.g., Walker, 1974;Greenberg, 1975;Bernstein, 1976;Thorsrud, 1977), who examined empirical evidence relating to new forms of worker participation in the United States and especially in Sweden and Norway. Based on this evidence, new alternate models of workplace democracy were proposed (e.g., Pateman, 1970;Hunnius et al, 1973;Tannenbaum et al, 1974;Herbst, 1976;Zwerdling, 1978;Witte, 1980). More recently, the concept of workplace democracy has been geared towards ideas of labour−management co-operation or employee involvement (e.g., Simmons and Mares, 1983;Cohen-Rosenthal and Burton, 1987;Eaton, 1990;Cooke, 1991;Bluestone and Bluestone, 1992).…”

Section: Defining Workers' Rights As 'Workplace Democracy'mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating Strategies for Negotiating Workers’ Rights in Transnational Corporations: The Effects of Codes of Conduct and Global Agreements on Workplace Democracy

Egels‐Zandén¹,

Hyllman

2007

J Bus Ethics

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Following the offshoring of production to developing countries by transnational corporations (TNCs), unions and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have criticised working conditions at TNCs' offshore factories. This has led to the emergence of two different approaches to operationalising TNC responsibilities for workers' rights in developing countries: codes of conduct and global agreements. Despite the importance of this development, few studies have systematically compared the effects of these two different ways of dealing with workers' rights. This paper addresses this gap by analysing how codes of conduct and global agreements both independently and interactively affect workers' rights. We do this based on a qualitative study of the Sri Lankan operations of a Swedish TNC in Sri Lanka, and on interviews with union and NGO representatives actively involved in codes of conduct and global agreements. Our results indicate that global agreements independently address all the aspects included in codes of conduct, while also addressing additional, more process-oriented aspects of workers' rights. Hence, on their own, global agreements seem to comprise the superior approach to promoting workers' rights. Furthermore, our results indicate that promoting codes of conduct has negative interactive effects on global agreements. Based on these results, we argue that the current focus on codes of conduct is counterproductive for the promotion of workers' rights.

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Section: Defining Workers' Rights As 'Workplace Democracy'mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating Strategies for Negotiating Workers’ Rights in Transnational Corporations: The Effects of Codes of Conduct and Global Agreements on Workplace Democracy

Egels‐Zandén¹,

Hyllman

2007

J Bus Ethics

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“…Although European-American studies have tended to observe weak positive associations between autonomy, satisfaction and performance (Spector, 1986), some have observed non-significant (Man & Lam, 2003;Parker, 2003) and even negative associations (Langfred, 2004). Of greater concern, however, a long-standing but often neglected body of cross-cultural research (e.g., Child, 1991;Tannenbaum, Kavcic, Rosner, Vianello, & Wieser, 1974) has pointed to the cultural relativism of autonomous management practices. These studies highlight the fact that autonomous and participative management practices are not always well received by cultures that emphasize hierarchical ways of working, and collective effort as opposed to individualistic goals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cross-cultural variations in climate for autonomy, stress and organizational productivity relationships: A comparison of Chinese and UK manufacturing organizations

et al. 2008

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Cross-cultural researchers have questioned the extent to which EuropeanAmerican management practices can be transported to major markets in Asia, such as the People's Republic of China. Applying employee involvement theory, we examined the relationships between climate for autonomy, work demands climate, employee stress and organizational productivity in a crossnational study of 51 UK and 104 Chinese manufacturing organizations. We predicted and found that climate for autonomy was positively and negatively related to stress in the Chinese and UK contexts, respectively. The interaction of climate for autonomy and work demands climate was significant: climate for autonomy was positively related to organizational productivity only when work demands climate was low.

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“…For the study of dissent, this implies that attaining power may lead individuals to accept the group's goals and values and therefore, see less need for dissent than who have not attained power. Some empirical evidence supports this idea, finding that those higher in the organizational hierarchy view their organization more positively (Stouffer, Suchman, DeVinney, Star, & Williams, 1949;Tannenbaum, Kavcic, Rosner, Vianello, & Wieser, 1974), and endorse its values more strongly. For instance, in a study of senior managers and lower level employees in three organizations, Trevino, Weaver, and Brown (2008) found that senior managers saw the internal ethical environment of their organizations more positively than lower level employees saw this environment, after controlling for tenure in the organization.…”

Section: Effects Of Attaining Power On Dissentmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Although this research highlighted the negative implications of power attainment for ethical behavior, the tractability of powerful individuals to influence surely has a variety of positive outcomes as well. For instance, Tannenbaum et al (1974) noted numerous forms of dissatisfaction suffered by those in low ranking positions within hierarchies. This research suggests one way these effects could be naturally mitigated.…”

Section: Dyadic and Group-level Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Power and Dissent: Implications for Ethics in Organizations

Kennedy¹

2012

Proceedings

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This dissertation examines how power, defined as higher rank in a hierarchy, affects dissent, the expression of disagreement with a value, goal, or practice embraced by a group majority. I examine this relation in the context of ethics in organizations in order to understand whether those higher in organizational hierarchies are more likely to intervene when unethical practices are ongoing in organizations.I propose that although possessing power confers the psychological and social freedom to dissent, the process of attaining power makes individuals unlikely to see the need to dissent. Specifically, I suggest that advancing to a position results in greater identification with the group. By creating this identification, power may lead individuals to adopt the morality embedded in the group. As a result, advancing in the hierarchy may cause individuals to see existing practices as more ethical, and high power individuals may dissent less than those who have not advanced in the hierarchy. I refer to this as the theory of power attainment. On the basis of this theory, I propose a negative relation between power and dissent.I explored this topic in a series of five studies. The first study explored lay perceptions of power and ethics. It examined whether organizational members considered high power individuals more responsible for ethics in organizations, and members' lay theories of how attaining power affects individuals' ethics. In this study, I found that 73 percent of survey respondents believed advancing in a hierarchy makes individuals more responsible for the organization's ethics, but only 42 percent believed that power inclines individuals to do so. Moreover, 42 percent reported that advancing in the hierarchy makes individuals less ethical. Thus, although most individuals perceived high power people to be responsible for organizational ethics, most respondents did not think high power individuals generally fulfill this responsibility.The second study examined the relations between power, group identification, and dissent. It used the priming methodology currently dominant in the research on power to examine two central hypotheses: Power increases group identification and decreases dissent. In this study, I found attaining power enhanced group identification. However, attaining power had no effect on dissent using this approach. 2The third study examined the effect of power on dissent in a laboratory study. It examined these central hypotheses as the prior study: Those who advance to a position of power in a group identify more with the group and dissent less than individuals who do not advance to power. In this study, individuals ostensibly interacted with a group and were randomly selected or not selected to advance in the group hierarchy. They later had the opportunity to dissent when the group decided whether to lie to obtain additional compensation for participating in the study. In this study, a negative relation between power and dissent emerged. Relative to a control condition, high power individua...

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Hierarchy in Organizations

Cited by 61 publications

References 0 publications

Evaluating Strategies for Negotiating Workers’ Rights in Transnational Corporations: The Effects of Codes of Conduct and Global Agreements on Workplace Democracy

Evaluating Strategies for Negotiating Workers’ Rights in Transnational Corporations: The Effects of Codes of Conduct and Global Agreements on Workplace Democracy

Cross-cultural variations in climate for autonomy, stress and organizational productivity relationships: A comparison of Chinese and UK manufacturing organizations

Power and Dissent: Implications for Ethics in Organizations

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