Sociomoral Atmosphere and Prosocial and Democratic Value Orientations in Enterprises with Different Levels of Structurally Anchored Participation

Abstract

This study examines effects of structurally anchored organisational democracy on perceived sociomoral atmosphere and on employees' prosocial, democratic behavioural orientations. Data result from the ODEM research project. Beside a description of the concept of sociomoral atmosphere, within this project, 30 small and medium sized enterprises from Austria, North Italy, South Germany, and Liechtenstein (542 participants) were surveyed with questionnaires, interviews, and document analyses. Based on organisational science criteria, several types of enterprises were derived and pooled into three groups of structurally anchored organisational democracy (no, medium, and high democracy). Multivariate group analyses show significant differences between those groups in parts of their prosocial and democratic behavioural orientations and in their sociomoral atmosphere. Soziomoralische Atmosphäre und prosoziale, demokratieförderliche Handlungsbereitschaften in Betrieben mit unterschiedlichen Demokratiegraden Die vorliegende Arbeit fokussiert die Effekte strukturell verankerter organisationaler Demokratie auf die wahrgenommene soziomoralische Atmosphäre der Beschäftigten und auf deren soziale und demokratieförderliche Handlungsbereitschaften. Vorgestellt werden neben einem Konzeptvorschlag zur soziomoralischen Atmosphäre empirische Ergebnisse aus dem Forschungsprojekt ODEM, in welchem 30 KMUs aus dem deutschsprachigen Raum (542 Probanden) mittels standardisiertem Fragebogen, Experteninterviews und Dokumentenanalysen untersucht wurden. Zur Auswertung wurden-nach organisationswissenschaftlichen Kriterien gebildete-Unternehmenstypen theoriegeleitet zu drei Gruppen struktureller organisationaler Demokratie (keine, mittlere und hohe Demokratieausprägung) zusammengefasst. Multivariate Gruppenvergleiche zeigen signifikante Unterschiede zwischen diesen Gruppen hinsichtlich der soziomoralischen Atmosphäre sowie in Teilen der prosozialen und demokratischen Handlungsbereitschaften.

Perceived Socio-moral Climate and the Applicability of Signature Character Strengths at Work: a Study among Hospital Physicians

“…In his 'just-community-approach' to moral development in schools, Kohlberg and colleagues stressed the role of a specific social school and classroom climatethe so called 'moral atmosphere' (Higgins 1995;Kohlberg 1985;Power et al 1989). The concept was adapted to the occupational domain by Lempert (1994) and was further developed into the construct of SMC by Weber et al 2008). SMC represents a sub-domain of the organizational climate referring to organizational practices of communication, teamwork, collective problem-solving and decision making, which follow rules of conduct based especially on Kantian ethics, Rawls' theory of justice, and the discourse-ethics by Habermas (see Pircher Verdorfer et al 2013a;Power et al 1989).…”

“…SMC represents a sub-domain of the organizational climate referring to organizational practices of communication, teamwork, collective problem-solving and decision making, which follow rules of conduct based especially on Kantian ethics, Rawls' theory of justice, and the discourse-ethics by Habermas (see Pircher Verdorfer et al 2013a;Power et al 1989). Such a climate should form a field of socialization for moral orientations and competences (Power et al 1989;Weber et al 2008).…”

“…A positive, beneficial SMC can be described by the following five components (Weber et al 2008;Pircher Verdorfer et al 2013a): (1) Open confrontation of the employees with conflict and constructive conflict resolution, (2) reliable and constant appreciation, care, and support by supervisors and colleagues, (3) open communication and participative cooperation, (4) trust-based assignment and allocation of responsibility corresponding to the respective employees' capabilities, and (5) organizational concern for the individual. In short, SMC at work denotes a social climate in an organization, department or work team characterized by discursive, participative, appreciative, supportive, and caring interactions between supervisors and subordinates and among co-workers.…”

Socio-moral climate, debate, and decision comprehensiveness interplay for team innovation

“…The theoretical foundation and practical operationalization are also based on Lempert's (1994) research on moral socialization in work places, wherein he identified a set of conditions that promote moral development. The socio-moral climate consists of the following six components (components 1 and 2 are thematically close and therefore combined in operationalization; Weber et al, 2008):…”

Organizational democracy and employee outcomes: The mediating role of organizational justice

“…3 Weber et al 2008Weber et al , 2009Weber et al , 2011Weber et al , 2012Weber et al , 2013 Weber and its colleagues in their various studies provide empirical relationships between organizational democracy and other related variables.…”