The influence of organizational death on work priorities and the moderating role of attachment internal working models

Abstract

Downturns in the global economy have caused even large organizations to cease to operate; a phenomenon often dubbed “organizational death”. Two studies focused on individual coping strategies in times of organizational death and the possible moderating role of attachment as a personality factor. Experiment 1 ( N = 162) explored the effects of the saliency of organizational death on work priorities, and the moderating role of dispositional attachment orientation. Experiment 2 ( N = 119) examined the interaction between dispositional attachment and the recall of an attachment event on work priorities. Participants reported their work priorities after being primed to imagine that their organization must either shut down or undergo an organizational crisis (or were assigned to a neutral control group), and completed the Experiences in Close Relationships scale to determine their attachment orientation. In Experiment 2, participants were also asked to recall a secure/insecure event after organizational death (or organizational crisis) priming to test the impact of external attachment event recall saliency and its interaction with dispositional attachment on work priorities. Dispositional avoidance (but not anxiety) moderated the effects of the organizational priming condition on work priorities. Recall of an attachment event interacted with dispositional avoidance (but not anxiety) on work priorities after organizational death priming. The saliency of organizational death mitigated the moderating role of individual differences on the effects of both dispositional orientation and priming of an attachment event on work priorities. Thus, a significant event that undermines one of the pillars of security in adulthood may lessen individual differences in work priorities following this exposure.

Emotional Intelligence and Attachment Orientations

“…Similarly, attachment orientations may also moderate responses to negative organizational circumstances such as organizational closure [59]. Dispositional avoidance (but not anxiety) moderated the effects of an organizational priming condition (closure vs. control) on employees' work priorities.…”

Individual quality, insecure organizational attachment, and formalistic task completion: Social cognitive perspective

“…Kirrane et al [ 48 ] stated that insecure attachment significantly impairs employees’ perceptions of the quality of "leader-member exchange" and "team-member exchange" relationships, resulting in diminished creative outputs. Previous research has consistently highlighted the role of insecure organizational attachment as a moderating factor, indirectly predicting workplace deviance behaviors [ 43 , 49 ].…”