Good Science-Good Practice
Jamie Madigan
Ameren Services
Marcus W. Dickson
Wayne State University
In our last column, we got to share some of the exciting research we ran across at SIOP. This time around, we don’t have a specific theme or event to cover, so we’re just going to draw attention to some articles we’ve run across that we think fit our goals for this column—highlighting research that advances theory and has clear practical implications for the workplace. We’ll also focus on a recent editorial about the scientist–practitioner/manager gap.
David Herold, Donald Fedor, and Steven Caldwell published an interesting article on change management in the July 2007 issue of Journal of Applied Psychology. In it they attempted to examine at least one possible reason why many organizational change efforts tend to fail, despite the stacks of books one can find on the subject, not to mention consultants who are willing to dive in and tell you how to do it. If we supposedly know so much about how to manage change in organizations, ask the researchers, why do those affected seem to so often look upon change with cynicism, weariness, jadedness, and general lack of commitment? This is, in fact, just the kind of research question that piques our interest when researching for this column.
One reason for this gap between theory and reality might just be that people aren’t doing it right, despite having access to a literature replete with theory and advice backed up by considerable research. This is possible, but probably not the sole reason. Herold, Fedor, and Caldwell examine an additional possible driver of commitment to organizational change: the interaction between individual differences and the larger context in the organization. Context, especially the context created by other changes currently or recently happening elsewhere in the organization, is key to understanding why some people get burned out on change, fail to commit to it, and generally look upon the latest change effort with groans and weary sighs. A departmental reorganization is often tough enough to get behind on its own, but it may be completely impossible if it comes on the heels of a new payroll system, a new boss, new processes for filing expense reports, a new bonus program, a merger with a competitor, and the removal of that vending machine with the one kind of soda you like so much.
Contexts like you find in real-world organizations matter, the researchers argue, and they set out to conduct a field study that would tap this factor and measure its effect on the relationship between individual differences (in this case, “change self-efficacy” or the belief that one can deal with the demands of the new change) and commitment to organizational changes across organizational levels. They predicted that change self-efficacy would be positively related to individuals’ commitment to change but that change turbulence (the preponderance of other changes going on within the organization) would moderate this relationship such that it would be higher under more turbulent conditions. Using a sample of several hundred employees across 25 different organizations in a variety of sectors, the researchers collected information on recent or nearly complete changes as well as measures of change self-efficacy. They found essentially what they expected: that change self-efficacy predicted commitment to change efforts and that this individual difference mattered most when there were a lot of other changes going on.
These findings have a number of implications for practitioners, chief among them being that you can’t roll out change after change and expect stakeholders to consider each one an isolated event the same way that your consultants or project plans do. Changes don’t occur in a vacuum, and this realization should bleed over into aspects of change management such as prioritization, scheduling, appointments of change champions, and so on. This may seem obvious, but the authors point out that it stands at odds with some of the prevailing wisdom of change management, which attempts to put the onus for success on the rank and file, who are supposed to not worry about who moved their cheese and just roll with it. Obviously, those instigating and driving the change have a much larger part to play. Finally, the researchers note that the importance of the change self-efficacy trait should not be underestimated. This form of efficacy might be developed through initiating and celebrating smaller changes, and those who have high degrees of change self-efficacy might be identified and used as drivers and champions for the change.
A separate group of researchers (McKay et al., 2007) also looked at a different organizational context in a Personnel Psychology article entitled “Racial Difference in Employee Retention: Are Diversity Perceptions the Key?” I found this article interesting because many organizations (such as Ameren, where one of this column’s authors works) place a premium on the diversity of their workforce, communicating this commitment through diversity fairs, celebrations, workshops, and other events in addition to parity in HR practices like recruiting, hiring, promotion, and work assignments. But what effects does this kind of commitment to workforce diversity have? Do they show up anywhere on the bottom line?
The study by McKay et al. examined the role of diversity climate perceptions (basically how much people think the organization values diversity) on self-reported intentions to turn over (an established strong predictor of actual turnover) and how the strength of that relationship varied by race and sex. The authors put forth arguments that one would expect the diversity climate perception and turnover intention relationship to be strongest among those groups that have the strongest racial identities, such that it would be most pronounced in Blacks, followed by Hispanics, and then by Whites. Unfortunately, sample sizes prevented them from including other racial groups.
Using survey data from thousands of managerial employees at a single large retailer, the researchers used factor analyses and path analysis to test their hypotheses. Perhaps most interesting was the finding that Blacks’ perceptions of diversity climates were related to intentions to quit their job. In other words, those who think their employer values diversity are more likely to be more committed to the organization, which in turn leads to lower turnover intentions. Although the researchers failed to find results of a similar magnitude for Hispanics, another finding that did surprise me was that Whites—a group not traditionally seen as the victim of racial discrimination or inequity—also tended to report higher organizational commitment and fewer turnover intentions in the face of a climate supportive of diversity. This, according to the authors, is important for practitioners because “fostering a pro-diversity work climate need not come at the expense of producing more negative attitudes and behaviors among White employees.”
So although the research by McKay et al. isn’t without limitations (I’m holding on to some amount of skepticism given that the participants were all from a single organization), it does push the boundaries of the field and offer a link between theory and a practice that has arisen out of real-world need for diversity and organizational values in favor of the same. It appears that such programs also impact turnover intentions, which can be extremely costly.
As I write this, it appears that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation has succeeded in their efforts to acquire Dow Jones (and the Wall Street Journal). Prior news reports on the proposal have included interviews with Dow Jones employees who fear what a News Corp. take-over might mean. Louise Nemanich and Robert Keller’s (2007) recent article in The Leadership Quarterly focusing on the role of transformational leadership in an acquisition might provide some insight into the dynamics those employees will encounter.
The study surveyed employees of a large, multinational firm that acquired a competitive firm and integrated the acquired firm into a division of the acquiring firm. The acquisition was friendly but nonetheless a significant change for employees on both sides. The results suggest that leaders who engage in transformational behaviors had employees who were significantly more willing to accept the acquisition, and to be more satisfied overall. This largely occurred because of the environment these leaders created for their subordinates. Specifically, transformational leaders created a context in which employees understood their goals and in which new ideas and creative thinking for how to implement the changes accompanying the acquisition were welcomed. Given the number of acquisitions, mergers, spin-offs, and other major changes that organizations are experiencing in the current economy, having a better understanding of leader behaviors that appear to reduce the negative outcomes that can co-occur with major change can only be beneficial.
We’ll conclude with an editorial from the Academy of Management Journal, by Debra Shapiro, Bradley Kirkman, and Hugh Courtney (2007). They attempt to address “Perceived Causes and Solutions of the Translation Problem in Management Research.” Addressing “the impact that management research has (or doesn’t have) on private and public sector management” (p. 249), they identify two types of problems: a knowledge transfer problem, meaning that the research being done is relevant for practicing managers/practitioners but is not translated or shared appropriately, and a knowledge production problem, meaning that the questions researchers are addressing are not those that matter to practicing managers/practitioners, and therefore more collaborative efforts to identify the best research questions to pursue. This distinction—referred to in the article as “lost in translation” versus “lost before translation”—is an important one because the solutions that emerge are different, depending on which problem is present.
We wanted to highlight this editorial because we think it addresses a fundamental issue that is of interest to readers of this column. We think SIOP members would probably agree with the respondents to the editorialists’ survey—there is a gap between research and practice—and might also share the lack of consensus found in the survey about the nature of the gap, the origin of the gap, and the solution(s) to the gap.
Our Good Science–Good Practice column is based on the idea that at least part of the gap between academics and practitioners is that the pragmatic usefulness of academic research is lost in translation or that it never gets translated at all—that’s why we try to highlight articles and studies that practitioners and managers ought to know about, but perhaps will have missed. We think this is an important thing for SIOP and TIP to be doing, and based on the feedback we (occasionally) get, at least a few others think so as well. But this column really doesn’t address the “lost before translation” issue. Two of the most endorsed solutions in the survey were (a) the increased use of academic “sabbaticals in business practice as either ‘translators’ of research results or as researchers on a set of practitioner-oriented research issues… [and] (b) practitioner sabbaticals as executives-in-residence at business schools or as fellows at research institutes in which they help shape and participate in research programs” (p. 262). Are these viable solutions for SIOP members? Are there readers of this column who have had experiences like these who might be willing to share some of their learnings through this column?
We hope to hear from you, and look forward to your suggestions for research we should highlight, or to experiences you’d like to share that help us better achieve Good Science and Good Practice.
References
Herold, D. M., Fedor, D. B., & Caldwell, S. D. (2007). Beyond change management: A multilevel investigation of contextual personal influences on employees’ commitment to change. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 942–951.
McKay, P .F., Avery, D. R., Tonidandel, S., Morris, M. A., Hernandez, M., & Hebl, M. R. (2007). Racial differences in employee retention: Are diversity climate perceptions the key? Personnel Psychology, 60, 35–62.
Nemanich, L. A., & Keller, R. T. (2007). Transformational leadership in an acquisition: A field study of employees. The Leadership Quarterly, 18, 49–68.
Shapiro, D. L., Kirkman, B. L., & Courtney, H. G. (2007). Perceived causes and solutions of the translation problem in management research. Academy of Management Journal, 50, 249–266.