Positive Organizational Scholarship

American Behavioral Scientist special issue

Cameron, K. et al. (2004) Exploring relationships between organizational virtuousness and performance. American Behavioral Scientist, 47, 6, 766-790.

Organizational Virtuousness and Performance

Virtuousness = what individuals and organizations aspire to be.

Wall Street Journal = “win” (etc.) increased four fold (84-00)

During the same period “virtue” (etc.) was hardly used at all.

Negative occurrences have greater impact than positive episodes.

How come?

Also, via the history of research efforts we know a lot more about the problematic than the virtuous.

Virtue is a relative term.

In virtuous organizations:

• Moral goodness

• Individual flourishes

• Social betterment

Virtue crowns Athena and Apollo

Virtue needs to be instrumentally linked to performance.

How come?

In order to be seriously considered.

How can virtue-enhanced performance be measured?

• Measure the amplification of performance in conjunction with virtue (prosocial behavior, positive modeling).

• Measure the buffering effect of performance in the context of virtue (personal trauma, downsizing).

Effects of downsizing:

• Decreasing morale, commitment, loyalty

• Loss of trust (clients and workers)

• Less communication

• Less teamwork

• More reactive/less proactive

• Little innovation

Effects of downsizing (continued):

• Short term mentality

• Centralized decision making

• Resistance to change

• Political infighting

• More conflict

• Risk-aversion

The results of the study = virtue and performance are + related (in terms of)

• Innovation

• Customer retention

• Turnover

• Quality

• Profit

What might knowledge nomads be?

Loyalty has long been valued and viewed as inversely related to mobility.

Knowledge nomads are resources who are mobile . . .

And committed.

Compassion in organizational life = collectively noticing, feeling and responding to organizational pain.

Kanov, J.M. (2004) Compassion in organizational life. American Behavioral Scientist, 47,6, 808-827.

Sources of organizational pain:

• Individuals bring pain into org.• Arrogant leadership• Inadequate resources• Rivalry• Markets• Name some more

Collective noticing = shared acknowledging of organizational pain

Collective feeling = aligned and shared emotional responses.

Collective responding = unified and coordinated action to counter pain.

Positive deviance = intentional behavior that departs from the norms of a reference group in honorable ways.

Spreitzer, G. M. & Sonenshein (2004) Toward the construct definition of positive deviance, American Behavioral Scientist, 47,6, 828-847.

Individual characteristics that facilitate positive deviance.

• meaning • self-determination• other focus• self-efficacy• courage

Merck and river blindness.

End of Positive Organizational Scholarship

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