Overview:

In this paper, you will apply your statesmanship model to the topic of organizational leadership.  Discuss the link between interpersonal leadership and organizational leadership and how effective public administration statesmanship engages in organizational communication best practices.  In essence, this paper should be seen as a synthesis among your evolving statesmanship model, interpersonal and organizational leadership, and organizational communication best practices.

General Guidelines:

• Headings should be included and must conform to the content categories mentioned above.
• All ideas shared by the student must be supported with sound reason and citations from the required readings, presentations, and additional research.
• Integrate Biblical principles within your discussion for this paper.
• The paper should be 7-8 pages of content in length (not counting the title page or references), double-spaced, and in APA format.
• All required readings and presentations from the assigned module must be cited.
• 10-12 additional scholarly sources must be used. 

Headings should be included and must conform to the content categories mentioned above.

  

In this paper, you will apply your statesmanship model to the topic of organizational leadership. Discuss the link between interpersonal leadership and organizational leadership and how effective public administration statesmanship engages in key organizational communication best practices. In essence, this paper should be seen as a synthesis among your evolving statesmanship model, interpersonal and organizational leadership, and organizational communication best practices.

General Guidelines:

· Headings should be included and must conform to the content categories mentioned above.

· All ideas shared by the student must be supported with sound reason and citations from the required readings, presentations, and additional research.

· The paper should be 7-8 pages of content in length (not counting the title page or references), double-spaced, and in APA format.

· All required readings and presentations from the assigned module must be cited.

· 10-12 additional scholary sources must be used. 

· Headings should be included and must conform to the content categories mentioned above.

Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance, 40:37–50, 2016
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 2330-3131 print/2330-314X online
DOI: 10.1080/23303131.2015.1093570

Change Communication Strategies in Public Child Welfare
Organizations: Engaging the Front Line

Yiwen Cao, Alicia C. Bunger, Jill Hoffman, and Hillary A. Robertson
College of Social Work, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA

In public child-welfare agencies, successful organizational change depends on effective internal com-
munication and engagement with frontline workers. This qualitative study examines approaches for
communicating planned organizational change among frontline child-welfare workers. Five, 90-minute
focus groups were conducted with 50 frontline workers in an urban, public child-welfare agency.
Consistent with prior research on change communication in business organizations, two broad categories
of communication strategies were described: programmatic (top-down) and participatory approaches.
Results suggest that participatory communicative strategies emphasizing employee engagement might
be most effective in combination with programmatic approaches that communicate targeted messages
about the change.

Keywords: child welfare, communication, organizational change

Public child-welfare agencies encounter constant pressure to change with new policies, best prac-
tices, and evolving client needs (Collins-Camargo, 2007). Successful implementation of these
changes requires timely and effective communication to engage employees, especially those on
the front line. Prior research suggests the importance of clear communication within human service
organizations for mitigating workers’ job stress and intention to leave (Boyas, Wind, & Ruiz, 2013;
Devine, 2010; Kim & Lee, 2009). However, little is known about how change is communicated and
what specific strategies can effectively communicate information and knowledge about change in
public child-welfare agencies.

To fill this gap and inform change leadership and management within child-welfare agencies, this
exploratory study focuses on strategies for communicating planned practice changes among front-
line child-welfare workers in an urban, public child-welfare agency. Specifically, we (1) describe
workers’ perceptions about and reactions toward strategies commonly used in their agency to com-
municate change efforts and (2) identify their preferences for future communication and engagement
in organizational change efforts. Next, we review findings from extant literature on change and
communication within child-welfare agencies and consider the applicability of findings on change
communication from the broader organizational literature. Afterwards, we present the methods and
findings of our study, examining change communication strategies, and conclude by discussing
implications of our findings for communicating change to frontline workers for administrators and
leaders in public child-welfare agencies.

Correspondence should be addressed to Yiwen Cao, College of Social Work, Ohio State University, 1947 College Road,
Columbus, OH 43210. E-mail: cao.225@osu.edu

mailto:cao.225@osu.edu

38 CAO ET AL.

COMMUNICATING ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE WITH CHILD-WELFARE WORKERS

Child-welfare systems experience pressure to change to ensure safety, permanency, and well-being
of children and families. Needs of clients and within communities drive child-welfare agencies
to adapt their services and practices, and call for adoption and implementation of evidence-based
practices in children’s services, such as Title IV-E Child Welfare Demonstration projects, indi-
vidualized or wraparound, family group conferencing, and alternative response. (Barth, 2005;
Collins-Camargo, 2007; Horwitz, Chamberlain, Landsverk, & Mullican, 2010). Legislative and pol-
icy reforms, such as the Child and Family Services Improvement and Innovation Act (2011), also
prompt responses at the state and agency levels to reshape the delivery of child-welfare services.
Exploring how to implement change in child-welfare agencies is important for maximizing bene-
fits to children and families amidst constant pressures to adapt to changing policies and new best
practices.

Child-welfare workers play a key role in carrying out leaders’ vision and translating the change
on the front line. Although leaders and managers often design and steer change efforts, frontline
child-welfare workers engage directly with children and families to deliver services and carry out
the change efforts. Implementation success substantially depends on caseworkers’ motivation and
perceived acceptability of innovations (Aarons & Palinkas, 2007). Workers on the front line may
also reject changes that conflict with what they believe to be best practices or the practices most
appropriate for people they serve (Powell, Hausmann-Stabile, & McMillen, 2013). As a result,
inconsistencies emerging between the change envisioned by agency administration and the change
as implemented by workers limit potential benefits of the innovation (Sandfort, 2000; Smith &
Donovan, 2003). Hence, in child-welfare agencies, strategies encouraging open communication and
worker inclusion in decision making facilitate the change process.

Inclusionary strategies that feature well timed and open communication benefit the overall func-
tioning of the agency and smooth the change process. Strategies emphasizing worker engagement
help cultivate open and participatory decision making in the organization and also promote work-
ers’ well-being, job satisfaction, commitment, and intention to stay or leave the agency (Mor Barak,
Levin, Nissly, & Lane, 2006). Well-planned strategies encourage workers to communicate their
experiences within the agency back to the administration. Strategies that solicit workers’ feed-
back, build employee buy-in, impact change planning, and provide motivation to adopt the change
help promote positive outcomes for children and families involved with the child-welfare system
(Austin & Claassen, 2008; Collins-Camargo, 2007; Lee & Austin, 2012; McCrae, Scannapieco,
Leake, Potter, & Menefee, 2014; Wells, 2006). Hence, timely and open communication strategies
are important for engaging workers in the change process.

Although it is well recognized that more communication about and involvement in the design and
implementation of change is preferable (Bolman & Deal, 2008), little research specifically explores
communication strategies and worker engagement amidst organizational change in child welfare.
Workforce studies found that communication with supervisors reduces job-related stress or burnout
among child-welfare workers (Boyas et al., 2013; Kim & Lee, 2009). Literature on general orga-
nizational change processes also stresses the importance of identifying established communication
channels from the beginning of implementation to gain workers’ acceptance and understanding,
thus mitigating uncertainty and anxiety inevitably brought about by organizational change (Mildon
& Shlonsky, 2011; Pipkin, Sterrett, Antle, & Christensen, 2013). McCrae et al. (2014) suggested
that tailoring appropriate communication strategies to different groups of employees and addressing
various types of needs among employees also matters in terms of engaging workers. Communication
with frontline workers who are champions for an innovation or new practice helps to promote
adoption and implementation of planned change (Blome, Bennett, & Page, 2010).

To our knowledge, no studies have been solely dedicated to exploring change communica-
tion in child-welfare organizations. Although prior literature points to the utility of participatory

CHANGE COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES AND ENGAGING THE FRONT LINE 39

approaches to communicating change in human services, exactly how child-welfare agencies use
these approaches is unclear (Blome et al., 2010). What strategies are effective in communicating the
change remains unknown, even though the importance of communicating with workers is implied
in literature (Packard, 2013). This limits child-welfare administrators and leaders’ ability to engage
workers in change efforts, slowing down change or even inhibiting change success altogether. Given
the paucity of change-communication research in child-welfare literature, we draw from the larger
organizational change-communication literature to inform the analysis and data interpretation.

Organizational-Change Communication Approaches

Communication plays a crucial role in ensuring successful implementation of a change effort.
Lewis and Seibold’s (1998) seminal work highlights the key role of communication in organi-
zational change particularly in the planning stage but contains limited empirical investigation of
the communicative processes within organizations. Communicative activities, such as engaging
stakeholders, change-information dissemination, and staff training are intended to help alleviate
uncertainty and anxiety that change inevitably creates among organizational members.

However, high-quality communication can effectively mitigate uncertainties and anxieties.
Quality of communication, referring to timeliness, accuracy, and perceived usefulness, is key
in gaining employees’ positive reactions toward the change. High-quality communication affects
employees’ attitudes toward the change, as well as their willingness to participate in an orga-
nizational change (Miller, Johnson, & Grau, 1994; Nelissen & Van Selm, 2008). High-quality
communication also equips employees with necessary information to deal with the change, as well
as increases employees’ sense of control in the change (Hobman, Jones, & Callan, 2004). Therefore,
administrators and managers need to employ a range of approaches to achieve high-quality
communication.

Russ (2008) synthesizes extant literature on communication strategies into an integrative
framework intended to guide organizational practitioners’ efforts. This framework highlights two
major approaches to change communication: programmatic and participatory. The programmatic
communicative approach is characterized by a top-down, one-way flow of the administrators’
desired vision about the change to employees. Programmatic strategies intended to gain stakeholder
compliance or to stimulate positive attitudes or beliefs about the planned change. Participatory
change communication highlights the involvement of most or all stakeholders via solicitation of
their views and perspectives in the implementation process. One fundamental difference between
these two frameworks is the level of stakeholder collaboration, including frontline employees in the
agency (Russ, 2010).

Literature has long emphasized the benefits of managers’ appropriate use of various
communicative approaches to engage organizational members and minimize uncertainties and anx-
ieties associated with the introduction of organizational change. Applying a participatory approach
to deal with negative feedback and feelings is beneficial for engaging employees in the change,
because open and fair evaluation of negative consequences of the change process prevents painting
an overly positive picture that does not accurately match organizational members’ reality (Lewis
& Russ, 2011; Smeltzer, 1991). Participatory approaches, characterized by employee participation
also gives employees a sense of control over the impact of the change on their daily jobs, min-
imizes employee resistance, and increases employee satisfaction (Hobman et al., 2004; Lewis &
Russ, 2011).

While participatory approaches are important, a singular communicative approach does not suf-
fice for navigating the complexity involved in bringing about a change in an organization. Thus,
blending and tailoring different approaches are critical in meeting employees’ diverse needs and
addressing various types of uncertainties (Armenakis & Bedeian, 1999; Peus, Frey, Gerkhardt,
Fischer, & Traut-mattausch, 2015; Smeltzer, 1991). For instance, middle managers are key in

40 CAO ET AL.

tackling job-related uncertainties for they are more likely to directly interact with frontline employ-
ees, while agency leaders are critical for alleviating anxieties arising from strategic aspects of
the change effort (Hobman et al., 2004). Thus, a cascading approach is recommended; agency
leadership should communicate strategic change information, and simultaneously, direct supervi-
sors should engage employees by communicating job- or task-related change information (Allen,
Jimmieson, Bordia, & Irmer, 2007).

Study Purpose

The purpose of this study is to explore public child-welfare frontline workers’ perceptions of
communication strategies used to communicate change. Specifically, we (1) describe workers’ per-
ceptions about and reactions to strategies commonly used in their agency to communicate change
efforts and (2) identify their preferences for future communication and engagement in organiza-
tional change efforts. As a starting point for exploring change communication approaches used in
public child-welfare agencies, we apply Russ’s conceptual framework to understand the communi-
cation approaches used in a public child-welfare agency and inform how managers communicate
change to frontline child-welfare workers.

METHODS

Study Context

This study took place within a large (approximately 700 employees), county-based, public child-
welfare agency in an urban county of one midwestern U.S. state. The study was conducted to
inform planning for an agencywide initiative to improve children’s access to behavioral health ser-
vices by implementing new behavioral health screening, assessment, and referral procedures. Five
focus groups were convened to elicit workers’ perspectives on planning and communicating change
within the workers agency. To inform planning for this future initiative, the research team asked
workers in each focus group to reflect upon their experiences with previous change efforts. Similar
to many public child-welfare agencies, the study agency had a history of change initiatives that
covered a broad array of administrative and practice changes including structural changes to work
units, implementation of new programs or practices (e.g., alternative response), and records sys-
tems transformations. Thus, the data and themes related to change communication generated in this
study reflect retrospective accounts and opinions formed in response to these prior efforts at this
agency.

Participants

Fifty case workers from the public child-welfare agency participated in one of five focus groups
comprising 9 to 11 participants. Most participants were female (88%), held a bachelor’s degree
(63%); the individuals had worked at the agency for 10 years, on average. The research team
developed the recruitment criteria and asked the agency leadership team to purposively recruit
workers based on their knowledge, experience, and expertise in connecting children to behavioral
health issues. Given their tenure with the child-welfare agency (average of 10 years), participating
workers had experienced several prior change efforts in the agency to reflect upon during con-
versation. Nearly all (89%) workers recruited for the focus groups consented to participate after
being informed of the study benefits and risks. Group composition was homogeneous in terms
of worker function (three groups for intake workers and two groups with ongoing, referral, case
review, and adoptions workers) to allow for exploration of similarities and differences in workers’
perceptions.

CHANGE COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES AND ENGAGING THE FRONT LINE 41

Data Collection

Focus groups were conducted by external evaluators to minimize bias, obtain honest responses, and
protect confidentiality. The research team comprised one facilitator (consistent across all groups),
a co-facilitator, and at least one notetaker. Groups lasted 90 minutes and were conducted onsite
in agency offices. Focus group discussions followed a semistructured interview guide, developed
in collaboration with the agency partner and covering four broad topics. The fourth topic, and the
focus of this paper, examined desired strategies for engaging workers in organizational change.
Each group was asked, “As this project moves forward and plans are developed, what is the best
way that the agency can engage you in the planning?” This question was followed by probes related
to strategies used in past change efforts, workers’ reactions to these strategies, and their preferences.
All focus groups were audio recorded and professionally transcribed. To protect workers’ privacy
and the confidentiality of their responses, all names were removed from transcripts and identifying
information was not linked with any quotes. Although recruitment was conducted by agency lead-
ership, neither participant names nor individual comments were shared with the agency. In addition,
the beginning of every focus group included a discussion about the ground rules for conversations.
During this time, participants were asked to keep their colleagues’ opinions and thoughts confiden-
tial. This work was approved and overseen by the Institutional Review Board at the authors’ home
institution.

Data Analysis

Transcripts were managed and coded in Atlas.ti 6. A grounded theory approach was applied to
analyze the data (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). First, four coders reviewed field notes and transcripts
and developed an initial codebook. Then, two coders independently applied the codebook to one
focus group transcript. Coding discrepancies were discussed and the initial codebook was modi-
fied. Afterwards, at least two coders analyzed each remaining transcript and another coder resolved
disagreements, reaching an 80% to 90% level of intercoder agreement for each transcript. After
the first round of open coding, a refined codebook on organizational-change communication was
developed by two coders analyzing texts in response to the fourth question on how to best engage
frontline child-welfare workers in the change process. The codebook was applied and then fur-
ther refined through discussion and a third researcher resolved coding discrepancies. Researchers
reached above 90% intercoder agreement for each transcript. Quotes presented in the findings
were selected to illustrate major themes; some were edited to preserve participants’ privacy and
to enhance readability.

FINDINGS

Analyses of focus group discussions present two overarching themes: applied and desired
organizational-change communication strategies. Workers’ observations reveal that participatory
and programmatic communication activities are used within the child-welfare organization. Workers
also shared desired change communication strategies that they believed would better engage them
in the change process.

Applied Organizational Change Communication Strategies

Workers’ discussions on communicative activities are consistent with Russ’s (2008, 2010) defini-
tions of programmatic and participatory approaches. They spoke about how each approach was used
in the agency and their reactions toward each type of approach.

42 CAO ET AL.

Programmatic Communicative Approaches

Use of Programmatic Communicative Approaches. Workers described how the agency
administration disseminated information about new projects. Communication primarily occurred via
presentations at all staff meetings and interpersonal communication networks, whereby information
informally trickled downward in the organization.

Workers described how they learned of the new project through planned presentations using
slideshows: “We have . . . seen the slide show [on the new project], I don’t know how many times
in the past year.” The agency leadership planned presentations that contained deliberately crafted
messages about the purpose of the project and leadership team’s vision and briefly presented the
information to all staff. As a result, workers had a basic understanding of the planned changes.

At the time of the focus groups, the agency leadership team was engaging in more-detailed
planning efforts that were not yet ready to be disseminated to staff. However, workers did receive
specifics and details of the project via interpersonal networks, largely limited by the location of
workers’ units or by workers’ responsibilities involving offsite tasks. As one worker discussed,
“You just hear about it from cubicle to cubicle.” Overreliance on informal communication networks
could generate rumors and distorted reality regarding the change content and influence, which might
potentially jeopardize the successful implementation of the innovation (Smeltzer, 1991). Unequal
access to accurate change information is another risk resulting from sole dependence on interper-
sonal communication networks: “Where I am . . . we’ve heard it to no end, and there’s other people
that have just now hearing about it. So that sort of shows you the communication problems [in
our agency]”. Workers whose cubicles were in closer physical proximity to administrators’ offices
tended to hear information about the change in a timely manner. Otherwise, offsite workers or those
away from the administrative offices did not have access to the administrative source of change
information. Thus, workers’ knowledge of the project varied. Overall, workers’ discussions sug-
gest a more programmatic communicative approach, which highlights a top-down distribution of
information and limited employee participation. Workers described the top-down and hierarchical
nature of communication within the agency with very little direct contact with agency management
and leadership. One worker shared, “You mean the people at the top who make the decisions? I
don’t know, I don’t ever sit down with . . . [agency leaders] or anybody other than like my supervi-
sor or associate.” Rather, child-welfare workers directly communicated with supervisors and their
peers. The top-down approach assumed workers to be passive recipients of change information, and
workers were granted limited opportunities to pose questions and provide feedback directly to the
administration.

In addition, workers’ discussions reveal how employees’ participation in change planning and
communication was quite limited, another characteristic of the programmatic approach. Workers
perceived that the agency could have more actively engaged the real frontline experts, as illustrated
by the following quote,

What happens very often [in the agency] is new things come out, and the [workers] that are involved
with that aspect of the job are responsible for it. They’re not asked or a part of any conversation as to
how it’s going to work. It’s decided upon by whoever. Here, we’re going to start doing this, and then
you’re looking and going, this isn’t going to work this way, because no one even consulted with us.

Workers’ Reactions Toward Programmatic Communication Approaches. Generally,
workers showed unfavorable attitudes toward more administratively programmed communication
activities. Worker discussions suggest that programmatic communication approaches resulted in
the feeling of having little of control over the change process and an organizational culture that
discourages workers’ input.

Workers expressed this feeling of a lack of control over the change process. They felt powerless
due to programmatic communication strategies emphasizing “telling and selling.” Workers were

CHANGE COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES AND ENGAGING THE FRONT LINE 43

considered “doers” and not involved in the initiation and conceptualization stages of the change.
In a discussion about how to best engage frontline workers, one worker stated, “Well, I think of it’s
just communication, once the change has been made, that this is what it is.” This worker perceived
herself not playing any role in initiating or conceptualizing the change but only as a passive recipient
of the change from the administration. Workers’ discussions noted how they had little control over
the decision-making process regarding what change to make and how to bring about change, which
may lead to resistance to organizational change. Workers also shared major communication barriers
with administrators—specifically, workers did not feel comfortable expressing their thoughts to the
administration. In a discussion about setting up a meeting with the administration to talk about
project-related ideas, one worker reported that “I don’t think that a lot of people [workers] feel
comfortable doing that.”

Participatory Communicative Approaches

Use of Participatory Communicative Approaches. Workers noted the use of two com-
monly applied participatory communicative activities: surveys and focus groups. Generally, workers
expressed a strong sense of resistance to using surveys to solicit their opinions, because of heavy
workloads and time constraints: “People aren’t going to look at [surveys]. They don’t have time.”
Although workers seemed resistant toward agency surveys, workers acknowledged that agency
administrators sometimes use the results to inform change planning and implementation. However,
workers may not always be aware of how their input and response are used for change planning—
several months or years may pass after workers are surveyed before detailed project plans are
revealed. Workers might not recall being asked for input or began working for the agency after
ideas were solicited. One worker described a time that the agency implemented a change based
on workers’ suggestion in a survey though a time lag existed: “Well, and I think that they [agency
administrators] have tried to make things [happen], like from the survey, they have said this [the
new program] is what’s come from the survey. We did the survey 2 years ago.”

Though more time consuming than surveys, focus groups were generally considered to be a more
favorable means of engaging workers, because they conveyed the intention from the administration
to include workers in change planning. Specifically, workers associated focus groups with a sense
of ownership and empowerment in the agency.

Symbolic Versus Legitimate Use of Participatory Strategies. Workers also described sit-
uations in which agency administrators solicited worker input, but workers did not believe this
information was used meaningfully, suggesting that workers can distinguish between legitimate and
symbolic use of participatory approaches. These situations were characterized by no follow-up with
employees, no acknowledgment of worker input, and no true integration of worker feedback into
change planning after surveys were sent out or focus groups were conducted. Workers expressed dis-
satisfaction, noting that these types of approaches signified a lack of sincere interest in employees.
Though focus groups were preferred by workers because they offer intimate space to encourage open
sharing, the lack of follow-up on workers’ suggestions generated negativity toward this approach
and uncertainty in the change process, as these two workers discussed:

Worker One: Because I know I’ve been in a couple focus groups, and I don’t always see or
hear of anything back from it. And that is like kind of, you know, I was up in
the air about coming to this one. Like, hmm, I don’t know.

Worker Two: When you have somebody come out and sit on a focus group, it would be nice
just to hear some follow-up about it. You know what I mean? And to know
what we took away from the focus group, and this is our next step, so we kind
of know.

44 CAO ET AL.

Focus group discussions highlight workers’ frustration that their voices were not genuinely heard,
as well as workers’ apathy toward the current initiative due to negative feelings, accumulated over
time, associated with the change. The key feature of participatory approach is that employees
have a voice in the change process, which is not reflected in what workers perceived to be the
communicative approach used in the agency, “ . . . the ones who ask for our feedback about half the
time . . . it doesn’t get considered.” It takes more than solicitation of workers’ feedback to truly gain
workers’ buy-in, which requires appreciating, considering and reciprocating workers’ input. As one
worker put it, “I think if we as workers felt like our voices were being heard and appreciated and we
actually seen some things getting put in place that we are suggesting, then I think that that would
help as a whole.”

Over time, the symbolic use of focus groups would generate negative feelings among workers
that accumulate and create feelings of apathy toward the current change; this can potentially jeop-
ardize any ongoing or future change efforts. I feel like we do a lot of focus groups or come . . . And
then it’s like nothing [afterwards]. Like [the new project], this new thing is probably going to roll
out, be the same,” said one worker.

Meanwhile, focus group discussions highlight workers’ appreciation and anticipation of admin-
istrators’ response to their inputs. Providing timely follow-up is particularly crucial in using
participatory communicative approaches that emphasize the iterative process whereby employees’
voices are heard and considered in the change process.

Desired Change Communication Approaches

Workers noted three communication tactics they believed would encourage worker engagement:
(1) involve relevant workers, (2) engage in service- and outcome-driven communication, and
(3) organize communication efforts.

Involve Relevant Workers

Focus group discussions emphasize workers’ desire to be involved and informed of the progress
of the change effort. As expressed by one worker, “So I guess if the agency is going to move forward
with this, we would like to be a part of the process.” Consensus was reached in worker discussions
that those whose daily work activities and job functions closely relate to the purpose of change
efforts should be involved as much as possible. For example, given that the current change project is
to facilitate behavioral health screening, assessing and referring processes for children in the child
welfare system, referral workers were considered to be key workers to consult with, as illustrated
by this exchange:

Worker One: So I think involving the people [workers] that are going to be doing the
referrals and the work, I think would be instrumental, having them part of
the process.

Worker Two: I think it’s definitely that it’s workers that are making the referrals, so I
definitely think workers need to be a part of that . . .

Worker Three: They need to be involved.
Worker One: Yeah, definitely, the how is it going to work? How is it going to flow? What

needs do we as workers have?”

Service- and Outcome-Driven Communication

Workers constantly stressed the importance of communicating that the change will drive and
impact service provision and delivery to motivate and engage workers in the change process.
The transmission of service-driven messages is particularly critical in applying the programmatic

CHANGE COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES AND ENGAGING THE FRONT LINE 45

approach, which requires clear and specific top-down flow of information from organizational
leadership.

I think workers have to be sold on the fact that this is going to go somewhere, that it’s really going to
help them to get somewhere with families and with kids and drive, I mean, it’s meant to drive service.
It’s meant to drive how the case is going to go. And I think if people are sold on the fact that this really
is going to help things, it’s going to be huge.

Equally important, workers appreciated knowing the link between the change and its effects
on the well-being of children and families. Public workers are mission driven and motivated by the
impact and outcomes their job has on the families and communities at large (Wright, Christensen, &
Isett, 2013). Focus group discussions emphasize two types of information about the outcome work-
ers desired: success stories or statistical proof , with respect to how change efforts have influenced
children and families.

Preference for Well-Organized Communication

Generally, workers preferred well-organized communication in small group discussions or
through supervisors for feedback solicitation. Workers preferred small group discussions such as
focus groups or within-unit meetings, which create a more intimate and egalitarian atmosphere for
voicing their opinions and concerns.

Settings like this [focus group] would be beneficial and then have a representative, you know, report to,
after they collected the information . . . and go to one of their, I don’t know, [management] meetings
that they have.

Furthermore, workers considered supervisors to be crucial for relaying their inputs to organiza-
tional leadership. Workers felt comfortable having supervisors represent them in front of the upper
management rather than voicing their own opinions in a large-group setting.

DISCUSSION

This study explored frontline workers’ perceptions, reactions toward, and preferences for change-
communication strategies within child-welfare contexts. In this study, workers described how
planned changes in this agency setting are primarily communicated using a top-down programmatic
approach through which administrators told and sold their vision and plans for change to front-
line workers. However, over-reliance on programmatic approaches may limit workers’ awareness
of and buy-in for planned change efforts. Instead, workers expressed a preference for participatory
approaches that engage the frontline in change planning and implementation. Genuine participatory
approaches could enhance workers’ ownership of and gain worker buy-in with regard to the
change process. Findings also highlight the bridging role of supervisors to mediate communica-
tion and information sharing between frontline workers and agency leaders within a large, complex
organizational structure.

Commonly Used Programmatic Approach and Its Limitations

Programmatic activities were more frequently applied in this organization than participatory
approaches, which are consistent with related literature (Russ, 2008). According to workers’ per-
ceptions, the organization applied a programmatic approach that predominantly relied on the
complex and hierarchical organizational structure in the child-welfare agency to communicate

46 CAO ET AL.

change information. Sole reliance upon presentations at staff meetings and interpersonal communi-
cation networks appeared to result in variations in workers’ access to information and knowledge
of the change, which is particularly problematic in engaging workers who oftentimes work offsite
and are not closely interacting with the upper management (McCrae et al., 2014). Hence, top-down
programmatic approaches alone in a large and complex organizational structure can limit achieving
high-quality communication and generate negative consequences such as employees’ low sense of
control over the change and an organizational culture discouraging workers to share thoughts with
the administration. Therefore, using multiple strategies is necessary to facilitate the spread and reach
of change information among workers within the organizational hierarchy. Finally, findings suggest
that the programmatic approach communicated the general purpose of the change effort but did not
explicate the job-related repercussions on frontline workers’ daily work, which is more likely to be
actualized through participatory approaches.

Preference for Genuine Participatory Approaches

Findings suggest that workers preferred participatory approaches that engaged workers in planning
and communicating the change. However, workers could detect the superficial use of participatory
approaches. For instance, although the agency solicited worker input via surveys and focus groups,
workers did not perceive that their input was actually used because there was little follow-up or
response from the management; when the management did follow up, it was often too late, as work-
ers may no longer remember providing their input. Being able to observe how one’s input is used is
important for worker engagement—for example when management implements workers’ sugges-
tions (when appropriate) of conveys to workers that their opinions are valued and respected; such
practices can build consensus and buy-in. Therefore, greater effort by administrators and leaders is
necessary to truly engage frontline workers in the change process.

However, genuine use of participatory approaches is challenging in a hierarchical setting (Martin,
Jones, & Callan, 2006; Nelissen & Van Selm, 2008). Participatory communication is important for
generating positive and supportive organizational social context (Hemmelgarn, Glisson, & James,
2006). Positive culture and climate is important for implementing change and, ultimately, effec-
tive service delivery (Glisson & Green, 2011; Glisson & Schoenwald, 2005). But workers’ input
and suggestion may not always be feasible or actionable. For example, in other conversations
about improving children’s access to behavioral health services, workers consistently advocated
for improving the agency’s response to parents and caregivers with mental health service needs.
However, this input will not be integrated into the project plans because it falls outside of the project
scope and funding. Therefore, more effort is required on the part of administrators and leaders to
bridge the barriers in truly engaging frontline workers in the change process and at the same time
discern the feasibility and applicability of workers input and suggestion.

Bridging Role of Supervisors

One key to bridging communication barriers is maximizing the role of supervisors in linking the
frontline with the leadership in a complex organization like a child-welfare agency. Findings high-
light the role of supervisors as the preferred sources of implementation-related and job-relevant
information, which is consistent with previous studies (Allen, Jimmieson, Bordia, & Irmer, 2007;
Birken, Lee, & Weiner, 2012; Fernandez & Rainey, 2006; McCrae et al., 2014). In the context of
human service agencies, in which most frontline workers are trained professionals, the supervisor
was considered the “architect of change” to best communicate the vision at the unit or group level
(Austin & Hopkins, 2004). This study further reveals that workers prefer that supervisors communi-
cate their feedback to the leadership team. Supervisors could play a crucial role in implementing a
participatory approach to engage workers, which stresses the importance of interpersonal interaction
between workers and supervisors.

CHANGE COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES AND ENGAGING THE FRONT LINE 47

Though not reflected in the workers’ discussion, the agency relied upon the supervisor to commu-
nicate change information among pilot unit workers. In the on-going project, the pilot unit workers
communicate any barriers and facilitators to their units and then the unit supervisors bring workers’
concerns to the attention of the upper management at bi-monthly (twice per month) project meet-
ings or through other means. It is worthwhile to explore workers’, supervisors’, and administrators’
perceptions of this communication approach in future work.

Practice and Research Implications

Our findings have practice implications for leaders and administrators in child welfare and other
similar organizations. Results highlight the limitations of using programmatic or participatory strate-
gies alone, suggesting that leaders should use both approaches in strategic and deliberate ways when
implementing change. Programmatic approaches maximize fair dissemination with high efficiency
and demonstrate leadership support for the change effort, but this type of approach limits employee
participation and might lead to disengagement from the organizational change. On the contrary,
participatory approaches encourage employee participation and boost employee commitment, but
they require substantial investment in terms of time, funds, and personnel (Russ, 2010). This type
of approach, therefore, may result in low efficiency. When not employed legitimately, this approach
would be disingenuous and generate distrust and disengagement. Therefore, it is crucial for lead-
ers and managers to acknowledge the limitations and benefits of both approaches and balance the
limitations while leading the change.Our findings also reveal that workers in this study relied on
supervisors and middle managers for information and to relay their input to senior leaders and
administrators. These findings support the role of worker-supervisor and supervisor-manager rela-
tionships in implementation and indicate that points for intervention could target the supervisory
level as well as the supervisor-manager relationship, which is consistent with the broad literature on
organizational development and change (Austin, 1989; Cohen & Austin, 1994; Doueck & Austin,
1986).Results also suggest several helpful tactics to engage workers, such as linking change efforts
to services and outcomes especially when programmatic communicative approaches were used,
soliciting input from frontline workers who are responsible for carrying out change efforts, fol-
lowing up with workers in a timely manner after soliciting their input. Managers and leaders in
child-welfare agencies could benefit from applying these tactics to better communicate the change
information and engage workers.Several implications are suggested for future research. First, future
observational studies are needed to identify strategies and tactics commonly used in public child-
welfare agencies. Second, exploration of why and how leaders use programmatic and participatory
strategies would be helpful to understand potential factors that may impact the decision-making
process, such as leadership style/skills, organizational culture/climate, or nature of the change
(externally vs. internally driven). Third, in this study, we did not probe the assumption that open
communication and inclusion facilitates organizational change. Future research could explicitly ask
about this assumption among participations. Finally, it would be beneficial to test the effectiveness of
communication approaches for different types of change efforts (e.g., administrative changes, EBPs
implementation) and to examine which approach is more effective and under what circumstances
certain approaches work best.The findings of this study should be interpreted in light of several lim-
itations. First, the study is focused on communication within one child-welfare agency, and findings
may not be generalized to other agencies or service sectors. In particular, changes within child-
welfare agencies are often mandated by new federal and state laws. Caution should be taken when
generalizing our findings to other service sectors that are less impacted by the policy environment.
Second, it is important to note that our study reflects on change efforts generally. Workers’ prefer-
ences and reactions to these change efforts may vary depending upon specific features of a change
effort. Third, our study only reports frontline workers’ perceptions and preferences for change com-
munication. Managers and leaders may have different perspectives and rationales for how change is
communicated and for how worker input is used when planning change efforts. Fourth, the selection

48 CAO ET AL.

of participants is highly biased due to the involvement with agency leaders, which makes inter-
preting the workers’ opinions more difficult. Furthermore, workers may not have felt comfortable
sharing their opinions due to the presence of other colleagues in the focus group setting. Though
the research team took measures to protect workers’ privacy and keep their comments confiden-
tial, we could not guarantee that other focus group members preserved the confidentiality of the
conversation. This might give rise to more conformity than divergence in workers’ opinions. For
instance, workers tended to agree with each other across five focus groups. Lastly, these focus
groups were conducted during the beginning planning stages of the intervention, which is being
introduced using a staged roll-out. Several units were selected to participate in the pilot units and
workers in these units may have communicated more about the impending agency changes than
those in the comparison units.

CONCLUSION

To ensure successful implementation of sustained change efforts, continuous involvement of front-
line child-welfare workers is paramount. Genuine calls for frontline employee participation and
truly valuing worker inputs will enhance worker buy-in and potentially bring about successful
implementation. Programmatic approaches may achieve high efficiency in the short run, but organi-
zations must implement long-term change to survive in an outcomes-driven environment. To achieve
this goal, the use of participatory methods, in combination with programmatic approaches, is more
desirable than overreliance on programmatic approaches.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors wish to thank their child-welfare agency partners and the case workers who shared their
experiences and ideas. A version of this paper was presented at the 2015 meeting of the Society for
Social Work and Research.

FUNDING

This work was supported by the Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for
Children, Youth and Families, Children’s Bureau (Grant #90CO1104). The findings and discussion
do not represent the official view of Children’s Bureau.

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• ABSTRACT

COMMUNICATING ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE WITH CHILD-WELFARE WORKERS
Organizational-Change Communication Approaches
Study Purpose
METHODS
Study Context
Participants
Data Collection
Data Analysis
FINDINGS
Applied Organizational Change Communication Strategies
Programmatic Communicative Approaches
Participatory Communicative Approaches
Desired Change Communication Approaches
Involve Relevant Workers
Service- and Outcome-Driven Communication
Preference for Well-Organized Communication

DISCUSSION
Commonly Used Programmatic Approach and Its Limitations
Preference for Genuine Participatory Approaches
Bridging Role of Supervisors
Practice and Research Implications
CONCLUSION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
FUNDING
REFERENCES

PolicyPositions of Bureaucrats at the Front Lines: Are They Susceptible to Strategic Communication? 57

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 77, Iss. 1, pp. 57–66. © 2016 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12584.

Morten Jakobsen is associate professor

in the Department of Political Science

and Government, Aarhus University,

Denmark. His research interests include

citizen–state interactions, public employees,

communication in bureaucracy, and political

participation. He has published in leading

public administration journals, including

Public Administration Review, Journal of
Public Administration Research and Theory,
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management,
and International Public Management
Journal.
E-mail: mortenj@ps.au.dk

Simon Calmar Andersen is professor

in the Department of Political Science and

Government, Aarhus University, Denmark,

and leader of TrygFonden ’ s Centre for

Child Research. He serves on the Advisory

Research Board of the Danish National

Centre for Social Research, the International

Advisory Board for the Public Management

Evidence Lab, City University of Hong Kong,

and the board of directors of the Danish

Evaluation Institute.

E-mail: simon@ps.au.dk

Abstract : It is well established that bureaucrats’ implementation of policies is influenced by their own policy positions,
that is, their attitudes toward the given policies. However, what affects the policy positions of bureaucrats? This article
focuses on whether the policy positions of bureaucrats at the front lines of government are susceptible to frames and cues
embedded in communication. Based on the notion that bureaucrats often adhere to certain professional norms when
developing their attitudes toward policies, the authors hypothesize that communication frames and cues that align
policies with such norms move bureaucrats’ policy positions in favor of the policy. Results of four studies in European and
American settings among mid- and street-level bureaucrats show support for the hypothesized effect. They also show that
aligning policies with dimensions outside professional norms is ineffective, possibly even producing opposite effects.

Practitioner Points
• The way a new policy is presented to street-level bureaucrats and middle managers directly affects their

attitudes toward the policy.
• Emphasizing aspects of the policy that are in accordance with professional norms of serving clients and

building policies on research-based evidence are likely to make bureaucrats more sympathetic—or less
negative—toward the policy.

• Emphasizing other considerations such as client satisfaction surveys and economic concerns may cause
bureaucrats to be more hostile toward the policy.

• Managers and other decision makers must strategically consider how they communicate about new programs
and policies.

The implementation of policies by street-level bureaucrats is deeply affected by their own positions on the policy issues in question (i.e.,
their attitudes toward the given policies). This insight
dates back to classic studies by Kaufman ( 1960 ) and
Lipsky ( 1980 ) and has been confirmed by a number
of more recent studies (Brehm and Gates 1997 ; Keiser
and Soss 1998 ; May and Winter 2009 ; Stensöta 2012 :
Tummers et al. 2012 ). This poses a fundamental
question about what affects the policy positions of
bureaucrats. Bureaucrats arrive at their jobs with
experiences and individual personality traits, which
are likely to influence them throughout their work
life. They are also affected by long-term socialization
and organizational influences in various ways after
they are recruited for their job (Oberfield 2010 ).
However, much less is known about how bureaucrats’
policy positions, that is, their attitudes toward specific
policies and programs, are influenced by strategic
communication emphasizing different perspectives.

In this article, we center on whether “frames” and
“cues” embedded in communication affect the policy

positions of bureaucrats working at the front lines of
government. Framing refers to emphasizing one subset
of considerations rather than others when describing
an object, for example, emphasizing a certain aspect of
a policy. A cue is a piece of information (e.g., expert
advice) that enables individuals to make simplified
evaluations without analyzing extensive information
(Druckman et al. 2010 ). Communication is an
inevitable part of organizations, and it surrounds
every policy implemented by bureaucrats. From
extensive research on public opinion formation in
political science, we know that the attitudes of citizens
toward a policy are susceptible to the way that policy
is communicated. Communication impacts attitudes
in terms of how policies are framed as well as by cues
allowing citizens to form opinions based on smaller
pieces of information (Druckman et al. 2010 ; Nelson,
Oxley, and Clawson 1997 ).

Based on the notion that bureaucrats often adhere
to certain professional norms when developing
their attitudes toward policies, we hypothesize that
communication that aligns policies with such norms

Simon Calmar Andersen
Morten Jakobsen

Aarhus University, Denmark

Policy Positions of Bureaucrats at the Front Lines:
Are They Susceptible to Strategic Communication?

58 Public Administration Review • January | February 2017

moves the policy positions of bureaucrats in favor of the policy. In
contrast, communication that connects policies with dimensions
outside the professional norms is expected to be ineffective, or
it may even produce negative attitudes toward the policy. The
theoretical claim is developed in the next section by combining
contributions from the public opinion literature (in particular,
the conceptualizations of communication frames and cues) with
classic insights on bureaucrats and the role of communication in
organizations.

We use four large- n survey experiments of frontline bureaucrats in
the United States and Denmark to test the hypotheses. The policy
area of our testing is the education system. This administrative
area is important in most countries, and it provides a good case
area because it is dominated by professionally trained workers. The
test cases include policies concerning standardized testing, student
background, and economy of schools, which are salient issues in the
public administration of schools across the world (Phelps 2003 ).

The experiments confirm that frames and cues that align policies
with professional norms rooted in bureaucracy have a consistent
impact on policy positions among street-level bureaucrats across
different administrative contexts. One of our experiments, which
is able to separate the effects of frames and cues, shows that both
frames and cues have the potential to affect the policy positions
of bureaucrats. Yet this experiment also shows that even a cue that
aligns a policy with professional norms is ineffective if it is combined
with a frame that does not fit the professional norms. It is important
to note that the experiments are designed to examine shifts in
policy positions, which is the object of our study (not bureaucrats’
behavior); hence, the implications of the test results concern our
knowledge about how the policy positions of street-level bureaucrats
develop. We elaborate on this in the final part of the article.

The next section develops the theoretical
hypotheses on which we build the
research. This section also includes the
conceptualizations of policy position,
professional norms, and communication.
We then present the design of four studies
that test the hypotheses in different contexts.
The results are then presented, and we
conclude by discussing how the results
increase the understanding of the political
process that leads from political decisions
to their implementation and the role of
communication in that process.

Bureaucrats’ Policy Positions and
Communication Effects
Numerous studies have shown that the manner in which
bureaucrats implement political decisions is often influenced by
“opinions, values, preferences, and their own interpretations of
the world” (Kaufman 1960 , 80), bureaucratic ideology (Stensöta
2012 ), and values institutionalized in standard operating procedures
(Keiser and Soss 1998 ; Lipsky 1980 ), as well as by more immediate
attitudes toward specific policies (Brehm and Gates 1997 ; May
and Winter 2009 ). We distinguish between bureaucrats’ policy
positions—that is, preferences for specific policies—and more

fundamental norms, values, or ideologies. Whereas the latter
represent more generic views of what is good, right, or acceptable,
we define policy positions as attitudes related to specific policies.
Hence, a bureaucrat ’ s policy position indicates whether he or she
favors (i.e., displays a positive attitude toward) or disfavors a policy.

Bureaucrats’ policy positions are important for their behavior.
Psychologists debate what moderates the relationship between
attitudes and behavior and whether the interests of the individual
are more important than attitudes. However, despite limited
consensus about how exactly attitudes influence behavior, there
seems to be general agreement that attitudes can influence behavior
and often do (for a review and discussion, see Ajzen and Fishbein
2000 ). The transition of attitudes into behavior is assumed to take
place in a cognitive process in which beliefs about what is expected
of a person are important for that person ’ s behavior. This resonates
very well with some of the prominent organizational theories on
behavior, for example, March and Olsen ’ s ( 2006 ) theory on the
logic of appropriateness. Thus, attitudes are influenced by what is
expected of the individual, and attitudes are themselves more likely
to influence behavior if they are in keeping with what is expected of
the individual. In sum, despite little consensus about how exactly
attitudes influence behavior, research in public administration and
psychology suggests that understanding the attitudes of bureaucrats
toward a given policy (i.e., their policy position) is important for
understanding their implementation of that policy.

Research on public opinion formation has repeatedly shown that
citizens with the same values, norms, ideologies, and preferences
may hold very different attitudes on specific issues, depending
on how the issue is communicated strategically (for a review, see
Chong and Druckman 2007 ). However, whether bureaucrats are
susceptible to communication on policies that they implement—
that is, in their own field of expertise—is a different question.

Bureaucrats are likely to be predisposed
toward certain positions on the policies they
implement because they are usually experts
in their field, their work is affected by the
policies they are asked to implement, and
they are bound by norms that influence
their policy positions. Strong predispositions
are likely to render people more resistant
to communication effects (Chong and
Druckman 2007 ). Yet, as we argue later,
bureaucrats may be susceptible to some types
of communication. To unfold our argument,
we start by outlining the conceptualization of
communication that we apply.

Simon (1997, 208) defines communication in the bureaucratic
process as the transmission of decisional premises from one
member of an organization to another. Decisions are based on
not one but several premises that are given different weight and
attention. This is akin to the conventional model of attitude
formation in public opinion research. This model states that an
attitude toward an object is the sum of the evaluations of the object
on different dimensions—and with different weights attached
to those dimensions (Ajzen and Fishbein 1980 ; Nelson, Oxley,
and Clawson 1997 ; Price and Tewksbury 1997 ). The idea is that

Bureaucrats are likely to be
predisposed toward certain

positions on the policies they
implement because they are
usually experts in their fi eld,
their work is aff ected by the

policies they are asked to imple-
ment, and they are bound by

norms that infl uence their
policy positions.

Policy Positions of Bureaucrats at the Front Lines: Are They Susceptible to Strategic Communication? 59

communication influences attitudes by affecting the weighting of
the dimensions and the evaluations of the object on the different
dimensions (Druckman et al. 2010 ; Slothuus 2008 ). 1 In the study
of bureaucrats, this means that, on the one hand, bureaucrats’
policy positions depend on how they evaluate a policy along
dimensions such as its impact on the clients they serve and its
effect on the influence of other stakeholders. On the other hand,
the policy position depends on how each of these dimensions is
weighted, and communication may influence how bureaucrats
evaluate and weigh these different concerns when generating their
policy position.

In accordance with the conceptualization of communication in the
public opinion literature, we distinguish between communication
frames and cues. Framing is defined as emphasizing one subset
of considerations rather than others when describing an object
(Druckman et al. 2010 ). In our study, this object is the policy
the bureaucrats are asked to implement. We use the term “cue”
to denote a piece of information that enables individuals to make
simplified evaluations without analyzing extensive information (see
Druckman et al. 2010 ). One prime example of such a cue is expert
advice.

In the inventory of what makes a strong frame in public opinion
research, we find frames that resonate in a credible manner with
and invoke strong consensus values (Gamson and Modigliani
1989 ; Pan and Kosicki 2001 ) and back them up with reference to
credible sources (Druckman 2001 ). Strong
consensus values mean that most people
share the same positive (or negative) value on
specific dimensions. Therefore, by acquiring a
theoretical understanding of the dominating
values and norms in an audience, it should be
possible to deduce which frames and cues will
have a strong effect on policy position and
which will not.

What types of frames and cues would we
expect to be effective with regard to changing the policy positions
of bureaucrats? Bureaucrats are, in many respects, a heterogeneous
group (DeHart-Davis 2007 ; O ’ Leary 2010 ). Nevertheless, based on
the literature on professions, we suggest that there are some norms
that bureaucrats (on average) are likely to share.

Professions have been characterized by specialized knowledge
bases, a strong service ethic in the sense of commitment to meeting
clients’ needs, and collegial versus bureaucratic control over entry,
performance evaluations, and retention in the profession (Etzioni
1969 ; see also Hargreaves 2000 ; Hargreaves and Goodson 1996 ;
Talbert and McLaughlin 1994 ). There are two sides of this, though.
One side has to do with the status and compensation of the
profession. The other side has to do with the ethics or norms that
guide professionals’ behavior (Darling-Hammond 1990 ; Hargreaves
and Goodson 1996 ). The latter aspect, which is our focus, “outlines
a view of practice that is client-oriented and knowledge-based ”
(Darling-Hammond 1990 , 25).

These two characteristics of professional norms are also central
to Wilson, who defines a professional as “someone who receives

important occupational rewards from a reference group whose
membership is limited to people who have undergone specialized
formal education and have accepted a group-defined code of
proper conduct” (1989, 60). He further specifies that highly
professional bureaucrats usually seek to serve clients and follow
the procedures recommended by experts within a profession,
such as professors and experienced members of the profession.
He does not claim that personal interests or other incentives do
not affect professionals but that they “receive some significant
portion of their incentives” from such norms shared by organized
groups of fellow practitioners (Wilson 1989 , 60). Similarly,
Simon (1997) sees expertise and identification with others
in the organization as two strong influences on the premises
of bureaucrats’ decision making. In his study of street-level
bureaucrats, Lipsky ( 1980 , 201–2) also emphasizes the service of
clients as a professional norm that is guided by university experts.

Who the clients are depends on the profession. For teachers, the
clients are typically students; for physicians, the clients are typically
patients. Notably, serving clients does not necessarily mean serving
clients’ choices or own expressed wishes; it means doing what the
profession perceives as valuable to clients (Freidson 2001 , 122).
Professionals are educated at professional schools, and they generally
see the schools and studies within their profession as professionally
significant. Consequently, they recognize recommendations from
research-based studies as authoritative (see also Freidson 2001 ;
Tummers et al. 2012 ). The professional schools codify and refine

the profession ’ s understanding of how to
serve clients independently of the values
of clients or other stakeholders (Freidson
2001 , 123; Wilson 1989 ). In this way, the
profession uses norms strategically as a means
to secure influence. By adhering to certain
professionally based norms, behavior and
decision making do not depart from what
is in the

interest of the profession and its
members.

We do not claim that professionals always act in accordance with
the norms of their profession. Self-interests and pressure from
interest groups might obviously influence bureaucratic behavior,
and any individual bureaucrat may diverge from the majority.
However, appealing to professional norms should on average have
an influence on the attitudes among bureaucrats toward specific
policies. Referring implicitly to these norms, we argue, will tend to
make bureaucrats more favorable to the policy.

Based on this, we suggest that policies that benefit clients—although
not necessarily the clients’ own requests—will be evaluated more
positively by bureaucrats (on that dimension) because of a common
value of client orientation. Consequently, frames emphasizing
the benefits of a policy for clients will shift the policy positions of
bureaucrats in favor of the policy. Similarly, policies rooted in research
or expert knowledge will be evaluated more positively by bureaucrats
because of a norm of basing decisions on research-based knowledge.
Thus, cues that provide information that positively connects a policy
with research-based knowledge will also make bureaucrats more
sympathetic to the policy. Furthermore, if a cue links this research
to a renowned professional school (i.e., an institution of higher

By adhering to certain profes-
sionally based norms, behavior

and decision making do not
depart from what is in the

interest of the profession and its
members.

60 Public Administration Review • January | February 2017

education), we would expect it to have an even stronger effect on the
bureaucrats because they are often educated at such institutions.

Other legitimate considerations, such as the expressed wishes
of clients and other stakeholders, are not usually part of the
professional norms. Consequently, we do not expect frames
emphasizing dimensions such as benefits to other stakeholders to
move bureaucrats’ policy positions in favor of the policy.

To sum up, our general hypothesis is as follows:

Hypothesis 1 : Communication that emphasizes the
coherence between a given policy and professional norms will
move policy positions in favor of the policy.

Following our discussion, we may specify a number of hypotheses
that extend the general hypothesis. First, we expect both frames and
cues to affect policy positions:

Hypothesis 2 : Communication frames emphasizing
professional values of client service will move policy positions
in favor of the policy.

Hypothesis 3 : Communication cues referring to research-
based evidence will move policy positions in favor of the
policy.

Furthermore, the source of the provided expert/research knowledge
is also expected to matter:

Hypothesis 4 : Communication cues referring to a
professionally accepted source will move policy positions in
favor of the policy.

Experimental Tests on Street-Level Bureaucrats in the
United States and Denmark
Testing the hypotheses requires a method that (1) includes
measures of exposure of communication to bureaucrats, (2) holds
everything but the communication constant, (3) includes measures
of bureaucrats’ policy positions, (4) reduces the pressure felt by
some bureaucrats to state policy positions that are in accordance
with official policies or the policy positions of peers, and (5) is
replicable in different settings. Survey experiments are able to do
all of this. Survey experiments can be used to expose bureaucrats to
different communication cues and frames. Bureaucrats can answer
anonymously, which reduces the pressure bias. Moreover, pressure
bias and other confounding variables are held constant through
the randomization procedure. Additionally, survey experiments
can include a large number of bureaucrats and offer good potential
for replicating the study in different contexts. Because of such
advantages, survey experiments are extensively used in research on
public opinion formation, and they have been increasingly used in
public administration research as well.

However, it is important to note some of the limitations of
survey experiments. First, they usually identify effects on policy
positions, knowledge, intentions, and so on, not behavior (whereas
field experiments typically study effects on behavior). Second,
they measure immediate, short-term effects but do not reveal

whether these effects are persistent. Third, the survey experiment
is somewhat artificial because it occurs in the survey. We cannot
be sure that the found effects would be exactly the same in a
nonexperimental situation. The survey experiment estimates the
effect of communication when it is isolated from all other factors
happing in an organization.

We conducted four experimental tests in the education sector in
U.S. and European contexts using individual bureaucrats as subjects
in the analysis. Education is a key policy area in most countries.
Moreover, in both the American and European contexts, the
education system is part of a developed political bureaucracy that
includes a vast number of professionally trained bureaucrats. This
renders the education sector a good test case for our purpose.

Using the education sector as test case, a relevant question is
whether professional norms of client orientation and knowledge-
based practice pertain to teaching as an occupation. The profession
has developed over time to become more guided by collective
norms than private practice (Hargreaves 2000 ). Our claim is
not that teacher behavior is only guided by professional norms
of client orientation and knowledge-based practice. In her
discussion of teacher professionalism, Darling-Hammond states,
“Professionalization is not a dichotomous event or a state of grace
into which an occupation clearly falls or does not. Rather, it describes
points along a continuum representing the extent to which members
of an occupation share a common body of knowledge and use
shared standards of practice in exercising that knowledge on behalf
of clients” (1990, 32). Our claim is that the professional norms are
strong enough among teachers on average that their attitudes will be
affected by strategic communication that appeals to these norms.

This study focuses on mid- and street-level bureaucrats, as they have
great influence on how policies are implemented—not least in the
education sector (Honig 2006 ; Weatherley and Lipsky 1977 ). In
order to strengthen the basis of our conclusions, we replicated our
tests in four studies of very different contexts. The contexts differ
with respect to client group (preschoolers, primary school students,
and secondary school students), hierarchical organizational level
(mid- and street-level bureaucracy), and the general political system.
The political systems in the studies vary between the market-based
education system in the traditionally conservative state of Texas and
the universal welfare state-based system in Denmark, which is more
liberal and social democratic. Table 1 provides an overview of the
four studies. The purpose of varying the context is not to examine
how the context moderates the effects of communication but rather
to demonstrate that the same kinds of communications have similar
effects in very different contexts.

Each of the four studies used a specific policy case to test the
hypotheses. In the survey experiments, we presented a likely
policy proposal to the bureaucrats along with different types of
communications about the policy. We then asked the bureaucrats
to state their position on the policy proposal, that is, the extent to
which they were in favor of or against the policy. In three of the
studies (1, 2, and 3), the applied policy case concerned the issue of
standardized test taking among students, that is, the extent to which
students should be tested in school. In study 4, the policy case
focused on the strictness of admission to upper secondary schools.

Policy Positions of Bureaucrats at the Front Lines: Are They Susceptible to Strategic Communication? 61

These cases have several features that render them suitable for
our experiments. First, the included policy proposals about
standardized testing (studies 1, 2, and 3) are highly salient, familiar
to the bureaucrats, and the subject of intense debate in the given
contexts. “Standardized testing has been an ever-expanding, albeit
controversial, part of education in the United States throughout the
20th century” (Linn 2001 , 29). Phelps ( 2003 ) analyzes in particular
the debate about standardized testing in Texas (one of our empirical
sites), describing the conflict as a “war” between policy makers and
educators. A key part of the conflict is the question of political
control over the bureaucracy (Wang, Beckett, and Brown 2006 ).
Similarly, in Denmark (our other empirical site), standardized
testing has been a key conflict in education politics, both between
political parties and currently between politicians and teachers
(Gustafsson 2012 ). If the policy positions of bureaucrats can be
moved in an area as controversial and salient as this, they may also
be amendable in less controversial areas.

The case in study 4, entry requirements, is also controversial but
probably less so than standardized testing. Entry requirements
were a center of prevailing political debate when the study was
conducted. Besides the ideological conflict about access to education
between left- and right-wing parties, entry requirements represents
a classic conflict between politicians who want more young people
to get an education and teachers defending themselves against the
workload related to teaching students who are less prepared for
secondary school. The teachers do so, for instance, by trying to
move away from schools with a demanding student composition
(Bonesrønning, Falch, and Strøm 2005 ). The variation in terms
of how controversial this policy is compared with the highly
controversial standardized testing provides some leverage in terms
of the generalizability of the results along this dimension.

Second, the cases are salient not only in the U.S. and Danish
contexts. Although mostly used in developed countries, standardized
testing in education is a widespread and growing phenomenon in
virtually all global regions (Kamens and McNeely 2010 ). Third,
it was possible to include realistic policy proposals in the case
studies. Fourth, in all four studies, identifying communication that
connected the policy proposal with norms of the bureaucracy was
rather straightforward.

Our first aim was to test the causal effect outlined by the main
hypothesis in dissimilar contexts. For this purpose, we conducted
studies 1, 2, and 3 (which examine hypothesis 1, the general
hypothesis). Our second aim was to disentangle the different cue
and framing effects (i.e., to test hypotheses 2, 3, and 4). Study 4 was
conducted for this purpose. Next, we introduce the general design
of studies 1, 2, and 3. Then we introduce the design and policy case
of study 4.

General Design of Studies 1, 2, and 3
The experiments in studies 1, 2, and 3 each included three
experimental conditions. The first condition (the control condition)
included no other communication than the description of the
policy case. The second condition (the nonprofessional norm
condition) included a stimulus consisting of communication about
the policy that was not in alignment with the professional norms
of the bureaucratic context. The third condition (the professional
norm condition) included communication about the policy
that was in strong alignment with the professional norms, that
is, communication that presented the policy as beneficial to the
clients, connected the policy with research-based knowledge, and
connected the knowledge to a credible source such as a specific
professional school (e.g., a specific university). This enabled us
to estimate the effect of the communication in strong alignment
with norms by comparing the professional norm condition with
the nonprofessional norm condition and the control condition,
respectively.

We measure policy position by asking the bureaucrats to indicate
the extent to which they agree or disagree that the policy proposal
is a good idea (response categories: strongly agree, agree, neither
agree nor disagree, disagree, strongly disagree). Thus, policy position
ranges from 1 to 5, where 1 is the most negative attitude toward
the policy and 5 the most positive. Table A1 in the supplementary
appendix (available in the online version of this article) shows the
full text of all three experiments.

In studies 1, 2, and 3, the communication in the nonprofessional
norm condition frames the policy in light of requests or wishes
from parents. Specifically, the policy is reasoned with parent surveys
showing that a large majority of parents request more testing. Such
a frame is not expected to be particularly persuasive in any of the
contexts in studies 1, 2, and 3. Even though parents are in some
sense clients in the education system, adhering to the clients’ own
choices is not part of the professional norm. The professional norm
emphasizes the profession ’ s independent understanding of what
serves the clients (Freidson 2001 , 121–23). Hence, this reasoning
may even be an argument for some bureaucrats to turn against
the policy, as it may be perceived as populist or as increasing the
influence of other stakeholders (i.e., parents) on their practice.
Therefore, we only expect the nonprofessional norm condition to
produce a limited change in favor of the policy.

In the three studies, the communication in the professional norm
condition emphasizes that the policy proposal is beneficial to those
the professional norms of the contexts perceive as the main clients:
the students. 2 The professional norm condition also includes cues
referring to research-based knowledge that backs up the policy and
professional schools as sources of this knowledge. Thus, research-

Table 1 Overview of the Four Studies

Bureaucratic Level Client Group/ Organization Policy Political System Hypotheses Tested N

Study 1 Street level Preschools Testing students Denmark H
1
586

Study 2 Street level Elementary and middle schools Testing students Denmark H
1
926

Study 3 Middle manager Elementary, middle, and high schools Testing students Texas H
1
1,386

Study 4 Street level High schools Admission to high school Denmark H
2
, H

3
, H

4
3,739

62 Public Administration Review • January | February 2017

based knowledge and the research sources are
expected to be credible in the context of the
education system in both Texas and Denmark.
Research-based knowledge and education
institutions are part of the education system,
and bureaucrats employed in this system are
usually educated

through professional schools.

In this way, the professional norm condition
is in alignment with the professional norms
of bureaucracy. Hence, we expect this
communication to have a strong influence on policy positions in
favor of the policy. Details of study 1, 2, and 3 are presented in the
supplementary appendix.

Study 4: Disentangling Cue and Frame Effects
In studies 1, 2, and 3, the professional norm condition includes
both a frame emphasizing that the policy is beneficial to the main
clients as well as cues referring to knowledge and credible sources
of this knowledge. The aim of study 4 was to disentangle the
effects of the different cues and frames. Therefore, we split the
three conditions included in studies 1, 2, and 3 into nine separate
conditions in order to disentangle the effects of communication
that (1) presents the policy as beneficial to the clients, (2) connects
the policy with research-based knowledge, and (3) connects this
knowledge to a credible source.

The study includes 3,739 secondary school teachers surveyed in
December 2012. 3 The policy case is whether secondary schools
should lower their entry requirements (thereby increasing the intake
of students). This issue has been subject to considerable debate.
Schools have an incentive for a high intake of students (schools are
paid per student through activity-based budgeting), and politicians
would like to see more people enrolled in secondary schools.
However, a high intake may compromise education quality and
the demands placed on the teachers as the number of students with
lower qualifications increases.

We combine three frame conditions and three cue conditions in a
3 × 3 design. The phrasing of all nine conditions is outlined in table
A2 in the supplementary appendix. We included three types of
framing. First, we included conditions with no additional framing.
Second, a frame not in alignment with the professional norms of the
teachers was included. This frame emphasizes the potential economic
payoff that the school may experience from increasing the intake of
students (the schools are partly financed by activity-based budgeting).
Economic prosperity may be of importance to other stakeholders of
the organization, namely, the governing board. However, this does
not align very well with the predominant professional norms, which
privilege the consideration of students. Although not in alignment with
professional norms, some teachers may react to the economic interest in
the frame, which can reduce the difference between this frame and the
frame that is in strong alignment with professional norms. This makes
the test of difference between nonprofessional norm frames and the
professional norm frame harder. Third, we included frames in strong
alignment with professional norms. As in the previous studies, these
emphasize the benefit of the policy proposal to the main client: the
students. In particular, the frames in strong alignment with the norms
emphasize the benefits for less advantaged students, as they are often
those who would benefit most from the policy.

2.49

1.86

2.24

2.47

1.93

1.64**

2.92**

2.14**

2.48**

Study 1
(DK, childcare, street-level

bureaucrats)

Study 2
(DK, primary school,

street- level bureaucrats)

Study 3
(US, primary and secondary

school, middle-level
bureaucrats)

Control Non-

Professional
Norm Conditio

n

Professional
Norm Condition

1.0

2.0

4.0

3.0

5.0

+

++

++P
ol

ic
y

P
os

it
io

n

Note: * p < .05; ** p < .01, two-tailed signifi cance test comparing the nonprofessional and professional norm conditions, respectively, with the control condition. + p < .05; ++ p < .01, two-tailed signifi cance test comparing the professional norm condition with the nonprofessional norm condition. A high value indicates a more positive attitude toward the policy. N = 586 in study 1, 926 in study 2, and 1,389 in study 3.

Figure 1 Effects of Communication on Bureaucrats’ Policy
Position, Studies 1, 2, and 3, Mean Policy Position by
Experimental Group

We also included three cue conditions. First,
we included stimuli with no additional cues.
Second, we included a cue type providing
information that a study supports the policy (a
knowledge cue). This cue is in alignment with
the norm of professionally based knowledge.
Third, we included a cue that not only
provides information that a study supports
the policy but also that the source of this
knowledge is Aarhus University (Andersen and

Thomsen 2011 ), a well-known university in the Danish context that
educates many secondary school teachers. In addition to including
the three types of frames and three types of cues, we included all of
the interactions between the frames and cues. Hence, the experiment
uses a full 3 × 3 factorial design, that is, nine experimental conditions.
The policy position measure is similar to that of studies 1, 2, and 3.

Testing the General Hypothesis in Different Contexts:
Results of Studies 1, 2, and 3
The general hypothesis of the study (hypothesis 1) stated that
communication emphasizing the coherence between a given policy
and professional norms of client orientation and expert advice
will move bureaucrats’ policy positions in favor of the policy.
Figure 1 presents the results of testing this hypothesis in the three
different contexts of studies 1, 2, and 3. The bars in figure 1 show
the bureaucrats’ mean policy position by experimental group. The
significance tests are calculated using linear random effects models
(see the supplementary appendix). Using ordered logistic regression
does not change the conclusions.

Research-based knowledge and
education institutions are part
of the education system, and
bureaucrats employed in this
system are usually educated

through professional schools.

Policy Positions of Bureaucrats at the Front Lines: Are They Susceptible to Strategic Communication? 63

In study 1, the communication that coheres strongly with the
norms (the professional norm condition) increases the mean policy
position from 2.49 to 2.92 on the absolute scale, corresponding to
an increase of 17 percent or 0.32 standard deviation of the policy
position. Thus, not only are bureaucrats’ policy positions amenable
to communication, but also the professional norm condition has
a substantial effect in the predicted direction. We also notice that
attitudes are not so volatile that any and all kinds of arguments in
favor of the policy will change them: communication that does
not correspond with the norms cannot change the attitudes (the
difference between the control condition and the nonprofessional
norm condition is not statistically significant). Only communication
emphasizing coherence between the policy and professional norms
changes the attitudes in favor of the policy. This supports the
general hypothesis (hypothesis 1).

We find similar results when examining the reactions toward the
proposal of increased testing in primary schools in study 2. The
communication in strong coherence with norms increases the mean
policy position from 1.86 in the control condition to 2.14 in the
professional norm condition, or approximately 15 percent in favor
of the policy, which is significantly different from both the control
condition and the nonprofessional norm condition. Moreover, the
nonprofessional norm condition is not significantly different from
the control condition. Study 2 replicates the results in a similar
national context in which we should expect similar results but with
different respondents in a different data collection and another
bureaucratic setting (schools versus preschools). This shows that
the results of study 1 are robust across different settings, cases,
experimental wording, and data collections in the Danish context.

In study 3, we change the context radically. It is still within the
education system, which is why we would expect the professional
norms of client service and research-based knowledge to be
predominant. However, the broader context—the universal welfare
state in Denmark versus the more conservative, market-oriented
state of Texas—is radically different. We also change respondents
from street-level bureaucrats to managers or mid-level bureaucrats
who might have many other considerations than the needs of the
clients. Figure 1 shows that, despite these contextual differences,
we still find a strongly significant effect of the communication
that connects the policy with norms. Thus, the effect size of the
professional norm condition is similar to those in studies 1 and 2;
the relative increase in policy position is approximately 11 percent
or 0.22 standard deviation of the policy position compared with the
control condition, p < .01.

Moreover, we find that the nonprofessional norm condition
(i.e., framing the policy as a request from the parents) triggers an
opposite effect: presented with this communication, the share of
principals in favor of the policy drops by 27 percent. Based on the
underlying theoretical argument of our main hypothesis, there
are at least two plausible explanations of the opposite effect. First,
emphasizing a dimension outside the professional norms may be not
only ineffective, it may produce more negative attitudes toward the
policy because bureaucrats can be expected to work against policies
that do not correspond to the professional norms. Second, framing
the policy as a request from parents may not seem credible among
the Texas principals because (in contrast to the Danish cases) a lot

Table 2 Frame and Cue Effects

Independent Variable
Model I:

Main Effects
Model II:

Interaction Effects

Nonprofessional norm frame −0.22** (0.04) −0.03 (0.06)

Professional norm frame 0.26** (0.04) 0.31** (0.06)

Research cue 0.18** (0.04) 0.28** (0.06)

Research source cue 0.26** (0.04) 0.42** (0.06)

Nonprofessional norm frame *
Research cue

−0.26** (0.09)

Nonprofessional norm frame *
Research source cue

−0.32** (0.09)

Professional norm frame *
Research cue

−0.02 (0.09)

Professional norm frame *
Research source cue

−0.14 (0.09)

Constant 1.62** (0.04) 1.54** (0.05)

N 3,739 3,739

Note: * p < .05; ** p < .01, two-tailed signifi cance test based on linear random effects models. Standard errors in parentheses. Reference group in models I and II: control condition (no frame and no cue).

1.52 1.50

1.84** 1.81**
1.51

2.10**

1.94**

1.59

2.10**
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0

No frame Non-professional Norm frame Professional Norm frame

No cue Research cue Research Source cue

Notes: * p < .05; ** p < .01, two-tailed signifi cance test comparing each condition with the control condition (no frame and no cue). Signifi cance tests of the differences between each of the nine conditions are reported in the supplementary appendix. A high value indicates a more positive attitude toward the policy. N = 3,739.

Figure 2 Effects of Cues and Framing on Bureaucrats’ Policy
Position, Study 4, Mean Policy Position by Experimental Group

of parents in Texas expressed negative feelings about testing around
the time of the experiment. Hence, if the communication is not
perceived as credible, it may trigger a boomerang effect. Regardless
of the cause, study 3 shows that under some circumstances, cues
and frames may even reduce support for a policy. In all, the general
hypothesis is supported in all three studies. We turn to study 4 to
disentangle the effects of cues and frames.

Disentangling the Cue and Framing Effects:
Results of Study 4
Study 4 uses a 3 × 3 factorial design to separate the effect of frames
and cues, which are combined in the treatments in studies 1–3.
We also isolate the effect of adding a source of the expert/research
knowledge. Thus, we are able to test hypotheses 2, 3, and 4. We
show the results of study 4 in table 2 and figure 2 . Table 2 presents

64 Public Administration Review • January | February 2017

different regression analyses on the effects of frames and cues,
and figure 2 displays the mean policy position of each of the nine
experimental conditions. 4

We start by evaluating the cue effects. Model I in table 2 presents
the average effects of the frames and cues, that is, the effects of
frames and cues compared with the control condition across all of
the experimental conditions. We see that the research cue (“support
in recent studies”) has a positive and significant effect (controlling
for the frames). The effect of 0.18 corresponds to an increase of
about 11 percent or 0.19 standard deviation of the policy position.
Bureaucrats move their policy position in favor of the proposal
merely by being told that some study supports it—without knowing
which study it is or which standards or outcomes it measured.
They seem to use the knowledge cue as a heuristic to evaluate the
proposal. We also see that the research source cue (“from Aarhus
University”) adds a small additional effect on top of the effect of the
knowledge cue. In other words, the cues have positive effects on the
policy positions across frames.

We can also examine the effect of cues when no frame (other
than the case) was added to the communication. We do so by
comparing the three conditions that did not include a frame, which
are presented on the left side of figure 2 . Here, the research cue
(“support in recent studies”) and the research source cue (“support
in studies from Aarhus University”) have substantial, positive effects
on the bureaucrats’ policy positions. The research cue moves the
policy position from 1.52 to 1.81 ( p < .01), corresponding to a relative change of 19 percent (0.31 standard deviation of the policy position). As expected, the research source cue moves the position even further, from 1.52 to 1.94 ( p < .01) or 28 percent (0.45 standard deviation of the policy position). The difference between the research cue and the research source cue is statistically significant at the 0.05 level. In sum, there is a substantial effect of cues on bureaucrats’ policy position.

We also find support for effects of frames in table 2 and figure 2 .
Model I in table 2 shows that the frame, in alignment with
professional norms (“thereby helping more disadvantaged people to get
an education”), has a positive and significant effect when controlling
for the cues. We also see a substantial and statistically significant effect
of the frame in strong alignment with professional norms when the
research and research source cues are not included. As seen in figure
2 , the professional norm frame moves the policy position from 1.52
(no frame/no cue) to 1.84 (no cue/professional norm frame). The
effect is significant at the 0.01 level. The frame in strong alignment
with the professional norms is also significantly different from the
frame that is not in alignment with norms (“thereby increasing the
activity-based budget”). Indeed, the nonprofessional norm frame
again produces a boomerang effect (see table
2 , model I), suggesting that bureaucrats react
with opposition if the policy is made for the
sake of the economy—a frame that connects
poorly with norms and may be seen as
influence over practice by other stakeholders
such as the governing board. In sum, as stated
in hypotheses 2 and 3, both frames and cues
are able to move the policy positions of the
bureaucrats in the predicted direction.

However, when used in combination, the effect of frames and cues
are contingent on one another. This becomes evident in model II
in table 2 , which presents the interaction effects between frames
and cues. While no significant interaction is seen between the
professional norm frame and the cues, a negative interaction effect
is seen between the nonprofessional norm frame and the cues. To
help interpret this result, we turn to the three bars in the middle of
figure 2 , which show the effect of cues when the nonprofessional
norm frame is included in the communication. None of the
nonprofessional norm frame conditions are significantly different
from each other, nor are they significantly different from the
control group (no frame/no cue). In other words, cues that are
otherwise effective become ineffective if they are combined with the
nonprofessional norm frame. Hence, if the frame is not in alignment
with professional norms, the bureaucrats seem to be impervious
to the cues. This provides strong evidence of the importance of
providing communication in- or outside of the professional values.

The strongest influence on the policy positions is found when the
professional-norm frame is combined with the research or research-
source cues. In this case, the policy position is moved from 1.52 in
the control group (no frame/no cue) to 2.10 ( p < .01), which is a 38 percent increase or an increase of 0.63 standard deviation of the policy positions.

Conclusion
The policy positions of bureaucrats at the front lines of government
are important for their implementation of those policies. This calls
for attention to what affects the policy positions of bureaucrats.
We argue that bureaucrats’ policy positions are susceptible
to communication despite the fact that they are likely to be
predisposed toward certain policy positions, which might render
them more resistant to communication effects. However, not any
kind of argument will persuade bureaucrats. The effectiveness
of communication is related to the professional norms of the
bureaucrats. We hypothesized that communication that emphasizes
the coherence between a given policy and professional norms will
be more effective in moving the policy positions in favor of the
policy than communication that aligns the policy with dimensions
outside of the professional norms. When observing some of the
main professional norms of bureaucrats across different professions
and contexts, successful appeals to the needs of the clients and to
research-based knowledge from credible sources are expected to
move bureaucrats’ policy positions in favor of the policy.

The article presented four experimental tests of the effect of
strategic communication on bureaucrats’ policy positions. The high
internal validity of the survey experiments leaves us confident that
in these settings bureaucrats’ attitudes are affected in predictable

ways by strategic changes in the cues and
frames used to present policy proposals.
Policy positions are not turned around
completely from negative to positive but are
moved in favor of the policy, as predicted.
The teachers and school principals studied
were generally negative about the policies
outlined in the experiments; however, the
strategic communication made them, on
aver

age, less negative.

At the same time, the

Th e teachers and school prin-
cipals studied were generally
negative about the policies

outlined in the experiments;
however, the strategic commu-
nication made them, on aver-

age, less negative.

Policy Positions of Bureaucrats at the Front Lines: Are They Susceptible to Strategic Communication? 65

consistent replication of the study in very different contexts and
with bureaucrats at different levels of the organizations speaks for
the external validity of the effects. Furthermore, the nonexistent or
negative effects of alternative frames help narrow down the kind of
norms to which bureaucrats respond.

It is not possible to use this study to determine the degree to which
these norms are distinctive to bureaucrats in the education system
or whether they are shared more broadly among bureaucrats and
citizens in general. For example, the norm of adhering to expert
and research-based knowledge may very well be appealing, not
only to professionals but to citizens in general as well. Thus, our
argument does not claim that the studied communication effects
are solely applicable to bureaucrats. In addition, the duration of
the effects of communication and effects on bureaucratic behavior
needs to be established in other ways than through a single survey
measure. Furthermore, our tests are done within one type of
policy (education), and therefore they do not provide evidence on
hypothesized effects in other policy areas. We should also mention
that we did not test whether effects are symmetrical in the sense
that strategic communication emphasizing that a policy is violating
professional norms will reduce bureaucratic support, even though
this would be a clear prediction based on the theory.

Despite these limitations, the results hold important lessons for
public managers. Whether they endorse the idea of manipulating
bureaucrats’ policy positions through strategic communication
or not, the results presented here demonstrate that the way new
policies are presented is not a neutral choice. Emphasizing aspects
of a policy that are in accordance with professional norms such as
serving clients and using research-based evidence moves bureaucrats
in favor of the policy compared with not emphasizing these
aspects. On the other hand, emphasizing other concerns such as
client satisfaction or economic considerations may even reduce
bureaucratic support. This means that the presentation of new
policies always involves a choice of whether to use specific frames
and cues.

The results trigger a number of questions for further exploration.
Will we find communication effects in policy areas that are less (or
more) professionalized than education? We might also speculate that
the credibility of the frame or cue moderates the communication
effect. In particular, the sender of communication is likely to be
important. We argue that the use of survey experiments may offer
a fruitful way of providing parts of the answer to such questions
and thereby advance our understanding of what affects the policy
positions at the front lines of government.

Notes
1 . In the empirical tests, we do not examine whether the psychological mechanism

is a change in the weight of different dimensions or a change in the content of
these beliefs.

2 . Teachers’ perceptions of students as the main clients are easily seen from, for
example, the “Ideals of the Profession” adopted by the Danish Union of Teachers
(Folkeskolen 2002).

3 . The experiment was part of a web survey of all secondary school teachers in
Denmark. The experiment was included for a subset of the teachers. The
response rate for this subset was 52 percent.

4 . Significance tests of the differences between the nine conditions are reported in
the supplementary appendix. We refer to some of these when presenting the
results of figure 2 .

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Supporting Information
A supplementary appendix may be found in the online version of this article at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/
(ISSN)1540-6210.

Copyright © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER 9

Leadership and Management Skills
in Public Organizations

 LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Exploring the variety of leadership theories, particularly as they relate to public leaders

2. Learning about the importance of and improving communication

3. Understanding the skills needed to delegate and motivate

4. Improving personal decision-making skills

5. Understanding the issues of group dynamics

 SUMMARY OVERVIEW

This chapter focuses on the personal skills required to lead and manage a public organization. The

authors emphasize that leadership is a subtle and complex phenomenon that goes beyond issues

of power and formal hierarchical relationships, and that effective leadership and management

involves both strong skills and a great deal of flexibility. The chapter emphasizes that effective

leadership and management depends upon effective communication and interpersonal skills, and

also addresses negotiating and group processes as aspects of effective leadership and

management. These skills and processes underlie the capacity of leaders and managers to act

effectively and responsibly.

The authors begin by addressing the relationship between power and leadership, framing power

as just one aspect of a leader’s skill set. This section offers an overview of various theories of

leadership, from early trait and behavior approaches to more contemporary views that incorporate

situation and context and embrace the idea that leadership can and should be exercised throughout

an organization. Leadership is defined as the character of the relationship between the leader and

group or organization that stimulates group members to reach their full potential. It is the capacity

of the leader to “energize” the group, the authors argue, that is central to effective leadership.

The focus then turns to the need for communication skills, as the authors emphasize that

communication is the basis for setting goals, engaging others, and ensuring cooperation. A

detailed discussion of effective listening skills is presented, along with information about

speaking and writing skills that are necessary for managers and leaders. This is followed by an

examination of delegation and motivation, which also are key issues for effective leadership and

management. The particulars of effective delegation are addressed, including the need for both

authority and responsibility, and justifications for delegating rather than “doing it myself” are

presented. Next, several methods of motivation are explored, including issues related to pay and

job satisfaction, the psychology of reinforcement, and goal setting. This discussion includes

specific information that will help students begin to build skills in this area. A discussion about

decision making, which the authors argue is the most universal activity of leaders and managers,

114 Chapter 9: Leadership and Management Skills in Public Organizations

Copyright © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

also is presented here, including an examination of rational, “satisficing,” and incremental models

of individual decision making.

The final section of this chapter addresses the importance of group dynamics and group decision

making in leadership and management. Both the advantages and disadvantages of group decision

making are explored, including a detailed discussion of the problems inherent in groupthink, and

problems related to interpersonal dynamics in groups are examined. This section also presents

information about the roles or functions of leaders in group dynamics and specialized techniques

for leading the decision-making process in a group setting. The chapter concludes with a look at

conflict, bargaining, and negotiation, in which the authors note that the ability to resolve

differences in an equitable way is a key skill for leaders and managers in the public sector. To

that end, “principled negotiation” and alternative dispute resolution are advanced as alternatives

to traditional bargaining.

 CHAPTER OUTLINE

I. LEADERSHIP AND POWER

 Exploring Concepts: BASES OF SOCIAL POWER

II. COMMUNICATION

A. Listening

 Take Action: PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE LISTENING

1. Have a Reason or Purpose
2. Suspend Judgment Initially
3. Resist Distractions
4. Wait before Responding
5. Rephrase What You Listen To in Your Own Words
6. Seek the Important Themes
7. Use the Thinking-Speaking Differential to Reflect and Find Meaning

B. Speaking

C. Writing

 Take Action: SECRET WEAPONS FOR ORGANIZATIONAL
COMMUNICATION

III. DELEGATION AND MOTIVATION

A. Delegation

B. Motivation
1. Pay and Job Satisfaction
2. Reinforcement Theory
3. Goal Setting

C. Individual Decision Making

IV. GROUP DYNAMICS

A. Advantages of Group Decision Making

B. Disadvantages of Group Decision Making

C. Interpersonal Dynamics in Groups

Chapter 9: Leadership and Management Skills in Public Organizations 115

Copyright © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

 Take Action: LEADERSHIP ROLES IN GROUP DYNAMICS

D. Specialized Techniques for Group Decision Making

E. Conflict, Bargaining, and Negotiation

 Take Action: GUIDELINES FOR SUCCESSFUL NEGOTIATIONS

V. SUMMARY AND ACTION IMPLICATIONS

 KEY TERMS

Brainstorming Technique for enhancing the alternative-generation portion of the decision-

making process.

Delegation Assigning tasks to others.

Groupthink A mode of thinking in which greater emphasis is placed on conformity than on

making good decisions.

Hidden agenda Privately held goals and priorities.

Nominal group Face-to-face meeting that allows only limited interaction among participants.

Parity principle Idea that an individual should have equal amounts of authority and

responsibility.

Risk shift Difference in the daringness of decisions group members make as a group, compared

to the average risk of the same decision if each member made it alone.

Role ambiguity Occurs when the rights and responsibilities of the job are not clearly understood.

Role conflict Occurs when one faces two different and incompatible sets of demands.

Satisficing decision One that is just “good enough” in terms of some criterion.

Two-factor theory Model of motivation involving two variables: job satisfaction and job

dissatisfaction.

 WEB LINKS

The following are links to a variety of perspectives on leadership:

James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership: (http://www.academyofleadership.org/).

The Research Center for Leadership in Action: (http://wagner.nyu.edu/leadership/).

The Center for Integrative Leadership: (http://www.leadership.umn.edu/).

The following are links to information about conflict resolution:

Conflict Resolution Center: (http://www.crnhq.org/).

National Association for Community Mediation: (www.nafcm.org).

Illinois’s Center for Conflict Resolution: (http://www.ccrchicago.org/).

http://www.academyofleadership.org/

http://wagner.nyu.edu/leadership/

http://www.leadership.umn.edu/

Conflict Resolution Network

http://www.nafcm.org/

http://www.ccrchicago.org/

Review of Public Personnel Administration
2014, Vol. 34(2) 128 –152

© 2014 SAGE Publications
Reprints and permissions:

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0734371X14521456

rop.sagepub.com

Article

From Leadership to
Citizenship Behavior in Public
Organizations: When Values
Matter

Adrian Ritz1, David Giauque2, Frédéric Varone3, and
Simon Anderfuhren-Biget3

Abstract
After decades of management reforms in the public sector, questions on the impact
of leadership behavior in public organizations have been attracting increasing
attention. This article investigates the relationship between transformational
leadership behavior and organizational citizenship behavior as one major extra-role
outcome of transformational leadership. Referring to a growing body of research
that shows the importance of public service values and employee identification
in public administration research, we include public service motivation and
organizational goal clarification as mediating variables in our analysis. Structural
equation modeling is applied as the method of analysis for a sample of 569 public
managers at the local level of Switzerland. The findings of our study support the
assumed indirect relationship between leadership and employee behavior and
emphasize the relevance of public service values when analyzing leadership behavior
in public sector organizations.

Keywords
public sector leadership, transformational leadership, organizational citizenship
behavior, public service motivation, public values

1University of Bern, Switzerland
2University of Lausanne, Switzerland
3University of Geneva, Switzerland

Corresponding Author:
Adrian Ritz, Centre of Competence for Public Management, University of Bern, Schanzeneckstrasse 1, PF
8573, CH-3001 Bern, Switzerland.
Email: adrian.ritz@kpm.unibe.ch

521456ROPXXX10.1177/0734371X14521456Review of Public Personnel AdministrationRitz et al.
research-article2014

mailto:adrian.ritz@kpm.unibe.ch

Ritz et al. 129

Introduction

Against the background of demographic change, it becomes more and more difficult
for public sector organizations to keep turnover intentions low and motivation for
effective performance high (Ingraham, Selden, & Moynihan, 2000). Not only keeping
public employees’ motivation high but also increasing followers’ motivation to per-
form beyond what is written in the employment contract is a primary task of leadership
(Bass, 1997). Therefore, superiors need to motivate public employees so they contrib-
ute to organizational performance in ways that shape the organizational, social, and
psychological context that serves as a catalyst for task activities and processes.

Regarding such contextual performance, the degree of employee behavior that is
intended to benefit the organization and that goes beyond existing role expectations is
a relevant indicator of performance for public sector organizations. Even though it is
well known that performance measurement in public sector organizations is one of the
most challenging tasks and no broadly accepted measures exist, public management
research did not make use of the insights from organizational behavior research about
the importance of contextual performance. But decades of public management reforms
and their not very convincing results concerning an increase of public service perfor-
mance at either the organizational or the individual level (Pollitt, 2006) may open the
doors for other perspectives on public service performance. The mostly liberalization-
and market-driven management approaches have had an impact on organizational cul-
ture and leadership (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004). The range of leadership skills for
public managers is growing, especially in a competitive environment (Bass, 1985) and
leadership is a source of extra-role behaviors that reflect contextual performance
(Borman & Motowidlo, 1997). Thus, it is of great interest if leadership behavior in
public organizations shows the expected effect on contextual performance.

Many types of leadership in the public sector have been discussed extensively like,
for example, leadership in policy positions and in community settings (Van Wart,
2003). However, leadership within public administration “… has received scant atten-
tion and would benefit from a research agenda linking explicit and well-articulated
models with concrete data in public sector settings” (Van Wart, 2003, p. 214). This
article picks up Van Wart’s claim to further explore the relationship between leader-
ship and extra-role behavior as an embodiment for contextual performance in public
sector organizations, which has not been the focus of public management research yet.
The following research question is at the heart of this article: To what extent does
leadership behavior directly foster contextual performance like organizational citizen-
ship behavior (OCB) in the public sector and to what extent is it mediated by employee
attitudes and perceptions like public service motivation (PSM) and goal clarity?

This research question is important for two complementary reasons. First, it is
linked to distinctive behavioral and attitudinal concepts that are very relevant from a
theoretical and empirical viewpoint when it comes to the debate on the effectiveness
of leadership behavior in organizations (Purcell & Hutchinson, 2007). In public orga-
nizations, the measurement of performance is a difficult task and no broadly accepted
measures exist (Boyne, Meier, O’Toole, & Walker, 2007; Brewer & Selden, 2000).

130 Review of Public Personnel Administration 34(2)

Therefore, contextual performance as measured in this study is a relevant but still
insufficiently researched way to assess individual performance in public organiza-
tions. Second, due to a growing body of research on distinct motives of public service
employees and the relevance of values within effective leadership in public sector
settings (Paarlberg, Perry, & Hondeghem, 2008; Perry & Wise, 1990; Rainey, 1982),
this research is related to one of the most challenging practical questions regarding
recent public management reforms: Does the strengthening of transformational leader-
ship in public sector organizations foster performance related behavior of public
employees? In answering these questions, we expect to contribute substantially to the
current debate on administrative arguments in a time of growing demand for manage-
ment reforms and leadership discretion that strengthen the performance of public
organizations.

To answer our research question, first, we conduct a literature review discussing the
main variables and the underlying assumptions of our study. Second, the research
design and method will be presented as well as the data source. Following this, we test
the theoretical model using structural equation modeling (SEM), drawing on a sample
of municipal employees in Switzerland. The survey generated answers from 3,754
public employees from 279 municipalities and uses employee perceptions as a mea-
sure of the named latent constructs. Finally, the main findings are discussed and the
paths for future research are presented in the conclusion.

Literature Review

Transformational Leadership and Contextual Performance

This study investigates the link between transformational leadership behavior and
contextual performance in public administration. Transformational leadership as a
leadership concept developed by the political scientist Burns (1978) characterizes
leadership behavior that inspires followers to achieve extraordinary outcomes by
changing their attitudes and values through the provision of both meaning and under-
standing and through the alignment of organizational mission and goals (Bass &
Riggio, 2006). Four components define transformational leadership: idealized influ-
ence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consider-
ation (Bass, 1985). Research has shown that those four leadership behaviors influence
the followers’ assessment of their work environment as well as the activation of intrin-
sic values. (Burns, 1978; House, 1977; Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993). Thus, Bass
(1985) states that transformational leadership behaviors “stimulate followers to per-
form beyond the level of expectations” (p. 32) and explain individual, group, and
organizational outcomes like extra-role contributions (Bass & Avolio, 1990).
Contextual performance characterizes such extra-role behavior of employees that con-
tributes to organizational performance in ways that shape the organizational, social,
and psychological context that serves as the catalyst for task activities and processes.
Contextual activities are not formally part of the job and describe discretionary behav-
iors such as volunteering, helping, and cooperating with others in the organization to

Ritz et al. 131

get tasks accomplished (Borman & Motowidlo, 1993). Organizational research has
identified diverse concepts of work behaviors that contribute to contextual perfor-
mance but are often overlooked by traditional measures of work performance, such as
OCB, interpersonal citizenship behavior, and pro-social behavior (Borman &
Motowidlo, 1997; Brief & Motowidlo, 1986; Organ, 1988, 1997; Podsakoff,
MacKenzie, Moorman, & Fetter, 1990; Settoon & Mossholder, 2002; Van Dyne,
Graham, & Dienesch, 1994). OCB is used in our research as the measure of extra-role
behavior leading to contextual performance; it characterizes individual behavior that
maintains and enhances the context of work that supports task performance, for exam-
ple, through some form of interpersonal helping with an organizationally relevant task
or problem. Such behavior, when aggregated, promotes the effective functioning of
the organization and goes beyond individual role expectations (Katz, 1964; Smith,
Organ, & Near, 1983).

Contextual performance such as OCB is stimulated by transformational leadership
behavior because it emphasizes social exchange between leaders and followers in the
form of a psychological contract (Boerner, Eisenbeiss, & Griesser, 2007; Podsakoff et
al., 1990). This contract is based on meaning and identification with goals and prob-
lems of an organization and is provided by the leader. Organizational goals and team
objectives, therefore, become the basis of a shared social identity enabling organiza-
tional members or “citizens” to help each other, to overlook obstacles at work in the
interest of the common goal, and to engage in functions that are not primarily related
to the task fulfillment (Kark, Shamir, & Chen, 2003; Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine, &
Bachrach, 2000). Empirical evidence on the positive relationship between leadership
and OCB is found by several studies (Ilies, Nahrgang, & Morgeson, 2007; Podsakoff,
MacKenzie, & Bommer, 1996; Podsakoff et al., 1990; Truckenbrodt, 2000).

Although these concepts belong to some of the most prominent theories of organi-
zational behavior research, its application within a public sector context needs to be
discussed. Contextual performance is described in the introduction as one suitable
approach for measuring performance in public organizations. Performance of public
organizations is a widely discussed phenomenon and a common understanding does
not exist yet (Boyne et al., 2007; Boyne, Walker, & Brewer, 2010). Due to the lack of
objective data, most measures of organizational performance in public organizations
such as outcome data from a performance management regime or policy evaluations
include subjective interpretation of data and can make perceptual measures of extra-
role behaviors such as OCB appropriate for public organizations (Brewer, 2006; Wall
et al., 2004). Kim (2005) and Koys (2001) report empirical evidence for a positive
relationship between organizational citizenship and perceived performance measures.
In addition, OCB is particularly important in organizations without clear measures of
output and outcome and can be seen as a process measure of performance for behav-
iors that lead to a given output or outcome (Ouchi, 1979). However, such approaches
cannot serve as a proxy for the whole phenomenon of performance. Rather, they help
to understand and measure one facet of the performance of a public organization,
which is the goal of this article.

Transformational leadership builds, for example, on motivation through articula-
tion of a vision and long-term goals. Public organizations are particularly

132 Review of Public Personnel Administration 34(2)

characterized by ambiguous, multiple, conflicting, and vague goals (Rainey, 1993;
Wildavsky, 1979). Under the assumption of greater goal ambiguity in public organiza-
tions, the relevance of contextual performance increases. Employees work and behave
in an environment with less clear, sometimes contradictory and not long-term oriented
objectives. Against the background of Wilson’s (1989) analysis of public agencies,
immediate tasks have a stronger influence on individual behavior than organizational
goals and public employees’ tasks might outweigh the influence of goal ambiguity to
some extent (Daft, 2010; Rainey, 1993). Thus, extra-role behavior such as OCB can be
a corrective in ambiguous and vague situations because individuals benefit from each
other’s support and task activities get accomplished better. Furthermore, extra-role
behavior in public organizations should be regarded as a construct that not only ben-
efits the individual (e.g., helping others), but even more so it is directed toward the
organization and its stakeholders. For example, whistle-blowers adhere to their public
service ethic and willingly put themselves at risk to preserve the common good and
further the public interest (Brewer & Selden, 1998) or employees promote the welfare
of the organization by rule breaking, for example, to provide good customer service
(DeHart-Davis, 2007; Morrison, 2006).

The Mediating Role of PSM and Goal Clarity

While some empirical research shows that leadership behavior directly influences
extra-role behavior (Ilies et al., 2007; Podsakoff et al., 1996), other research indicates
an indirect leadership-OCB link, mediated by employee reactions such as followers’
trust in their leaders (Podsakoff et al., 1990). Such employee reactions on leadership
behavior can be subdivided into reactions concerning affective or attitudinal outcomes,
reactions building cognitive skills, and those affecting behavior seen in discretionary
behavior and task behavior (Purcell & Hutchinson, 2007; Purcell, Kinnie, Hutchinson,
Rayton, & Swart, 2003). Measuring a direct relationship between transformational
leadership and OCB does not include the interplay between perceived leadership
behavior and affective or attitudinal employee reactions. The emphasis of transforma-
tional leadership is on the motivational potential of an organization’s mission and,
thus, in the activation of attitudinal employee reactions. While transformational lead-
ership influences extra-role behavior by changing employees’ attitudes and values
through the provision of both meaning and understanding of an organization’s mission
(Burns, 1978; House, 1977; Shamir et al., 1993), the relationship between leadership
behavior and OCB in public sector organizations is assumed to be mediated by
employee attitudes regarding the service and community oriented values of public
organizations. PSM as an individual attitude toward specific public service values that
go beyond self-interest and organizational interest (Perry & Porter, 1982; Perry &
Wise, 1990; Vandenabeele, 2007) can therefore be characterized as an intrinsic type of
motivation that gets strengthened by transformational leadership (Wright & Pandey,
2010). In a public sector setting, transformational leaders are value oriented in the
sense that they get employees to put their interest to serve “… a community of people,
a state, a nation, or humankind” (Rainey & Steinbauer, 1999, p. 23). Above all, the

Ritz et al. 133

PSM dimensions commitment to the public interest, compassion, and self-sacrifice are
linked to the effects that transformational leaders have on followers. The reward for
public employees is primarily the satisfaction of work activities for the public good
itself and that is part of a transformational leader’s inspirational motivation in a public
environment (Park & Rainey, 2008). Thus, transformational leaders exhibit values that
transcend the individual’s self-interest, such as social justice, equality, and benevo-
lence (Avolio & Gardner, 2005; Paarlberg et al., 2008); have an impact on employee
morale (Bass, 1998; Dvir, Eden, Avolio, & Shamir, 2002); and positively influence
followers to engage in civic virtue (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, & Bommer, 1996). Such
leadership behavior motivates followers “to sacrifice their own self-interest by show-
ing followers that their self-interests are fulfilled or linked to community or higher-
order needs” (Rainey, 2009, p. 329).

The term of citizenship, in particular, reflects the historic roots of OCB. Organ’s
“good soldier syndrome” shows the similarity with civic and democratic virtues—val-
ues that form the basis of a well functioning social entity (Denhardt & Denhardt,
2007). Based on research finding that shows positive associations between pro-social
motivation and citizenship behavior (Coyle-Shapiro & Kessler, 2003; Rioux & Penner,
2001), PSM is assumed to be positively associated with OCB. Helping co-workers and
serving the organization above written role expectations can be seen as serving a com-
munity of people within the organization. Coyle-Shapiro and Kessler (2003) explicitly
state that public service motives should be further explored as explanatory variables of
OCB. The relationship between PSM and OCB has so far been tested only twice. In his
research among 1,739 employees of local government agencies in the Republic of
Korea, Kim (2005) finds a significant positive relationship between the two constructs
and Pandey, Wright, and Moynihan (2008) show that PSM has a positive impact on
helpful behaviors typically associated with OCB in their study among 173 state per-
sonnel agency employees in the United States. Other researchers have reported empir-
ical evidence for the fostering of citizenship behavior outside the organization through
PSM (Brewer, 2003; Houston, 2006).

In our model, we therefore hypothesize the following:

Hypothesis 1: Transformational leadership has an indirect, positive effect on OCB
through its influence on public service motives.

Our second variable mediating the relationship between transformational leader-
ship and contextual performance is goal clarity. As shown in Rauch and Behling’s
(1984) definition of leadership, “the process of influencing the activities of an orga-
nized group toward goal achievement” (p. 46), scholars have included clear goal set-
ting and the support of subordinates’ goal attainment in their different suggestions for
effective leadership (e.g., Sperry, 2002; R. W. Terry, 2001; Yukl, 2008; Yukl &
Lepsinger, 2004). Transformational leadership as one form of effective leadership can
provide greater goal clarity because leaders play an important role in the management
of information and meaning by clearly communicating the mission of an organization
(Piccolo & Colquitt, 2006) and help followers view work goals as congruent with their

134 Review of Public Personnel Administration 34(2)

own values (Bono & Judge, 2003). Transformational leaders are able to translate their
visions into tangible contributions that can be made by followers through the goal-
setting process (Whittington, Goodwin, & Murray, 2004). Thus, leadership that can
communicate effectively and model the mission of public organizations is able to align
organizations and employees as well as influence those public organizations toward
the achievement of their goals (Paarlberg et al., 2008). Due to the effect of transforma-
tional leadership behavior on employees’ understanding of an organization’s mission
and its relationship with individual goals, we use goal clarity at the followers’ level as
mediating variable between transformational leadership and contextual performance
in our study.

OCB shows individuals’ primary goal to improve the situation of another person
with an organizationally relevant task or problem. Clearer goals can contribute toward
a helping behavior that supports co-workers because employees see therein a contribu-
tion to the overall goals. But research on the antecedents of OCB (Organ, Podsakoff,
& MacKenzie, 2006; Podsakoff et al., 2000) does not provide results for the relation-
ship between goal clarity and OCB. However, according to Rainey (1993), one can
expect OCB to be positively influenced by goal clarity while mediated through goal
ambiguity. And from a perspective of social exchange theory, goal setting is a source
of perceived organizational support (Hutchison & Garstka, 1996) that has shown to be
an antecedent of OCB (Moorman, Blakely, & Niehoff, 1998; Shore & Wayne, 1993;
Wayne, Shore, & Liden, 1997). Thus, goal clarity can be seen as one of several “posi-
tive, beneficial actions directed at employees by the organization and/or its representa-
tives contribute to the establishment of high-quality exchange relationships that create
obligations for employees to reciprocate in positive, beneficial ways” (Settoon,
Bennett, & Liden, 1996, p. 219).

This leads us to the next hypothesis:

Hypothesis 2: Transformational leadership has an indirect, positive effect on OCB
through its influence on goal clarity.

There is no empirical evidence for the relationship between goal clarity and PSM
so far. But goal theory points to the importance of goal setting and goal commitment
for the enhancement of work motivation and can be regarded as an effective motiva-
tional technique for public sector organizations (Perry & Porter, 1982; Wright, 2001,
2004). According to Rainey’s (1993) theory of goal ambiguity in public organizations,
goal clarification through leadership helps to reduce goal ambiguity and has an indi-
rect positive effect on employee motivation. Thus, clearer goals “… increase the
degree to which employees will incorporate the organization’s goals into their sense of
identity and find meaning and self affirmation from the organization’s work”
(Moynihan, Pandey, & Wright, 2009, p. 9). According to various definitions of PSM
(Brewer & Selden, 1998; Perry & Wise, 1990; Rainey & Steinbauer, 1999;
Vandenabeele, 2007), the term “service” in combination with “public” emphasizes an
ethical component of service to the community based on public values. Therefore,
goal clarification in direction of public values and organizational goals should
strengthen this component in the identity and self-concept of public employees.

Ritz et al. 135

This leads to the third hypothesis:

Hypothesis 3: Goal clarity has a direct, positive effect on PSM.

Data and Method

Data Collection and Sample Characteristics

The data for this study were collected in a national survey of civil servants at the Swiss
municipal level. Switzerland has 2,636 municipalities per January 1, 2009. A total of
1,736 municipalities in the German- and French-speaking areas were contacted by
mail inviting them to take part in a national survey on the motivation of Swiss public
servants. This means that, apart from the municipalities in the Italian-speaking part of
Switzerland, virtually all Swiss municipalities were addressed. To raise participation,
the municipal authorities were promised a standardized benchmark report containing
the survey’s key results. Of the municipalities contacted, 279 participated in the sur-
vey. This is only 16% of all municipalities contacted. The low response rate can be
explained by the demanding request of our project. In a first step, the representative of
each municipality had to respond if the municipality wants to participate and he also
had to deliver first information about the employee situation within the municipality.
In a second step, each representative had to deliver the questionnaires to the employ-
ees. Due to the dependency on the municipal representatives, the employees might
have been empowered to participate unequally (or not empowered at all). In addition
to that, Swiss municipalities are frequently surveyed, for example, by two other
research projects within the same period. Thus, the rather low response rate of 16% is
comprehensible. Depending on their preferences, the survey was administered online
or paper-based. The municipalities were responsible for the distribution of the ques-
tionnaire to the civil servants and for reporting back to the authors on how many peo-
ple the questionnaire was given. This information was important to determine the
response rate accurately.

The survey was given to 9,852 civil servants. A total of 3,754 questionnaires were
returned, yielding a response rate of 38.1%. Due to the fact that respondents report
perceived transformational leadership, only high level managers were selected for this
study, which reduced the original sample to a sample of 569 respondents. On one
hand, this allows excluding low level employees whose supervisors do not have
enough room for maneuver to show transformational leadership behavior. On the other
hand, the superiors of high level managers in Swiss municipalities are either chief
municipal managers or political appointees leading municipal departments. These are
the managerial roles where transformational leadership can be expected to take place
and where the origin of the concept actually comes from (Burns, 1978).

The representativeness of the sample for Swiss municipalities cannot be deter-
mined definitely because population characteristics for administrative employees of
Swiss municipalities do not exist. However, the participating municipalities show a
big variety regarding population characteristics. On one hand, the biggest city included
in the sample has a total of approximately 70,000 inhabitants and 1,670 public

136 Review of Public Personnel Administration 34(2)

employees. The smallest municipalities have around 50 to 100 inhabitants and employ
only one public employee who is the municipal manager responsible for the municipal
administration and serving the executive council. On the other hand, the 279 munici-
palities employ 53% men and 47% women. Fifteen percent of all employees have a
middle or top management function. In our sample, there are 79% male and 21%
female, which shows the overrepresentation of men in supervisory functions when
compared with the full sample that has a total of 46% women and 54% men (see Table
1). The full sample also represents the supervisory function in the population very well
with a share of 15% of all employees having a middle or top management function.

The average age was 47 years. The vast majority of participants hold a college or
university degree including higher professional school diploma (74.6%), whereas
40.1% of these held a higher professional diploma. This shows the more professional
rather than university oriented educational background in municipal administrations.
As to the separation of the German-speaking and the French-speaking parts of

Table 1. Sample Characteristics (N = 569).

Variables %a

Gender
Male 78.8
Female 21.2
Age (years)
20-29 1.4
30-39 17.4
40-49 33.5
50-59 35.1
60-69 12.5
Language
German 83.0
French 17.0
Highest level of education achieved
Elementary school 0.2
Apprenticeship 17.6
High school 3.7
Higher professional/college/university degree 74.6
Salary grade
US$50,000 or less 1.2
US$50,001-75,000 3.0
US$75,001-100,000 17.7
US$100,001-125,000 35.8
US$125,001-150,000 29.7
US$150,000 or more 12.6

aRest up to 100% falls in category “others.”

Ritz et al. 137

Switzerland, an adequate measure is the respondent’s survey language. About 83.0%
of the respondents used the German questionnaire and 17%, the French version. The
data from 2000 about the relative distribution of languages among all inhabitants of
Switzerland are as follows: 64% were German-speaking and 20% French-speaking
inhabitants (Lüdi & Werlen, 2005). The comparison of the geographical location of the
municipalities in the sample showed that 79% of the respondents worked in a Swiss
German municipality and 21% in the French region whereas 72% of the Swiss popula-
tion lives in the German region and 24% in the French region (Lüdi & Werlen, 2005).
Concerning the language of municipal employees, no accurate data are available, but
the comparison shows an accurate representation of respondents according to the lan-
guage of the population of the country.

Measures

The following measures consist of items with response options on a 5-point Likert-
type scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. A complete list of
the items used in each measure is provided in Appendix A.

Transformational leadership. We used three items adapted from the transformational
leadership scale (Bass & Avolio, 1990) relating to the “core” transformational leader-
ship activities of developing a vision and getting employees to put the interest of the
organization above their self-interest, which has been identified in earlier research
(House, 1977). The scale reliability coefficient (Cronbach’s α) for the reduced three-
item scale of transformational leadership is .87 and above the suggested threshold of
.70 (Kline, 2000). All standardized lambda estimates range above 0.61.

PSM. The various conceptualizations of PSM have resulted in different operational
definitions. In this study, Perry’s (1996) multidimensional measure is taken as a base-
line. He developed a list of 24 items measuring four distinct subscales of PSM (Attrac-
tion to Policy Making, Commitment to the Public Interest, Compassion, and
Self-Sacrifice). For the purpose of this study, we reduced the set of items to a 14-item
scale that includes items for all four PSM dimensions. The 14 items were chosen based
on previous research on the psychometric testing of the PSM scale (Coursey & Pan-
dey, 2007a; Coursey, Perry, Brudney, & Littlepage, 2008; Kim, 2008; Vandenabeele,
2007) and face validity in the specific context. After model respecification, we used 6
items for the second-order construct with its dimensions of commitment to the public
interest, compassion, and self-sacrifice. The attraction to public policy dimension was
omitted due to low factor loading below 0.4. This is in line with Perry et al. (2008),
who point this out—“Also, in the few PSM confirmatory studies to date, this dimen-
sion [i.e. APM] has not fared as well as others” (p. 450)—and other authors who call
this dimension insufficient, ambiguous, and value-laden (Coursey & Pandey, 2007b;
Kim, 2008). For the dimension of the latent variable PSM, we conducted a confirma-
tory factor analysis, of which the results confirmed a three first-order and one second-
order factor structure, with 2 items for each first-order factor. The fit indices fell within
an acceptable range (χ2 = 19.30, df = 6, root mean square error of approximation

138 Review of Public Personnel Administration 34(2)

[RMSEA] = 0.06; comparative fit index [CFI] = 0.99; Tucker–Lewis index [TLI] =
0.96; for commitment to the public interest, compassion, and self-sacrifice, αs = .69,
.51, and .54, respectively). All standardized first-order and second-order lambda esti-
mates range above 0.62.

Organizational citizenship behavior. For this latent variable, we used measures for OCB
according to Williams and Anderson (1991) and Smith et al. (1983). The latent con-
struct is defined by five variables of OCB directed toward individuals and toward the
organization. The scale reliability coefficient (Cronbach’s α) for this latent variable is
.74 and all standardized lambda estimates range above 0.41.

Goal clarity. Based on the work by Rainey (1993) and Wright (2004), a three-item
measure for goal clarity of the organization was developed. The scale reliability coef-
ficient (Cronbach’s α) for the latent variable goal clarity was .74 and standardized
lambda estimates range above 0.61.

To perform meaningful analysis of the causal model, the measures used need to
display certain empirical properties. First, convergent validity, which is the degree to
which individual questionnaire items measure the same underlying construct, was
tested by significance of the standardized coefficient of the individual item (greater
than twice its standard error; Anderson & Gerbing, 1988). Appendix B shows that all
coefficients exceed twice their standard error and are highly significant. Second, dis-
criminant validity of the factors ensures adequacy of the measurement model indicat-
ing that groups of variables measure different latent constructs. The test of interfactor
correlations (see Table 2), which are not approaching 1.0, indicates discriminant valid-
ity. Furthermore, discriminant validity was measured by a confidence interval test for
each factor, which revealed that all of the confidence intervals (correlation estimates ±
two standard errors) were in between 0.066 and 0.497 and did not contain 1.0
(Anderson & Gerbing, 1988).

Data Analysis

The statistical method applied in this study was SEM using Mplus Version 6 (Muthén
& Muthén, 1998-2010). Given the Likert-type ordinal items, the estimation is based

Table 2. Descriptive Statistics, Reliabilities, and Correlations.a

Mb SDb 1 2 3 4

1. Transformational leadership 3.45 1.05 .87
2. Goal clarity 3.94 0.81 0.28** .74
3. Public service motivation 3.66 0.60 0.20** 0.20** .65
4. Organizational citizenship behavior 4.18 0.56 0.15** 0.28** 0.39** .70

aSample size = 539.
bMean and standard deviation are calculated as additive indexes.
**p < .01.

Ritz et al. 139

on a weighted least square parameter (WLSMV) using a tetrachoric correlation matrix
and a weight matrix together, which is particularly appropriate because it is distribu-
tion free. WLSMV is a diagonally weighted least squares (DWLS) estimation method
(Hox, Maas, & Brinkhuis, 2010) as applied for ordinal scales in other studies (Coursey
& Pandey, 2007b; Vandenabeele, 2008).

The handling of missing data can affect results of the analysis in a serious way. On
one hand, missing data can reduce sample size. On the other hand, results based on
data with a non-random missing data process could be biased. Only one variable had
up to 1.2% missing values and only 2% of all 569 cases had missing values above the
10% threshold (Hair, Black, Babin, & Anderson, 2009). Therefore, we did not need to
worry much about risking a high reduction of the sample size and listwise deletion of
missing values was applied.

Model fit is assessed by inferential chi-square and several descriptive goodness-of-
fit indices. Because the chi-square statistic is known to be inflated for samples with
n > 200 (Kelloway, 1998), chi-square is referred here as descriptive information rather
than as a strong inferential test on which a model is accepted or rejected. In addition to
chi-square, RMSEA, CFI, and TLI are consulted as fit indices. In SEM, a strict confir-
matory approach has often to be given up, because the initially set up and tested model
is usually rejected due to low fit.1 Therefore, models are often modified and tested
again using the same data. Except for the above mentioned modification of the 14-item
scale of PSM, no further model respecification was necessary.

Results

The bivariate correlations between OCB and the three latent variables transforma-
tional leadership, goal clarity, and PSM as listed in Table 2 (rs = .15, .28, .39; p < .01) provided preliminary evidence to support Hypotheses 4 and 5, which state that the latter two variables have positive relationships with OCB. The comparatively low cor- relation between transformational leadership and OCB gives preliminary evidence for the non-hypothesized relationship between the two variables. Supporting Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3, transformational leadership has positive relationships with PSM and goal clarity (rs = .20, .28; p < .01) as does goal clarity with PSM (r = .20; p < .01).

The structural equation model tests the hypothesized relationships by estimating
the overall fit of the model as well as the estimates of all individual parameters. The
overall model fit of the hypothetical model was tested according to the generally
accepted thresholds for a good model fit (Brown & Cudeck, 1993; Hu & Bentler,
1999: χ2/df < 2.5; RMSEA < 0.06; CFI > 0.95; TLI > 0.95). The results for the hypo-
thetical model showed good fit to the data (χ2 = 250.82; df = 110, RMSEA = 0.05; CFI
= 0.98; TLI = 0.97). Figure 1 shows the structural model with its parameter estimates.
We found the hypothesized relationships among transformational leadership, PSM,
and goal clarity, as well as among PSM, goal clarity, and OCB. The coefficient of the
path from transformational leadership to PSM was significant (β = .20, p < .01), as were the coefficients of the paths from transformational leadership to goal clarity (β = .33, p < .001), from goal clarity to PSM (β = .29, p < .001), from PSM to OCB (β =

140 Review of Public Personnel Administration 34(2)

.55, p < .001), and from goal clarity to OCB (β = .25, p < .001). All in all, OCB is explained by 45% of the variance. Transformational leadership and goal clarity explain 16% of PSM, and 11% of the variance of goal clarity is explained by the leadership dimension.

In summary, these results support all five hypotheses. Statistically significant and
positive coefficients for the direct paths from PSM and goal clarity to OCB, from
transformational leadership to PSM and goal clarity as well as from goal clarity to
PSM were found. In contrary to the preliminary results from bivariate correlations, the
structural equation model reveals a full mediation effect of transformational leadership
on OCB by the two intermediate latent variables. There is no direct effect of transfor-
mational leadership on OCB. The relationship between transformational leadership
and OCB is mediated by PSM and goal clarity. Indirect effects on OCB can be observed
from transformational leadership through PSM (0.11), through goal clarity (0.08), and
through goal clarity and PSM (0.05). Thus, the total indirect effect via PSM and goal
clarity is 0.24.

Discussion

This study was a response to the call to investigate leadership within public organiza-
tions using concrete data in public sector settings (Van Wart, 2003). In the light of
management reforms in public organizations during the last decades, the interest in

Goal
Clarity

Public Service
Motivation

Transformational
Leadership

Organizational
Citizenship
Behavior

.20**

.29**

.33**

.55**

.25**

.89E

.84E

.55
E

–.02

Figure 1. Results of structural equation modeling.
**p < .01.

Ritz et al. 141

leadership behavior, which is directed more toward an entrepreneurial role of supervi-
sors, has risen. We analyzed the relationship of transformational leadership and extra-
role behavior in public administrations using a sample of 569 public managers at the
municipal level in Switzerland. Therefore, a structural equation model that compre-
hends the exogenous latent variable transformational leadership and the endogenous
latent variables PSM, goal clarity, and OCB was developed.

An examination of our study results shows that the stated hypotheses are confirmed.
The direct, positive impacts of transformational leadership on PSM and goal clarity, as
well as those from goal clarity on PSM and OCB and from PSM on OCB, go along
with the assumed theoretical links based on literature research. The strongest links
exist among PSM and OCB. This supports the results reported by Pandey et al. (2008)
and Kim (2005). The higher the employee’s attitudes toward public service, the more
they are willing to maintain and enhance a psychological work context that supports
task performance.

Although this study did not measure task performance, the results lead to further
investigation of the PSM-performance link. Perry and Wise (1990) argue that highly
PSM motivated employees would embrace work characterized by attributes such as
high task significance and this would lead to higher individual performance (Perry,
Hondeghem, & Wise, 2010). Our study contributes to the increasing amount of
research regarding PSM and its impact on performance bearing in mind the highly
important differentiation between individual and organizational performance. As
stated by Perry et al. (2010), research clarifying the link between PSM and collective
performance is needed. Therefore, this study contributes to a better understanding of
how PSM affects the citizenship behavior of employees and can thus influence the
values and culture of a team or a work group. If this is the case, future research should
investigate whether there are differences at the organizational level in regard to an
organization’s level of PSM. And thus the question arises whether a higher level of
PSM within a workforce leads to higher task performance of individuals as proposed
by the work on contextual performance or whether it could even be that a more PSM
heterogeneous workforce might have positive effects on outcome variables such as
organizational performance as discussed by Petrovsky and Ritz (2010).

The second contribution of our research is related to the significance of public val-
ues and the constraints of organizational characteristics for transformational leader-
ship in public organizations. If “… the current trend that government leaders and
managers manage by contract and network—a significant departure from leading
large, centralized, hierarchically arranged institutions in which the leader guides fol-
lowers who are employees of their organization” (Van Slyke & Alexander, 2006, p.
364) is taken into account. The range of relationships increases and symbolic and
value oriented forms of leadership behavior might become more effective when com-
pared with hierarchical leadership behavior. This study contributes important insights
into the causal relationships when it comes to the leadership-employee behavior link
within public organizations. Public values underlying transformational leadership
behavior and extra-role behavior could strengthen the relationship of both variables.
Referring to Organ and Ryan (1995), morale can be seen as one of the best predictors

142 Review of Public Personnel Administration 34(2)

of extra-role contributions. In our study, Organ and Ryan’s so-called “m” factor can be
explained by PSM, but more empirical evidence needs to be brought forward concern-
ing a leader’s influence on extra-role behavior within public sector settings with spe-
cific legal and structural constraints.

In relation to this issue, the rather low direct impact of transformational leadership
on OCB raises questions regarding transformational leadership within a public sector
setting. A reason for that could be the specific public context encompassing public
employees that does not give enough room for transformational leaders to influence
followers’ extra-role behavior (Ruscio, 2004). Powerful forces beyond the control of
individual leaders, and contextual constraints as well as political and administrative
processes, may have an important influence on transformational leadership behavior,
which leads to further research (Rainey, 2009; L. D. Terry, 1995). A recently published
study by Wright and Pandey (2010) shows mixed results concerning the impact of
structural constraints such as red tape on transformational leadership and raises the
important issue that leadership behavior might not be affected by constraints set by
external authorities as much as expected.

This leads us to the third contribution of this study: the enlargement of our under-
standing of the role of leadership when it comes to the development of culture in
public organizations. Perry (2000) and Moynihan and Pandey (2007) show that insti-
tutions can foster PSM. The latter, for example, state the impact of red tape and the
organization’s reform orientation toward PSM. Our study does not measure the impact
of diverse organizational variables on PSM and OCB; only the leadership dimension
is investigated. However, leadership behavior is one important factor, negative or posi-
tive, when discussing the influence of organizations and organizational culture on
employee behavior (Rainey, 2009). Leadership in public sector organizations, which
develops a vision and gets employees to accept it, is therefore closely related to public
service values and the development of an organizational culture infused by such val-
ues. “[S]ome of these values are also obviously relevant to public sector employees
because organizational values alone will not do. The staff also has to think and act
inspired by values” (Beck Jørgensen & Bozeman, 2007, p. 367). Our results show that
transformational leadership behavior strengthens both the motivation of public
employees toward institutional values such as public service values and the perception
of goal clarity of the organization, which itself fosters PSM. Employees who report
their leaders to be more inspirational, stimulating, and challenging for the overall job
goals and whose leaders clarify organizational goals feel more bound to the public
institution and to its values. And this, finally, results in higher levels of citizenship
behavior of employees.

From a broader perspective, this result has to be seen in relationship with the impor-
tance of cultural bases in public organizations when it comes to bureaucrats’ behavior.
The value base of transformational leadership and its positive influence on employee
motivation and behavior challenges the rational choice theory of bureaucracy and clas-
sical principal agent theorists who “… have missed his [Chester Barnard’s] crucial
points about the efficacy of social and moral rewards in building and sustaining what
are now generally referred to as ‘strong culture organizations’” (DiIulio & DiIulio,

Ritz et al. 143

1994, p. 283). Leaders can create and sustain a culture of beliefs and values that sup-
port cooperation in the name of the institution among employees because they identify
with the institution and sacrifice some aspects of themselves for it (Levitt & March,
1989). This study supports ways of characterizing organizations in which employee
behavior is based more on social and moral rewards and values than on a narrow per-
spective of self-interest.

Limitations and Conclusions

Before concluding our study, its limitations have to be mentioned. The results of this
single study with a mono-method approach, using perceived subjective data and not
the full original measurement scales, should be viewed with caution. Concerns about
possible common method bias in our results are justified, although the extent of com-
mon method bias in survey research is not clear (Bagozzi & Yi, 1990; Doty & Glick,
1998; Glick, Jenkins, & Gupta, 1986; Spector, 1987, 1994). A further developed
research design with different measurement sources that distinguishes the evaluation
of supervisor’s and of employee’s behavior would be more appropriate. Because of the
width of our study design, with more than 1,700 municipalities having to be convinced
to participate, we were not able to use more than one questionnaire. However, with our
sample of 279 organizations, we could reduce bias resulting from common measure-
ment context. Furthermore, we used empirically tested and validated scales to prevent
item ambiguity and the respondents’ anonymity was protected by giving evidence that
the data collection was fully accomplished by an external organization (Podsakoff,
MacKenzie, Jeong-Yeon, & Podsakoff, 2003). In addition, due to missing information
in the questionnaire, it was not possible to identify the role of the leaders’ supervisors
exactly. It would be of interest to know more about the impact of political and admin-
istrative leadership behavior on citizenship behavior. However, under these circum-
stances, the use of the concept “transformational leadership” is appropriate because it
characterizes one type of leadership behavior that is used within research looking at
political and administrative leaders. Furthermore, it can be argued that employee
behavior predicts employee attitudes such as PSM or employee attitudes predict the
perception of leadership behavior and not vice versa. Therefore, we tested several
models to analyze whether our reported model holds our theoretical assumptions.
However, due to the aforementioned mono-method approach, it is not possible to
exclude interaction between these variables absolutely. Therefore, we judge our results
as preliminary results for future research in the field of public sector leadership.

Our research calls for more specific leadership research, especially empirical
research, regarding the particular role of the public context when assessing concepts of
generic and established leadership research. There are different views and a-priori
expectations among scholars. One promising future research path is the in-depth
investigation of the overall extent of transformational leadership in administrative set-
tings, including comparisons with private sector organizations. A second path could
further analyze what kind of specific values, for example, in regard to the work of
Beck Jørgensen and Bozeman (2007), can be transformed by transformational leader-
ship behavior in public organizations with their contextual constraints. A third

144 Review of Public Personnel Administration 34(2)

important research task is the inquiry into the relationship between leadership behav-
ior and extra-role behavior using different samples for subordinates and followers.

Finally, how do these results advance our understanding of leadership in the current
debates on public management and governance research? To improve government per-
formance, it may be necessary to make changes in governance within a comprehensive
framework designed to change core values and commitments (Lynn, Heinrich, & Hill,
2000). One reason for this, as our study shows, is that extra-role behavior supporting
task performance increases primarily when public service values and organizational
goals get fostered as an outcome of leadership behavior. Or like Paarlberg et al. (2008)
put it very concretely as a tactic for administrative practice, “[e]ncourage and reward
the development of leaders who communicate and model public service values” (p.
282). That does not mean that structural constraints or new managerial attempts such as
strategic planning will get in the way of effective leadership (Wright & Pandey, 2010).
But it claims more for transformational leaders who take advantage of these manage-
ment concepts and integrate them within the context of public organizations to clarify
vision, strategies, and goals for followers (Rainey & Watson, 1996) and strengthen a
culture of beliefs and values that support cooperation in the name of the institution.

Appendix A
Questionnaire Items:
Transformational Leadership:

•• My supervisor speaks enthusiastically about what has to be achieved.
•• My supervisor communicates a vision that motivates me.
•• My supervisor proposes new ways how tasks can be approached.

Public Service Motivation:

•• It is important to me to unselfishly contribute to my community (Commitment
to the public interest).

•• I consider public service my civic duty (Commitment to the public interest).
•• Most social programs are too vital to do without (Compassion).
•• I am often reminded by daily events about how dependent we are on one another

(Compassion).
•• I am one of those people who would risk personal loss to help someone else

(Self-Sacrifice).

•• It is important that people give back to society more than they get from it

(Self-Sacrifice).

Goal Clarity:

•• It is easy to explain the goals of this organization to outsiders.
•• The mission of this organization is clear to everybody who works here.
•• This organization has objectives that are clearly defined.

Ritz et al. 145

Organizational Citizenship Behavior:

•• I adapt my time schedule to help other co-workers.
•• I try hard to help others so they can become integrated in my organization.
•• I read and keep up actively with developments of my organization.
•• I attend functions that are not required but help the company image.
•• I make innovative suggestions how to improve the functioning of my organization.

Appendix B

Factor Models

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

Lambda (SE) z value
Standardized

loadings R2
Composite
reliability

Transformational leadership .87
V1 1 (—) — 0.83 .69
V2 2.29 (.54) 4.26*** 0.96 .92
V3 0.83 (.07) 12.79*** 0.78 .61
Goal clarity .74
V1 1 (—) — 0.61 .37
V2 2.21 (.40) 5.48*** 0.86 .74
V3 1.46 (.19) 7.54*** 0.75 .56
Organizational citizenship behavior .70
V1 1 (—) — 0.41 .17
V2 1.85 (.28) 6.68*** 0.64 .41
V3 3.04 (.47) 6.42*** 0.81 .65
V4 2.14 (.30) 7.11*** 0.69 .48
V5 3.36 (.52) 6.47*** 0.83 .70
Public service motivation .65
Commitment to the public interest .44 .69
V1 1 (—) — 0.86 .74
V2 0.62 (.20) 3.15** 0.72 .52
Compassion .42 .51
V1 1 (—) — 0.62 .39
V2 1.07 (.24) 4.39*** 0.65 .42
Self-sacrifice .58 .54
V1 1 (—) — 0.65 .43
V2 .92 (.20) 4.65*** 0.62 .39

**p < .01. ***p < .001. V = Variable.

146 Review of Public Personnel Administration 34(2)

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article: The article is based on research financed by the Swiss National
Science Foundation (Project No. 100012-116083).

Note

1. First, we checked whether our analysis needed to meet the following requirements: a non-
significant chi-square test for the whole model (for a perfect model), significant and high
factor loadings, no modification indices (for a perfect model), a good explanation of vari-
ance, and fit indices within threshold levels. In this sense, analyzing fit indices is only one
part of the overall evaluation of the model.

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Author Biographies

Adrian Ritz is a professor at the Center of Competence for Public Management, University of
Bern, Switzerland. His research focuses on leadership, motivation and performance of public
employees, human resources management, and performance management.

David Giauque is a professor at the University of Lausanne, member of the Institute of Political
and International Studies. His research mainly concerns sociology of organizations and public
administrations, public management, motivation and values, reforms, and their consequences in
the public sector.

Frédéric Varone is a professor of political science at the University of Geneva, Switzerland.
His research focuses on comparative policy analysis, program evaluation, and public sector
reforms.

Simon Anderfuhren-Biget obtained a PhD in political science and is currently a lecturer at the
University of Geneva, Switzerland. His research interests include human resource management,
organizational behavior, and value-laden work motivation in the non-profit sector, public
administrations, and international organizations.

LEADERSHIP BEHAVIORS AND TRUST IN LEADERS:

EVIDENCE FROM THE U.S. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

HUGO ASENCIO
California State University, Dominguez Hills

EDIN MUJKIC
University of Colorado Colorado Springs

ABSTRACT

This study contributes to our knowledge about the effectiveness of
different leadership behaviors in building interpersonal trust within
public organizations. It employs survey data on U.S. federal employees
to investigate the relationship between employee perceptions of
transactional and transformational leadership behaviors and employee
perceptions of trust in leaders. Findings from OLS multivariate
regression analysis indicate that both transactional and transformational
leadership behaviors are positively related to employee trust in leaders.
On average, transformational leadership behaviors were found to build
higher levels of interpersonal trust. Thus, given the fundamental
differences between private and public organizations, this study
suggests that public sector leaders need to emphasize transformational
leadership behaviors to build higher levels of interpersonal trust within
their organizations. Since doing so is crucial for motivating employees
and thus for increasing organizational performance, in their leadership
development programs, public agencies—particularly those managed
by transactional leaders—need to invest more in improving the
transformational leadership competencies of their executives,
managers, and supervisors.

Keywords: transactional leadership; transformational leadership;
trust; federal employees; United States

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INTRODUCTION

Interpersonal trust is fundamental for ensuring
effectiveness within organizations (Cook & Wall, 1980).
Although some scholars dispute the extent to which employee
trust in leaders affects employee performance (see, Bachmann &
Akbar, 2006, for discussion), it can be said that trust in leaders is
an essential factor that motivates employees to spend more time
on required tasks and to perform beyond standards (Knovsky &
Pugh, 1994; Von Krogh, Ichizo, & Nonaka, 2000). This is
important because when employees believe they cannot trust in
their leaders, they will spend more time “covering their backs”
which in turn can affect their performance (Mayer & Gavin,
2005). In fact, the existing empirical evidence suggests there is a
positive link between employee trust in leaders and employee
motivation and performance (Dirks & Ferrin, 2002; Konovsky &
Pugh, 1994; Gillespie & Mann, 2004).

Leaders can be said to play a key role in developing and
sustaining trust within organizations (Shaw, 1997). Scholars
have already found a positive relationship between different
leadership behaviors and employee trust in leaders in private
organizations (Gillespie & Mann, 2004; Bradberry & Tatum,
2002; Greenberg, 2003; Jung & Avolio, 2000; Kirkpatrick &
Locke, 1996; Podsakoff, McKenzie, Moorman, & Fetter, 1990;
Pillai, Schriesheim, & Williams, 1999). Although leadership is
considered to be an important factor in public organizations
(Fernandez, 2005; Moynihan & Ingraham, 2004; Van Wart,
2005), in recent years—with the exception of Park’s (2012)
work—very few empirical studies on the relationship between
leadership and trust have been reported in the public
administration literature (Park, 2012).

In an effort to address this gap in the literature, this study
utilizes data from the 2010 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey
conducted by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to
answer the following research question: what is the relationship
between employee perceptions of transactional and
transformational leadership behaviors and employee perceptions
of trust in leaders within public organizations? Answering this
question is important for a few reasons.

158 PAQ SPRING 2016

First, to the authors’ knowledge, as mentioned above,
this is one of the few recent empirical studies to investigate the
relationship between leadership and trust within government
agencies. Since researchers have already found a positive
relationship between different leadership behaviors and trust in
private sector settings, it is important to validate these findings
within public organizations.

Second, there is a need for empirical evidence,
especially from large-scale studies, on the effectiveness of
different leadership behaviors in building interpersonal trust
within public agencies. This is particularly important since the
fundamental differences between private and public
organizations (see, Perry & Rainey, 1988; Rainey & Bozeman,
2000, for reviews) require that public sector leaders emphasize
certain leadership behaviors over others (Hansen & Villadsen,
2010) within their organizations. After all, there is already
evidence to suggest that public leaders need to focus more on
certain leadership competencies to drive results within their
organizations (Hansen & Villadsen, 2010; Thach & Thompson,
2007).

Third, federal employees’ trust in their supervisors
(OPM, 2012) and in higher-level leaders has declined in recent
years (MSPB, 2009). This is a reason for concern since
interpersonal trust is a key factor that affects performance within
organizations (Dirks, 1999). Thus, to the extent that leaders play
a significant role in developing and sustaining trust, it is
important to understand what leadership behaviors are more
effective in doing so within federal agencies.

The following section reviews the relevant literature on
the relationship between transactional and transformational
leadership and employee trust in leaders. Next, a description of
the data and method is provided. The results of the statistical
analyses are then presented. The paper concludes by discussing
the implications of the findings, acknowledging the limitations
of the study, and making suggestions for future research.

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LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES

Trust in Leaders

Trust in leaders is a multidimensional construct
(Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt, & Camerer, 1998). It has been widely
defined as “a psychological state comprising the intention to
accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the
intentions or behavior of another” (Rousseau et al., 1998, 395).
Trust has to do with the level of confidence one has in others to
behave in a fair and predictable manner (Luhmann, 1982).

In this study, Cook and Wall’s (1980) definition of trust
is adopted. Thus, trust in leaders is said to be: (1) faith in the
intentions and (2) confidence in the actions of leaders. Cook and
Wall argue that both of these dimensions of trust yield
ascriptions of capability and reliability.

Transactional Leadership and Trust

Transactional leadership is a process of exchange
between leaders and subordinates. Leaders recognize
subordinate’s needs and then provide financial incentives and
organizational recognition to motivate employees (Bass, 1990,
1998) and obtain from them desired behaviors (Daft, 2002), such
as improved performance (Bass & Avolio, 1990). In this way,
both employees’ needs and leaders’ expectations are met (Bass,
1985). Transactional leaders focus on task completion and rely
on rewards and punishments to secure employee compliance
(Tracey & Hinkin, 1998).

The two dimensions of transactional leadership are
contingent reward and management by exception (Bass, 1985;
Bass & Avolio, 1990). Leaders engage in contingent reward
when they reward subordinates for acceptable behavior, such as
improved performance (Bass & Avolio, 1990), and penalize
them for unacceptable behavior (Bass, 1998). Leaders who
engage in management by exception only take corrective action
when there is a problem or when standards are not met (Bass,
1985). Further, depending on their level of involvement, leaders
engage in active or passive management by exception (Hater &
Bass, 1988). Active management by exception involves actively
monitoring followers’ performance to anticipate deviations from

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standards and taking corrective action (Hater & Bass, 1988).
Passive management by exception involves taking corrective
action only when problems arise (Avolio, Bass, & Jung, 1999).

It can be argued that when leaders engage in
transactional leadership behaviors, employees will develop trust
in them—i.e., they will develop faith in their leaders’ intentions
and confidence in their actions. In other words, when leaders
consistently reward employees for their performance—i.e.,
contingent reward—and take corrective actions when problems
arise—i.e., management by exception—both high and low
performing employees will feel confident that their leaders will
continue to consistently reward improved performance and
punish underperformance. The empirical evidence supports these
claims as several researchers find that leaders who exhibit
transactional leadership behaviors when managing organizations
are likely to be more trusted among followers (Greenberg, 2003;
Pillai et al., 1999; Bradberry & Tatum, 2002).

Hypothesis 1: Employee perceptions of transactional
leadership behaviors are positively related to employee
perceptions of trust in leaders within public
organizations.

Transformational Leadership and Trust

Transformational leadership “occurs when leaders
broaden and elevate the interests of their employees, when they
generate awareness and acceptance of the purposes and mission
of the group and when they stir their employees to look beyond
their own self-interest for the good of the group” (Bass, 1990, p.
21). Transformational leaders promote organizational
commitment by aligning followers’ values, beliefs, and motives
with those of the group, the leader, and the organization’s vision
and goals (Bass, 1985; Bass, 1998; Bass & Avolio, 1990; Howell
& Avolio, 1993; Barling, Weber, & Kelloway, 1996;
Yammarino & Bass, 1990). Transformational leaders build
commitment among followers to achieve organizational goals by
making them aware of the importance of task outcomes,
orienting them toward performing beyond standards, activating
higher-order intrinsic needs, and focusing on their empowerment

PAQ SPRING 2016 161

rather than in their dependence (Bass, 1985; Judge & Piccolo,
2004). The four dimensions of transformational leadership are:
idealized influence (charisma), inspirational motivation (vision),
intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration
(Avolio, Waldman, & Yammarino, 1991; Judge & Piccolo,
2004).

It can be said that when leaders display transformational
leadership behaviors, employees will develop trust in them. A
few reasons can be given to explain this relationship. When
leaders role model ethical behavior—i.e., idealized influence—,
they show they can be trusted by employees (Gillespie & Mann,
2004). When they communicate attainable goals—i.e.,
inspirational motivation—, leaders motivate employees to attain
such goals, which in turn can facilitate the development of trust
(Bennis & Nanus, 1985). Leaders who encourage employees to
view issues from new perspectives—i.e., intellectual
stimulation—, coach their employees, and by doing so, they
show that they are committed to their development which in turn
builds trust (Gillespie & Mann, 2004). When leaders show
concern for their employees’ needs and welfare—i.e.,
individualized consideration—, they show they care about their
employees, and thus, that they can be trusted (Bass, 1985; Jung
& Avolio, 2000). The existing empirical evidence validates these
claims as several researchers find that leaders who engage in
transformational leadership behaviors are likely to build greater
trust among subordinates (Bradberry & Tatum, 2002; Greenberg,
2003; Gillespie & Mann, 2004; Jung & Avolio, 2000;
Kirkpatrick & Locke, 1996; Podsakoff et al., 1990; Pillai et al.,
1999).

Hypothesis 2: Employee perceptions of transformational
leadership behaviors are positively related to employee
perceptions of trust in leaders within public
organizations.

Transactional vs. Transformational Leadership and Trust
While the literature reviewed thus far suggests that leaders who
engage in both transactional and transformational leadership
behaviors build interpersonal trust in the workplace, the

162 PAQ SPRING 2016

magnitude of the effects needs to be evaluated (Dirks & Ferrin,
2002). This, since some scholars argue that compared to
transformational leadership, transactional leadership does not
require a high level of trust between leaders and employees
(Bass, 1985; Jung & Avolio, 2000). In addition, some
researchers argue that transactional leadership behaviors do not
build the level of trust needed to unleash a workforce’s full
potential (Jung & Avolio, 2000). To do so, transformational
leadership behaviors are needed (Gillespie & Mann, 2004).

Further, given the fundamental differences between
private and public organizations (see, Perry & Rainey, 1988;
Rainey & Bozeman, 2000, for reviews), it can be said that
leaders’ transformational leadership behaviors are more
important (and potentially more effective) in building
interpersonal trust in the public sector. While scholars agree that
certain leadership competencies are appropriate across the
private and public sectors (Thach & Thompson, 2007), being
inspirational, which is a competency displayed by
transformational leaders, has been found to be more important
for public sector leaders (Thach & Thompson, 2007).
Conversely, engaging in employee performance management—a
behavior displayed by transactional leaders—has been found to
be less important for public managers (Thach & Thompson,
2007).

Hypothesis 3: Compared to employee perceptions of
transactional leadership behaviors, employee perceptions
of transformational leadership behaviors have a higher
positive impact on employee perceptions of trust in
leaders within public organizations.

DATA AND METHOD

Data

To answer the research question and test the hypotheses
in this study, analyses of recent survey data on U.S. federal
employees were conducted. The data come from the 2010
Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (hereafter: FedView
Survey) conducted by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management

PAQ SPRING 2016 163

(hereafter: OPM). These data are available to the public through
OPM’s website.

The FedView Survey measures employee perceptions
“of whether, and to what extent, conditions that characterize
successful organizations are present in their agencies” (OPM,
2010, p. 23). It contains questions on topics, such as:
organizational performance, leadership, employee satisfaction,
compensation and benefits, and family-friendly flexibilities,
among others. Demographic questions were also asked of survey
participants, including the agency that they worked for, their
supervisory status, ethnicity, gender, and age. The survey
included 89 individual questions, many of which were used to
measure the variables in this study.

OPM distributed the survey electronically to a
probability sample of full-time, permanent employees in federal
agencies between February and March of 2010. OPM invited all
small and independent agencies to participate and 53 of them
chose to do so (OPM, 2010). Per their request, the survey was
also administered to 13 Departments/large agencies (OPM,
2010). The participating agencies comprise approximately 97
percent of the federal workforce (OPM, 2010).

OPM used the lists of employees in participating
agencies as the sampling frame. In some cases, agencies
requested the survey to be administered as a census. “Employees
were grouped into 1066 sample subgroups corresponding to
agency, subagency, and supervisory status reporting
requirements” (OPM, 2010, p. 23). In total, 504,609 employees
in 82 agencies within the executive branch of the U.S. federal
government were sent the survey (OPM, 2010). 263,475
employees returned the survey, resulting in a 52% response rate
(OPM, 2010).

Participation in the FedView Survey was completely
voluntary. Participants were informed that their answers would
be confidential and only reported to their agencies as aggregate
data (OPM, 2010). They were given an identification and
password to log in to the survey website. Accommodations were
also made for those who preferred a paper version of the survey,
as well as for employees with disabilities.

164 PAQ SPRING 2016

OPM weighted the data collected from survey
respondents. “The weights … take into account the variable
probabilities of selection across the sample domains,
nonresponse, and known demographic characteristics of the
survey population” (OPM, 2010, p. 24). In the end, “the final
data set reflects the agency composition and demographic
makeup of the Federal workforce within plus or minus 1
percentage point” (OPM, 2010, p. 24).

Of these 263,475 respondents, 27,338 (10.4%) were
managers/executives, 43,872 (16.7%) were supervisors, 179,462
(68.1%) were non-supervisors/team leaders, and the rest did not
respond. Also, 118,378 respondents (44.9%) were females and
131,629 (50%) were males; 81,188 (30.8%) belonged to a
minority group and 163,684 (62.1%) did not; and 126,210
(47.9%) were 50 years or older, 109,811 (41.7%) were 30 to 49
years, and 12,057 (4.6%) were under 29 years.

Measures

Dependent variable. To measure employee trust in leaders the
following item was used: “I have trust and confidence in my
supervisor”. Although Cook and Wall (1980) measure two
dimensions of trust in leadership: (1) faith in the intentions and
(2) confidence in the actions (of leaders), the FedView Survey
only contains one item similar to the six they used to measure
their construct. Responses to the item were coded from 1 =
strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree.

Independent Variables. This study measured the following
transactional leadership behaviors: (1) contingent reward and (2)
active management by exception. It also measured the following
transformational leadership behaviors: (1) idealized influence
(charisma), (2) inspirational motivation (vision), (3) intellectual
stimulation, and (4) individualized consideration. To measure
these leadership behaviors, a similar procedure employed by
Trottier, Van Wart, and Wang (2008) was followed. The
leadership literature also provided the basis for item selection.
Appendix 1 provides the list of items used to measure these
leadership behaviors.

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Although some studies (e.g., Avolio et al., 1999; Trottier
et al., 2008) include individualized consideration as one of the
elements of transactional leadership, in this study, Bass’ (1985)
original conceptualization of transformational leadership was
employed. Thus, individualized consideration is considered to be
an element of transformational leadership.

Originally, additive indices were developed to measure
the above transactional and transformational leadership
behaviors. All the survey items used to measure these leadership
behaviors were entered into a factor analysis. The varimax
rotation method was employed, and the analysis extracted three
factors (see Appendix 1).

Specifically, these were the factors extracted. (1)
Idealized influence, inspirational motivation, and intellectual
stimulation loaded on the same factor—labeled transformational
leadership—, explaining 22.88% of the variance (eigenvalue =
4.35; Cronbach’s alpha = .91). (2) Contingent reward and active
management by exception loaded on the same factor—labeled
transactional leadership—, explaining 24.84% of the variance
(eigenvalue = 4.72; Cronbach’s alpha = .92). These results are
consistent with previous findings in the literature suggesting that:
contingent reward and management by exception (Tepper &
Percy, 1994) and idealized influence, inspirational motivation,
and intellectual stimulation (Avolio et al., 1999; Wright &
Pandey, 2010) may be best characterized as single factors. (3)
The items used to measure individualized consideration did load
on the hypothesized leadership construct, explaining 24.06% of
the variance (eigenvalue = 4.57; Cronbach’s alpha = .92).

In light of the aforementioned results, the factor loadings
were converted into factor scores and used as independent
variables in the regression analysis.

Control variables. The following control variables for
characteristics of employees were measured in this study:
supervisory status, gender, ethnicity, work location, and job
tenure. Details about the operationalization of these variables are
included in Appendix 2 and the correlation matrix is provided in
Table 1.

166 PAQ SPRING 2016

Previous research suggests that these characteristics have
an effect on employees’ trust in leaders. For instance, Cho
(2008) suggests that supervisors are likely to express more
positive views about their organizations than individual
employees. Thus, it can be said that supervisors will hold more
positive perceptions about their leaders’ trustworthiness than
non-supervisors. Also, given Eagly’s (1987) work suggesting
that women have a stronger tendency than men to avoid risk in
interpersonal relations, it is plausible to assume that women are
less likely to have trust in their leaders than men (Cho, 2008).
Given historical patterns of discrimination, Jackson and Alvarez
(1992) argue that minority employees are less likely to have trust
in their leaders than non-minority employees. Further,
employees who work in the field can be said to have less trust in
their leaders, given the difficulties—e.g., lack of resources—they
experience when implementing public policies (Cho, 2008).
Last, the amount of time an employee has spent at an
organization can be said to affect the judgments he makes about
his leaders’ trustworthiness; this, since the longer his length of
service, the more an employee knows about an organization’s
values, principles, and procedures (Carnevale & Wechsler, 1992)
and the more stable his relationship is with his leaders (Cho,
2008).

PAQ SPRING 2016 167

Table 1
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations

Note: All the correlations were significant at the P < 0.01 level (2-tailed), except for the one marked with ª = P > 0.05. Missing
values were omitted listwise. N = 190,765.

Model Specification

In order to test the hypotheses in this study, an ordinary
least squares (OLS) regression model predicting employee trust
in leaders was specified.

Employee trust in leaders = f (leadership behaviors,
control variables)

Independent variables: transactional leadership,
transformational leadership, individualized consideration.

Control variables: supervisory status, gender, ethnicity,
work location, job tenure.

RESULTS

A review of the means and standard deviations revealed

some interesting patterns. On average, federal government
employees perceive their managers to be “trustworthy” (Mean =
3.80, SD = 1.20, 1-5 range). From among 263,475 total valid
observations, 175,250 employees (66.5%) agreed to strongly
agreed with the item used to measure employee trust in leaders;
39,981 (15.2%) disagreed to strongly disagreed; and 15.8%
neither agreed nor disagreed.

Variables Min. Mx. Mean SD TL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
TL Employee Trust in Leaders 1 5 3.8 1.2

1 Transformational Leadership -5.31 4.07 0 1 .30 1
2 Individualized Consideration -4.88 3.09 0 1 .75 .00 1
3 Transactional Leadership -4.05 4.84 0 1 .27 .00 .00 1
4 Supervisory Status 0 1 .67 .46 -.08 -.05 -.04 -.22 1
5 Gender 0 1 .45 .49 -.05 .02 -.02 -.06 .13 1
6 Minority Status 0 1 .31 .46 -.06 .01 -.07 .02 .08 .14 1
7 Work Location 0 1 .40 .48 .02 .02 .01 .03 .03 .06 .05 1

8 Job Tenure 1 4 2.59 1.2 -.02 -.05 -.01 .05 -.19 00
a

-.06 -.11 1

168 PAQ SPRING 2016

The OLS multivariate regression results are presented in
Table 2. The results indicate that, together with the controls, the
three leadership variables had a significant impact on employee
trust in leaders, explaining 73% of the variance. The results
indicate that all three leadership variables are positively and
statistically related to employee trust in leaders at the P < 0.01 level.

Specifically, the results are as follows. When leaders
display transformational leadership—i.e., when they role model
ethical behavior (idealized influence); communicate attainable
goals (inspirational motivation); and encourage employees to
view issues from new perspectives (intellectual stimulation)—,
employees are likely to report higher levels of trust in their
leaders (β = .30). Also, when leaders engage in individualized
consideration—i.e., when they show concern for their
employees’ needs and welfare—, employees are likely to have
more trust in their leaders (β = .74). Further, when leaders
engage in transactional leadership—i.e., when they consistently
reward employees for their performance (contingent reward) and
take corrective actions when problems arise (management by
exception)—employees are likely to have more trust in their
leaders (β = .28). These results lend support to Hypotheses 1 and
2.

Regarding the magnitude of the effects of transactional
and transformational leadership behaviors on employee trust in
leaders, the findings suggest that, compared to transactional
leadership—i.e., contingent reward and management by
exception (β = .28), transformational leadership— i.e., idealized
influence, inspirational motivation, and intellectual stimulation
(β = .30); and individualized consideration (β = .74)—are likely
to build higher levels of employee trust in leaders. These results
lend support to Hypotheses 3.

The results of the control variables show interesting
patterns. Non-supervisors are likely to have more trust in their
leaders than supervisors. Females are likely to have less trust in
their leaders. Minority status is marginally negatively related to
employee trust. Job tenure is likely to have a negative effect on
employee trust in leaders.

PAQ SPRING 2016 169

Table 2
OLS Regression Results for Employee Trust in leaders

Note: All the coefficients were significant at the P < .001 level, except for work location. Missing values were omitted listwise.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

This is one of the few recent large-scale studies reported

in the public administration literature on the relationship between
leadership and trust. It makes an empirical contribution by
offering evidence on the relationship between employee
perceptions of transactional and transformational leadership
behaviors and employee perceptions of trust in leaders within
public organizations. Specifically, the research findings suggest
that both transactional and transformational leadership behaviors
are likely to build employee trust in leaders. These results are
consistent with previous findings in the leadership literature
suggesting that both transactional (Greenberg, 2003; Pillai et al.,
1999; Bradberry & Tatum, 2002) and transformational
leadership behaviors (Bradberry & Tatum, 2002; Greenberg,
2003; Gillespie & Mann, 2004; Jung & Avolio, 2000;
Kirkpatrick & Locke, 1996; Podsakoff et al., 1990; Pillai et al.,
1999) build trust among followers.

Independent Variables B β

Transformational Leadership .35 .30
Individualized Consideration .89 .74
Transactional Leadership .33 .28

Control Variables
Supervisory Status .05 .02
Gender -.05 -.02
Minority Status -.04 -.02
Work Location .00 .00
Job Tenure -.02 -.02

Adjusted R² = .73
F = 2352.682 (P = .000)
N = 190,765

170 PAQ SPRING 2016

Also, this study offers empirical evidence on the
effectiveness of different leadership behaviors in building
interpersonal trust within public agencies. The findings in this
study suggest that, on average, transformational leadership
behaviors are likely to build higher levels of interpersonal trust,
which confirms that leaders who are more effective are more
transformational than transactional (Avolio & Bass, 1991).
Further, these results suggest that in the context of the federal
government “care and concern perceived in the relationship”
(Dirks & Ferrin, 2002, p. 614) between leaders and employees—
which is the emphasis of transformational leaders—appear to be
more important than being “seen as fair, dependable” (Dirks &
Ferrin, 2002, p. 614) when rewarding and correcting employees.

These results also confirm that given the fundamental
differences between private and public organizations (see, Perry
& Rainey, 1988; Rainey & Bozeman, 2000, for reviews), public
sector leaders need to emphasize certain leadership behaviors
over others (Hansen & Villadsen, 2010; Thach & Thompson,
2007) within their organizations. This may be because compared
to private organizations, the social purpose of public
organizations is more important (Thach & Thompson, 2007), and
thus, leaders need to “stir their employees to look beyond their
own self-interest for the good of the [public]” (Bass, 1990, p.
21). In addition, being inspirational may be more important for
public managers since they experience more difficulties when
motivating employees (Cho & Lee, 2011); this is because
compared to their counterparts in the private sector, they are
more constrained in the use of extrinsic rewards (Rainey &
Bozeman, 2000).

The findings in this study have several implication for
executive leaders, managers, and supervisors in the public sector.
Leaders need to be aware of the important role that different
leadership behaviors play in building interpersonal trust within
their organizations. Also, they need to recognize that they cannot
solely rely on transactional leadership to motivate employees and
thus to build employees’ trust in them.

Further, since federal employees’ trust in their
supervisors (OPM, 2012) and in higher-level leaders has
declined in recent years (MSPB, 2009), leaders in the federal

PAQ SPRING 2016 171

sector need to be particularly aware of the key role that different
leadership behaviors play within their organizations to build
interpersonal trust. After all, employee trust in leaders is crucial,
as the more they trust in their leaders, the more motivated they
are, the more time they spend on required tasks, and the more
they perform beyond standards (Knovsky & Pugh, 1994; Von
Krogh et al., 2000).

It is important, therefore, that in their leadership
development programs, federal agencies—particularly those
managed by transactional leaders—invest more in improving the
transformational leadership competencies of their executives,
managers, and supervisors. In this way, interpersonal trust will
developed within federal agencies and thus employees will be
more motivated and productive when serving the public. After
all, transactional leadership behaviors do not build the level of
trust needed to unleash a workforce’s full potential (Jung &
Avolio, 2000). To do so, transformational leadership behaviors
are needed (Gillespie & Mann, 2004).

LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

A main limitation of this study is the presence of

common-source bias. This is because the variables in this study
are drawn from the same survey. Thus, it is possible for
common-source bias to inflate (but not invalidate) the
relationships found (Crampton & Wagner, 1994). While some
researchers find that the impacts of common-source bias are
minimal (Doty & Glick, 1998), the reader should still be cautious
when interpreting the results in this study.

Also, given the limitations in the FedView Survey data,
multiple dimensions of trust in leaders were not explored in this
study. The measure developed for this construct only included
one survey item. Thus, future studies should use a measure of
trust that taps into multiple dimensions of the construct.

Last, given the cross-sectional nature of this study,
claims about causality cannot be made. Other researchers should
extend this research topic by studying longitudinal trends and
linking employee trust in leaders to employee motivation and
organizational performance. Other studies should also

172 PAQ SPRING 2016

investigate how employee trust in leaders mediates the
relationship between leadership and organizational outcomes
within public agencies.

AUTHORS’ NOTE

We wish to thank Donald Klingner and the anonymous
reviewers for their helpful comments on previous drafts. Any
remaining errors of fact or interpretation remain our
responsibility. Please address correspondence to Hugo Asencio,
California State University, Dominguez Hills, Department of
Public Administration, 1000 E. Victoria St., Carson, CA, 90747,
email: hasencio@csudh.edu.

PAQ SPRING 2016 173

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Variable Measure Factor
Transactional Leadership Eigenvalue = 4.72. Proportion of variance = 24.84% . α = .91.
Contingent Reward 1. Promotions in my work unit are based on merit. .70

2. In my work unit, differences in performance are recognized in a
meaningful way. .80
3. Awards in my work unit depend on how well employees perform their
jobs. .77
4. Pay raises depend on how well employees perform their jobs. .71
5. Employees are recognized for providing high quality products and
services. .60
6. How satisfied are you with the recognition you receive for doing a
good job? .50

Management by Exception
1. In my work unit, differences in performance are recognized in a
meaningful way. .75
2. I am held accountable for achieving results. .56

Transformational Leadership Eigenvalue = 4.35. Proportion of variance = 22.88% . α = .92.

Idealized Influence
1. My organization’s leaders maintain high standards of honesty and
integrity. .77
2. I have a high level of respect for my organization’s senior leaders. .81

Inspirational Motivation
1. In my organization, leaders generate high levels of motivation and
commitment in the workforce. .78
2. Managers communicate the goals and priorities of the organization. .71
3. Employees have a feeling of personal empowerment with respect to
work processes. .59

Intellectual Stimulation
1. I feel encouraged to come up with new and better ways of doing
things. .50
2. Creativity and innovation are rewarded. .51

Individualized Consideration Eigenvalue = 4.57. Proportion of variance = 24.06% . α = .92.
1. My supervisor/team leader provides me with constructive
suggestions to improve my job performance. .78
2. My supervisor supports my need to balance work and other life
issues. .80
3. My supervisor/team leader provides me with opportunities to
demonstrate my leadership skills.
4. Supervisors/team leaders in my work unit support employee
development. .76
5. My supervisor/team leader listens to what I have to say. .82

Appendix 1: Measurement of Independent Variables

Note: All the items were measured from 1 strongly disagree to 5
strongly agree, except for items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8 in
employee Job satisfaction and item 6 in contingent reward,
which were measured from 1 very dissatisfied to 5 very satisfied.
Item 6 in employee job satisfaction was measured from 1 very
poor to 5 very good.

PAQ SPRING 2016 179

Appendix 2: Measurement of Control Variables

Variable Measure
Supervisory Status 1 = non-supervisor, 0 = supervisor
Gender 1 = female, 0 = male
Minority Status 1 = minority, 0 non-minority
Plan to Leave Agency 1 = yes, 0 = no
Work Location 1 = headquarters, 0 = field
Age 1 = 29 and under, 2 = 30-39, 3 = 40-49, 4 = 50 and older
Job Tenure 1 = 0-5 years, 2 = 6-10 years, 3 = 11-19, 4 = 20 or more

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without
permission.

10.1177/0275074005280605ARTICLEThe American Review of Public AdministrationKapucu / Interagency Communication Networks

Interagency Communication
Networks During Emergencies
Boundary Spanners in
Multiagency Coordination

Naim Kapucu
University of Central Florida

This article examines the problem of effective interagency communication among organizations
and the role of information technologies to achieve effective communication and decision-mak-
ing goals in emergencies. It explores what factors contribute to effective interorganizational
communication and decision making and what factors inhibit their development. The theoretical
framework draws on the literature of emergency communication and social capital, with a partic-
ular focus on communication and decision making under conditions of uncertainty. The stud

y

applies this framework to study the relationships that emerged among public, private, and non-
profit organizations following the World Trade Center disaster on September 11, 2001, in New
York City. The article indicates the importance of developing a strong communication system
with other organizations before a disaster occurs to establish appropriate communication in
which effective interagency coordination will take place at the time of a disaster.

Keywords: interorganizational communication; emergency communication; social capital;
boundary spanners; network organizations; crisis and emergency management

It has long been recognized that disasters represent occasions in which the boundariesbetween organizational and collective behavior are blurred. An important lesson from the
World Trade Center (WTC) disaster is that although the response activities undertaken by
official emergency agencies were crucial, those activities constituted only part of the picture.
Equally significant was the manner in which those agencies interacted with and obtained
support from nonemergency organizations. This study examines these issues in the context of
interorganizational communication and decision making in emergencies. Specifically, this

207

American Review of
Public Administration

Volume 36 Number 2
June 2006 207-225

© 2006 Sage Publications
10.1177/0275074005280605

http://arp.sagepub.com
hosted at

http://online.sagepub.com

Author’s Note: An earlier version of this article was presented at the American Society for Public Administra-
tion’s (ASPA) 65th annual conference, Portland, Oregon, held March 27 to 30, 2004. I am particularly grateful for
valuable comments from Dr. Montgomery Van Wart. I wish to thank Dr. Louise K. Comfort for her helpful com-
ments on earlier versions. I also thank Michael Carrigan and Kilkon Ko in helping me conduct the content analysis
of The New York Times reports and of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) situation reports for
this study. Furthermore, I thank public managers from FEMA and from the Department of Health and Human Ser-
vices and managers of the nonprofit organizations in New York City who gave their time and thoughtful observa-
tions to this research. I am also thankful for the award committee, chaired by Dr. William L. Waugh Jr., of the Sec-
tion on Crisis and Emergency Management of the ASPA for its selection of the article for Best Paper at ASPA’s
annual conference.

Initial Submission: July 19, 2004
Accepted: July 11, 2005

research examines the interactions among public, private, and nonprofit organizations that
evolved in response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the WTC in New York
City. The research uses a theoretical framework primarily drawn from the emergency com-
munication and coordination literature (Brown & Miller, 2000; Comfort, 1999; Dynes &
Quarantelli, 1977; Kettl, 2004; Knuth, 1999; Quarantelli, 1997) and from social capital
theory (Agranoff & McGuire, 1998; Axelrod & Cohen, 1999; Coleman, 1990; Nohria &
Eccles, 1992; Scott, 2000; Wasserman & Faust, 1994

).

This research also explores the
potential contribution of information technologies to interorganizational communica-
tion and possible improvements in information sharing to facilitate collective action in
emergencies. The intent of the study is to use September 11 response operations as a case
study to understand interorganizational communication and decision making in a dynamic
environment.

To act effectively in disaster situations requires sharing and using information effectively:
collecting, collating, analyzing, and then deploying it promptly and in a useful form.
Although considerable resources go into all these tasks today, serious pitfalls still remain.
Massive collection can be of little value until the data are shared in a usable way. Likewise,
widely shared raw data will be of little use until collated and combined meaningfully. One
important element of this study is that communication and decision making are viewed in an
environment that is uncertain. In this context of uncertainty, organizations must still commu-
nicate efficiently to make critical decisions in their allocation of scarce resources.

Valid and timely information sharing is also critical in emergency response operations.
Hierarchical networks can work efficiently during routine operations, but they function very
poorly in dynamic environments of emergencies. In the aftermath of any extreme event
or disaster, the required rate of problem solving and information sharing dramatically
increases. The key to surviving a disaster in the short term is for the network to retain its con-
nectivity while not incurring any failure. Hierarchies generally perform badly in emergen-
cies, because if any of a hierarchy’s top nodes fail, they isolate large networks from each
other. Flexible and redundant modes of connectivity can distribute the information conges-
tion associated with problem solving across the system and minimize the possibility of fail-
ure, which is very fundamental for resiliency of the community under uncertain emergency
conditions.

On September 11, 2001, two planes were hijacked by terrorists and were crashed into the
Twin Towers of the WTC complex in New York City. The incident resulted in numerous
fatalities (2,824 people) and injuries. At the WTC, the physical devastation was catastrophic.
The attacks caused not only the collapse of the 110-story towers, with an estimated 20,000
people in the buildings at the time of the attacks, but also the complete or partial loss of five
smaller buildings in the immediate area and heavy damage to other buildings in the area. In
addition, the electrical power generation and distribution system for lower Manhattan was
destroyed; the water distribution system, dependent on electricity for pumping water, was
disabled; gas pipelines were heavily damaged; and the telephone and telecommunications
services were seriously disrupted (Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA],
2001). The technical infrastructure that enabled people to live and work in this densely popu-
lated, interdependent urban environment was decimated. One of the interview respondents
who was heavily involved in the response and recovery since September 12 stated that “the
event was so catastrophic and also different and more terrifying than anything our local orga-
nizations had faced before” (New York City Partnership and Chamber of Commerce official,

208 The American Review of Public Administration

personal communication, November 21, 2002). Immediately after the attack, an intensive
coordinated effort was begun by federal, state, and city government, along with volunteer pri-
vate nonprofit agencies, in the search, rescue, recovery, and identification of the victims.

There have been several research efforts on the September 11 terrorist attacks and
response operations. Cohen, Eimicke, and Horan (2002), for example, provided a good
rough analysis of the emergency response operations in response to the terrorist attacks. They
found the following: emergency response planning is essential; emergency response institu-
tions, procedures, and resources must be retained, even when threats seem distant; communi-
cations systems must be made more redundant; emergency response procedures must assume
communication breakdowns and allow for decentralized decision making; and there is no
substitute for leadership during a crisis. This article analyzes the WTC response operations
with a special focus on interorganizational communication. The research addresses the follow-
ing questions: To what extent did social networks that were developed before the disaster
increase communication between public and nonprofit organizations during the response
operations? How did social networks, at the level of individual managers within and across
organizations, affect interorganizational communication and performance? What types of
communication channels were used to form the networks in response to the September 11
terrorist attacks? What were the roles of information technology in facilitating the coordina-
tion among multisector organizations?

In the field of public administration, there have been significant theoretical discussions on
policy networks, collaborative decision making, and network management (Agranoff and
McGuire 2003; Berry et al., 2004; Kickert, Klijn, & Koopanjan, 1997; Mandell 2001). How-
ever, networks in public administration have been studied with traditional research methods
and techniques. As Berry et al. (2004) suggested, we can utilize the well-developed social
network analysis in studying the networks in public administration (Rethmeyer, 2005). This
article uses social network analysis with UCINET (Borgatti, Everett, & Freeman, 2002), a
well-known social network analysis software program, to study the interorganizational net-
works in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City.

Theoretical Background and Conceptual Framework

Central issues for organizations in emergencies are communication and coordination
(Haddow & Bullock, 2003). Communication is a process through which an organization
sends a message across a channel to another part of the organization (intraorganizational
communication) or to another organization in the network (interorganizational communica-
tion). Coordination can be understood as the degree to which there are adequate networks
among the organizational parts for intraorganizational communication or among the organi-
zations for interorganizational communication to accomplish goals (Dynes & Quarantelli,
1977). In routine times, established and standardized procedures are followed. However, in
emergencies, internal and/or external factors create enough stress so that it is possible to
think of responding agencies as being in a state of crisis.

The effective flow of information across organizational boundaries is critical for an orga-
nization’s ability to remain effective in a dynamic disaster environment. If responders are not
in contact with each other and if information does not flow properly, it is hard to envision suc-
cessful crisis and disaster management. Communication of the current status of the commu-
nity and of the actions of participating organizations allow them to make informed decisions

Kapucu / Interagency Communication Networks 209

about how to proceed in concert with others in the networks to achieve the overall goals of
protecting the community and of restoring its functionality (Comfort, 1999). Inadequate
communication patterns, such as disjointed information flows, prohibit interorganizational
communication and coordination. The massive disruption caused by disasters and extreme
events often restructures preexisting coalitions and networks. Moreover, the role that such
organizations play in responding to disasters is shaped, in part, by their access to varying
amounts and types of social capital. Organizations vary considerably in organizational form,
mission, and constituency in ways that affect the types of social capital available to them,
which in turn can be expected to influence their capacity in emergency response operations.

Communities that have strong working relationships on a daily basis generally function
better in emergency situations because of increased trust. Building trust among public, pri-
vate, and nonprofit organizations can best be done prior to emergency situations. Sharing
information, willingness to collaborate, and shared values are important factors for network
formation. Operationally, because structured communication channels may not work in
emergencies, boundary spanners can play a significant role in effective communications in
emergency and crisis management.

Boundary spanners are organizational members who link their organization with the
external environment (Burt, 1992; Williams, 2002). Boundary spanning primarily concerns
the sharing and exchange of information. Thus, the fundamental task of boundary spanners is
to make decisions concerning information gathered. From a network analysis perspective,
knowing how an organization is embedded in the structure of a network is also important to
understand its behavior in its network. For example, some organizations may act as bridges
between groups (boundary spanners). Other organizations may have all of their relationships
within a single clique (locals). Some actors may be part of a tightly connected group, whereas
others are completely isolated from this group.

Systems theory suggests that an organization is an open system interacting with its envi-
ronment. Organizational theory posits that the interaction between organizations and their
environments is crucial in shaping organizations and defining their boundaries. Contingency
theory (Scott, 2001; Thompson, 1967) asserts that different environments place differing
requirements on organizations. Specifically, environments characterized by uncertainty and
rapid change present different constraints and opportunities on organizations than do stag-
nant and stable environments. An extreme event or a disaster challenges the capabilities of
routine communication systems whose natural constraints may be acceptable in “normal”
times. “However, when multiple actors in dispersed locations must have immediate access to
each other, as during a crisis, they must overcome these traditional communication con-
straints” (Rice, 1990, p. 99). Success of a communication system in emergencies is deter-
mined by its effectiveness in gathering and using available sources, knowledge, and technol-
ogy. Dynamic networks are underpinned by reciprocity and mutual trust, which allow
members to share information, risks, and opportunities with greater ease (Carley, 1999;
Comfort, 1999; Hardin, 1982). These links are vital, because they not only connect organiza-
tions to one another but also give organizations access to the larger world outside their circle
through a chain of affiliations (Granovetter, 1973).

Organizational communication and decision making in emergencies have some distin-
guishing characteristics and require special attention. Emergencies create a high level of
uncertainty and a need for timely and accurate information sharing. The rate of decision mak-
ing increases, particularly at the lower levels of organizations (Dynes & Qurantelli, 1977;

210 The American Review of Public Administration

Waugh, 2000). Fewer consultations occur among organizational members. Such individual
autonomy leads to quick commitment of organizational personnel and resources.

Crisis situations produce conditions of greater uncertainty, greater diversity, decreased
formalizations, and decreased centralization. Increased complexity of organizations and the
non-routine nature of crisis tasks move all organizations toward coordination by feedback. . . .
Such movement runs counter to usual normative perceptions which orient most emergency plan-
ning to emphasize coordination by plan. A more effective direction might be to plan to facilitate
coordination by feedback in organization in crisis. (Dynes & Qurantelli, 1977, p. 25

)

During crises, when communications are inadequate, personnel and resources are ineffi-
ciently used and activities are duplicated (Adams, 1969). Interorganizational interactions do
not occur only among the top officials of the organizations. Managers, directors, or staff in the
lower levels of the organizations contribute to interorganizational communications, as well.
Figure 1 demonstrates the interorganizational interactions among different levels of repre-
sentatives of the organizations. This study assumes that extreme events will lead to greater
density of communication and to less centralized networks. As a result of this process, a well-
coordinated interorganizational network will serve the betterment of individuals, organiza-
tions, and society in emergencies.

Creating an effective communication network for emergencies is another challenge,
because it may conflict with the organizational structure developed during routine times.
When the information is simple, a bureaucratic system functions better. Most of the time,

Kapucu / Interagency Communication Networks 211

Figure 1
Multilevel Interorganizational Interaction in Emergencies

Note: I acknowledge the assistance of Susan Finger and Halil Erhan, from Carnegie Mellon University, in design-
ing the graph.

information in emergencies is complex. Complex information makes bureaucratic communi-
cation dysfunctional (Brown & Miller, 2000). People who share similar tasks and have simi-
lar knowledge typically get together and develop formalized networks in nonemergency
times. However, these routine structures and boundaries may hinder information sharing in
crisis situations (Rice, 1990). Social networks developed before disasters would not only tie
together responding organizations but also be less constrained by cross-sectoral bound-
aries during emergency response operations. “From the boundary spanning perspective,
crises have the potential to disrupt an organization by limiting its access to essential
resources” (Seeger, Sellow, & Ulmer, 2003, p. 69). Therefore, organizations should develop
and maintain effective partnerships with other sector organizations prior to emergencies (See
Figure 2).

Use of information and communication technologies in emergency responses is a persis-
tent challenge that requires constant attention (Knuth, 1999; Quarantelli, 1997). The rapid
advancement of information and communication technologies that has occurred during the
last decade has changed the way emergency communications are performed. As an outcome
of such experiences, an increasing number of Web-based databases and satellite systems are
being built for emergency communications. Implementation of the new technologies in
emergency management will improve the speed and the quality of communication and coor-
dination in the response operations (Comfort, 1999; Comfort & Kapucu, in press; Quaratelli,
1997). New information technologies are currently producing substantial changes in com-
munication-related structures and functions. These changes in communication structures
affect primarily problems posed to public organizations by hierarchy and centralization
(Fountain, 2001). Flattening hierarchies has been a major consequence of information tech-
nology. James Q. Wilson (1989) recommends placing the authority in public services at the
lowest level at which essential information for sound decisions is available. A robust infor-
mation network distributes the produced information and spreads the burden of information
redistribution as evenly as possible, thus maximizing the amount of information that can be
processed without suffering collapses (Graber, 2003).

212 The American Review of Public Administration

Disasters

Extreme
events

Increased
density of

communication

Less centralized
networks

Shared
information

Shared
resources

Increased
communication

Effective
decision-
making

Better service
to public

Boundary
spanners

Information
Technology

Increased
uncertainty

Figure 2
Interorganizational Communication and Coordination in Emergencies

Much of what was observed on September 11 and in the days and weeks that followed in
New York City’s massive destruction and social disruption was a complex network response.
Assisted by emergency workers, occupants of the WTC and people in the surrounding area
helped one another to safety, even at great risk to themselves. Prior experience with the 1993
WTC bombing had led to significant learning among organizational tenants and occupants of
the Twin Towers, and planning and training contributed to their ability to respond in an adap-
tive fashion to highly ambiguous and threatening conditions (New York and New Jersey Port
Authority personnel, personal communication, November 28, 2003).

Method

This study utilizes data from the content analysis of news reports in The New York Times
(NYT) between September 12 and October 18, 2001; situation reports from FEMA between
September 13 and October 4, 2001,1; situation reports from the Department of Health and
Human Services (HHS) between September 13 and October 4, 2001; and interviews con-
ducted in late 2002 and early 2003 with selected public and nonprofit managers and staff
involved in response to September 11. In addition to the primary data sources, observational
data and document analysis were also used. First, the content analyses of NYT news reports
and of FEMA situation reports were conducted to identify the organizations responding to
the attacks. Content analyses were carefully documented and recorded. Second, 43
semistructured interviews with public and nonprofit managers, directors, and staff of the par-
ticipant organizations were conducted. Through content analyses, the major organizations
that participated in the response operations and in the interactions between organizations in
response operations were identified (Everett & Borgatti, 1999; Scott, 2000). This analysis
illustrated the patterns of communication among organizations.

Data collected from the interviews were analyzed using the UCINET (Version 6.0;
(Borgatti, Everett, & Freeman, 2002) social network analysis program. UCINET is a com-
prehensive program for the analysis of social networks. The program contains several net-
work analytic routines (e.g., centrality measures, dyadic cohesion measures, positional anal-
ysis algorithms, clique measures, etc.) and general statistical and multivariate analysis tools,
such as multidimensional scaling, correspondence analysis, factor analysis, cluster analysis,
and multiple regression.

Findings

A total of 1,607 organizations were identified in the content analysis of the FEMA situa-
tion reports, news stories reported in the NYT for 21 days following the attacks, HHS reports,
the New York State Office of Attorney General’s Charitable Organizations Report, and the
interviews. Subtracting the 77 public and private international organizations from this num-
ber leaves 1,530 domestic organizations that engaged in the response system. Notable in
these findings is the large number of nonprofit organizations (1,176) and private domestic
organizations (149) that were involved in response operations. Significant also is the number
of federal organizations (73) that were involved in the response operations (Kapucu, 2003).

Kapucu / Interagency Communication Networks 213

Interorganizational communication in emergencies. Interoperability is an important term
for interorganizational communication in disaster response operations. It is critical for first
responders to have a way to communicate with each other during an emergency. It means
having an appropriate structure and technology that allow agencies to communicate using a
common language and system. Extreme events require flexible patterns of communication
and coordination, but rigid bureaucracies hinder that development in emergency response
operations. In response to September 11, the New York Police Department (NYPD) and the
Fire Department, City of New York (FDNY), failed to communicate with each other (Kettl,
2004). The fire department still used old analog radios that had failed during the first WTC
bombing in 1993. Also, the radio system was not compatible with the police radio system.

One interview question was asked to determine whether the organizations were currently
cooperating or have cooperated with other organizations (public and nonprofit) in the past.
The majority of the respondent organizations (71%) indicated that they have worked with
other organizations in the past to a great extent. The most important reason for cooperation at
present and in the past was common mission (51%). Service and program duplication was the
second most important reason for partnerships (23%). The majority of the organizations
(76%) answered that the information exchange among organizations was frequent (more
than once per day) during the September 11 response and recovery operations. Seventy-four
percent of the respondents stated that cooperating with other organizations helps their orga-
nization to serve the community in emergencies to a great extent. They also see partnering
with other organizations as an essential way of providing services to the community in emer-
gencies (61%).

A majority of the respondents acknowledge (34% to great extent and 33% to some extent)
differences among public, private, and nonprofit organizations in terms of their consideration
of partnerships. Twenty-eight percent of the respondents do not consider differences among
organizations when considering partnerships. Nonprofit organizations were recognized as
being more concerned with maintaining effective partnership practices in emergencies
(53%), followed by public organizations (33%). Private organizations were rated low in
terms of maintaining effective partnerships (14%).

Questions were asked about the perception of relationships, information flow, organiza-
tional flexibility, and technical structure in the organizations. The respondents believed that
effective relationships existed between staff and leaders in their organizations during
response operations (67% to a great extent and 28% to some extent). They also believed that
effective information flow existed between staff and leaders (30% to a great extent and 63%
to some extent). Most of the respondents believed (70% to a great extent and 30% to some
extent) that they had the information they needed to do a good job.

The following channels and vehicles of communications were used in communicating
with other organizations: e-mail (23%), in-person contact (22%), phone (22%), face-to-face
group meetings (21%), teleconferencing, of which use increased significantly after the attack
(9%) (New York State Emergency Management Office [NYSEMO] official, personal com-
munication, October 13, 2002), and other ways, including Web postings, listservs, and
workshops (3%). The means recommended by the respondents for increasing the capacity
of the communication systems to meet the demands of networks in emergencies are the
following: establishment of interorganizational communication (31%), utilization of
information technologies (IT; 30%), a computerized network (24.5%), and some others,
including attitudes and willingness to communicate (10%). Laws and regulations were

214 The American Review of Public Administration

occasionally mentioned as restricting interorganizational communication instead of in-
creasing it (5%). According to the respondents, the organizations currently use IT to improve
interorganizational communication in supporting the goals of coordinating response opera-
tions. A majority of the respondents agreed that IT use improved interorganizational commu-
nication and coordination. Only 5% of respondents said that IT neither improves nor worsens
communication.

The attack significantly increased organizational interactions, according to 70%, or 30 out
of 43, respondents. The attack also impacted the missions, policies, and structures of the
neighboring organizations in several ways. The most significant changes observed were in
policies (25%), mission (21%), and organizational structure (16%). The other changes (9%)
caused by the attacks included capability, sharing know-how among organizations, and use
of IT, especially geographic information systems (GIS). Organizations learned from each
other by communication in response operations (56% to a great extent and 39% to some
extent).

Willingness to share (22%), proper training (22%), trust (20%), education (16%), human
relations (12%), and willingness to create public value, experience, common interest, and
communication skills (7%) are considered important skills, values, and attitudes that manag-
ers and staff must have to be successful in building communication networks in emergencies.
The following factors hindered organizations from communications with other organiza-
tions: lack of prior communication (49%), lack of common priorities (13%), lack of trust
(13%), lack of flexibility (11%), lack of technical structure (9%), and lack of leadership
(6%).

Patterns of interorganizational communications. The size of the network is critical to the
structure of interorganizational communications because of the limited resources and capaci-
ties that each organization has. As a network of organizations gets bigger, the proportion of
all the ties that could be present (density) will fall and the more likely it is that differentiated
and partitioned groups will emerge. The number of logically possible relationships then
grows exponentially as the number of actors increases linearly. It follows from this that the
range of logically possible social structures (complexity) increases exponentially with size.
If the size of the network increases, the complexity of the relationships also increases.

FEMA has lead responsibility for disaster management, focusing first on lifesaving opera-
tions and second on assistance to the victims along with recovery and reconstruction of the
community. Under the Federal Response Plan (FRP; FEMA, 1999), eight federal agencies, in
addition to FEMA, play lead roles in disaster operations, with 25 federal agencies assigned
responsibilities under 12 specified emergency support functions. The lead agencies include
the Departments of Transportation, Defense, Agriculture (USDA), HHS, and Housing and
Urban Development, the National Communications System, the Environmental Protection
Agency, and the General Accounting Office. Two departments have dual emergency support
functions. The USDA has the primary support function for firefighting, carried out by its sub-
unit, the U.S. Forest Service, as well as for food. FEMA is responsible for information man-
agement as well as for urban search and rescue operations. The American Red Cross (ARC)
is designated as the lead agency for mass care (see the appendix). The FRP was revised in
2003 and designated the Department of Homeland Security as the major responsible agency
for emergency and crisis management. In November 2004, the FRP was replaced by the
National Response Plan.

Kapucu / Interagency Communication Networks 215

The New York City Office of Emergency Management (NYCOEM) activates its Emer-
gency Operation Center (EOC) during large-scale emergencies, as it did in response to Sep-
tember 11. When the EOC is activated, senior officials from city agencies as well as from
state, federal, and private entities come to the EOC, where they coordinate the response oper-
ations. NYCOEM maintains a close working relationship with state and federal agencies and
offices, including the State Emergency Management Office, FEMA, the Department of Jus-
tice, the National Weather Service, and the Department of Energy, to share information vital
to effective response operations, coordinate planning initiatives, and conduct training and
exercises. NYCOEM works closely with the private sector and with nonprofit organizations
to coordinate activities and ensure rapid recovery of the city from any emergency that may
arise (Bloomberg & Bruno, n.d.).

NYCOEM was established in 1996 as a mayoral office. In November 2001, NYCOEM
became a permanent part of city government through a revision to the city charter. The mis-
sion of NYCOEM is to provide the highest level of emergency preparedness to the citizens of
New York City. Working as interagency coordinators in partnership with local, state, federal,
nonprofit, and private entities, it seeks to provide comprehensive emergency response, haz-

216 The American Review of Public Administration

Figure 3
Interorganizational Network, Interviews

Source: Interviews with representatives of public, nonprofit, and private organizations conducted in late 2002 and
early 2003

ard planning, and disaster mitigation to New York City (NYCOEM executive service official,
personal communication, April 10, 2003). NYCOEM established relationships with most of
the organizations required to create the infrastructure needed to quickly recreate the EOC
from what formerly was housed at 7 WTC. In addition, the Human Resource Administration
was able to provide around-the-clock technical assistance and equipment from its
warehouse.

Any attempt to establish well-coordinated response operations in response to Septem-
ber 11 would have been frustrated by the lack of communication and coordination among
responding agencies. The NYCOEM headquarters, which could have served as a focal point
for information sharing, was evacuated. The destruction of the WTC complex in which
NYCOEM was headquartered presented the agency with a series of challenges that, by virtue
of their scale and severity, were virtually unparalleled in the history of emergency manage-
ment. As the lead agency in the city’s rescue and recovery operations, NYCOEM was respon-
sible for coordinating the efforts of more than 150 federal, state, and city agencies and private
organizations, including FEMA, the NYSEMO, and the ARC (NYCOEM official, personal
communication, April 10, 2003). In this capacity, NYCOEM provided operational coordina-
tion for everything from rescue and recovery to debris management to human services and
community outreach efforts. Despite the destruction of the city’s EOC at the WTC, the
agency was able to secure a new location and reconstitute the EOC in fewer than 48 hours.

In Figure 3 (derived from interviews), there are a limited number of actors (35), and all of
them are connected in response to the attacks. But clearly not every possible connection is
present. There appears to be some differences among the actors in how connected they are. In
the figure, FEMA, ARC, and NYCOEM are in the center of the emergency response activi-
ties, as we would expect. On the other hand, it can be seen that some actors’ connections are
more central and reciprocated in this network than others.

Kapucu / Interagency Communication Networks 217

Figure 4
Interorganizational Interactions According to FEMA Situation Reports

Effective Communication in Emergencies: Work Across Boundaries

In emergency response operations, leaders of responding agencies must provide effective
operations across governmental units and other noncrisis organizations’ complex boundaries
and problems. Boundary-spanning networks happen from multiple organizational and sec-
toral interactions to help victims of the tragic events that overlapped jurisdictional and sec-
toral borders. Although the WTC attacks demonstrated the need for interagency coordination
in disasters, it took many days before effective communication channels were instituted. As
Figure 4 demonstrates, the number of organizations coordinated in response operations
increased significantly by the fifth day of the response operations, according to FEMA situa-
tion reports. In contrast, in the NYT data, a significant number of organizations were reported
in the first few days of operations (Figure 5), with reportage declining thereafter. Most of the
managers interviewed mentioned the serious need for previous communication with disaster
response organizations and with significant local noncrisis organizations.

As demonstrated following September 11, timely and truthful communication on plans
and actions is critical. Ongoing collaboration raises trust, and the broad collaboration among
various governmental levels and between government, the nonprofit sector, and the public is
very critical in emergencies. The effective flow of information across organizational bound-
aries is critical for an organization’s ability to remain effective in a dynamic environment.
Communication can determine the success or failure of a disaster response (Agranoff &
McGuire, 1998; Levinson & Granot, 2002). Communications that result in more accurate
public perceptions of risk and in public behavior in proportion to the risk typically have been
comprised of multiple communication channels, arranged in a programmatic format, that
take a variety of communication variables or factors into account (Fitzpatrick & Mileti,
1994). If responders are not in contact with each other (as was the case between the fire and
police departments in New York City) and if information (whether a report or instruction)
does not flow properly, it is hard to envision a successful disaster response.

218 The American Review of Public Administration

Figure 5
Interorganizational Interactions According to New York Times Data

Several nonprofit and public managers and staff shared their experiences about how they
responded to the events of September 11. What the study discovered was that in time of
extreme crisis, internal and external communications take priority in emergencies. Whether
natural or manmade, extreme events often disrupt the normal flow of communication. Dis-
ruption of the communication channels preventing interorganizational communication was
one of the major problems in the response operations. “More networking in preparation for
disasters is needed. The issue was not technology or policy; it was that many of us had not
taken the time to get to know staff at key organizations” (New York City government service
official, personal communication, December 15, 2003).

Although many organizations have crisis contingency plans and disaster recovery plans,
few had been tested as rigorously as was needed to cope with September 11. Operations dur-
ing a crisis should be decentralized but decision making should not be. Web-based communi-
cation and toll-free numbers helped people obtain information from a single authorized
source.

At the Mayor’s Voluntary Action Center (MVAC) office, phones were down, the neighbor-
hood was closed, and e-mail messaging and computers were not working. MVAC was relo-
cated like many other city government agencies. The MVAC representative had to report to
the NYCOEM, which had been relocated to Pier 92 following the collapse of 7 WTC. MVAC
participated in Volunteer Organizations Active in Disasters (VOAD) meetings. It was
assigned to the Human Resource section that included the Red Cross and the Salvation Army,
New York Cares, City Harvest, Center for Animal Care Control, World Church Services, and
numerous other nonprofit organizations. The center used the membership directories from
the New York Association for Volunteer Administration and from the Greater New York
Association of Directors of Volunteer Service in Healthcare to compile an e-mail list. MVAC
identified the key professional leaders from the directories and any other possible sources.
The center asked other organizations to share the disaster relief information that was being
identified by NYCOEM, FEMA, NYSEMO, and VOAD. The center also invited the organi-
zations to information sessions that were being convened by FEMA. MVAC provided volun-
teer referrals in all five city boroughs in New York through its database, which was not suffi-
cient at the time of the attacks (New York City government official, personal communication,
April 10, 2003).

Use of IT in Emergencies

Effective use of IT by first responders to extreme events is critical. The lack of functional
handheld radio communications, which was the same problem 8 years previous at the same
location with the same number of potential civilian casualties, was a fiasco. We should har-
ness knowledge gained from September 11 to better use technology in emergency response
operations in the future. In response to the immediate needs of September 11, the New York
City health department created a wireless network and began registering and screening peo-
ple within hours of the tragedy (National Research Council, 2002). When the first tower fell
and the department had to relocate to another facility, officials quickly had the network up
and running. The health department was initially called on to assist with worker safety at
Ground Zero and to monitor environmental issues. For months after the attack on New York
City, the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunication (DoITT) contin-
ued to operate in an emergency mode. The DoITT responded that “we need to make sure all

Kapucu / Interagency Communication Networks 219

the agencies can do their jobs, so we have to do things like repair networks and replace
workstations” (DoITT official, personal communication, February 14, 2003).

Electronic communication systems allow multiple users to communicate across geo-
graphical and sectoral boundaries. The Internet was, in fact, first designed to provide the U.S.
military with a communications network that could survive the destruction of major commu-
nication points (Graber, 2003). The Internet often provides a more reliable means of commu-
nication, because traffic is designed to route itself intelligently around busy spots. Whereas
landline phones must pass through a particular network and mobile phones have to commu-
nicate with a limited number of radio masts, Internet routers are more flexible. In some cir-
cumstances, thousands of routers based in many different countries could be involved in a
local communication. The terrorist attacks on the WTC have demonstrated how important
the Internet can be as a means of emergency communication. Many people relied on e-mail to
make contact with friends and relatives, and “the [ARC] Web site has proven to be the organi-
zation’s main way of communicating with people” (ARC official, personal communication,
November 2, 2002).

Both the Department of Health of New York City and the Office of the Chief Medical
Examiner engaged in an aggressive public information campaign in response to September
11. To this purpose, both used New York City’s government Web site (http://www.nyc.gov)
to provide updates regarding health and safety issues and available services, including an
online hospital patient locator system, missing people information, DNA collection proto-
cols, counseling information, anthrax information, and death certificate applications (Office
of the Chief Medical Examiner, personal communication, March 18, 2003). NYCOEM now
employs cutting-edge technology in its Emergency Management Online Locator System to
enhance public safety before, during, and after an emergency.

GIS is a powerful mapping and analysis tool that allows NYCOEM to examine the poten-
tial effects of different hazards on various geographic areas. GIS was integral to NYCOEM’s
planning efforts for natural and manmade disasters. An application that was developed prior
to September 11 for notification about storms and weather emergencies proved its flexibility
during response and recovery efforts. The GIS application showed available evacuation
routes, emergency centers, and other information. “On September 11, DoITT used GI

S

applications. Later, that same application was used to monitor the anthrax threat” (DoITT
official, personal communication, February 14, 2003). New York City had already been
using GIS before September 11. In the aftermath and recovery efforts, GIS proved its worth
as an irreplaceable emergency management tool. Maps of Ground Zero provided pictures
that helped rescue crews, firefighters, and workers removing debris and city officials making
critical decisions. It is interesting that the GIS applications that had the most profound effect
in the city’s ability to respond to the challenges of September 11 were products of innovation
under fire. The head of the DoITT at the time successfully used his previous network within
the private IT companies to develop a state-of-the-art EOC in a short period of time. It was a
collaborative effort to obtain information that had not previously been shared across agencies
and was used to create the graphic representations that supported rescue and clean-up efforts.

Conclusion

This study examines the problem of effective interagency communication among organi-
zations and the role of IT to achieve effective communication and decision-making goals in

220 The American Review of Public Administration

emergencies. The study indicates the importance of establishing communications with other
organizations before disasters occur to know proper contact points and to communicate
effectively at the time of a disaster.

Previous research (Kapucu, 2003) presented the importance of networks on emerging
relationships among government agencies at federal, state, and local levels and nonprofit and
private organizations in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the WTC
in New York City. However, that research focused on an organizational level of analysis. This
article contributes to the previous research by analyzing individual boundary-spanner net-
works in emergency response operations. To foster interorganizational communication and
the trust that enables accelerating interorganizational network coordination in emergency
management response operations, individual public emergency managers, nonprofit manag-
ers, and business sector mangers should provide before-the-fact incentives and information
to promote interorganizational networks. This research also reports on the daily organiza-
tional response level based on the content analysis of NYT and FEMA situation reports
instead of reporting at the aggregate level.

Emergency management requires multiorganizational communication and coordination.
Decisions in emergencies involve multiple actors. Information must be shared by the organi-
zations, and activities must be coordinated within and across organizational boundaries.
Effective decision making in response to the WTC terrorist attacks in New York City was hin-
dered by limited coordination and interorganizational communications. The NYPD’s 9-1-1
operators and the FDNY dispatch were not adequately integrated into the emergency
response. The same reason, inadequate communication, hindered the Port Authority’s
response, as well. The lack of communication and an integrated system hindered agencies’
communication and decision making. In future disasters, it is critical to analyze how
responding agencies, victims, and the public will get information and help. The problems of
communication that occurred at the WTC disaster will likely recur in any extreme emergency
of similar size if better communication systems are not developed in advance. In the future, it
is important to enable responding agencies to share information in a well-coordinated way.

Fortunately, improving communication and information sharing across organizations,
jurisdictions, and different sectors has been a priority for state and local governments since
the September 11 WTC terrorist attacks. For example, a coalition of city governments has
prepared to launch an Internet-based homeland security initiative in Kansas City to help
emergency responders better respond to manmade or natural disasters (Peterson, 2003). The
system will connect government agencies, such as fire departments, law enforcement agen-
cies, and emergency management offices. Private and nonprofit institutions, such as hospi-
tals, ambulance services, and relief organizations, will also be offered access to the system.

Kapucu / Interagency Communication Networks 221

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1. I wish to thank Dr. Louise K. Comfort for allowing me to use the findings from National Science Foundation
Grant CMS0219953. I also wish to thank Dr. John R. Harrald and Julie Ryan, coprincipal investigators. This study
uses the findings from research conducted under this grant. The content analyses were conducted under the direc-
tion of Louise K. Comfort for the study “Terrorism and Corporate Crisis Management: The Strategic Effect of the
September 11 Attacks.” The author served as a graduate research assistant on this project and was granted permis-
sion by Dr. Comfort to use the reports for his dissertation research.

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Naim Kapucu is a faculty member in the Department of Public Administration at the University of Central
Florida (UCF). He received his PhD in public and international affairs from the Graduate School of Public and
International Affairs of the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 2003. Prior to that, he earned a Master of
Public Management from H. John III School of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University,
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1997. His main research interests are homeland security and crisis management, pub-
lic-nonprofit partnerships in emergencies, complex adaptive systems, dynamic network analysis, computational
policy analysis, decision making in complex environments, organizational learning and design, and academic ser-
vice learning. His research seeks to understand how interorganizational networks, such as public-nonprofit part-
nerships, influence the public service delivery. In one of his current projects, he explores the problem of building
cooperation among public and nonprofit organizations to achieve public service goals in emergencies, factors that

224 The American Review of Public Administration

contribute to successful public-nonprofit partnerships, and factors that inhibit their development. Recent publica-
tions include “Public-Nonprofit Partnerships for Collective Action in Dynamic Context” and “Managing Public
Nonprofit Partnerships in Emergencies: Role of Nonprofit Leadership.” He is a reviewer for the program commit-
tee of the Public and Nonprofit (PNP) Division of the Academy of Management. He is currently leading the UCF–
Orange County Health Department Partnership Project. The project is hailed as a best-practice model and has sig-
nificantly increased service capacity for the grassroots agencies participating in the project. He teaches public pol-
icy analysis, organization theory, strategic management, nonprofit management, research design, and analytic
techniques for public administration. He taught at the University of Pittsburgh, Penn State University, and Robert
Morris University before coming to UCF in 2003. He is also the recipient of the Teaching Faculty Leadership
Award for the 2004 to 2005 academic year at UCF.

Kapucu / Interagency Communication Networks 225

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A Biblical-Covenantal

Perspective on

Organizational Behavior &
Leadership

© Dr. Kahlib Fischer, 20

10

Basic organizational behavior concepts derived from Organizational Behavior (2009), by
Robbins, Pearson Custom Publishing.

1

CONTENTS

CONTENTS …………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 2

LESSON 1: A Worldview Perspective on Organizational Behavior

………………. 5

What is a Worldview? ………………………………………………………………………………………… 5
Worldview as a Home ………………………………………………………………………………………… 5
What is Your Worldview? …………………………………………………………………………………… 6
Defining the Christian Worldview ……………………………………………………………………….. 7
Application to Organizational Behavior ……………………………………………………………….. 7
The Biblical Idea of Covenant …………………………………………………………………………….. 8
Important Covenantal Terms ……………………………………………………………………………… 8
History of Covenant …………………………………………………………………………………………… 9
A Covenantal Model for Organizational Behavior ……………………………………………….. 10
OB/COVENANT MATRIX ……………………………………………………………………………….. 12
Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 12

LESSON 2: Individual Behavior in the Organization

…………………………………… 13
Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 13
Personality and Abilities …………………………………………………………………………………… 13
Values …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 14
Ethical Perspectives …………………………………………………………………………………………. 15
Outputs ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 15
Emotions and Moods ……………………………………………………………………………………….. 16
Perceptions ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 17
Emotional Intelligence …………………………………………………………………………………….. 18
Job Satisfaction……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 18
Effective Job Attitudes …………………………………………………………………………………….. 19
Decision Making Constraints ……………………………………………………………………………. 20
Dealing with Constraints and Biases ………………………………………………………………….. 21

LESSON 3: Motivating Employees

………………………………………………………………… 22
Motivational Theories ……………………………………………………………………………………… 22
Early Motivation Theories ………………………………………………………………………………… 22
Contemporary Motivation Theories …………………………………………………………………… 23
Employee Participation ……………………………………………………………………………………. 23
Payment Programs ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 24

2

Flexible Benefits ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 24
Intrinsic Rewards ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 25
Biblical Summary ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 25

LESSON 4: Group Behavior and Work Teams

……………………………………………… 27
Group Behavior ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 27
Stages of Group Development …………………………………………………………………………… 27
Group Properties …………………………………………………………………………………………….. 27
Group Decision Making ……………………………………………………………………………………. 28
Differences between Groups and Teams …………………………………………………………….. 29
Types of Teams ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 29
Factors Relating to Successful Teams ………………………………………………………………… 30
Turning Individuals into Team Players………………………………………………………………. 34
When Should Teams Be Used? ………………………………………………………………………….. 35

LESSON 5: Organizational Communication

………………………………………………… 36
Formal and Informal Channels …………………………………………………………………………. 36
Direction of Communication …………………………………………………………………………….. 36
Interpersonal Communication ………………………………………………………………………….. 38
Organizational Components ……………………………………………………………………………… 39
Which Channel to Use? ……………………………………………………………………………………. 41

LESSON 6: Leadership

…………………………………………………………………………………… 42
Defining leadership …………………………………………………………………………………………. 42
Trait Theories …………………………………………………………………………………………………. 43
Behavioral Theories …………………………………………………………………………………………. 44
Contingency Theories ………………………………………………………………………………………. 45
Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory ………………………………………………………….. 47
Inspirational Approaches …………………………………………………………………………………. 47
Authentic Leadership ………………………………………………………………………………………. 49
Defining Trust …………………………………………………………………………………………………. 49
Mentoring as Leadership ………………………………………………………………………………….. 50
Self-Leadership ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 51
Challenges to Leadership Construct…………………………………………………………………… 51

LESSON 7: Politics, Negotiation and Conflict Resolution

…………………………… 53
Motivations for Power ……………………………………………………………………………………… 53
Dependency and Power ……………………………………………………………………………………. 55
Sources of Power……………………………………………………………………………………………… 55

3

Power Tactics ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 57
Sexual Harrassment ………………………………………………………………………………………… 58
The Interactionist View of Conflict ……………………………………………………………………. 58
The Conflict Process ………………………………………………………………………………………… 59
Negotiation: Bargaining Strategies ……………………………………………………………………. 61

LESSON 8: Structure and Culture

…………………………………………………………………. 63
History of Organizational Perspectives ………………………………………………………………. 63
Work Specialization & Structure ……………………………………………………………………….. 64
Control, Effectiveness & Structure …………………………………………………………………….. 65
Departmentalization and StRucture ………………………………………………………………….. 66
Cultures as Shared Meaning ……………………………………………………………………………… 66
Creating a Positive Culture ……………………………………………………………………………….. 68
Spirituality in the Workplace ……………………………………………………………………………. 69

LESSON 9: Human Resource Policies

……………………………………………………………. 71
Overview …………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 71
Selection Practices ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 71
Effective Selection Processes …………………………………………………………………………….. 73
Training and Development ……………………………………………………………………………….. 75
Performance Evaluation …………………………………………………………………………………… 76
HR Policies and Labor Relations ………………………………………………………………………. 78
Managing a Diverse Workforce …………………………………………………………………………. 79

LESSON 10: Organizational Change and Stress Management

……………………. 81
The Context of Change …………………………………………………………………………………….. 81
Overcoming Resistance to Change …………………………………………………………………….. 82
Strategies for Change ……………………………………………………………………………………….. 84
Creating a Culture of Change ……………………………………………………………………………. 86
Managing Stress through Covenantal behavior …………………………………………………… 87

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LESSON 1: A Worldview Perspective on
Organizational Behavior

WHAT IS A WORLDVIEW?

For starters, it’s important to recognize that our view on organizational behavior, and indeed
on life itself, is influenced by our worldview. A worldview is an intellectual, emotional, and
spiritual framework by which every person views reality, makes sense of life, and applies
meaning to every area of life.

Everyone has a worldview, but the sad fact is that most people don’t really know that they
have one, or how their unspoken assumptions about truth, meaning, values, and humanity
influence every decision they make and every perception they have. As a result, most people’s
worldviews are undeveloped, which means that most people are making decisions based not
upon a coherent view of reality and life, but more likely an unclear, hodge-podge collection of
vaguely defined and unverified assumptions about life. If we want to be effective leaders and
managers in our organizations, and even more importantly, if we want to be successful human
beings, shouldn’t we know what we believe and why we believe it?

WORLDVIEW AS A HOME

One way of better understanding one’s worldview and what it is made up of is to compare it
the home in which we live. Consider your home—what characteristics do you ascribe to it? Do
you think of it in terms of how many rooms it has, what type of furnishings it possesses, how
big the yard is, etc.? Those are indeed relevant descriptors, but what about the foundation and
framework of your home? When was the last time you thought about those two very
important features of your home? Most of us give very little thought to those components
because they are not visible. And yet, if either of those are structurally lacking, the house will
fall, no matter how nice the yard, how many rooms the house has or how beautifully decorated
the home is. It’s the same with our worldview perspectives—we rarely if ever give any thought
to the foundational or framework assumptions associated with our worldviews. So let’s take a
look at each of these vital components.

The foundation of your worldview is what you believe about God. Do you believe in a
personal, intelligent Creator-being who is eternal and created the universe, or do you believe
that life evolved from nothing, by pure chance? You might even believe in some sort of
nebulous God-like being who is out there but doesn’t do much to communicate with the rest of
us. Perhaps you view Nature as some sort of spiritual entity to which we are all attached in

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some cosmic sort of way. If so, your worldview likely has more in common with an atheistic
worldview foundation than a Christian-theistic one, because in both cases there is no personal,
intelligent Creator being who interacts meaningfully and intelligently with His creation.
The framework assumptions are based upon this foundation, just like the framework of any
home is built upon the foundation. What one believes about God will determine what one
believes about truth and meaning (epistemology), values (axiology), and who we are as
human beings (ontology).

WHAT IS YOUR WORLDVIEW?

A good leader or manager, and indeed, a successful organization, is able to evaluate internal
strengths, weaknesses, and blind spots, so take a moment to evaluate any potential
weaknesses or inconsistencies in your worldview.
For starters, what do you believe about God? In the previous section, some basic options
were presented with regards to who this God might be (or might not be). But now consider the
implications of each choice, because your belief about God will greatly impact your perspective
upon meaning, values, and humanity.

For instance, epistemology is the study of how we arrive at truth and meaning. If you believe
in a personal creator-being, it is possible to believe in absolute truth and meaning, because
that God-being could communicate with us in meaningful and intelligent ways. But if you
believe in random chance as the foundation for life, or in some sort of impersonal, spiritual
“force” from which we all sprang, it should be no surprise if you’re a bit ambiguous in what you
believe about truth. You might be more inclined to believe that there is no such thing as
absolute truth or meaning, and that instead, everyone just sort of figures things out and makes
sense of life on their own. However, if that is really true, then why do we all appeal to an
inherent standard of right reasoning as we communicate with one another? Why do make
logical appeals as we seek to persuade one another? It seems like this use of logic is more in
keeping with an intelligent Creator-being than with starting point of random chance or a
vague, impersonal, spiritual “other”.

Likewise, axiology is the study of what we believe about values. If you believe in a personal
Creator being, you are more likely to believe in eternal timeless values like love, justice,
goodness and evil. If you’re not really sure what you believe about God, you might also find
that you’re not really sure about the notion of eternal, timeless values. Perhaps you see
concepts such as “love” as being more about what we do to protect ourselves—we “love”
others because those people add some sort of value to our lives. And yet, the very fact that we
understand the notion of altruistic, unconditional love and critique people who are not being
pure in their alleged love of others suggests that there is an eternal Creator-being who has
implanted in us an understanding of these eternal, timeless values. The same is true with the
fact that we all seem to appeal to an inherent sense of justice and fairness as we interact with
one another.

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Ontology is the study of who we are as human beings. If you are not sure what you believe
about God, it could be that you are likewise not very sure about what you think about your
existence as a human. If there is only a physical universe and no God that created it, then
logically, it follows that we humans are nothing more than complex blobs of chemicals, atoms,
and physical matter. If that is true, then why are we so interested in meaning and truth? Such
yearnings and aspirations are far more consistent with the notion of a personal Creator-being
who has made us in His image.

DEFINING THE CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW

So what IS a Christian worldview all about? Obviously the starting point for the Christian
worldview—i.e., it’s foundational presupposition—is that there is in fact a personal, intelligent
Creator being who is timeless and all-knowing. He created the universe and is separate from it,
even though He is intimately involved in and with His creation. This is contrast to more Eastern
mystical perspectives which deify nature or view God as part of nature.

Epistemologically, God does communicate with intelligence and meaning, and obviously
through the use of words. Importantly, Jesus Christ came to this earth as the living “Word of
God” (see John 1).

Axiologically, we see the God of the Bible balancing both love and justice through Jesus Christ
and His work on the cross. Since God is perfectly good, He can’t tolerate any evil. Therefore,
man, being less than perfect and bound by sin, needed to be punished. But since God is also
perfectly loving, He can’t eliminate mankind, or else His perfect love would be compromised.
The solution—Jesus Christ coming to earth and taking on flesh, and dying on the cross for our
sins. As a man, He fulfilled God’s sense of absolute justice by ensuring that man was in fact
punished for his sins. But since He was also God, He was perfect and therefore able to be the
perfect sacrifice for us, thereby ensuring that God’s love was fulfilled on the cross and
subsequent resurrection of Christ.

Finally, ontologically, we know that we humans have value, not just because of what Christ did
for us on the cross but also due to the very fact that Christ came into this world not just as God
but as man, experiencing the same pain that we experienced in this dreary and difficult world.
We do not have a God who cannot relate to our pains and struggles; on the contrary, we have a
God who is intimately familiar with who we are and how we struggle.

APPLICATION TO ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

So how does this Christian worldview impact organizational behavior? First of all, since all
truth is God’s truth, we can confidently study and research organizational behavior issues and
concepts and at the same time apply Biblical truths to the field—the two are not mutually
exclusive but rather complimentary.

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Secondly, we should discuss organizational behavior in terms of absolute truth and values.
Moral relativism is not an option for us as we pursue a greater understanding of organizational
behavior.

Finally, we can be encouraged that everything we do within an organizational context—
indeed in life itself—has eternal meaning and consequence. That is because we are valued in
the eyes of our loving Creator and we know that He is intimately involved in everything we do.
We should therefore act accordingly.

THE BIBLICAL IDEA OF COVENANT

Beyond these general worldview guidelines, there are some more specific Biblical applications
to the field of organizational behavior. It will be argued here and throughout the rest of the
lessons that the Biblical idea of covenant provides not only a unifying theme for understanding
organizational behavior, but also a guiding normative framework for doing so.

A covenant is a morally informed agreement among various parties to ratify and establish a
long-term, mutually-affirming relationship. This idea is largely a Biblical one. In Scripture, God
covenants with man, and in so doing, affirms the dignity of man. The result is that humans not
only have free will and importance, but also responsibility to choose wisely.

Furthermore, a covenant protects the right of all members by protecting the rights of every
individual. Mutual accountability and affirmation are key aspects of any covenantal agreement
and relationship.

IMPORTANT COVENANTAL TERMS

There are three key terms associated with the notion of covenant and covenantal behavior.
The first is the Hebrew term hesed, which means “loving fulfillment of covenant obligation.” In
Scripture, love and duty are intertwined and it is related to what Christ said when He told His
followers to “go the extra mile” in serving one another. We see in Scripture that not only did
God keep His promises to His people, but He went above and beyond His stated duties in
showing mercy, forgiving, and caring for His people. We are required to do the same. We
shouldn’t view our relationships with others as merely contractual obligations, but rather we
should see our obligations as opportunities to truly love and care for one another. The
implications for this interlinking of love and duty in an organization are significant. We all
know leaders who have abused their powers and treated employees poorly, and we all know
employees who have done the bare minimum (or worse) to collect a paycheck.

Mutual accountability describes the process of interaction in a covenant in which everyone is
accountable to everyone else. Not only are followers accountable to leaders, but leaders are

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also accountable to followers. Regardless of the nature of the relationship, be it peer to peer or
leader to subordinate, mutual accountability is a requirement. This because in a covenant, no
one enters into the covenantal agreement without first securing this obligation. Because no
can be coerced into such a relationship, the only reason for doing so is to create a binding
relationship that assures everyone’s mutual benefit. An organization that applies this will have
greater integrity, teamwork, and decision-making because everyone is committed to serving
and caring for everyone else, and leaders, as a general rule, cannot act arbitrarily and in a
manner that mistreats employees.

Federalism is a specific term in the field of covenantal theology that describes the sharing of
power among all members of the covenant. It is therefore related to the notion of mutual
accountability and is embodied on the organizational level by the ideas of empowerment,
participatory decision making and decentralization (or more accurately, non-centralization,
which signifies a sense of teamwork and shared responsibility regardless of organizational
structure and departmental guidelines).

HISTORY OF COVENANT

Having laid that conceptual foundation, it is helpful to look at how the covenantal idea has
influenced the history of mankind by ensuring greater freedom of common people and limiting
the excesses of arbitrary leadership. In the Old Testament, the covenant idea was introduced
by God to man. As mentioned earlier, by entering into a covenant with mere mortals, God
affirmed their dignity and gave them both the freedom to choose to enter into the covenant
and the responsibility to act within the moral terms of the covenant. It is no surprise, then,
that even in Old Testament Israel, during the time of the judges and kings, that no one ruler
had all the power nor was free from the accountability of the people and the prophets. Power
was further shared among the twelve tribes, and the prophets criticized not only the king but
also the people when they forgot the terms of the covenant, became greedy, pursued idols,
and stopped caring for one another and for the poor. In the New Testament, the covenant idea
is affirmed and expanded upon by Christ, who ushered in a new covenant with God that was
now available to all of mankind, and not just the Jews. As the Gospel message spread
throughout the world, so did the notion of covenant.

During the Middle Ages, the covenantal idea was largely overlooked because Catholic
theology emphasized a more hierarchical worldview in which Popes had absolute control and
kings were not accountable to the people because they were viewed as being appointed by
God. But during the Protestant Reformation, Reformers reclaimed the covenantal idea as
they articulated the notion of the “Priesthood of a all believers.” Protestants argued that the
only priest believers needed was Christ, and therefore they could have a personal relationship
with God through Christ. This principle once again affirmed the value and dignity of each
individual, and many have argued that it played a key role in not only developing the notion of
capitalism in the West, but also contributed greatly to the notion that kings are accountable to
the people and that Popes should not try to control political affairs. In fact, John Calvin, John

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Locke, John Knox, among others argued that when leaders significantly abuse their power, a
material breach of the covenant has occurred, meaning that the people are no longer under
the kings authority because the very covenant has been absolved through the tyrannical
behavior.

This theory of civil resistance and covenantal principles in general were carried into the
American Founding Era. In an effort to flee religious and political persecution in Europe, many
Protestants fled to the New World and brought their ideas with them. Research reveals that
many of the colonies were further influenced by covenantal pacts and agreements. Often,
church covenants made by various groups of Protestants as they came to the New World
became the foundation for local governments and state constitutions. As the colonies became
more established, the American colonists continued to base their notion of political freedom
upon covenantal ideas by providing a rationale for breaking away from Great Britain based
upon covenantal principles. Furthermore the very nature of American federalism, in which the
national government shares power with the states, is a covenantal notion, as already
mentioned. In fact, the word fedis is the Latin word for covenant. So America, with all of its
political freedoms, has been greatly influenced by the notion of covenant.

The question that we ask here is, given this impressive track record in political development,
can the covenantal ideas and principles be applied to the field of organizational behavior in
some way? Certainly, there is a difference between the relationship of ruler with citizens and
business leaders with employees, but it will be demonstrated in this lesson and throughout
subsequent lessons that there are indeed many points of application. This is due in large part
because God has commanded all of us to love one another. Covenant is the means by which
we do so.

A COVENANTAL MODEL FOR ORGANIZATIONAL
BEHAVIOR

The covenantal idea provides a unifying theme for organizational behavior. First of all, the
idea of hesed provides the attitude necessary for healthy organizational behavior. This
attitude embodies notions such as servant leadership, mutual affirmation and care, teamwork,
shared vision, “big picture” thinking, and customer care and community service. Big picture
thinking is defined as organizational self-awareness, where employees understand the
organization-wide goals, constraints, and strategies and where employees furthermore see
how their job as well as their department fits into all of that.

The principle of mutual accountability provides the foundation for organizational processes,
and includes notions such as conflict resolution, participatory decision-making, empowerment,
and an active process of dialogue between leaders and employees.

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The notion of federalism provides a structure for healthy organizations, and relates to ideas
such as noncentralization, “boundaryless organizations”, organic structures.

Clearly, all of these concepts are related to one another, and this division of covenantal
principles into attitudes, processes, and structures therefore allows for a lot of overlap. The
goal of any organization should be to create a self-sustaining, healthy culture where
employees have taken ownership of organizational processes and goals and are working
together to get things done and care for one another. In the next lesson, further application of
covenantal principles to the field of organizational behavior will be demonstrated.

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OB/COVENANT MATRIX

ATTITUDE
Hesed

PROCESS
Mutual Accountability

STRUCTURE
Federalism

INDIVIDUAL Personality &
Emotions
Values &
Attitudes

Perception
Individual
Learning

Ability
Individual Decision-making

GROUP Communication
Group Decision-making

Group Structure
Work Teams

ORGANIZATION Organizational
Culture

Leadership & Trust
Power & Politics

Human Resource Policies &
Practices

Organizational
Structure & Design

Another way to look at this covenantal model is to apply those concepts in a matrix with the
levels of any organization—individual, group, and organization—combined with the various
OB concepts we will be discussing in this course. The above diagram shows who the
covenantal concepts are related to the general concepts of OB by organizational level.
Throughout the rest of these lessons, we’ll be discussing each of these concepts in some form
or another.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, a major theme of this first lesson is the assertion that the Biblical worldview
provides the most comprehensive approach for making sense of life as well as organizational
behavior. Students to not have to embrace this worldview, but they should be prepared to
gain a deeper understanding of its implications in the workplace.
Secondly, the Biblical idea of covenant will serve as a unifying theme and foundation for
understanding organizational behavior. It is offered as a normative guideline for
organizational “best practices” and will be further applied in subsequent lessons.

Back to Table of Contents

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LESSON 2: Individual Behavior in the
Organization

INTRODUCTION

Lesson 2 provides an overview of individual behavior within an organizational context, and is
divided up into two parts. Part 1 focuses on the inputs of individual behavior—the personality,
abilities, values, and ethical framework that influence us as individuals and how we behave.
Part 2 focuses on the outcomes that derive from these inputs—how we behave and make
decisions.

Before beginning with Part 1, a brief covenantal application is in order. Remember that
covenants are based upon respect for each individual entering the covenant. No one can be
coerced to enter into a covenantal relationship; rather, individuals enter into a covenant to
protect their own rights. But they do so by caring for others in the relationship and affirming
the rights of others. Therefore, mutual accountability and hesed are key motivators for
individuals who want to preserve a covenantal relationship. In this lesson, we will see that
these two components are necessary in forming productive individual behavior in an
organizational context.

PERSONALITY AND ABILITIES

As you progress through this course, you will have the opportunity to take a good amount of
personality tests, and in so doing, you will hopefully begin to understand how personality and
abilities are related, and also how they make each of us distinct from others.

Furthermore, since every strength is a weakness and every weakness is a strength, we should
be mindful of that when we interact with others. Rather than butting heads because of our
differences, we should instead learn to appreciate those differences because in many ways, we
can shore up each other’s weaknesses when we work together in a spirit of hesed and mutual
accountability. Organizations need to be aware of this interplay of personalities and abilities
in order to maximize teamwork and productivity.

Obviously, when working with others, it is easier said than done to learn to appreciate one
another’s strengths and our own weaknesses. Nobody likes to admit their shortcomings,
especially when job advancement and recognition are on the line. As a result, competition,
friction, impression management and political maneuvering characterize and undermine many
organizations. That is why it is so helpful to be reminded of Biblical truth on the matter. First
Corinthians 4:7 (ESV) says: “For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that
you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?”

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Often we become prideful because of our unique strengths and abilities, and as such we forget
that all that we have comes from God. We also forget that God is our source, loves us more
than we love ourselves, and has a perfect plan for our lives in which our strengths are
maximized. If we can remember this, we will be freed from all of the competition and
manipulation referenced above.

And we will also be freed from the bondage of needing recognition. It is easy define ourselves
by our accomplishments and the work we do. It is a subtle deception. Even if we can get past
the obvious sin of seeking fame, promotion, and self-glory through our work, and even if we
truly want to do great things for the Lord, we still can stumble on the lie that validation and
recognition on the job is proof that we are living meaningfully and doing great things for God,
and that if we aren’t receiving recognition, we must not be doing anything meaningful. It’s not
that we shouldn’t work hard, but rather that we shouldn’t work hard for the fear that if we
aren’t recognized as successful in what we do, that we therefore are failures. As mentioned
above, I Corinthians 4:7 already takes the wind out of the sails of pride when it comes to our
abilities, because they are gifts from God. Sure, we work hard to develop those gifts, but who
gave us the energy and the moral makeup to do so? We were not self-made creatures.
Secondly, idolizing recognition on the job can turn into a substitute for the Father’s acceptance
of us through Christ. We would never say that achievement and success in this world is
superior to God’s acceptance of us, but when we define ourselves by recognition from others,
and deem ourselves to be failures when we’re not recognized, and/or work feverishly for that
recognition, that is implicitly what we believe. If we can get past this deception, we can
achieve true success: learning to love and care for others, learning to recognize how God has
gifted them, and learning to work with them and for them. This is foundational to the idea of a
covenantal organization.

VALUES

Personal values comprise the next input of individual behavior. As mentioned in Lesson 1, we
live in a Postmodern world which believes that truth is relative and that meaning is created by
people in a group context. This belief lends itself to an attitude that says, “What works for
me, works for me, and what works for you, works for you.” We find this approach especially
appealing in an individualized culture like America. But ultimately, such an attitude will
undermine a healthy organization. What happens if “what works” for one person is to be lazy
on the job and not really care about anybody else? What happens if “what works” for another
is to manipulate others, consolidate power, and abuse it?

Of course, the Bible presents a different message. Absolute truth and values do exist, and they
must be followed. Deep down, we know this and we intuitively understand that any
organization that is going to succeed in the long term needs people who respect and care for
one another. Conveniently, the idea of covenant embodies both the values of love (hesed) and
justice (mutual accountability).

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ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES

Values and ethics are intertwined. Ethical perspectives provide a framework of values by
which to make decisions for society (and organizations) . There are three basic ethical
perspectives. Utilitarianism argues that the greatest good should be achieved for the greatest
amount of people. As such, it emphasizes efficiency, productivity, and high profits, but in
doing so, it can overlook the concerns and rights of individual members.

A Rights based perspective puts more emphasis on the individual rights of every member. In
an organizational context, it puts high value on the whistleblower. However, because of the
emphasis on individual rights, it can produce an adversarial culture and lead to decreased
teamwork as members are too focused on protecting their own rights above all else.

A Justice perspective emphasizes the importance of fairness and impartiality, and in particular
argues that resources and opportunities should be meted out evenly. However, this can lead
to a sense of entitlement among members and can encourage a decrease in individual
responsibility and effort.

Happily, a covenantal perspective encompasses the best of each of these approaches while at
the same time minimizing the weaknesses of each. For instance, a covenant is designed to
incorporate a sense of justice and care for all of the members as a whole. This speaks to the
concerns of both the justice and the utilitarian approach. But since it also emphasizes the
importance of each member’s rights, it also affirms the Rights approach. Mutual
accountability and hesed mandate that every member care for every other member and is
accountable to every other member. This combination addresses the weaknesses mentioned
above in three ways: 1) it ensures that no one is overlooked despite what the majority may
want (a weakness of the Utilitarian approach), 2) it changes the decision-making process from
one that is adversarial and competitive (a weakness of the Rights approach) to one that is
based upon mutual care; and 3) links personal self-interest with caring for others, thereby
removing the sense of entitlement that can exist with the Justice approach.

Personality, abilities, values and ethics all influence how we behave as individuals. Now it’s
time to take a look at the specific ways that these components influence our behavior, and so
now we move to Part II: Outputs. Behavior can be defined in the following ways: emotions,
moods, perceptions, attitudes, performance, and decision making.

OUTPUTS

Personality, abilities, values and ethics all influence how we behave as individuals. Now it’s
time to take a look at the specific ways that these components influence our behavior, and so
now we move to Part II: Outputs. In this subsequent presentation, these outputs will be viewed
in a sequential order: emotions and moods, which are the result of what we believe, lay the

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foundation for our perceptions. In turn, our perceptions impact our emotional intelligence,
determine attitudes, job satisfaction and performance, and finally our decision-making skills.
It will be important to understand this linkage.

EMOTIONS AND MOODS

Emotions and moods can be confounding aspects of our psyche. Jeremiah 7:29 (ESV) says “The
heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” Often we
think of emotions as forces that influence us, and this is true. Our emotions inform how we
interact with others and how we react to life situations. But on a deeper level, our values,
ethics, and worldview all determine how we emotionally react to life and the world around us.
This is embodied in the cognitive-affective-behavior link: what we think and believe (cognitive)
influences how we feel (emotions and moods), which in turn influences how we act (behavior).

It is also easy to think that circumstances or people cause our emotions, but this is not true—
at most they influence our emotions. This is a big difference. Ultimately, what we believe
about life and truth (our worldview) and what values and sense of ethics we possess inform
how we emotionally react to circumstances and people. As Christians, the question we must
ask ourselves is the degree to which Biblical truth is informing our emotions as opposed to
some other worldview system. For instance, when we are overcome by stress and fear, it is not
because the difficult circumstances are “causing” those emotions but rather because on a
fundamental level, our worldview system is flawed—we really do not believe that God is in
control and that He loves us more than we love ourselves. In our implicit desire to be in
control, we reject these Biblical truths and when that happens, it is easy to feel overwhelmed
by life. But when our emotions are grounded on the truth of God’s Word, how we respond to
difficult circumstances (and people!) will instead be motivated by emotions of faith, love, and
patience. Hebrews 4:12 says “for the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-
edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and
discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” When we look deeper into our hearts
with the light of God’s Word, we see that at the root of all of our emotions is how we see
ourselves before God and whether or not we view ourselves or God as being sovereign in our
lives and in life in general.

Finally, as this topic relates to organizational behavior, it is important to remember that our
emotional state plays a large role in how we perform on the job. According to Affective
Events theory, our emotional reactions to work influence our job performance and
satisfaction. If we view our work as an act of worship to God, wherein we display His glory
through our abilities and care for our customers, supervisors, colleagues, and subordinates, our
emotions will fall in line accordingly, and we’ll find that we have much more joy in our
professions.

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PERCEPTIONS

Driving is a great example of how inconsistent we can be in our perception of ourselves and
others. When we are driving down the road and someone is tailgating us, the tendency can be
to assume that the person behind us is being rude and reckless in their driving. Perhaps we tap
on the breaks to get them to back off a bit. But when we are in a hurry, and we come upon a
slow driver in front of us, we conveniently conclude that the driver is rude, absent-minded, or
perhaps in need of remedial driving lessons. Talk about a double standard! Of course,
probably no one viewing this lecture has ever been guilty of this!

This double-standard is influenced by basic heart beliefs. What we believe about ourselves
influences our emotions, which in turn influences our perceptions of situations and
circumstances. In turn, how we perceive situations in life greatly affects our decision-making
ability, our interaction with others, and our job satisfaction and performance. Just as being
grounded in the truth of God’s Word informs our emotions, so it informs our perceptions,
particularly with regards to the many biases that taint our ability to perceive correctly.
Scripture tells us that rather than relying on our own understanding and our own perception of
reality, we should seek God’s wisdom in all that we do. But our sinful tendency is to do
otherwise. Motivated by pride, we think that we are better than we really are (perfection
error) and that we are actually smarter than we really are (intelligence error); thus we think
that we really don’t need God. These prideful assumptions lead to two sets of biases in our
perceptions. But before we discuss them, hopefully it is clear that the point of all of this is not
to beat ourselves up or to degrade ourselves. The goal is not to think less of ourselves, but to
think of ourselves less often. The goal is not to condemn ourselves as miserable wretches, but
rather to rightfully acknowledge that our own pride gets in the way of even our best intentions.
The goal is not to consider ourselves to be stupid but rather to not overestimate our own
intelligence.

The first set of biases falls stems from a perfection error—we think we are better and more
competent than we really are. For instance, the self-serving bias describes how we tend to de-
emphasize external factors when things are going well for us and over-emphasize our own
control over the results of a situation. Likewise, when things are not going so well for us or we
are failing in a situation, rather than looking at any shortcomings on our part, we tend to blame
external circumstances. How convenient, and how consistent with our very basic tendency to
reject the truth that we need God’s guidance and intervention through Christ! The
fundamental attribution error describes how harsh we are in judging others for failure when
perhaps external factors played a greater role in the situation.

Another subset of biases derive from the Intelligence Error (the tendency to think we are
smarter than we really are). For instance, we have to be careful to not rely too heavily upon our
own background and experiences in making perceptions (selective perception and
stereotyping). It’s healthy to allow for the possibility that our past experience and the
conclusions we have drawn from them are not sufficient for making an accurate perception.

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The halo effect occurs when we define a person by a single characteristic. Is it fair to do so?
The answer is no, because no one consists of just one behavioral tendency. Likewise, the
contrast effects bias describes how we inaccurately evaluate someone based upon how they
relate to someone else we’ve recently encountered who is either higher or lower in a particular
characteristic. For example, if a student has a professor who grades him one way, and then the
next quarter has a professor who grades him another way, the temptation will be to judge the
second professor in light of the first professor. But this really isn’t a very thorough or
systematic basis for evaluating the second professor’s grading practices, is it?

Having said all of that, it is good to conclude with a sober reminder of how these fundamental
errors and their related biases can hurt us in our decision-making in life, and specifically in an
organizational context. The decisions we make in interviewing job candidates, conducting
performance evaluations, defining problems, and creating expectations can all be seriously
flawed if we don’t first deal with these perception issues.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Emotional Intelligence loosely describes the ability to not only be aware and in control of
one’s own emotional issues, but also the ability to emotionally connect with and relate to
others. It speaks to a certain degree of sensitivity to and awareness of others and what they
might be thinking and feeling. Therefore, one can see how our perceptions are directly related
to our EI quotient—the more our perceptions are tainted by the intelligence and perfection
errors, the more self-absorbed we will be, and the lower our EI will be.

EI coincides nicely with covenantal behavior, because it allows us to be more outward looking
and therefore to be better equipped to care for others (hesed) and be accountable to them. It
also enables us to be more effective in conflict resolution, again because we are looking past
ourselves to better understand the concerns of others. It also improves our leadership ability
and persuasiveness, because we are able to more effectively speak to the heart issues of
those around us—the important values (such as love and justice) that can really motivate and
excite.

Finally, from an organizational perspective, there are many benefits to having high EI. Job
performance, creativity, motivation, customer service and decision-making are all positively
impacted by EI.

JOB SATISFACTION

Thus far, the case has been made that we have an important role in controlling our emotions
rather than allowing our emotions to control us and how we perceive reality. In contrast to the
theology of self-help, we do not try to manipulate our emotions first and foremost through
“positive thinking” or other such techniques, but rather by grounding our belief system in the

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truth of God’s Word. When that happens, our emotions will follow truth much like the car of
a train follows the train engine. Behind the emotion “car” on that metaphorical train comes
the “perception” car, followed in turn by the “attitude” car.

As it pertains to this lesson, a major attitude upon which we will be focusing is that of job
satisfaction. But rather than just focusing on how we are responsible for our the extent to
which we are satisfied with our jobs, it will now be helpful to shift the emphasis a bit to why
organizations should seek to improve their employees’ job satisfaction.

This is so because high job satisfaction brings many benefits to organizations. Research has
revealed a direct link between high job satisfaction and increased job performance,
organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and customer satisfaction as well as a decrease in
absenteeism, turnover, and workplace deviance.

So how do organizational leaders enhance job satisfaction? First, it is important to note that
part of job satisfaction is dependent upon the employee’s own perception of herself and her
ability to do the job. This is known as positive core self-evaluation. If an employee is
confident in her own abilities and skills on the job, she will be more satisfied with her job.
Having said that, organizations can contribute to an employee’s positive core self-evaluation
by providing training for employees and making sure that employees are used in jobs that
draw on their strengths and abilities.

Secondly, job satisfaction is not closely related to salary level. Sure, everyone likes making a
lot of money, but in the long term, if an employee is miserable in his job, getting paid a lot of
money will not do much to increase job satisfaction. At best, it will be a consolation for having
a miserable job.

On the contrary, job satisfaction has more to do with intrinsic factors. For instance, job
satisfaction overlaps with terms such as Perceived organizational support (POS),
organizational commitment, and employee engagement. It also is tied in with job involvement
and psychological empowerment. All of these concepts tie into a covenantal approach where
leaders empower employees to contribute meaningfully to their organization and furthermore
care for employees (hesed) so that employees feel like an integral part of the organization. In
addition to these factors, organizations can increase job satisfaction (in order to increase their
positive core self-evaluation), by putting employees in challenging and stimulating jobs.

EFFECTIVE JOB ATTITUDES

Related to job satisfaction are those attitudes that will make an employee more effective in
the workplace. These attitudes can be discussed in terms of competing dyads. For starters, an
effective attitude is humility because it ensures that the employee is approachable, teachable,
and professional. This is in contrast to a prideful attitude, where an employee can be arrogant,
competitive, and un-teachable.

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A positive core-self evaluation is helpful for job effectiveness, as mentioned in the previous
section. This attitude need not involve the Intelligence and Perfection Errors; on the contrary,
it’s about confidence, not pride. On the other side, a person who always doubts himself and
has low emotional stability and insecurity will have a hard time performing well on the job.
Ironically, this low emotional stability can in fact be due to pride, because in our pride we reject
God’s control over our lives and in so doing, we try to manage every aspect of our lives. This in
and of itself can lead to emotional insecurity and instability, because deep down, we know that
even though we really, really want to be in control, we really, really fail in so doing, regardless
of how hard we try.

High self-monitors are able to adjust their behavior to what is going on around them. It is
related to EI, and involves being outward looking. In contrast, low self-monitors miss
nonverbal cues found in workplace situations. It also stands in contrast to hypervigilence and
impression management, both of which are motivated by fear and a certain degree of
manipulation, as opposed to truly connecting with others and responding accordingly.
Finally, the Big 5 attributes are helpful in a job setting. Attitudes/actions such as
dependability, thoroughness, reliability ensure that an individual is a meaningful contributor to
the job. In contrast, being a Type A workaholic can not only lead to burnout and exhaustion,
but it can alienate team members and create a dysfunctional organizational culture where
people do not feel connected to one another in meaningful ways and have significant work/life
conflicts.

DECISION MAKING CONSTRAINTS

Finally, we move to the last output—decision making. As with perceptions, there are
constraints and biases that will hinder effective decision making. The Perfection Error can
lead to overconfidence, confirmation, and/or escalation of commitment biases. In each of
these biases, the decision maker has an inflated impression of himself, causing him to overrate
his own abilities (overconfidence), only affirm information that supports past decisions
(confirmation), and increase commitment to a past decision even in the face of negative
information (escalation of commitment). The anchoring bias, availability bias, randomness
error bias, and hindsight bias are related to the Intelligence Error because in some form or
another, they all have an inflated evaluation of the decision-makers ability to process and
evaluate the information available to her.

Moving beyond these heart-level constraints, decision-makers are constrained by information
overload and limited time, which go hand in hand with one another. The rational decision-
making model assumes that the decision maker has sufficient time to identify every
component of a problem and all possible alternatives to solve the problem. It also assumes
that there is enough time to evaluate each alternative. However, in the real, rough and tumble
world, such is the rarely the case. The Bounded Rationality model acknowledges this reality,
and is related to the notion that intuition must also play a key role in decision-making.

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Decision-makers are often forced to make gut-level decisions without having all the
information they would prefer.

Finally, organizational constraints play a key role. Performance evaluation criteria, reward
systems, formal regulations, system imposed time constraints and historical precedents all put
limitations on the options and frames of reference for the decision maker, for better or for
worse.

DEALING WITH CONSTRAINTS AND BIASES

Given all of these constraints, and the proclivities toward pride that can cloud our judgment,
decision making can be a daunting process. But there are there some ways to deal with these
constraints and biases.

One way is to increase creativity. The Three Component Model suggests that creativity can be
enhanced through a combination of expertise (meaning that organizations should continue to
seek to educate, train, and retain their employees), creative thinking skills (didn’t see that one
coming…) and intrinsic task motivation (meaning that employees who truly enjoy their work
will be more apt to invest themselves fully in the decision making process). Being mentored by
creative individuals is also suggested.

Another means is to encourage “Big Picture” thinking, where decisions are made based not
just on what is good for an individual, group or department, but rather in terms of what is good
for the entire organization. This helps to overcome close-minded thinking. It might also allow
for a more comprehensive definition of the problem that needs to be solved, since “big picture”
thinking is most effective when members from different parts of the organization are
represented in the decision making process. Therefore, mutual accountability and
participative decision making come into play here.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, is the need for humility in making decisions. Decision
makers can easily fall into one of two extremes: arrogant and brash decision making or fearful,
timid, prolonged and ultimately, untimely decision making. In truth, both extremes are based
on pride. The relationship between the first extreme and pride is rather self-explanatory.
Regarding the second extreme, people who put too much stock in their own efforts and
intelligence, rather than trusting that God will guide them and take care of them regardless of
the outcome (if they will fully submit to Him) often find themselves crippled with fear and over
analysis. They are obsessed with what will happen should they make a wrong decision, instead
of waiting quietly on the Lord and making a decision with an open and humble heart.

Back to Table of Contents

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LESSON 3: Motivating Employees

Lesson 2 focused primarily upon our personal values, emotions, attitudes, etc. and what we as
individuals can do to ensure that our emotions, moods and attitudes were in line with Biblical
truth and effective job performance. Lesson 3 now puts the emphasis on how organizations
can motivate individuals to be more productive on the job.

MOTIVATIONAL THEORIES

Part 1 focuses on motivational theories that have been developed over the years to explain
how employees are motivated. Part 2 will then focus on how these ideas and concepts can be
applied to an organizational setting in practical ways. Two major themes underlie the major
motivational theories that will be presented in this lesson. The first is that intrinsic motivation
is the most effective means of motivating employees, because it speaks to who God made
them to be. The second theme is that covenantal behavior can be used to achieve intrinsic
motivation.

EARLY MOTIVATION THEORIES

Very little will be said about the early motivational theories, because for the most part, they
are not substantiated by the research. However, it is interesting to note that on an intuitive
level, all of them touch on the importance of intrinsic motivation. Two Factor theory argues
that happiness and job satisfaction are not related to external factors. Maslow’s Hierarchy of
Needs speaks of the ultimate motivator being self-actualization—which has nothing to do with
external factors such as pay, recognition but rather finding true meaning and fulfillment.
Theory X/Theory Y argued that in reality, most employees wanted to be empowered and were
looking for opportunities to grow and develop through their work. Of course, Biblically, we
know that this is not always true—not every employee wants to grow or can be trusted with
more responsibility.

McClleland’s Theory of Needs argued that employees are motivated by one of three needs:
the need for power (nPow), achievement (nAch) or affiliation (nAff). A Biblical perspective on
this theory is that living for eternity, which of course is all about intrinsic motivation, can
achieve all three of these. Caring for others and showing them the love of God (nAff) is
ultimately the best investment of one’s efforts, because the pay-off is one that is eternal
(nAch). And God empowers those who seek to do His will (nPow). On an organizational level,
covenantal behavior is also relevant here. Creating an atmosphere where your employees are
cared for (nAff), are empowered (nPow) and can achieve objectives and are honored for them
(nAch) are what covenant is all about.

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CONTEMPORARY MOTIVATION THEORIES

The contemporary theories of motivation also emphasize the importance of intrinsic
motivation and covenantal behavior (with the exception of Reinforcement theory, which
focuses solely on external motivators). Cognitive Evaluation theory posits that verbal
rewards increase intrinsic motivation and that job satisfaction increases when work goals are
done for intrinsic reasons.

Goal Setting theory argues that goals set via participative decision making increases the
likelihood that goals will be accepted. It furthermore assumes that employees are self-
motivated and have taken ownership of their organization. It requires feedback from leaders
(active dialogue).

According to Self-Efficacy theory, employees can be motivated to accomplish tasks if they are
affirmed, which increases their self-confidence. Furthermore, assigning challenging goals to
employees can convey a sense of trust in them and respect for their abilities. As seen, intrinsic
motivation—feeling self-confident and valued—plays a key role in motivation, and from a
covenantal perspective, these things can be achieved through empowerment, mentoring, and
affirmation (hesed).

Equity theory shows the interplay of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. It argues that
employees are motivated by equal treatment. Therefore, organizational justice is crucial. An
organization that acts covenantally is more apt to achieve this justice because: 1) it is more
open to sharing bad news with employees (active dialogue) which can help to remove
employee fears about injustice, 2) it encourages big-picture thinking and teamwork to solve
problems; and 3) is more open to allowing employees to have a say in pay and bonus structures
(participatory decision making). All of these tactics can increase employee belief in the
fairness of the organization.

Expectancy theory, which is probably the one most substantiated by research, focuses on how
employees are motivated by the extent to which they can accomplish a task and in so doing,
the extent to which they will be rewarded. It also argues that ultimately, the reward meted out
by the organization will only have value insofar as it relates to personal goals (intrinsic
motivation). From a covenantal perspective, this theory should remind leaders of the value of
affirming and rewarding employees and understanding the types of rewards that motivate
employees (hesed, participatory decision making).

EMPLOYEE PARTICIPATION

Employee involvement is another word for the covenantal idea of participative decision-
making and management. An important and related term to this is “sphere sovereignty”.
Developed by Dutch covenantal theologian Abraham Kuyper, this idea asserts that people and

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institutions should be respected and empowered in their field or “sphere” of expertise and
control. In an organization, those who are going to be influenced by a decision should ideally
have a say in the decision-making process. This will not only help to motivate employees, but
it will also likely ensure that leaders have better data from those who are “in the trenches” in
making a given decision. Representative participation is also related to this notion, but in a
more formal and procedural context.

Quality Circles and Total Quality Management were some of the first perspectives that called
for greater employee involvement. Quality circles are consist of meetings in which employees
get together with management to discuss ways to improve organizational processes and
procedures in order to enhance quality. Related to this, TQM emphasized training of
employees in the notion of “quality of workmanship” and encouraged the use of quality circles
as a means of increasing quality and productivity.

It should be noted, however, that empowerment is not for everyone. Only those employees
who are willing to take ownership of the organization, employ big picture thinking (which
means they are willing to look past their own group or departmental concerns and in order to
focus on what is good for the organization as whole) should be entrusted with empowerment.

PAYMENT PROGRAMS

Payment programs are an example of the importance of extrinsic motivation. There are two
general categories. The first is more of a goal—creating an equitable pay structure. This done
to achieve internal equity—ensuring that everyone is fairly compensated within the
organization—and to achieve external equity—paying employees a fair salary in terms of what
they could be making elsewhere. The former is important to prevent internal strife and
resentment. The latter is important to ensure that an organization does not lose its qualified
employees to another company. The saying, “You get what you pay for,” is certainly relevant
here.

Variable-pay programs come in many forms. There is some research to suggest that they can
serve as valuable motivators. For instance, profit-sharing has been found to contribute to
increased profitability, and gainsharing has been found to increase productivity and positive
employee attitudes. Piece-rate pay-for-performance plans have been found to increase
productivity, but not for risk-averse employees.

FLEXIBLE BENEFITS

Flexible benefits are another type of external motivator, and allow each employee to
individually tailor his benefit package. There are three types. Modular plans are
predesigned for a specific employee type. Core-plus plans provide essential benefits plus a

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menu selection for non-essential benefits. Flexible spending plans allow employees to set
aside money tax free for potential health needs.

INTRINSIC REWARDS

The theme running throughout this lesson is that intrinsic motivators are the most powerful
form of motivation. It is therefore appropriate to talk about intrinsic rewards offered to
employees to thank them for their efforts on behalf of the organization. This should not be
viewed as an attempt to totally discount extrinsic motivators. In fact, some studies suggest
that financial incentives have better short term impact, but non-financial incentives are more
motivating in the long run.
In that vein, recognizing and affirming employees is a key aspect of intrinsic rewards,
however, such rewards cannot be arbitrary (such as using an intrinsic reward to honor
“favorite” employees). Doing so can actually lead to resentment and serve as a powerful vision
killer. It also needs to be specific and clear if it is going to have motivational power.

BIBLICAL SUMMARY

Having provided some theoretical perspectives on motivation and providing some guidelines
for motivating employees, it will be helpful to provide some concluding, Biblical thoughts on
the subject.

On an individual level, we need to remember to avoid “misplaced motivators” for doing the
things we do. If we are seeking to be promoted over others or seeking to be recognized as
ends unto themselves, than it is quite likely that we have the wrong motivations for doing the
things we are doing. Likewise if we find that we “must” be in control (as if that were just a
personality quirk rather than a fundamental statement about how we view God’s role in our
lives) then yet again we are being wrongly motivated.

What should motivate us? Living for eternity—seeing God work through us to change lives
around us. There are only three things that will last for eternity—God, God’s Word, and
people, so we should invest our time and effort into them. As Romans 2:6-8 (ESV) says: “He
will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for
glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking
and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.”

At the organizational level, leaders need to remember to emphasize intrinsic motivators.
This is not to say that extrinsic motivators such as pay are not valuable, but rather that in and
of themselves they will not have the same long-term motivational impact as intrinsic
motivators. To accomplish this emphasis, leaders need to shift their duties to affirming,
empowering, and rewarding employees. Leaders and managers who fail to appreciate the

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importance of the “people” side of their duties and instead focus primarily on just “getting
things done” will struggle with intrinsically motivating employees.

Finally, leaders need to create consensus on intrinsic, essential goals. This is done to create a
sense of shared vision and to remind everyone in the organization that “we’re in this together.”
This process can generate a lot of excitement and momentum within the organization.

Back to Table of Contents

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LESSON 4: Group Behavior and Work Teams

Welcome to Lesson 4: GROUP BEHAVIOR AND WORK TEAMS. This lesson marks a shift
from a discussion about individual behavior and motivation to group behavior.

GROUP BEHAVIOR

Part 1 discusses the general properties and tendencies of groups, specifically with regard to
roles, properties, and decision making. Part 2 will apply these concepts within an
organization setting. In both cases, the value of covenantal principles will be emphasized.

STAGES OF GROUP DEVELOPMENT

When groups are formed, they through some process of growth and development. Members
establish relationships and get used to working with one another. They create processes,
routines, and norms, and above all try to get things done. A popular way for conceptualizing
this process is to describe it as Forming (the introductory phase)-Storming (the initial conflict
among members as they get used to one another)-Norming (establishing normalcy and
familiarity with one another and with how things get done)-Performing (gaining momentum
and accomplishing goals and objectives)-Adjourning (disbanding the group, if it is a short-term
one). Obviously, not every group goes through this process in the same way, but it does
provide a helpful framework for understanding group development.

From a covenantal perspective, mutual accountablity, and hesed can strengthen the group
because both attributes are aimed at getting members to care for one another and be
accountable to one another in order protect their own rights as well as creating a lasting
relationship. These attributes can not only make the forming and storming stages less divisive
and disjointed, they also set the stage for active dialogue, “big picture” thinking, and
participatory decision making within the group during the norming and performing stages .

GROUP PROPERTIES

There are several concepts associated with Group Properties. For instance, different
members have different roles within the group. And every group has certain norms. The
question is whether or not these norms are healthy ones. How does the group resolve
conflicts? Are mutual accountability and empowerment key components of these norms? Is
conformity exalted above productivity or active dialogue?

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Every group has a certain status within an organization. Does this status lead to a sense of
elitism among group members, or in keeping with covenantal behavior, do group members see
their group as part of the greater organizational whole and whose purpose is to help the
organization accomplish its goals (“big picture” thinking)? If it is the former, than the group
will likely have problems with groupthink.

What is the size of the group? Smaller groups are better for getting things done (ideally no
more than 7 people), but larger groups are ideal for solving problems because they maximize
different perspectives as problems are defined and solutions are offered.

Is there social loafing in the group? If so, limiting the size of the group will help because doing
so requires every member to be more involved, and it enables mutual accountability to be
enforced more easily. Setting common goals for the group and encouraging active dialogue
can also help.

How cohesive is the group? Generally speaking, cohesiveness encourages higher
performance. As with the issue of social loafing, cohesiveness can be enhanced by shrinking
the size of the group and setting common goals.

GROUP DECISION MAKING

Which is better—individual or group decision making?

The benefits of group decision making is that it provides more complete information than an
individual would because it provides greater diversity of views, which in turn leads to more
accurate decisions. It also leads to increased acceptance of the decision, since consensus-
building was used to come to the decision.

The negatives is that it is more time consuming since obviously more people are involved in
the process. There can also be greater pressure to conform (especially if group norms do not
allow for healthy conflict resolution), which can stifle a true discussion of ideas. Related to this
problem is the possibility for one person dominating the group. It is therefore important for
groups to practice active dialogue in order to prevent this. On the other extreme, there can be
ambiguous responsibility in the group process, which is why the concept of mutual
accountability must be a part of the group decision-making process. In the end, it’s clear that
individuals can make quicker decisions, but when a problem needs to be solved or information
needs to be analyzed, the group decision-making process is ideal.

One particularly effective method of group decision-making which dovetails nicely with the
principle of mutual accountability is the nominal group technique. In this process, individuals
meet as a group but generate ideas individually. Ideas are then presented one at a time, and
each member takes a turn until all ideas have been presented. Then ideas are discussed for

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clarity and evaluation. Finally, members independently and silently rank each idea, and the
idea with the highest score wins. This method has been found to be more effective than
brainstorming or electronic meetings.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GROUPS AND TEAMS
• Work group
• Work team

Work groups interact merely to share information, make decisions, and complete tasks, but a
work team creates synergy through coordinated effort. In this case, the sum is greater than
the individual contribution of the parts. At this level, we begin to see covenant behavior and
big picture thinking.

TYPES OF TEAMS

• Problem-solving Teams
• Self-managed Work Teams
• Cross-functional Teams
• Virtual teams

Problem-solving: Teams are especially gifted at problem-solving because they allow for a
multi-faceted approach to solving a problem.

Self-managed: These teams, in essence, take on a supervisory role as they complete vital
tasks. However, the success of these types of teams is mixed. On the one hand, there is in
fact greater job satisfaction among members of self-managed teams, but there are also higher
rates of absenteeism and turnover. Perhaps this lack of absenteeism is due to a lack of
accountability because team members are accountable only to one another. To combat this,
successful teams must be “covenantal” in their approach to their activity—they need covenant-
level commitment to the process, they need to be humble and accountable to one another.
They also need to be accountable to the greater goal of the organization—the team cannot
just be a social club for the elite members therein! Success is based upon the norms of the
team, the make-up of the team, the type of tasks, and the reward structure.

Cross-functional: This type of team increases opportunities to exchange information, develop
new ideas and solve problems, as well as increase communication and “big picture” thinking.

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In one sense, this is the goal of every “covenantal” organization—to increase this type of
communication and interaction across the board. Getting to this level of communication and
interaction takes a lot of work, even at the team level. It takes time to build trust and get
everyone on the same page, and as will be discussed shortly, if the performance evaluation and
reward structure, the organizational culture, and leadership behavior do not support this type
of interaction, it will be especially difficult.

Virtual teams: These types of teams are not able to duplicate the face-to-face connection of
other teams. Perhaps they should not be relied upon, therefore, for solving problems and
creating big-picture initiatives. They are probably better served for conveying information to
the members and for the performance of more basic functions.

FACTORS RELATING TO SUCCESSFUL TEAMS

Context
• Adequate resources
• Leadership and structure:
• Climate of Trust
• Performance Evaluation/Reward Systems

Adequate resources: Organizations need to be willing to support teams with the necessary
equipment and such that will be needed to do the job. Ultimately, this falls on the leadership
team.

Leadership and structure are especially important in “multi-team” systems. Leaders need to
understand the importance of keeping all of the groups focused on big picture tasks and not
just their own responsibilities. Also, for a team approach to really work, leaders need to truly
delegate the necessary tasks to the team (empowerment), along with the authority needed to
do those tasks. Leaders also need to provide the necessary resources to help the team
accomplish those tasks, and above all, leaders need to see themselves as active facilitators in
the team process—helping teams see the big picture, and how they relate to the efforts of
other teams, and ensuring that teams don’t get into “turf wars” with other teams. This
requires the leadership team to be covenantal in their approach to team efforts, and therefore,
there must be a covenantal culture throughout the organization.

Trust can be easily undermined when leaders don’t provide the necessary resources,
information, or support for teams. Also, when leaders allow rampant conflict (back-biting,
gossip, rivalries, etc.) to breed, trust will be hindered. Within the group, members need to be
able to trust one another. If organizational leaders have created a climate where members can
truly focus on the task of the group rather than having to look after their own security and

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standing in the organization, and if the group members themselves appreciate one another’s
gifts and strengths, competition will be lessened and teamwork will increase. One way of
decreasing competition is through reward systems and performance evaluation that
encourage group behavior and accomplishment.

Performance Evaluation/Reward Systems: Organizations need to hold team members
individually accountable (to prevent social loafing) while at the same time measuring for joint
success (to increase group cohesion). Therefore the evaluation criteria used to appraise team
members performance needs to measure both individual contributions as well as group
accomplishments. Group-based appraisals, profit-sharing, gainsharing, and small-group
incentives should also be used in the reward process.

Team Composition

• Abilities of Members
• Personality of Members
• Allocation of Roles
• Diversity of members
• Size of teams: keep them at 9 or fewer members
• Member preferences: not everyone wants to be in a team!

Abilities include technical expertise, problem-solving and decision-making skills, and
interpersonal skills. High ability teams should be saved for more difficult tasks and problems
as they may become bored with mundane tasks and issues.

The personality of members is also a key issue. For instance, high conscientiousness and
openness to experience lead to better performance, and disagreeable team members can
significantly hurt the team process. Proverbs talks a lot about back-biters, lazy, arrogant, and
foolish people and how they disrupt good things and negatively influence others. These types
are far from “covenantal” in their behavior, but probably every organization has people who
are this way, as we’ve discussed in previous lectures. Research reveals that it might be better
to keep all of the conscientious, “covenantal” people on the same team separate from low
conscientious members to remove inequity and improve satisfaction.

Allocation of Roles: Furthermore, members should be selected based upon their strengths
and should be assigned tasks within the group accordingly. This increases motivation and
satisfaction for the members, but again, it requires some forethought and proactivity on the
part of the leaders.

Greater diversity does not necessarily guarantee performance and can actually negatively
affect performance of teams. Turnover can also be higher as well as conflict and power

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struggles. One study suggested that to really get things done, members in diverse groups
should focus on the task right away to build cohesion based upon a shared sense of teamwork.

Size: Remember from the previous lecture that groups and teams should be kept to a
manageable size—9 or fewer is ideal. This allows for “covenantal bonding—members can truly
get to know one another and develop relationships with one another in meaningful ways.
Team members should be comfortable enough with one another where they can challenge one
another for the purposes of increasing productivity.

Member Preferences: Not everyone enjoys working in a group (introverts?), so keep that in
mind. It’s better to get people in the group who want to be there. It should be stated,
however, that just because someone does not function well in a group does not mean that they
have the attitude issues discussed above. It just means that their talents and affinities lie
elsewhere. Again, leadership will need to be able to identify these type of people and plan
accordingly.

Work Design—think “covenantally”

• Allow for freedom and autonomy.
• Skill Variety
• Task Identity
• Task Significance

For a group to truly be a team, leaders must empower them with the freedom and autonomy
to do the job assigned to them. They must also be given the opportunity to use different skills
and talents (skill variety), as this will motivate talented employees who feel like they have a lot
to offer and are looking for the opportunity to feel challenged by their work.

Task Identity: Likewise, if leaders allow a team to complete the entire, identifiable task or
product, motivation will increase. This is related to Demming’s notion of “quality of
workmanship” because it allows for motivated team members to get excited about producing
quality workmanship. As Christians, we know that work can and should be an act of worship to
God, and task identity allows for this type of worship to happen, even among people who,
though not Christians per se, are still made in God’s image and intuitively understand the value
of quality workmanship as end unto itself.

Related to this is task significance—team members will be more motivated if the things they
are accomplishing are important and have value. Leaders need to have enough to create tasks
that are both valuable for the organization and meaningful to team members. When these
factors are in play, member satisfaction and team effectiveness are increased.

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Team Processes

• Common Plan and Purposes
• Specific Goals
• Team Efficacy
• Mental Models
• Conflict Levels
• Social Loafing

Common Plan and Purposes: Teams need to have a good plan, but once they have
established that plan, they need to be able to adjust it as necessary (reflexivity). This requires
covenant—mutual accountability and a willingness to reconsider and evaluate the plan. When
making a covenant, members not only establish the terms and goals of the covenant; they also
create a framework and process whereby the covenant can be reviewed and revised from time
to time and as need be. Teams cannot be so focused on their positive identity that they are not
willing to consider that they’re off track (group think).

Specific Goals: Having goals is basically this is accountability. Nebulous values and goals will
not lead to success!

Team Efficacy: Teams need to have confidence in themselves. Hesed, mutual accountability,
and mutual affirmation are helpful in this regard, but only in conjunction with accountability to
the stated and clearly defined goals of the group. Otherwise the team will fall into groupthink
and failure.

Mental Models: teams need a successful, accurate, and humble “psychological map” of how
work gets done and what to expect in the performance of tasks. This requires effective
communication among members, and therefore mutual accountability plays a key role here.
Team members all need to be on the same page with one another lest there be any surprises
when one member approaches the task one way and another member another way. Such
discontinuity cannot only hurt communication; it can also hurt productivity. Likewise, team
members need to be in touch with the greater reality of the job and the environment in which
they are operating. Even if the entire team is in agreement about expectations and standards,
is their mental model unrealistic? It’s easy for individuals (remember “self-inflation”
tendencies) and groups to assume the best and to assume that the work will be easier than it
really is. Teams have to be diligent in truly researching what resources of time, money, etc.
will be required to get the job done. They cannot have illusions of grandeur or ease in the
process. In other words, teams need to be wary of their own collective laziness and pride.
Professionalism is informed by humility and diligence. Professional teams have healthy and
realistic mental models.

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Conflict Levels: Functional conflict increases productivity because it challenges flaws and blind
spots in the “mental model” of the group and therefore any group think that might exist.
However, functional conflict can be undermined when members, due to pride personalize
disagreements. Relationship conflicts, therefore, are dysfunctional and take away from team
unity and productivity. Part of a healthy “mental model” of any team is the acknowledgement
that functional conflict should be an important part of the process to ensure that an accurate
and realistic description of the problem and task is in place.

Social Loafing: successful teams hold members accountable to both group goals and
individual tasks needed to accomplish those goals. A mental model that allows a member to
not do any individual work or focus ONLY on individual work is flawed. This should be
communicated at the outset. Team members should realize that not only are they responsible
for their piece of the puzzle; they are also responsible for the entire process, in order to make
sure that the mental model is effective and to ensure that everything is getting done as it
should. The idea of covenant once again is relevant here—especially in terms of hesed and
mutual accountability. Also, the very basis of entering a covenant requires more than just a
loose and vague commitment to the relationship; on the contrary, entering into a covenantal
relationship requires steadfast and active commitment.

TURNING INDIVIDUALS INTO TEAM PLAYERS

• Hire team Players
• Training
• Rewarding

Hiring Team Players: Organizations that do not understand the necessity of having a team
mindset will not hire the right types of employees.

Training: Organizations can provide training in this regard, but training in and of itself will only
result in cynicism if leadership is not committed to empowerment and servant leadership. Lip
service will not work in creating teamwork anymore than lip service would work in any type of
relationship. Being a team player needs to be modeled by leadership in terms of being open to
feedback, communicating at the “big picture” level with employees, and empowering
employees who are affected by decisions to have a say in those decisions. If that context is not
there, the ability to encourage teamwork will be limited.

Rewarding: members should be rewarded for team-building activities—helping to resolve
conflict, mastering new skills that the team needs, sharing information with teammates, etc.
Of course, in an organization where various departments do not communicate well with one
another and where leaders do not communicate well with the employees in the trenches, it will

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be hard to create a necessary reward structure to encourage team-building. On the other
extreme, if group behavior is emphasized at the expense of the individual, a lack of morale may
exist. Hard-working individuals need to be rewarded for their individual contributions.
Remember that in a covenant, individuals are affirmed and cared for and they are tasked with
affirming and caring for the other members in the relationship. This is the best way to create a
true team.

WHEN SHOULD TEAMS BE USED?

• Only if the work couldn’t be better done by one person
• When the work goal is greater than individual goals
• When members find that they are interdependent with other members

Only if the work couldn’t be better done by one person. Usually problem-solving is better served
by a team, whereas the completion of simple tasks should be left to the individual level.

When the work creates a greater goal than just the combination of individual goals. This is true at
the organizational level as well—every employee needs to see how their task fits into the big
picture.

When members find that they are interdependent with other members in the completion of their
separate tasks. In this situation, there should be communication among the members and
greater interaction.

Back to Table of Contents

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LESSON 5: Organizational Communication

FORMAL AND INFORMAL CHANNELS

Formal Channels: “official” means of communication

Informal Channels: interpersonal, unofficial, and often, the most meaningful

Formal channels are the written policies, mission/vision statements, rules and regulations,
memo’s, etc. that a company creates and expects from its employees. The informal channels
can either work against or for the company and the formal channels. For instance, the
“grapevine” often conveys a lot of information that the organization wouldn’t want conveyed.
Depending upon how leaders treat their employees and are viewed in the organization, the
grapevine can be good or bad. Rumors, gossip, and speculation are all communicated via
informal channels. The stories of how leaders either affirm or kill the vision (“vision killers”)
also get transmitted quickly through informal channels, especially through the grapevine.
However, if leader s and other members of the organization are covenantal in their behavior,
those same informal channels can be those which convey mutual affirmation and care, and
which provide momentum for what the organization is trying to accomplish. Leaders need to
be aware that informal communication is often more important than formal communication,
because informal communication falls in the sphere of interpersonal relationships, which is
where the rubber meets the road for organizational behavior.

DIRECTION OF COMMUNICATION

Downward Communication:

o Leaders should explain WHY decisions are being made.
o Leaders should seek feedback about decisions

Upward Communication: gives feedback to managers and leaders about organizational
progress.

Downward communication, like formal communication, can often be too rigid for effective
communication. If leaders don’t provide a clear rationale for decisions, employees can feel
confusion, fear, and resentment for policies and decisions which don’t make sense from their
perspective. Ideally, not only should leaders communicate the rationale behind their decisions,
they should also seek feedback about those decisions from employees before the decisions are
made, which of course is part of upward communication. This goes back to the notion of

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“sphere sovereignty” in which all relevant employees who will be impacted by a decision
should have feedback into the decision process. This is also part of “big picture” thinking.
Leaders communicate the big picture constraints, goals, and objectives to relevant employees,
and employees provide feedback “from the trenches”—so that those goals and objectives are
contextualized in the realities of customer needs and the day-to-day routine of various
departments.

Ideally, leaders should be actively seeking upward communication, but there are some
practical tips for employees seeking to engage in upward communication. First of all,
employees can reduce distractions when meeting with their superiors by meeting outside of
the boss’s office, such as a conference room. Employees should speak in “headlines”—in other
words—get to the point with your boss! Do not meander but rather serve your superior by
reducing information overload and providing clear, compelling information for why what you
have to share is relevant. Using an agenda is also helpful to help give your superior a clear map
of where employees are headed when they are communicating with superiors.

The bottom line is that employees need to be focused when trying to provide feedback to
superiors. Ideas and concerns need to be linked into the “big picture” of the organization—any
personal concerns which the employee has must be couched in the goals, constraints, and
objectives the organization is facing. And again, this is part of the covenantal process. Though
leaders should humble themselves and seek valuable feedback from employees, those same
employees are obligated to “accept the terms of the covenant”, take ownership of the process,
and think like leaders. Doing so will ensure that upward communication is far more relevant
and much more likely to be received favorably by leadership.

Lateral communication:

o Communication across departments
o Saves time and increases productivity
o Avoids “me vs. them” mentality
o Increases “big picture” thinking
o Facilitated by ad hoc, cross-functional teams.

In previous lessons, the case has been made that it is natural for humans to think in terms of
“me vs. them”, or, “I’m smart and everyone else (who doesn’t agree with me and think like me)
is an idiot.” Organizationally, this manifests itself in horizontal communication, when leaders
accuse employees of being lazy and unmotivated, and employees accuse leaders of being inept
and out of touch. In lateral communication, this same attitude is manifested as various
departments and groups can engage in turf wars with one another. Members of competing
groups chafe at the rules and regulations imposed by the other groups, considering them to be
arbitrary and useless. Meanwhile members of the other departments presume that the other

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groups are clueless. What is really going on is that each department makes rules and
regulations that maximize their own efficiency and effectiveness, without being aware of how
those same rules and regulations affect other departments and individuals in the organization.

This is where lateral communication is so helpful. As members from various groups and
departments meet together to get things done, organizational awareness increases. In that
context, it will be far more likely that members in one group will be more aware of the
constraints, needs, and goals of other departments, and so on. This of course is related to “big
picture” thinking. There are various facets of lateral communication, but one practical and
specific way to increase this type of “big picture” thinking is to use ad hoc, cross-functional
groups who meet to discuss areas where various departments and groups are having issues
and where blind spots exist in big picture thinking.

INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION

Oral Communication:

o Still the most effective way to communicate
o Passing message through a number of people can dilute the message.
o Rumor mill and grapevine

Written Communication:

o Rules remove uncertainty
o But excessive rules = less attention to those rules
o Policies must be lived our relationally

Covenantal Behavior to Increase Communication:

o “Spirit” of the law, not just the letter
o Leaders care for and empower employees
o Leaders communicate big picture
o Encourage lateral communication and teamwork

Oral communication is still the best way to communicate information because it is immediate
and because it allows for feedback and immediate clarification. However, it also can be
inefficient. As a message is communicate through more and more people, it can get more and
more diluted. To solve that problem, written communication is employed. Leaders create
policies and procedures to remove uncertainty, but in so doing, they run the risk of excessive
bureaucratization and a think rule book which no one reads. Fortunately, covenantal behavior
can address this dilemma.

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Remember that a covenant relationship involves not just rules and regulations, but also the
spirit undergirding those rules—mutual accountability and hesed. Indeed, the very notion of
hesed implies a loving fulfillment of those rules and regulations. If leaders hire quality
employees, and more importantly, if leaders act with integrity, care for and empower
employees, and do a good job of communicating the “big picture” to employees, there will be
less need to rely upon excessive written communication. This is so because employees will
understand the spirit and rationale behind what the organization is trying to accomplish. By
giving employees more responsibility and power (task identity, task significance, “quality of
workmanship), employees will be more likely to do quality work and will not need external
rules and regulations. Finally, as leaders encourage a spirit of team work and mutual
affirmation/accountability across the organizations, there will be less resistance among groups
and people will be more apt to work together to get things done. In summary, all of this
covenantal behavior contributes to intrinsic motivation. When employees are motivated
intrinsically, they need less external guidance and motivation.

ORGANIZATIONAL COMPONENTS

Formal Networks:

o Chain, Wheel, and All channel
o All have advantages and disadvantages
o Covenantal behavior is more important

Informal:

o Grapevine
o Rumor Mill
o Rumors are reduced by effective communication.

The formal network prototypes all have advantages and disadvantages in terms of effective
communication and clear leadership. The essential point here is that covenantal behavior can
accommodate a variety of network structures. It seems that horizontal communication is
based served when it runs two-ways, regardless of the structure. And the richness of that two-
way horizontal communication is aided by quality lateral communication.

As mentioned earlier, the grapevine is a powerful conduit for informal communication, about
75% of which is accurate. Similarly, the rumor mill also provides a powerful conduit for
informal communication, and usually arises when important organizational issues arise that
are ambiguous and cause employees anxiety. To reduce the low morale caused by the rumor

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mill, leaders should be quick to openly communicate potential bad news and all decisions that
are being made which might negatively impact employees. Being open about difficult
decisions and issues reduces the fear of the unknown. Furthermore, if leaders allow employees
to have input and to share concerns, this further helps to reduce low morale and rumors. So
covenantal behavior is very important during difficult times.

Electronic Communication:

o The faster the medium, the greater the ambiguity
o Networking software, blogs can provide community and personal touch
o Can be both formal and informal

Knowledge Management and Customer Relationship Management software:

o Preserves information
o Aids the sharing of information
o Requires covenantal behavior
o Must be focused to avoid information overload

Regarding the various mediums of electronic communication, the guiding principle is that the
faster the medium the greater the potential for ambiguity, both with regards to information
quality and emotional meaning. This should be taken into account when communicating via
email, instant messaging, etc.

Knowledge management (KM) technology is vital for preserving and encouraging
organizational learning and “big picture” thinking, and as such can be a valuable aid for
covenantal behavior. The key is that there must in fact be a willingness among members to
share information—a practice which runs directly contrary to the “me vs. them” attitude
discussed earlier. Therefore, similar to the strategies for encouraging group cohesiveness,
leaders must create reward systems and performance evaluation criteria which encourage
team work and the sharing information.

The same is necessary for the use of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology.
CRM technology collects data and information from employees in the trenches—sales and
customer service representatives—and helps preserve best practices for attracting and serving
customers. It also helps to identify customer concerns, product defects, and/or service issues.
But again, for this technology to be helpful, there must be a covenantal culture, where
employees understand the value of teamwork. For instance, sharing best practices for
attracting new customers and serving existing customers helps everyone.

Finally, KM and CRM technology work best when they help to reduce information overload.
Only vital information must be stored and shared. If used properly, these technologies can

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give a company a competitive edge as it educates its employees and improves their
productivity.

WHICH CHANNEL TO USE?

• Rule of thumb: non-routine messages need “richer” channels.
• Effective managers understand critical of non-routine messages.

There are many channels which can be employed for organizational communication, but the
general rule of thumb is that the more non-routine the message, the more rich the channel
should be. Face-t0-face communication, for example, is the richest channel of
communication. When bad news needs to be communicated, or difficult decisions need to be
hashed out, leaders do well to interact more directly with employees. The same is true in the
situation of lateral communication, when various departments need to work through issues of
conflicting goals among themselves.

Effective managers and leaders understand this important truth in part because they
understand the concerns of employees during difficult times and also because they understand
the important of “big picture” thinking and communication.

Back to Table of Contents

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LESSON 6: Leadership

Welcome to Lesson 6, which will focus on organizational leadership. We’ll begin with an
overview of some of the historical trends in leadership development, and then focus on
contemporary leadership perspectives. In so doing, we’ll find that all of the leadership trends
continue to revolve around some core concepts that just happen to be paramount to a
covenantal approach.

DEFINING LEADERSHIP

• Leadership vs. Management
• Are leaders born or made?
• Leadership as influence

Is leadership the same as management? To be sure, there is overlap between these two
functions. But for the sake of clarity and discussion, leadership will be differentiated from
management in that it is focused on creating vision, “big picture” thinking, and motivating and
inspiring employees. Managing is more focused on achieving the outcomes established by the
leadership team and in general, ensuring effectiveness and efficiency. Both practices are
necessary for successful organizations. It can be furthermore argued that managers will be
more effective if they can inspire and motivate their employees. Likewise, leaders may be
visionary, but if their vision is out of touch with organizational realities and constraints, their
vision will be of no value. So having a managerial perspective is helpful for leaders who want to
be successful. As has been discussed in previous lessons, this is a big part of covenantal
leadership—linking leadership ideas with the reality of organizational details, and linking
employee tasks, concerns, insights, and challenges into the big picture of the organization. We
will continue to focus on how covenantal behavior can help achieve that end.

Much has been offered as an answer to the question of whether leaders are born or made. The
popular consensus is that any person can be developed into a leader with proper training and
encouraging. Reality and the truth of Scripture, however, suggest otherwise. Not everyone
has the moral aptitude and the gifts necessary to lead overtly. Some people are gifted with
more charismatic personality traits and communication skills. These should not be
overlooked, for doing so undermines the fact that each human being is made in God’s image
and reflects His glory in unique ways.

However, if we describe leadership as the ability to influence, the case can be made that any
human being willing to mature spiritually and emotionally into an individual willing to take
ownership of the situation around him and care for others can be said to be a leader. In fact,

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organizations thrive when its members, regardless of their position within the organization,
possess this type of leadership aptitude, and the covenantal approach is very much concerned
with encouraging employees to take ownership of the company and care for others therein. As
will be seen in this presentation, this is a type of “self-leadership” and in later discussions, we
will talk about this type of leadership in terms of organizational culture and the success that it
can breed.

TRAIT THEORIES

• Research validates that leaders possess certain traits.
• Big 5: Extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to experience
• Emotional Intelligence and Assertiveness
• Predicts leadership emergence, not effectiveness

Operating from the framework that leaders are in fact born, the research does in fact support
the notion that certain traits are associated with successful leadership. In fact, the “Big 5”
approach is closely related to this. Extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to
experience are associated with organizational members who are more willing and able to
assume formal and informal leadership roles than their peers.

On a related note, emotional intelligence (EI) is seen as a valuable leadership trait, though the
research is still undeveloped on this front. At the very least, it serves a counter-point to the
research that suggests that individuals who are too assertive in their leadership style actually
undermine their own leadership over others. To be sure, assertiveness is a valuable trait in a
leader, but not when it occurs at the expense of caring for employees, being open to feedback
from employees, and being willing to veer from a chosen path based upon that feedback. It
seems reasonable that a person with a high level of EI would be more in tune with follower
needs, concerns, and insights, would be more willing to respond accordingly, and at very least,
would be more adept at framing ideas and messages in the context of those needs, concerns,
and insights. Furthermore, from a covenantal perspective, a wise leader understands the
importance of meaningful relationships with employees (hesed) and of accountability to
employees. A deficiency in these attributes can seriously undermine leadership efforts and
effectiveness.

Having said all of that, it should be noted that these traits are more likely to predict and explain
leadership emergence, not effectiveness. This should not surprise those of us informed by a
Christian worldview—we understand that leadership is comprised of a moral component which
transcends a mere possession of traits. But if these traits cannot predict leadership success,

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what can? It is hoped that a covenantal approach will help fill in the gap here and provide a
much more well-rounded perspective on leadership.

BEHAVIORAL THEORIES

Ohio State Studies/University of Michigan Studies:

o Initiating structure & Consideration (OSU) as opposed to…
o Employee-oriented and production-oriented

Blake & Mouton’s Managerial Grid:

o Concern for People
o Concern for Production
o Covenantal Behavior allows for both.

Similar to the traits approach to leadership, behavioral theories of leadership emphasize that
leadership consists of specific behaviors. The earliest efforts in this regard are the Ohio State
University and University of Michigan studies. They offered a similar framework—the OSU
studies focused on initiating structures and consideration. Initiating structures relate to the
extent to which leaders provide guidance and clarity on tasks and goals and responsibilities for
employees. Consideration pertains to the extent to which leaders relationally engage
employees as defined by mutual trust, respect, and regard for employee feelings and insight.
This latter category sounds a lot like EI. Likewise, the UM studies focused task-oriented
behaviors and employee-oriented behaviors. Building on these studies, Blake and Mouton
went on to develop the Managerial Grid, whereby a leaders can be classified by the extent to
which they balance concern for people with concern for production.

The importance of these early studies is that they acknowledge the reality that leaders have
dual roles—“getting the job done” and caring for people. It will be argued here that ultimately,
these two functions must coexist, and that in reality, caring for people actually helps with
taking care of business. As the study of leadership and organizational behavior has evolved,
there has been an increasing trend on the belief that by accessing the insights, skills, and
talents of employees not only motivates employees to become more involved in the
organizational process, it also maximizes productivity. Leaders who are too task-oriented will
undermine good will employees and also run the risk of isolating themselves from valuable
employee feedback. On the other hand, leaders who are push-overs and overly-friendly to
employees will not only undermine the task component of the process, but they will destroy
the morale of the good employees because problem employees will not be kept in line. A
covenantal approach embraces this understanding—leaders are to care for employees, but
likewise, employees are to care for leaders and for the organization.

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CONTINGENCY THEORIES

Fiedler’s Model

o Determine task or relationship-orientation
o Evaluate leader-member relations, task structure, and position power
o Match leaders to situations
o Task-oriented best for high and low-control situations
o Relationship-oriented best for moderate control situations

Another perspective on leadership is offered by various contingency theories. The basic
thrust of these theories is that leaders need to be able to adapt their behavior and leadership
style based upon employee characteristics and situational factors. We can see in this emphasis
an influences from the earlier behavioral perspective on leadership. For instance, Fiedler
proposed a model whereby leaders are classified in terms of the whether they were more task-
oriented or relationship-oriented. Then, the situation in which the leader operated was to be
evaluated in terms of leader-member relations, task structure, and position power. Based
upon that analysis, leaders were to be matched with particular situations, the rationale being
that certain types of leaders were more effective in certain types of situations. In summary,
Fielder argued that task-oriented leaders were most effective in high and low-control
situations. In other words, where tasks were clearly structured or were in need of structure,
where employee relationships were either solid or not important, and where leaders either
possessed a high or small degree of position power, task-oriented leaders would thrive. In
high-control situations, leaders would not have to focus much on employee relations, and in
low-control situations, where employee relationships were minimal, a task-oriented leader
would be unfazed and could just focus on getting tasks done. On the other hand, in situations
with moderate control—i.e., ambiguity in all three components—relationship-oriented leaders
would be more effective, perhaps because they would be better able to work with followers to
handle the ambiguity and negotiate power.

Hersey and Blanchard Situational Theory and Path-Goal Theory

o Both focus on employee abilities and mindset
o Path-Goal more focused: Directive, participative, achievement oriented, and supportive

Decision Theory: Vroom and Yetton’s Leader-Participation Model: participative decision-
making determined by various factors

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Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Theory approach and the Path Goal Theory both focus
on employee abilities and mindset and espouse different leadership approaches based upon
those two factors. The Path-Goal approach is more focused and it advocates the use of
directive, participative, achievement-oriented, and supportive leadership styles based upon
whether or not employees had the abilities to be more involved in the process and the desire to
do so.

Neither of these theories are exact, but they do acknowledge the importance of being
connected with employees. Furthermore, it can be argued that the various leadership
approaches advocated by the Path-Goal theory overlap and can be used in conjunction with
one another. For instance, to some extent, directive leadership is needed with every type of
employee. The more motivated employees just need less of that type of leadership approach.
Likewise, if employees know that leaders care for them (supportive leadership), they may be
more open to directive leadership. Participative leadership allows employees to have a say in
the creation of goals and other organizational processes—something that might appeal to
achievement-oriented employees. Finally, related to participative leadership, Vroom and
Yetton’s Leader-Participation model emphasizes the importance of participative decision-
making, but only based upon the presence of certain factors.

Covenant and Contingency Theories:

o The need for flexibility
o The importance employee engagement

The value of contingency theories from a covenantal perspective is that they all emphasize the
importance of leaders being flexible and being in tune with their employees’ needs, abilities,
and insights. How does this relate to the idea of covenant? First of all, a covenantal
relationship is flexible—rather than creating a rigid structure and unchangeable processes,
rules, and regulations, it instead creates a framework of mutually-affirming relationships and
duties that protect each member. Provided that the rights of individuals are not undermined in
any way, a covenant can be revisited to better accomplish agreed-upon goals and to enhance
relationships.

Secondly, individuals who covenant with one another must be meaningfully engaged with one
another in meaningful ways. A covenant is more than just a contractual agreement in which
certain duties must be performed; rather those duties exist to preserve the more foundational
and important relationships among all members. So though a leader may have some
positional authority, he/she also is in a relationship with members and must be accountable to
them. In both regards, contingency theories of leadership coincide with covenantal behavior.

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LEADER-MEMBER EXCHANGE (LMX) THEORY

• Time pressures cause leaders to select “favorite” employees
• The in-group and out-group and self-fulfilling prophecy
• How can leaders develop all employees?

On a less idealistic note, Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory emphasizes the fact that
leaders, due to time constraints and other factors, generally choose and focus upon an “in-
group” and an “out-group.” Members in the “in-group” get more time with the leader and
more development and mentoring than those in the “out-group”. What often happens in such
a situation is that members of the in-group de facto succeed, courtesy of self-fulfilling
prophecy.

Is this fair? Perhaps not, but it is often realistic. Practically speaking, do leaders have the
ability to develop and interact meaningfully with every group of employees? Probably not.
Likewise, is every employee as equally motivated as every other employee? Again, the answer
is no.
On the other hand, covenantal leadership argues that true success is achieved when
employees throughout the organization have taken ownership of organizational processes and
care for one another. If leaders can lead covenantally, perhaps they will be more successful in
creating this type of culture and paradigm.

INSPIRATIONAL APPROACHES

Charismatic Leadership

o Motivates by inspirational vision and personal charisma
o Positive force in troubled times
o Can lead to a lack of accountability and abuse of power
o Level-5 leaders—humble and ambitious

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Later leadership approaches have focused on inspiring employees. For instance, charismatic
leadership focuses on how leaders can motivate employees via inspirational vision and
personal charisma. These types of leaders are especially effective as a positive force during
troubled times—people like Winston Churchill and Lee Iacocca come to mind. However, a
negative of these types of leaders, in becoming “larger than life”, is that they can also become
immune to accountability and therefore can become prone to abusing power.

On the other hand, Level-5 leaders, as defined by Jim Collins in his work From Good to Great,
are leaders who, like charismatic leaders, are ambitious. However, their ambition is driven by
humility—they want their employees and their company to achieve lasting and meaningful
success. Collins further relates that the impact of charismatic leaders upon organizations is not
lasting—though they might achieve short-term success for the company, once they leave the
company, success leaves with them. Collins reasons that this is perhaps due to the fact that
charismatic leaders are too focused on themselves as opposed to focusing on developing
employees and creating a self-sustaining organization. Using these classifications of both, it is
clear that “Level-5” leaders are more in tune with a covenantal approach to leadership.

Transformational Leadership

o Encourages employees to move beyond self-interest to accomplish exciting,
transcendent goals

o Builds upon transactional leadership (providing direction and clarity)
o Is it different from charismatic leadership?
o What do processes and structure look like?

Related to charismatic leadership is the transformational leadership approach.
Transformational leaders encourage followers to look beyond their own self-interest and
focus on transcendent, meaningful goals of the organization. This becomes a motivation for
the entire company, such that the very act of achieving those goals and expanding one’s
horizons becomes an end unto itself. It is important to note that transformational leadership is
not opposed to transactional leadership; rather it builds upon it. Every leader needs to
provide direction and clarity to employees; having established that foundation,
transformational leaders go beyond that to motivate employees at a deeper level.

There is some question as to whether or not transformational leadership is substantially
different from charismatic leadership. Rather than trying to resolve that debate, it would be
helpful to point out that neither leadership approaches focus on the process and structure
that would be helpful for a healthy, self-sustaining organization. This is in large part because
they are, after all, about leadership practices, not about organizational cultures or structures.
But this could in fact be the greatest defect in the inspirational leadership genre—a lack of
focus on anything beyond leadership behavior. As such, these approaches provide us with an

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incomplete picture of organizational success. On the other hand, a covenantal approach
provides not only a description of leadership behavior, but also a context for that behavior, as
defined by organizational processes, structure, culture, and employee interactions.

AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP

• Authentic leaders
• Ethics and “Vision Killers”
• Socialized charismatic leadership

Though less inspirational, authentic leadership focuses on motivating followers through
sincerity and integrity. Given how leaders can destroy an organization’s culture and rapport
with employees through “vision killers” a leader who acts with integrity and ethical
soundness is vital for organizational success. This relates to the covenantal notion of “mutual
accountability” and is therefore quite important. Another view of authentic leadership is to
consider it “socialized charismatic leadership”—charismatic leadership that is wrapped in with
acknowledgement and concern for others.

DEFINING TRUST

Three levels of trust:

o Deterrence-based
o Knowledge-based
o Identification-based (related to covenant)

Basic Principles:

o Mistrust destroys groups and productivity
o Trust can be regained only in limited situations
o Trust begets trust
o Know thyself…

No matter how inspirational leaders are, they still must be trusted by their followers. This is
why “vision killers” can be so detrimental to effective leadership. Trust can be classified in
terms of levels. Deterrence-based trust is motivated by the threat of punishment if threat is
broken. This is more in keeping with a contractual basis for doing business. If the stipulations

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of the contract are broken, then there will be legal ramifications. One violation of trust ends
the relationship. Knowledge-based trust is based upon knowledge of the other person’s
behavior. If there is a proven-track record of good behavior, trust is enhanced. This type of
trust obviously has more longevity than the lower level of deterrence-based trust. Finally,
identification-based trust could be said to be trust based on a deeper, heart level of interaction,
and in fact, is quite covenantal. Members understand and appreciate one another’s motives
and are in deep agreement about shared goals. Such a deep level of trust is necessary in
forming a covenant relationship.

Some guiding principles exist with regards to building trust. First of all, mistrust (vision killers)
destroys groups and productivity. Once trust is lost, it can be regained, but only in limited
situations. On the other hand, trust begets trust. Just as vision killers seriously undermine
relationships and belief in leaders, acts of trust have a powerful motivational impact upon
followers. Finally, trust is ultimately based upon personal integrity, and an individual’s
willingness to look at himself and has a healthy evaluation of his own inconsistencies and
potential for missteps. A leader who is aware of that will not get trapped in his own cult of
personality and will be furthermore open to accountability for others. This is covenantal
behavior and is a solid foundation for building trust.

MENTORING AS LEADERSHIP

• Psychological rather than tangible
• Demming and employee development

Mentoring has been an emerging trend in the study of leadership. It assumes that leaders will
help followers grow personally and professionally, and in a way that helps the organization
succeed. However, research reveals that the impact of mentoring is more psychological than
tangible. Is this entirely a negative? When employees feel cared for psychologically, might
they not be more effective and more motivated? As will be seen in future lessons, ideas like
the “learning organization” are based upon the notion that leaders should help employees
develop and grow professionally in a way that helps the company develop and remain viable.
Furthemore, in his exposition on Total Quality Management, Demming argues that some of
the most important aspects of employee development cannot be measured and yet
nevertheless are necessary and valuable.

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SELF-LEADERSHIP

• Empowerment: “Super leaders” help followers lead themselves.
• Self-sustaining leadership and culture
• Basis for covenantal behavior

Related to the notion of mentoring is self-leadership, where “super leaders” help followers
lead themselves. This is similar to the notion of self-government and is necessary for self-
sustaining leadership within an organization’s culture. If a culture is not self-sustaining in a
positive way, the company will not endure.

Furthermore, in keeping with the covenant idea, the only type of person who can enter into a
covenantal relationship is one who is a “self-leader”—one who models integrity, is willing to
take ownership, and is willing to be accountable to others. The notion of self-leadership is
therefore quite important for successful organizations.

CHALLENGES TO LEADERSHIP CONSTRUCT

Attribution Theory:

o Reveals bias in leadership perception
o Perceived leadership in extreme organizational performance

Neutralizers: negate leadership influence

Substitutes for Leadership:

o Individual, job, and organizational characteristics
o Self-sustaining leadership and culture

Finally, there are some challenges to the general field of leadership. Attribution theory
argues that there is a bias in leadership perception—people de facto characterize others who
are outgoing, gregarious, intelligent and aggressive as leaders, whether or not they are
actually effective as leaders. Furthermore, there is a tendency to either blame leadership for
impressive failure or credit leaders for impressive success, whereas perhaps there are any
number of other factors and causes for either failure or success.

There are also leadership neutralizers and substitutes. Neutralizers are those factors that
totally undermine any type of leadership. Employees who are indifferent to rewards, for

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instance, would be an example of a leadership neutralizer. On the other hand, there are
individual, job, and organizational factors that can substitute for leadership. This is a good
thing, because it contributes to self-sustaining leadership and culture. If employees take
ownership of the process, for example, that means that they are self-motivated and will be less
reliant on formal leadership. In a healthy culture that encourages self-leadership, when one
leader leaves, it is more likely that the company can survive even with that absence. In a final
pitch for covenantal behavior, it can be said that these types of leadership substitutes are a key
part of a covenantal paradigm for organizations.

Back to Table of Contents

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LESSON 7: Politics, Negotiation and Conflict
Resolution

MOTIVATIONS FOR POWER

• Pride and Fear
• Impression management
• Servant leadership

The processes of politics, negotiation, and conflict resolution all revolve around how we use
power. The motivations for using power are very telling for how we involve ourselves in each
of these areas. If for instance we are motivated by pride, we will be unwilling to admit when
we are wrong (or we will always provide justifications and explanations for any mistake we
make, so as to take as little responsibility for our errors as possible), unwilling to work with
others and share resources for the good of the entire organization, and unwilling to
acknowledge that there are others in the organization who have rights. We will also be less
willing to recognize and affirm the abilities that others have, for fear that doing so might lessen
our own standing in the organization.

Motivation by fear is closely related to pride; in fact, they are often two sides of the same coin.
When we do not trust that God is in control and loves us more than we love ourselves, we also
believe that it is solely dependent upon our own efforts to advance our careers and succeed in
life. In such a scenario, it can be easy to feel that we always have to prove that we are better
than those around us for fear that will be left behind if we do not. This can lead to a spirit of
unhealthy competition and politics within an organization, where no one is really willing to
trust others, or care for and work alongside others.

Another attribute that stems from the dual-motivations of fear and pride is “impression
management” where we try to make others think the best of us and we try to hide our
weaknesses and shortcomings. Often, we do this in dishonest ways, or we are so bound by
fear of what others might be thinking of us that we resort to constant manipulation of others
and flattery in order to ensure that we are in good standing with others. Besides being
spiritually and emotionally exhausting, this type of behavior prevents us from living the life
that God has called us to live and truly being who God has called us to be. On an
organizational level, such behavior is also very harmful to the success of the company. If
individuals in the organization are motivated by pride, fear, and impression management, will
there ever be an honest and critical appraisal of where the company is falling short and where
it needs to change? This does not happen in an organization where everyone is trying so hard
to make themselves look good that they blame-shift and run from accountability!

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On the other hand, consider what happens when we start with the truth of the Gospel. First of
all, we realize that everyone has issues and shortcomings, but that is not really the main point.
The One who knows us the most—the one who sees ALL of our sins and shortcomings—sent
His Son to die for us and save us from our sins. If the one from whom we cannot hide or
deceive with impression management loves us unconditionally through Christ, then why
should we feel the need to try to deceive others? Furthermore, if the Father was willing to
send His own Son to die for us, can we not also trust His other promises to us—that He will
provide for our every need, and, if we let Him, use us for His eternal purposes? Believing these
truths requires faith (Hebrews 11:6). It takes faith to not always feel the pressure to engage in
deceitful political maneuvering and impression management to protect and advance our
careers. It takes faith to believe that even if we did not get the promotion we had hoped for, or
the “inside” connection with our boss, that God is still in charge and that His plan for us will not
be compromised. It takes faith to believe that God still has His best for us even when our lives
and our careers do not unfold as we would have hoped. In the end, it really comes down to one
question: do we trust our own perception of reality and our own sense of how things should
turn out for us, or do we trust the God who sent His own Son to die for us will arrange our
careers and our very lives to be exactly what He wants them to be, and that as such, they will
be better than anything we could have managed on our own?

If we put our hope in Christ, then we are freed from the bondage of trying to engineer every
outcome of our lives. Sure, we will work hard and try to advance our careers, but we will not
idolize success on the job and we will not despise those who are recognized for their
contributions even if our own contributions are passed over. Remember that our High Priest,
Jesus Christ promises to constantly put in a good word on our behalf to the One that really
matters, so we can rest easy even if our human bosses and supervisors do not appreciate all
that we do, and we can freely and truly rejoice with those who are honored rather than feeling
bitterness and envy. When we trust God, we can appreciate that He has gifted those around us
with certain abilities and skill-sets, and we can praise Him for that. And we can work to see
others excel and shine as well. Because we are no longer running from our own shortcomings
but instead are willing to deal with them, we create an organizational culture where people are
not afraid to admit mistakes because they know that they are cared for. This in turn creates
true synergy where people are helping each other to help the organization succeed. Rather
than blame-shifting and attacking one another, people start actually focusing on the problem
and “big picture” solutions so that the organization can succeed. In the end, we have a
covenantal organization where servant leadership is the norm instead of political
maneuvering, impression management, and flattery. It is a wonderful place to be! 

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DEPENDENCY AND POWER

Sources of Dependency:

o Importance
o Scarcity
o Nonsbutitutability/irreplaceable vs. a self-sustaining culture
o Mutual Accountability

Two things are relevant in this list of aspects that can bring power to someone. First of all, it’s
been mentioned earlier that one off-shoot of an organization that behaves covenantally is that
it has a self-sustaining culture, meaning that the culture is bigger than anyone person. In a
discussion about power, being irreplaceable is indeed a good way to gain power, but ideally,
an organization should be looking for people who share power—who invest in others, and help
them develop for the betterment of the organization. A personality-driven culture is one that
is inherently flawed.

Secondly, in a covenantal organization there is an acknowledgement that everyone needs
everyone else—members are mutually accountable to one another for the sake of team work,
mutual care and affirmation, and for identifying blind spots in the organization (part of “big
picture” thinking). So again, whereas many conceptions of power speak of the power that an
individual may hold over others, the Biblical/covenantal approach speaks of power being used
not to be served but to serve; not to build up one’s kingdom but to build and invest into others.

SOURCES OF POWER

Formal Power:

o Coercive
o Reward
o Legitimate

Personal:

o Expert
o Referent

Personal power sources are more effective.

Power vs. authority

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Motivations for use of power is the foundation for our discussion, and now that this foundation
has been laid, we can discuss related issues. For instance, there are two general sources of
power: formal and personal. Formal power derives from the authority established by an
organization or institution. Coercive power is the ability to punish, reward power is the ability
to reward, and legitimate power is the power that comes with one’s position in the company.
Obviously, these three are closely related to one another.

Complimenting these sources are the personal sources of power: expert and referent. Expert
power is that power which comes from one’s knowledge and expertise. People respect those
who know what they are doing and are knowledgeable. Referent power is the ability to
influence others and the ability to be likable. As mentioned in the previous section, this power
can be used dishonestly and manipulatively, or it can be based upon genuine motivations of
care and respect for others. This power also includes the ability to inspire others, which can
also be good or bad depending upon the motivations.

Not surprisingly, research reveals that the personal sources of power are the most effective for
persuading and influencing others. And it could be argued that referent power is the most
important power base because it makes the other sources of power all the more effective. If
people know that leaders care about them and truly want them to succeed, they will be more
open to correction that might need to administered from time to time, and they will know that
the leaders are impartial and fair in dealing with them (coercive power). People will want to
work harder for good leaders, such that their motivations will not be just about monetary
incentives (reward power). In fact, remember from previous discussions about how the most
important motivators are intrinsic ones.

Finally, it should be noted that in a Biblical worldview, power is different from authority.
Power speaks to raw ability, but authority speaks to permission. As Romans 13:1-4 discusses,
all authority is from God. Ultimately, we do not obey our leaders because of who they are
specifically, but because God has ordained authority for various reasons and to disregard that
authority is to rebel from God’s law. And leaders themselves can disregard that when they use
their power outside of the confines of God’s authority.

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POWER TACTICS

What works?

o Rational persuasion, inspirational appeals, and consultation are more effective.
o Pressure tends to be backfire.
o Soft tactics more effective than hard tactics

How do these tactics work?

o Rational persuasion works across all levels.
o Inspirational appeals is good for downward influence.
o Personal appeals and coalitions are more effective with lateral influence.

In the previous section, the case was made that referent power is the most effective, because it
based upon relationship and caring for one another. Research collected on power tactics
affirms that same basic principle. Rational persuasion, inspirational appeals, and
consultation are the most effective tactics because they are more likely to be based upon
respect for others.

Leaders can certainly use pressure to motivate employees, but that can lead to a culture of
fear rather than one of mutual respect. One challenge that leaders and managers face is trying
to encourage compliance of employees. Biblical principles and research alike confirm that if at
all possible, the means listed above, all of which could be considered “soft tactics” are more
effective than “hard tactics” such as pressure. Covenant building requires respect and care for
each individual in the relationship, and leaders need to understand the importance of that in
the context of organizational behavior.

Furthermore, rational persuasion, which is the tactic least likely to be based upon
manipulation or deceitfulness, works across all levels of an organization in upward, downward,
and lateral communication. The use of inspirational appeals by leaders can be an effective
way of motivating employees, especially if the appeal does not insult their intelligence, and if
leaders act in a way that affirm the ideals they are promoting instead of undermining them
(vision killers). Hypocrisy and inconsistency on the part of leaders leads to employee cynicism
and decreased motivation. Regarding lateral communication, the use of personal appeals and
coalitions are helpful for getting things done. As discussed in previous lectures, many
companies fail to see the value in coalition-building, or even seeking to get members from
different departments into the same room so that common problems can be solved from a
multi-faceted perspective (big picture thinking).

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SEXUAL HARRASSMENT

The true boundaries are in the heart!

These days, sexual harassment is hot issue and millions of dollars are spent on educating
employees on how to avoid it. But Christ informs us that the real issue is not in words spoken
or actions taken, but in the thoughts and motives of the heart. Learning to walk in integrity at
the heart level will keep us safe from going anywhere near any gray areas!

THE INTERACTIONIST VIEW OF CONFLICT

Functional and dysfunctional conflict

Types of conflict:

o Relationship
o Task
o Process

Conflict and covenant

In power struggles, conflict results. Those researching in the field of organizational behavior
used to believe that conflict was damaging to organizational processes, but today there is a
growing acknowledgement that not all conflict is dysfunctional. The interactionist view
argues that functional conflict can be used to create more effective solutions to problems,
build consensus and generate momentum for getting things done.

There are three types of conflict. Research reveals that relationship conflict is almost always
dysfunctional. However, many married couples, friends, and family members know that even
relationship conflict can lead to strengthened relationships if handled correctly. However, the
concern of the research spoken of here is when organizational members allow personality
conflicts to get in the way of getting things done. Part of the reason this happens so easily is
the “me vs. them” attitude mentioned in previous lectures.

Covenantal behavior is aimed at creating a healthy context for working through conflict. It
accomplishes this by affirming the value and importance of each individual in the relationship,
and requires that each individual care for and be accountable every other member of the

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covenant. If mutual care and accountability are the foundation for relationships, then any
conflict that arises about the functions and goals of work (task conflict) or how the work is
done (process conflict), can actually be quite beneficial because when members interact on
disagreements, they can often come to a better understanding of the problem and therefore
come up with more effective solutions.

The next several sections will provide a description of conflict resolution processes.

THE CONFLICT PROCESS

Stage 1: Potential Opposition or Incompatibility

o Communication
o Structure
o Personal Variables

Stage 2—Cognition and Personalization

o Perceived
o Felt

Stage 3—Intentions:

o Competing
o Collaborating
o Compromising
o Avoiding
o Accommodating

Stage 4—Behavior (overt conflict)

o Peace-faking
o Peace-breaking
o Peace-making

Stage 5—Outcomes:

o Increased Group Performance
o Decreased Group Performance

Stage 1 of the conflict process details the potential areas within an organization where
conflicts could arise. Communication breakdowns and deficiencies in organizational structures

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and processes can put people from different departments at odds with one another. Often,
leaders do not communicate well with followers, and departments do not communicate well
among themselves. Likewise, policies, procedures and structures are all created from a
narrow-minded perspective—they benefit one department or the leadership team, but they do
not benefit everyone impacted by such decisions. In both cases, conflicts can easily arise. This
is where “big picture” thinking and communication can be so helpful. With participative
decision-making, all relevant members in an organization can speak to these structural and
communication gaps. The final area where conflicts can arise is in the category of personal
variables. People get on one another’s nerves because of personality differences; they rub one
another the wrong way. Hopefully, this is where all the personality tests you have been taking
will really help you better understand your co-workers!

Stage 2 describes how people respond to these issues. When the issues become strong
enough, people become angry, fearful, and emotional. Hence, the conflict moves from one
that is perceived to one that is felt.

In step 3, as the conflict escalates, the various members involved in the conflict choose their
response. Avoiding and competing are perhaps the most destructive because they both run
the risk of destroying communication and engendering further animosity. Even in avoiding
this is true, because though the members are not verbal in their disdain for the other members,
there can still be a quiet resentment which will hinder teamwork and communication down the
road. Accommodating can be a good opportunity to serve the other members, but it can also
allow for the real root of the problem to continue to fester. Likewise, compromising is
sometimes necessary, but ideally, collaborating occurs, because it allows for a win-win
solution. The best way to encourage collaboration is with “big picture” thinking and
communication.

In Stage 4 the members carry out their intentions in one way or another. In his book, The
Peacemaker, Ken Sande discusses the options for conflict behavior from a Biblical behavior.
Peace-faking occurs when we harbor resentment toward others but do not really try to
constructively resolve the conflict. We grumble against the other person, complain about him
behind his back, but we pretend that everything is OK when we interact with that person.
Besides being dishonest, this type of passivity can be very destructive, and is an indication that
we really do not care enough about the other person to resolve the conflict in an open manner.
The other extreme is just as objectionable—peace-breaking—where we scream, yell, insult,
and otherwise do what we can to overtly harm the other person in some way. Often peace-
faking leads to peace-breaking, as pent-up anger and animosity finally explodes into a full-
blown conflict.
The Biblical ideal is peace-making, where we humble ourselves and look first and foremost to
determine how are heart attitude is. As Christ said, “get the log out of your own eye.” True
peace-makers realize that feelings of anger and resentment come from a self-righteous heart
that does not take seriously what Christ has done for it on the cross. Humility, on the other
hand, allows us to look at what we might have done to contribute to the conflict. If this type of

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humility is not practiced, conflict resolution will not be achieved because neither side will ever
be willing to consider that maybe they have done something wrong.

As it pertains to stage 5, how we handle the conflict will either lead to increased or decreased
group performance. Peace-faking and peace-breaking lead to decreased performance, as
unresolved conflict usually causes other people in the group to take sides and harbor
resentment toward the other side. Gossip, in-fighting, rivalry all occur in either case. With
peace-making, the people involved in the conflict avoid gossiping about the situation and only
interact with the other people that can solve the conflict. They do not try to malign the person
with whom they disagree by gossiping to others and they are aware of the very real possibility
that they only see their side of the conflict and therefore want to walk in absolute integrity in
making sure that both sides are heard and addressed. This is how conflict resolution can lead
to greater organizational performance as it encourages “big picture” thinking at the expense of
“me vs. them” attitudes.

NEGOTIATION: BARGAINING STRATEGIES

Distributive Bargaining:

o Zero-sum/fixed pie
o Make the first offer!
o Reveal deadlines
o Covenantal behavior

Integrative Bargaining

o Win-win
o Collaboration, not compromise
o Tips

Related to conflict resolution is the official process of negotiating. There are two types of
bargaining available in the negotiation process. The first is distributive bargaining, where
there is generally a winner or a loser. The best case scenario with such bargaining is
compromise, where both parties concede some of their desires in order to get the items they
really want. Distributive bargaining is based upon a “zer0-sum/fixed pie” scenario, where
resources and options are limited. If such a scenario is really the case, it need not mean that
the parties are acting hatefully or manipulatively, but such situations can certainly lead to such
behaviors. In the case of zero-sum bargaining, it is based to make the first offer, as that will
frame the terms of the negotiation and provide an anchor in the final resolution that is closer
to your terms. It is also helpful to reveal any deadlines that you are under, as such research
helps to motivate the other side to come to an agreement. Ideally, in the covenantal process,

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both parties think in terms of what is good for the organization, not just for them. But a “me
vs. them” attitude will not allow for such covenantal thinking.

In integrative bargaining, on the other hand, both parties try to achieve a “win-win” solution.
Collaboration, not compromise is the means of doing so. Compromise can actually stymie
such efforts. With collaboration, both parties listen to what the other side really wants, and
seeks an understanding of their true motives. It could be that what they really want can be
achieved in more than way, thereby allowing for greater flexibility and greater options
available for viable solutions. It is clear then that integrative bargaining is based upon “big
picture thinking.” As such, there are some tips that might encourage integrative bargaining:

1) Bargain in teams to generate more ideas and more options
2) Include more issues in the process—do not just focus on one issue at a time. The more

issues available for negotiation, the more likely it is for there to be flexibility in allowing
for both sides to focus on what they really want.

3) Ask questions of the other side to truly understand what they want.

Back to Table of Contents

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LESSON 8: Structure and Culture

HISTORY OF ORGANIZATIONAL PERSPECTIVES

• Bureaucratic Model
• Human Relations
• Human Resources
• Systems Theory

Organizational structure and culture has been viewed in four basic lenses the last 50 years or
so. The first one is the Bureaucratic model which described organizational behavior in terms
of functions, chain of command, and efficiency. This view prescribed that to maximize
efficiency and effectiveness, companies should use job specialization.

The Human Relations model came next, and it began with the acknowledgement that there
might be a human component to organizational behavior and something that leaders should
take into account. This lead to the Human Resources approach, which argues that by treating
employees with respect and allowing them to have a high degree of empowerment and
creativity in their job duties, that efficiency and effectiveness will be maximized. Leadership
theories like transformational leadership and servant leadership are couched within this
paradigm.

Another perspective—systems theory—is not offered so much as a contrast to the Human
Resources approach, but rather as an alternative view. Systems theory views every
organization as a composition of sub-systems within sub-systems. Indeed, the organization
itself is a subsystem within the system of its community and economy. The point to this
approach is that leaders should be aware of how a company’s environment impacts it and how
employees within various departments—the various subsystems interact with one another to
learn, develop, and react to the environment. Ultimately, it is hoped that with systems theory,
a company will learn to not only react to the environment, but also be proactive in anticipating
environmental developments.

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WORK SPECIALIZATION & STRUCTURE

• Specialization and SOP’s
• “Quality of Workmanship” & Total Quality Management
• Covenant

As mentioned in the previous section, job specialization was a key means for American
businesses in the post-WW II era to maximize efficiency. Along with job specialization comes
standard operating procedures (SOP’s) which are put in place to reduce defects in products
and deficiencies in customer service quality. This emphasis on control has certainly yielded
benefits, but as the rest of the world caught up with American businesses, increasing
competition has shown that more is necessary to maximize the competitive edge. This is
especially true given what most of us likely know about job specialization—routine and
repetitive job functions can seriously undermine employee morale.

When Demming introduced his notion of Total Quality Management, his ideas were highly
regarded by Japanese businesses—it was only after Japanese businesses proved to be staunch
competitors that American companies began to take his ideas more seriously. One of the main
attributes that Demming advocated stands in contrast to the notion of job specialization to
some degree. Demming argued that to really achieve success in an organization, leaders and
manages should allow employees to enjoy “quality of workmanship”. In other words,
employees are not just robots on an assembly line performing minimal tasks but rather they
play a key role in developing whole products and services and have the privilege of seeing their
efforts form into something tangible—something done with excellence. This, Demming
argued, would actually enhance productivity. In many regards, Demming’s ideas have been
verified today as companies seek to give employees greater responsibilities. Furthermore, the
rigid chain of command that was necessary in earlier times is less necessary today due to the
incredible developments in information technology. Likewise, this notion of “quality of
workmanship” does not remove SOP’s, but rather prevents SOP’s from being reductionistic. It
acknowledges that some components of quality cannot be quantified and reduced to a multi-
step plan. However, if a company trains an employee in big picture thinking—thereby giving
them an understanding of what quality looks like—and empowers leader with greater control
over their work, leaders will find that not only will employees follow the basics of the SOP’s,
they will exceed that and produce even greater quality.

Covenantal behavior affirms this view of “quality of workmanship” because it affirms the
individual members that are involved in the covenant. It also acknowledges that duties
performed in the covenant are more than just duties—they are based upon relationships and
an attempt to aspire to a greater, shared meaning. Allowing for “quality of workmanship”
allows employees to have more meaning in their work, and to have greater say in how the
company behaves. Assuming that the employees are properly motivated and trained, such

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behaviors, along with empowerment, participatory decision-making, and “big picture”
thinking, should all be encouraged.

CONTROL, EFFECTIVENESS & STRUCTURE

• Rapid access to information has changed the structure
• Emphasis on wider spans of control
• Decentralization allows for greater employee decision-making
• The popularity of self-managed and cross-functional teams

Related to this concept of specialization is control. The degree of control that management
has certainly affects structure. How much control do employees have versus management?
Several factors have played into the argument that employees should have more control. First
of all, as mentioned earlier, rapid access to information has changed the structural
requirements—organizations can be flatter and more decentralized now that information is
more readily available to employees.

With better flow of information comes the ability to widen the span of control—more
employees under less managers which decreases both departmental rigidity and the cost of
management (since there are less managers), and increases interaction among employees as
well as employee autonomy. With this decentralization comes more opportunity for
employee decision-making. This is ideal especially in large companies, where employees are
more in touch with customer needs as well as environmental constraints/opportunities than
management. Giving them greater decision-making ability allows the company to be more
reflexive and allows for better quality of service and products (“quality workmanship”).

Furthermore, self-managed and cross-functional teams are growing in popularity among
companies. Self-managed teams, as mentioned previously, allow for greater autonomy and
more rapid decision-making on the part of employees. Cross-functional teams encourage “big
picture” thinking and help to break down the barriers among departments, along with the “me
vs. them” attitude that can come with rigid departmentalization.

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DEPARTMENTALIZATION AND STRUCTURE

• Deparmentalization
• Cross-Functionalism
• The Boundaryless Organization

Beyond this more general, philosophical view of how to structure an organization, there are
practical issues in play. Companies structure themselves according to the following categories.
First, they can departmentalize by function. For example, it would have a separate
department for each function of the business process—accounting, finance, marketing, etc.
Or, the company could departmentalize itself according to product, so that each product a
company sells has is its own entity with its own decision-making. Departmentalization by
geography is another, related way of structuring the company. Finally, a company can
structure itself in terms of its various types of customers.

However, as mentioned earlier, what is becoming increasingly clear for many companies in
today’s ultra-competitive environment is the need to have cross-functional units in their
companies, in order to increase “big picture” thinking. Practically speaking, this could come in
the form of using “matrix” structures, using cross-functional teams (whether ad hoc or
permanent), or becoming a “boundaryless” organization.

This latter option is certainly the most ambitious one and it involves the use of self-managed
teams, limitless spans of control in conjunction with the removal of vertical boundaries, cross-
hiearchical teams, participative decision-making, and 360 degree performance evaluation
(which goes nicely with the idea of mutual accountability).

CULTURES AS SHARED MEANING

• Structure and culture
• Culture as shared meaning and interaction
• Dominant culture
• Subcultures
• Strong culture and rules

Structure and culture closely align. If leaders want a covenantal culture, then they need to
structure the organization accordingly. Also, a company’s culture can go a long way to
addressing structural deficiencies in terms of covenantal behavior as will be seen shortly.

Ultimately, culture is about shared meaning and interaction. Leaders can say they want a
particular culture, and can make official statements to that effect, but until they have buy-in

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from employees, such efforts will be limited at best. Leaders may set the tone with regards to
creating a culture, but how employees respond to such efforts is also part of what the
organization’s culture becomes. If leaders are thinking covenantally, they can work to create
an atmosphere of teamwork and community.

Every organization has a dominant culture which pervades how people interact with one
another and accomplish tasks. Ideally, in a covenantal organization, this dominant culture is
based upon mutual affirmation and accountability, hesed, participative decision-making, and
empowerment. Beneath this dominant culture is the potential for subcultures that might exist
in various departments or groups. A dysfunctional culture can exist when these subcultures
run counter to dominant culture in a subversive manner, undermining positive attributes.
Leaders need to be aware of this, and can combat it via servant leadership and the
encouragement of big picture thinking and empowerment. But if the dominant culture is a
negative one, employees at lower levels can encourage covenantal behavior through
subcultures by taking ownership and caring for one another. Sometimes, in discouraging
situations where the dominant culture is lacking, this can be a positive force for change in an
organization.

As mentioned above, a strong, healthy culture can supplement a successful organizational
culture and can do much to encourage productivity. Covenantal behavior encourages self-
sustainability, where people take ownership of organizational goals and processes and truly
care for one another. When this happens, companies will find a natural momentum for
achieving productivity and excellence.

This is far superior to using rules and other authority maneuvers to encourage productivity
for two reasons. First, using external motivators (rules, regulations, punishments, etc.) can
only provide short-term and limited force, as discussed in the lecture on motivation. Secondly,
as discussed in the unit on organizational communication, rules and regulations can become so
numerous in a dysfunctional culture that ultimately, they become at best stifling and at worst
disregarded. Leaders do well to remember this and to focus on building a covenantal culture,
ensuring that intrinsic motivation of employees is the driving force for productivity.

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CREATING A POSITIVE CULTURE

• Integrity of leaders
• Build on employee strengths
• Reward more than punish
• Emphasize vitality, growth and learning (Iearning organization)

There are several ways that leaders can create a positive, covenantal culture. First and
foremost is through integrity. Leaders need to back up their lofty pronouncements about
teamwork and vision by their own actions. Many employees can tell stories of when leaders,
through poor communication and conflict resolution skills, disregard of employees’ feelings
and insights, and poor management have totally undermined any stated organizational vision
or corporate purpose. These negative behaviors are called “vision killers” and when these
vision killers are in play, the organization’s dominant culture will suffer.

Secondly, leaders should build on employee strengths. Covenantal building requires a sense
of hesed, teamwork and mutual accountability. Learning to access and draw on employees
strengths through empowerment, participative decision-making, and the practice of “quality
workmanship” are great ways to do so.

Leaders should also focus more on rewarding rather than punishing. Doing so acknowledges
employee contributions, which shows employees that leaders care and actually have a clue
about the employees’ impact on the organization. It further speaks to the need to provide
intrinsic motivators for employees—most people want to know that they are valued members
of a team and have skills they can offer to help the team accomplish goals. The use of rewards,
even if they are not always intrinsic ones (in fact, intrinsic rewards are good in combination
with extrinsic ones so that employees know that leaders are not just trying to be cheap), can
help encourage that understanding.

Finally, leaders can encourage vitality, growth, and learning. In fact, this goes a long way to
encouraging a covenantal organization. First, it recognizes the value of each employee and
focuses on the human desire to grow and excel. This is a type of intrinsic motivation that can
keep employees focused on excellence. When leaders than focus this learning on
organizational goals and help employees see how their skills and talents will fit in with the
goals and objectives, “big picture” thinking will be enhanced. As an aside, these ideas in a
formal sense are embodied in Senge’s concept of the learning organization.

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SPIRITUALITY IN THE WORKPLACE

• Spirituality in the Workplace (SIW) and Postmodernism
• Not about advancing a particular religion
• Christianity and SIW
• Covenant and SIW
• Insincerity and SIW

A related component to a “covenantal culture” is that of Spirituality in the Workplace (SIW),
wherein leaders encourage employees to find inner meaning through their work (quality of
workmanship), and includes a sense of shared meaning with others (which is what a covenantal
culture is all about), and mutual care and accountability. In today’s Postmodern culture,
people are looking for a more spiritual approach to life, and this idea seems to fit in with this
desire.

However, spirituality in the workplace is not about advancing a particular religion in the
workplace. There will be problems if that is the case (some even legal), and as Christians
know, true religion and faith in God cannot be coerced. If however the notion of spirituality in
the workplace is more associated with the notion that people working together to achieve
excellence is a good goal, and that people should find fulfillment and a sense of community
from work, then these criticisms are lessened.

In fact, there are significant differences between a proclamation of Christianity and SIW. First
of all, it should be noted that there are many Christian business leaders who have effectively
and respectfully shared their faith with their employees and customers. This is a good thing,
but the point here is to note that SIW is not directly focused on Christianity per se. In fact, as
Christians, we know that true spirituality is linked to a personal relationship with God through
Jesus Christ. We know not to substitute relationships with others for the most important
relationship we can have with Christ, nor do we force this on others.

Having said that, there is overlap between the two ideas. We affirm our faith in Christ as we
love our coworkers, encourage them, and support them, and all of this can occur within the
context of a “spiritual” workplace. Furthermore, the notion of spirituality in the workplace is
very much related to the Biblical idea of covenant insofar as we are called to live covenantally
with one another and recognize that our actions and decisions affect those around us. We do
not live in a vacuum. Biblically, the most important thing we can do is care for others as an act
of worship and devotion to God. We can’t forget that—there’s a sense of community, mutual
care, and teamwork.

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On a final note, it should be pointed out that an organization’s insincere attempts at caring for
employees can undermine spirituality in the workplace. This goes back to the idea of integrity
and “vision-killers”.

Back to Table of Contents

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LESSON 9: Human Resource Policies

OVERVIEW

HR Functions:

• Recruitment and Selection
• Training
• Performance Evaluation
• Labor Relations
• Managing a Diverse workforce

Linking Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivators

Human Resource policies are vital to an organization’s success. They involve not only the
effective recruitment and selection of employees, but also training and effective
performance evaluations. There is also the issue of labor relations as well as managing a
diverse work force.

In previous lectures, we’ve discussed the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic
motivation. In the end, leaders who motivate their employees intrinsically are more
successfully, and we’ve discussed how covenantal behavior can allow leaders to more
effectively motivate and empower employees. However, intrinsic motivation that is not
supported by extrinsic factors such as fair pay and just performance evaluation procedures can
come off as insincere, therefore serving as “vision killers” and demotivators. As will be
discussed in this lecture, a solid human resource strategy can ensure that the extrinsic factors fuel
intrinsic motivators.

SELECTION PRACTICES

• Covenant and the Hiring Process
• Impression Management and Proverbs
• Wisdom, Humility and Professionalism

Part of hiring of a successful hiring process is finding not only people who are qualified for the
job, but also those who are committed to the values, culture, and goals of an organization.
Remember that part of the covenantal process is ensuring that every member understands

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the vision, terms, and stipulations of the covenant. One cannot enter into a covenantal
relationship without understanding the notions of hesed, mutual accountability, and mutual
care. Likewise, part of the hiring process is to ensure that the individuals who are hired
understand what they are getting into and what it will take to succeed in an organization.

The challenge of doing so is that people are on their best behavior when during the interview
process. Impression management is in full effect and everyone is saying the right things to
impress others. Biblically, there are some general principles that can be used to ensure that
impression management does not confuse the interview process. In fact, the book of Proverbs
has much to say about certain types of people as determined by their behaviors, attitudes, and
words. For instance, people who flatter are to be avoided. The book of Proverbs is chalk-full of
warnings about those who flatter others—they are cast as manipulative and deceitful. These
are the type of people who will flatter the boss and come off as loyal employees but who will
attack, undermine, and destroy anyone else who might get in their way. Likewise, those who
are full of arrogance, self-promotion, and “big talk” are marked as prideful, un-teachable, and
dishonest. They will say anything they need to say to get the job, and generally the more hype
surrounding their words, the less truth can be found in them.

• Proverbs 6:12-15 (ESV): “A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked
speech, 13 winks with his eyes, signals with his feet, points with his finger, 14 with
perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord; 15 therefore calamity will
come upon him suddenly; in a moment he will be broken beyond healing.”

• Proverbs 26:28: “A lying tongue hates its victims, and a flattering mouth works ruin.”

• Proverbs 29:5: “A man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet.”

Furthermore, an arrogant person will be less likely to work with others and listen to feedback
from superiors, co-workers, and subordinates. This cannot be overstated—Proverbs is clear
that a foolish, scornful person rejects wisdom from others and moves on with poor decision-
making that will only bring them—and the compnay they work for!—to ruin. If you ever find
that you are unwilling to receive correction from others, be warned.

• Proverbs 9:8: “Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he
will love you.”

• Proverbs 29:1: “He who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck, will suddenly be broken

beyond healing.”

Proverbs also warns about the sluggard, who will not work hard and only seeks his own
comfort and ease. An organization, therefore needs to avoid big talkers who are either
arrogant and manipulative in their ambition or lazy and selfish in their desire to collect a
paycheck and seek only what is best for them.

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• Proverbs 10:26: “Like vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to

those who send him.”

• Proverbs 26:16: “The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer
sensibly.”

In the Biblical worldview, there is a strong link between humility, wisdom, and professionalism.
A wise person fears the Lord and realizes that no human has all the answers or even most of
the answers. Ideally, the selection process should bring out the people who are humble,
teachable and realistic in their understanding of job complexities. They are confident in their
abilities, but are too wise and humble to offer vague and hyped expectations of the job they
can do. These type of people, because they have a realistic understanding of the job and
because they are humble and therefore willing to work with others, will likely be more
successful in their efforts in the position for which you are hiring. They respect others and are
willing to work hard. Their wisdom and humility, therefore, undergird their professionalism. In
contrast, the fool makes bold promises he cannot keep. Likewise, only a fool would presume
to look down on others and disparage those who might disagree with him.

• Proverbs 1:7: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise
wisdom and instruction.”

• Proverbs 12:15: “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to

advice.”

• Proverbs 25:12: “Like a gold ring or an ornament of gold is a wise reprover to a listening
ear.”

• Proverbs 27:12: “Be wise, my son, and make my heart glad, that I may answer him who

reproaches me.”

EFFECTIVE SELECTION PROCESSES

• Written tests (job-fit, organization-fit)
• Performance-simulation tests
• Behavioral Structured Interviews
• Contingent Selection
• Internal Recruitment vs. External Recruitment

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Thankfully, there are some strategies available to prevent a bad hiring decision caused by
impression management. First of all, many organizations require some sort of written test to
assess a potential hire’s aptitude, attitude, and abilities for the job. Tests such as these can be
good not only for determining job fit, but also organizational fit as well—tests that measure
“organizational citizenship behavior” for example.

Performance simulation tests, as the name indicates, require potential employees to
demonstrate their abilities in a work simulation. Likewise, behavioral structured interviews,
in which potential hires have to answer questions about how they would respond in a particular
scenario, are a good way to get past big talk and subterfuge. Finally, many organizations offer
contingent selection such as drug tests, as a means of ensuring that they have made an
appropriate hiring decision.

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TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

• Planning, Workflow Analysis, Job Analysis and Participative Decision Making
• Internal Recruitment, Training, and Delegation
• Defining the Training Problem/Need and Return on Investment Analysis
• Big Picture Thinking, Participative Decision Making, and Quality of Workmanship

A big part of any training program is of course knowing what the company needs to make
money. Therefore, one important part of HR planning is workflow analysis, which determines
what kinds of jobs are necessary to allow each value chain to perform efficiently and effectively
in the future. Likewise, job analysis focuses on the tasks and responsibilities necessary to
complete each job in the company. And again, participative decision-making which involves
employee insights could really enhance both processes.

Another aspect of HR policy is the training and development of employees, and it goes hand
in hand (or at least it should) with internal recruitment processes. Internal recruitment should
be emphasized along with external recruitment. Employees working for an organization want
to know that their hard work and faithfulness to the company will be rewarded. They want to
know that they are valued and are in an environment where they can continue to develop their
skills and grow. These are key aspects of intrinsic motivation. Companies who show their
loyalty to their own employees via internal recruitment will likely see greater morale and more
of a covenantal culture in the workplace. Remember too that a covenantal organization has a
self-sustaining culture. Leadership is not dependent upon one person but upon many, all who
have taken ownership of the process and the organization. Companies need to encourage this
type of behavior by developing a strong process of internal recruitment.

One way this can be done is through effective delegation. One study revealed that most
delegation involves the assignment of menial tasks to subordinates, and nothing more.
Effective delegation, on the other hand, involves empowering employees to handle major
aspects of the organization’s processes and decision-making. It goes hand in hand with
participate-decision-making, because it gives employees greater responsibility and ownership
over their tasks and allows them to participate in the formulation of policies and strategies.
Through mentoring and training, delegation can be a major means of encouraging “big
picture” thinking. Besides, turnover, recruitment, and training are all costly processes. The
more you can promote from within, the better!

A key aspect of any organizational training is its effectiveness—will it really help the company?
There are two important steps to ensuring success of any training program. The first step is to
ensure that the problem which the training is supposed to address is accurately defined. If the
problem is not properly defined, then the company will be throwing away money. Secondly, it
is helpful to conduct a Return-on-Investments (ROI) analysis. An ROI analysis links training

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initiatives into the bottom line and asks if the training will actually increase profit in the
compnay. ROI analysis therefore, measures training success in ways that go beyond whether
or not the employees felt it was helpful. At the very least, it involves measuring to see if the
training lead to specific behaviors that have been shown to be conducive to serving customers,
increasing sales, improving productivity, etc. Ideally, it also can evaluate impact as measured
in dollar amount. Obviously, this is type of analysis can be quite difficult to achieve, but it is a
helpful goal and along with accurately defining the training problem/need, provides focus and
accountability in deciding upon training initiatives.

Ideally, any training initiative should include “big picture” thinking. Employees should see how
the successful performance of the tasks and duties for which they are being trained are
relevant to helping the company profit and succeed. Part of such a perspective is allowing
employees, where relevant, to have a say in the type of training that they are receiving. It
could be that employees “in the trenches” have a greater understanding of what they actually
need to perform their duties. If training is assigned from the top down without any degree of
participative decision-making, not only might the company spend money on a flawed training
initiative, but it also runs the risk of engendering frustration and low morale among employees
who just wish that the leadership team would listen to their insights every once in awhile!
Again, this type of participate decision-making MUST go hand in hand with “big picture”
thinking—employees need to understand organizational goals, constraints, and how their
duties fit in all of that before they can truly be qualified to participate in decision-making of any
sort. Related to this is the “quality of workmanship” goal. Training initiatives need to speak
to the greater goal of helping employees produce quality work.

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

• What should be evaluated: outcomes, behaviors or traits?
• Who should conduct the evaluation: supervisors, peers, subordinates, or self-

evaluation?
• How should evaluations be conducted?
• Covenant: “Loving Accountability” as the foundation

There are three essential questions that are associated with performance evaluations. The first
is the question of what should be evaluated. Ideally, employees should be evaluated on the
outcomes they create through their work efforts. This is the most objective means of
evaluation and provides clear expectations for employees in terms of what to expect.
Behaviors are the second most effective means and sometimes is the only option because
outcomes cannot always be attributed to a specific employee. Evaluating for traits, such as a

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good attitude, work ethic, etc. is the least effective means because it can be the most
subjective and also the most difficult to link with specific results on the job.

The second question focuses on who should conduct the evaluation. Because many
organizations today consist of self-managed teams, telecommuting employees, etc., an
immediate supervisor might not be the most qualified person to conduct the evaluation.
Many employees are therefore being asked to evaluate themselves as part of the process. This
has significant problems—much as it would be if students were allowed to grade their own
work! However, if it is used as a means of beginning a dialogue with the employee and
involving them in the process, it has value. In other cases, peers and subordinates as well as
supervisors are also being brought into the evaluation process to more accurately assess
employees. This is known as 360 Degree performance evaluations. Of course, this has its own
problems—employees might inflate their evaluations of one another in the spirit of quid pro
quo, or “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”.

The final question is perhaps the most important—how should evaluations be conducted?
There are many ways to conduct evaluations: written reports, critical incidents, graphic rating
scales, behaviorally anchored rating scales, and forced comparisons are some of the more
popular means. In and of themselves, they have little value if there is not good communication
at the foundation. Employees need to know exactly what is required of them, and should
never be caught off guard when walking into a performance appraisal by hearing about
problem issues from their supervisor for the first time! Also, supervisors need to do provide
clear and constructive feedback on an employee’s actions and outcomes. Ideally, this should
come before the official performance evaluation, and should be part of a relationship based
upon mutual care and respect. As supervisors come across issues with employees, they should
be quick to address those issues, to keep the problems from growing and affecting other
employees within the team or department. Furthermore, such efforts should again be based
upon mutual care and respect. Finally, interventions should be well-documented not only to
protect the company from lawsuits, but also to show the employee that actual efforts are
being made not only to hold them accountable but also to work with them and help develop
into more successful employees.

In the end, an effective performance evaluation needs to be based upon the covenantal
attribute of “loving accountability”. Supervisors who are not providing detailed, specific, and
clear feedback to employees as part of an on-going dialogue with them or who furthermore
are not open to accountability themselves will severely undermine team morale and
productivity. When that happens, the performance evaluation process can serve as a vision
killer.

Likewise, employees who are un-teachable and unwilling to embrace “big picture” thinking are
part of the problem and need to be dealt with. Supervisors need to clearly define expectations
at the outset—employees should know what is expected of them when they are hired. There
should be no ambiguity there. And we know that part of entering into a covenantal
relationship is a clear definition of the terms, so such communication is vital for ensuring

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justice. So when an employee does not live up to those expectations, and shows a continued
lack of desire to make improvements, supervisors must deal with that the employee lest other
members of the team get the message that poor behavior and lack of teamwork are the norm.

HR POLICIES AND LABOR RELATIONS

• Unions in Today’s Global Context
• HR Policies, “Vision Killers” and the Labor Relations Rift
• Integrative Bargaining and Covenantal Behavior

In today’s global context, where American companies are having to compete with businesses
throughout the world, and are growing into huge, multi-national corporations, a legitimate
question arises about the future of unions. Companies with unions usually find that their cost
of doing business is higher than those without unions. Good or bad, such is often the case, and
in an era of increasing global competition, the presence of unions could be a serious challenge
for companies doing their best to stay afloat.

But the very notion of a union was predicated on the fact that in the past and still today,
management has sought to exploit and abuse employees in various ways, all of which are
examples of “vision killers”. As mentioned earlier, how a company treats its employees is often
manifested in its HR policies and procedures. A company with policies and procedures that
are perceived as unfair by employees can be more prone to facing unionization if it did not
already have a union, and a labor relations rift, with all of the unpleasantries that are
associated with such a rift.

When such a rift exists, and negotiations are in order, wise companies embrace integrative
bargaining in order to provide win-win solutions as much as possible. Certainly this is in
keeping with covenantal principles. But more to the point, if companies truly care for their
employees, empower them, share decision-making with them, and are accountable to them,
they might find that many of the issues underlying the drive for unionization and labor
relations rifts will be largely removed.

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MANAGING A DIVERSE WORKFORCE

• Community and Work-life Balance
• Workaholism in the Biblical Context
• Postmodernism, Multiculturalism and Covenantal Behavior

In today’s society, especially in America and other Western nations, we are seeing the
evaporation of many of the community structures that were in place in years gone by.
Neighborhood involvement, church-life, and other community interactions have lessened
significantly in conjunction with what seems to be an increase in individualism. Many people
today do not know their neighbors very well or really much of what is going on in their own
community. Combined with this is an increase in work involvement, such that many
employees find their lives consumed with work, even to the point that they take work home
with them. Recently, there has been a growing trend to improve this work-life balance, and
companies have developed HR policies to allow for employees to make more time for family
life and community involvement. Policies such as flex-time, telecommuting, vouchers for child
care, etc., are some of the many examples of companies trying to better care for their
employees in this regard.

Biblically, we know that as humans made in God’s image, we are called to be more than just
worker drones. We are supposed to be actively involved in our families and in our churches.
We are supposed to know and care for our neighbors as much as possible, and to be the salt
and light in our communities. Ultimately, it is up to us to not become workaholics. We have to
trust that ultimately God is the one who provides our needs, so as we make the commitment
to truly care for our families, raise our children, and bless our neighbors, God will take care of
us. But wise companies also understand that they have a part to play in not creating a culture
of workaholism. Ultimately, encouraging employees to be well-balanced in their lives is good
for the company, because happy employees who know they are cared for by their company are
intrinsically motivated to be more productive and are also more loyal to the company, which
cuts down on recruitment and training costs.

Another related issue is that of the growing ethnic diversity in the workplace. This is
particularly true in an age of multinational corporations. We live in the Postmodern era, which
rejects any sense of absolute truth and argues that the only meaning that exists is that which is
created by people interacting with one another in various cultures and sub-cultures. From a
postmodern context, multiculturalism is therefore about encouraging individuals to celebrate
differences in culture and understand that what they think is true might not work for members
in other cultural groups. But from a Biblical perspective, we know that there IS in fact absolute
truth—Jesus Christ came to us as the Living Word of God to fulfill God’s ultimate and
transcendent sense of justice and love—truths which go beyond cultural boundaries.
Therefore, we appreciate cultural diversity, but we do so because we can appreciate how each

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culture in its own unique and special way, can speak to God’s glory and the dignity of human
beings. So we celebrate multiculturalism because first and foremost, we celebrate God as the
ultimate source of Truth and one another as being made in His image.

So how does all of this impact the workplace? Wise companies should appreciate that
members from different cultural groups have unique ways of looking at things and making
sense of life. Rather than embracing moral relativism, which is not in keeping with Biblical
truths, organizational leaders should nevertheless encourage employees to appreciate how
their own worldview has its own strengths and weaknesses, and therefore to appreciate the
need to work with others to shore up those weaknesses. Diversity training can often be viewed
as a political correct means of doing this. Motivated by the moral ambiguity associated with
postmodern multiculturalism, such training bends over backward to affirm that “no one way is
right” and that all cultures should be respected and valued. All of this can seem like a waste of
time to many employees. However, if diversity training instead focuses on celebrating
different cultures and the fact that everyone has different intellectual, conceptual, and
emotional strengths and weaknesses that derive from one’s personality, culture, and
worldview, the end result will hopefully be an increase in “big picture” thinking and an
understanding of how individual and unique human beings, from wonderfully different cultural
backgrounds, can learn to work together, lean on one another, be accountable to one another,
and care for one another. This is what covenant is all about, after all, and more to the point,
what life should be all about.

Back to Table of Contents

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LESSON 10: Organizational Change and
Stress Management

THE CONTEXT OF CHANGE

• Global, ultra-competitive, and fast-paced environment
• Past success doesn’t matter!
• Rapid technological changes
• Customer demands
• Covenantal Behavior and Change

There are at least three reasons why today’s companies need to be aware of change and the
need for change. As the economy becomes increasingly global, companies have to compete
not only with local and national competitors but now multinational ones. This has lead to an
ultra-competitive atmosphere where many companies cannot just assume that current
success will lead to future success. On the contrary, past success can often set the stage for
future failure because successful companies become complacent in their efforts and do not
assume that competitors will emerge to take away their business. Companies have to be wary
of this and the fast-paced nature of the business world.

Rapidly changing technology can also dramatically impact an organization. The dramatic
developments that we have seen in the Information Age have meant that companies can do
wonderful things to advance their brand and products or services and maximize efficiency and
effectiveness. Maintaining a technological advantage (or at the very least staying even) with
one’s competitors is a vital necessity in today’s competitive climate. But often, technological
innovations can cause a dramatic reshaping of how a compnay does business. These changes
can even affect its culture.

Likewise, with the high degree of competition in the business world, customers have come to
expect a constant rate of improvements among products and services, and a wide array of
products or services from different companies from which to choose. Companies have to be
aware of this and therefore need to be proactive in developing and improving products and
services which will keep their customers happy.

Having said all of that, when change is necessary, companies need to proceed with a solid
game plan instead of being motivated by fear and knee-jerk reactions. Covenantal behavior
ensures that big-picture thinking is in place. In this case, hopefully the company will be aware
of changes in the environment with regards to technology, changing customer needs and
wants, and new competition in enough time to not only react, but respond proactively.

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Ultimately, what a company wants is an organizational culture that is proactive, self-aware,
and flexible. Covenantal behavior can help achieve this.

OVERCOMING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

Covenantal behaviors:

o Communication
o Dialogue
o Participatory Decision-making
o Empowerment
o Selection of people who select change

Potential Vision Killers:

o Manipulation and Cooptation
o Coercion

The problem with any change initiative within a company is that there can be pockets of
resistance during the process—employees, managers, etc. who do not like the process or the
eventual outcome. Leaders need to be able to overcome this resistance and build consensus
for the future.

The most effective means of doing so fall in the category of covenantal behaviors, the first of
which is communication. Leaders need to effectively communicate why the change is
necessary. This involves “big picture” training, where employees are made aware of change
and understand all of the implications associated with the change, the impact of the change,
and the potential dangers that might exist if change is not made. Leaders also need to
understand that communicating change is a constant process where they give frequent
updates to employees about what is going on. Remember that the fear of the unknown has
great power. Leaders can remove that fear by being in touch frequently with employees. And
really, to communicate effectively, a dialogue pr0cess with employees is necessary. Ideally,
leaders and employees are already in communication with one another about what is going on
with customers and the competition, and what possibilities may exist to expand the business.
As leaders communicate the need for change, they need to engage in active listening, where
they truly hear, absorb, and respond to the concerns and feelings of employees. This is
important for two reasons. First, as mentioned in previous lessons, employees often have
valuable feedback and information about what is going on “in the trenches” in the
organization. Any plans to implement change must include this valuable information.

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Secondly, leaders need to be aware how employees are reacting emotionally to the proposed
changes. When it comes down to it, employees just have to what the leadership team says,
but if leaders do not really care what employees are feeling, they will find that their proposed
initiatives for change will only be carried out half-heartedly and begrudgingly by employees.
To be sure, leaders should have no tolerance for employees who are trouble causers or lazy.
But change can cause a lot of consternation even among good employees and leaders need to
do a good job of constantly staying in touch with employees and updating them on what is
going on and how it will affect their jobs.

Ultimately, communication and dialogue should lead to participative decision making, where
as much as possible, employees should have insight into the nature of the change and how the
change should be carried out. This again assumes that employees are thinking in terms of the
big picture as opposed to just their own parochial concerns. Providing employees with this
power (empowerment) can create a lot of buy-in for the change. Ultimately, what all of these
covenantal behaviors are about is turning resistance into a positive force, in two ways. First,
resistance can be a source of valuable feedback for leaders, potentially identifying blind spots
and incorrect assumptions on the part of the leadership team. Secondly, the very act of truly
listening to and acting upon employee concerns is a power in and of itself, because it shows
employees that leaders really care about them and their insights. This can really lift up the
morale of employees and get them motivated for change.

The counterpoint to all of this is that some employees are neither motivated to truly embrace
change nor willing to look beyond their own interests. In such cases, leaders do well to
recognize and further empower those employees who are willing to embrace change and
lead the way in the change. After all, companies should always be looking to reward and
develop their most promising and engaged employees. This is one way of doing so.

There are also ways to enforce change that run the potential of being vision killers, even if
they accomplish the purpose of creating buy-in. Manipulation, for example, seeks to persuade
organizational members of the need for change in ways that are less than forthright. Even if
this manipulation is initially effective, it could so easily backfire and therefore should be
avoided. Likewise, cooption involves some level of buying out members of the resistance by
giving them a key role in the change process. This is different from having true dialogue and
participative decision making and letting all employees share their concerns, especially if other
employees feel like it was all about political maneuverings which overlooked the “little guy.”
All of this can breed resentment, which in turn poisons the culture of the organization.

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STRATEGIES FOR CHANGE

• Lewin’s Three-Step Change Model
• Action Research
• Kotter’s Eight-Step Plan

Organizational Development:

• Sensitivity Training
• Survey Diagnostic Feedback
• Process Consultation
• Team Building
• Intergroup Development
• Appreciative Inquiry

There are many strategies out there for implementing change. Lewin’s Three-Step Change
Model, for instance, includes unfreezing the status quo, movement to a desired end state, and
refreezing the new change to make it permanent. This approach is slightly reductionistic, as
there will always be the need to evaluate any changes made and to make further changes as
necessary. But it is helpful in identifying a basic process for change and in identifying
restraining forces to change and driving forces for change.

Action research provides a scientific, focused model for identifying changes and proceeding
with addressing those problems. It includes an evaluation of the change and incorporates
employee feedback (participate decision-making) into the planning phase of the process.

Kotter’s approach is far more detailed and seems to focus more on the “people” side of the
change process—identifying the importance of effective communication, consensus-building,
empowerment, etc. But it also involves evaluating the change and making necessary
adjustments and reinforcing the change by showing how the new behaviors set in place as a
result of change leads to organizational success. This final point again goes back to the
importance of having a continuing among between leaders and employees, and furthermore is
very much related to “big picture” thinking.

Finally, whereas the three approaches discussed above represent clear processes, the
Organizational Development (OD) approach is more of a broad perspective on how changes
should be made. It is based upon the following principles: respect for people, building trust
and support, sharing power, confrontation (i.e., an open and honest discussion about problems
and issues in the organization), and participation. These concepts are quite “covenantal” in
their nature, and really are ends unto themselves in terms of how a company should operate.

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Based upon these general principles the OD perspective offers are variety of specific strategies
for encouraging change. For instance, sensitivity training is a process of unstructured group
interaction that allows group members to build-consensus, identify group blind spots and
weaknesses, and get everyone on the same page intellectually, emotionally, and strategically.
Survey feedback can be used within a group or within the entire organization to measure
employee assessments of processes, decision-making, goals, communication, teamwork, etc.
Both of these processes encourage “big picture” thinking, and both help to increase
organizational self-awareness by helping organizational members to identify weaknesses and
blind spots.

Likewise, process consultation involves the use of a consultant who works with an
organization to help organizational members identify blind spots and move forward with
change. In one sense, the use of a consultant is a form of accountability, because
organizational members are opening themselves up to critique and assistance from an outside,
objective source. As such, it is an acknowledgement that merely conducting business as usual
without any evaluation is not healthy.

Team building activities, as the name suggests, are designed to encourage greater
communication, trust and mutual support among members within a group. This can be an
especially important process for companies who rely upon self-managed teams to get things
done. At a higher level, intergroup development encourages various groups and departments
to work together as one unit, getting them to look past their own group or departmental
concerns, and removing competition and conflict among groups/departments (mutual care
and accountability). This process furthermore encourages groups/departments to
acknowledge their perceptions of one another, to share the rationale behind each
group/departments goals and policies, and to ensure that these goals and policies are not at
cross purposes with one another (which of course can be a huge source of conflict and
resentment in any organization). Ultimately, groups/departments involved in this process
should work to ensure that all of their goals and policies are geared towards what is best for
the organization and not just their own group/department (“big picture” thinking).

Whereas all of the above strategies focus on identifying problems, weaknesses, and blind
spots, Appreciative Inquiry (AI) encourages organizational members to focus on the positive
things the organization can accomplish when everyone is working together (consensus-
building and big picture thinking). It encourages members to share their experiences and
memories about what makes the organization special to them, and what makes their work
fulfilling. This process of sharing generates excitement among all of the members about the
organization, and then focuses them to look for the exciting possibilities that would
encapsulate for them what the organization should be about. This is not just a fluffy emotional
process; the AI process should lead to specific items for change that can help the organization
succeed in real and practical ways. The AI process therefore is about generating positive
change and motivating organizational members with excitement rather than focusing on
organizational problems. However, AI should not be used to gloss over problems; if employees

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see it as an attempt by leadership to distract them from unaddressed problems, it could breed
resentment and resistance (vision killers).

As seen, all of these OD strategies are in keeping with covenantal behavior, as mentioned
earlier, the entire thrust of OD is really about creating an organization that is covenantal in its
processes, goals and strategies. It focuses not just on the change initiative itself, but on how
an organization achieves change and in general how it conducts itself with its own members
and customers. In the end, that really is the point—creating a self-sustaining, healthy
organizational culture. The next section will provide further ways to create a healthy culture
that embraces change and growth.

CREATING A CULTURE OF CHANGE

Encouraging Innovation:

o Structural variables
o Cultural variables
o Human Resource variables

Creating a Learning Organization:

o Double-loop learning
o Removing fragmentation, competition, and reactiveness
o Covenantal behavior

These two concepts are related. The first is a bit more focused on a specific type of change—
innovation. Companies that encourage innovation will be more likely to develop new products
and services which will keep them ahead of the competition in meeting customer needs. To do
so, certain variables need to be in place. Structurally, organizations need to be more organic
and less bureaucratic. Organic organizations encourage flexibility, adaptation, and cross-
fertilization. Also, companies need to develop managers and keep them with the company, to
build up a long-term base of knowledge, insight, and intuition. Having to constantly hire and
train new employees stymies innovation. Culturally, organizations need to encourage
experimentation. Failures should not be punished but should be viewed as learning
opportunities which will eventually lead to success. In terms of human resource policies and
planning, organizations need to incorporate policies aimed at developing their employees by
increasing their knowledge of subject matters related to their jobs, encouraging them to think
outside the box, and identifying and encouraging idea champions who get excited about
innovation and are who are willing to take risks.

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A more ambitious cultural perspective is that of creating a learning organization. This
approach goes beyond merely encouraging innovation to a more general focus on enhancing
adaptability and proactivity in embracing change. The first way this is accomplished is through
double-loop learning, which focuses not just on solving a particular problem, which could be
just a symptom, but also on addressing the causes of the problem, which often exist in
organizational policies, procedures, strategies and goals and other deeply rooted (and
therefore rarely evaluated) assumptions of the organization. Obviously, this is consistent with
“big picture” thinking.

Double-loop learning seeks to address three critical problems that can beset organizations:
fragmentation (also known as rigid compartmentalization, wherein various departments are
inward looking and therefore do not really interact meaningfully with one another to achieve
common goals), competition, where members are too busy preserving their own stake and
power in the company to truly identify weaknesses and solve problems, and reactiveness,
which focuses more on removing problems as opposed to proactively creating a positive, self-
sustaining organizational culture of teamwork and innovation.

Recommendations exist for creating a learning culture. For starters, leaders should
communicate a new strategy of learning to members in addition to adopting a more organic
structure. Leaders should also reshape the organization’s culture by encouraging risk-taking
and experimentation and attacking fragmentation, competition, and reactiveness. This brings
us back to the importance of covenantal behavior. These changes really cannot be
implemented unless leaders are accountable to followers and vice versa. Mutual accountability
encourages active dialogue and participative decision making. It also prevents “vision killers”
which can undermine any beneficial changes.

MANAGING STRESS THROUGH COVENANTAL
BEHAVIOR

• Communication, Dialogue, and Participative Decision Making
• Empowerment
• Goal-setting
• Job-Fit
• HR policies
• Conflict Resolution

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Impending change can of course cause stress, but in addition, there are any number of
stressors that can hurt employee morale and undermine productivity. An organization that
acts covenantally can significantly reduce stress. For instance, consistent communication,
active dialoguing, and participative decision-making can not only help employees feel more
valued and care for, but can give them a greater sense of control over their environment.
Likewise, empowering employees by giving them greater control over their work (which is also
related to “quality of workmanship”) can help to reduce stress.

The use of goal-setting, especially when done with employee participation, reduces
uncertainty for employees and increases intrinsic motivation. Specifically, remember that the
performance evaluation process can be a great source of stress if employees are unaware of
what is expected of them and are not getting any helpful and timely feedback from
supervisors. Goal-setting can help reduce this source of stress.

Putting the right employees in the right positions (job-fit) acknowledges that each individual is
uniquely gifted and should be put in a position where he is most likely to succeed. This is a key
element of covenantal behavior—acknowledging the value of each member, and being in a
position that does not draw on an employee’s strengths can certainly be a source of stress!

HR policies can also be used to remove stress. Allowing for flexible work schedules,
telecommuting, and implementing wellness programs are a way of caring for employees and
acknowledging that they are more than just worker drones. These types of policies can also
help employees resolve the work-life conflict.

Finally, organizations whose employees are trained in effective conflict resolution will have
less stress because conflict will become functional and positive. As discussed earlier, functional
conflict can actually provide a lot of momentum for solving problems and getting things done
in an organization. Furthermore, remember that a covenant is more than just performing
contractual duties; it is about creating and maintaining a relationship of mutual care and
support. Companies that create and encourage a covenantal culture will therefore be a
happier place to work for employees as opposed to a source of stress and discouragement.

Back to Table of Contents

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CONTENTS
LESSON 1: A Worldview Perspective on Organizational Behavior
What is a Worldview?
Worldview as a Home
What is Your Worldview?
Defining the Christian Worldview
Application to Organizational Behavior
The Biblical Idea of Covenant
Important Covenantal Terms
History of Covenant
A Covenantal Model for Organizational Behavior
OB/COVENANT MATRIX
Conclusion
LESSON 2: Individual Behavior in the Organization
Introduction
Personality and Abilities
Values
Ethical Perspectives
Outputs
Emotions and Moods
Perceptions
Emotional Intelligence
Job Satisfaction
Effective Job Attitudes
Decision Making Constraints
Dealing with Constraints and Biases
LESSON 3: Motivating Employees
Motivational Theories
Early Motivation Theories
Contemporary Motivation Theories
Employee Participation
Payment Programs
Flexible Benefits
Intrinsic Rewards
Biblical Summary
LESSON 4: Group Behavior and Work Teams
Group Behavior
Stages of Group Development
Group Properties
Group Decision Making
Differences between Groups and Teams
Types of Teams
Factors Relating to Successful Teams
Context
Team Composition
Work Design—think “covenantally”
Team Processes
Turning Individuals into Team Players
When Should Teams Be Used?
LESSON 5: Organizational Communication
Formal and Informal Channels
Direction of Communication
Interpersonal Communication
Organizational Components
Which Channel to Use?
LESSON 6: Leadership
Defining leadership
Trait Theories
Behavioral Theories
Contingency Theories
Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory
Inspirational Approaches
Authentic Leadership
Defining Trust
Mentoring as Leadership
Self-Leadership
Challenges to Leadership Construct
LESSON 7: Politics, Negotiation and Conflict Resolution
Motivations for Power
Dependency and Power
Sources of Power
Power Tactics
Sexual Harrassment
The Interactionist View of Conflict
The Conflict Process
Negotiation: Bargaining Strategies
LESSON 8: Structure and Culture
History of Organizational Perspectives
Work Specialization & Structure
Control, Effectiveness & Structure
Departmentalization and StRucture
Cultures as Shared Meaning
Creating a Positive Culture
Spirituality in the Workplace
LESSON 9: Human Resource Policies
Overview
Selection Practices
Effective Selection Processes
Training and Development
Performance Evaluation
HR Policies and Labor Relations
Managing a Diverse Workforce
LESSON 10: Organizational Change and Stress Management
The Context of Change
Overcoming Resistance to Change
Strategies for Change
Creating a Culture of Change
Managing Stress through Covenantal behavior