Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care

Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Teams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Teams. Show all posts

Saturday, June 25, 2022

Work group rituals enhance the meaning of work

T. Kima, O. Sezer, et al.
Organizational Behavior and 
Human Decision Processes
Volume 165, July 2021, Pages 197-212

Abstract

The many benefits of finding meaning in work suggest the importance of identifying activities that increase job meaningfulness. The current paper identifies one such activity: engaging in rituals with workgroups. Five studies (N = 1,099) provide evidence that performing group rituals can enhance the meaningfulness of work, and that in turn this meaning can enhance organizational citizenship behaviors (to the benefit of those groups). We first define group rituals both conceptually and empirically, identifying three types of features associated with group rituals—physical actions, psychological import, and communality—and differentiating group rituals from the related concept of group norms (Pilot Studies A and B). We then examine—correlationally in a survey of employed individuals (Study 1a) and experimentally in a study that manipulates the presence or absence of the three types of ritualistic features (Study 1b)—whether performing an activity at work with ritualistic physical, psychological, and communal features (versus an activity with none or just one of these features) is associated with more meaningful work experiences. We test whether this enhanced meaning predicts the extent to which individuals are willing to engage in behaviors enacted on behalf of that group, even without the promise of reward, using organizational citizenship behaviors in Studies 1a–1b and performance on a brainstorming task in Study 2. Taken together, these studies offer a framework for understanding group ritual and offer novel insight into the downstream consequences of employing group rituals in organizational contexts.

Highlights

• Physical, psychological, and communal elements capture group ritual’s core meaning.

• Organizations can employ group rituals to imbue tasks with meaning.

• This meaning can, in turn, enhance organizational citizenship behaviors.

Conclusion

Group rituals are prevalent in countless contexts, from sporting events to religious services to workplaces. Our findings not only suggest that there may be wisdom behind their ubiquity, but also that groups can engineer group activities to increase the success of meaning transfer. A series of ritualistic movements can become a simple—yet effective—tool for enhancing meaning at work. 

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Why Good Ethics Are Now Big Business—And How To Embrace Them

Phil Lewis
Forbes.com
Originally published 14 Oct 20

Here is an excerpt:

“I think ethics cascading through the business, through the teams and managers, is very much about cascading the culture, but a culture that everyone understands. It’s about hiring the right people. People who share our values,” he explains. 

“And this wouldn’t work if you were just thinking about today or tomorrow as a business. But if you think about five years, or 10 years, or 50 years, the way Japanese businesses operate, looking after people, giving them a sense of purpose, making sure that the growth path of the business is also thinking about the growth path of the individual… If you really look after people, that intrinsic motivation will follow.”

It’s almost a karmic approach to business, then: do good things and good things will come to you. That’s an approach Pawlik has taken through the pandemic too—and it seems to be proving its worth. 

“When this happened, we were very much, ‘What do you need? Can I help you with strategy? Can I help you reach a new market and diversify? Whatever it is, let's put some time together, and you can ask questions, and I'll just help.’ I offered to do loads of free training to organizations, to support them. The approach was: let's just give them more value and see if we can help people. 

“And that came back tenfold. People were so happy with how we've supported them, that when they got stronger legs, they came back to us and said, ‘You know what? You really helped us through that difficult time period. You didn't need to, you didn't ask for anything back. And now we want to reciprocate.’ It's perfectly logical. Help people, and good things will come back.”