No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
What motivates the public? The power of social norms in driving public participation with organizations
Abstract
This study examines motivating factors that impact public participation with organizations. A between-subjects lab experiment was conducted to examine the role of different types of norms (social norm vs. market norm) in initiating participation. Results suggest that when people feel recognized by an organization, their motivations are as strong as those who receive monetary rewards for participation. Three distinct underlying psychological mechanisms that drive participation are identified. Theoretical and practical implications for public relations and organizational communication are discussed.
... But network topology varies: some may be more centralized and others more dispersed. Our study will therefore examine, Research Question 2: How participatory are the social networks constituted around global aid agencies on Twitter? Yang and Ott (2016) identify two "governing rules for participation": the market norm, under which organizations offer people monetary incentives to participate, and the social norm, under which people participate for "maintaining communal relationships with others" on grounds such as altruism, politeness, and reciprocity (p. 833). ...
... Our study suggests that in the context of Twitter, such egalitarianism can be created by aid agencies replying to and retweeting members of the public, using publicly oriented hashtags, and tweeting about topics the public is also tweeting about. These activities may also be considered as "recognition" and "appreciation" of the public by aid agencies, which, as F. Yang and Ott's (2016) experimental study noted, is critical to motivate members of the public to participate in communal activities (see also, Clark & Mills, 1979). ...
Social networking sites can help global aid agencies converse with the communities they work with as well as listen to public conversations on vital issues. This study develops a technosocial framework that specifies how different affordances of Twitter—from the topical content of tweets to replies, retweets, hashtags, and hyperlinks—relate to different levels of public engagement with aid agencies. We combine computational and qualitative methods to examine tweets posted by three aid agencies—USAID, SIDA, and ICRC—as well as public tweets that mention these agencies (N = ~100,000). Results indicate that when an agency (1) replies to or retweets public tweeters, (2) includes publicly-oriented hashtags and hyperlinks in its tweets, and (3) tweets about topics that the public is also interested in and tweeting about, the social network that develops around the agency is more interconnected, decentralized, and reciprocal. Our framework can help aid agencies and other development institutions build more participatory social networks, bolstering the possibility of multiple voices helping determine collective goals and strategies of collective action for sustainable social change.
... Secondly, although there is no study that reveals the direct positive relationships between social proof and citizen participation in the public policy making context, there are abundant results that support the positive relationships indirectly (Yang & Ott, 2016). In recent years, social computing and networking platforms (e.g. ...
... Further, social proof has been presented as a direct determinant of behavioural intentions in several studies including theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) and the innovation diffusion theory (Moore & Benbasat, 1996). It has been used in terms such as 'social influence', 'subjective norms', 'social factor and image' (Bhattacherjee & Sanford, 2006;Gotlieb & Swan, 1990;Yang & Ott, 2016). All these terms imply individual's behaviour is affected by peers' opinions and how they view them. ...
Public participation is one of the most important tasks for policy making processes, and public authorities are lacking ideas on designing public participation processes facilitating active citizen participation. Based on a persuasion theory, this paper examines if policy issues embedded with persuasive features draw more attention, longer elaboration time and more participation. Particularly preference matching, location matching, social proof and authority are identified as persuasive features in e-participation context and propositions on their impacts on citizens’ participation processes are developed. A prototype mobile participation tool is developed to test the propositions and tested by 80 experiment participants in the UK and Turkey. The findings indicate that the mixture of central and peripheral features is most effective in drawing participation while single feature has limitations. This study also argues that the design of e-participation tools needs to consider the psychological aspects of citizens for motivating their participations.
... The relationship was generally more consistent in terms of the number of long comments provided rather than whether any long comments were provided or the percent of long comments provided. In any case, the current study is consistent with broader research on game theory and similar theories applied to social information exchange, especially with respect to interaction inequality driving community participation (Civai et al., 2010;Yang & Ott, 2016;Fieseler et al., 2019). ...
Across disciplines and educational levels, peer feedback has emerged as a broadly useful pedagogical strategy. However, the value of peer feedback depends upon students being willing to provide each other substantial feedback. We develop a novel application of game theory to study whether students’ experiences with interaction inequality in peer feedback predict lower participation in future peer feedback assignments. Two kinds of inequality are explored: inequality in amount and inequality in the helpfulness of received vs. providing feedback. We examine data from students (N = 732) enrolled in the three different courses (varying in discipline and level) using the same online peer review platform. We use advanced multiple regression models to test four theoretically-derived hypotheses regarding the overall effects of experienced inequality, three hypotheses involving contextual moderators of that effect. The results confirmed the hypothesized relationship of experiencing inequality in the number and quality of feedback provided vs. received with the subsequent depth of participation in peer reviewing. The results also generally confirmed the three predicted moderators of the relationship: stronger observed relationships with inequality experiences for weaker students, in later assignments, and in more advanced coursework. This study is unique in applying and extending game theory to computerized peer review and in its approach for studying the relationship of specific prior experiences with future peer review participation. The findings provide new practical insights into what is essential to manage in peer review processes.
... This is why participatory communication seems to value individual/collective creation. To reinforce this psychological gratification, some organizations recognize citizens' participation and demonstrate gratitude toward them (Fisher & Ackerman, 1998;Yang & Ott, 2016). In this way, individuals can feel that their contributions are appreciated and can be satisfied with the organization's evaluation of their performance. ...
The purpose of this paper is to provide a communication perspective on recent modes of civic engagement that aim to generalize making, opening, sharing, and collaborating. The case of benevolent hacker communities related to hackathon competitions is a compelling context for understanding this phenomenon. The study is based on a content analysis of tweets exchanged in a context of co-creation (i.e., Swisscom’s Hackathon). A definition of participatory and transparent communication is proposed.
... In accordance with the arguments from OPR, research suggests that more investigations are needed to further understand what motivates people to participate with organizations (Yang and Ott, 2016) and to more fully develop effective strategies to strengthen the nonprofit organization-volunteer relationship. found that stewardship strategies of responsibility, reciprocity, and relationship nurturing did predict volunteers' level of involvement in an organization. ...
Despite many efforts to promote citizen participation, it is necessary to keep exploring more efficient mobilization ways in developing countries. From the bounded rationality perspective, the authors conducted a survey experiment in China to explore the effects of a public–personal interest frame and a gain–loss frame on citizen participation. The results revealed that emphasizing public interests attracted more citizen participation than emphasizing personal interests did, and citizens were more mobilized by losing benefits due to non-participation than they were by gaining benefits due to participation. Moreover, the public–personal frame interacted with the gain–loss frame to influence citizen participation. Specifically, people were more likely mobilized to participate by public interests than by personal interests in a gain frame but not in a loss frame. These findings contribute to the understanding of bounded rationality in citizen participation and indicate the potential of framing effect to nudge citizen participation.
This chapter discusses the results of a comparison across industries, introduces a model for the implementation of online diversity communication, and tackles the limitations of the current book. Finally, the chapter gives directions for future research.
This article explores public support for nonprofit organizations by studying a specific fundraising event, Relay For Life, benefiting the American Cancer Society. Using an online survey of undergraduates
(N¼514), this research employs the situational theory of publics and the theory of reasoned action to explore communication and participation behaviors related to the health issue and organization. Multiple analyses show how the variables combine to represent a new variable or a continuum that may help explain nonprofit support.
This experiment examines interactivity and vividness in commercial web sites. We expected increased levels of interactivity and vividness would lead to more positive attitudes toward web sites, stronger feelings of telepresence, and greater attitude—behavior consistency. In addition, we expected increased levels of vividness to lead to the development of more enduring attitudes toward the site. Participants explored four web sites. Increases in interactivity and vividness were associated with increased feelings of telepresence. In addition, increases in vividness were associated with more positive and more enduring attitudes toward the web site. Implications for new media researchers and practitioners are discussed.
The correlates of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice were examined using 190 studies samples, totaling 64,757 participants. We found the distinction between the three justice types to be merited. While organizational practices and outcomes were related to the three justice types, demographic characteris-tics of the perceiver were, in large part, unrelated to perceived justice. Job performance and counterproductive work behaviors, considered to be outcomes of perceived justice, were mainly related to procedural justice, whereas organizational citizenship behavior was similarly predicted by distributive and procedural justice. Most satisfaction measures were similarly related to all justice types. Although organizational commitment and trust were mainly related to procedural justice, they were also substan-tially related to the other types of justice. Findings from labora-tory and field studies are not always in agreement. Future research agendas are discussed. ᭧ 2001 Academic Press The study of work-place justice has been proliferating in recent years. Whereas early studies on justice were conducted in the early 1960s (Adams, 1963, 1965), the majority of studies on justice in organizations were published We thank Dr. Dan Ilgen and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Yochi Cohen-Charash, Institute
The authors examine the effects of using a subtractive versus an additive option-framing method on consumers' option choice decisions in three studies. The former option-framing method presents consumers with a fully loaded product and asks them to delete options they do not want. The latter presents them with a base model and asks them to add the options they do want. Combined, the studies support the managerial attractiveness of the subtractive versus the additive option-framing method. Consumers tend to choose more options with a higher total option price when they use subtractive versus additive option framing. This effect holds across different option price levels (Study 1) and product categories of varying price (Study 2). Moreover, this effect is magnified when subjects are asked to anticipate regret from their option choice decisions (Study 2). However, option framing has a different effect on the purchase likelihood of the product category itself, depending on the subject's initial interest in buying within the category. Although subtractive option framing offers strong advantages to managers when product commitment is high, it appears to demotivate category purchase when product commitment is low (Study 3). In addition, the three studies reveal several other findings about the attractiveness of subtractive versus additive option framing from the standpoint of consumers and managers. These findings, in turn, offer interesting public policy and future research implications.
In addition to proposing an integrated conceptualization of mail survey response behavior, this article presents an empirical study which examines the potential of source and appeal variations on response rate, response speed, and response completeness. The findings of this empirical study are presented and compared to a similar study for the purpose of validating source and appeal effects on mail survey response and the conceptual framework. The results, not totally in agreement with earlier findings, generally lend support for the untapped potential of source and appeal in influencing mail survey response behavior. There is also statistical justification for two of the six motivators comprising the proposed conceptual framework.
Cyberspace has introduced new and intriguing means for knowledge shar- ing as well as new structures of mediated knowledge-building communities. Considering the various forms of online communities, it should be difficult to overstate the significance of Wikipedia as a landmark in building communal knowledge repositories. Wikipedia is an online collaboratively written encyclopedia. It has unique aspects of users' involvement in the production of content and its function as a community. In less than five years of existence, Wikipedia has acquired both avid advocates and ardent adversaries. Although there have been some public and academic debates about the quality of its content, as the rapid growth of its articles and numbers of active users (Wikipedians) continues, most people agree that at least the English version of Wikipedia is approaching critical mass where substantial content disasters should become rare. Wikipedia's existence and success rely on users' inputs. Our chapter focuses on Wikipedians' incen- tives for contributing to Wikipedia. The popular observation is that Wikipedia only works in practice. In theory, it can never work. How does Wikipedia mobilize the levels of participation that make it "work in practice"? Wikipedia's growth, from the time of its foundation in 2001, has been impressive in all conceivable dimensions. Expansion metrics have accelerated in terms of volume, numbers of articles, visitors, and percentage of contribu- tors. There are, by the time of this writing, 250 language editions of Wikipedia. The English-language version is the largest. It contains more than two million articles. The German-language version has more than half a million articles and the French, Polish, Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese versions each boast over 100,000 articles.
Communal relationships, in which the giving of a benefit in response to a need for the benefit is appropriate, are distinguished from exchange relationships, in which the giving of a benefit in response to the receipt of a benefit is appropriate. Based on this distinction, it was hypothesized that the receipt of a benefit after the person has been benefited leads to greater attraction when an exchange relationship is preferred and decreases attraction when a communal relationship is desired. These hypotheses were supported in Exp I, which used 96 male undergraduates. Exp II, which used a different manipulation of exchange vs communal relationships with 80 female undergraduates, supported the hypotheses that (a) a request for a benefit after the S is aided by the other leads to greater attraction when an exchange relationship is expected and decreases attraction when a communal relationship is expected, and (b) a request for a benefit in the absence of prior aid from the other decreases attraction when an exchange relationship is expected. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
A model is presented to account for the natural selection of what is termed reciprocally altruistic behavior. The model shows how selection can operate against the cheater (non-reciprocator) in the system. Three instances of altruistic behavior are discussed, the evolution of which the model can explain: (1) behavior involved in cleaning symbioses; (2) warning cries in birds; and (3) human reciprocal altruism. Regarding human reciprocal altruism, it is shown that the details of the psychological system that regulates this altruism can be explained by the model. Specifically, friendship, dislike, moralistic aggression, gratitude, sympathy, trust, suspicion, trustworthiness, aspects of guilt, and some forms of dishonesty and hypocrisy can be explained as important adaptations to regulate the altruistic system. Each individual human is seen as possessing altruistic and cheating tendencies, the expression of which is sensitive to developmental variables that were selected to set the tendencies at a balance ap...
What are the antecedents, inhibitors and catalysts to providing information and participating in mixed fee-based and free online contexts? We describe the behaviour of about 500 Researchers in the Google Answers online service and over 70,000 questions posed on this system over a 29 month period. Google Answers is a fee-based environment. Answers provided on it are "worth" over $20 (including tips) on average. However, labour economics of response to price and tip alone do not fully account for the online information provision market. Non-monetary incentives, such as feedback in the form of comments predict and explain some of the variance in participation. Descriptive and correlational findings presented here are based on many thousands of answers. We thus corroborate some of the hybrid theories of information provision behaviour presented to date mostly in laboratory settings. The participation of experts in Google answers is associated with a hybrid of material (economic) and social motivators.
Participation in strategic change processes is frequently assumed to have a number of positive consequences for decision quality, affective responses to change and success of strategic change implementation. To date little research has successfully established the validity of these claims. The fact that results from research into the effects of participation in other contexts are inconclusive is adding to the ambiguity concerning participation's efficacy in a strategic change context. This article uses data from a major strategic reorientation of a national telecommunications firm in order to assess the outcomes of participation in strategic change. Findings indicate a strong positive relationship between participation and goal achievement and organizational commitment, and a strong negative relationship with resistance. The results also suggest that the effects of participation are moderated by the changes' compatibility with organizational culture and the personal goals of change recipients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Change Management is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
In this article, we summarize previous empirical studies that examined antecedents, correlates, and/or consequences of organizational commitment using meta-analysis. In total, 48 meta-analyses were conducted, including 26 variables classified as antecedents, 8 as consequences, and 14 as correlates. Statistical artifacts were found to account for the variance between studies in only one meta-analysis that used attendance. Type of organizational commitment (attitudinal vs. calculative) was proposed as a moderator variable and was found to account for significant between-study variance in 9 of 18 comparisons. Theoretical and methodological issues pertaining to the measurement of various forms of organizational commitment, its interrelations with other forms of attachments, and its role in causal models of behavior in organizations are reviewed. Directions for future research are highlighted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved)
G*Power is a free power analysis program for a variety of statistical tests. We present extensions and improvements of the version introduced by Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, and Buchner (2007) in the domain of correlation and regression analyses. In the new version, we have added procedures to analyze the power of tests based on (1) single-sample tetrachoric correlations, (2) comparisons of dependent correlations, (3) bivariate linear regression, (4) multiple linear regression based on the random predictor model, (5) logistic regression, and (6) Poisson regression. We describe these new features and provide a brief introduction to their scope and handling.
Group task satisfaction has been conceptualized as the group-level counterpart to individual job satisfaction and represents the group’s shared attitude toward its task and work environment. This study investigated whether group task satisfaction would explain incremental variance in organizational citizenship behaviors, group performance, and absenteeism norms, after the variance explained by aggregated individual job satisfaction and group affective tone was taken into account. Survey data were collected from 66 work groups and 51 supervisors. Measures of group task satisfaction explained unique variance in ratings of citizenship behavior and absenteeism norms but did not explain unique variance in ratings of group performance. Our findings support the validity and utility of group task satisfaction and illustrate the importance of assessing group-level constructs directly.
The significance of volunteering for both individuals and society has lead to numerous studies on this behavior across the social sciences. However, virtually no prior research has evaluated how and to what extent organizations can effectively encourage individuals to contribute time to a worthy cause. The present research uses a social norm perspective to examine the conditions under which promotional appeals based on group need and promises of recognition affect volunteerism. The perspective suggests that norm compliance can be expected only when the prescribed behavior is both important to the group's welfare and subject to group-mediated rewards. Consequently, we hypothesize that promotional appeals based on group need and promised recognition are effective only when they are used in combination. Results of a laboratory and a field experiment are consistent with this hypothesis and provide insights into the process by which the appeals affect individuals' decisions to help. The results also have implications for understanding and promoting other socially desirable behaviors such as recycling, energy conservation, litter reduction, and the purchase of "green" products. Copyright 1998 by the University of Chicago.
The motivation, planning, production, comprehension, coordination, and evaluation of human social life may be based largely on combinations of 4 psychological models. In communal sharing, people treat all members of a category as equivalent. In authority ranking, people attend to their positions in a linear ordering. In equality matching, people keep track of the imbalances among them. In market pricing, people orient to ratio values. Cultures use different rules to implement the 4 models. In addition to an array of inductive evidence from many cultures and approaches, the theory has been supported by ethnographic field work and 19 experimental studies using 7 different methods testing 6 different cognitive predictions on a wide range of subjects from 5 cultures.
Procedural justice and social facilitation theories were used to investigate effects of 2 kinds of process control on fairness perceptions, task satisfaction and performance of complex, computer-monitored tasks. A laboratory study manipulated participation (high or low voice) and monitoring approach (monitoring, control over monitoring, or no monitoring). High-voice participants perceived higher justice. Monitored participants reported higher satisfaction with high voice and lower satisfaction with low voice. Task performance was poorer for monitored participants unless they had control over monitoring. Among those with control, performance was not impaired for higher baseline performers. The 2 kinds of process control had different effects on the outcome variables. Results suggest the value of considering variations in the kinds of control provided and the justice principles that may apply in predicting effects of monitoring procedures.
This study examined the mediating role of service climate in the prediction of employee performance and customer loyalty. Contact employees (N=342) from 114 service units (58 hotel front desks and 56 restaurants) provided information about organizational resources, engagement, and service climate. Furthermore, customers (N=1,140) from these units provided information on employee performance and customer loyalty. Structural equation modeling analyses were consistent with a full mediation model in which organizational resources and work engagement predict service climate, which in turn predicts employee performance and then customer loyalty. Further analyses revealed a potential reciprocal effect between service climate and customer loyalty. Implications of the study are discussed, together with limitations and suggestions for future research.
Money has been said to change people's motivation (mainly for the better) and their behavior toward others (mainly for the worse). The results of nine experiments suggest that money brings about a self-sufficient orientation in which people prefer to be free of dependency and dependents. Reminders of money, relative to nonmoney reminders, led to reduced requests for help and reduced helpfulness toward others. Relative to participants primed with neutral concepts, participants primed with money preferred to play alone, work alone, and put more physical distance between themselves and a new acquaintance.
Procedural justice and social facilitation theories were used to investigate effects of 2 kinds of process control on fairness perceptions, task satisfaction and performance of complex, computer-monitored tasks. A laboratory study manipulated participation (high or low voice) and monitoring approach (monitoring, control over monitoring, or no monitoring). High-voice participants perceived higher justice. Monitored participants reported higher satisfaction with high voice and lower satisfaction with low voice. Task performance was poorer for monitored participants unless they had control over monitoring. Among those with control, performance was not impaired for higher baseline performers. The 2 kinds of process control had different effects on the outcome variables. Results suggest the value of considering variations in the kinds of control provided and the justice principles that may apply in predicting effects of monitoring procedures.
The discussion about the implications of new or digital media focuses mainly on ‘social’ media. This reduction is a conceptual shortcoming. In order to fully understand how digital media impact on society and the communication landscape, our conceptualisation needs to include new entertainment media, especially computer games. Interactivity here might mean interaction with the AI (artificial intelligence) or human players or both, but the crucial difference lies in the fact that the interaction takes place in a ‘world’ created by the software. Despite the discussion about ‘gamification’ in marketing and a tradition of game studies in the humanities, there have been few attempts to treat computer games not only as trivial culture, but as a “persuasive device”, as a way to shape public opinion. This article explores how the theory of procedural rhetoric, as outlined by Ian Bogost, enhances our understanding of this growing area.
Journal of Democracy 6.1 (1995) 65-78
As featured on National Public Radio, The New York Times, and in other major media, we offer this sold-out, much-discussed Journal of Democracy article by Robert Putnam, "Bowling Alone." You can also find information at DemocracyNet about the Journal of Democracy and its sponsor, the National Endowment for Democracy.
Many students of the new democracies that have emerged over the past decade and a half have emphasized the importance of a strong and active civil society to the consolidation of democracy. Especially with regard to the postcommunist countries, scholars and democratic activists alike have lamented the absence or obliteration of traditions of independent civic engagement and a widespread tendency toward passive reliance on the state. To those concerned with the weakness of civil societies in the developing or postcommunist world, the advanced Western democracies and above all the United States have typically been taken as models to be emulated. There is striking evidence, however, that the vibrancy of American civil society has notably declined over the past several decades.
Ever since the publication of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, the United States has played a central role in systematic studies of the links between democracy and civil society. Although this is in part because trends in American life are often regarded as harbingers of social modernization, it is also because America has traditionally been considered unusually "civic" (a reputation that, as we shall later see, has not been entirely unjustified).
When Tocqueville visited the United States in the 1830s, it was the Americans' propensity for civic association that most impressed him as the key to their unprecedented ability to make democracy work. "Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of disposition," he observed, "are forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand different types -- religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute. . . . Nothing, in my view, deserves more attention than the intellectual and moral associations in America."
Recently, American social scientists of a neo-Tocquevillean bent have unearthed a wide range of empirical evidence that the quality of public life and the performance of social institutions (and not only in America) are indeed powerfully influenced by norms and networks of civic engagement. Researchers in such fields as education, urban poverty, unemployment, the control of crime and drug abuse, and even health have discovered that successful outcomes are more likely in civically engaged communities. Similarly, research on the varying economic attainments of different ethnic groups in the United States has demonstrated the importance of social bonds within each group. These results are consistent with research in a wide range of settings that demonstrates the vital importance of social networks for job placement and many other economic outcomes.
Meanwhile, a seemingly unrelated body of research on the sociology of economic development has also focused attention on the role of social networks. Some of this work is situated in the developing countries, and some of it elucidates the peculiarly successful "network capitalism" of East Asia. Even in less exotic Western economies, however, researchers have discovered highly efficient, highly flexible "industrial districts" based on networks of collaboration among workers and small entrepreneurs. Far from being paleoindustrial anachronisms, these dense interpersonal and interorganizational networks undergird ultramodern industries, from the high tech of Silicon Valley to the high fashion of Benetton.
The norms and networks of civic engagement also powerfully affect the performance of representative government. That, at least, was the central conclusion of my own 20-year, quasi-experimental study of subnational governments in different regions of Italy. Although all these regional governments seemed identical on paper, their levels of effectiveness varied dramatically. Systematic inquiry showed that the quality of governance was determined by longstanding traditions of civic engagement (or its absence). Voter turnout, newspaper readership, membership in choral societies and football clubs -- these were the hallmarks of a successful region. In fact, historical analysis suggested that these networks of organized reciprocity and civic solidarity...
Replying to Batson (this issue), who argues that the difference between communal and exchange relationships is less than might be imagined, the authors review the communal/exchange distinction, discuss what it does and does not mean, and address specific issues raised by Batson. They conclude, contrary to claims by Batson, that (a) ingratiation cannot account for all the findings supporting the communal/exchange distinction; (b) if desire for a communal relationship leads to ingratiation, that does not contradict the distinction; (c) if communal norms are followed for other than altruistic reasons, that does not undermine the distinction, (d) the difference between communal and exchange relationships is not limited to the breadth of benefits exchanged; (e) the difference between communal and exchange relationships is not limited to a difference in etiquette; rather, the communal/exchange distinction provides a theoretical explanation for the difference in etiquette.
Corporate pages on social networking sites (SNSs) have become the key platform where publics interact with companies and organizations around the world. Focusing on one of the most important world economies, China, this study explored the types of public engagement with corporate pages on leading Chinese SNSs as well as the motivations and antecedents that drive such engagement. Given the participatory and communal nature of SNSs, this study proposed a conceptual model incorporating social media dependency and several social relationship factors, including parasocial interaction, perceived source credibility, and community identification, that influenced Chinese publics’ engagement with companies on SNSs. We conducted a web survey with a random sample of 245 Chinese SNS users to test the proposed model. The results confirm that with the exception of perceived credibility, social media usage and relationship-oriented factors played a significant role in inducing public engagement in China.
By combining the growing body of knowledge on organization-public relationships with insights from strategic management, the purpose of this study is to demonstrate, from the relational approach, the value of public relations. Specifically, it intends to examine the roles of organization-public relationships in each stage of the strategic management process, namely, strategic analysis, strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and strategic control. The findings show that OPRs can contribute to strategic analysis by being the source of information, channel of information, active information detector and foundation for internal analysis. It contributes to strategy formulation by providing broad information, incorporating intelligence, perspectives and insights and engaging employees in decision making. In strategy implementation, OPRs can generate support from parties involved and facilitate the strategy execution process. In strategic control, OPRs can provide feedback and updated information for strategy adjustments and strategy review, engage employee in self-management and facilitate organizational control through relational trust, commitment and satisfaction. Through playing multiple roles in each strategic management stage, relationships can eventually contribute to sustainable competitive advantage, achievement of organizational goals, and organizational effectiveness.
This experiment examined the impact of source, modality, and participation on perceptions of credibility, salience, attitudes, and general Web site evaluation. The data showed no significant differences between online stories coming from either public relations or news sources on any of the study's dependent variables. However, significant differences did emerge for the effects of multimedia and audience engagement.
Two experiments tested the idea that empathy-induced helping is due to self–other merging. To manipulate empathy, half of the participants in each experiment received instructions to remain objective while hearing about a young woman in need (low-empathy condition), and half received instructions to imagine her feelings (high-empathy condition). To check generality of the empathy–helping relationship, half in each empathy condition learned that the young woman was a student at their university (shared group membership), and half learned that she was a student at a rival university (unshared group membership). Self-reported empathy for and willingness to help the young woman were assessed, and 3 measures of self–other merging were taken. In each experiment, an empathy–helping relationship was found, unqualified by group membership, that could not be accounted for by any of the merging measures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Purpose – The paper aims to study the impact of five dimensions of workplace spirituality (team's sense of community, alignment with organizational values, sense of contribution to society, enjoyment at work, opportunities for inner life) on affective, normative and continuance commitment. Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 361 individuals from 154 organizations were interviewed. Correlations, regressions and cluster analyses were carried out. Findings – The five spirituality dimensions explain 48, 16 and 7 per cent of the unique variance of, respectively, the affective, normative and continuance forms of commitment. The findings suggest that when people experience workplace spirituality, they feel more affectively attached to their organizations, experience a sense of obligation/loyalty towards them, and feel less instrumentally committed. Research limitations/implications – Dependent and independent variables were collected from the same source, simultaneously. This can produce the risk of common method variance, leading to an inflation of statistical relationships. Future studies may use a double source method. A longitudinal research design may also be suitable. Practical implications – By improving spirituality climates, managers can promote organizational commitment and, thus, individual and organizational performance. It is likely that this occurs because people react reciprocally towards an organization that satisfies their spiritual needs, allows them to experience a sense of psychological safety, makes them feel that they are valued as human beings and that they deserve respectful treatment, and allows them to experience senses of purpose, self-determination, enjoyment and belonging. Originality/value – The paper contributes by filling a gap in the organization and management literature, in which empirical studies on organizational spirituality have been scarce until now.
Reflects the faith that there is such a thing as personality (loosely defined in terms of regularities in feeling, thought, and action that are characteristic of an individual), that there is such a thing as social behavior (referring to those domains of thought, feeling, and action concerned with people and events in their social worlds), and that the two are linked, both in theory and in practice, such that personality can tell us something important about social behavior, and that social behavior can tell us something important about personality. Topics of discussion include: shared motivational concerns of personality and social psychology; the functionalist strategy for personality and social behavior; the functionalist strategy in action: three case examples; features and meta-features of the functionalist strategy; and the functionalist strategy in context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The central objective of our paper is to empirically examine the relationship between the ownership structure of firms and their export performance. To do so, we use data from the Republic of Korea, a classic example of successful export-oriented industrialization. While a large and growing empirical literature investigates the relationship between the ownership structure and overall performance of firms, there are almost no studies that delve into the issue of whether the concentration of ownership has a positive or negative effect on export performance. The primary contribution of our study is to help remedy this serious gap in the empirical literature on ownership and performance. Our empirical results indicate that Korean firms with more concentrated ownership are more likely to be exporters, and to export more.
This field experiment tested the hypothesis that social labeling influences an actor's self-concept and his perception of the consequences of his behavior. Subjects who gave to charity were labeled charitable or not labeled and subjects who refused to give were labeled uncharitable or not labeled. Subjects were later asked to contribute to a second charity by a canvasser who was either highly involved in his cause, and hence likely to dispense social reinforcements, or uninvolved in it. Subjects labeled charitable gave more and subjects labeled uncharitable gave less than their respective control groups (p < .05). However, labeling did not cause subjects to distinguish more between the involved and the uninvolved canvassers. All subjects contributed more to the involved than to the uninvolved canvasser (p < .05).
This article provides a theory-based, strategic framework to facilitate relationship building with publics through the World Wide Web. Although many essays on the Web have appeared in professional and technical periodicals, most treatments of the Web have lacked theoretical frameworks. Strategic communication on the World Wide Web can benefit from a consideration of dialogic communication.This article offers dialogic communication as a theoretical framework to guide relationship building between organizations and publics. Five strategies are provided for communication professionals use to create dialogic relationships with Internet publics.
Voluntarism is often explained as ‘doing good works’, in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Yet research in social psychology and economics generally minimizes altruism as a motivation for volunteering. This paper investigates the existence of an altruistic motive to volunteer. Empirical research based on Backer's (1974) utility interdependence hypothesis provides evidence for an altruistic motive across many types of voluntary activity.
We conducted two experiments to explore how moderation, response rate, and message interactivity affected people's intent to participate in a web-based online community. In our first experiment, 62 participants observed either a moderated or an unmoderated online community and answered questions about their intent to participate in the commu- nity. The participants who viewed the moderated community reported significantly higher intent to participate than participants who viewed the unmoderated community. In our second experiment, 59 participants observed a different online community in which we manipulated both the rate (in time) of posted comments and the interactivity of each com- ment. We derived our manipulation of interactivity from Rafaeli's (1988) definition of interactivity as message contingency. Participants reported significantly greater intent to participate in an online community featuring interactive messages, but only when response rate was slow. These results indicate that both structural features of interfaces and content features of interactions affect people's intent to participate in online communities.
Although perceived fairness and job satisfaction predict organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB), researchers have pondered the conceptual relationships among these constructs. Using path analysis on meta-analytically derived coefficients, the authors compared four models: full mediation (job satisfaction mediates fairness-OCB relationships), partial mediation, independent effects, and a spurious effects model (the job satisfaction-OCB relationship is spurious because perceived fairness is a common cause). The authors found greatest support for the independent effects model: Job satisfaction and different types of perceived fairness accounted for unique variance in OCB dimensions. The article discusses implications for research and practice, and offers suggestions to advance theory in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Management is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
This paper summarizes a stream of research aimed at developing and validating a measure of employee commitment to work organizations. The instrument, developed by Porter and his colleagues, is called the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ). Based on a series of studies among 2563 employees in nine divergent organizations, satisfactory test-retest reliabilities and internal consistency reliabilities were found. In addition, cross-validated evidence of acceptable levels of predictive, convergent, and discriminant validity emerged for the instrument. Norms for males and females are presented based on the available sample. Possible instrument limitations and future research needs on the measurement and study of organizational commitment are reviewed
The nature of employees' commitment to their employing organization has long been a topic of great interest to organizational researchers. Organizational commitment Quotient (QCQ) has been defined and measured in various ways. More recent research has focused on the issue of the multidimensionality of commitment. Researchers have found two distinguishable dimensions which they labeled "value commitment" and "commitment to stay." Intent to quit and actual separation rate both showed stronger relationships with the commitment to stay dimension, while two measures of effectiveness yielded stronger relationships with value commitment. The dimensions of commitment were differentially predictive of important organizational outcomes, it is important to understand the causes of these dimensions of commitment. While a great deal of research has identified antecedents to the OCQ. The purpose of this Article is to examine the value of motivational framework in clarifying the relationships between commitment antecedents and the two commitment dimensions. This framework is then used for further construct validation of the two-dimensional organizational commitment measure
The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the radiographic results of bone-added osteotome sinus floor elevation (BAOSFE) and lateral approach sinus floor elevation techniques.
The 43 patients who had undergone implant procedure with either BAOSFE or lateral approach method on their maxillary molar edentulous area were included. Their dental records were confirmative and the radiographic-changes using orthopantomographs were consistently checked up during 2 years after the procedure (immediately after procedure and 6 months, 12 months, and 24 months after implant placement).
The radiographic evaluation after 2 years of implantation with sinus elevation showed the significant amount of bone formation (6.75 mm for BAOSFE and 11.36 mm for lateral approach method). Largest amount of grafted height loss occurred during the first 6 months (62.8% of total amount of bone loss), but the resorption was minimal (1.35 mm for BAOSFE and 1.36 mm for lateral approach method) for overall 24 months.
Long-term stability of graft height was achieved using both BAOSFE and lateral approach sinus floor elevation. Overall, graft height decreased gradually during 2 years after procedures, but the changes were minimal.
One possible reason for the continued neglect of statistical power analysis in research in the behavioral sciences is the inaccessibility of or difficulty with the standard material. A convenient, although not comprehensive, presentation of required sample sizes is provided here. Effect-size indexes and conventional values for these are given for operationally defined small, medium, and large effects. The sample sizes necessary for .80 power to detect effects at these levels are tabled for eight standard statistical tests: (a) the difference between independent means, (b) the significance of a product-moment correlation, (c) the difference between independent rs, (d) the sign test, (e) the difference between independent proportions, (f) chi-square tests for goodness of fit and contingency tables, (g) one-way analysis of variance, and (h) the significance of a multiple or multiple partial correlation.
Signaling networks are exemplified by systems as diverse as biological cells, economic markets, and the Web. After a discussion of some general characteristics of signaling networks, this paper explores the adaptive evolution of complexity in a simple model of a signaling network. The paper closes with a discussion of broader questions concerning the evolution signaling networks.
Hypotheses involving mediation are common in the behavioral sciences. Mediation exists when a predictor affects a dependent variable indirectly through at least one intervening variable, or mediator. Methods to assess mediation involving multiple simultaneous mediators have received little attention in the methodological literature despite a clear need. We provide an overview of simple and multiple mediation and explore three approaches that can be used to investigate indirect processes, as well as methods for contrasting two or more mediators within a single model. We present an illustrative example, assessing and contrasting potential mediators of the relationship between the helpfulness of socialization agents and job satisfaction. We also provide SAS and SPSS macros, as well as Mplus and LISREL syntax, to facilitate the use of these methods in applications.
Important features of the self-concept can be located outside of the individual and inside close or related others. The authors use this insight to reinterpret data previously said to support the empathy-altruism model of helping, which asserts that empathic concern for another results in selflessness and true altruism. That is, they argue that the conditions that lead to empathic concern also lead to a greater sense of self-other overlap, raising the possibility that helping under these conditions is not selfless but is also directed toward the self. In 3 studies, the impact of empathic concern on willingness to help was eliminated when oneness--a measure of perceived self-other overlap--was considered. Path analyses revealed further that empathic concern increased helping only through its relation to perceived oneness, thereby throwing the empathy-altruism model into question. The authors suggest that empathic concern affects helping primarily as an emotional signal of oneness.
The standard model of labor is one in which individuals trade their time and energy in return for monetary rewards. Building on Fiske's relational theory (1992), we propose that there are two types of markets that determine relationships between effort and payment: monetary and social. We hypothesize that monetary markets are highly sensitive to the magnitude of compensation, whereas social markets are not. This perspective can shed light on the well-established observation that people sometimes expend more effort in exchange for no payment (a social market) than they expend when they receive low payment (a monetary market). Three experiments support these ideas. The experimental evidence also demonstrates that mixed markets (markets that include aspects of both social and monetary markets) more closely resemble monetary than social markets.
People like to help those who are helping them and to hurt those who are hurting them. Outcomes rejecting such motivations are called fairness equilibria. Outcomes are mutual-max when each person maximizes the other's material payoffs, and mutual-min when each person minimizes the other's payoffs. It is shown that every mutual-max or mutual-min Nash equilibrium is a fairness equilibrium. If payoffs are small, fairness equilibria are roughly the set of mutual-max and mutual-min outcomes; if payoffs are large, fairness equilibria are roughly the set of Nash equilibria. Several economic examples are considered and possible welfare implications of fairness are explored. Copyright 1993 by American Economic Association.