Summary with the 1st edition of Social Psychology and Organizations by De Cremer a.o.

How do the fields of social psychology and organisations integrate? - Chapter 1

In this book, we'll see how social psychology and organisations integrate with each other by bringing researchers from social psychology and from organizations together. This book discusses their findings. There is a special interest in how research in one field relates to the other field. Although there is a clear bond between both social psychology and organisations, the relation between them stays implicit. The goal of this book is to make this relation more explicit.

How can you understand work life?

Most people spend much of their time at a workplace, mostly within organisations. We are not always aware of the different things that influence our work. Social interactions at work influence, among others, our thoughts and feelings. To have a better understanding of this influence, we take the perspective of the social psychologist.

Social psychology can be defined as a "scientific attempt to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other human beings" (Allport, 1954). Social scientists are particularly interested in how social elements influence individuals and how individuals influence social relationships.

Organizations are social entities: they include individuals, groups, and interactions. Social psychology provides conceptual tools and theories to tackle organizational challenges.

What themes are there in social, and organisational research?

Theme 1: theories of individuals

How do individual staff members perceive their organisations and organisational experiences? In what way do these perceptions contribute to the organisation-related behaviour of the employee?

Theories of individuals such as attribution theory, cognitive dissonance, psychological reactance, and theories of attitudes and persuasion can all give guidance to answering these questions.

Theme 2: theories on interactions

The way in which members of an organisation interact with each other can be categorized as competitive, cooperative or conflict relationships. Understanding these categories and interactions can be done by employing theories on cooperation, aggression, justice and fairness, and affiliation.

How organizations and their managers can handle conflict is a central aspect in leadership. It is important to maintain, build, and restore trust; it is also crucial that leaders use fair and legitimate decision-making procedures.

Theme 3: social context and culture of work space

Beliefs, both individual and cultural, are important social influencers. When individual beliefs differ from organizational beliefs, social psychology helps to understand how to merge those beliefs into a central, motivating culture.

Questions Chapter 1: Seeing organizations through the eye of a social psychologist

1. How can the field of social psychology be described?
2. How can organizations improve?

What is power? - Chapter 2

Human relationships are built on who has power, who is affected by it and how power is gained. To get a clear understanding of the dynamics, it is important to take a good look at power when inspecting an organization.

Power can be defined as 'asymmetric control over valued resources in social relations'.

Power has immense psychological effects, which can endure after the situation in which the power is experienced. The Power-Approach-Theory says that power sets the behavioural approach system into motion. The sensitivity to rewards, achievement, sex, and social bonding gets a boost. When there is a lack of power, the behavioural inhibition system is activated. This system increases behaviour related to anxiety, avoidance, and response inhibition. When taking a closer look at these systems, you can understand why power, or lack of power, has a huge influence on behaviour and cognition. These effects are discussed below.

How is social attentiveness affected by power?

People who employ a high level of power are less interdependent and are better in satisfying their needs without help. This causes powerful people to be less attentive to the internal experiences of others.

Power reduces the habit of viewing the world from the others' perspective. Also, power surges the instrumental attention to others, so the people with power tend to see their social partners through a lens of self-interest.

There is more and more research which shows the powerful are not the best perspective takers. It is hard for the powerful to see the world through the eyes of others. A task researchers provided their participants with, was writing the letter 'E' on their forehead. This could done two ways:

1. Writing the 'E' backwards to the self, so the other can read the letter just fine: other-focused.
2. Writing the 'E' backwards to the other: self-focused. People with more power were three times more likely to draw a self-focused 'E'.

Another study worked with phrases that could be perceived two ways: literal or sarcastic. The participants were presented with a sentence that looked sincere (e.g. 'that dress looks nice'), but got background information that showed the sentence could be meant in a sarcastic manner. When this background information was only provided to a few participants, only powerful participants assumed that all people (also the people that did not receive the background information) perceived the sentence as sarcastic.

Research also showed that powerful people did not tend to activate metastereotypes (stereotypical thoughts about how the out-group perceives the in-group) in intergroup contexts. Using metastereotypes is very useful to understand the behaviour and intentions of others.

Other research implies that the emotional identification and social connections are less developed in powerful people. Power builds a psychological gap between the powerful and the powerless.

The research findings above appear to indicate power has mainly negative outcomes. Luckily for the powerful, this is not true. For example, power is very handy for negotiators. They are immune to the emotions of their competitors. Also, power protects the individual from influences of others and it also protects them from peer pressure to conform with the group.

To achieve their own goals, powerful people tend to see others more in an instrumental manner. Research shows that when individuals with power have to complete people-centered goals, they are paying more attention to unique information about others. When they have to complete product-centered goals on the other hand, powerful people cannot name as much unique information. This proves the social attention of powerful people is directed by their goal.

Other studies show that power increases the likelihood to instrumentalise the relationship with others. The powerful pay attention to those aspects of the other person that could help to achieve an intended goal. This can be both positive and negative for the organisation and others. For example, it can increase the efficiency of the organisation. Also, people with more power are more capable of ignoring existing individual idiosyncrasies to diverge from existing rules and make exceptions.

What does power do to a person?

Research shows individuals change because of power. Power has foreseen effects on their behaviour and thoughts. People with power seem to be optimistic and action-oriented. Also, they have a clean view of the future. Unfortunately, people with power also tend to take too much risk and have the illusion of control.

Studies show that having power increases the likelihood to take assertive action. For example, in one study people had to remember a situation in which they were powerful, or a situation in which they were powerless. Afterwards, they were brought into another room to complete more tests. In this room, there was a fan blowing directly at the participant (an annoying factor). The people who just recalled a powerful experience were more likely to turn the fan off (i.e. assertive action).

In another study, people with power in a negotiating setting, initiated the negotiation and made a first offer in more cases than people with less power. The increased likelihood to take assertive action when having power, contributes to others and the community. When seeing someone having an emergency, people with power tend to help sooner than people without power.

What can power do to people's experiences?

People with power tend to think their future holds more positive and less negative experiences. This does not only apply to things in their control, but also to things outside of their control, like getting ill. Also, powerful people perceive the world as less dangerous and less risky. Besides this, powerful people tend to be attracted to risks. When a risk presents itself, people with power tend to only see the benefits, and not the losses, they could have.

In one study, people were asked to predict the outcome of a dice roll. When they predicted correctly, they got a reward. After the predictions were made, people were asked if they wanted to throw the dice themselves (illusion of being in control) or let the test leader roll the dice. People with power wanted to roll the dice themselves in all cases. Just over half the people with little power wanted to roll themselves and about two-third of the control group participants wanted to throw the dice themselves.

Other research suggests there is not only a correlation between power and action, but also between power and optimism because of the sense of control powerful people perceive. This sense of control can have both positive and negative outcomes: it can protect the individual from falling into depression or to foster superstitions, but it can also lead the individual and surrounding others to committing too much and feeling entrapped.

In another study (and also in a replication study) a relation was found between power and abstract thinking. It seems to be that people with power process information differently than people with less or without power. Seeing things in a more abstract way can lead to communication problems when discussing the issue with less powerful people.

As we have seen, power can be increased by taking risks and seeing the big picture, but it can also be decreased when the risky choices do not turn out in a positive way.

How can power reveal someone?

Power seems to boost the interaction between individual traits and behaviour. Because of power, normative behaviour tends to fade so the true nature of the person emerges. It can be said that the behaviour of powerful people can be better predicted by their personalities, compared to powerless people. The consequences of being powerful vary with cultures.

One study found people with power in a communally oriented culture were more selfless and people with power in an exchange oriented culture were more selfish.

In another study, the way people with power build a relationship with their negotiating partner could be best predicted by their social value orientations. The way people in the control group build a relationship with their negotiating partner could be best predicted by their partner's reputation.

There is a difference in how cultures perceive power and how they perceive the self. In Western cultures, having power means you're free from the control of others and you can fulfill your wishes at any time. Having power, means you're reward-directed. In Eastern cultures, powerful people are the responsible people. Having power means you're responsibility-directed.

In Western cultures the self can be described as a "unique entity with an individual repertoire of internal attributes such as feelings, cognitions, and motivations" (de Cremer, van Dick, & Murnighan, 2011). The self is individual and autonomous. In the Eastern cultures the self is described as interdependent. It is important to be socially connected to others and to be part of a larger group. The keyword in Eastern cultures is cooperation.

How do we embrace the power to lead?

It is important to consider the following question: how can we lessen the negative effects power can have and how do we expand the positive effects of power? Unfortunately, this question is not studied much. Another question: how can we use power to contribute to leadership, is studied more. Having power does not make a person a leader, and leaders do not always have or need power. Leadership can be explained as directing group members' ideas into common goals, by using influence and motivation. This partly has an overlay with power: both use influence to reach goals. They also differ from each other: the origin, purposes, and consequences of the influence:

The combination of being a leader and having power can result in transferring grand vision about the future. This can motivate others to achieve a team goal. Also, others could get inspired to show more goal-directed behaviour.

On the other hand, the temptation powerful leaders have to achieve personal goals, has to be eased. It is important for powerful leaders to keep seeing people as people and not as tools towards a certain goal.

It is important for organisations to choose the people who fill in the powerful positions wisely. Organisations need to identify the true self of a person, before granting them power (as we have read earlier, power reveals one's true self).

Perspective taking (being able to see things from the other person's view) is a key concept to convert power into successful leadership. Perspective taking can be linked to social functioning in a smooth manner. This has numerous benefits: being helpful and cooperative in an organisation will be positively influenced, people will be better in correctly interpreting other person's interests, people will be more altruistically motivated, stereotypes will be diminished as well as egocentric biases during decision making.

It is commonly known that groups can have trouble discussing information when only one member holds that information. Sometimes the information never comes up in the group discussion. A powerful leader could contribute to this, so the quality of the decisions made will be better. Some research suggests that this is indeed the case, but more research is necessary to confirm such conclusions.

Other studies claim that powerful leaders who can see through the eye of the group members can contribute to sharing not-commonly known information. To enhance the perspective taking of the powerful leader, a study shows that it is important to hold the leader responsible. Also, having procedural justice systems within the organisation, can help enhance the ability to stand in other people’s shoes. This means the decision making process should be more democratic, and the people without power have to have a voice in decisions regarding them.

Questions Chapter 2: Power

1. How does power relate to human relationships?
2. Explain the Power-Approach-Theory.
3. Why are powerful people less attentive to others?
4. Why can being powerful have negative consequences?
5. What is the effect of experiencing power on human behavior?
6. How does having power differ from cultures?
7. How can powerful leaders be successful?

Human relationships are built on who has power, who is affected by it and how power is gained. To get an clear understanding of the dynamics, it is important to take a good look at power when inspecting an organization.

Power can be defined as 'asymmetric control over valued resources in social relations'.

Power has immense psychological effects, which can endure after the situation in which the power is experienced. The Power-Approach-Theory says that power sets the behavioural approach system into motion. The sensitivity to rewards, achievement, sex, and social bonding gets a boost. When there is a lack of power, the behavioural inhibition system is activated. This system increases behaviour related to anxiety, avoidance, and response inhibition. When taking a closer look at these systems, you can understand why power, or lack of power, has a huge influence on behaviour and cognition. These effects are discussed below.

What is the relationship between leadership and procedural fairness? - Chapter 3

In most interpersonal relationships within groups, justice plays an important role. We will focus on procedural fairness: "the justice of the procedure used when making allocation decisions" (de Cremer, van Dick, & Murnighan, 2011). According to the fairness principle, known as the fair process effect, procedural fairness has a positive impact on human reactions.

In research about procedural justice, it is evident that authorities are executing procedures. This theory is called the relational model of authority. As leaders hold this power, there should be more research examining the connection between leadership and procedural fairness, but so far social justice research hasn't been seen as part of social influence.

What is meant by fairness and leadership?

Research shows fairness has always played a role when studying leadership and management. The leadership concept includes fair behaviour by the leader. The Theory Y management by McGregor (1960) states the perceptions of others about justice are shaped by the behaviour of the leader. In the past, leadership and fairness were simply not seen separately. However, more recent studies and recent models of leadership stopped looking at the potential relationship among fairness, justice, and leadership.

How do leadership and procedural fairness relate?

The scientific studies and results spoken of in this paragraph originate from the period 1975 – 2000.

Research shows that procedural fairness can be considered an important factor to shape the approval of leadership. This can be found in studies in different fields of work, e.g. politics and management. Leaders seem to be judged based on the fairness of their decisions.

A relational model of leadership (Tyler, & Lind, 1992) was used to explain this phenomenon. This model states that the behaviour of the leader intends to send some sort of social message to others. The others used this message to determine their group status. This social message was constructed following three principles:

1. The neutrality of decision making.
2. The trust that people had in the motives of the decision maker.
3. The politeness and courtesy that people experienced when dealing with authorities.

Research states people see leaders in a relational manner. Even when people know their conversation with the leader does not change things, they still want to build a relationship. Additionally, other studies show people prefer to use relational norms (e.g. trust and neutrality) to define the justice of procedures, instead of chances of participation.

Other scientific research tells us people are more interested in relational information when their group status is more relevant. The more someone identifies oneself with the group, the more this person tends to agree with the leader based on procedural fairness.

Unfortunately until now most studies have focused on fair procedures and treatment as separate from leadership, while they are one and the same: process-based leadership.

How do leadership and procedural fairness relate?

In the history of research, the definition of leadership varies. The authors of this book state leadership as a process of influence. From the viewpoint of a social psychologist, leadership can be defined as a psychological influence a certain person has on others which shapes the way they feel, perceive themselves, make decisions and behave.

Since leaders can shape the behaviour of others, we expect leaders to do good. Leaders have to make an organisation trustworthy and reliable. To achieve this, the procedures leaders have to pass must be ethical and fair. Besides this, a leader has to be aware their actions have a direct influence on the emotions and behaviour of others.

There are some leadership styles which influence others to be more aware of fairness concerns. This will complement the impact of procedural fairness.

What is empirical evidence?

Organisations oftentimes like to rely on leaders with high self-confidence. This quality seems to be essential for effective leadership. Self-confidence has a motivational effect because the confidence the leader has in success has an effect on the feeling of control and self-efficacy of others. When others experience this, they are more prone to pitch their ideas and thoughts.

A study showed that people with high self-esteem valued being able to express their opinions more than people with low self-esteem. Another study demonstrated that having a say in the matter increased feelings of fairness. People felt even more fairly treated, when they had a say before the goal was set than after the goal was set. When the leader was self-confident, the participant showed less negative reactions before the goal was set than after the goal was set. When the leader showed low self-confidence, there was no difference between before and after the goal was set, regarding the expression of negative emotions (there was a difference between the earlier named conditions and the control condition, in which participants did not get a voice at all).

Empowerment is a popular research topic in recent studies. Empowerment seems to create better work satisfaction, effectiveness, and innovation at work. Empowerment seems to belong to some specific leadership behaviours in which the leader creates conditions in which others can develop themselves. This enhances their impression of being competent, which leads to a higher self-esteem.

Some researchers composed a list of leadership styles which promote empowerment (Pearce, & Sims, 2002). One leadership style proposed is the rewarding leadership style. The leader gives others compliments about their accomplishments. Also, they motivate others to self-reward after a job is completed. Other research used this information and found that a rewarding leadership style made others value having a say more than a non-rewarding leadership style.

Aforementioned procedural fairness plays a large role in relationships in groups and organisations. It has to be taken into account that group members only care about the procedures when they are dedicated to the group leader. How the leader became the leader is therefore important:

• The selection of the leader has an influence on the connection between the leader and the group members.
• The selection of the leader administers to the durability of the leadership.
• The selection of the leader causes different social settings which have an effect on the leadership behaviour and communication.

An assigned leader has no initial bond with the group members. Those group members do not know what to expect from this leader. They use information about other leaders to form their opinion. This can also have an influence on their view of the fairness of procedures. Usually, when the assigned leader gives the group members a voice, this will be perceived as positive, while not giving the group members a voice will be considered negative.

A chosen leader can be an assigned leader who has the vote from the entire group. There is pressure on this leader to fulfill their functions. This kind of leader is expected to use fair procedures. When the leader gives the group members a say, members perceive this as positive, while the members will be disappointed when not getting a say.

A chosen leader can also be an assigned leader who has the vote of the majority of the group. When this happens, the minority who wanted another leader could be left feeling frustrated. They bother less about the behaviour of the leader, feel less committed to the leader and could feel excluded from the group. The minority does not want fair procedures from this leader. The need to belong plays a role here. When the person in the minority group had a high tendency of needing to belong, procedural fairness affected their emotions. Studies show the need to belong can be a moderator between fairness of procedures and leadership.

What is the role of needs?

Leadership can encourage others to show themselves and to focus on their own values, goals, and motives. By using self-reflection, people can discover their own motives and needs. Social psychologists argue the self exists out of several different self-motives.

The Self-Determination Theory (SDT) states that autonomy, competence, and social relations are universal necessities for every person to have the best developmental possibilities and integrity. Ultimately, this results in a positive emotional well-being, more intrinsic motivation, and positive self-views and self-evaluations. In relation to this chapter, procedural fairness also has positive effects on the emotional well-being and the self-esteem.

Concluding, it can be stated leadership styles influence the self-focus. In fact, not only the effect between the universal necessities and procedural fairness seem alike, also Bouniversal necessities look like motives which can explain procedural fairness. The interactive effects between leadership and procedural fairness may be explained this way.

What is the value of the contingency approach?

The authors state a motivational model can be of big help to take a closer look on the interaction between leadership and procedural fairness. Past research had a tendency to explain procedural fairness only by cognitive principles. However, the authors of this book imply this is too narrow, as both cognitive and motivational processes play a part in predicting the affective and social lives of others.

A main belief of the contingency approach is the degree of impact of procedural fairness on the behaviour of employees is dependent of the behaviour of the leader in decision making.

For future research, it is important to study the connection between leadership, and procedural fairness, in particular two aspects of procedural fairness: decision making and interpersonal aspects.

Questions Chapter 3: Leadership and procedural fairness

1. Explain the concept of procedural fairness.
2. How do group members perceive their relationship with the group leader?
3. How can leadership be defined?
4. Why is self-confidence an important quality of a leader?
5. Explain why empowerment has positive effects for the organization.
6. Explain the rewarding leadership style.
7. How does one become a group leader?
8. State the three universal necessities a person should have.
9. What explains the relation between leadership and procedural fairness?

In most interpersonal relationships within groups, justice plays an important role. We will focus on procedural fairness: "the justice of the procedure used when making allocation decisions" (de Cremer, van Dick, & Murnighan, 2011). According to the fairness principle, known as the fair process effect, procedural fairness has a positive impact on human reactions.

In research about procedural justice, it is evident that authorities are executing procedures. This theory is called the relational model of authority. As leaders hold this power, there should be more research examining the connection between leadership and procedural fairness, but so far social justice research hasn't been seen as part of social influence.

What are normative influences in organisations? - Chapter 4

Behaviour of people can be seen as predictable, because it is directed by social norms. This explains why it is important to have an understanding of how those norms work. Important questions in this context are who, what, when, where, why, and how.

In this chapter, the main theory discussed is the Focus Theory of Normative Conduct.

What is the Focus Theory of Normative Conduct?

According to the Focus Theory of Normative Conduct, social norms can be explained in two different ways:

1. There are two types of norms: descriptive and injunctive norms. Both guide behaviour differently.
2. Behaviour is directly influenced by every norm to the extent that it is focal.

Descriptive norms give an explanation of the thing that is usually done in a specific situation. These norms inform people of the most desired behaviour in this situation, and motivate people to act like this. Injunctive norms relate to culture, what is accepted and what is not. As you may think, both norms are interchangeable; what is accepted within a culture is usually the desired behaviour people act on. However, in some cases people do not act in the culturally desired ways.

The underlying mechanisms for both types of norms discussed above are not widely studied. However, one recent study did state that people who act according to descriptive norms do not use elaborative cognitive processing, while people who act according to injunctive norms do. The descriptive norms could be seen as more perceptive than cognitive.

Other researchers propose the effect of descriptive norms is less likely to generalise to other situations, as it is situation specific, compared to the effect of injunctive norms. Their study about norms and littering showed both descriptive and injunctive norms were effective in lessening littering. However, only the injunctive norms generalised the diminished littering in other situations than the test situation.

The notion that behaviour is directly influenced by every norm to the extent that it is focal was tested in scientific research with litter. This study showed people in a messy environment significantly littered more than people in a relatively clean environment. However, people in an entirely clean environment litter more than people in an environment that contains a little litter.

Another study created either a messy environment or a clean one. This counted as the descriptive norm. The participant saw another person do one of these three things: litter, pick up trash, or just walk by, this counted as the injunctive norm. The results on the descriptive norm stated participants littered less in the clean environment. With the injunctive norm present, the descriptive norm did not matter anymore; all participants littered less.

Another study proved whatever a participant regards as common behaviour, in a particular situation or in a particular environment, influences his behaviour. This is particularly interesting for organisations.

What is the power of norms?

Two main concepts considering the Focus Theory are norms only direct behaviour when salient and the activation of the descriptive or injunctive norm can create different behavioural outcomes. Previous anti-littering campaigns sometimes did not understand how those norms worked, and created more littering instead of less. Two campaigns are discussed in this chapter, both with a strong injunctive norm against littering. The descriptive norm in those ads however, was so strong it said the common behaviour was to litter. This could undermine the injunctive norm. The mistake these and other anti-litter campaigns made was showing the truth, which was the negative descriptive norm. Studies about this problem showed descriptive norms which state the negative truth cause the problem to increase, while injunctive norms cause the problem to decrease.

Descriptive norms can be seen as a standard. Employees measure their behaviour to see if it is in line with the descriptive norm. This brings employees together. When a mean is used to describe the descriptive norm, as people are late at work 3 days a month, people who tend to be late more often would be coming in on time more. However, people who're always on time, may assume it is okay to be late sometimes and will be coming in late more often. This is called an undesirable backfire effect. When adding an injunctive norm to this descriptive norm, this backfire effect can be prevented.

What are reference groups and normative influence?

People have a tendency towards a positive self-concept, and therefore they want to identify themselves with supporting groups. Social identity can be seen as an extension of the self-concept. People shift from seeing themselves as an individual to seeing themselves as part of a group. They self-categorise themselves in groups as employee/manager/boss, or department.

The behaviour of people is directed by the norms of their reference groups. However, this statement only applies to people who see their group membership as an important part of their self-representation.

The degree to which people identify themselves with a particular group is a good predictor of the norms those people use. The normative influence of contextual similarities with groups is less studied. One study states the normative influence of contextual similarities is higher when those similarities are in their direct surroundings. The study showed not only people's own identification with a group, but also peoples' contextual similarities with a group, accounting for their behaviour. The latter group identification seems even more important than the former. There should be a wider line of research to contextual similarities and normative behaviour.

Questions Chapter 4: Normative influences in organizations

1. Name the two explanations of norms according to the focus theory of normative conduct.
2. Which norms are better to generalize to other situations? Choose: descriptive/injunctive.
3. What are the two main concepts of the focus theory?

Behaviour of people can be seen as predictable, because it is directed by social norms. This explains why it is important to have an understanding of how those norms work. Important questions in this context are who, what, when, where, why, and how.

In this chapter, the main theory discussed is the Focus Theory of Normative Conduct.

What is the Action Theory Approach? - Chapter 5

Entrepreneurship involves discovery, evaluation, and exploitation of opportunities. In this chapter, the authors describe an entrepreneur as a person who develops and finds opportunities. He or she organises productions or services which represent these opportunities.

This paragraph is based on the action (regulation) theory. Being active has become an object of study a long time ago. The action theory approach helps us to understand the underlying constructs of being active and combines these with entrepreneurship, in which one must be active. Being active requires three aspects:

• Self-starting: one does something without someone else telling them to.
• Long-term proactivity: the focus lies on the long term and there are no explicit demands needed.
• Persistence when there are obstacles:
  • Protecting: one takes care over plans and goals and seeks feedback. This all happens consciously.
  • Overcoming: when there are problems, one must overcome external barriers.

What is the action theory?

Action can be explained as goal-oriented behaviour. There are three important parts:

1. Sequence
2. Action structure
3. Focus

There is an action sequence (not necessarily in this order):

• Goal and intention
• Processing of environment relevant information
• Planning
• Monitoring
• Feedback processing

The action structure can be described as the hierarchical cognitive behaviour regulation. There is lower level behaviour, like using muscles, and there is higher level behaviour, which is conscious, thought-oriented, and general.

1. The lowest regulation level has many names (skill level, sensorimotor level, psychomotor level, automatised level, procedural knowledge level). This level regulates the routinely skills and automatised behaviour.
2. The next level is called the level of flexible action patterns. The memory contains action programs, which can be recalled and set into motion depending on the situation at hand.
3. The third level is the conscious level. The behaviour on this level is goal-oriented and has reasoning as an underlying construct. When a person is conscious, he is aware of his own actions. The processing on this level is much slower than the processing speed on the previous levels. One needs his conscious working memory.
4. The level of meta-cognitive heuristics is the fourth level. This level is not only about conscious strategies, but also about being aware how to use them. Self-reflection is the key term on this level.

Active actions can be a result of either strong motivation to act, or be part of self-starting, proactive, and persistent behaviour.

When a person uses the lower regulation levels, the higher levels of regulation are free to engage in more difficult tasks. When the lower levels are more active, the higher levels can be more creative, can act upon thoughts about the future, and can produce better strategies to pursue our goals.

Routines are two-sided. People have a tendency to keep their routines and never change them. However, having routines helps us to change them.

The most important focus of regulation is the current task someone is performing. When one's distracted from the task, this reduces the chance of success. After a distraction, experts can engage themselves to the task at hand faster than non-experts.

The majority of tasks take place in a social setting, especially for entrepreneurs. The social setting is both beneficial and unfavorable for the task. When the social component becomes too big, the task will never get finished, but when the social focus misses, people will be ineffective in their social surroundings.

To regulate higher order tasks, the self is important. Good self-management entails knowing your own flaws and good sides. For entrepreneurship, this is important. However, the focus on self-reflection is a higher order task. This will lead to positive outcomes on simple tasks, but less positive outcomes on hard tasks, which require higher-order processing.

What is part of active action?

The most important predictor for becoming a successful entrepreneur is entrepreneurial orientation. This is an umbrella-term for various constructs, linked to active behaviour. Five dimensions can be distinguished:

• Autonomy
• Innovativeness
• Risk taking
• Competitive aggressiveness
• Proactivity

Plans could be described as the bridge between goals and actions, according to the action theory. Those plans can be either conscious or unconscious. Also, plans can be different in their detail and proactivity. Some plans are reactive, others are not.

Plans which are elaborate and proactive, tend to be more successful. Many benefits come from these plans, like being motivated and having a plan B. Part of proactive planning is being reactive, which means one has to adjust their plans to environmental changes.

Planning in an elaborative and proactive way means one has to use complex cognitive resources. Also, having energy and direction is of importance. Knowing what you will accomplish before the task is important.

There are some traits which contribute to entrepreneurial success:

• Internal locus of control
• Self-efficacy
• Achievement motivation
• Proactive personality

Many studies imply entrepreneurial success is correlated with large and good social networks.

The term effectuation refers to trying to get the best set of traits, skills and resources possible as beginning entrepreneurs. After having some success, this set can be improved towards an even better one. This is a process of shaping.

A business plan also is part of planning, but is not necessarily useful (except for getting a bank loan). It might be a better idea to make a detailed behaviour analysis of the owner of the specific company, than letting a consultant draft a business plan.

One interesting part of feedback are errors. Errors arise from unintentional behaviour which does not contribute to reaching the goal. When an environment is complex, more errors will emerge. Errors also cannot be entirely prevented, it is part of entrepreneurship. They provide an important learning process. The success of a company also partly depends on how an entrepreneur acts upon errors and error feedback. To learn from this feedback, one must maintain an active approach.

There are several critiques upon the personality approach of entrepreneurship. For example, one can state entrepreneurship consists of so many different aspects, they cannot be all caught in traits. However, there seems to be a correlational relationship between entrepreneurship and certain personality traits. Examples of such traits are self-efficacy, innovativeness, and proactivity.

How can training help?

There are programs that aim to train entrepreneurs to be more successful. Training programs which focus on personal initiatives are likely to work best.

Questions Chapter 5: Action Theory Approach

1. Give the definition of entrepreneurship.
2. Which aspects are necessary for being active? Explain them.
3. Which three parts together form action?
4. Name the different regulation levels.
5. What are the upsides and downsides of a social setting, in which most entrepreneurial tasks take place?
6. What does the action theory state about plans?

Entrepreneurship involves discovery, evaluation, and exploitation of opportunities. In this chapter, the authors describe an entrepreneur as a person who develops and finds opportunities. He or she organises productions or services which represent these opportunities.

What is leader identity? - Chapter 6

Leaders of an organisation have a tough job. They are held responsible for their decisions and therefore are expected to make the right ones, especially since they want to maintain a positive image. Also, they have to be able to explain their decisions. Because more and more sources are available for others, for example the stakeholders and the media, every decision will be looked at carefully, which will always lead to debate and discussion in different channels. Whenever the decision of a leader is perceived as wrong, this leader will be questioned.

What is the identity of the leader and it's traits?

Psychological identity can be explained as the characteristics people use to define themselves. The identity of a leader is formed by the psychological identity of the leader and consists of many aspects. People differ in which characteristics about themselves they find most important and in which characteristics they value most about a leader.

The core identity of a leader consists of those characteristics and categories about themselves they value most in describing their concept of self.

The identity of the leader also has a social component: it is partly socially constructed and validated. A leader wants to show its identity by behaviour, but the interpretation of this behaviour may differ among other people. To hold their identity, leaders are socially challenged. The response of others determines if the identity a leader wants to show will be kept.

An identity-threatening predicament can be explained as any incident which can be threatening to (parts of) the leader's identity.

What are threats to leader identity and repairing leader identity?

Sometimes, an identity threat to some part of one's identity, can transfer to other parts of the identity. In this way, an identity threat in one area can have an influence on the identity as a whole. These findings were conclusions from studies with undergraduates, and cannot be entirely transferred to the organisational world. However, these are the best results in this area which can be found, as research with highly placed leaders cannot be executed.

Study 1

Business schools were ranked on two criteria:

1. The satisfaction MBA graduates felt with their school.
2. The satisfaction recruiters felt with recent graduates.

Rankings like these are highly important for the schools, since there is a lot of competition. Most schools were outstanding in just one field. This study however, did not separate the schools in fields of expertise, but just ranked them following the previously mentioned criteria. This was a direct identity threat to the leaders of the schools. Both the school leaders and the students would profit from a high ranking. The leaders used several repair methods:

• Strategic re categorisation: the leaders pointed out the positive aspects of their school which were not taken into account in the ranking. This was done to explain the disappointing ranking.
• Favorable social comparisons: leaders differentiated their school from other schools while emphasizing the positive aspects of their school and pointing out the negative aspects of the other schools, so their school looked more positive compared to the other schools. Also, the school leaders mentioned their school to be the same as top ranked schools, so they compared their school in a positive way to a school like Stanford University.

By using the methods explained above, school leaders tried to call the ranking faulty, since it did not completely point out all of the characteristics which make a school a good school.

Study 2

Every decision a leader makes influences the identity of the organisation and the leader. These decisions can thus be an identity threat. This study focused on a leader which created an identity threat for himself: US president Lyndon Johnson and his decisions about Vietnam. The prolonged Vietnam war was inconsistent with the very positive image Johnson created for himself. This ultimately led to a more negative leadership image.

The Vietnam decisions are studied by several researchers. One perspective is broadly discussed in this chapter: the identity perspective. Johnson described his goals as a president as being the best leader America had ever witnessed. To accomplish this, Johnson stated he had to focus on two aspects:

1. Historic accomplishments for America.
2. America being kept out of crisis.

This leadership identity Johnson pursued, contrasted with the Vietnam decisions. When trying to repair his image, Johnson used selective self-categorisation. He focused on the positive aspects of his identity and minimised the negative aspects. Also, Johnson used strategic social comparisons; he compared himself with other presidents in similar crisis situations.

The strategies Johnson used to repair his identity can be seen as similar as the strategies used in the first study mentioned in this chapter.

The decisions leaders make can be threatening their identity in several ways:

• Credibility
• Public claims about core identities

You can see the influence of decisions on identity as an ongoing process: the identity of the leader influences the decisions the leader makes. The decisions a leader makes, influence the identity of the leader.

Study 3

This study focuses on Ronald Reagan and him negotiating with the Soviet Union. After a negotiation session had turned bad, the press emphasised this in every possible way. The identity of Reagan was put into question by them. The identity Reagan had built for himself was one of a true negotiator, who took high matters into security and who wanted to make America strong and confident.

After the problems with the negotiation and the press, the White House started to proclaim the positive sides of Reagan from the past: this time it went wrong, but all those other times it went just right. Also, Reagan wasn't at fault, but Gorbachev was.

Some time after, the identity of Reagan was restored, and he was viewed even better than before the negotiation.

Are there implications?

Identity dissonance can be explained as a certain psychological state, created by leadership identity threats. The difference between the valued identity and the identity threat defines the magnitude of the identity dissonance. Identity threats motivate the leader to maintain their valued identity because of this identity dissonance. The repair tactics used are similar to the repair tactics used in the previously mentioned studies.

The strategic dissonance model (Burgelman, & Grove, 1996) states leaders benefit from the difference between the identity of the organisation and the identity of the leader himself. The information acquired by strategic dissonance can be helpful to create a true identity for the organisation.

Questions Chapter 6: Responsive leaders

1. What is the psychological identity of a person?
2. How is the core identity of a leader built?
3. What is the connection between the identity a leader has and other people?
4. Explain strategic recategorization.
5. Explain favorable social comparisons.
6. Explain selective self-categorization.
7. How can decisions threaten a leader's identity?
8. What is identity dissonance?

Leaders of an organisation have a though job. They are held responsible for their decisions and therefore are expected to make the right ones, especially since they want to maintain a positive image. Also, they have to be able to explain their decisions. Because more and more sources are available for others, for example the stakeholders and the media, every decision will be looked at carefully, which will always lead to debate and discussion in different channels. Whenever the decision of a leader is perceived as wrong, this leader will be questioned.

What is overconfidence? - Chapter 7

Overconfidence seems to be one of the biggest problems in the decision making process.

What types of overconfidence are there?

Overconfidence can be divided in three types:

• Overestimation: most research about overconfidence is executed in this area. It is about an overestimation of, for example, one’s own abilities or chances of success. The planning fallacy explains we overestimate the speed at which we get a job done.
• Overplacement: most people and organisations tend to think they are in the top of their class, while actually, most people are average. An example shows us over ninety percent of American drivers seem to think they are better drivers compared to the average American driver.
• Overprecision: people tend to think their guess is correct, while research shows their guesses are only correct in less than half of the cases.

Which problems can overconfidence give?

Studies about overconfidence have to deal with three different problems:

1. Confounding: most research measures both overestimation and overprecision at the same time. For example, when people are asked to predict whether their answer is correct, you measure overestimation (people tend to think they perform better then they do) and overprecision (people tend to think their guess is correct). These two concepts could be separately studied by, for example, measuring how much answers people think they got right over a set of questions. To guess performance at a set of questions, people have to make a frequentistic judgment, while people have to make a probabilistic judgment when they have to guess their performance at just one question. Although research is not conclusive, it does seem to be that overconfidence diminishes when making frequentistic judgments.
2. Underconfidence: sometimes, instead of overconfidence, people lack confidence:
   • Underestimation: people have a tendency to underestimate themselves when the task is relatively easy. People who are highly skilled in the subject, underestimate themselves more compared to people with average knowledge. The Thurstonian explanation of the hard/easy effect states people underestimate themselves on a simple task, while they overestimate themselves on a hard task.
   • Illusion of control: people tend to behave like they are in control, even when they are not. When there is low control, people tend to overestimate their control, while when there is high control, people tend to underestimate this.
   • Planning fallacy: people tend to underestimate the time they need to get a job done.
   • Future pessimism: people tend to estimate their chances of getting in an accident or getting ill much higher compared to the real numbers. This mostly happens when the real number is low. People tend to underestimate positive outcomes for themselves, even though they are far more likely.
   • Underplacement: when there is an extremely low chance to be successful, people underestimate their abilities.
   • Comparative pessimism: thinking it is more likely you experience negative events compared to other people and also thinking others experience more positive events than oneself. People tend to believe common events happen more to them compared to others, while uncommon events happen more to others than themselves.
   • Underprecision: results showing underprecision are rarer than results showing underestimation or underplacement. Overprecision lacks a demonstration of its underprecision counterpart the way that underestimation and underplacement have been shown to mirror their positive counterparts.
3. Apparent inconsistency: there seems to be an inconsistency between overestimation and overplacement:

4. Some studies about smokers show the following: when asked to predict their chances of getting cancer, they overestimated their chances (while, in reality, the chances are small). When, on the other hand, smokers were asked to predict who was more likely to get cancer (oneself or other smokers), they underplaced themselves by stating other smokers were more likely to get ill.

What is the Differential information theory?

The previously mentioned problems when studying overconfidence can be solved by the differential information theory: the information people have about themselves is far from accurate, but the information people have about others is worse. This means the estimates people make will regress towards a baseline. For example: James underestimates his own ability to perform well on a difficult test. Since his information about others is even more incorrect, he will underestimate the ability of his classmates even more. Thus, he will think he'll perform better compared to his classmates on this particular test.

What is the evidence from experiments?

To test the differential information theory, participants were asked to complete a trivia quiz. The difficulty of the quiz was manipulated by the researchers, (different participants got different difficulties), but the participants were not aware of this. Participants were asked to predict their scores and the scores of a random other participant before the quiz and immediately after the quiz. Also, they were asked to predict the score of the randomly selected other participant a third time; right after grading their own performance. The outcomes were as predicted by the differential information theory: when the quiz was easy, the participant underestimated his own score, but thought he scored better compared to the other participant. When the quiz was hard, the participant overestimated his own score, but thought he scored less good compared to the other participant. When the difficulty of the quiz was regular, the estimations of both the participant himself and the other participant were closest to correct.

In a follow-up study, participants were asked to predict the likelihood they had one item correct, the likelihood they had two items correct, the likelihood they had three items correct etcetera. The instruction was the sum of the predictions had to be 100%. This way, overestimation and overplacement bias effects could be reduced. Also, the precision in people's beliefs could be measured. There seems to be overprecision: especially the scores of the randomly selected other participants were more precise, although this is moderated by test difficulty. The overprecision is bigger for regular difficulty, compared to easy and hard quizzes. This could be explained by a relatively high variance in predictions for regular quizzes, while the variance in predicting scores on easy and hard quizzes is relatively low. Note we speak of underprecision when talking about the hard quizzes, and we speak of overprecision when talking about the easy and medium quizzes.

There seems to be a connection between precision and accuracy. The smaller the variance in the predictions for oneself or for another participant, the smaller the error.

Both overplacement and overestimation are related to the precision of participants' predictions. Two hypotheses were constructed:

1. The precision of the prediction of the participants' score is associated with less underestimation on easy, and less overestimation on hard quizzes.
2. When the precision of the prediction of the scores of the randomly selected other participant is better, this is associated with less overplacement on easy and less underplacement on hard quizzes.

Both hypotheses are correct.

To have a closer look at individual differences in the tendency to overconfidence, the previously mentioned research was compared to other studies. Also, the Big Five personality dimensions (conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, and extraversion) and self enhancement measures (overclaiming, self-esteem, and sense of power) were taken into account. Finally, measures on empathy and perspective taking and political conservatism were included. Several things were studied:

• Are the three types of overconfidence consistent within the individual? The test-retest reliability for overestimation and overplacement is really low, while the test-retest reliability for overprecision is high.
• Which types of individual differences are correlated with overconfidence? None of these correlations were significant. The only explanation could be the difference between the measures in this study and the comparing studies.

What are the strengths of differential information theory?

The differential information theory gives us an explanation for the negative connection between overestimation and overplacement. Also, the theory is proven with research and can explain some research findings that seemed to be conflicting. Finally, the theory can accommodate moderators of overconfidence previously documented in the literature.

There seems to be false consensus and false uniqueness in the previously described study. The false consensus effect can be explained by the fact the participants only knew their own test performance to predict the outcome of the other participant. When they would not assume the other participant was alike, their prediction would be worse. The false uniqueness effect emerges because the information people have about themselves naturally is better compared to the information people have about others.

What are moderators for overconfidence?

There are some moderators for overconfidence:

• Controllability: when the result is under control by the participant, the participant has a stronger tendency towards the belief his own performance is better than the performance of others.
• Observability: when some characteristic is hard to observe, people think they are better at it compared to others. When the characteristic is rare, it is the other way around.
• Personal experience: comparative optimism is higher when someone is familiar with the situation.
• Absent/exempt: when someone does something risky but does not get the negative outcome, they could think they are less susceptible for this negative outcome. This may lower the predictions of personal risk.

What are limitations of the differential information theory?

• In this chapter, the authors assumed to know what creates performance. Not in all studies participants are informed about the conditions for performance (for example: when is someone considered a good driver), while still participants predict their ability. When studies keep the performance conditions ambiguous, the accuracy of the performance predictions cannot be measured easily.
• There is a difference between direct and indirect measures of the overconfident types. The study spoken of in this chapter only used indirect measures. The under- and overplacement effects found are generally higher in studies where the measure is direct.
• In real life, people choose their own tasks based on where they think they can make a difference. Easy tasks will therefore attract way more people (since those people feel confident) compared to difficult tasks. This means the competition and failure rates are highest in easy tasks.
• The differential information theory is cognitive explanation. However, most other explanatory theories in this field also take motivation into account. Some studies, for example, found the overconfidence grew bigger when there were personal gains.

Future research

Future research could direct itself towards overprecision, since studies state this is related to the situation. Also, the causes for overprecision are not clear. Second, also the benefits of overconfidence should be studied more. For example, when believing you could do something (thus, being overconfident), one's performances could actually get better. It is still the question whether overconfidence is the cause or the result of success. Also, overconfidence could undermine one's performance as well.

Questions Chapter 7: Overconfidence in organizations

1. Name the three types of overconfidence.
2. Name the problems studies about overconfidence could experience. Explain them.
3. Explain the differential information theory.
4. Name the moderators for overconfidence.

Overconfidence seems to be one of the biggest problems in the decisionmaking process.

Overconfidence can be divided in three types:

1. Overestimation: most research about overconfidence is executed in this area. It is about an overestimation of, for example, ones own abilities or chances of success. The planning fallacy explains we overestimate the speed at which we get a job done.
2. Overplacement: most people and organisations tend to think they are in the top of their class, while actually, most people are average. An example shows us over ninety percent of American drivers seem to think they are better drivers compared to the average American driver.
3. Overprecision: people tend to think their guess is correct, while research shows their guesses are only correct in less then half of the cases.

What are conflicts? - Chapter 8

What is meant by the conflict debate?

Early thoughts about conflicts suggested that conflicts would only have negative outcomes. However, more recent studies indicate conflict could also have positive effects. Examples are creativity and increased group cohesion. The concept of conflict could be explained as perceived adverse interests between people or groups. Task conflicts can be defined as conflicts about ideas and opinions about the task. Relationship conflicts could be defined as conflicts about things unrelated to the task at hand.

What is conflict asymmetry?

Most research done previously considers there are common team properties and also common team emotions and perceptions. Thus, team members think, feel and perceive alike. This viewpoint is somewhat strange, considering that there are studies which showed this is not the case. Social cognition research, the social cognitive theory, and the social information processing approach focused on the explanation of the differences between team members, rather than the similarities. For example, people can interpret a situation differently based on personal experience and people with different power levels can think differently.

Most previous research studied the level of conflict, while this chapter not only focuses on the level of conflict, but also on the conflict asymmetry. There could be group conflict asymmetry (the difference of opinion between group members) and individual conflict asymmetry (the direction of the difference – does the individual perceive high or low conflict compared to the other group members?).

The team performance and satisfaction will be affected by the conflict in both relational and cognitive ways.

Group functioning will be influenced by differences in conflict perceptions between team members. This is even more dysfunctional than when all group members perceive the same level of high conflict. There are several theories that can explain the importance of conflict asymmetry:

• Shared mental models: these are cognitive structures which represent the characteristics, tasks and needs of team members. Also the team members' interactions and processes are represented in the shared mental models. When the shared mental models are the same for all group members, the interaction between group members is better.
• Belief structure: for an explanation, see shared mental models. Ineffective discussions arise from different points of view by the group members. Because of this, the overall group performance will decrease. It is hard to discuss something when not all group members are convinced the problem occurs.
• Negotiating research: while negotiating, usually the negotiating teams want opposite outcomes. When group members differ in opinion about the problem, this obstructs the exchange of information, which diminishes the chance of an integrative and creative solution (all parties benefit from this solution, there is no loser).
• Mediation processes were less successful when the team members perceived different levels of conflict. When team members on the other hand experience conflict symmetry, they are more likely to work together in solving the conflict.
• Most literature focuses on group asymmetry instead of individual asymmetry. However, there seems to be a change of focus, since individual asymmetry has become the focus of attention of some research. The developed theory states individuals who perceive low conflict have a totally different view than individuals who perceive high conflict.
• The self verification theory states the same. Team members who perceive high conflict feel less satisfied, have the idea their performance lacks, and do not have a tendency to work with the group later. Also, trying to resolve the conflict other team members do not think exists, can cause frustration and withdrawal.
• Research about conflicts in marriage and negotiations focus more on the conflict structure which is asymmetrical. This happens when one person wants things to remain as they are, while the other person wants to change those things. The conflict responses depend on the perceptions people have on the conflict.
• No matter the level of conflict, teams with asymmetric conflicts always perform less well compared to teams with symmetrical conflicts. This could be explained by the following:
• Group atmosphere or group state: how do perceptions of the group context influence their outcomes? Team members who feel low conflict can identify themselves better with the other team members. However, team members who feel high conflict might feel disrespected because their concerns are not taken into account.
• Social processes: examples are cooperation and communication. Team members who feel high conflict have the idea other group members are less cooperative. Also, they have the idea the communication of the other group members fails. This makes the team satisfaction for the members who feel high conflict low.
• The effects of conflicts in the workgroup can be explained better when taking the perception of the group members on the group atmosphere into account.

There are also other mediators between asymmetric conflicts and group performance:

• Intraindividual cognitions: asymmetrical conflicts enhance feelings of uncertainty, distraction levels, and confusion levels by the high conflict perceiver.
• Affective states: when one team member is the only one who sees the conflict, while the others deny its existence, this could be highly frustrating for the high conflict perceiver. This can eventually lead to anger and disgust.

Future research

It would be handy to know more about the extent to which group members are aware of asymmetric conflicts. One recent study found people believe others experience the same level of conflict as they do themselves. When team members can be made aware of the asymmetric conflicts, this could influence the team performance outcomes. How, we do not know yet.

Another line of future research could focus on the effects of power and status on the transfer of conflicts among group members. For example, someone who perceives high conflict, could search for supporters and influence them to feel the same way.

To take some steps in answering the question whether conflicts are positive or negative for the outcomes, the biopsychosocial model could be helpful to determine if different types of conflict have the same effect on people. Research indicates that a conflict which is perceived and psychologically experienced as a challenge, could have positive effects on the performance of the group. Motivation plays an important part. There are negative effects on the performance outcomes when the conflict is experienced as a threat.

Another interesting research direction is getting a third party involved. It would be good to know more about their perceptions on the existing asymmetric conflict. They could be good conflict solvers. Recent studies show a high power third party focuses more on the relational aspect of the conflict and is more likely to handle a supportive conflict management style, compared to a same power-level third party.

Another study could investigate the effects of conflict after the conflict. The commitment to the team and the team satisfaction is lower after conflict, when the involved team member perceived a higher level of conflict compared to the others. This line of research would be interesting to develop further, since the team still has to work together after the conflict.

Questions Chapter 8: Conflicts in groups

1. When is something considered a conflict?
2. Which two types of conflict can we distinguish? Explain them.
3. When do we speak of conflict asymmetry?
4. Explain the difference between group conflict asymmetry and individual conflict asymmetry.
5. What are shared mental models?
6. When a team member perceives asymmetric high conflict, how does this member feel?
7. Name the four mediators between asymmetric conflicts and group performance.
8. Which type of conflict could have positive consequences? Which type of conflict could have negative consequences?

Early thoughts about conflicts suggested that conflicts would only have negative outcomes. However, more recent studies indicate conflict could also have positive effects. Examples are creativity and increased group cohesion. The concept of conflict could be explained as perceived adverse interests between people or groups. Task conflicts can be defined as conflicts about ideas and opinions about the task. Relationship conflicts could be defined as conflicts about things unrelated to the task at hand.

Why is trust important? - Chapter 9

Organisational behaviour relies strongly on trust. Up until now, the concept of trust is studied widely within different scientific fields. The field of social psychology was of fundamental importance for this research. This chapter's main focus is on the repair of trust when it is broken.

In organisations, collaboration is the norm. For this, trust plays an important role, since it is hard to unravel the motives and behaviours of your coworkers. Both individuals and groups gain from trust.

A meta analysis (Dirks, & Ferrin, 2002) states a significant connection between leadership and individual outcomes (e.g. job performance and organisational commitment).

Recent studies show us trust plays a role in mixed-motive tasks: people tend to cooperate when they trust one another. High trust seems to have this influence, since people do not expect to be misused by others. Other studies indicate the trust one has in a leader can be increased by using fair procedures. When people trust the leader, they tend to cooperate when they get a say. This shows not only cooperation benefits from trust, but also the procedural decision making process.

When people can be described as trustworthy, they are more often considered as a good exchange partner, from which performances benefit.

Another study took a group process into account. Winnings of a basketball team were the effect of trust in the coach for almost seven percent. Also, when team members trusted each other more, they tended to reach a group goal instead of a personal goal.

How can you repair trust?

As seen above, trust has several benefits. Unfortunately, when trust is broken, those benefits disappear. In the world of organisations, it is not uncommon for trust to be broken. Research shows us only four out of ten employees trusted the senior organisational leaders. Also, over fifty percent of employees state the management had broken their trust.

When trust is broken, it is a true challenge to repair it. Unfortunately, not much research is conducted about the repair of trust, although it has become more popular in scientific studies. In general, the three viewpoints on repairing trust are attributions, social equilibrium, and negotiation.

• Attributions. Most commonly, there has been an offense. This causes the employee to perceive the traits and intentions of the employer as negative. Also, this causes the employee not wanting to be vulnerable in the future. The repair of this type of trust must focus on competence, integrity, and benevolence. In the short term, apology and taking ownership of the offense can help. Also, the repairing process can be speeded up by promises for the future. However, other studies claim apologising is not that good, as it involves the admission of guilt. This indicates it might be a better solution to manage the negative consequences instead of providing positive information.
• A schematic model of dispositional attribution states that a single success can be interpreted as a sign of high competence, whereas a single failure may be discounted as a signal of incompetence. Also, people tend to think people with high integrity also show honest behaviour, while people with low integrity could be showing dishonest behaviour, depending on the situation. When someone shows dishonest behaviour, people perceive their integrity as low immediately.
• The effects of an apology are dependent on the type of offense: when the offense is about competence, it is better to apologise, because people tend to see this as an act of willingness to perform better in the future. When the offense is about integrity, an apology does not outweigh the thought you're of low integrity. In this case, being reserved also is not a good response, as it does not provide proof you won't do it again.
• Also, when people see the locus of causality, the controllability, and/or the stability as immensely stable, trust repair is a hard thing to do.
• Social equilibrium. After an offense, interpersonal relations are damaged. Not only the employer will be considered questionable (as stated within attributions), but also the relationship with the employer. This can result in a social disequilibrium. To restore this, some social rituals should be performed, including apologies, penance, and punishment.
• Studies show financial overcompensation is better to restore trust than exact financial compensation.
• Another study examined both giving an apology (attribution) and a social reparation (social equilibrium). Although trust was not directly measured, this combination seemed to restore cooperation.
• Negotiation. Not only the employer is at fault, but also the employee plays a role in the process of repairing trust between the two. For example, apologies only work when the employee feels respected.
• The bilateral model of trust repair (BTR, Kim et al., 2009) states the employer wants to be trusted because of instrumental concerns, or because of being trustworthy. The employee on the other hand, does not think the employer deserves more trust.These opposites create a dynamic situation in which both employer and employee try to resolve their issues. The BTR has three levels of questions about whether the trustee can be trusted following a violation
  1. Was the employer at fault?
  2. Should the fault be administered to the person or to the situation?
  3. If the act is attributable to the person, does it reflect a shortcoming of the trustee that is fixable or fixed?

Which questions are there for future research?

Since there are not a lot of research results available in the field of repairing trust, there are some questions which can be addressed in future research. First of all, there could be a new line of research examining the repairing of trust in an organisation. Thus far in this chapter, only studies about trust between people were discussed. What happens when an organisation in its whole is at fault, and trust in the organisation must be repaired, is hardly studied. Studies should focus on the repairing of trust between individuals, and see if this can in any way be transferred to repairing trust in organisations.

Second, research could focus on the relationship between power and repairing trust. We know for sure there is a connection between power and trust, but there is a lack of research in this area. Still, studies in this field are important, since having less power makes one vulnerable. The previously discussed BTR model offers some insights:

• People tend to assume high power means more responsibility and control.
• When power is high, the individual is blamed more.
• When power increases, the employee will see this as a lack of integrity.
• The employee will be more motivated to trust when the employer has power, since they control the available resources.

Other research states powerful people trusted more after a reward strategy, while powerless people trusted more after a punishment strategy.

Finally, studies could consider the question whether or not trust could be fully repaired. Even though trust is repaired, it remains delicate. The Past Attitudes are Still There (PAST) model (Petty et al., 2006) states attitudes from the past do not disappear from memory but will be named as wrong when new information pops up. Sometimes, the past attitudes arise without the label 'wrong', which will influence behaviour.

Questions Chapter 9: Trust

1. Which three viewpoints could be considered when repairing trust?
2. When does an apology have an effect?
3. When does an apology have no effect?
4. How could one restore the social disequilibrium?
5. Name the three stages of the BTR.

Organisational behaviour relies strongly on trust. Up until now, the concept of trust is studied widely within different scientific fields. The field of social psychology was of fundamental importance for this research. This chapter's main focus is on the repair of trust when it is broken.

In organisations, collaboration is the norm. For this, trust plays an important role, since it is hard to unravel the motives and behaviours of your coworkers. Both individuals and groups gain from trust.

What is the psychology of conflict? - Chapter 10

Organizations require cooperation to achieve goals. When employees feel identified with the organisation they work for, they are likely to cooperate more. Also, when the employees have trust in the organisation and their employer, they want to cooperate more.

Cooperation starts with giving and taking. In one situation, the employee gives information, and then receives information in another situation.

Which problems are there with giving and taking?

Most people feel uneasy when asking for help from others. When there is the chance of our request being rejected, we rather look for other possibilities than seek help. It is important for us to correctly predict if our request for help will be answered or not, because of the (social) consequences. Unfortunately, we are not that good in predicting the willingness to help. Most of the time we underestimate this. The main reason for this is we calculate the effort the helpers have to put in when they say yes. Also, the person that asks for help does not calculate the social costs for the potential helper when this helper says no. Research shows the people who are asked for help are much more willing to do so when asked directly (because it is socially awkward to say no) and do not calculate the required effort when they decide to help or not, which is contrary to the thought process of help seekers.

Studies show the prediction people make of how much people seek their help does not get better by experience. This shows an open-door-policy some organisational leaders handle, most of the time is not enough to get people to ask help when needed. The potential social costs are the biggest problem. To solve this, research was conducted to see if people were encouraged to ask help and promised there would not be a social burden, they would actually seek help more. Results show people are more willing to seek help when the social costs were lower, compared to when they got instrumental benefits. Results also showed help givers predicted this to be the exact other way around.

Another problem people encounter is giving gifts. When is the gift enough? When is it too little? When is it too much? This can cause ambivalent emotions. Anthropologists state giving gifts is meant to show gratitude and recognition. This can strengthen the social bond between the giver and the receiver. The authors claim people who give gifts take the price in consideration: the more expensive, the more the feeling of appreciation will be transferred to the gift receiver. However, the gift receivers do not feel it this way; they do not feel the degree of appreciation depends on the gift price. One example would be the engagement ring: the more it costs, the more it will show the givers appreciation, or so the givers think. Unfortunately for them, the fiancé-to-be does not feel more appreciated when the ring is more expensive.

In sum, we can conclude gift receivers feel more appreciated when they get a thoughtful gift. However, 'thoughtful' has a different meaning for the giver than for the receiver. The giver considers thoughtful as expensive, while the receiver thoughtful as carefully selected. Also, here applies the same as stated before about seeking help: previous experience does not change the thought process.

Also, there are differences between givers and receivers when considering commitment. The givers commitment was determined by the benefit from their help the receiver had received. The receiver on the other hand, felt the commitment was influenced by the respect and treatment they got from the giver in the past. You could state givers feel more committed when they feel altruistic, while receivers feel more committed when they feel loved. This can be caused by the selective recall bias: both giver and receiver want to recall something else.

What is it worth?

The social norms applied to the giver and receiver differ: the receiver must be thankful the giver is not offended by the request, while the giver has to devalue their own generosity. When a certain act is valued more by the receiver than by the giver, givers expect less in return from the receiver, while the receiver would want to return more. Studies show the receiver was even willing to return over two times more than had been anticipated by the giver.

There is an universal norm which states when someone gets help, they have to help the other as well: reciprocity. However, this is surrounded by difficulties: how much can a giver expect in return, what is valuable and what is not?

Future research

To get a better understanding of the problems givers and receivers experience, the authors propose some research directions. First of all, getting past 'no'. When asking for help, but getting a 'no', people tend to not ask that person for help again. On the other hand, when people arw asked to consider this situation: when you get asked for help and you say no, the likelihood of giving help a second time increases.

When first asking a large demand, and getting 'no' as an answer, people are more inclined to answer 'yes' to a smaller demand. Also, we assume people are more willing to help when asked for a second time, when refusing the first time. However, people who are in the receiving role think this is the exact opposite: when asked to help the first time, and refused, the person will also refuse the second time.

Most people tend to see themselves as helpful, which makes it hard to refuse giving help. When asked a second time, this makes it even harder. When in the receiver role though, we are much more involved with our own social problems, to see it this way.

Another line of research could focus on the relation between cooperation and conflict. Conflicts between people can be solved by helping. The type of conflict determines which option is more fruitful to solve the conflict: asking for help or offering help. A selfish person is viewed more positively when they are offering help than when asking for help, whereas a condescending person is viewed more positively when they ask for help than when they offer it.

The third future research request the authors pose is 'thanks, but no thanks'. In cooperation, giving help must be returned with receiving help. This causes people to accept help more easily. When help is refused, it may seem ungrateful or offensive. Also, the help giver could be embarrassed.

Accepting help is difficult for many people. Instead of promoting help giving behaviour, organisations should focus on how their employees could accept help with happiness.

What is beyond attention focus?

The interpretation of the behaviour of other givers and receivers differs. When someone makes a decision to help based on affect, the receiver was more willing to accept the help than when the help was based on a cost-benefit analysis. However, when the favor was big, the receiver expected the favor to be based on a cost-benefit analysis. When this is not the case, the receiver likes the giver a lot, but also thinks the giver is a bit dumb.

In a team, people who are seen as givers get more respect and appreciation. Also, people who did not ask for help, were granted with more appreciation and respect from their group members. People who were seen more as receivers, usually get less appreciation and respect.

Influencing people to give help could easily be done by the question phrase you use. In one study they wanted participants to fill out a questionnaire. They asked this in two ways: 'could you fill out this questionnaire for me', and 'could you do me a favor'. When using the second phrase, over 25% more recipients filled out the questionnaire. There is a downside to this: when asked with the second phrase, participants expected something in return over twice as much.

Questions Chapter 10: The psychology of conflict

1. Why is it hard to request help from others?
2. Can we make a correct prediction about the willingness of others to help? Explain.
3. What is the reason someone is inclined to give help when directly asked?
4. What's the viewpoint of the gift receiver on the gift price? How does this differ from the person who gives the gift?
5. What is an effective way to get help, when not getting it the first time?
6. When is someone more willing to accept help?
7. When in a team, would it be better to be considered as a giver or as a receiver? Explain.

Organizations require cooperation to achieve goals. When employees feel identified with the organisation they work for, they are likely to cooperate more. Also, when the employees have trust in the organisation and their employer, they want to cooperate more.

Cooperation starts with giving and taking. In one situation, the employee gives information, and then receives information in another situation.

Why is diversity important? - Chapter 11

Diversity in organisations has become more important over time.

What is diversity?

Diversity can be explained as the result of every aspect individuals adopt into differencing another individual from them. This includes far more than aspects like race and gender. Another definition of diversity is the following: diversity can be seen as a characteristic of social grouping, which shows the objective and subjective discrepancies between individuals in the group.

Social category diversity represents characteristics that people use to categorise others in the in-group or the out-group. Individuals in the in-group are people who have the same characteristics, while individuals in the out-group have different characteristics. Those characteristics can be really obvious (like race or gender), but also very minimal (like the preference of a blue dress instead of a green one). Surface level diversity only focuses on the direct visible characteristics, to divide others in the in- or out-group.

Informational diversity categorises people by their information, opinions , thoughts, and behaviour to bring people together in performing a task. To solve problems, people with different kinds of information and skills often are brought together.

Usually studies tend to use the social category diversity to categorise people following informational diversity. For example: when using the social category diversity, one can see the different organisational backgrounds of people. These differences mean those people all hold different levels of information in different fields, so following the organisational diversity principles a multidisciplinary team can therefore be formed.

There seems to be a high correlation between social category diversity and information diversity, but this does not apply to all fields. Objective differences between people are not necessarily the differences needed for a good task performance.

What is social category diversity?

Organisations seem to benefit from social category diversity, since different backgrounds bring along different viewpoints. Previous research states this also brings many conflicts, as they assume differences must mean conflict. This is, also due to the research designs, partly true. However, other studies state social diversity does not mean people differ on all levels.

Social category diversity influences the affective and cognitive functions of individuals and therefore influences their performances. There are three mechanisms:

• Individuals expect people who appear similar to them to think and act in the same way. When being part of a team with only socially similar members, one's more surprised when a group member thinks differently, compared to a team with socially different members. Both task-relevant and task-irrelevant characteristics (relatively based on functional background or living area) prompt similarity assumptions. When in a socially similar team an individual has a differing opinion, the others are likely to think more negatively of and be less engaged with the task compared to a socially diverse team. Unique perspectives are thus more expected when coming from someone not socially similar.

• People prefer their beliefs and thoughts to be more similar with in-group members than with out-group members. In teams, out-group members tend to inform others about their opinions more strongly and with more confidence, which can benefit the team.

• People like their social relationships with similar people to be balanced. People from an in-group who agree with the out-group break their social bonds with the in-groups, which can result in a disbalance in their social relations with the people in the in-group. This urges others to harmonise with the person who's in disbalance, which means different opinions could be given and considered.

How can diverse groups have effect on cognition?

When there's social category diversity in a team and there are different opinions about how to solve the task, this team performs better than when there is no social category diversity in the team. When agreeing with an in-group member, people strengthen their bonds, while disregarding their bonds when agreeing with an out-group member. As we have seen before, this causes a social disbalance, which is uncomfortable. The person who agrees with the out-group member only does this when they have strong arguments. Also, this person tends to take a much closer look at the reason for the difference of opinion. Although people tend to restore the balance quickly, the imbalance causes discomfort and uncertainty.

What are beliefs on diversity?

The expectations people have are built on social category diversity. People have different expectations when speaking with someone from the in-group than when speaking with someone from the out-group. Groups with social category diversity more often engage in complex thinking about a subject compared to groups without diversity.

When people hold the idea that task performance benefits from group diversity, they could identify themselves more with a diverse group. On the other hand, when people thought group diversity causes disadvantages for the task performance, their identification with the diverse group was lessened.

The affective model of diversity states individuals who think diversity is valuable do not foresee negative emotions when interacting with out-group members. Also, when in an earlier case the experience of diversity was positive, the individual tends to think more positively about diversity in a later stage.

Future research

One line of future research is about the experiences people have in a diverse team, since the point of view, and therefore vision of different group members is likely to differ.

Other studies could focus on the status differences in diverse groups. All groups form some sort of status hierarchy, which sometimes means large status differences. This could cause difficulties for the task performance.

Also, research could focus on the function of expectations and beliefs in diverse groups.

Finally, the effects of diversity beliefs on psychological processes should be studied. Also, an important follow-up line of research should be about the influence these changed psychological processes have on the group performance.

Questions Chapter 11: Diversity in organizations

1. What is diversity?
2. Explain the concept of social category diversity.
3. Explain the concept of informational diversity.
4. How does social category diversity influence the affective and cognitive functions of individuals?
5. When there are differences in opinion, this benefits one of the teams below. Choose and explain: (1) a socially similar team or (2) a socially diverse team.
6. When do people tend to identify themselves more with a diverse team? Is this beneficial for the task performance?

Diversity can be explained as the result of every aspect individuals adopt into differencing another individual from them. This includes far more than aspects like race and gender. Another definition of diversity is the following: diversity can be seen as a characteristic of social grouping, which shows the objective and subjective discrepancies between individuals in the group.

Social category diversity represents characteristics that people use to categorise others in the in-group or the out-group. Individuals in the in-group are people who have the same characteristics, while individuals in the out-group have different characteristics. Those characteristics can be really obvious (like race or gender), but also very minimal (like the preference of a blue dress instead of a green one). Surface level diversity only focuses on the direct visible characteristics, to divide others in the in- or out-group.

What types of antisocial behaviour exists? - Chapter 12

A workplace victim can be described as someone who encounters a negative outcome because of the treatment of another person within the organisation. Workplace victimisation is some form of antisocial behaviour. When the victim reacts in an aggressive way, they get the role of perpetrator. It is not strange for workplace victimisation to be reciprocal. Together with revenge, workplace victimisation causes a reaction on every action. The nature of this reaction could differ in various ways, which will be explained later on.

What is victimisation?

The explanation of workplace victimisation is the following: aggressive behaviour by at least one employee has damaging effects on the wellbeing of another employee. Someone's wellbeing is harmed when important psychological needs, like the need to belong, are not met.

A study about bullying in the schoolyard found victims are often more anxious, quiet, and insecure. Also, their self image was damaged and the victims usually were not popular. This group of victims could be called submissive victims. In a way, they maintain their victim status because they are perceived as easy targets.

Besides submissive victims, there are some victims with the opposite characteristics: hostile, uncompromising, and aggressive traits. These victims are called the provocative victims. They also maintain themselves as victims, since they keep irritating and provoking others.

Studies about workplace victimisation find similar victim types. People with an obliging conflict resolution style care deeply for others' needs, while forgetting their own. Their behaviour could be typified as the behaviour of submissive victims. Provocative victims can also be found in the workplace.

Concluding from the above, there is a relation between personality and victimisation. A moderator in this story would be interactive behaviour.

The victim precipitation theory states that victims contribute to being a victim (whether consciously or subconsciously).

One way to divide victims into groups is by using the terms passive and active. When classified in the passive group, an individual fails to protect himself against bullying. When victims are categorised as active, they provoke direct reactions from other people with their behaviour. People feel like active victims deserve to be bullied, because of this behaviour. The behaviour of active victims could be compared to the behaviour of provocative victims, but being an active victim does not depend on personality characteristics; it is more about behaviour.

The symbolic interactionist model of aggression states aggressive behaviour is often intended as social control, to increase social identity, or as pay back. The model argues that people become victims because they broke a social norm.

Three studies about the moderator 'formal employee status' for the connection between personal characteristics and victimisation are discussed. The first study is about hierarchical status. When someone has a high status, he normally receives more respect compared to low status employees. High status employees have therefore less chance to become a victim. This leads to the assumption that the connection between personality and victimisation is not as strong for people with high status, compared to people with low status. The second study looked at Organisational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB, positive behaviour which benefits the organisation, while the organisation does not formally reward this). Employees who carry out interpersonal OCB create an environment in which positive reciprocity was the norm. This made them less vulnerable for victimisation. However, this only applies to people with low status. The third study considered the moderating effects of status in relation to conflict resolution and victimisation. As reported earlier in this chapter, people with an obliging conflict resolution style were bullied more often. When someone has low status, this connection is stronger. When handling an integrative conflict resolution style (respecting your own and other people's interests during a conflict), people with low status have less chance to be bullied.

The relation between personality, behaviour and victimisation could also be explained by demographic characteristics like race and gender. These demographic characteristics are also part of status (e.g. a white male is perceived as someone with more status, compared to a black female). The results did not indicate a significant correlation between gender and OCB (it was hypothesised that males with OCB were less likely to be bullied than females). There was, however, a significant correlation between race and OCB (white people with OCB were less likely to be bullied than black people), but this did not apply to all racial minorities.

Also, the relation between the dominating conflict resolution style and victimisation, moderated by gender, was studied. The researchers assumed people who were relatively low or relatively high on dominance would be bullied more often. They indeed found a significant correlation between dominant behaviour and victimisation, but only for males.

The studies discussed in this chapter have their limitations. Most studies used a cross sectional design with self reports. Therefore, respondent bias and attribution bias could distort the results. For example, because of the attribution bias we are not certain people are actually bullied, or they just perceive they are bullied. Also, it is unclear if negative behaviours like anxiety and fear are the cause of, or are caused by, victimisation. However, it still remains clear victims most of the time maintain their victimisation by their behaviour.

The relational model of workplace victimisation states people can fill in different roles within the organisational structure. Whether or not an individual gets bullied, is influenced by the characteristics of this role. There are four types of roles:

Note these types are not conclusive, but do describe most bullying situations.

What is meant by revenge?

Eventually, people who are workplace victims reach a threshold. One of the reactions which could originate from this, is revenge. Revenge could be explained as reacting to perceived wrongdoing which is doing harm to the perceived bully. Eventually, revenge results in escalating conflicts and less productivity. Because of this, revenge can be classified as antisocial behaviour.

Social psychology states people want to keep a positive identity of the self. This identity is formed by personal and social factors. People expect to be treated with respect. When this is not the case, they feel less worthy, which is an identity threat. This motivates people to act on revenge.

The level of status within an organisation could be either absolute or relative. People with an absolute and high status do not have a tendency towards revenge so much. There are two main explanations. First of all, people in such a position get so much confirmation (both socially and materially) so it is hard to experience identity threats. On the other hand, people with low status are prone to protect the little bit of status they have, so they have a bigger tendency towards revenge behaviour.

Second, people with absolute and high power experience strong normative pressure to behave in a good manner. The reverse dominance hierarchy states that after a leader seeks revenge, people of lower status either overtly or covertly judge their behaviour, which causes problems for the leadership position.

Another study did not find an effect from status on antisocial behaviour. They did find high status employees showed less antisocial behaviour when it was not normal to express antisocial behaviour, while high status employees showed more antisocial behaviour in situations where this was more common. This effect was not found in employees with low status.

Relative power could be described as a difference in status between the person that commits wrongful behaviour, and the person who wants to take revenge. Another explanation of relative power is a situation in which different people experience contrasting abilities to act on desired goals, to apply punishment, and/or to deny rewards. When someone has a higher formal status compared to someone who does wrong, they are more likely to seek revenge. One study confirmed this hypothesis, while another study only confirmed this when the person of high relative status did not feel like there was a formal way to punish the person who was at fault.

The statement 'people with high power do not take revenge that often', has to be studied more, because there are opposing results. One study, for example, shows people with high power are more motivated to act as they please, without taking the consequences into account. We know high power does not mean high status in all cases, but in quite a lot of cases the two do go together. Another study shows high status people could act wrongfully to a certain extent, because they have built some credits. Lastly, another study states that people who perceive themselves as better compared to others act more aggressively when their ego is threatened and feel less guilt about their behaviour.

Not only the positive relation between high status and wrongdoing should be studied more, also the negative relation between high status and wrongdoing should be researched. For example, it could be the case that people high on power perceive wrongdoing in a different manner, so they do not always feel the need to take revenge themselves. Also, the wrongdoing which could happen to high status individuals, could be of lesser harm compared to the wrongdoing which could happen to low status individuals. Besides this, high status people could hide their revenge better so it does not stand out that much. Another explanation could be that minor offenses are let go, because of the high status of the individual, while huge offenses are treated with revenge, especially when the wrongdoing is intended to harm the status.

Questions Chapter 12: Antisocial behavior in organizations

1. When do you speak of a workplace victim?
2. Which two types of victims could you find at the schoolyard? How do they relate to the two types of victims you'll find within an organization?
3. What does the victim precipitation theory state?
4. What does the symbolic interactionist model of aggression state?
5. How could revenge be explained?
6. Why do high status individuals have a low tendency for revenge?
7. Explain the concept of relative power.

A workplace victim can be described as someone who encounters a negative outcome because of the treatment of another person within the organisation. Workplace victimisation is some form of antisocial behaviour. When the victim reacts in an aggressive way, they get the role of perpetrator. It is not strange for workplace victimisation to be reciprocal. Together with revenge, workplace victimisation causes a reaction on every action. The nature of this reaction could differ in various ways, which will be explained later on.

What is the difference between creativity and innovation? - Chapter 13

Being creative helps people handle changes in the environment. Creativity also has other advantages; it helps people survive, adapt, and prosper.

How does creativity differ from innovation?

There seems to be a slight difference between the concepts creativity and innovation, although they are often used interchangeably. The differences are shown in the table below.

Whether something is creative or innovative, could be determined in two different ways:

1. Process perspective: focus on the processes which are needed to develop or implement new ideas
2. End-state: the end product will be assessed. Is it novel and appropriate, or useful?

What is the Dual Pathway to Creativity Model (DPCM)?

To evaluate whether something could be regarded as creative, usually three dimensions are taken into account:

1. Fluency: how many good ideas were created?
2. Originality: how uncommon is the idea?
3. Flexibility: e.g. Answers to "what can you do with a brick?"

Creative performance needs both cognitive flexibility (divergent thinking) and cognitive persistence.

The Dual Pathway to Creativity Model (DPCM) gives a better look at creative performance. The dimensions of fluency and originality can, according to this model, be accomplished by flexible thinking and processing information in a divergent manner, by systematically linking possibilities, or by the combination of cognitive flexibility and persistence. Cognitive flexibility can be reached by set breaking and using associative hierarchies, while cognitive persistence can be achieved by knowing you need to work hard.

To achieve both cognitive flexibility and persistence, one needs to be cognitively activated. When this activation is moderate and the individual is also moderately aroused, the cognitive flexibility and persistence are at their best (compared to high or low activation and arousal). The explanation for this is twofold: first, one needs a bit of activation to be motivated and to be engaged in the task, and second, when moderately highly aroused, e.g. dopamine and noradrenalin are released, cognitive function is improved.

An individual could be more or less cognitively activated because of different personal characteristics. For example, studies show creativity could be facilitated by a positive mood. Unfortunately, this finding has not always been replicated. When considering negative mood, results differ even more: some studies state the influence on creativity is also negative, while other studies see no connection or even show a negative mood has positive effects on creativity. In order to explain these confusing results, one could take the concepts of activating and deactivating effects into account. Activating moods could either be positively or negatively toned, and deactivating moods can also have positive or negative hedonic tones. No matter whether the activated mood is positive or negative, it boosts creativity more than deactivating moods. This is because positive activating moods lead to flexibility, while negative activating moods lead to persistence. Although different studies have proven this hypothesis, more studies are needed.

The value-from-fit theory states people are more task-engaged when the requirements for the task matches their characteristics, or when task activity brings them closer towards their goals. When a thinking strategy required for a certain task is compatible with one's mood, the individual is more satisfied with the task at hand. This is also extremely important for flow. The concept of flow can be defined as a highly focused state of consciousness, which has almost no costs for the individual. Several studies have proven flow blends both cognitive flexibility and persistence, to reach better creative outcomes. It seems to be the fit between the individual's characteristics and the task at hand which does the trick.

How does creativity differ from innovations in groups?

In the previous paragraphs, the different aspects which individuals need to get creative were taken into account. This paragraph focuses on how group processes could be influenced by this.

The Motivated Information Processing in Groups Model (MIP-G) is based on the idea of groups as information processors. There is a cycle between individuals and the group: group members individually search information, share this with the group members, who will be affected by this information. This makes them search for other information, which will be shared... and so on, until a decision is made. The information processing required for this could be shallow and heuristic, or deliberate and systematic. When the latter is the case, new information gets attention and is researched and integrated. The epistemic motivation (how much effort one is willing to put into a correct understanding of the group problem or task) of group members determines how systematic the information processing will be. The epistemic motivation seems to be higher when:

• One scores high on the Big Five dimension openness to experience.
• One scores high on need for cognition.
• One scores low on need for structure.
• One scores low on aversion to ambiguity.

Both activating in DPCM and epistemic motivation in MIP-G function as an activator and stimulate the cognitive processes and information processing.

The epistemic motivation can be suppressed or oppressed by temporary influences (e.g. time could lower the epistemic motivation, while the epistemic motivation could benefit from making people responsible for the decision making process). Also, when the group is heterogeneous in thinking and one member has the impression that other group members think differently, their epistemic motivation increases, because they get more insecure about their thoughts, which leads to a greater need for systematic information processing.

Another important concept within the MIP-G is social motivation. This type of motivation can either be pro-self or prosocial. In the former, people want to individually benefit from the outcomes, while in the latter, people want the group to benefit from the outcomes. People who could be characterised with terms like empathy and cooperation, tend to be more prosocial. Also, the situation at hand can play an important role. For example, when people's moods are more positive, they have a tendency to prosocial behaviour. Apart from this, when people think more collectivistic (compared to individualistically), they are more likely to adopt prosocial behaviour.

Both social and epistemic motivation play an important role in information processing, judgments, and decisions at group level. When epistemic motivation is high, there will be higher differences between pro-self and prosocial motivation. The chance for a joint positive outcome is greatest when groups are both highly epistemic and prosocially motivated.

Most research in the MIP-G area has focused on the information discussed above. However, there are clues which show group creativity could benefit from epistemic and social motivation. When there is a low need for closure and low time pressure, both individuals and groups seem to score higher on epistemic motivation and creativity. When the epistemic motivation of the group members is higher, the creativity level also raises. However, there are some problems. For instance, when group members are afraid to make mistakes, epistemic motivation causes lower creativity levels. The same happens when group members are afraid of losing their reputation. This indicates epistemic motivation only has positive effects when the group has a prosocial motivation. When the combination of high epistemic motivation and pro-self motivation is at hand, the group creativity is negatively affected.

A distinction could be made between group creativity and group member creativity. When group member creativity is expected, the creativity gets affected by group processes, since they influence the individual. When group creativity is expected, the creativity depends on the group as a whole, instead of on the different members. In this case, as soon as the most creative group member comes up with a solution, the problem is solved. On the other hand, when composing a product, the input from the least creative member has, at least partly, influence on this product.

Creativity could lead to innovation, but this is not always the case. One does not necessarily need the other. Still, group innovation also benefits from high epistemic and prosocial motivation. As discussed before, insecurity about one's own thoughts could raise epistemic motivation. A special manner in which this is accomplished, is when the group majority and the group minority have opposing thoughts. This causes the minority to come up with the most creative ideas, especially when the group climate is prosocial and psychologically safe. Studies show groups like this score higher on innovation tasks.

Although the information stated above indicates group creativity and innovation could benefit from epistemic motivation and a prosocial climate, more research is necessary, especially when taking group heterogeneity into account. The underlying processes need to be studied more closely.

Future research

Many studies have been executed to uncover the relationship between personality characteristics, situations and creativity. The DPCM contributes to this line of research. This model could be a larger framework to take all these relationships into account. Also, the model suggests not only personal and situational factors influence creativity, but other factors like task demands also play an important role.

The studies about the DPCM have an individualistic character. Therefore, future research should focus on the transition to group creativity. Recent studies imply that creativity benefits from group members who are willing to stand out. This may be an interesting topic for further studies. Also, when interactions are more competitive, group creativity seems to be enhanced. Both of these findings seem to contradict the findings discussed in this chapter, where cooperation plays an important role in enhancing group creativity. An explanation could be that cooperation leads to low creativity levels, but only when the epistemic motivation is low. For now, it seems to be that group members should have different point of views, but also cooperate to make sure the group climate is safe.

Questions Chapter 13: Creativity

1. How could you define something as creative or innovative?
2. Which three dimensions are responsible for something creative?
3. Explain the The Dual Pathway to Creativity Model (DPCM).
4. How could an individual achieve cognitive flexibility and cognitive persistence?
5. Explain the The Motivated Information Processing in Groups Model (MIP-G).
6. What is epistemic motivation in Creativity and innovation in groups?
7. Explain the two types of social motivation.
8. How are epistemic motivation and social motivation related when taking creativity into account?
9. How could a heterogeneous group enhance their epistemic motivation?

Being creative helps people handle changes in the environment. Creativity also has other advantages; it helps people survive, adapt, and prosper.

Whether something is creative or innovative, could be determined in two different ways:

1. Process perspective: focus on the processes which are needed to develop or implement new ideas
2. End-state: the end product will be assessed. Is it novel and appropriate, or useful?

What is workplace stress? - Chapter 14

When studying organisational psychology, workplace stress is an important field to take into consideration. A lot of factors which lead to positive workplace outcomes, like leadership, negotiation, and productivity, bring stress along as a negative consequence. This influences the wellbeing of the employee. Besides, workplace stress has increased over the years, since there are more productivity demands. Some problems which contribute to workplace stress are job insecurity, long working hours, less perceived control, and interventionist management styles.

Not only the field of organisational psychology is interested in stress, also other psychological fields investigate the effects broadly. The reason stress is such an interesting research topic is because of the costs for society and the organisations themselves. Since organisations can now be held responsible for stress related problems, one of the main research topics is which organisational environments are particularly damaging.

The social identity perspective states that team memberships are contributing to the perceived social and environmental stressors. This can be explained by the influence group membership has on us as a person, on our sense of self. Mostly, social identity plays a key role in this.

What are the dominant approaches?

The psychological approach states stress is a reaction to too high requirements. The related medical approach forms the grounds for the general adaptation syndrome (GAS) which distinguishes three different stages:

1. Shock.
2. Countershock.
3. Resistance.

When this process is completely passed through, stress could have positive consequences, like enhancing personal growth. However, when the third stage results in exhaustion, there are no positive consequences. It can even lead to burnout. Burnout exists from exhaustion, lack of accomplishments, and depersonalisation.

The reasons for the influence of stress, however, cannot be explained by this theory.

The individual difference approach states the psychological profile of the individual plays an important role. One could make a distinction between Type A and Type B personalities. This distinction divides people into two groups: one group which is sensitive to stress-related problems and one group which is not so much. However, there is a lack of scientific evidence for this approach. Most studies that use personality to explain stress, are moving towards the contingency approach. This approach states that the connection between environment and stress are moderated by personality. For example, some workplace characteristics bring along more stress, and some people are extra sensitive to this stress. However, this approach also has questionable elements. Since research is mostly done in a correlational manner, it is unclear whether personality causes or is caused by stress. Also, this theory does not give a good explanation of stress responses.

The stimulus based approach states that stress is caused by characteristics of the organisational context. Stress could be caused by both life events and special professions. This is hard to measure and to compare, since every life event brings along different types of stressors, as does every special job profession. To address this issue, researchers discriminated between the following factors to explain stress:

• High demands.
• Having no say.
• Absence of support from coworkers and employers.
• Wrongful behaviour in the workplace like bullying.
• Not knowing which role you have to play.
• Not being involved in organisational changes.

Noteworthy is that the six factors mentioned above have one thing in common: perceived unfairness.

The reason why these workplace factors contribute to stress cannot be explained by this theory.

The transactional approach states one has to perceive stress as something which is psychologically mediated. Stress is caused by environmental stressors which the individual perceives as threatening to his wellbeing: thus the cognition of the individual determines whether a stressor will cause problems. The appraisal of the stressor plays an important part:

1. Primary appraisal: how important is the particular happening for the wellbeing of the individual?
2. Secondary appraisal: on what level the individual estimates he could cope with the given stressor? When someone lacks good coping behaviour, stressors tend to have a more negative influence.

Secondary appraisal influences primary appraisal.

An important coping mechanism when stress causes problems is social support. Good social support can be:

• Instrumental
• Emotional
• Social
• Informational

Most stressors can cause both distress and eustress (a positive stress reaction). Also, stressors are subject to trends; not at all times and not in all cultures do the same stressors cause the same amount of problems. Stressors are components of the shared workplace experience. This leads to the conclusion that stress has a social element. However, there is a lack of research in this area.

What is the social identity approach?

The social identity theory (SIT) states the individuals sense of self is construed by their group membership. The identity people shape for themselves is thus both personal and social. The construction of our sense of self is based on knowing we belong to certain in-groups and also knowing we are different from the out-groups. Belonging to an in-group with a certain status has positive effects on the sense of self. However, when belonging to an in-group which has lower status compared to others, this has negative effects and can cause stress.

SIT directs itself towards three elements:

1. Perceived permeability: the perception whether or not the boundaries of the group are permeable, determine which strategies individuals use.
2. Perceived stability.
3. Perceived legitimacy.

The self categorisation theory (SGT) follows up on the SIT and unravels the psychological dynamics of the self. Three understandings play a key role:

• Group behaviour arises from social identity.
• The categorisation process (sharing category membership with others or not) is reflected by the self-system. The social identities that become noticeable origin from the fit to a certain categorisation and an individuals readiness to use this.
• Mutual social influence is based on the shared social identity. Shared social identity is the ground for productive social interactions.

Shared social self categorisation is the foundation for effective social support. When identifying with another individual:

• Increased chances of offering support.
• Increased chances you will get support.
• Increased chances to interpret the behaviour of each other is the correct manner.

How can the social identity approach be combined with stress?

Stress is, as we have seen, both very personal and very social. When someone's social identity is noticeable, the perspective and condition of their in-group influences their appraisal of social stressors. To define primary appraisal, social identity plays a huge part.

When an individual's organisational identification is low, they tend to experience their work as more stressful.

To define secondary appraisal, social identity plays a huge part. The reason for this is social support is a defining factor in feeling shared group membership. A shared social identity has positive effects on stress since it forms the basis for social support. Also, when asking people if they can cope with a certain stressor, they use their group membership as a reference point. Both the nature and firmness of identification with a group and the definition of the stressor, related to this identity, determine the impact the stressor has on a certain individual.

To protect people from heavy stressors, we must use social identity. Some research suggests this social identity can protect people from burnout. One study stated low levels of social identity predicted burnout. A mediator between these two seemed to be social support, or better, lack there off. Another study showed people with high social identity with the group tended to be more supportive and helpful towards other group members. Even during the most stressful moments, the chances of burnout were slim.

Both studies described above, unfortunately, used a correlational design. Because of this, we can only state there is a connection between social identification and burnout, but we cannot be sure which one is the predictor. Social identification could both be a consequence and a cause of burnout. To investigate this further, another study focused on a hierarchical situation. This study found that higher levels of social identification were connected to positive stress outcomes. When feeling identified with the group, the group lower on hierarchy could use this to their advantage. Also, when there is low social identification in a high hierarchy group, this is a disadvantage. This study helps us with the insight that stress derives from group life, which could also play an important role in diminishing stress.

Questions Chapter 14: Workplace stress: a social identity approach

1. Why is stress a negative factor for organizations?
2. What is the idea behind the social identity perspective?
3. Name the stages that form GAS.
4. Explain the individual difference approach.
5. Explain the transactional approach.
6. Name and explain the two types of appraisal.
7. Name an important coping mechanism when dealing with stressors.
8. Explain the SIT. How is this related to SGT?
9. What do you know about the shared social identity in relation to stress?

When studying organisational psychology, workplace stress is an important field to take into consideration. A lot of factors which lead to positive workplace outcomes, like leadership, negotiation, and productivity, bring stress along as a negative consequence. This influences the wellbeing of the employee. Besides, workplace stress has increased over the years, since there are more productivity demands. Some problems which contribute to workplace stress are job insecurity, long working hours, less perceived control, and interventionist management styles.

Not only the field of organisational psychology is interested in stress, also other psychological fields investigate the effects broadly. The reason stress is such an interesting research topic is because of the costs for society and the organisations themselves. Since organisations can now be held responsible for stress related problems, one of the main research topics is which organisational environments are particularly damaging.

What is ethical decision making? - Chapter 15

Recent studies focus more and more on ethics within organisations. Prior studies often found a big difference between ethical judgment and behavior. Nowadays, much research is conducted about why people act unethically while consciously knowing they do so. Up until now, the assumption was made that people only behave in an unethical manner when they are not consciously aware of this.

How can you make ethical decisions?

The process of ethical decision making exists of the following steps:

1. Moral awareness.
2. Making a moral judgment.
3. Moral decision making.
4. The act itself.

Most ethical problems can be described as ambiguous and many people are not even aware of these problems.

Models of progressive moral development state there are two factors which influence the judgments of people:

• The stage of cognitive moral development of the individual decision maker.
• The moral intensity of their potential act.

When people think the moral intensity of their behaviour is high, they will behave morally. However, when the moral intensity is not high, the cognitive moral development of the individual plays an important role. When this person is high on Kohlberg's hierarchy of cognitive moral development, the ethical behaviour does not depend on the moral intensity.

There is a difference between acting on moral behaviour and the intentions of the individual. Someone may decide to act unethically, when other factors are more important.

When people have good self-justification abilities, they act more unethically. When they are not that good in self-justification, unethical behaviour damages one's self image.

What is moral identity?

People want to be psychologically self-consistent. Their judgments and behaviour should be consistent with each other. To keep this in balance, people use some strategies:

• Cognitive reconstruals (via e.g.: moral justifications).

• Minimising causal agency (via the displacement and diffusion of responsibility).

• Distortion and disregarding harmful consequences.

• Blaming and devaluing victims.

These strategies can be considered as moral self-deception strategies. When someone's moral development is highly developed, this person is less likely to use one of these strategies.

Some people see morality as a most important factor to live by. These people have one thing in common: a strong cohesion between morality and perceptions of the self. This is called the moral identity. The difference between moral judgments and moral acts could be explained by the moral identity. Other researchers followed this up with the idea that people with a highly developed moral identity could more easily detect moral implications within a given situation.

Another research proposal is people with a high moral identity find their sense of self in belonging to a moral group. In this case, the moral identity can be seen as some sort of social identity.

What is social identity?

The social identity theory states that social identity is an expansion of the concept of self. This concept of self will become a more collective self. Social identity arises from the membership someone has in certain groups. The personal identity does not depend on social aspects, but only on personal attributes. The self consists of two different but interacting things.

Another explanation of the self states everyone has multiple social identities, based on their different group memberships. The social identity which plays the main role, is dependent on the situation at hand.

Another explanation of the self relates to this. This explanation assumes role identities. Everyone has different roles which are hierarchically based on which role is most noticeable.

How are social identity and moral behaviour related?

When taking a closer look at social identity, it can explain moral behaviour in two ways:

1. By identifying the group which is connected to morality. When someone has a high moral identity, they most likely take part in a group which acts on a moral code. There arises a problem when people are members of different groups, which differ in their moral code.
2. Morality is a part of other social identities. It is not a form of social identity, but it is part of the concept of self, which originates from behaviours in the different social roles one individual occupies.

The moral identity could be explained by how important morality is for the concept of self. When someone has a stronger moral identity, this person will act on this. When the dominant aspect of the self concept would be being an employee, this moral behaviour will be mostly expressed at work and to a lesser extent at home. When the dominant aspect would be being a parent, the moral behaviour will be mostly expressed at home, and to a lesser extent at work. When people do not have a dominant aspect which determines their concept of self, they show moral behaviour in different settings to an equal extent.

People have trouble behaving unethically when they care about something, but only when morality is an important aspect of themselves. If this is not the case, the behaviour in situations someone cares about could be even more unethical.

Sometimes, unethical behaviour in one situation can benefit other situations. For example, someone who is high on morality and high on parenting, does not mind that much when taking a bribe while working. After all, they can use the money to take care of their children. This mostly happens when people feel like they're failing in the (in this example) parenting domain.

On the other hand, having parenthood as a determining factor for personal identity, could prevent an individual from unethical behaviour in another domain, since he or she wants to set a good parenting example.

Sometimes, the different role demands could conflict with each other. Moral principles in one domain could be in conflict with the moral principles in the other domain. When the conflicts get so far people have to choose to act unethical in one domain while acting ethical in the other domain, they most likely act unethical in the domain which influences their self concept the least.

Which other compensatory ethics models are there?

Both the moral licensing and the moral equilibrium models state people think they can earn credits when acting morally, which they can spend by acting less morally in another situation. The moral compensation model states that people try to make up for less moral behaviour by behaving more morally in the future.

However, the model spoken of in this chapter does not speak of compensation. Besides this, the above mentioned models could be classified as dynamic, while the model explained in this chapter is more static.

Questions Chapter 15: Morality, social identity, and ethics

1. Name the four steps of ethical decision making.
2. Which two factors influence peoples judgment? Explain.
3. Explain the concept of moral identity.
4. Give some explanations of the self in combination with morality.
5. Name a situation in which people could act unethically, while they're high on morality.
6. Explain the differences between the model explained in this chapter and the moral licensing model, the moral equilibrium model, and the moral compensation model.

Recent studies focus more and more on ethics within an organisation. Prior studies often found a big difference between ethical judgment and behavior. Nowadays, much research is conducted about why people act unethically while consciously knowing they do so. Up until now, the assumption was made that people only behave in an unethical manner when they are not consciously aware of this.

What are cultural differences? - Chapter 16

Creativity among employees is widely studied, but only in the western world. Research in other cultures is very limited. This chapter will focus on the studies about the influence of culture on creativity. Creativity can be explained as generating new ideas. Innovation can be defined as creating creative outcomes. This chapter focuses on the societal level, and the organisational level will not be taken into account.

What is creativity?

The importance and conceptualisation of creativity differs among cultures. When defining creativity as creating new things, it is way more important and accepted in Western cultures compared to South-Asian cultures. This could be explained by the characteristics of the cultures: Western cultures could be typified as more individualistic, while South-Asian cultures are more collectivistic.

What is the impact of cultural differences?

People from Asian cultures seem to be less competent in accomplishing creative tasks. It took researchers a long time to establish the origin of creativity. It is now widely accepted to see creativity as some sort of social process. This may contain a bias in favor of Western cultures. It is definitely possible that Western creativity tests contain items which are not regarded as creative in non-Western communities. Also, Western creativity tests may lack items which are regarded as creative in non-Western communities.

There are quite some different research outcomes. Some studies indicate Western creativity is regarded as better, but other studies found just the opposite. Also, some studies find no differences at all.

Collectivism is seen as a suppressive factor when regarding creativity, because conformity is more important for this cultural style. Low uncertainty avoidance can be seen as a promotive factor when regarding creativity. Compared to Americans, Chinese individuals are high on collectivism and low on uncertainty avoidance. This gives Chinese people a disadvantage when creativity is more important than conformity, but they are at an advantage when risk taking is important for creativity.

To study the exact influence of culture on innovation, we can get an image of Chinese culture through Western eyes. According to Western ideas, innovative behaviour is promoted by a learning-goal orientation, while it is negatively affected by a performance-goal orientation. Studies show knowledge sharing is a mediator for the connection between innovative behaviour and a learning-goal orientation, while the effect of a performance-goal orientation only existed through perceived autonomy. With this information, it is interesting to compare Chinese and the Western cultures. For example, one could research if there is a lower learning-goal orientation in Chinese culture compared to western cultures.

Chinese people feel that interpersonal connections are important, which promotes knowledge sharing. However, authoritarian leadership is also a widely accepted factor in Chinese culture, which negatively influences employee autonomy. In their favor, Chinese people seem to accept low autonomy better compared to Western people, which could function as a buffer.

Also, a distinction could be made between task- and relational conflicts. Task conflicts seem to enhance innovation, but less when there is low support for innovation. In comparison to Western people, Chinese individuals react more negatively to a relationship conflict, and less negatively to a task-conflict.

Not only the Western perspective on innovation is studied, but also the Chinese perspective. The positive connection between creativity and innovation seems to be moderated by the desire for moderation, the restraint from extreme positions, and shyness. Two Chinese theories are discussed:

• Face: refers to the concern for a positive self- and public image.
• Renqing: refers to the tendency to be compassionate toward others and to offer them favors.

According to the Chinese theories, face and renqing are positively connected and are part of the relational orientation. The connection between face and renqing seems to have a negative connection with fear of failure and innovative behaviour. Also, the face principle can prevent people from sharing information, which negatively affects innovation. However, when there is a highly innovative climate, the connection between face and renqing and fear of failure was less negative.

Another study found a positive interaction between an innovative climate and autocratic leadership. This is an interesting finding, as in Western studies it was assumed an autocratic leader would have a negative effect on the innovative climate. More research in this area is desirable.

How can multicultural experience help creativity?

Since almost everyone gets in contact with (numerous) different cultures, researchers aimed to investigate how multicultural experiences could benefit creativity. When looking at organisations, heterogeneous groups tend to have more positive outcomes compared to homogeneous groups. Also, among immigrants and people from an ethic minority, creativity seems to be high. Recent studies state two constructs are responsible for the enhanced creativity caused by multicultural experience:

• Creative versatility: the creative powers of an individual.
• Creative virtuosity: the quality of the creative act.

What is versatility?

Individuals who experience two cultures in their lives, feel like they have two different cultural identities. Becoming a member of a new culture, does not diminish being a member of the original culture. The information one has about their different cultural identities seems to be stored in the brain in different neural networks. Having two cultural identities could bring problems. Some people experience their two identities as conflicting. This causes stress and makes the neural representation of the different cultures less intertwined. People with conflicting cultural identities tend to call to the wrong cultural identity for the situation at hand. Studies show people with conflicting identities show less creative behaviour.

What is virtuosity?

There are some reasons why multicultural experiences can promote creative acts:

• A wider access to ideas.
• Unconventional associations.
• Novel conceptual combinations.

Apart from these positive effects, multicultural experiences could also cause negative effects: i.e. culture shocks and disorientation.

Multicultural experiences support people in finding multicultural solutions, they tend to also take other perspectives into account. This does not apply (that much) on every individual, for example people who are high on the Big Five personality trait openness, are more inclined to search for multicultural ideas, compared to people who score low on this trait. Also, the connections people have are defining for more culturally diverse ideas. A person with a heterogeneous network tends to think more culturally diverse, but some people see such a network as a threat, since sharing ideas with people from other cultures makes them vulnerable.

Studies show people with more multicultural experiences seem to come up with more unconventional ideas. However, those multicultural experiences seem to contribute only when fully experiencing other cultures (like living in another culture, not going on a holiday).

Both concepts discussed above (idea access and unconventional ideas) need the individual to be close to the other culture. For novel conceptual combinations, it is required one experiences both cultures at the same time. There are some tasks where both cultures are required to fully accomplish them, while people who live in two cultures at once are less good at performing tasks which only focus on one culture. Studies show bicultural people tend to think in a more complex manner about culture-related things, compared to non-culture-related things.

In organisations, a more positive connection with both cultures is related to higher promotion rates and better performance-related reputations.

Questions Chapter 16: Culture and creativity

1. Explain the concept of creativity. How does this concept differ from innovation?
2. Why does creativity seem to be more developed in Western countries, compared to non-Western countries?
3. Why are non-Western cultures disadvantaged by Western creativity tests?
4. Why is the collectivistic cultural style a disadvantage for coming up with creative ideas?
5. What do you know about the learning-goal orientation and the performance-goal orientation, in relation to creativity?
6. Explain the face and renqing theories.
7. Which three aspects could influence creative virtuosity?

Creativity among employees is widely studied, but only in the western world. Research in other cultures is very limited. This chapter will focus on the studies about the influence of culture on creativity. Creativity can be explained as generating new ideas. Innovation can be defined as creating creative outcomes. This chapter focuses on the societal level, and the organisational level will not be taken into account.