Spirituality, entitlements and Obligations: the Covenant
Transcript of Spirituality, entitlements and Obligations: the Covenant
ר אורה סתר"ד
א"אוניברסיטת ת, הפקולטה לניהול
הכנס הישראלי הראשון לחקר רוחניות
עכשווית
22.3.2009, חיפה
Spirituality, entitlements and Obligations: the Covenant
Spirituality: the hidden/ignored dimension
Proquest search: in the last 12 months, these were the number of full text peer reviewed articles:
Leadership – 3590
Strategy +management – 2963
Control +management – 2545
Social responsibility - 1096
Organizational learning - 736
Innovation + management – 446
Motivation + management – 138
Spirituality + management 7 (1 Empirical)
Books – Somewhat better picture
In the “business and investing” section of AMAZON:
Strategy – 86,596 books
Control – 89845
Leadership - 61,947
Innovation – 57,161
Motivation – 54,693
Social responsibility – 15,512
Organizational Learning – 7,861
Spirituality - 6951
Metaphors
Metaphors are figures of speech in which a term or phrase with a literal meaning is applied to a different context in order to suggest a resemblance (Sackmann, 1989)
Metaphors provide a structure to facilitate thinking about abstract concepts in Organizational theory.
Metaphors expose and conceal ideologies (Deetz, 1986, 1992)
Metaphors both describe the world and produce its realities (Wood, 2002)
Gareth Morgan
Traditional metaphors of organizations reflect distinct, but incomplete, ways of visualizing organizations:
Machines
Organisms
Brains
Culture
Political system
Flux and transformation
Domination
Psychic prison
Hundreds of organizational metaphors
Include, describe or imply
SPIRITUALITY
But none of them…
In the following presentation I will
Offer a viable metaphor that allows for visualizing spirituality in organizations and the business world
Demonstrate it in the field of knowledge sharing
Test its validity in an empirical study
Entitlements (Lerner, 1987) Obligations
The experience of entitlement is a the judgment, often tacit, that someone, or some category of people, is entitled to a particular set of outcomes by virtue of who they are or what they have done.
The "entitled to" is experienced affectively and motivationally as an imperative, a sense of requiredness between the actor's perceived outcomes and the
person's attributes or acts.
The experience of obligation is a quite the same, with cognitive, affective and motivational components.
Entitlements and obligations: give and take
Cabbala – the major force acting on us as human beings: the will to get
Cabbala - the major life principle of altruistic giving, loving, being part
Daniel Bell – the revolution of rising entitlements
Are you entitled to severance pay?
Women are entitled to be exceptional…
Is your child receiving everything he is entitled to?
We are entitled to respect
Celebrities are entitled to privacy
Entitled to your opinion? Not any more…
People are entitled to know what is going on
You are entitled to our opinion…
(One day’s newspaper “Haaretz”, January 30, 2009)
:Entitlements and obligations as a wholethree metaphors
Market – Balance sheet
Legal - Contract
Socio-P0litical - Covenant
Market: balance
Exchange, equity theories (Blau, 1964, Adams, 1965)
Assumptions
: people are “intuitive accountants” calculating equity ratio based on inputs and outputs (Even accountants are not…)
Inputs and outputs can be calculated and measured in the short term, with a clear “bottom line”.
There should be a balance of values
Balance or imbalance will create predictable behaviors
Environment is stable, thus calculations of present and future inputs and outputs are possible
People are capable of making cognitive complex calculations
Contract: agreement, consideration, promise
Social contract, psychological contract (Rousseau, 1990, 1995, 199, 2001).
Transactional (market) and relational contracts
Numerous breach and violations studies
Formal, implied, normative and psychological contracts
Contracts are agreements based on consideration, reciprocity that mutually bind the parties, enforced by the law (Attiya, 1986).
Contracts:
Assumptions
Good faith
Freedom of choice
Not necessarily balanced
Numerous multi-level contracts
Everything is implied by the contract, including changes and exit options
Conditional, legally binding.
Both balance sheet and contract do not explain
Why people are still working while having unbalanced, non equitable work relations
Why people believe that they are doing more than their obligations and getting less than what they are entitled to, and still go on working and performing… well
Why formal agreements include only a small part of the overall relations, as contract are usually interpreted narrowly.
Why sometimes small, insignificant things cause them to stop working, while others, more significant, don’t.
So… here comes the covenant
Noah
Abraham
Moses
Covenant in Judaism: the BRIT
The basic Jewish religious, communal and political principle
Daniel Elazar (1998)
"A covenant is a morally-informed agreement or pact based upon voluntary consent and mutual oathsor promises, witnessed by the relevant higher authority, between peoples or parties having independent though not necessarily equal status, that provides for joint action or obligation to achieve defined ends (limited or comprehensive) under conditions of mutual respect which protect the individual integrities of all the parties to it. Every covenant involves consenting, promising and agreeing. Most are meant to be of unlimited duration, if not perpetual. Covenants can bind any number of partners for a variety of purposes, but in their essence they are political in that their bonds are used principally to establish bodies political and social".
Covenant Contract
Morally binding Lateral and vertical (higher
power or authority) Mutually non-dependent set of
present and future promises Higher power as witness Stable, not sensitive to
violations Undefined time, eternal Violations do not void the
covenant Social and political in nature Emphasize on obligations
Legally binding Lateral only (between the
parties) Mutual, reciprocal and
conditional set of present and future promises
Law as enforcer Stable as long as there are no
violations Constricted duration Violations void the contract Economic in nature Emphasize on entitlements
Covenant VS. Contract
Covenant as metaphor
Pro: include many elements not explained by other metaphors, like mission, vision, altruistic behavior and spirituality
Con: No common shared belief in the existence of a higher power – GOD
But: higher power can be the “organization as an organism” or even the “whole world” as an organism.
Example: Knowledge sharing ((Prusak & Davenport, 1998
Covenant*Market-contract
Public goodProperty, possessionKnowledge is
Cooperation and creation of “Fountains of knowledge”
Exchange, ReuseWhy share?
Partners and servants of human knowledge
Buyer, seller, brokerPlayers
Development of organizationor society
Personal utilityValue in
Recreation, personal growthTangibles, intangibles (recognition, reputation)
Rewards
Trust and faith, obligationsTrust and rules, entitlements
Conditions
Empirical Research: psychological contractsPost-Hoc Anlysis
• First Pretest: Collection of Items by individual and group interviews, to tap the content universe of the PC.
• Second pretest: questionnaire with items submitted to 321 respondents, for factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis to reveal categories (99 obligations and 130 entitlements).
Major test: Sample: 625 respondents from 8 organizations (Electronics, software, food processing, bank, insurance, investment, medical institute, home for the aged. Categories emerged from factor analysis were correlated to various organizational, unit, personal and attitudinal variables.
I s m e a s u r e d b y t h e c o n d i t i o n a l i t y o f t h e c a t e g o r i es
:q u e s t i o n s : E n t i t l e m e n t s
A c c o r d i n g t o t h e i n f o r m a l a g r e e m e n t i n y o u r o r g a n i z a t i o n , w o u l d y o u d e f i n e r e c e i v i n g … … . . a s
1 . u n c o n d i t i o n a l – a n y o n e i n y o u r p o s i t i o n s h o u l d g e t i t , i n d e p e n d e n t o f p e r f o r m a n c e o r b e h a v i o r
2 . C o n d i t i o n a l – d e p e n d s o n p e r f o r m a n c e o r b e h a v i o r
3 . P e r s o n a l – s u b j e c t t o n e g o t i a t i o n o r d i s c r e t i o n a r y
Validity of Covenant metaphor
Average, S.D, and Frequency (%) of conditionality of Entitlements , scale – 1 -5, (N=325)
Average S.D. Discretionary
Market
Conditional
contract
Unconditional
covenant
Work tools and
resources
4.71 0.48 9.2 12.9 77.8
Leadership 4.59 0.46 12.1 18.9 69.0
Care, "soulful"
organization
4.20 0.73 8.0 23.9 67.8
Social benefits 3.68 0.90 14.3 19.5 66.2
Justice, fairness, ethics 4.75 0.40 8.9 33.7 57.4
Information, influence 3.87 0.76 24.8 20.5 54.7
Helpful coworkers 3.93 0.79 11.1 42.9 46.0
Incentives, gifts, 3.13 0.88 19.0 41.0 46.0
Security 3.59 0.86 7.6 50.2 42.3
Recognition,
development
4.11 0.76 19.0 40.2 40.8
Salary 4.74 0.52 18.6 47.2 34.2
Meaningful, "rich" job 4.28 0.63 13.7 58.6 27.7
Promotion 4.02 0.71 21.7 59.0 19.3
Average, S.D, and Frequency (%) of conditionality of Obligations (N=325)
Average S.D. Discretion -
market
Conditional -
Contract Unconditional -
covenant
Professionalism, service,
responsibility
4.79 .38 4.1 10.3 85.5
Work morality 4.35 .53 7.0 14.4 78.6 Cooperation with coworkers 4.11 .78 13 20.8 66.2 Commitment, Loyalty 4.25 .64 5.7 29.3 65.0 Effort 14.1 27.8 58.1 Obedience 3.94 .77 20.0 31.2 48.8
Initiative 4.11 .78 20.2 42.9 36.9 Disclosure 4.08 .76 31.7 34.5 33.8 OCB 2.94 .95 37.6 39.7 22.7 Willingness for mobility
and changes
3.02 .86 32.6 50.2 17.2
Correlations of conditional and unconditional mutual obligations (N=625)
Covenant – unconditional
agreement
Market – conditional agreement
Unconditional
Entitlements
Unconditional
Obligations
Conditional
Entitlements
Conditional
Obligations
-.039 -.118 -.084 .151** Org. size
-.062 -.179** .074 .306** Unit size
-.031 -.127* .190** -.069 Income
.128* -.007 .033 -.104 Age
-.124* -.173** .189** .193** Education
.048 .081 -.014 -.105* Tenure
.132* .096 -.025 -.165** Org. satisfaction
.100 .085 -.026 -.093 Job satisfaction
.170** .135* -.071 -.171** Intention to stay
.283** .244** -162** .143** Intensity of agreement
.177** .239** -.188** -.147* Individualistic orientation
.316** .215** -.144* -.197** Collectivistic orientation
.136* .256** -.188** -.108 Overall entitlements
.346** .143** -.076 -.272** Overall obligations
.379** .183** -.122* -.284** Fulfillment of agreement
Discussion
More items of the “give and take” in organizations are based on covenant than on contract or pure exchange: 6 out of 13 entitlements and 6 out of 10 obligations are predominantly unconditional, while only 4 entitlements and 1 obligation are conditional .
The more “covenantional” the relations, employees report more positive attitudes and better fulfillment of the agreement, more intense relations. However, employees with high human capital value are less inclined to favor the covenant view.
The larger the organization and work unit, obligations are more conditional (but not entitlements)
Covenant is positively related both to individualism and to collectivism
Stability and security are considered conditional: that rules out the assumption that the preference for covenant is based on fear
People as HOLONS
Ken Wilber defined Holons : "reality is composed neither of things or processes, neither wholes or parts, but whole/parts, holons, all the way up, all the way down". (1996).
Findings may suggest that we hold complex perceptions: don’t give up our individuality, but we feel our interconnectedness, being a unique part of a whole.
So?
Covenant and contract are both valid metaphors, that are additive: none stands alone.
Organizations are both economic, exchange system, legal system and social and political system.
Underneath the exchange, there is a basic, shared, covenant, that is moral and unconditional, to which all parties are part of.
Using only the exchange and contract metaphor, not only exclude spirituality, but blind us to these feelings, values and behaviors, that are aspects of the mutual relations of employees and organizations.
D r . O r a S e t t e r
T e l A v i v U n i v e r s i t y
I s r a e l
s e t t e r @ p o s t . t a u . a c . i l
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