ch08Interdependence

1. Thomson South Western
Wagner & Hollenbeck 5e
1
Chapter Eight
Interdependence
and
Role Relationships

2. 2
Chapter Overview
 This chapter examines the following topics:
– Patterns of Interdependence and Organizational Roles
• Types of Interdependence
• Implications of Interdependence
• Role Taking and Role Making
• Norms and Role Episodes
– Communication Processes in Interdependent Relationships
• Communication Messages and Media
• Barriers to Effective Communication
– Socialization to New Roles
• Socialization Goals and Tactics
• Designing Socialization Programs
– Quality of Interpersonal Role Relationships
• Equity and Social Comparison
• Distributive, Procedural, and Interactive Justice
• Responses to Inequity
• Managing Inequitable Situations

3. 3
Introduction
 Managers need to know
about various factors that
affect people as they work
together:
– Interdependence
– Specific roles
– Communication
– Socialization
– Equity theory

4. 4
Patterns of Interdependence and
Organizational Roles
 People in organizations
share a rich variety of
connections
 Such connections make
interpersonal relations a
very important aspect of
organizational life

5. 5
Types of Interdependence
 In the workplace, interdependence typically takes one of four
forms:
– Pooled interdependence
• Occurs when people draw resources from a shared source but have
little else in common
• Metropolitan Life Insurance example
– Sequential interdependence
• Comprises a chain of one-way interactions in which people depend
on those individuals who precede them in the chain
• Steelcase example
– Reciprocal interdependence
• A network of two-way relationships ties a collection of people
together
• Sales force and clerical staff example
– Comprehensive interdependence
• Develops in a tight network of interdependence
• The most complex form of interdependence because everyone
involved is reciprocally interdependent with one another
• Colgate-Palmolive and Proctor & Gamble examples

6. 6
Implications of Interdependence
 The type of interdependence that connects people
together in interpersonal relationships has several
important managerial implications:
– A greater potential for conflicts arise as the complexity
of the interdependence grows in moving from pooled to
comprehensive interdependence
– The loss of individuals due to turnover becomes more
important as the intensity of the interdependence
increases
– Comprehensive interdependence can stimulate greater
flexibility and enable groups of people to adapt more
quickly to changing environments than groups unified
by less complex forms of interdependence
– The type of interdependence has implications for the
design of motivational systems

7. 7
Role Taking and Role Making
 Expectations and the behaviors
they presuppose form the roles
that individuals occupy in
interpersonal relations
 The behavioral expectations
that make up roles can
include:
– Formal established task
elements: parts of a role that
arise because the role
occupant is expected to
perform a particular job
• Job descriptions: written
statements of the tasks a job
entails
– Informal emergent task
elements: added on tasks
 Established and
emergent task elements
can be combined in
different ways
– Bureaucratic
prototype: the role
occupant performs few
duties other than those
written in the job
description
– Loose-cannon
prototype: emergent
elements greatly
outnumber the few
established elements

8. 8
Norms and Role Episodes
 The expectations that make up
roles and give shape to
interpersonal relations are
called norms and develop over
time through repeated
interaction
 Norms exist for both the job’s
formal requirements and the
job’s generally agreed-upon
informal rules
 Either type may evolve from a
variety of sources: Precedents,
Carryovers, Explicit statements
from others, and Critical
historical events
 Pivotal norms: adherence is a
requirement if interpersonal
relations are to persist and work
is to be performed without
major interruption
 Peripheral norms: adherence is
more discretionary
 Individual adjustment to norms
leads to four basic behavior
patterns:
– Conformity: a tendency to try to
fit in with others in a loyal but
uncreative way
– Subversive rebellion: people
conceal their rejection of norms
that are critical to the survival of
existing interpersonal relations
by acting in accordance with less
important ones
– Open revolution: breaks out if
role occupants reject both norms
– Creative individualism:
individuals accept pivotal norms
but reject peripheral ones

9. 9
Norms and Role Episodes
 Norms develop through a series of role episodes
 A role set comprises a collection of people who interact
with a role occupant and serve as the source of the norms
that influence that person’s behaviors
 Members of the role set communicate norms to the role
occupant via role-sending messages
 Although the members of an organization communicate the
do’s and don’ts associated with a role through the sent role,
the received role actually has the most immediate influence
on the behavior of the role occupant
 Several types of role conflict can prevent a role receiver
from meeting the expectations of a sender
– Intersender role conflict: places competing, mutually
exclusive demands on the role occupant
– Person-role conflict: some ideas about how the role should be
performed conflict with the role sender’s demands
– Interrole conflict: occupying two roles at once

10. 10
Communication Processes in
Interdependent Relationships
 A detailed representation
of the process of
communication breaks it
into three general stages:
– Encoding information into
a message
– Transmitting the message
via a medium
– Decoding information
from the received message

11. 11
Communication Messages
and Media
 Encoding is the process by which a communicator’s
abstract idea is translated into the symbols of language and
thus a message can be transmitted to someone else
 The medium is the carrier of the message
 Oral communication relies predominantly on the sense of
hearing
 Written communication is sometimes preferred over oral
communication
 To complete the process, the message sent must be decoded,
which is a process in which the message is translated in the
mind of the receiver
 Unfortunately, many things can go wrong and render
communication ineffective
– Noise: refers to the factors that can distort a message

12. 12
Barriers to Effective
Communication
 A variety of organizational,
interpersonal, and individual
factors can hinder communication
within groups or organizations
– The nature of the physical space
– Credibility of the source
– Power imbalance
• Upward communications
• “Shooting the messenger” or
surrounding oneself with “yes”
people
– Jargon: informal language
shared by long-tenured, central
members of units

13. 13
Socialization to New Roles
 Socialization is the procedure through which people
acquire the social knowledge and skills necessary to
correctly assume new roles in a group or an
organization
 Socialization is an ongoing process and occurs
whenever an individual moves into a new role within
the group or organization
 Roles are considered new so long as they differ from
the previous one on any one of three dimensions:
– Functional dimension: reflects differences in the tasks
performed by members
– Hierarchical dimension: concerns the distribution of
rank and authority
– Inclusionary dimension: reflects the degree to which an
employee finds himself or herself at the center or on the
periphery of things

14. 14
Socialization to New Roles
 Socialization occurs
whenever an individual
crosses boundaries in any of
the three dimensions
 Socialization is likely to be
particularly intense when a
person crosses all three
boundaries at once

15. 15
Socialization Goals and Tactics
 Some organizations
may pursue a role
custodianship where
recipients of
socialization may take a
caretaker’s stance
toward their roles
 When an organization
hopes that recipients of
socialization will
change, it may have
role innovation as a
goal
 Firms can use any of
several tactics in
socializing new
members, each of which
has different effects:
– Collective-individual
– Sequential-random
– Serial-disjunctive
– Divestiture-
investiture

16. 16
Socialization Goals and Tactics
 In collective socialization, recipients are put in groups and go
through socialization experiences together
 In individual socialization, members are put through unique
experiences one at a time
 Sequential socialization takes new members through a set
sequence of discrete, identifiable steps leading to the target role
 Random socialization processes are those in which learning
experiences have no apparent logic or structure
 Serial socialization has experienced members of the organization
teach individuals about the roles they will assume
 Disjunctive socialization is where new members must learn for
themselves how to handle a new role
 Divestiture socialization ignores or denies the value of an
individual's personal identity
 Investiture socialization affirms the value to the organization of
the recruit’s personal characteristics

17. 17
Designing Socialization Programs
 The strategy employed in designing a
socialization program depends on the
goals of that program
– French Foreign Legion example
 A good program will teach new role
occupants much about the group or
organization to which membership is
sought
 If conducted properly, it will enhance
the understanding of the person’s role
and increase commitment to the
organization’s goals

18. 18
Quality of Interpersonal
Relationships
 Given the importance of role
relationships within
organizations, it is critical to
have a framework whereby the
quality of these relationships
can be judged and enhanced
 Equity theory is a theory of
social exchange that focuses on
the “give and take” of various
relationships

19. 19
Equity and Social Comparisons
 Equity theory holds that people make
judgments about relational fairness by
forming a ratio of their perceived
investments and perceived rewards
 It does not require that outcomes or
inputs be equal for equity to exist

20. 20
Distributive, Procedural, and
Interactive Justice
 Equity theory provides a
simple framework for
understanding how people
decide whether they are being
treated fairly in their
relationships
 It can prove difficult to achieve
widespread perceptions of
justice in organizations for
several reasons:
– Based on individual perception
– Difficult to predict who will be
chosen as the reference person
– People are sensitive to the
procedures through which
allocation decisions are made
and the manner in which these
decisions are communicated
 Three kinds of justice perceptions
can be distinguished:
– Distributional justice: refers
to the judgments that people
make with respect to
input/outcome ratios
experienced relative to the
experiences of others
– Procedural justice:
procedures used to make
decisions are consistent,
unbiased, accurate,
correctable, representative,
and ethical
– Interactional justice: focuses
on the interpersonal nature of
the implementation of the
outcomes

21. 21
Responses to Inequity
 Perceptions of inequity create
unpleasant emotions
 The tension associated with
inequity may motivate the
person to take any of several
actions in response:
– Alter personal inputs
– Alter personal outcomes
– Cognitive distortion
– Change the behavior of the
reference person
– Leaving an inequitable situation

22. 22
Managing Inequitable Situations
 There will inevitably be situations in
which mangers are faced with
employees who feel they have been
treated unfairly
 In these circumstances, mangers
can:
– Try to change the actual source
of the inequity
– Change the aggrieved person’s
perceptions of the situation
– Provide excuses and apologies