Introduction
Organizational effectiveness is a significant element pursued by various corporate bodies in an attempt to ensure smooth operational procedures and workforce utility. Unity is an important aspect of organizational effectiveness and individual performance, as a single ingredient for success cannot guarantee positive yields. This paper addresses the significant role played by psychology in organizational effectiveness. Psychology has a number of components which act as subsequent factors that when combined affect the overall delivery of organizational effectiveness. These include factors like workforce personal selection and recruitment, training, performance management and the enhancement and maintenance of motivation and culture within an organization. Leadership and the individual performance competence are similarly significant features that when positively exploited lead to the achievement of a fully operational organization structure.
Organizations are structured and orderly systems that are constructed to serve a particular set of objectives. Through organizations, performance is controlled, and goals are pursued. The role of individual members within an organization varies but often for organizations to be effective, members have to gear up to attain and define shared organizational goals. Some of these goals include primary goals like profit values and market shares and secondary goals on the internal organizational criteria. Secondary goals help to achieve primary goals and include job satisfaction levels, development of ‘right’ organizational structures and internal communications among others (Robertson, Callinan, & Bartram, 2002). Often, organizations are more than just a collection of people who are in pursuit of a common objective. They are social arrangements whose effectiveness depends on the quality and nature of the relationships between people. Psychology, organizational structures, selection of procedures and training are all factors that influence the quality of the social environment of work and hence organizational effectiveness (Hodgkinson & Ford, 2012).
Organizational effectiveness stems from the actions of individuals and consequently, the psychological interactions that aid in its achievement. It is evident from the introduction that people and organizations are linked through a broad framework of boundaries and structures.
Management takes a broader perspective on the meaning of effectiveness. Psychologists are concerned with the different potential contributions of individuals to the organization through processes, products, and performance. Views on performance criteria for effectiveness are diverse. There is the basic task, proficiency or competency, impact of organizational competitiveness on time and speed, performance delivery against cost-effective performance metrics and efficiency and the creation of the external and internal customer perceptions on added value (Hodgkinson & Ford, 2012). Some of the other criteria include longer-term costs or strategic risks that are associated with inappropriate organizational structures or errors in decision-making as well as collateral damage from current actions from the anticipation of future constraints that might be created. All these strengthen the link between organizational effectiveness and individuals.
In the recent years, psychologists have conducted numerous researches on issues that concern organizational effectiveness. Organizational effectiveness is highlighted by three facets, which include mental health, productivity, and innovation at both the individual and group analysis levels. Human resource management is, therefore, linked to organizational performance. Policy makers, managers, and researchers have found it difficult to identify factors determining the economic performances of companies necessary for competition in world markets (Hatch, 1993). Economic performance, however, concerns constraints and contributions
Well-being of Teams, Individuals, and Organizations
The productivity of an organization is determined by how well it uses its employees to achieve its goals. When the physical environments in an organization are noxious such that they cause injury and illness, employees will be forced to withdraw from work and absenteeism and turnover will increase. The organization of work and the distribution of workload should prevent high levels of strain that may lead to mental health problems with similar detrimental consequences (Hatch, 1993).
Individual Well-being
There are three research areas that link individual well-being to organizational effectiveness. These are the creation of effective structures of organizations through the organization of citizenship behaviors, the psychological contract and the perceptions on person-organization values fit. Organizations should develop organization structures that create the emotional, mental, and attitudinal states preceding the effective performances of employees (De Witte & Van Muijen, 1999). Once such states are established in the positive directions, employees begin to exhibit salient organizational behaviors. These are the behaviors that generate effective performance. People are often attracted to specific cultures of organizations that eventually stabilize individual behaviors. Many organizations are, however, currently using changes in the business processes and work system designs to modify the work responsibilities and orientation of employees. This consequently modifies the extent to which the mental, attitudinal and emotional states are considered discretionary or as an inherent part of the organizational life and job. The most significant aspects of the states are the effective psychological contract, trust, perceived levels of organizational support, justice and fairness, job satisfaction, work motivation and job involvement. (De Witte & Van Muijen 1999)
The Psychological contract
According to Robertson, Callinan, & Bartram, trust is a complex from of multidimensional psychological state that includes affective, cognitive, and motivational components (2002). People think and feel trust. In recent works, the psychological contract has featured on organizational effectiveness. It generally represents an open ended and implicit on what is received and given capturing expectations of reciprocal behaviors covering a wide range of interpersonal behaviors and societal norms (Robertson et al., 2002). It is based on the changing perceptions of the employer to employee power balance that is emotive and argued by some academics as only known when the contract is breached. Initially, the attention to the psychological contract has been associated with the changes in the employment contract that are outlined in the ‘new and old deal’. Little consensus has been achieved on the major components of the new psychological contract
The shift has, however, been seen as a change from a paternalistic to a partnership kind of relationship. There is also the move from the relational aspects of the relationship to more transactional divisions. The loyalty of managers to their employers has declined, and commitment to professions and types of work are appearing to be stronger than the commitment to organization (Robertson et al., 2002). The psychological contract has been viewed as a form of umbrella construct that captures a range of variables of commitment, trust and the exchange of obligations and expectations. Numerous researchers have operationalized on the several psychological constructs like expectations, perceptions, beliefs, obligations, and promises. These have then been applied to the processes of range outcomes like job satisfaction, levels of commitment, socialization, organizational climate, and employer-employee fit. Research has included different psychological facets each with relationships with others.
The psychological contract has, however, captured complex changes in terms of high uncertainty in work. It has been able to act as a wide frame of analysis for organizations that is similar to competencies or culture. It has been able to use languages such as frames of references, mindsets, implicit deals, schema, disengagement, and breach of trust capturing concerns of the new employment relationships. The employees have been attributed and perceived to input the various attributes of the new deal like work values, motivational needs, competencies and personal dispositions. Breach processes and contract formation are all signals sent by the HRM environment on mutual exchanges, socialization, obligations, and promises that lie at the heart of most researches (Robertson et al., 2002).
An attention has similarly been turned to outputs like job satisfaction, commitment, organization citizenship, and trust. Most of the researches carried out assume a generic response to perceived breaches of contract in terms of impact of organizational citizenship behavior and commitment. Researches that have undergone significant amounts of rationalization like financial services suggest responses that are individually diverse. Individual differences are important predictors of the adaptive work behavior in the new employment contracts. Some individuals chose to pursue a variety of high intensity patterns as others seek the opposite (Glick, 1985).
Attempts have been made to tease the role of elements of social exchange through the concentration of the agreements between two different parties. Although psychosocial contract is highly situation bound, it has been used to capture the recent changes of the employment contract. Research has suggested that additional value over the constructs like perceived organizational support can help in the understanding, description and prediction of the consequences of changes in employment (Glick, 1985).
The sense of mutuality that is implicit in the psychosocial contract has proved to be a useful vehicle for the capturing the imbalances of exchange in the new contract for employment. Because of its evidence of the individual’s mental models of the world, it is felt to act as a drive for careers, commitment behavior, and rewards. Positive behaviors of the new employer contract have been linked to outcomes like, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, employee performance, and organizational citizenship behavior. The social exchange theory argues that different employees react similarly to contract fulfillment and violations. Employees when fulfilled are assumed to reduce their indebtedness through directing most of their effort towards the source of their benefits. A breach of contract is thereby evidenced through three primary reactions. These include loss of loyalty whereby individuals withdraw emotionally and exhibit lower organizational citizenship behavior and less loyalty (Glick, 1985). Voice, where individuals attempt to salvage the employment contract and correct the problem is similarly a primary reaction. There is also exiting behavior whereby angered individuals by violation seek employment elsewhere.
Contextual Performance and Individual Well-being
The role of the psychological contract, organizational commitments and motivation has consistently been featured in the causal processes assumed or investigated by different studies. Levels of organizational citizenship behaviors also referred to as contextual performances have emerged as an important link between organizational effectiveness and individual well-being. Contextual performance has played an important role in linking social and organizational demands in the broader sense to individual task performance (Den., Van Muijen., & Koopman, 1996). Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) have indeed become an important possible explanation to the performance-satisfaction relationship. The recipients of the OCBs may be organizational or interpersonal. Some OCBs are part of jobs, are accepted as part of role requirements while others are personal choices, and are therefore seen as reciprocal social exchange. It is the OCB in relation to an organization that is important to the effectiveness.
Most of these perceptions are shared across different jobs in an organization and are rarely specific to particular jobs. They are products of organizational cultures responsible for shaping the individual working environment. The link between job satisfaction and OCB has been because of the underpinning notion of justice and fairness given that job satisfaction has been a judgment on unmet and met expectations. Justice is therefore seen as a direct cause of OCBs and has a level of perceived organizational commitment and support. The perceptions of justice however also seem to be mediated by and preceded by levels of trustworthiness. Psychologists are as a result currently attempting to unravel the complex causation issues within these constructs. Perceived organizational support, which is a general perception by employees on the extent to which the organization values their individual contributions and well-being as an important measure in the company assessments, is seen as important in the fulfillment of obligations (Den., Van Muijen., & Koopman, 1996). There are some critical questions therefore asked in the area. Does organizational support meditate on the impact of fulfillment of promises and obligations and significant psychological implications? Does psychological contract account for additional cases of variance in the explanation of additional cases of levels of OCBs and commitment?
Person- Organization Fit
The P-O fit is another significant measure used in the evaluation of the link between the organizational effectiveness and individual well-being. Literatures on the P-O fit provide a bridge through which emotional, mental and attitudinal states are linked with the individual perceptions of climate for an effective culture (Aamodt, 2013). The P-O fit when evaluated in terms of its socialization processes and values is seen as a precursor for constructs like justice, trust, perceived organizational support, commitment, contract formation and OCBs.
It responsible for setting the frame for all forms of emotional, mental and attitudinal states since they are important dispositional values for personality traits that predispose people to trust. Attitudes influence trustworthiness, trustworthiness and disposition influence trust and trust is evidenced through behavioral intentions. Values are important for beliefs, feelings, cognitions, and behavioral intentions. The P-O fit is generally congruence between the patterns of individual values within an organization and the organizational values. Different norms of effectiveness have been linked to the perceptions of the P-O fit (Aamodt, 2013). An example is the congruence between corporate and individual values in correlation with significant job outcomes like commitment, individual productivity, and job satisfaction. These contribute to a unique variance between job involvement, job satisfaction, turnover intention, organizational commitment, and optimism on the future of organizations.
Significance of trust
Trust develops in teams with a strong sense of reciprocal concern within members and belonging on the others implies a sense of mutual affective concern. The development of this shared affective concern leads to satisfaction feelings among the team members especially to trust. Trust often depends on the mutual recognition of reciprocal closeness and trust. It is this mutual affective concern that translates into the behavior within the team and expressions of altruism (George & Bettenhauser, 1990). The ‘bystanders effect’ in social psychology has been given great emphasis since it represents bystanders who fail to take action to help individuals in distress because of a sense of anxiety and diffusion of responsibility on the personal consequences of their involvement. Members of large cohesive groups are usually more likely to help. Large numbers of bystanders however lead to a low likelihood of intervention. When groups exert minimal effort in task accomplishment in the presence of other members of the groups an occurrence referred to as social loafing, is often not evident in cohesive groups with members who have unique contributions (George & Bettenhauser, 1990).
In a recent medical research by Carter & West, 1999, a comparison between individuals who worked in teams and those in pseudo –teams and those not working in teams was analyzed and evaluated. Pseudo team members reported working in a team with no clear team objectives. Members were reported to not working together and had different separate roles that were not recognized within the team. The 2250 sample of workers in the General Health Questionnaire completed with some scores indicated as cases for individuals who would benefit from professional help because of high levels of stress. From the results, 35% of those who did not work in teams were cases, 30% of those in pseudo teams were cases while 21% of those in a real team were cases. It is therefore evident that working in teams is a significant buffer against the stresses of the health service work. From further analyses, it is evident that differences between the teams are closely attributed to role clarity within the team members and a high level of social support (Carter & West, 1999). Working in teams also ameliorates on the negative effects of organizational difficulties. Team working is also responsible in predicting the overall mental health of workers in an organization.
Organizational Well-being
Evidence from research on social participation has postulated that participation in pathological terms is worse than being in no team at all. The organizational culture is responsible for either highly effective outcomes or detrimental pathological results. Effective performances follow from the culture that organizations provide (Cooke & Lafferty, 1989). Shared patterns of perceptions and interpretation show employees how to think and act. Emotional senses of commitments and involvement to moral codes and organizational values direct organizations on how to feel and what to value. Control systems on the other hand are responsible for prohibiting and prescribing certain behaviors. When problems and responses are learned it becomes evident that they become instrumental in the actions of an organization. For the identification and inclusion of members in problem solving within groups, it is important for boundaries to be defined and maintained (Cooke & Lafferty, 1989).
The organizational culture is therefore a significant tool and initiator of appropriate emotional, mental, and attitudinal states of mind. Organizational culture and effectiveness are inextricably linked. The organizational culture has however dominated the management problems like change, adaptability, and competitive success in large organizations. Culture creates appropriate states of mind that precede effective employee performances. It generally presents a global concept that helps in understanding the complex organizational problems (Hatch, 1993). These explain the requests to assess and analyze organizational structure and align it with strategic options for organizational effectiveness.
There is a need to develop viable assessments of organizational climate to help shape organizations and create new organizational forms, nurtured and shaped by new concepts of the business processes, psychological contract, and employment relationships. Organizations should become more flexible and erode the traditional boundaries of function, hierarchy, and geography. Perhaps the most significant boundaries that should be considered are the perceptions and minds of the workforce and managers. This shift from the economic organizational forms to network based organizational forms also called cellular, horizontal or individualized will aid in the coordination mechanism for increased organizational effectiveness. From the paper, the role of psychology in organizational effectiveness cannot be underestimated. It is the psychology of the individual workers within an organization that affects their emotional, attitudinal, and mental well-being to ensure the consequent organizational well-being and finally effectiveness.
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