Psychological Contracts: How Do Employees Understand Their Relationship With an Organization?
“Psychological contracts” between employers and employees refer to expectations about mutual obligations, particularly with regards to the social exchange relationship. That said, there’s evidence that employee perspectives on these psychological contracts can vary depending on the entity they’re interacting with and evaluating.
That’s why Telfer’s A.J. Corner has received a School of Management Research Grant to study the different ways expatriate employees interpret and respond to psychological contracts.
There’s a need to understand how employees make sense of the psychological contracts they have with specific groups within and beyond their organization (e.g., managers, their work team and their cultural communities). Critics of the psychological contract literature observe that there’s currently a lack of clarity about contract content and insufficient definitions regarding the identity of the exchange partner.
In his research, Corner will start with a literature review, and then conduct qualitative interviews of expatriate employees, to offer a richer understanding of this important notion.
What impact will the research have?
This research could facilitate greater understanding of psychological contracts by addressing the criticisms of insufficient clarity and poor definitions. It could add to the expatriate management literature and allow for a more nuanced understanding of the expatriate experience.
It could also allow for organizations to improve their understanding of and response to their employees’ expectations and needs, to better manage and understand psychological contracts within Canadian organizations.
By Phoenix Hudson
Entrepreneurship as a Way to Address Social Exclusion and Promote Social Change
We live in a world where many individuals and groups still face stigmatization because of who they are, what they look like, what they do, or where they come from. At the same time, society is desperately looking for ways to hear the voices and learn from the experiences of underrepresented and marginalized groups in order to address social exclusion and promote social change, with the goal of destigmatization. What if one of the ways to eradicate stigmatization was to study entrepreneurship as a driver for social change?
Throughout history, many underrepresented and marginalized entrepreneurs have used entrepreneurship to protect themselves from stigmatization and sanctions without necessarily seeking social change. However, entrepreneurs can also use stigma to generate social change. For example, some entrepreneurs work in death midwifery, accompanying dying people and their loved ones in the transition between life and death, and hope to change the stigma and negative emotions associated with the social experience of dying. Understanding the experiences and practices of these “stigma-entrepreneurs”, who interact with stigma to create social change, could pave the way toward destigmatization.
How embracing stigma in entrepreneurship can lead to social change
Thanks to a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight Grant, Professor Madeline Toubiana and her team will explore how “stigma-entrepreneurs” are using stigma for social change in three very different and marginalized sectors: the sex industry, death care, and mental health. During this five-year project, the team will conduct interviews with neo-burlesque performers, death midwives, and innovators in the death and mental health industries. They will also observe their interactions with their clients and other more traditional service providers within these sectors, such as strippers, funeral directors, and mental health professionals. This innovative comparative study will provide a better understanding of the interactions and interdependencies across actors and sectors, and will generate new knowledge on the role of stigma and entrepreneurship in social change.
Project title: Stigma for social change? Exploring stigma-exploiting entrepreneurship as a pathway for social change
When asked about why she wanted to do this project “Stigma for social change? Exploring stigma-exploiting entrepreneurship as a pathway for social change”, Professor Toubiana said “Over the last ten years, I have studied what stalls and supports social change—with a specific focus on social change to reduce or eliminate stigma and its impacts. What I began to discover was that entrepreneurship can be a powerful engine for those who have been marginalized and stigmatized in society. I thus became interested in better understanding how entrepreneurship may be a vehicle to eradicate stigma.”
A first step towards destigmatization
Professor Toubiana’s research has the potential to transform our understanding of the pathways to social change, especially destigmatization. This new knowledge will not only shed light on the realities of different marginalized or stigmatized workers, but also will allow entrepreneurs, policymakers, and the public to learn more about how they can contribute to social change by embracing stigma rather than perpetuating it.
By Marie-Eve Girard
Madeline Toubiana holds the Desmarais Chair in Entrepreneurship; she is an expert on social change and innovation. Her research projects examine how emotions, entrepreneurship, innovation, and stigmatization influence social change. Her research highlights the entrepreneurship practices of underrepresented groups, thus promoting more inclusive practices in business management. Her research methods give voice to people traditionally left out of the workspace due to stigma or marginalization. Learn more about Professor Toubiana’s research.
When major projects fail, what role does governance play?
Major projects are intended to create transformational outcomes. However, despite the extensive time, money and effort invested in them, they sometimes fail.
To find out why, Moses Onyoin (PhD ’20) received a SMRG Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Support Grant in December 2021 to work with Professors Lavagnon Ika and Stephane Tywoniak on a project titled Major project governance, context, and performance: A case study of the Ottawa LRT and the Abuja-Kaduna Rail Line.
Although the importance of governance in major projects is clear, there’s very little research about how governance and context influence the performance of projects, in this case, transport projects.
In this postdoctoral work, Onyoin will analyze the governance of two major projects and the differences between major project governance in the Global North
In addition to following his research interests at Telfer and contributing to Telfer’s Major Projects Observatory, Onyoin will benefit the school’s Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Strategic Management area of strategic impact.
Onyoin’s academic research is at the intersection of organization theory and public policy, including the governance of inter-organizational collaborations, cross-sectorial and multi-actor partnerships, management of temporary organizations and project-based delivery of public goods and services in diverse sectors and development contexts.
Prior to coming to uOttawa, Onyoin completed a postdoc at Hull University Business School and was a lecturer at the Makerere Business School in Uganda.
His very recent work has been published by SAGE and Emerald in the Journals of Administration and Society and the International Journal of Public Sector Management, respectively.
Congratulations, Moses, on receiving the SMRG Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Support Grant! Your contribution to Telfer is greatly appreciated.
By Phoenix Hudson
PhD Spotlight – Yanhong Li
Yanhong Li joined the PhD in Management program at Telfer in 2017, after completing her MSc in Management at the school. She is supervised by Professor Laurent Lapierre and specializes in organizational behaviour and human resource management (OBHR). We interviewed her to learn more about her research interests in workplace courage and employee well-being.
Why did you choose to study organizational behaviour and human resource management?
I have always been fascinated by the interactions among people, structure and environment. OBHR explores exactly that within the workplace, which is central to many people’s lives. I am particularly interested in exploring what happens when employees resist conformity, disrupt role expectations and challenge authorities for the greater good.
What is your research about and what will it contribute to academic literature?
My dissertation studies organizational members’ reactions to displays of moral courage. Management researchers and practitioners suggest that workplace moral courage is something that is ubiquitously desired, admired and encouraged.
Paradoxically, ample research has uncovered the harsh backlash courageous employees (e.g., whistleblowers) face. Therefore, advice to individuals to engage in courageous behaviour is premature until we have a better understanding of when and why people respond favourably or unfavourably to their colleagues’ acts of courage. My dissertation seeks to contribute this important missing piece of the puzzle.
You will be presenting your work at the Academy of Management annual meeting this year. What are the highlights from your study?
In this study, social-dominance orientation (SDO) emerged as a crucial factor that influenced individuals’ reactions towards an actor who engaged in a morally courageous act. SDO captures one’s preference towards group-based hierarchy and dominance within social systems. Observers with high levels of SDO rewarded acts of moral courage less than those with low levels of SDO.
What impact could your research have on Canadian organizations?
My dissertation will provide insights for more fine-tuned advice for courageous employees on when their acts of courage might receive positive or negative reactions from observers.
In addition to SDO, my dissertation also looks at the impact of actor gender on observer reactions. The social relational processes of gender beliefs (e.g., the gender stereotypes that describe how men and women ought to behave) are likely to be persistent sources of implicit discrimination in organizations and impact the career outcomes of women. By contributing to the understanding of such processes, I hope that my dissertation can serve as an important step towards reaching gender parity in organizations.
By Rania Nasrallah-Massaad
A win-win situation: Getting retailers to donate excess inventory
As the world struggles with a climate crisis that threatens our existence, governments are recognizing the urgency for action. A growing issue in Canada and other countries is the dumping of unsold inventory by corporate giants, including food, clothes and other products.
Professor Qiu Chen has received a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight Grant to study how tax incentives might encourage individual companies to take action to reduce waste. Her team will explore corporate donations of unsold inventory as a sustainable alternative to inventory dumping.
Project title: Sustainable Inventory Management: The Role of Taxes in Corporate Inventory Donations
A major hurdle for inventory donations is the donation costs. Chen’s project, titled “Sustainable Inventory Management: The Role of Taxes in Corporate Inventory Donations,” will explore whether the costs associated with donations can be offset by tax incentives.
A sustainable, socially-responsible solution
We asked Chen why she’s interested in this topic. “I deeply believe in a constructive way to solve the dumping problem … a feasible way to reduce environment pollution and poverty, and thus reduce the associated costs (for governments) to clean landfills and provide social welfare.”
Growing inventory dumping underscores the need to deal with overproduction in the supply chain, as well as irresponsible waste management. According to a World Bank report, “Solid waste management is a universal issue … And with over 90% of waste openly dumped or burned in low-income countries, it is the poor and most vulnerable who are disproportionately affected.”
Until recently, corporations have overlooked this global problem of crowding landfills with brand-new items or perfectly usable food products while many nations live in poverty. Amazon’s project donation program and Walmart’s waste reduction plans are examples of corporate attempts to change this.
Convincing companies to donate
Chen and her team will sample 7,000 companies in over 40 representative countries around the world to see their reactions towards tax policies that offset inventory donation costs and how tax incentives can encourage more sustainable inventory management.
The study will shed light on how companies around the world react to tax incentives that encourage better waste management. A major concrete result would be for the Canadian government to improve its tax policy to encourage companies in this country to donate their unsold inventories instead of dumping them. This sustainable solution would be a double win — it would reduce pollution and poverty simultaneously. Companies could show more corporate social responsibility while benefiting from tax savings.
By Rania Nasrallah-Massaad
Professor Chen was previously an assistant professor at Carleton's University Sprott School of Business, where she taught financial accounting and managerial accounting. Her research has examined market reactions to accounting disclosures, economic implications of adopting IFRS (the International Financial Reporting Standards), the role of accounting information in decision making, small business debt financing, auditing, and accounting history. Read more about her work.
