Does Cultivating a Giving Culture Make People More Willing to Share Counter-Normative Ideas?

AuthorAdvani, Mehak

Publicized in October 2001, the Enron Scandal drew the world's attention to the company's rampant fraud. Sherron Watkins, then vice-president of of the Houston-based energy trading and utility company, was publicly praised and recognized for taking the courageous step of reporting Enron's executives who employed unethical accounting practices that inflated the revenues of the seventh-largest corporation in the United States. The act of openly voicing her counter-normative view on Enron's then work ethics and expose the fraud resulted in her termination and tarnished her reputation. Such incidents, wherein individuals chose to share creative and counter-normative opinions that went against the organizational norm and attract ill-repute and criticism, are not limited to Watkins.

Other examples can be seen. Sergeant Joseph M. Darby exposed the Abu Garib torture and prisoner abuse in 2006. In 2009, a former sales representative for Pfizer, a large pharmaceutical manufacturer, blew the whistle on the company's widespread illegal marketing of its prescription painkiller Brexta (1) Famously in 2013, Edward Snowden, leaked vast amounts of classified information on government spying, national security and individual privacy while working for the National Security Agency. (2) As these cases illustrate, an employee observing wrongdoing within an organization faces an ethical decision of whether or not to blow the whistle and call out the immoral consensual practice. After the occurrence of a triggering event, an employee could voice out the wrongdoing by "blowing the whistle" or remaining silent out of loyalty or neglect. If the employee chooses to go against the normative consensus held, members of the organization react to and frequently retaliate against the employee. (3) For this paper, considering the employee's actions are altruistic instead of revengeful, if whistleblowing puts them in this type of predicament, why then does anyone choose to be a whistleblower?

The umbrella term of constructive deviance or "going against the norm entails" several different and specific aspects such as creative performance, going against authorities, noncompliance, whistleblowing, counter-normative ideas and prosocial rule breaking. It is defined as "intentional behaviors that depart from the norms of a referent group in honorable ways." (4) Unlike workplace deviance, which focuses on dysfunctional behavior (antisocial behavior, workplace aggression, stealing, incivility, etc.), constructive deviants are employees who break rules and norms with the intent to benefit the organization, its stakeholders, or society-at-large. For example, an employee may intentionally depart from organizational policies or procedures to solve a problem. Similarly, a manager will violate company's procedures in order to solve a problem. (5)

When organizational members break free from constraints of norms to conduct honorable behaviors, they most often face repercussions in terms of retaliation from the employer (e.g., poor performance ratings, no provision of incentives and bonuses), and resentment from coworkers. What factors, then, in the organizational environment motivate a worker to go against an implicitly inferred consensual practice? In particular, this paper will investigate under what circumstances an individual chooses or does not choose to express his or her counter-normative ideas. Mainly, under what conditions do people decide to share their creative ideas that help their organization become more productive when such thoughts go against the normative practice of their organization. To answer this question, this paper will begin by examining existing literature, then describing the hypothesis and methodology of the present study. This will be followed by data analysis, discussion of the results and limitations.

Stimulators of organizational success

An individual's creative behaviors are the core of any high-performance organization, thereby giving a competitive advantage to the organization. The results from empirical research carried out at a major Dutch financial services firm (6) suggests that employees' innovative work behavior is positively associated with workplace performance. (7) By sharing diverse thoughts, employees contribute to widening the pool of creative ideas, which encourages innovation, and thereby reducing costs and optimizing processes. Without sharing out-of-the-box, creative and counter-normative ideas, an organization's growth will waver and eventually cease. Conforming to opinions of others or authorities hinders effective decision-making. With the constant change in the field of science, technology, economics, and mathematics, employees need to update their thought processes, collaboratively weigh the pros and cons of a decision and finally adapt the company's policy to the changing environment.

As shown above, there are many examples of whistleblowers as they have been notably recognized for going against the established norm. (8) Even though their opinions were considered unpleasant by in-group members and ultimately led to the downfall of the organization, without them, the organizations could have incurred even greater losses. Had there been other in-group members who shared their dissatisfaction or righteous outrage without the fear of being rejected, unethical practices are assumed not to have had occurred. If, from the very start, contradictory ideas are shared, then an organization can effectively, efficiently and ethically change current processes, introduce new techniques, and make productive decisions for the benefit of the organization and immediate society as a whole.

What makes people more likely to share ideas that are not consistent with the majority's beliefs? Does an unethical event have to occur for one to display such constructive deviant behaviors? In other words, people possess various opinions about many issues in their minds. One could argue that such opinions/knowledge could be coded into documents or in a knowledge management system; however, much of such opinions and knowledge is implicit and cannot be codified. (9) Nevertheless, the implicit opinions/knowledge can be accessed through the active participation of people. Sharing of such implicit opinions/knowledge cannot be forced but can be encouraged and facilitated, no matter what the event. In other words, it is not the unethical nature of a situation, but any motivational factors that are crucial for helping people share implicit opinions/knowledge. (10)

Motivational Factors Associated with "Going Against the Norm"

Individuals "going against the norm" can play a rudimental role in promoting organizational change and serve as future change agents. (11) They are also known to have a higher risk-taking propensity, (12) and taking risks is in fact a requirement for creativity. Philp Merrifield and fellow authors' explanatory study was a part of early scientific investigation of risk-taking in the context of creativity. (13) They established a significant correlation between participants' associational fluency, a measure of creativity, and their score on adventure, a measure of risk-taking. Sternberg further illustrates that an important factor for personal success stems from sensible risk-taking which paves the path to creative intelligence, the ability to generate new and interesting ideas, (14) He emphasized that the risk of being "different,"--going against the norm--is important in creativity. The results from a quasi-experimental research consisting of sixty-four participants from United Kingdom demonstrated a strong link between social risk-taking, the willingness to challenge norms, and creativity. Another similar study of a much larger and diverse population, 417 participants in the United States, corroborated the earlier results. (15) Individuals present creative ideas and products to social groups for evaluation, appreciation or criticism. This activity involves uncertainty and high social risk because it entails the possibility of the creative idea or product being rejected by some, or all individuals of the same social group. Thus, creative acts require individuals who are willing to take risks.

Friedman specifically explains how a company's marketing department can attract consumers, and help in the success of an organization, by challenging cultural norms. (16) In November 2016, Patagonia vowed to donate 100 percent share of its Black Friday sale to grassroots environmental groups that protect indispensable natural resources such as air, soil, and water. By countering traditional norms and adopting a more human approach, the company earned ten million dollars in sales, instead of their expected earning amount of two million dollars. Their value-driven campaign turned out to be a huge success. Along with many loyal customers, the initiative attracted thousands who had never purchased anything from Patagonia before, who then continued purchasing the brand's products. (17) Rather than hearing marketing speak, "best deals," "once in a lifetime" savings or "buy this," the company's refreshing decision to do something different increased its brand's credibility.

In 2017, Ariel, one of Procter & Gamble's India-based detergent brands launched a new advertisement campaign, "Share the Load." In India, patriarchal norms have marked women as inferior to men. While men are expected to earn, women are expected to run the house. This powerful advertisement questioned, "Why is laundry only a mother's job?," and not only sparked the conversation about men and women's roles at home, but also drove a 60 percent increase in sales and 132 percent increase in brand awareness for Ariel. (18) Additionally, other notable companies who tapped into their employees' creative mindset include Dollar Shave Club who highlighted cost-effectiveness, ease and convenience while buying one dollar razors; Airbnb, wherein homeowners can get...

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