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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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