Neoliberal ideology in work and organizational psychology

This paper explores the role of neoliberal ideology in workplace practices and in work and organizational psychology (WOP) research. It analyses how neoliberal ideology manifests in these two domains by using a prominent framework from the field of political theory to understand ideology through three different logics: political, social and fantasmatic logics. We explore the main neoliberal assumptions underlying existing practices in the workplace as well as in WOP research, how individuals are gripped by such practices, and how the status quo is maintained. The paper analyses how individuals in the contemporary workplace are henceforth influenced by neoliberalism, and how this is reflected in the practices and dominant paradigms within WOP. In particular, we focus on three ways neoliberalism affects workplaces and individual experiences of the workplace: through instrumentality, individualism and competition. The paper finishes with practical recommendations for researchers and practitioners alike on how to devote more attention to the, often implicit, role of neoliberal ideology in their work and research. The discussion elaborates on how alternative paradigms in the workplace can be developed which address the downsides of neoliberalism.     

Ideology in work and organizational psychology: the responsibility of the researcher

This is a rejoinder to the commentaries on our paper on neoliberalism in work and organizational psychology. In this rejoinder, we provide a summarized response to the commentaries, thereby highlighting three main points: (1) when, where and how does neoliberalism manifest in society and our work as Work and Organizational Psychologists, (2) what is our duty as work and organizational psychologists towards society and our own work, and (3) what do we recommend on the basis of the exchange with the commentators on our paper?     

When prevention promotes creativity: the role of mood, regulatory focus, and regulatory closure

Promotion-focused states generally boost creativity because they associate with enhanced activation and cognitive flexibility. With regard to prevention-focused states, research evidence is less consistent, with some findings suggesting prevention-focused states promote creativity and other findings pointing to no or even negative effects. We proposed and tested the hypothesis that whether prevention-focused states boost creativity depends on regulatory closure (whether a goal is fulfilled or not). We predicted that prevention-focused states that activate the individual (unfulfilled prevention goals, fear) would lead to similar levels of creativity as promotion-focused states but that prevention-focused states that deactivate (closed prevention goals, relief) would lead to lower levels of creativity. Moreover, we predicted that this effect would be mediated by feelings of activation. Predictions were tested in 3 studies on creative insights and 1 on original ideation. Results supported predictions. Implications for self-regulation, motivation, mood, and creativity are discussed.     

Every Breath You Take,Every Move You Make

Slow Reckoning: The Ecology of a Divided Planet by Tom Athanasiou, published by Seeker &; Warburg, London, 1997, 385 pp., £12.99 (published in the United States as Divided Planet: The Ecology of Rich and Poor, by Little, Brown &; Company, New York, 1996, $25).     

Dynamics of psychological contracts with work engagement and turnover intention: The influence of organizational tenure

This study investigated the interrelations of the psychological contract with work engagement and turnover intention, which has hitherto been a largely overlooked topic in psychological contract research. Although previous research has mainly focused on how psychological contracts influence job attitudes and behaviours, it is proposed here that attitudes and behaviours also affect the psychological contract that the employee has with the organization. Moreover, it is proposed that because reciprocity norms are more important among shortly tenured employees, mutual relationships between psychological contracts and work engagement and turnover intention were stronger for employees with lower organizational tenure. Longitudinal data were collected among 240 employees and proposed models were evaluated with structural equation modelling. The results show that indeed psychological contract fulfilment was longitudinally related to higher work engagement and lower turnover intentions, but only for employees with low tenure. Moreover, stability in work engagement, turnover intention, and psychological contract over time was higher for those with high tenure, whereas the relations between turnover intention and the psychological contract were stronger for those with low organizational tenure. These findings demonstrate that psychological contracts are reciprocally interrelated with work outcomes, and that such relations are stronger for those with low tenure.     

Strategic and automatic components in the processing of linguistic spatial relations

The objective of the present study was to determine the extent to which strategies influence the representational format of a linguistic spatial relation. The propositional model assumes that a sentence describing a spatial relation is always represented as a set of propositions, whereas the strategic model claims that a spatial sentence can be represented either as a set of propositions or as a mental image, depending on the strategy (verbal or visual-spatial) an individual follows. Participants read a sentence (spatial or non-spatial) followed by a picture or sentence, which did or did not exemplify the information of the first sentence. In order to examine the involvement of strategic and automatic components the probability (20% or 80%) of the nature (sentence or picture) of the second stimulus was varied. Participants had slower verification RTs for unexpected stimuli than for expected stimuli, but this cost was significantly larger for an unexpected picture than an unexpected sentence. Furthermore, this asymmetric cost for the unexpected visual-spatial stimulus only occurred with spatial sentences and not with non-spatial sentences. Surprisingly, these data do not support a strictly propositional or a strategic model. Instead, we propose a third option: a dual representational model, in which people automatically represent the spatial sentence propositionally. In addition, depending on the context, a pictorial strategy is employed, which results in a supplementary visual-spatial representation.     

Preferences for changing power positions and power distances: a social value orientations approach

Participants were asked to put themselves in the position of one of three persons who differed in the amount of power they had in a small work unit. Subsequently, they could allocate points on a power scale to themselves and the two others, and thus, change the power positions and the power distances between the positions. The least powerful individuals had the strongest tendency to increase their power. They wanted to reduce the power distance to the person in the higher position more than the power distance to the person in the middle position. The most powerful wanted to increase the power distance to the person in the middle position but not the power distance to the least powerful. Most results were consistent with social comparison theory and contrary to power distance theory. Because the dependent measures were derived from the social value orientations model, the scope of this model has been expanded. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.