Maintaining Confidentiality and Objectivity

Application: International Corporate Structures
Corporate structures support the evolving global strategies and needs of international organizations. Various factors influence the type of corporate structure an organization chooses, including product-market characteristics, company strategy, and the degree of internationalization.
In this Application, you will consider different types of international organizations, the makeup of their corporate structures, and what may explain their choice of corporate structure.
To prepare for this assignment:
- Review Chapter 8 in Managing Internationally, focusing on the factors (external forces and company factors) influencing the structure of multinational corporations and the types of international corporate structures that exist (e.g., international, geographic, and product division structures, etc.)
- Visit the Web sites of Veolia Environnement and Proctor & Gamble, paying particular attention to the corporate structure of each of these organizations.
- Consider how the corporate structures of these organizations fit into the classification scheme of international corporate structures that you have read about.
- Then, think about what factors may have influenced the corporate structures of these organizations. For instance, a company may choose a product-division structure if it has a diverse product line and is competing with other international firms, whereas another company may choose to grant more autonomy to subsidiaries when competition is from local companies. (Fatehi, p. 409.)
- Consider what else you would need to know about these companies to determine why they have chosen these corporate structures (e.g., details about their products, competition, or company-specific factors such as corporate strategy).
The assignment (1–2 pages):
Classify the following organizations according to the classification scheme in Chapter 8 of Managing Internationally:
- Veolia Environnement
- Proctor & Gamble
Support your decisions. Then, write about the factors that may have influenced these organizations to choose these corporate structures, or explain what you would need to know to determine this.
Support your Application Assignment with specific references to all resources used in its preparation. You are asked to provide a reference list only for those resources not included in the Learning Resources for this course.
-14 20:13 8
Values and Value Conflicts in the Professions
Why is it that experts primarily teach techniques to young professionals, while ignoring the values that have sustained the quests of so many creative geniuses?
—Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi, & Damon
This chapter and the remainder of Part II deal with professional values, values conflicts, and role conflicts that are attributable to the complex nature of any profession and the settings in which it is performed. Some reflect strains within the field of psychology and the sciences in general; some characterize the interface between the values of psychology and those of business, which is, of course, the meeting ground on which I/O psychology is practiced. First, I discuss the professions in general.
It is quite obvious that the particular ethical issues and dilemmas that arise in the practice of medicine, law, psychology, anthropology, policing, accountancy, and so on are very different. The knowledge bases of the fields, as well as the nature of the services provided and their setting, the degree of autonomy enjoyed by the practitioners as sanctioned by society, and the norms and values characterizing each are all rather different. Consequently, the ethical guidelines adopted by members of these occupations are distinctly different. Accordingly, there are some scholars who believe that a consideration of professional ethics must be particular to each profession—or occupation aspiring to the status of a profession. Supporting that view is research indicating that the values of those in different professions, even at the time of their graduate training, are different (J.T.Edwards, Nalbandian, & Wedel, 1981) and that different professional groups within the same employing organization may experience values conflicts (Davidson, 1985; DeLeon, 1994). But there are some scholars who emphasize that there is a common underlying set of norms and values by which all professional practice may be linked. This view holds that professional ethics are built on a core of common or personal morality that transcends occupational distinctions. For example, Brien (1998) focused on trust as the essential ingredient in all professional relationships. And “While formal codes of conduct can sometimes be a useful guide, developing those traits of character that are particularly suited to the lawyer's role is at the core of what we ought to mean by professional ethics” (Wilkins, 1996, p. 250). Consistent with this cross-disciplinary view, Wilkins went on to describe the development of a single ethics course for both law students and medical students at Harvard that is being expanded to include students of business and government as well.
Although it is not necessary for us to take a stand on this issue, it does implicitly raise a point that is of some value to consider. If there is anything at all to be said for the conceptualization of a generic approach to professional ethics—or more likely, in my opinion, professional values—one should at least be able to specify more or less unambiguously what are the professions that rest on this common moral bedrock. Although there are some social theorists (e.g., Wilkins) who are of the opinion that it is impossible to generate a set of ahistorical criteria for designating some occupations as professions and not others, a great deal of work of that sort has been conducted by sociologists who study the occupational structure and professions. I assume that the reader will agree with me that psychology, including I/O psychology, is in fact a profession, so it is important to explore what that means—including what values inure to the field by virtue of that status.
WHAT IS A PROFESSION?
It is not coincidental that the origin of the word profession is theological. In the Middle Ages it denoted a “declaration, promise or vow made by one entering a religious order” (Kimball, 1992, p. 19). Gradually, it came to stand for the group of people who made the vow, that is, a particular order of monks, nuns, or other professed people. By the 15th and 16th centuries the term had expanded to include the learned professions—not only theology but also law, medicine, and education. By far the most esteemed among the four was theology; education sort of snuck in the back door by virtue of the medieval universities being a site of scholarship regarding the first three. That is pretty much how things stood until the colonization of the new world. In the 17th century and early 18th century in the colonies, ministers were most esteemed, and it is they who imparted special dignity to the notion of a profession as referring to a “particular calling” with an “ethic of selfless service” (Kimball, 1992, p. 302). By the late 18th century in America politics and the law became the preeminent professions. However, it was an idealized politics having to do with the noble enterprise of developing a legal and political system by which to order society (think of the greatly esteemed founding fathers: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Franklin, etc.).
From the late 19th century and into the early years of the 20th century law and politics declined in status (perhaps as a consequence of the civil war), education greatly increased in status (being a professor was a very highly esteemed occupation), and science entered the picture—the natural sciences, not social science. The university as the nidus of scientific scholarship and activity served to reinforce the status of education and to merge the identification of science and learning. Medicine also increased greatly in status, as an integral aspect of biological science. In fact, the continued supremacy of medicine resulted in its being held as a model of “the true professional ideal” in America during the 20th century (Kimball, 1992, p. 308). Throughout the 20th century scholars flirted with the idea of whether business had become a profession. Louis Brandeis (1914/1971) thought that it already had, and others such as R.H.Tawney (1920) and Talcott Parsons (1937) thought that it had not yet but ought to become so—to attenuate its acquisitiveness and self-interest with the altruistic service character of the professions. But whether an occupation is a profession is not simply a matter of its being anointed as such; if it were, attention would certainly shift to whoever had acquired the authority to perform the ritual. After considering the attributes that exemplify professions we will be in a better position to consider the extent to which business satisfies those criteria and the role that the professionalization of management plays concerning the putative social responsibilities of business.
The last half of the 20th century witnessed a rapid increase both in the professionalization of occupations, with more and more of them claiming that mantle, as well as an explosion in scholarship devoted to the topic. The study of the professions is now a full-fledged sub-specialization in sociology. It was during this time that the notion of a “true professional ideal” developed denoting “a dignified vocation practiced by ‘professionals' who professed selfless and contractual service, membership in a strong association, and functional expertise modeled on the natural sciences” (Kimball, 1992, p. 303). The fruits of that scholarship will help us understand better what is meant by a profession.
Attributes of Professions74
The historical evolution of what Kimball (1992, p. 303) referred to as “the true professional ideal” is more frequently characterized less grandiloquently by sociologists as “the professional model” (e.g., R.T.Hall, 1975, p. 72).75 The ideal is a distillation of characteristics by which occupations that are professions may presumably be distinguished from those that are not (Freidson, 1986; Haber, 1991). It is important to recognize, however, that it is indeed a model—that is, it is a prototypic representation that may not be fulfilled by every profession. And the attributes are not “allornone”: Professions will vary in the extent to which they meet each of the components. “There is no absolute difference between professional and other kinds of occupational behavior, but only relative differences with respect to certain attributes common to all occupational behavior” (Barber, 1965, p. 17). Some of the components are structural in nature, referring to the social organization of a profession and/or its position in society; some are functional, referring to the nature of professional activities; and some refer to the characteristics or attitudes of the members of a profession themselves. Almost all can be viewed from a values perspective, reflecting the profession's generalized preferences concerning goals and objectives as well as the means of achieving them.
Point 1: Professions Are Organized Around a Systematic Theoretical Body of Knowledge
The nature of the theories may be either pure, as with scientific inquiry, or pragmatic, as with the application of knowledge. Some professional occupations are primarily pure and research oriented, such as cosmology; some are largely practice oriented, such as dentistry or the clergy; and some are comprised of significant components of both, like medicine and I/O psychology. The relative balance doesn't matter with respect to the designation as a profession. “If some occupations become professions by developing an intellectual interest, others do it by becoming more practical” (Hughes, 1965, p. 6). Within those professions that have significant pure and applied components, some members may be involved in both sets of activities, but most adherents tend to be involved primarily in one or the other. For example, practitioners tend not to do research; only about 10% of the published scientific research in I/O psychology is authored by organizationally based practitioners (Sackett, callahan, DeMeuse, Ford, & Kozlowski, 1986).
Point 2: Society Confers Legitimate Authority to the Profession Over the Interpretation and Application of Knowledge in Its Domain in Providing Services to Clients
A major implication of a profession's being organized around a specialized body of knowledge is the presumption that clients are at best incompletely and inadequately informed about the best course of action in the profession's domain, and so they depend on the professional's judgment. Another important aspect of this attribute is that the profession is accepted as the arbiter of any disputes over theoretical or technical matters within its domain.
Thus, for example, the AERA, APA, and NCME (1991) Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing and SIOP's (1987) Principles for the Validation and Use of Personnel Selection Procedures are afforded great deference in legal deliberations concerning alleged discrimination involving employment testing. An important aspect of this attribute is that the professional implicitly asks to be trusted by those whom he or she serves (Hughes, 1965). In contrast to the marketplace in which the prevailing ethos might be caveat emptor, within the sphere of professional practice it is credat emptor.
Point 3: Society Also Confers Considerable Formal and Informal Sanction Power to the Profession
This is reflected in the substantial role that professions play in determining the educational and training requirements necessary to enter the profession, including providing input into the standards for licensing and accreditation. R.T.Hall (1975) also pointed out that, to the extent professional-client communications are privileged, it not only protects the right of the client but also asserts the authority of the professional. The extent to which some form of accreditation characterizes professions and fields aspiring to that status is indicated by the finding that more than 1,000 fields have professional certifications (McKillip & Owens, 2000).
Point 4: Professions Generally Have Some Form of Ethical Code as a Guide to Appropriate Action Regarding Clients, Colleagues, and the Public at Large
Concomitant with a code is a set of administrative regulations by which the code is putatively enforced—for example, through the agency of a professional association, such as the APA. However, there is considerable disagreement among scholars and social critics, practitioners of the professions, and public advocates concerning the extent to which professions may be relied on to sanction the behavior of their members. R.T. Hall (1975) suggested that the norm of professional self-regulation does not work all that well because of the absence of observability of much professional work, by which he meant observation by those who are capable of judging its appropriateness. In any event, the development of an ethical code is one of the clearest specific indications of an occupation or subfield of specialization aspiring to the status of profession.
Point 5: Professions Have Their Own Culture of Values, Norms, and Professional Opinion
These serve to present a relatively “uniform face” to the public regarding such matters as standards for training and admission to the profession, as well as structuring the nature of client-professional relationships. The culture is generally represented by a formal association. In fact, the presence of such a professional association may be taken as an indicator that an occupation has reached the status of a profession (Lounsbury, 2002). One interesting aspect of professional culture has to do with the relative degree of specialized knowledge and terminology that characterizes the field. Such specialization serves to mark the distinctiveness of a profession from the rest of society, thus enhancing its status, while accentuating its separation. Professionals sometimes exacerbate the social consequences of that separation by adopting an attitude of superiority. Elliott (1972) pointed out that professionals tend to justify their activities as not merely useful but “right.” The authority conferred on a profession combined with that sense of separation and superiority may set up a professional group as a potential object of public hostility— especially if its members are particularly well paid. Think, for example, of the anger frequently directed toward medical doctors and of the many hostile lawyer jokes.
Point 6: Professionals Have a Professional Attitude Toward Their Work
We ordinarily think of a professional as one who is intrinsically motivated by the inherent nature of the work, with a high degree of personal involvement in his or her activities and a sense of commitment and obligation to those served. A professional attitude also involves a sense of identification with one's colleagues through membership in professional organizations and personal interaction. This serves to solidify a degree of cohesion to the field, as reflected in a common culture, as already noted.
Point 7: The Service Provided by the Profession Is Deemed Important by Society
This attribute is implied by several of those preceding. It underlies the authority and power conferred on the profession by virtue of its unique capabilities. The essentially monopolistic control over a particular domain of knowledge and its application would not mean much if they were not considered to be important.
Point 8: Professionals Typically Undergo a Longer Period of Socialization Than Is Associated With Other Occupations
The specialized education and training that is required to master the knowledge domain and its applications means a longer period of time in professional or graduate school, as well as in some form of internship. Moreover, professional knowledge acquisition does not end with graduate education: It is a lifelong process. An often overlooked aspect of these educational experiences is the process of occupational socialization that occurs frequently. The common socialization experiences contribute to a substantial degree of commonality of attitude and outlook among professionals in the same field, perpetuating the profession's culture. Elliott (1972) emphasized that “through socialization, students acquire built-in regulatory mechanisms. These can be measured as the norms, values and attitudes they hold” (p. 89). These homogenizing forces can be overstated however: Of course, individuals' outlooks may differ in many ways. Moreover, the degree of subspecialization that marks many ostensibly uniform professions (the APA, e.g., has 55 divisions) as well as the differing role requirements and values associated with the “theoretical” versus the “practice” dimensions of a field assure a certain heterogeneity of outlook.76
Point 9: The Power and Responsibility of a Profession extend Beyond Its Direct Clients to Society at Large
This is a consequence of the public's relative ignorance regarding the technical expertise nearly monopolized by the profession (cf. Point 2), the profession's power to control its own standards and discipline its own members (Points 3 and 4), the attitude of professional responsibility assumed to be characteristic of its members (Point 6), and the importance of the service provided in the eyes of society (Point 7). This extension of power is reflected, for example, in the influence wielded by a profession over the shaping of legislation concerning the profession itself. Hughes (1965) described the attribute well:
Physicians consider it their prerogative to define the nature of disease and of health, and to determine how medical services ought to be distributed and paid for. Social workers are not content to develop a technique of case work; they concern themselves with social legislation. Every profession considers itself the proper body to set the terms in which some aspect of society, life or nature is to be thought of, and to define the general lines, or even the details, of public policy concerning it. The mandate to do so is granted more fully to some professions than to others; in time of crisis it may be questioned even with regard to the respected and powerful professions. (p. 3)
The recent role of accountants in the Enron, WorldCom, and Global Crossing scandals (and others) has precipitated a “time of crisis” for that profession, resulting in a questioning of their mandate to report and audit corporate finances. As a consequence, additional external regulation has been introduced by the government, in response to the public outcry, despite the 30-year trend of business deregulation (Uchitelle, 2002c).
Point 10: A Profession Is Typically a Lifelong Commitment for Its Members
In contrast to many occupations in which changing jobs is common, the length of training and preparation as well as the socialization and identification with the field that takes place usually makes a profession the terminal occupation for members. The fact that professionals are generally well paid probably also contributes to occupational longevity. R.T.Hall (1975) made the point that these factors tend to render the professional incapable of changing occupations because of relatively fixed skills and attitudes. A major partial exception to this observation—especially germane to I/O psychology—pertains to professionals who are employed in large organizations and who advance hierarchically by becoming administrators or managers and largely abandoning their professional functions. That suggests the next important topic.
PROFESSIONAL WORK SETTINGS
Professionals work in four primary settings: (a) as individual practitioners, (b) as members of autonomous professional organizations, (c) in heteronomous professional organizations, or (d) in professional departments in larger organizations (R.T.Hall, 1975). The individual practitioner, as exemplified by a one-person law practice, an independent psychotherapist, your neighborhood dentist, or an I/O psychology consultant, is the prototypic ideal type of professional. However, not much is known empirically about the nature of this work arrangement across the professions in comparison with the other three. That is probably because most professionals are employed in organizational settings (Freidson, 1986). For our purposes, probably the most striking fact about being an independent private practitioner is its potential isolation when faced with values conflicts and potential ethical dilemmas. On those occasions the wise solo practitioner will attempt to make full use of informal personal consultation with colleague-friends and other resources available through the appropriate professional associations. For example, the Ethics Committee of the APA welcomes proactive letters of inquiry seeking advice.
Autonomous professional organizations, such as an I/O psychology consulting firm, are settings in which professionals establish the organizations's structure, norms, policies, and so on—presumably in accord with the culture of the profession and the particular expectations of the members. Thus, the goals of the organization are essentially those of the professionals employed. It may be impossible to generalize much about these work settings, which may range from a pair of consulting I/O psychologists to a private medical clinic comprised of 10 doctors to a firm of 50 consulting engineers with almost as many draftspersons to a Wall Street law firm of several hundred attorneys, paralegals, and other support staff. Hypothetically, at least, in comparison with the single practitioner these arrangements permit professional collaboration and consultation, the advantage of performance standards being set by fellow professionals, and greater observability of potential ethical transgressions. However, R.T.Hall (1975) reported conflicting findings from studies of law firms and medical clinics regarding the effectiveness of the self-regulation systems. Another matter that is frequently a salient issue for the principals of such consulting firms is the pressure for revenue flow due to having established a considerable level of overhead. Although it is not an infrequent topic at social gatherings, I am not aware of any extensive or systematic published material in I/O psychology regarding the potential impact of these pressures on professional concerns, such as choice of clients or projects, methodologies employed, substance of findings, or integrity of evaluations reported to clients. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the pressure for billable hours frequently conflicts with professional ideals and is especially discomforting to young practitioner-consultants.
Heteronomous organizations, in which professional employees are subordinated to an overall administrative structure and granted little autonomy, represent a structure typified by teachers in secondary schools, social workers in welfare agencies, or librarians in libraries. It is a form of organizational work setting that is not (to my knowledge) represented in the field of I/O psychology.
In contrast, many I/O psychologists are employed in professional (human resources) departments in large private-sector organizations or governmental agencies, as are chemists in pharmaceutical companies, librarians in law firms, engineers in manufacturing companies, and economists in brokerage houses—to name just a few other examples. This is an arrangement that has considerable potential for conflict related to the disjunction between professional and organizational norms and values—even to the point of potentially precipitating organizationally deviant (i.e., maladaptive) behavior by the professional (Raelin, 1984, 1989, 1994).77 Consequently, it has been the object of study by organizational scholars and social theorists for at least 50 years (Parsons, 1954).
Professional-Organizational Conflict
The predominant view of the nature of the relation between professionals and the large business organizations in which they are employed has been one of inevitable conflict, as illustrated by W.Kornhauser's (1962) wellknown research documenting the adverse effects on scientists of working in an industrial setting. Typical of this line of thought, Etzioni (1969) and Hughes (1965) emphasized the contrast between a professional's need for autonomy and freedom to innovate or take risks without undue fear of failure and the hierarchical administrative authority structure of most organizations. A contrary, and what appears to be a minority, opinion is offered by Lipartito and Miranti (1998) to the effect, that rather than serving to corrupt professional values, corporations have actually enhanced the development and status of many occupations. I return to this view shortly.
W.Kornhauser (1962) found that there are four areas of values conflict that may be expected between industrial scientists and engineers and the large organizations that employ them, and I believe they are potentially relevant for I/O psychologists as well. First is the conflict between the scientists' adherence to professional and scientific objectives and standards and the organization's continuous demands for productivity and profitable developments. For example, the organization's standards for evaluating the effectiveness of a popular pilot project (e.g., initiation of a “flex-time” work schedule) might be very different from those of a conscientious I/O psychologist. W.Kornhauser outlined the quandary for the professional:
Opposition to professional expertise is illustrated by the client's impatience with the niceties of professional procedure. The consequence is pressure to evade that procedure in order to get immediate results or operational ease rather than technical perfection. Professional autonomy clashes with the client's desire to exercise control over actions that vitally affect his [sic] interests. When the client is also the employer, the conflict often is severe….
If professions seek to accommodate internal strivings and external pressures by lowering standards, they dilute their values. If, on the other hand, professions respond merely by conforming to their standards without finding ways of taking client and member interests into account, they run the risk of losing their effectiveness. (p. 2, italics added)
This potential strain between corporate and professional standards was brought to my attention by a former student of mine shortly after he began work for a very large multinational corporation. He was asked to continue the development of a competency model that had been initiated prior to his arrival on the job. Following some discussion with him of the situation, I was prompted to write the hypothetical discussion case presented in Fig. 8.1, which in fact describes the situation accurately. I offer it here without further comment.
The second area of potential conflict concerns the nature of control over the scientists' work. “Control over work performance is of course the basic prize over which occupation and administration contend in particular work settings” (Freidson, 1973, p. 33). In many organizations the work is arranged based on rational principles of hierarchical administration that may not be the most effective for facilitating scientific creativity. Supervision in particular may be a significant problem. The reliance on formal organizational authority, as opposed to technical expertise and professional autonomy, represents a major clash of normative expectations (Bledstein, 1976). In general, “professionals feel that only members of one's profession are capable of judging one's work” (J.T.Edwards et al., 1981, p. 126). For example, many I/O psychologists in corporations, who are engaged in sophisticated technical applications (e.g., test validation, the evaluation of training programs, theorybased work reorganization, and other organization development interventions) report to managers of human resources who are not psychologists. These administrators usually have no training in research methodology, and all too frequently have even had careers outside the sphere of human resources administration. Achieving an appropriate understanding and evaluation of the professional I/O psychologist's performance may be a daunting task under those circumstances. However, the opinion expressed by Edwards et al. may be only partially correct—more true with respect to process than outcome. A patient may not be able to judge the skillfulness of a surgeon's technique, but frequently he or she will have some postoperative indications whether the surgery has been successful. Similarly, neither the human resources nor the line managers of a manufacturing company may be able to judge the quality of the selection test validation study or team-building intervention implemented by an I/O psychologist, but they will probably be able to evaluate in the first instance whether there has been an improvement in the quality, productivity, or longevity of new hires and whether there has been a decline in intergroup conflict in the second instance (assuming those were the objectives).
You have been retained, at a hefty salary, by a large multinational corporation with headquarters in the U.S. to develop and implement a world-wide management development program, based on a model of corporate leadership that was developed before you were hired. You shortly learn that this “model” consists merely of: (a) rather abstract, undefined or poorly defined platitudes—e.g., “does what it takes,” “dynamic people-manager;” (b) socially-desirable stereo types—e.g. “smarts,” “trustworthy,” “PASSion to win,” “fires up people;” and (c) undefined outcome indicators, with no hint of how those outcomes are, or ought to be achieved—e.g., “does what it takes,” “world-class business manager.”
You learn that this model was developed entirely from interviews with approximately 20 very senior managers and essentially violates much of what you have learned about doing good applied organizational research—e.g., no behavioral representation of what is meant by these attributes was developed, nor how they may be achieved; no representative sampling was conducted nor any investigation of possible differences in requisite attributes as a function of hierarchical level or functional area in the organization; no exploration was undertaken of possible national or cultural differences in effective leadership style across countries, or other possible context effects; there has been no confirmation that these attributes in fact are related empirically to effective leadership; and there is an emphasis on dispositional attributes unlikely to be amenable to the ostensible goal of the program, which is management development.
Upon reflection it appears that the only positive contribution that might be made by this project is the relatively minor one of providing a common vocabulary for managers to use in describing or evaluating other managers irrespective of whether that vocabulary stands for anything useful. Yet, an enormous investment in resources is planned for this development program. You realize the fallaciousness of the enterprise, based as it is on unsophisticated and unprofessional HR research, and you feel that you ought to say something to your superiors—after-all, what did they hire you for if not for your expertise? But you're new to the job, the salary and perks are all you dreamed of, senior management seems committed to this program, and who are you to rock the boat? On the other hand, you have considerable misgivings about participating in the implementation of a very expensive program based on such shoddy personnel research. You have said to yourself, wouldn't the company save a lot of wasted money and effort and derive much positive benefit if you could get them to do it correctly? What do you do?
FIG. 8.1 Organizational versus professional standards.
This view of the large, nonprofessional employing organization as constraining the professional's expected autonomy, leading to interpersonal and organizational conflict, has been the dominant model guiding research in the area. The research has tended to confirm that professionals working in highly formal or bureaucratic organizations are indeed less likely to perceive themselves as autonomous and more likely to experience role conflict (e.g., Engel, 1970; Organ & Greene, 1981). However, research has also indicated that the organizational structure variables are not the only significant antecedents; the outcomes also depend on the nature of the professionals' psychological identifications. Those who, in fact, have a high bureaucratic (i.e., organizational) orientation, irrespective of whether they may also have a high professional orientation, are likely to be high in job satisfaction (Sorenson & Sorenson, 1974) and experience less role conflict and alienation than those who identify strongly with their profession (C.N. Greene, 1978).78 Greene also found that the two factors interact: The most dysfunctional reactions were experienced by those who identified with their profession (senior scientists and engineers) and were in more formalized organizational settings.
The third area of likely conflict identified by W.Kornhauser (1962) relates to differences in the incentive systems between the scientific community and the organization. Professional recognition for scientific accomplishment is achieved in the world or national community of one's disciplinary colleagues, whereas organizational recognition is achieved locally by advancement within it. “The organization expects its members to be local in orientation, with loyalty to the organization and its purposes, but the scientist is cosmopolitan in that his [sic] rewards and references are in the wider scientific community. For the cosmopolitan, advancement in the local organization may not be an attractive incentive” (R.T.Hall, 1975, p. 104). Confirming this aspect of the scientist versus practitioner split, I/O psychology practitioners tend to feel that the research published in our journals has little impact on what they do in their organizations, and they are not rewarded for publishing research and so don't do it much (Campion et al., 1986; Sackett, 1986; Sackett et al, 1986). The issue of knowledge transfer between academe and professional practice has been a perennial problem (Rynes, Bartunek, & Daft, 2001).
The fourth source of potential tension stems from the decision-making authority residing in the organizational hierarchy, including dominion over the scientists' activities. Organizational criteria (e.g., rapidity, marketability, and productivity) are the controlling factors, not scientific standards (e.g., statistical effect sizes and internal validity of a program's effects or their generalizability). In a very real sense, higher level managers determine the meaningfulness of the professional's work to the organization; the professional may have very little influence in that regard. It is true that in many instances the scientist can acquire such influence by advancement up the managerial hierarchy, but that may be at the cost of relinquishing the role of scientist and technical competence as the basis for authority. And not all professionals have the motivations to express power and influence and the needs for dominance and upward mobility that tend to distinguish those who aspire to management positions (Mael, Waldman, & Mulqueen, 2001). Moreover, the ultimate scope of managerial responsibility may be limited to the administration of the professional department The professional may lack sufficient knowledge and experience of the organization's core business to achieve significant policy-making responsibilities beyond that restricted domain.
Hughes (1965) added a fifth source of tension that is compatible with W. Kornhauser's (1962) analysis. He spoke of the professional's relative detachment from the specifics of a particular case in the sense of having much greater interest in understanding all such cases. It is this interest and curiosity that leads to greater comprehension. In contrast, the organization is generally much more focused on specific actionable instances. “Great corporations, too, although they may seek men [sic] who know the science of management, want an executive's curiosity about and love of the universal aspects of human organization tempered with a certain loyalty and commitment to his employer” (Hughes, 1965, p. 6). This tension, and ultimate equilibrium, between the universal and the particular in a profession is an aspect of the relation between scientific theory and practice, as just noted, that characterizes almost all professions. Hughes observed that “many learned societies show strain between the intellectuals and the professionalizers” (p, 7)—which is largely what led to the formation of the APS in reaction to the perceived “guild orientation” of the clinical practitioners who dominate the APA (cf. Hakel, 1988; T.H.Rosen, 1987). I return to this issue in chapter 9, in a consideration of the paradigm of postmodernism in which, for epistemological reasons, little distinction is made between research and practice.
I add a sixth source of tension and potential ethical dilemmas for the professional in organizations, one that is sometimes signified by the question “who is the client?” I refer to the dual ethical responsibilities professionals like I/O psychologists experience with respect to the individual employees of a client or employer organization as distinct from the organization as a whole. The reader may recall the anecdote taken from Norman (1983), presented in chapter 4, regarding the dilemma of taking his daughter or son on the child seat of his bicycle to visit a friend. The anecdote was offered to illustrate a putative weakness of consequentialist ethical theories—the failure to deal with rights, obligations, duties, or in this instance a promise. A similar situation might be as follows.
Suppose you are a senior human resources manager of a substantial company, and an opening two levels below your position has just become available for which you have been asked by your manager to make a promotion recommendation (in consultation with your direct reports) from among the people in your area. This is not a problem for you because, as a good manager, you are well acquainted with the particular talents, strengths, and weaknesses of most of the potential candidates. The only catch is that the position requires a substantial amount of out-of-town travel. You have narrowed down the choice to two promising candidates, one of whom seems “better” than the other. Unfortunately, this more qualified employee volunteers that she couldn't accept the promotion because of family demands that would be interfered with by the travel requirements of the position. Therefore, with some regret, you recommend the other person to your boss, who takes the matter under advisement, and you so inform the candidates and their managers. However, before a decision is made, the better qualified employee comes to you and explains that she has made satisfactory permanent arrangements to deal with the competing family demands and would very much like to be considered for the promotion.
Is this the same ethical problem faced by Norman (1983) with respect to his upcoming bicycle ride (an obligation to honor his promise to his daughter even if his son would appreciate the ride more)? Although you are not their parent, surely you have an ethical responsibility to treat your employees fairly. Should you, therefore, analogous to Norman's conclusion, unquestionably honor your commitment to the second-ranked employee to whom the job has been tentatively promised? If not, why not? Is there not a substantial difference between the two situations? Unlike Norman you have obligations not only to the two candidates but to the organization as well If the first-ranked candidate has, by virtue of her past performance, earned the promotion and would indeed contribute more to the organization, this must be given considerable deference. It does not mean that, were we conducting a utilitarian analysis of your options, we should ignore the likely adverse consequences on department morale that might accrue upon reversing your recommendation. What you should actually do in the situation might depend on many other particulars not specified. But that's not the point of the illustration. The point is to emphasize that issues of professional ethics are frequently more complicated for us than personal ethics in that there are additional interests represented besides those of the actors and those immediately affected, in particular the organization and those with whom it interacts, the profession, colleagues, and so on.79
The Case of I/O Psychology
W.Kornhauser (1962) emphasized that these strains and conflicting values did not always lead to actual conflict between professional scientists and their employers: Accommodations are made on both sides. He devoted a chapter (albeit a short one) in his book to “adaptations of professions and organizations.” The most salient adaptation to the strain between professional autonomy and bureaucratic control entails the creation of new roles for research administration. The organization develops higher level positions for managers and directors of research who control general administrative policies (e.g., personnel selection, compensation decisions, and budget recommendations), whereas technical matters are decided closer to the level of the actual work, by the professionals themselves and lower level research supervisors. This creates two or more career paths for scientists in the organization, although there is not a great deal of overlap between scientific and managerial competencies, so that the administrative path may not be viable or attractive for everyone. As already noted, commitment to a profession is generally intensive and lifelong. Moreover, organizations vary considerably in the extent to which they are willing to make structural accommodations such as this.
In contrast to W.Kornhauser's (1962) main thesis, a more optimistic note was sounded by Wallace (1995) who disputed the assumption of an inherently conflictual relation between professionals and large bureaucratic employing organizations. Wallace observed lawyers “working under conditions in which they have retained control over the objectives of their work and participate in policy making and thus in helping direct their employing organization by making explicit their professional system of norms and values and by maintaining collegial and supportive ties…. [These] professionals in nonprofessional organizations have preserved autonomy and discretion over their work” (p. 247). Not considered by Wallace, however, was the extent to which these findings may be uniquely characteristic of lawyers—who are interpreting the boundaries of legal business practice for their organizations—and not reflective of the job attributes of engineers, scientists, accountants, or I/O psychologists.
But there is a more interesting observation to be made in this regard. It is my opinion (admittedly unencumbered by consideration of empirical data) that I/O psychologists in industry experience less strain and conflict of the types noted by W.Kornhauser and Hughes than do most other professionals similarly employed. I think there are several reasons why that is to be expected. First, as human resource professionals I/O psychologists work for human resource managers who are likely to be sensitive to the potential conflicts and other human resource issues under consideration here. Notwithstanding that many human resource managers have not trained professionally for their current assignments, they are probably more attuned to these matters than is true for managers of other professional groups in engineering, finance, legal, information systems, or scientific research and development departments.
Second, as I/O psychologists, the substance of our education and training includes the very organizational, structural, managerial, and leadership concerns at issue. Therefore, we ought to be better informed and ready to deal with these matters than most other professional and scientific groups. Third, the explicit adoption and salience of the scientist-practitioner model in I/O psychology (Latham, 2001; Lefkowitz, 1990) may account for a reduced sense of antagonism between these cosmopolitan and local professional orientations.
Fourth, I/O psychologists are directly useful to organizations—and perceived by their managers to be so (M.R.Feinberg & Lefkowitz, 1962; Ronen, 1980)—because the professional practice that constitutes our work activities are largely defined by the needs of the organization. Much of what we do in organizations concerns the necessary nuts-and-bolts activities of personnel selection and managerial assessment, performance appraisal, training and development, job analysis and competency modeling, and so on (Campion et al., 1986; Rassenfos, & Kraut, 1988). Even professional practice in the “O” side of the field (e.g., in organization analysis, design, and development) is aimed at the pragmatic objective of enhancing organizational effectiveness. This additional dimension of professional practice has historically been a major distinction between I/O psychology and those of our sister social scientists in sociology and anthropology, who also study organizations but who are not employed in organizations to a significant degree. The same may even be said with respect to the students of organizational behavior as taught in business schools. Even more important and commensurate with our career choices and participation in organizations, it is likely that I/O psychologists have a strong organizational orientation and identification, which has been found to attenuate potential professional—organizational conflict (C.N.Greene, 1978; Sorenson & Sorenson, 1974).
But perhaps even more important, it may be that I/O psychology is one of those professions that, according to Lipartito and Miranti (1998), have flourished by virtue of their integration into modern business systems:
Some historical models equate the rise of professionalization with the middle class's desire to escape corporate control of its labor. Historically, professions offered an enticing middle ground between independent proprietor and corporate employee. Here the conflict between business and profession is explicit. Professionals seek to avoid corporate supervision and to preserve their autonomy in socializing their expertise….
[But] many occupations, in fact, have risen in status precisely because of their function in the modern business system. These include the older professions of law, engineering, and accountancy, and such newer professions as advertising, public relations, and management. (p. 302)
Those professions, as a consequence, may be expected to exhibit fewer and less extreme values conflicts with business organizations than others do. This is commensurate with Bell's (1985) views:
Where organization and profession share similar values, as with physicians in hospitals or social workers in welfare agencies, conflicts probably affect the direction of organizational policy only marginally. The effects on policy are more important where professional values diverge sharply from organizational purposes…. From the standpoint of professional autonomy, all organizational hierarchies that attempt to routinize work are similarly threatening. But the threat to substantive professional values…is less radical where organizational purposes and professional values are closely related. (p. 22)
I believe that I/O psychology generally fits the model of professions that Lipartito and Miranti and Bell have in mind. It is also my opinion that, in particular, individual I/O psychologists who have opted to pursue an organizational career commonly share the perspectives and values that characterize organizations and their managerial hierarchies. This is probably less true, for example, of the biologists, chemists, and physicists who work in industry. (Obviously, to the extent that these reflections have any validity at all, they are generalizations that cannot be expected to characterize every individual.) For example, interviews with particularly successful organizational I/O practitioners—those with high earnings— revealed them to have more of a business than scientific orientation, to be socially compatible with successful business people, and to be unconflicted about the acquisition of wealth as a legitimate objective (Greller, 1984). In fact, it was “not uncommon for a high earner to say, ‘I used to be an I/O psychologist,'” reflecting “greater identification with the enterprise than with the profession” (p. 56). I/O psychologists, especially those in administrative positions, remain on average the highest paid psychology specialization (APA, 2000).
Succinctly, then, I/O psychologists employed in large organizations probably experience less strain and fewer conflicts than many other types of professionals in organizations because we tend to have personal values that are more congruent with those of the corporation and its managers, and our domain of expertise encomPASSes important aspects of organizational policies, systems, and procedures. This compatibility is a consequence of the long-standing integration of the field into the modern business world (the psychologist Walter Dill Scott wrote The Psychology of Advertising in 1902) and has in no small measure contributed to the success of I/O psychology as an occupation and career choice. However, as suggested in chapter 12, there is a negative aspect of this integration. The embrace of business objectives and corporate values has not been without cost: much of our ethical and humanistic heritage from psychology has been abandoned. Although it is of no moral significance, it is instructive to realize that this situation may not be unique to I/O psychology:
In addition to the traditional categories of professions, modern corporate life creates new ones. The systems analyst, the marketing specialist, the labor negotiator, the management theorist, and the public relations expert are necessary ingredients in the modern corporate success formula. These new professionals possess most of the traditional characteristics associated with professions: they rely on a theoretical store of knowledge, are graduated from research-oriented institutions, apply their knowledge to practical problems, and subject their work to review and criticism from colleagues.
Many of the new “technocratic” professions, however, lack a key characteristic associated with traditional professions. With the professions of medicine, law, or teaching, we associate a spirit of altruism or service; but the new technocratic professions often lack this characteristic and thus raise special problems of moral responsibility. We associate the goal of healing with the physician, and of knowledge with the professor (no matter how mercenary doctors or professors may be in fact), yet there are no corresponding goals for the marketing specialist, the public relations manager, or the advertising expert. The standards of the new professional do not explicitly include moral standards, in part because his or her profession does not recognize an altruistic element in its overall goals. The old professions have frequently failed to apply the moral standards articulated in statements of their professional goals; but the new professions fail, it seems, because they do not even attempt to articulate moral standards. (Donaldson, 1982, p. 113)
So we should challenge ourselves by posing the following question: Is I/O psychology more akin to the minimally moral new “technocratic professions” referred to by Donaldson (1982) than to the traditional professions in which responsibility and service to society at large is a major value component? The question will be taken up in chapter 12, but before doing so two faults in Donaldson's presentation should be noted. First, the failure to articulate an explicit morality should not be equated with an amoral posture. Most individuals, for example, try to lead an essentially moral existence without necessarily having articulated an ethical code for guidance. Second, his assertion contrasts the moral professions against the newer professions that serve corporate objectives, as if corporations were entirely or essentially amoral enterprises. Thus, a most relevant question becomes, What is the moral status of business—especially large and enormously powerful corporations? What, if any, is their moral justification? That is the underlying theme of chapters 10 and 11. But a preliminary issue to be dealt with concerns the extent and nature of values in the profession and science of psychology, which is considered in chapter 9.
ADDING FURTHER TO THE FRAMEWORK FOR ETHICAL DECISION MAKING
23.It can reasonably be inferred that a number of social and ethical obligations accrue to I/O psychologists by virtue of the status of our field as a profession. Professional status means that, in many respects, society views what we do as important, defers to our expertise in appropriate areas, and gives us considerable latitude with respect to determining the qualifications to enter the profession and regulate its practice. In return, we are expected to behave as professionals—responsibly—and to utilize our expertise for the benefit of the entire society, not simply to benefit only our direct clients. (This does not imply that the two are necessarily incompatible, although at times they may be.)
24.Some I/O psychologists work in settings in which they may not have regular contact with professional colleagues (e.g., as solo practitioners or in relatively small organizations) and so may feel relatively isolated when faced with an ethical difficulty. The worst thing to do under those circumstances is to remain isolated. The advice of professional friends and colleagues, mentors, or former professors should be sought. The ethics committee of the APA also welcomes advisory inquiries.
25.The sociological s tudy of the professions has revealed several areas of potential conflict between professionals employed in large hierarchical organizations and structural or administrative features of those organizations. I have speculated that there are several reasons why that is less likely to be the case for I/O psychologists than for other professional groups. Chief among those reasons are that I/O psychology historically has been functionally integrated into the administration of business and that I/O psychologists tend to “self-select” from a population that has an organizational orientation marked by values compatible with those of the corporate enterprise. A warning note is sounded, however, insofar as those values may not always be compatible with the broader obligations owed by professionals to the society that supports their professional status. In other words, the way in which these potential conflicts are resolved or averted may give rise to other values conflicts and attendant ethical issues that, as suggested in chapter 12, are not well recognized in our field.
74This discussion draws substantially on the work of R.T.Hall (1975), Lynn (1965), Etzioni (1969), Elliott (1972), and W.J.Goode (1960, 1969).
75The positive—some would say idealized—view of professions characterized by the professional ideal, the professional model, or the service model is offset by a negative and rather cynical—some would say realistic—view. In this power-oriented conception, professions are simply economically successful monopolies that have managed to persuade society to honor their claims for special privileges (Brien, 1998). That is, whatever altruistic public service may exist is simply a byproduct of the primary motivation which is self-interest. It seems to me that one can accept the ubiquitous existence of a certain amount of self-interest (a modified psychological or rational egoism) without adopting such a one-sided unflattering portrait. We can take mixed motives as the expected basis for most complex human behavior.
76The ever-finer gradations by which professions have become subspecialized raises the interesting question as to what are the boundaries of a particular profession. For example, the salient knowledge domain as well as the norms, values, attitudes, and ethical concerns of an emergency room doctor in a public hospital and a dermatologist on Park Avenue (New York City) who does not accept medical insurance reimbursements vary considerably. The same may be said regarding a comparison of experimental cognitive psychologists, as opposed to colleagues in clinical or I/O psychology. Whether there is (or should be) a common core curriculum in psychology has long been a matter of some dispute (Benjamin, 2001, 2002).
77A related issue that has interested some scholars is the potential conflict among different professional subgroups within the same organization (Davidson, 1985; DeLeon, 1994). That topic is not reviewed.
78Professional and organizational identification have been found to be orthogonal (i.e., independent) orientations. Respondents are typically categorized as having a professional identification (high on professional but low on organizational identification), an organizational identification (high on organizational and low on professional identification), a mixed orientation (high on both), or as being indifferent (low on both).
79Additional questions can be raised about how appropriately this situation was handled. One could argue that your obligation was to recommend the better candidate and allow her to make her own decision at that time. If necessary, the person next in line could be offered the position subsequently. Also, it was probably not wise to inform the candidates of your recommendation in advance.
|