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It’s a Matter of Organizational Pride: How Perceptions of Organizational Virtuousness and Competence Affect Employee Behaviors

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Abstract

Companies often discuss the importance of organizational pride and what they believe leads to it, yet research on this topic in the organizational sciences has not kept pace. Our paper narrows this research-practice gap by identifying important antecedents and consequences of organizational pride. To do so, we build theory on the nature of organizational pride as an important workplace attitude by explaining how it carries prescriptive implications in addition to evaluative properties, which provides new insights into how it operates. Empirically, we demonstrate in an experiment and a field study how employee perceptions of their organization’s virtuousness and competence affect their level of pride toward the organization, which subsequently impacts their task performance and organizational citizenship behaviors. We conclude with a discussion of the implications and future research avenues.

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Notes

  1. When organizational identification and its associated indirect effects were excluded from the model, the indirect effects of virtuousness and competence via pride on OCBOs remained significant, while the indirect effect of virtuousness on task performance through pride (indirect effect = .16, se = .08, CI95% [.02, .33]) and the indirect effect of competence on task performance through pride (indirect effect = .09, se = .04, CI95% [.01, .17]) became significant.

  2. Race/ethnicity percentages sum to > 100% because respondents were asked to check all that applied.

  3. When organizational identification, affective commitment, and their associated indirect effects were excluded from the model, there were no material changes to the conclusions drawn from the analysis; all patterns of significance remained the same.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the Department of Management and International Business at Wright State University for their financial assistance with our data collection. We would also like to acknowledge and thank Dr. Jim Walsh for his helpful feedback on, and support of, our original manuscript.

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  1. Department of Management and International Business, Wright State University, 3640 Colonel Glenn Highway, Rike Hall 250, Dayton, OH, 45435, USA

    Rachel E. Sturm & Scott D. Williams

  2. School of Hospitality Management, Penn State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Phillip M. Jolly

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Appendix. Scenario vignettes for study 1

Appendix. Scenario vignettes for study 1

High Virtuousness / High Competence

You work in the Human Resources department at Zenegram, which is a company that offers health care programs to a variety of customers across the nation. Your company is known to be the leading provider of these types of programs and you often receive customer feedback about how efficient and effective the organization is. This information does not surprise you because you are aware of the level of training that is provided to Zenegram’s employees to enable them to be skilled and capable employees. In addition, Zenegram is also consistently rated as one of the best companies to work for and has a reputation in the community for compassion, trustworthiness, and integrity. When you think about this organization, you remember a time when you made a mistake with the roll-out of a new compensation system and your manager forgave you and helped you to learn how to use the system correctly. You felt, and continually feel, respected in this organization and believe that it will continue to be a successful company.

Low Virtuousness / High Competence

You work in the Human Resources department at Zenegram, which is a company that offers health care programs to a variety of customers across the nation. Your company is known to be the leading provider of these types of programs and you often receive customer feedback about how efficient and effective the organization is. This information does not surprise you because you are aware of the level of training that is provided to Zenegram’s employees to enable them to be skilled and capable employees. You are also aware of the very high standards that Zenegram has and if employees make a mistake, they are usually fired for it. Since you are in charge of terminating employees, you have heard countless stories of employees who were let go saying that they do not feel the company is compassionate or courteous. You often feel stressed going to work because you remember a time when one of your colleagues lied to your supervisor about another colleague in order to get the promotion he wanted; although you felt that this was unfair, you did not say anything to your supervisor because you do not trust her.

High Virtuousness / Low Competence

You work in the Human Resources department at Zenegram, which is a company that offers health care programs to a variety of customers across the nation. Your company does not have a strong reputation in the community and you often receive customer complaints about Zenegram being disorganized and employees not knowing all the correct information. You can understand where some of the frustration comes from because employees are not formally trained and often lack the skills and knowledge to do their work effectively. You feel this is a shame because Zenegram is a caring, compassionate, and forgiving place to work at. When you think about this organization, you remember a time when you made a mistake with the roll-out of a new compensation system and your manager forgave you and helped you to learn how to use the system correctly. You felt respected by your manager and knew you could trust her.

Low Virtuousness / Low Competence

You work in the Human Resources department at Zenegram, which is a company that offers health care programs to a variety of customers across the nation. Your company does not have a strong reputation in the community and you often receive customer complaints about Zenegram being disorganized and employees not knowing all the correct information. You can understand where some of the frustration comes from because employees are not formally trained and often lack the skills and knowledge to do their work effectively. Also, you know there is a high turnover rate because when employees make a mistake, they are usually fired for it. Since you are in charge of terminating employees, you have heard countless stories of employees who were let go saying that they do not feel the company is compassionate or courteous. You often feel stressed going to work because you remember a time when one of your colleagues lied to your supervisor about another colleague in order to get the promotion he wanted; although you felt that this was unfair, you did not say anything to your supervisor because you do not trust her.

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Sturm, R., Jolly, P. & Williams, S. It’s a Matter of Organizational Pride: How Perceptions of Organizational Virtuousness and Competence Affect Employee Behaviors. J Bus Psychol 37, 1079–1097 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-021-09786-9

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