Objective: This lecture focuses on managing people in media organizations who work in an industry that has experienced radical operating environment changes. Main ingredients of the lecture are media organizational behavior, psychology of media workers, news and information as business, creative media workers, and the media organizations as human collectives.
Media Organizational Behavior
This research discipline rose out of classical management scholarship that initially attempted to understand the world from a structural–functional perspective (Fayol, 1949; Taylor, 1947/1967). Management style is a key factor in organizational performance, particularly whether that style fits the needs of those being managed. McGregor (1960) identified two opposing approaches to management, Theory X (authoritarian command and control) and Theory Y (employee-centered with minimal control). Participative management grew popular in the 1960s with the gradual shift from the early 20th century view of strict control to an understanding by mid-century that individuals who have a sense of power, responsibility, and expectancy about their work environment are often more productive (Likert, 1961; Mayo, 1960; Vroom, 1964).
With the rise of Japanese competitiveness, which became a serious threat to American business, considerable attention was paid to how Japanese culture fostered organizational citizenship, and how American companies could use the Japanese model to help workers feel more closely tied to an organization and its goals (Ouchi, 1981). Total Quality Management became fashionable with the idea that quality circle teams of employees, empowered to create and innovate, would mean organizational success (Marash, 1993). Building on this idea, substantial research has grown to foster the idea that it is positive to have personal and organizational goals and values in sync (Finegan, 2000), so the organization and individual reinforce each other in a holographic mirroring of one another (Mackenzie, 1991; Morgan, 1997).
Peters and Waterman (1982) argued that excellence should be the goal of an organization, which would result in greater productivity and competitiveness. Their work fed a trend of increased attention to social dynamics processes and of generating common themes and values within organizations and among organizational members. The human element is now considered to be among the most critical factors in organizational success with the organizational structure serving as a support mechanism (Garfield, 1992). Identification theory is a growing area investigating the way individuals derive meaning from organizational relationships and may thereby increase their contributions to the organization (Ravasi & Van Reckom, 2003; Whetten & Godfrey, 1998). In capitalist economies shareholders look for increasing stock value. Stock options are a popular way to compensate managers because they provide direct financial incentive to do whatever it takes to increase profits. Likewise, many organizations, including media organizations, use stock option plans, not only as a financial incentive, but to link shareholder values to individual employee behavior by helping employees identify their daily work as a way of increasing both their personal wealth and the company’s stock performance (Greengard, 1999; Hannafey, 2003). In an environment geared toward steadily increasing stock value, maintaining high productivity while finding new ways to continually improve year after year is an omnipresent challenge (Drucker, 1988; Garmager & Shemmer, 1998; Greenberg, 1999; Hopkins-Doerr, 1989; Kanter, 1988; Schneider, 1983).
Recently organizational behaviorists have used the term social capital to refer to the human side of organizations (Clark, 2003; Oxman, 2002). The contemporary role of a leader or manager is to marshal that social capital in such a way that it carries the organization forward to accomplish management goals. Thus, in order to move the organization, a leader must find ways to inspire organizational members, who then actually move the organization (Fiorina et al., 2003). This is a very different perspective from early structural–functional, “classical” theorists who saw management as a driving force pushing benign workers who were paycheck-focused and perceived as willing to follow orders. Contemporary theorists see management’s challenge as charting the course but empowering the organizational members to sail it as a highly motivated, innovative, and creative crew (Bolman & Deal, 1991; Fournies, 2000; Hellstrom & Hellstrom, 2002). Today, we better understand the critical nature of the nuances of human relations.
In strong organizational cultures, management may be more effective in a facilitating role rather than merely as a command and control function (Logan, Kiely, & Greer, 2003; Lucas, 1999; Way, 2000). An organization, in today’s context, has great difficulty going anywhere the people within it do not want it to go. Long, standard organizational approaches such as goal setting are recognized as problematical, not always effective, and requiring considerable developmental care (Humphreys, 2003). Indeed, a fundamental question in the goal-setting equation is, as Levinson (2003) titled a recent article on this issue, “Management by Whose Objectives?” Thus, goal setting is a partnership activity. In a metaphorical sense, the organization is now viewed as a personality with human characteristics, including having a passion for the enterprise.
Psychology of Media Workers
Organizational member psychology is a daily factor in effectiveness that has been well established (Alderfer, 1972; Bandura, 1986; Herzberg, Mausner, & Snyderman, 1959; Vroom, 1964). Maslow (1954/1970) defined a hierarchy of human motivational needs in which a person moves up through levels from the bottom level of survival needs, to the top level of self-actualization—a sense of fulfillment, the deeper meaning of life. It is at the top of his hierarchy where individuals who feel safe will take risks, push innovative ideas, and feel free to create. Maslow perceived each level as resting on the former. Thus, if some unexpected event occurs, such as the firing of a favorite boss and replacement with someone feared, the self-actualizing employee may quickly drop back to the survival level. There, the tendency is to engage in a modern illusion of the survival-level employee telling the boss only what the employee thinks the boss wants to here; much like Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale: sycophants telling the emperor how splendid he looks in his new clothes, while in reality he is naked and absurd before his subjects (Anderson, 1837/1949; Argyris, 1998).
Herzberg et al. (1959) argued that people react to two sets of forces in the workplace. One set comprises the extrinsic factors. These are external to the individual—the job context such as working conditions, salary, and company policy. The second set of motivators includes more abstract intrinsic factors. These satisfy the person from the inside—the job content including a sense of responsibility, recognition, achievement, meaningful work, and doing something for the greater good of society. People who consider their work a calling, such as members of the clergy, medical doctors, and many journalists (Auletta, 1991) have high intrinsic needs that may outweigh financial remuneration.
Alderfer (1972) used a three-part model to explain motivation. Things like food, water, working conditions, and monetary pay are the existence needs. Those things motivate human beings to work, but humans also have growth needs, the sense of being productive, creative, or doing something worthwhile. Humans
also need personal and social relation- ships that are meaningful, called relatedness needs. The three needs groups—existence, growth, and relatedness—work together. The more perfect the balance among them, the higher the motivation.
Bandura’s (1986) social cognitive theory posited that people are complex blends of their backgrounds, intelligence, social learning, and other factors. These cannot be separated into individual elements, but swirl together in a kind of soup of emotion, each ingredient flavoring the whole. Individuals engage in social learning in which “correlated experiences create expectations that regulate action” (p. 188), and these vary from one individual to another.
Human beings learn patterns of behavior from what succeeded in the past. Humans then do things to produce the results they expect, based on those past experiences. This expectancy theory was advanced by Victor Vroom (1964). Additionally, when organizational members feel there is unfairness in something, they may take steps to adjust the scales, to restore their sense of equity. That can mean slowing down, turning out adequate but not stunning work, or even actively working to make something fail by withhold- ing service until the sense of fairness and balance is restored (Harder, 1991: Lamertz, 2002).
The psychology of the workplace, then, is inherently complicated. In group settings, people who are more pro-social, and not as self-absorbed, tend to be more interested in the larger context of organizational values (Nauta, de Dreu, & van der Vaart, 2002). Those who are positively motivated by a sense of ownership of the work, expanding themselves cognitively, and who are positively inclined to interrelating with others, are most effective in what are called self-managing work teams (Druskak & Pesconsolido, 2002). Recent work investigated psychological empowerment in the organizational context (Spreitzer, 1995), influencing behavior in the workplace (Brief & Weiss, 2002), the positive and negative effects of emotion in the organizational context (Kiefer & Briner, 2003), and how the rising number of so-called “knowledge workers” can be positively motivated by the work environment. These are the creative people who generate new things, ideas, or concepts. They have a great need to have the organization encourage them to accomplish their ideals and dreams, rather than to merely complete the required daily processes (Brenner, 1999). For many people the organization within which they work is a fundamental part of their very definition of self.
To varying degrees, people derive part of the identity and sense of self from the organizations or workgroups to which they belong. Indeed, for many people their professional and/or organizational identity may be more pervasive and important than ascribed identities based on gender, age, ethnicity, race, or nationality. (Hogg & Terry, 2000, para. 2)
News and Information as Business
Newspapers have historically been among the most successful businesses with profit margins typically exceeding 20% a year. Underwood (1995) argued that, despite their financial success, newspapers have increasingly emphasized profits, with an MBA mentality. Audience market research has increased in importance among all media to lure readers, listeners, viewers, and now Internet surfers. Thus, we are living in the age of what McManus (1994) dubbed market-driven journalism. His qualitative study of local television news provided great insight into the creation and packaging of current events information tailored to technical and marketing considerations. Technology dominates the way television stories are conceptualized and manufactured such as “live” introductions of stories actually covered much earlier. The live element is interjected to show off technology and to generate a greater sense of urgency, even
though the actual event may have concluded hours before and is included as a prerecorded insert between a live open and close (p. 44).
Bagdikian (2004) documented the steady collapse of mass media ownership into the hands of five dominant conglomerates, Time Warner, Disney, Viacom, News Corporation, and Bertelsmann AG. The economic influences on mass media were his major focus. Bagdikian posed the obvious questions about whether limited ownership of all media with which we engage means limited “voices” in the “marketplace of ideas,” and therefore is contrary to the intent of the framers in creating the “free” press clause of the U.S. Constitution. Is there less control of media if, instead of a king, all the power to control the flow of information and news is in the hands of a few corporations? The growth of conglomerate control of American media, combined with McManus’ concept of market-driven journalism, against the historical context of the worst excesses in American journalism, causes one to ponder whether what has occurred recently is a new evolution in modern media, or a return to the past. As Emery & Emery (1996) described the 1890s:
Yellow journalism, at its worst, was the new journalism without a soul. Trumpeting their concern for “the people,” yellow journalists at the same time choked up the news channels on which the common people depended with a shrieking, gaudy, sensation-loving, devil-may-care kind of journalism. This turned the high drama of life into a cheap melodrama and led to stories being twisted into the form best suited for sales by the howling newsboy. Worst of all, instead of giving effective leadership, yellow journalism offered a palliative of sin, sex, and violence. (p. 194)
Creative Media Workers
There is a continuing struggle between the idealism of practicing journalists and the for-profit organizations in which most of them work. Indeed, journalists receive positive benefits from those organizations (e.g., salaries and fringe benefits), and they are able to pursue their desired profession within fairly clear business-oriented parameters.
Media workers are often creative personalities who seek independence and a sense of ownership of their work. Efforts have been made to simplify the task of managing creative people (Loeb, 1995), generating more creativity by raising managerial expectations, thereby fueling the sense of creative employees that management cares about what they are doing (Tierney & Farmer, 2004), and understanding that a sense of empowerment can produce more positive behavior (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990). Research into the effect of both job-related and outside influences found creative performance is enhanced when the person has a sense of support in both sectors (Madjar, Oldham, & Pratt, 2002). Additionally, the environment of the organization needs to provide enough psychological space for creative people to come up with new ideas and to test them. When daily pressure to accomplish tasks is the focus, it can dampen creativity because the message is sent that thinking beyond the immediate task is not valued (Dickson, 2003). Ettema and Whitney (1982) brought together 13 perspectives on Individuals in Mass Media Organizations: Creativity and Constraint, which address the inherent conflicts in mass media production within the context of a capitalist system. The conflicts they identified 2 decades ago appear to be increasing as media companies become more economically powerful (Bagdikian, 2004).
To many media workers, the organization is a kind of funding source, with a medical and benefits package, to pursue their creative interests. You can be paid to write, shoot still or video pictures, and/or perform in front of a camera. This sets up a not uncommon situation where a creative, idealistic journalist
works for a pragmatic business concern focused on circulation (or ratings) and profit. The tension produced by such contrasting values appears inherent to the production of news and information, as Edward R. Murrow asserted a half century ago:
One of the basic troubles with radio and television news is that both instruments have grown up as an incompatible combination of show business, advertising and news. Each of the three is a rather bizarre and demanding profession. And when you get all three under one roof, the dust never settles. (Sperber, 1986, p. xvi)
Numerous works have been published to cast light on the inside world of journalism. These are particularly useful for researchers in human relations in media organizations because they often focus on people within the context of the events they covered and include a subtext of perceptions of what journalism is, or in the authors’ minds, should be. These range from critical works pointing out many of the problems in news and information work (e.g., Burns, 1993; Goldberg, 2002; Graham, 1990; Willis, 2003), to autobiographical efforts by celebrity journalists that often produce significant sales when released because of public curiosity about major news personalities (e.g., Brinkley, 1995; Brokaw, 2002; Kuralt, 1990; Rather, 1977). Other works range from journalistic narratives of the evolution of dominant networks (Slater, 1988), to well-researched biographies of significant figures in the history of mass media (e.g., Johnston, 2003; Sperber, 1986). Such works often provide a reporter’s perspective of the sweep of historical events, how coverage was managed, and the philosophical struggles of the individuals involved.
Thus, the give and take that goes on in news operations—between journalistic principles and ethics, and monetary and technical considerations in determining coverage—is available to those who have never had the experience of working within such a context. As in anthropological research, it is one thing to use a survey instrument to gather qualitative data about a tribe, and quite another to live with a tribe for a period of time to learn the nuances of its rights, rituals, and context of meaning.
The context of media endeavor directly affects the human relations process. Differences occur in values and attitudes of media workers, depending on the industry sector being considered. A major issue in one media sector may not be important in another. In one area, the point may be to create illusion, fiction, and drama; in another type of media organization the goal may be to manage the image of something for a more favorable vantage point (i.e., spin); in still another type of media organization, such approaches would be major violations of ethics and considered abhorrent activities subjecting theperson to firing or forced resignation in disgrace. For example, within traditional news organizations, at the newsroom level, there tends to be a working journalist perception of “a calling, not just a job” (Auletta, 1991, p. 559). However, at the organizational level, “the content of media outlets is developed to attract a specifically defined target audience, just as manufacturers create products designed to attract a target segment of consumers” (Wicks et al., 2004, p. 217). The ideal of informing the public, as part of the individual’s Calling may come into conflict with organizational goals to maximize ratings by pandering to marketing studies of what the audience wants while paying little attention to what the audience may need. This is a reaffirmation of the observation of Liebling (1961/1981) who observed that, “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one” (p. 32).
Media are at once highly creative with increasing technology to manufacture images that appear real, while at the same time, confronted with a responsibility to be accurate, fair, and honest in serving the needs of society. Although flipping a photograph over to have the person in it look the other direction for
layout considerations may be perfectly fine in advertising, in news that would be a firing offense because it would not be the same person, but an illusion. Indeed, in many aspects of media the specific individual is the critical element contributing to their success.
MEDIA ORGANIZATIONS ARE HUMAN COLLECTIVES
It is important for researchers to consider the psychology of the media organization workplace. Media organizations are human collectives with considerable diversity in the way individuals frame their values and purpose in life. Unpacking those values, both organizationally and individually, is vital to more fully understanding the dynamics within those organizations and explaining both organizational and individual behavior.
The complexity of human interaction with the operating environment has been the focus of considerable research on motivation and organizational efficiency dependent on the individual members who make up the collective known as an organization. Various content theorists, such as Maslow (1954/1970), Herzberg, Mausner, and Synderman (1959), and Alderfer (1972), attempted to reconcile the external world to internal motivational considerations within the individual.
Bandura (1986) proposed a social cognitive theory in which the human being is seen as the junction of complex knowledge, perception, and desire strands, which are all affected by the particular environment at hand:
In the social cognitive view people are neither driven by inner forces nor automatically shaped and controlled by external stimuli. Rather, human functioning is explained in terms of a model of triadic reciprocality in which behavior, cognitive and other personal factors, and environmental events all operate as interacting determinants of each other. (p. 18)
Bandura’s triadic reciprocality is the view that the way we act (behavior), our knowledge acquisition (cognitive) processes and other personal factors, and the environment within which all of this occurs fold together interactively to create individualized meaning. Our personality and our way of engaging with the world around us cannot be separated into neat categories presumed to be mutually exclusive and unaffected by the others. All are contributors to, and products of, one another. This helps explain media industry workers who, while working within the context of a machine-like company, still retain a sense of professional independence and control over their work. Many media workers, particularly in creative areas, consider what they do as personalized (important and owned by them), not corporatized (merely something they do for the company to get money).
Several things come into play from Bandura’s social cognitive theory. A self-regulatory capability allows individuals to govern much of their behavior by “internal standards and self-evaluative reactions to their own actions” (Bandura, 1986, p. 20). Additionally, there is a “capability for reflective self-consciousness,” wherein people “think about their own thought processes” (p. 21). We are also “enactive learners” where our observations of what goes on, and the experiences we build up over time, exert strong influence on our decision making. When people have an outcome they particularly desire, they tend to use their organization or group experience to decide what action to take to attain it.
As the perceptions of threats, rewards, expected outcomes, and social learning come together in the human dynamic, we carefully watch for signals that predict the outcomes we desire. When we see those signals, we are positively reinforced that we’re on track. But when we don’t get those signals, or we get signals we don’t expect, fear may escalate as we worry about how things will turn out (Bandura, 1986, p. 205).
Media Culture and Climate Factors
Media organizations tend to be highly developed cultures with distinctive codes of behavior that, when violated, cause great turmoil (Jenkins, 2003). Thus, to understand a media organization you need to understand both its culture and climate. Organizational culture is the framework of rituals, practices, and behavior patterns that set an organization apart. Schein (1985) defined it as the pattern of basic assumptions that a given group has invented, discovered, or developed in learning to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, which have worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems. (p. 9)
As such, culture is an acquired knowledge base that evolves within the organization as it resolves problems and adapts to its environment. An organization’s culture is wrapped up within its history, procedures, and people, and it is the fundamental definition of the organization and its purpose. At the same time, it is interconnected to its external environment as both continually evolve. (For a discussion of the concept of organizational culture see Eisenberg & Riley, 2000.)
Organizational climate is defined by Poole (1985) as, “collective beliefs, expectations, and values regarding communication, and is generated in interaction around organizational practices via a continuous process of structuration” (p. 107). For purposes of this discussion, think of organizational climate as the atmosphere of a company. This organizational weather system swirls through every corner of an organization, “continually interacting and evolving with organizational processes, structured around common organizational practices” (Falcione et al., 1987, p. 203). If organizational culture is thought of as the entity’s personality, organizational climate is the current of emotional fluctuations that ebb and flow within it. The personality is more stable, defined, and therefore allows prediction. But the climate side is more variable and can be altered more quickly by sudden changes in the operating environment. It can have a profound effect on organizational performance because it “serves as a frame of reference for member activity and therefore shapes members’ expectancies, attitudes, and behaviors; through these effects it influences organizational outcomes such as performance, satisfaction, and morale” (p. 96).
Research demonstrated that strong organizational cultures can have a positive impact on performance. Juechter et al. (1998) found clear relationships between the strength of an organizational culture and bottom line financial performance. Companies with a strong culture tend to have, among other things, wider involvement of organizational members in strategy development, lower than average turnover, significant investment in training and personnel development within the organization, and greater financial success (Garmager & Shemmer, 1998; Levy & Levy, 2000). However, when media organizations are combined strictly for initial financial benefit, the differences in the respective organizational structures, cultures, and climates may prove unwieldy causing substantial loss in overall effectiveness. Such a case was the much publicized AOL–Time Warner merger that quickly spun off billions in losses for investors as managers struggled to restructure the conglomerate (Rosenbloom, 2004).
Some organizations approach changes in the environment defensively, resisting mak- ing internal adjustments in the way they do things, whereas others seem to seek adaptive strategies readily. What makes the difference is the propensity of the particular corporate culture to depart from tradition in order “to replace existing methods with more productive ones” (Kanter, 1988, p. 406). However, this is often a very complex problem because of traditional ways of doing things, large and small. Grove (1988) termed organizational inertia that which is generated “when the day-to-day protocols and procedures of a company get in the way of employees trying to do their jobs (p. 418).” Grove asserts such inertia is more prevalent over time and that “the older and bigger an organization, the more inertia it will tend to have” (p. 418). When a new management approach is implemented that does not sync with what the organizational culture is prepared to embrace, serious dysfunction can result (Robertson, 2003). Indeed, when a change agent is brought in, the effort to rejuvenate an organization can back fire, unless existing organizational dynamics are considered (Paulson, 2003).
Mackenzie (1991) saw organizations as “complex living systems of interdependent processes, resources and people” that must work in concert to adapt to a constantly changing, dynamic environment (p. 51). Those organizations that can achieve a high level of internal compatibility have a competitive edge because they eliminate much of what stymies organizations with weaker cultures. When traditional bureaucratic layering of position and power permeate an organization, there is rigidity in adjustment to change and a kind of myopia of management based on past practices, which hinder adaptation. This results in managers relying on past experience to make future decisions. However, when the conditions of the marketplace have changed, the decisions will be flawed. Indeed, “organizations, like organisms, are ‘open’ to their environment and must achieve an appropriate relation with that environment if they are to survive” (Morgan, 1997, p. 39)
A media organization example of this occurred as Cap Cities was finalizing its takeover of the ABC network in late 1985. The top executives at Cap Cities grew impatient with then-ABC president Fred Pierce, a career employee of the network. At the time, audience fragmentation, which was due to cable and other television alternatives to the broadcast networks, was just beginning. However, while Cap Cities executives grew increasingly wary of the way ABC was spending money, the network president continued justifying his actions by concentrating on the bright spots in the network efforts and ignoring the accelerating overall financial erosion. Cap Cities chair Tom Murphy, and chief operating officer Dan Burke, finally decided to replace Pierce. The symptom was continuing financial erosion of the network, but the underlying cause of Pierce’s increasing ineffectiveness was summed up by Burke, who said, “Fred was a hostage to his experience.” It was discovered later that Pierce had even put a psychic on the ABC payroll to advise him on programming the network (Auletta, 1991, p. 114).
The case of the major television network reaction to new technology was an example of how organizations can become what Morgan (1997) termed psychic prisons. He defined these as a playing out of the classic Plato’s Cave metaphor, wherein Socrates tells of inhabitants unable to cope with a different world outside the cave and thereby “tighten their grip on their familiar way of seeing.” As Morgan points out, like the ancient cave dwellers from classic literature, “organizations and their members become trapped by constructions of reality that, at best, give an imperfect grasp on the world” (p. 216). Morgan also uses a brain metaphor, asserting that organizations, like human brains, are communication and information processing systems that develop personalities. They harbor a kind of corporate rationale and psyche that can drive them in positive or negative directions with a collective consciousness. Thus, organizations can learn and adapt. However, to do so, the “learning organization”
cannot be trapped by mechanized bureaucracy but must “scan and anticipate change, ”while at the same time, it can “develop an ability to question, challenge and change operating norms and assumptions” (p. 90).
Dealing with Perceptions of Media workers
Interpretation of Meaning
It is very important to understand that individual, “pre-formed frames of interpretation” decode message meaning based on personal experience (McQuail, 1987, p. 243). In other words, people interpret the messages they receive and evaluate what is true based on their belief system. Burke (1966) called these filters through which we interpret reality “terministic screens” that work similarly to photographic filters; they alter the color, contrast, and warmth of messages we receive, if not the basic facts of the message itself.
This means we are set up to believe something, based on past experience or trusted sources. Thus, rumors containing false information may quickly gain credibility as they are passed from one person to another. They take on a life of their own. Once widespread, they are very difficult to reverse because they become part of the received truth, acquired from others whom the person trusts. When information is restricted, the work culture creates its own information. Sometimes management has very good reasons for not disclosing things. However, unless information is kept confidential for competitive or a legal reason, all restricting information flow does is feed the rumor mill. When organizational members are concerned about something, the rumor mill starts up because, “in general, rumors are grounded in a combination of uncertainty and anxiety” (Stohl & Redding, 1987, p. 481). Employees worry and develop scenarios of what they think is probably happening. Then they pass those around, and, in the process, the illusions gain credibility. Thus, it is vital that managers have open lines of communication with organizational members to get continual feedback on their perceptions and to provide accurate information to diffuse the rumor mill (Rosnow, 1980; Watson, 1982).
Media managers serve a multiplicity of communicative roles. They monitor the various information channels available, disseminate the information to others, and serve as spokespersons for various factions within the organization, and often externally as organizational representatives to those outside (Trujillo, 1983). Whatever is communicated, or not communicated, by a media manager has an effect. “People want to know what the problem is, why they are being asked to do certain things, how they relate to the larger picture” (Gardner, 1988, p. 224).
Human beings tend to filter meaning relative to their basic beliefs. According to selective influence theory we sift out that with which we have less fundamental agreement. In other words, we pay more attention to that with which we agree, while discounting or ignoring that with which we disagree (De Fleur & Ball-Rokeach, 1989).
When something comes up, we naturally compare it, consciously or unconsciously, with what we have experienced before. This means we tend to look at new problems and new solutions within the context of old problems and old solutions. This happened in the American network television industry beginning in 1980. Where formerly there were tight controls by the government and very few networks, there quickly evolved a myriad of competitors at the national level with concur re-governmental control. The result was what one critic termed, “an earthquake in slow motion” (Auletta, 1991, p. 4). As discussed earlier,
because of the rise of new technology, and a radicalization of the operating environment, the old solutions simply failed. Media organizations continue to struggle with this. It is natural, in one sense, to do what worked in the past. However, with the environment undergoing rapid technological change, this is a trap that can lead to serious decline and, potentially, organizational death (Whetten, 1988).
Equity, Expectancy and Malicious Compliance
How people perceive the fairness of their world, and what they expect it to provide, are major determinants of what they do and how they do it. We all make adjustments in our daily lives, our personal relationships, and our careers that depend on how we think things will turn out. We try to do what we hope will move matters toward a positive outcome and avoid what we fear will fail. We learn to anticipate various types of consequences from actions that are taken and the results they produce.
This area of organizational dynamics is important for those who want to be effective managers. By anticipating subordinates’ sense of fairness and expectation, managers can set in motion opportunities for both personal and organizational growth. Ingersoll (1896/1980) once said, “In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments—there are consequences” (p. 615). Everything is a consequence of something else. As a result, it is clear that, to affect what consequences occur, we need to look for causes. Equity and expectancy are causal factors for many behavioral consequences in media organizations.
The basic assumption in equity theory (Adams, 1963) is that workers compare their tasks and rewards with the tasks and rewards of those around them. They then develop perceptions of whether they are fairly treated based on that comparison (Harder, 1991). Such perceptions may or may not be based on accurate information and analysis by the individual.
Tied into the issue of equity is expectancy theory, originally advanced by Vroom (1964). From our knowledge and experiences, we expect things to happen based on what we do. In other words, a certain type of behavior is expected to produce a predictable outcome. If you rob a bank and are caught, you can expect to go to prison. If you study hard, you expect to earn a good grade. Expectancy has a big effect on us when coupled with rewards we desire. People balance their personal values and anticipated rewards all the time, continually adjusting their performance to achieve the outcomes they desire. When people operate from an expectancy perspective, they have linear logic that says, “If I work harder, I will do a better job. If I do a better job, I will be rewarded.”
An important aspect of maintaining equity and keeping expectancies realistic is using differentrewardsfordifferentpeople.Thisisparticularlyimportantinmediamanagement because of the diverse nature of media employees and their tendency to feel personal ownership in their work (Geisler, 1999). Research demonstrated that recognition and a sense of accomplishment are preferred by many people to monetary rewards (Hellstrom & Hellstrom, 2002). Typically pay becomes a right, in a person’s mind, within a relatively short time following a raise. Thus, pay is often merely the basic reason to show up for work rather than being perceived as a reward for doing that work well. So the rewardeffect of a raise is of limited duration and not automatically an incentive to work harder (Fournies, 2000). However, for a single mother with serious day care problems, flexibility in work hours can be a long-term motivator. One individual may seek overtime, but another person may prefer compensatory time off for extra hours he or she puts in. Media managers need to focus on the personalized environment within which people toil and the benefits they personally value. When a manager makes it apparent he or she cares about people and recognizes their needs, there is a positive effect throughout the work environment (Tulgan, 2000).
Regardless of a person’s position in the organizational hierarchy, there is a need to feel appreciated and have good work recognized. Such recognition can take many forms (Fournies).
When people do not believe things are equitable, or their expectancies are not realized, they move to restore the balance. They may slow down, reduce the quality of their work, or take other measures to get even for what they perceive is unfair (Harder, 1991). Taken to the extreme a syndrome called malicious compliance may result (Kennedy, 1992; Mariotti, 1996; Maurer, 1998). It is, in simple terms, doing the job well enough so it looks as if you are a team member, but in such a way you really are trying to harm the organization. Malicious compliance occurs when people do their job to the worst of their abilities, but only to the degree they won’t get caught. Usually, it is a conscious effort, but sometimes it can be an unconscious reaction to negative feelings that build up toward management. It can be manifested in little things such as throwing away perfectly good pens to increase the cost of supplies or stopping work 30 minutes before your shift ends and just socializing while waiting to leave. It can grow into major attacks on the organization such as working to bring in a union, sending confidential information to competitors, or doing something to trigger investigations by the news media or regulatory authorities. In entrenched, large bureaucracies a typical technique is simply to do everything according to the bureaucratic rules that everyone has found ways to circumvent. The organization slows down very quickly. It can be caused by personal grudges, or, in the case of deeply committed media workers, by a sense the organization has “sold out” to generating a profit and is no longer committed to the ideals of journalism (Redmond, 2004). It is important to note that, “where an organization is going is not where someone says it is going but where its internal behavioral processes actually take it” (Schneider, 1983, p. 34).
Effective Goal Setting as a Motivational Tool
Goal-based management has become endemic to American organizational culture. It is as if we don’t know how to work without having goals set for us that we are then under significant pressure to attain (Gibson, Ivancevich, & Donnelly, 1997). Effective goal setting takes “hard thinking and hard work” (Fiorina et al., 2003, p. 41). When used correctly, goal setting builds motivation, provides direction, and blends communication flows from the bottom up, as well as the top down (Lucas, 1999; Nicholson, 2003).
Organizations use goal setting to maintain competitiveness and involve organizational members in continuous adaptation and improvement (Humphreys, 2003; Levinson, 2003). Goals must include the following to be effective: (a) relevance to the individual, (b) reliability as a measure over time, (c) discrimination between good and poor performers, and (d) practical application for the organization (Gibson et al., 1997).
Additionally, very specific, relatively short-term goals are more effective than broad, long- term ones. People respond positively to what’s known as a small-wins strategy (Whetten & Cameron, 1995). Cutting large tasks into small, manageable pieces helps prevent frustration and gives people the sense things are moving along.
A major problem in goal setting is that both employer and employee have different ideas about appropriate goals, based on their individual motivations, values, and biases (Nicholson, 2003). To be maximally effective, goals must be set and accomplished in partnership with management and subordinates. Both sides have to buy-in to the goals, have a sense of ownership of them, have a clear idea of how the goal benefits them directly and/or personally, and have mutual responsibility for carrying them out (Denning, 1998; Humphreys, 2003; Lucas, 1999).
Building “Stakeholder” Relationships
One of the most effective ways to increase media workers’ dedication is to help them increase the perception of themselves as stakeholders in the success of the organization. Drucker (1988) coined the term to describe organizational members who are, in effect, psychological part owners. They see the success of the organization and their success tied together. When this occurs, a cause–effect relationship is developed that benefits both. However, a critical element in stakeholder development is building trust. In order for employees to buy into the organization as mutually beneficial partners, they have to have a sense of commitment from both management and their peers. However, this is particularly difficult when the operational environment is under stress.
Conflict is inherent in creative organizations, and people voicing different views and ideas contribute to innovation and adaptation (Sutton, 2002). Optimistic attitudes have been shown to foster greater creativity and innovation in the workplace, with a more relaxed environment bonding employees to one another and to the organization. In contrast, pessimistic attitudes tend to evolve in highly controlled, autocratic environments where the bully syndrome (also known as the emperor’s new clothes syndrome) of management is common (Bolman & Deal, 1991; Logan et al., 2003). It is vital that managers encourage championing of new ideas and risk taking by subordinates to be effective in the contemporary media organization environment, which depends on innovation, creativity, and adaptability.
