MASSEY UNIVERSITYHonesty Declaration

School o f Management (A lbany)

L e c t u r e r ’ s N a m e

Dr Wendelin Küpers

P a p e r N a m e

Advances Research Methods in Business

P a p e r N u m b e r

152.781

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http://calendar.massey.ac.nz/2007/statutes/dr.htm, clause (f), wherein it states [Students shall] “act with honesty and integrity in submitting material or imparting information to the university”. Assessment & Examination Regulations clause (7) clarifies further that “dishonesty” is a breach of the Code of Student Conduct and will be dealt with accordingly.

Family Name Given Name(s) ID number Student Signature Date

JOY JACKSON 13088772 15-05-2013

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For Office Only

Marker’s Name: Mark:…………………………….

Marker’s Signature: Date:……………………………..

Date Assignment due15-05-2013

ASSIGNMENT: 2

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND METHODOLOGY

(SEMESTER 01, 2013)

Lecturer: Dr. Wendelin Küpers

Jackson Joy

Student ID: 13088772

152.781 - ADVANCED RESEARCH METHODS

Email: joyjackson1988@yahoo.in

Word count: 2106

RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

What categories of injustice are perceived by the change managers and employees?

What are the behavioural and emotional reactions or responses to these perceived

injustices?

How are the change recipient and the change leader influenced by the perceived

injustices?

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:

Hello XYZ, please take your seat and make yourselves comfortable. Thank you for

coming down here to talk to me and I hope that this interaction that we are going to

have would be pleasant and interesting for the both of us. The aim of this research is

to find out what kinds of injustices are perceived by the change managers as well as

the employees and how they respond to these forms of injustices. The reason I have

asked you to come is to know from you some of your personal experiences during

the change process in this organization. I probably expect this interaction to last for

about 20-30 minutes, and before we start with this interview process, I would like to

confirm if you are comfortable in taking part in this research interview? If at any

time, you want to stop the interview or you feel the question that I asked is hard for

you to answer, please feel free to say the same to me. The whole purpose of this

interview will be for research and will be highly confidential, so you can be well free

to answer my questions. Do you have any questions for me before we start with the

interview?

As you know this company has been going through a few organizational changes in

the last couple of years:-

1. How fair were the outcomes of the change?

2. Did this have any emotional impact on you?

3. How satisfied were you by the processes of change?

4. What were your reactions to the change process?

5. Were you satisfied with the information you were given about the change?

6. What do you think could have been improved regarding the information

provided to you about the change?

7. How fair was the communication between you and your manager, or the

change manager?

8. Do you think the manager could have interacted with you in a better way?

9. Were you asked by the management to provide your opinion in the decision

making?

10. Can you mention an instance or a situation which made you feel insecure in

this company and how did you react to that situation?

Thank you for sharing with me your personal experiences regarding the organization

change. That is all the questions I have for you. Do you have any questions that you

want to ask me? Thank you for coming and it was my pleasure talking with you.

ABSTRACT

Employees facing the organizational change frequently experience negative emotions

when they assume or encounter injustice which can lead to decreased productivity,

resistance to change, absenteeism and turnover. This research aims at analyzing the

nature of emotions recorded by the respondent and to investigate how these emotions

are provoked by the perceptions of the different types of injustice: distributive,

informational, interpersonal and procedural. A sequence of interviews, with those

engaged in different roles in the change initiatives at multiple hierarchical levels and

in distinct organizations, indicated the bitter effect of the perceived injustice and the

associated negative emotions such as frustration, anxiety, anger and guilt. The

emotions were likely to be more for the ones experiencing the change and somewhat

moderate for the ones leading and managing the change. This research will be

gathering data through interviews with multiple respondents selected from different

organizations who may be the change recipient (victim or survivor) or a change

leader (change manager).

INTRODUCTION

Theoretical Foundation:

This research follows a social constructionist dais as it has been mostly employed in

the studies of emotions, change and organizational justice. ‘Social constructionism

emphasizes the hold our culture has on us; it shapes the way in which we see things

(even the way in which we feel things!) and gives us quite a definite view of the

world’ (Crotty, 1998, p. 58). Schwandt (2003, p. 307) notes affect and values as the

two visible features of social constructionism that are significant to perceptions of

justice: ‘A general assumption of social constructionism is the knowledge is not

disinterested, apolitical, and exclusive of affective and embodied aspects of human

experience, but is in some sense ideological, political and permeated with values’.

The concept of fairness is partially built from the multiple social forces the people

are being exposed to (Lamertz, 2002; Tyler & Bies, 1990), such as in education

(Mayhew & Fernandez, 2007), law (Thibaut & Walker, 1975), sports (Mahony et al.,

2006) and religion (Cole, 2009). They also can differ across ethnic, national and

religious boundaries (Cole, 2009).

In the literature on organization justice, the relational model of Tyler and Lind

(1992) demonstrates that the perceptions on procedural injustice are build up by

exclusion from groups that establish one’s status. Tyler and Bies (1990) indicate that

the managers often intentionally try to develop the perception of fairness via

impression management tactics. Nevertheless, the employees may not always

consume the managerial constructions and their personal dissertations create a

different reality (Bean & Hamilton, 2006). The sense of fairness has also been

articulated into Leader-Member Exchange Theory. According to Scandura (1999),

the crossroad of procedural and distributive injustice induces unfavorable outcomes

that weaken the social relationship between the member and the leader. In the case of

an organization, this can cause an employee to realize that his or her value to the

organization (or manager) has decreased. Lamertz (2002) conducted a survey in an

organization that had gone through considerable reorganization and downsizing and

discovered that the employees perception of the change was party dependent on the

justice judgments expressed by his or her peers and partly on the level of relationship

between the employee and the manager.

In the literature of social constructionism of emotions, it was found that the emotions

we are supposed to experience are cultivated within us by our families, mass media,

schools and the organization. Harre (1986, p. 5) proposes that ‘many emotions can

exist only in the reciprocal exchanges of a social encounter’ and these relationships

help to learn what emotions are to be expressed and what needs to be suppressed.

Issues of power and culture in the organizational sphere influence both the

expression ad experience of the emotion (Smollan & Sayers, 2009). According to

Buchanan & Dawson (2007), the dissertations among the staffs often provide an

outlook on engagement with changes that are at odds with official versions. Thus,

Social constructionism can be used as a magnifying glass to view biased accounts of

fairness and emotions that were experienced and also that may have been hidden.

The interviews:

Sample of 48 people were interviewed in and around Auckland, New Zealand in

2013 on their emotional reactions and responses to the fairness of the organizational

change. These participants were sourced through fellow academics and some

management consultants, as a result of which I had no prior relationship with them.

There were 28 men and 20 women, 22 whites/Europeans, 14 Maori, 7 Asians and 5

of Pacific Island background and they were aged from 30 to 39. They were all from a

variety of functional and hierarchical positions in different industries and

organizations who had reported one or more change experience that included

relocations, mergers and acquisitions, redundancies, job redesign and restructure.

Some of the participants chose to comments on the recent changes, but the rest

focused on the changes that had taken place more than 7 years back.

The participants were asked to give details about the change and its outcomes. In the

form of a semi-structured interview that continued for about 20 to 30 minutes, they

were asked a few questions about the outcomes of the change for themselves and

others, leadership issues, organizational culture and temporal dimensions of the

change. The 10 questions above mentioned were specifically asked about the fairness

and interaction of the organization. After each question, the participant was asked if

it had any emotional effect on him or her.

All though, this may seem to be a structured interview protocol, the key purpose was

to capture a vision into perceptions of each type of justice and the corresponding

reactions. Further probing was done where participants appeared to confront

themselves, either with respect to the emotions they reported or denied having

experienced or about their assumptions of justice.

The credibility of this research was evaluated by using respondent validation, where

the participants of the interview were provided with an account of what he or she

said to the researcher during the interview and conversation and what the researcher

evaluated by observing the participant. By this method, it can be confirmed that the

findings and observations of the researchers were coinciding with the views of the

participants, and if any area lacked correspondence. The dependability of this

qualitative research was sought through an auditing approach, where research

supervisors and other experts in this field of study (Bryman & Bell, 2007).

DATA ANALYSIS

The interviews were recorded and transcribed, and notes were made on the

transcripts. Notes were made regarding the answer to questions that were asked not

directly about justice (about leadership, speed of change) and also the answers to the

probing questions. To help further in this research analysis, a table was drawn that

contained columns for the natures of change, the different types of outcomes for self

and others and the four forms of justice in Colquitt’s (2001) taxonomy: procedural,

distributive, informational and interpersonal. The outcomes were again separated into

non-material (includes relational or socioeconomic) and material (includes

instrumental or economic). It was specifically noted when the participants had

spoken about justice for others and themselves and what emotions they experienced

and why, whether the emotions were positive or negative, the intensity of emotion

and the consequences. The contents in each column of the table were the

combination of the researcher’s observations along with quotes from the transcript.

All the participants were labelled in the format < I > < digits (1-48) >, in the order in

which they were interviewed.

LIMITATIONS

The research interview took place with a small sample of 48 participants in one

country. In the literature on cross-cultural constructions of organization justice,

Greenberg (2001) notes that organizational justice must be seen in a condition with

wider social and political forces and Cole (2009) highlights that religion and

nationality influence the perception of the organizational justice. Thus, the small

sample does not give a fair idea about the perceived justice.

The respondents in this interview were from 4 different ethnic groups. Nevertheless,

the role that cultural factors of New Zealand and that in other countries could make

on the perception of justice could not be addressed.

The participant’s response to the perception of organizational justice may be partly

shaped according to his personality (influence of traits like angry hostility, risk

aversion, negative affinity etc).

Since the interview was being taped, there could be chances that the participants did

not respond the way they intended as this could have created a level of insecurity of

information.

There could be chances that the perception of justice by a participant interviewed

could be a due to the perception from his or her colleague, who shared the emotion

with this participant. Thus, it can be a case of emotional contagion.

CONCLUSION

This qualitative study has delivered to the literature by giving insight into the ways in

which 48 individuals responded to the organizational injustice and also by featuring

the affective elements. It shows that the injustice of organizational change unleashed

unhealthy negative emotions in the change recipient and also more restrained

emotions for those change leaders and managers. These injustices can lead to lowers

job satisfaction, unproductive work, resistance to change and employee turnover. If

the outcomes can be interpreted as unfair, the management can at least try to enhance

the perceptions of the other forms of justice. Even if most of the employees in an

organizational change feel that the change was nearly fair, the manager must make it

a point to spend some extra time with others who feel it is not. Even though, the

manager may not be able to change the employees’ outcomes, this method or

approach can ameliorate the negative emotions and make the aggrieved feel that they

have been heard. It is definite that this research poses several limitations, but the

main objective is still cloudless in the minds of the researcher and it calls for more

research to validate an instrument to measure justice in an organization.

References

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