Organizational cynicism: A study among call centers

Psychological contract violation is the emotional precursor to the onset of organizational cynicism. Traditionally several demographical factors moderate this relationship. Previous studies included these factors as control variables, but not all of them. This study examines the moderation of all potential demographical variables between psychological contract violation and organizational cynicism. Results of an empirical study among call center employees suggest that demographical variables do not moderate this relationship. Except for the family variable, indicating the relational status of the interviewee, the demographical variables also did not influence organizational cynicism. However, three control variables (company, work type and answering location) did influence organizational cynicism. Interestingly, work type also moderated the relationship between psychological contract violation and organizational cynicism. Organizational cynicism: a study among call centers 24-5-2005 Menno Delken 3 1 Table of contents 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 3 2 TABLE OF FIGURES. 4 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. 5 4 INTRODUCTION . 6 5 ORGANIZATIONAL CYNICISM AND DEMOGRAPHICS . 8 5.1 ORGANIZATIONAL CYNICISM REDEFINED . 8 5.2 ORGANIZATIONAL CYNICISM RESEARCH . 12 5.2. 1 Forms of organizational cynicism in an attitude framework. 14 5.2. 2 Antecedents of OC. 18 5.2. 3 Consequences of OC . 19 5.3 THE RESEARCHED MODEL. 19 5.4 PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACT VIOLATION. 20 5.5 DEMOGRAPHICS. 20 5.6 CONTROL VARIABLES. 24 6 METHODS AND ANALYSIS. 27 6.1 SAMPLE AND PROCEDURE. 27 6.1. 1 Proposition to the call center employee . 27 6.1. 2 Proposition to the company . 28 6.2 MEASURES . 29 6.2. 1 Dependent variable . 30 6.2. 2 Independent variables . 30 6.2. 3 Demographics . 30 6.2. 4 Control variables . 33 7 RESULTS . 35 7.1 DATA ANALYSIS . 36 7.2 FACTOR ANALYSES . 38 7.3 MODERATION . 44 7.4 DATA REDUCTION. 48 8 DISCUSSION . 51 8.1 THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH. 53 8.2 PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS. 53 8.3 LIMITATIONS . 53 9 CONCLUSION. 55 10 REFERENCES . 56 11 APPENDICES. 58 11.1 QUESTIONNAIRE . 58 11.2 DIFFERENT TRANSFORMATIONS. 61 Organizational cynicism: a study among call centers 24-5-2005 Menno Delken 4 2 Table of figures Page Figure 1 9 The formation of the attitude (Ajzen 2001) Figure 2 11 The classic thought-action process Figure 3 18 Andersson’s (1996) contract violation framework Figure 4 19 The proposed model Figure 5 39 Histogram of OC Summated Figure 6 39 Histogram of PCV Summated Figure 7 48 Component loadings of the control variables Figure 8 51 Model of the outcomes of the research Figure 9 59 Average tenure per work type Table 1 15 An overview of the different sub-forms of organizational cynicism Table 2 20 A sample of demographical variables in previous OC research Table 3 35 Overview of the demographical variables Table 4 40 Component loadings Education Table 5 41 Overview of non-demographical variables Table 6 42 Correlation matrix Table 7 43 Model comparison Table 8 43 Regression (dependent variable OC) Table 9 45 Overview of different moderator models Table 10 46 Discriminant analysis of the Family variable Table 11 47 Discriminant analysis of the Work Type variable Table 12 49 Principal components of all the researched variables Table 13 49 Model comparison Table 14 51 Overview of the outcomes of the initial hypotheses Table 15 61 Overview of the different transformations Organizational cynicism: a study among call centers 24-5-2005 Menno Delken 5 3 Acknowledgements The author wishes to thank first and foremost Mr. Fons Naus from the University of Maastricht for his cooperation and guidance in building this thesis. His expertise on the issue of organizational cynicism proved indispensable. Secondly, the author would like to thank the University of Maastricht for providing the necessary and excellent facilities for writing this thesis. The author would also like to thank the following people who have greatly helped data collection through their personal network: Miss Fenna Hagen and Mr. Wouter Delken. Organizational cynicism: a study among call centers 24-5-2005 Menno Delken 6 4 Introduction Employees are often confronted with two opposing views of the working environment: on the one hand, they know their working environment from first-hand experience. They know the culture of the company, they know what their boss is like, they know how much money they make, and they know how much they like or dislike their job. On the other hand, they are confronted with the image that the company portrays or wants to portray to the outside world. For example, they might see an interview with the CEO of their firm on TV. They might see an article or advertisement about their company in the newspaper. Many times, employees will find that their own views toward their company will not be fundamentally different from the official image. Nevertheless, for some employees, they will be very different. They may experience lay-offs, while hearing the CEO praise the company’s friendly employee policies. These employees will probably feel a sense of anger when they hear such a message. This paper is about these employees: employees that have lost confidence in their employer, that feel betrayed, angry and fearful. In short, these employees might suffer from an attitude called “organizational cynicism”. When we think about these employees, many questions come to mind. Why do these employees feel the way they do? What happened to them? What do they feel exactly? Do some groups of employees feel this way more than other groups of employees? The central question that this paper tries to answer is: how do demographical factors relate to organizational cynicism? For example, are men more cynical than women are? Demographics will be split up into its components to see if some demographical variables might make more of a difference than others might. We will also try to find clusters of demographical groups that might influence organizational cynicism jointly. Demographics are not the cause of organizational cynicism (why would age create organizational cynicism? ); rather, they might influence its effect on employees. Therefore, we also have to focus Organizational cynicism: a study among call centers 24-5-2005 Menno Delken 7 on the causes of organizational cynicism to assess the effect of demographics. In the first part of this paper, we will explore the concept of organizational cynicism. Then, we will further elaborate the problem statement in several hypotheses. In the third section, we will test these hypotheses in a study among call center employees. Finally, we will draw the conclusions of the study. In the appendix, you can find a bibliography, the questionnaire used for the study, some data used for the study, and some additional information. Organizational cynicism: a study among call centers 24-5-2005 Menno Delken 8 5 Organizational cynicism and demographics The theoretical background on the relation between demographics and organizational cynicism (OC) is very slim. Certainly, no studies available today control for all the demographical variables that will be treated here: all of the previous studies use some subset of these variables. However, several researchers have controlled for some demographical variables in thei