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Institutionalized Involvement: Teams and Stress in 1990s U.S. Steel
Author(s) -
Haber Jaren
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
industrial relations: a journal of economy and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.61
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1468-232X
pISSN - 0019-8676
DOI - 10.1111/irel.12154
Subject(s) - distrust , context (archaeology) , social psychology , public relations , stress (linguistics) , unintended consequences , psychology , business , sociology , political science , law , geography , linguistics , philosophy , archaeology , psychotherapist
Is employee involvement universally either good or bad, a “best practice” or an exploitative tool—or do its effects depend on context? To shed light on this issue, I ask the following question: Do organizational–cultural factors determine whether employees are stressed by membership in teams? By constructing mixed‐effects models from a large mid‐1990s survey of U.S. steel employees, I find that team membership is linked to increased stress only when implemented in cultural contexts of conflict and distrust. I conclude that the unintended consequences of institutionalized formal practices depend on organizationally specific cultural conditions.