Introduction
Social Psychology at Organizations plays an outstanding role in forming organizational behaviour. Organisational Behaviour (OB) refers to the study of human behaviour individually and in groups in an organisational context (Giacalone and Rosenfeld, 2013). The theories and principles of OB are widely applied and practised in the business world because of the effectiveness of the terms in increasing efficiency, inter-group behaviour etc. Social Psychology (SP) in the organization is the dominant term in this case study, and it implies studying human cognition, behaviour, decision, and influences in an organisational context to improve interpersonal relationships, marketing activities, leadership, and job performance (Alcock and Sadava, 2014). Social psychology plays a significant role in any business organisation because it investigates the relationship between higher management to lower management, corporate to customers, colleagues to colleagues, leadership orientations, flexibility, adaptability etc., which are of great importance to changing business world.
This is a case study-based report where social psychology will be used to understand and analyse human behaviour. Theories of a term will be applied in a certain context. After that, the relationship among generations will be evaluated based on the theories and knowledge of social psychology.
You may feel interested to read below blogs:
Different approaches to recruitment and selection
Emotional Intelligence at Unilever
Importance of HR Strategies in Unilever
Human resource management of BRAKES
Importance of Social Psychology (SP) at organisations
Furnham (2012) has revealed in his research that understanding Social Psychology (SP) helps a business to grow sales regardless of whether the psychology is about customers, employees or investors. As the contextualised scenario in the case study, the company certainly has a number of customers to serve; some shareholders who seek return and stake, suppliers who want orders and ethical behaviour; employees of top to lower levels who deserve salaries and a good work environment. A business has to deal with all these stakeholders who have different types of behaviour and preferences (De Cremer, Zeelenberg and Murnighan, 2013). Social psychology is all about the minds of these stakeholders in which the company aims to make the best behaviour and deals with them to yield the best outcomes.
Social Psychology (SP) implies that all employees (even at the same levels) are not equal in behaviour: In regards to the use of SP in managing employees, the most important use of the term is to understand that employees, even at the same level do not expose similar attitude, manner, flexibility, adaptability, leadership and management capability (Haslam et al., 2013). The HR department of the company makes the best use of this knowledge, and employees are treated and managed accordingly to ensure that they perform their best with motivation and engagement. Accordingly, the company appoints the employee demonstrating good leadership capabilities in the decision-making position. On the other hand, Employees who are happy when they are given basic needs are provided with the safety, and security of jobs. This concept goes with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (Furnham, 2012). Overall, the underlining knowledge of SP has helped the company to best utilise human resources by making them motivated and engaged.
Social psychology perceives that employees will not easily adapt to change: Another important fundamental knowledge of SP is that employees in the workplace will usually not adapt to new technologies, new systems and new strategies (Shibutani, 2017). The subject matter also suggests that companies should take the initiative to include training, development programs and mentorship for the employees so that they can better adapt to the changing environment. This essential message helps the company to address the behaviour and take initiatives to help employees adapt to the changing environment.
Social psychology explains that employees will engage in conflicts: SP implies that a common scenario in the workplace is that employees will engage themselves in conflicts inside and outside of the organisation (Bargh, 2013). Even in the case study company, employees of Generation X and Generation Y also engaged in conflicts in regard to adaptation to new technology. Companies have to understand they have come from different times, different races, ages, different backgrounds and different financial capabilities. As a result, they behave in different approaches resulting in conflicts. The higher authority of the company, in return, must come forward to settle the problems among conflicting people and solve the problems because SP also teaches that unsettled conflicts will never bring a positive outcome.
Social Psychology informs that commitment, consistency, and quality is important: SP informs that the dominant factors for market share and sales are commitment, consistency, and quality to the customers (Speer, 2012). The case study company also has customers who demand the same. SP helps the company to understand the need of the customers, and the sales and marketing team offer products and services to the customers.
Social Psychology helps businesses understand that tailored and best efforts should be ensured in communication with customers: SP also explains that customers have different preferences in terms of communication channels and messages (McConnell and Brown, 2010). The subject educates the company that messages and communications should be tailored to reach the customers.
Conflicts, cooperation and decision-making in organisations
Social psychology is about the analysis of human behaviour in the organisational context. The subject company in the case study has three different generations: the baby boomers (aged 60-80 years), Generation X (aged 50-60 years) and Generation Y (aged 26-50 years). As the age indicates, they are from different times and different socio-economic and ecological environments. Cuadrado et al., (2012) have revealed that people will expose to different types of behaviour in regard to how to cooperate with team members, how they make a decision and how they engage in conflicts in an organisational context. The same has been seen in the company of the case study.
Below, three theories of social psychology have been critically analysed and linked with the case study scenario:
Attribution Theory
Attribution Theory explains certain behaviour of people in a circumstance in which people attribute some reasons for certain behaviour or actions (Holtgraves, 2013). In other words, this theory explains how people behave and act with others in a certain situation. In such a situation, people attribute some other reasons and circumstances for their behaviour and actions. Social psychologists have divided the attributes into four types: Internal attributes, external attributes, stable attributes and unstable attributes (Danaher and Branscombe, 2010). People refer to these various types of attributes for certain reactions and events.
Argyle (2013) has revealed that the Attribution Theory explains the reasons for certain behaviour and why people engage in conflicts in organisations. In the company of this case study, employees from three generations: baby boomers, Y and X, had different types of attitudes regarding how they behaved with each other. It was seen that the younger generation showed more resilience towards other people; on the other hand, employees from the older generation have less resilience towards new members, diversity and adaptability.
| Adaptability | Percentage |
| Baby Boomers | 10% |
| Gen-X | 49% |
| Gen-Y | 41% |
Figure: Adaptability of employees as per generation. Source: Case Study
The above table shows a comparative statement of how adaptive the employees are according to generations.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory:
Cognitive Dissonance Theory explains the human characters in which people feel mental discomfort because of the changed attitudes; perceptions resulting from a decision and the effects (Byrne et al., 2011). This theory critically evaluates the side effects of making a decision which involves selecting the best options while not selecting all other alternatives. Bilsky, Janik and Schwartz (2011) have revealed that the theory of cognitive dissonance has a direct relationship with decision-making because the case of dissonance arises once a person makes a decision.
The case study company has three different generations of different times, and they make the decision to meet the business objectives. The information in the below table has been extracted from the case study. It shows generation-wise different categories of decision-making and their effectiveness:
| Generations | Areas of decision | Effectiveness % |
| Baby boomers | Managing in challenging times | 48% |
| Generation-X | Managing teams effectively | 70% |
| Generation-y | Managing other generation Ys | 69% |
Figure: Decision as per generations and their effectiveness percentage (Case study)
It can be seen that baby boomers performed the worst among all the generations. On the other hand, Generation X and Y are closer in terms of effectiveness percentage. From this scenario, this can be assumed that baby boomers faced cognitive dissonance more than the following two generations. Amabile and Pillemer (2012) have viewed that people having cognitive dissonance will perform poorly. Therefore it is important that they do not feel the same, and they should feel confident. Amabile and Pillemer (2012) have also implied that one significant way to reduce cognitive dissonance is to be more attracted to the benefits of advantages of the chosen option and be more focused on the disadvantages of the not chosen option.
Social Exchange Theory:
The theory of Social Exchange is based on the principle that relationship, cooperation, behaviour and attitude towards other people depend on giving and take among the engaged parties (Funder et al., 2014). The theory implies that people engage in a social relationship with people based on the underlying benefits of the relationship, the relationship and cooperation are maintained as soon as the benefits are expected. However, this does not mean that the give and take will have equal values. Wonday, Porter and Steers (2013) have revealed that social exchange theory largely explains the rationale and reasons why people interact so nicely with people, while it also explains why some people do not cooperate with their colleagues.
In the case study company, employees from three different generations demonstrated different types of behaviour and cooperation with their fellow colleagues.
The below table has been extracted from the information from the case study.
| Generations | Level of Cooperations | Percentage |
| Baby Boomers | Collaborative | 20% |
| Generation-X | Collaborative | 53% |
| Generation-Y | Collaborative | 27% |
Figure: Cooperation levels as per generations (Case study)
As the above table shows, Generation X demonstrated the highest level of cooperation among all the three categories. On the other hand, both Generation Y and Baby Boomers perform poorly in terms of cooperation. The difference might mean that Generation X is much more sensitive and careful about their relationship with other people.
The relationship between generations
The relationship between generations in the context of the perception of inequality, fairness and discrimination
Inequality, fairness and discrimination are widely and critically evaluated in business worldwide. Equality is a concept explaining that companies should create equal basements and opportunities for all employees regardless of their background, race, religion, ethnicity and socio-economic condition (Sherif, 2015). This concept is widely followed in the corporate world, where they term equality as Corporate Social Responsibility. Fairness in the workplace also plays a significant role because fair judgment motivates employees to put in their best effort, and keeps them motivated and engaged. Finally, the principle of discrimination implies that companies should not discriminate among employees or among projects.
Paille and Grima (2011) have revealed in their research that the modern business world strictly follows the principles of equality, fairness and discrimination because employees and stakeholders evaluate the activities of the company in terms of the said issues before they make a relationship with the company. On the other hand, in the past, companies did not follow the above principles because the issues of inequality, fairness and discrimination were not widely evaluated.
The case study company has shared the activities and performance of three generations: the baby boomers (aged 60-80 years), Generation X (aged 50-60 years) and Generation Y (aged 26-50 years). The case study shows that Baby Boomers are not sensitive to inequality, fairness and discrimination. The reason for such negligence to these issues is that during their generation before 2000, companies were not concerned about inequality, fairness and discrimination. With the passing of time, companies have become more careful about the principles of inequality, fairness and discrimination because of the impact of globalisation. As a result, Generation X is sensitive, and Generation Y is very sensitive to inequality, fairness and discrimination.
Conclusion
As discussed, organisational behaviour evaluates the behaviour and traits of employees to ensure that employees perform their best at the workplace with motivation and engagement. To achieve the objectives, the social psychologist has introduced different social psychological theories and models which aim to evaluate the reasons for certain behaviour by employees and people. Theories and models help a company to understand certain instincts and reasons for certain types of behaviour. Inequality, fairness and discrimination are widely evaluated in the contemporary business world. Baby boomers do not pay heed to the principles, whilst Generation X and Y are sensitive and very sensitive, respectively, to the principles of inequality, fairness and discrimination.
References
Alcock, J. and Sadava, S. (2014). An introduction to social psychology; Global perspectives. London: Sage.
Bargh, JA (2013). Social psychology and the unconscious: The automaticity of higher mental processes. Psychology Press.
Cuadrado, I., Navas, M., Molero, F., Ferrer, E. and Morales, J.F. (2012). Gender differences in leadership styles as a function of leader and subordinates’ sex and type of organisation. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 42(12), pp.3083-3113.
Danaher, K. and Branscombe, NR (2010). Maintaining the system with tokenism: Bolstering individual mobility beliefs and identification with a discriminatory organisation. British Journal of Social Psychology, 49(2), pp.343-362.