Search results

Emphasizing that errors are unacceptable and will be sanctioned does not prevent that errors are made – but can cause workers to cover up mistakes. Making an effort to identify things that go wrong to learn from them and prevent errors in the future offers a more fruitful approach. By sharing an applicable LEARN framework, this paper aims to inspire and give direction to financial corporations in building an error management culture within their organizations.

The behavior and culture team of the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) collaborated closely with social and organizational psychologists from Utrecht University to study error management. The results of a literature study were combined with the findings obtained from a survey (N = 436) and in-depth interviews (N = 15) among employees of 13 Dutch financial corporations that are active within the infrastructure of the capital markets.

Tone at the top and direct managers’ behavior were positively related to error management culture, which in turn related to more learning. Combining these findings with relevant psychological literature resulted in the LEARN framework, which can guide organizations in developing actions and interventions to build an effective error management culture: Let the board take ownership, Engage employees, Align structure and culture, Refocus from person to system and Narrate the best examples.

Stimulating financial corporations to start building a healthier corporate culture by offering the LEARN framework – and recruiting insights from social and organizational psychology to do so – extends traditional supervisory approaches.

This paper aims to identify social psychological root causes of misconduct by traders and offers practical guidelines to prevent misconduct.

The authors use insights on social psychological mechanisms to examine current business practices observed in the context of supervisory activities. Case examples were collected at Dutch and European banks, including major institutions. This is an opinion peace that interprets regulator experiences from a social psychological perspective.

The authors characterize standard responses to misconduct in trading as reactive and elucidate why this “bad apples” perspective is insufficiently effective. As an alternative, the authors address the social psychological root causes of misconduct within trading teams. The “corrupting barrels” model identifies ineffective error approaches, outcome inequality and dysfunctional moral climates as contextual root causes in team dynamics. The model uses current insights from empirical research in psychology to do so.

This paper specifies practical guidelines that help prevent future misconduct among traders.

Addressing the contextual root causes of misconduct at the team level will help banks and financial supervisors to improve their effectiveness in preventing misconduct. In the context of standard “bad apples” approaches, the “corrupting barrels” model offers an original perspective.

Reaching decisions in a deliberative manner is of utmost importance for boards, as their decision-making impacts entire organisations. The current study aims to investigate (1) the quality of group decisions made by board members, (2) their confidence in, satisfaction with, and reflection on the decision-making, and (3) the effect of two discussion procedures on objective decision quality and subjective evaluations of the decision-making.

Board members of various Dutch non-profit organisations (N = 141) participated in a group decision-making task and a brief questionnaire. According to the hidden-profile paradigm, information was asymmetrically distributed among group members and should have been pooled to reach the objectively best decision. Half of the groups received one of two discussion procedures (i.e. advocacy decision or decisional balance sheet), while the other half received none.

Only a fifth of the groups successfully chose the best decision alternative. The initial majority preference strongly influenced the decision, which indicates that discussion was irrelevant to the outcome. Nevertheless, board members were satisfied with their decision-making. Using a discussion procedure enhanced participants' perception that they adequately weighed the pros and cons, but did not improve objective decision quality or other aspects of the subjective evaluation. These findings suggest that board members are unaware of their biased decision-making, which might hinder improvement.

Rather than using student samples, this study was the first to have board members participating in a hidden-profile task.

Nonprofit organisations (NPOs) are an increasingly fundamental part of our society. Meeting rising demand requires NPOs to attract enough resources, especially volunteers, to enable service delivery. This paper aims to adopt a novel theoretical lens to reframe this marketing challenge to inform practice and extend theory.

Practice-based exploration of a volunteer-enabled NPO, parkrun, through in-depth interviews and secondary source analysis.

The research identified that the brand community connects volunteers through three inter-connected levels. The big idea of parkrun, the focal brand, resonated with people through being “on their wavelength”, something they believed in. The local, physical event meant engagement was “on their patch”, anchored in place. Finally, the brand community enables people to volunteer “on their terms”, with fluid roles and flexible levels of commitment.

Not all NPOs have service beneficiaries who are able to volunteer, services with different volunteering roles, or operate through a local physical presence. However, taking a focal brand approach to consider the brand community through which people volunteer for an NPO, the practices that reinforce that community, and how to offer volunteers significantly greater flexibility in both role and commitment presents an opportunity for NPOs to rethink how volunteering works for them in the future.

Clear recommendations for practice include the opportunity to integrate service beneficiary with service delivery enabler (volunteer) to strengthen the implicit social contract, increasing participation to deepen the social identity felt towards the brand, and key practices that reduce barriers to volunteering.

The paper extends volunteering theory from the traditional individual needs approach to a focal brand community perspective. The marketing challenge of attracting volunteer resources to NPOs is understood through rethinking the boundaries between service beneficiaries and service enablers, anchored in social identity theory. It provides clear recommendations for practice through reframing the recruitment challenge.

The authors aim to contribute to the understanding of the enduring underrepresentation of women in the IT industry by analysing media discourse triggered by a campaign intended to encourage women to join the IT industry.

Internet media coverage of the Little Miss Geek campaign in the UK was analysed as qualitative data to reveal systematic and coherent patterns contributing to the social construction of the role of women with respect to the IT industry and IT employment.

While ostensibly supporting women's empowerment, the discourse framed women's participation in the IT industry as difficult to achieve, focused on women's presumed “feminine” essential features (thus, effectively implying that they are less suitable for IT employment than men), and tasked women with overcoming the barrier via individual efforts (thus, implicitly blaming them for the imbalance). In these ways, the discourse worked against the broader aims of the campaign.

Campaigns and organisations that promote women's participation should work to establish new frames, rather than allowing the discourse to be shaped by the established frames.

The authors interpret the framing in the discourse using Bourdieu's perspective on symbolic power: the symbolic power behind the existing patriarchal order expressed itself via framing, thus contributing to the maintenance of that order. By demonstrating the relevance of Bourdieu's symbolic power, the authors offer a novel understanding of how underrepresentation of women in the IT sector is produced and maintained.