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.

This chapter reviews recent theoretical developments and empirical research, to examine the causes and consequences of identity processes in relation to collaboration in work groups and group performance. Our central proposition is that identification in work groups can have beneficial as well as detrimental effects, depending on the nature of the shared identity, and the content of distinctive group norms. First, we examine some of the complications stemming from the fact that identification in work settings typically involves groups that can be defined at different levels of inclusiveness and where people can be seen as having multiple cross-cutting identities. Then, we move on to show that processes of identification affect the way people view their co-workers and supervisors, causing the same objective behavior to be interpreted and responded to in a fundamentally different way. Finally, we examine how normative expectations about prototypical group behavior determine group processes and group outcomes, with the consequence that identification and commitment can affect work motivation and collective performance in different ways, depending on the content of distinctive group norms.

In this chapter, we introduce a theoretical model to explain under which conditions different insights or approaches within a team do not necessarily undermine team cohesiveness or prevent the development of a common team identity, and can in fact even reinforce each other. We will review a program of research that examined the formation of a common identity in new collaborations, as well as the extent to which teams accept newcomers who possess unique resources. We show that clarity and congruence determine the likelihood that team members will maintain a common identity while they effectively use the differences among them and accommodate to team changes.

One interesting and unequivocal theme across the chapters is that everyone in teams, not just minority members, is affected by the group's composition – whites and blacks, men and women, and those who are experienced as well as inexperienced. Further, though there is evidence that minority members may be more affected than majority members (both positively and negatively – see, e.g., Chatman, Boisnier, Spataro, Anderson & Berdahl, in press), it is clear that majority members are influenced by group composition as well.

Several years we began a new trend in the Advances in Group Processes series. Our goal then was to publish a set of five interrelated volumes that examine core issues or fundamental themes in the group processes arena. Each volume was to be organized around a particular problem, substantive area, or topic of study, broadly defined to include a range of methodological and theoretical orientations. Volume 22 represents the fourth volume in the series, addressing fundamental issues of Social Identification in Groups.