IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/humman/v5y2020i1d10.1007_s41463-020-00084-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Solidarity and Workplace Engagement: a Management Perspective on Cultivating Community

Author

Listed:
  • Bruce Baker

    (Seattle Pacific University)

  • Don Lee

    (Seattle Pacific University)

Abstract

Solidarity corresponds to virtuous social behavior, including personal freedom and responsibility, civic friendship, benevolence, reciprocity, and cooperation. These attributes are fundamentally good for individual persons and communities of work. Solidarity is therefore vitally important to the practice of humanistic management. This paper aims to provide management insights into the cultivation of solidarity. The paper begins by developing a theoretical framework to understand solidarity in business context, with attention to philosophical and theological connotations. An empirical research model is presented in the form of a survey instrument to test for indications of solidarity in the workplace, and this measure is used to test several hypotheses regarding the positive associations of solidarity with validated measures of workplace engagement. Research results show that it is possible to identify and analyze workplace behaviors associated with solidarity. Data analysis confirms the validity of the model and demonstrates the positive associations of the hypotheses, based on empirical study of 40 workplaces and 399 employees. Moreover, the condition of whether the workplace was a public or private organization was found to affect the main relationship between solidarity and workplace engagement. The paper concludes with suggestions for practicable, tangible workplace behaviors based on the model, offering guidance in the pursuit of humanistic management.

Suggested Citation

  • Bruce Baker & Don Lee, 2020. "Solidarity and Workplace Engagement: a Management Perspective on Cultivating Community," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 39-57, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:humman:v:5:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s41463-020-00084-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s41463-020-00084-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41463-020-00084-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s41463-020-00084-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ozgur Demirtas, 2015. "Ethical Leadership Influence at Organizations: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 126(2), pages 273-284, January.
    2. Lloyd E. Sandelands, 2017. "The Real Mystery of Positive Business: A Response from Christian Faith," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 145(4), pages 771-780, November.
    3. Aamir Chughtai & Marann Byrne & Barbara Flood, 2015. "Linking Ethical Leadership to Employee Well-Being: The Role of Trust in Supervisor," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 128(3), pages 653-663, May.
    4. Lloyd Sandelands, 2009. "The Business of Business is the Human Person: Lessons from the Catholic Social Tradition," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 85(1), pages 93-101, March.
    5. S. Hansen & Bradley Alge & Michael Brown & Christine Jackson & Benjamin Dunford, 2013. "Ethical Leadership: Assessing the Value of a Multifoci Social Exchange Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 115(3), pages 435-449, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marie-Noëlle Albert & Nadia Lazzari Dodeler & Asri Yves Ohin, 2022. "How Organizations can Develop Solidarity in the Workplace? A Case Study," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 7(2), pages 327-346, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jianji Zeng & Guangyi Xu, 2019. "Ethical Leadership and Young University Teachers’ Work Engagement: A Moderated Mediation Model," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(1), pages 1-15, December.
    2. Jie Feng & Yucheng Zhang & Xinmei Liu & Long Zhang & Xiao Han, 2018. "Just the Right Amount of Ethics Inspires Creativity: A Cross-Level Investigation of Ethical Leadership, Intrinsic Motivation, and Employee Creativity," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 153(3), pages 645-658, December.
    3. Ahmed Mohammed Sayed Mostafa & Sam Farley & Monica Zaharie, 2021. "Examining the Boundaries of Ethical Leadership: The Harmful Effect of Co-worker Social Undermining on Disengagement and Employee Attitudes," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 174(2), pages 355-368, November.
    4. Muel Kaptein, 2022. "The Moral Duty to Love One’s Stakeholders," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 180(2), pages 813-827, October.
    5. Gina Grandy & Martyna Sliwa, 2017. "Contemplative Leadership: The Possibilities for the Ethics of Leadership Theory and Practice," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 143(3), pages 423-440, July.
    6. Jeremy B. Bernerth, 2022. "Does the Narcissist (and Those Around Him/Her) Pay a Price for Being Narcissistic? An Empirical Study of Leaders’ Narcissism and Well-Being," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 177(3), pages 533-546, May.
    7. Hao Zhou & Xinyi Sheng & Yulin He & Xiaoye Qian, 2020. "Ethical Leadership as the Reliever of Frontline Service Employees’ Emotional Exhaustion: A Moderated Mediation Model," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(3), pages 1-13, February.
    8. Yidong Tu & Xinxin Lu & Yue Yu, 2017. "Supervisors’ Ethical Leadership and Employee Job Satisfaction: A Social Cognitive Perspective," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 229-245, February.
    9. Tran Quang Bao Phuc & Khalida Parveen & Duyen Thi Truc Tran & Dao Thi Anh Nguyen, 2021. "The linkage between ethical leadership and lecturer job satisfaction at a private higher education institution in Vietnam," Journal of Social Sciences Advancement, Science Impact Publishers, vol. 2(2), pages 39-50.
    10. Jeremy D. Mackey & Charn P. McAllister & Katherine C. Alexander, 2021. "Insubordination: Validation of a Measure and an Examination of Insubordinate Responses to Unethical Supervisory Treatment," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 168(4), pages 755-775, February.
    11. Domenec Melé, 2016. "Understanding Humanistic Management," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 33-55, September.
    12. Miguel Cunha & Arménio Rego & Antonino Vaccaro, 2014. "Organizations as Human Communities and Internal Markets: Searching for Duality," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 120(4), pages 441-455, April.
    13. Qiuxiang Wen & Yingxuan Wu & Jing Long, 2021. "Influence of Ethical Leadership on Employees’ Innovative Behavior: The Role of Organization-Based Self-Esteem and Flexible Human Resource Management," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-15, January.
    14. Seonggoo Ji & Ihsan Ullah Jan, 2020. "Antecedents and Consequences of Frontline Employee’s Trust-in-Supervisor and Trust-in-Coworker," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-17, January.
    15. Ahmed Taha Mitugn, 2021. "Challenges of practicing ethical leadership in Sudanese universities," Technium Social Sciences Journal, Technium Science, vol. 21(1), pages 195-211, July.
    16. Mehrzad B. Baktash & Uwe Jirjahn, 2023. "Are Managers More Machiavellian Than Other Employees?," Research Papers in Economics 2023-07, University of Trier, Department of Economics.
    17. Rahul. P, 2021. "Trust Leadership: A Work-from-Home Scenario in IT Sector During the COVID-19 Pandemic," Jindal Journal of Business Research, , vol. 10(2), pages 251-269, December.
    18. Horacio E. Rousseau, 2017. "Corporate Sustainability: Toward a Theoretical Integration of Catholic Social Teaching and the Natural-Resource-Based View of the Firm," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 145(4), pages 725-737, November.
    19. Alma Acevedo, 2012. "Personalist Business Ethics and Humanistic Management: Insights from Jacques Maritain," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 105(2), pages 197-219, January.
    20. Shadi Mohammad Altahat & Tarik Atan, 2018. "Role of Healthy Work Environments in Sustainability of Goal Achievement; Ethical Leadership, Intention to Sabotage, and Psychological Capital in Jordanian Universities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-15, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:humman:v:5:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s41463-020-00084-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.