Research On The Relationship Between Organizational Social Axioms And Employee Behaviors

According to the modern organization management theory, human is the most importantresource among other ones in an organization. Human beings' beliefs andcognitions would directly influence their effectiveness in organizational activities, which inturn would affect the overall efficiency of the organization. An improved understanding of therelationship between people's ideology and their performance is practically important becausesuch knowledge could potentially be used by organizations to improve their human resourcemanagement.Social axioms are generalized statement beliefs about oneself, the social and physical environment, or the spiritual world. Social axioms are believed to have important impact on individuals' perception and behaviors. This research focuses on social axioms particularly in the organizational context. In study 1, interviews, literature reviews and two pilot tests are conducted to develop an organizational social axioms scale which consists of 38 items. Using this newly-developed scale, data from 330 employees are collected and analyzed in study 2 to examine the different roles of organizational social axioms and work values in predicting employees' behaviors. We found that:(l)In the context of organization, social axioms consist of five dimensions, which are organizational religion, social flexibility, organizational cynicism, reward for application and control by fate.(2) Organizational social axioms have main effects on both employees' positive and negative behaviors. Organizational religion, social flexibility and reward for application are positively related to employees' positive behaviors and negatively related to negative behaviors. While control by fate and cynicism are positive predictors of negative behaviors, and negative predictors of positive behaviors. All of the antecedents of positive and negative behaviors are not the same, as demonstrated by a regression analyses. (3)Compared to work values, organizational social axioms are better predictors ofboth positive and negative behaviors. With work values controlled, the hierarchical regression analyses suggest that social axioms are significantly related to employees' behaviors. (4)Job satisfaction could be a mediating variable through which organizational social axioms indirectly affect employee behaviors.