Building community at work: An exploratory study in healthcare system management.

Recent scholarship has demonstrated that experiences in the community (i.e., a sense of community [SOC] and a SOC responsibility) can enhance employee psychological and behavioral outcomes. Recent evidence also shows that the experiences of the community are better able to predict employee outcomes compared to long-regarded management and public management constructs. However, very little empirical evidence exists on antecedent conditions that help build community experiences at work. To evaluate this gap, we conducted interviews with executive leaders, and focus groups with administrative leaders, across four major facilities in a large nonprofit healthcare system that is headquartered in Pennsylvania, United States. The study confirmed the propositions of the Community Experience Model, and explored organizational conditions that appear to build community experiences. The findings help frame factors that scholars can empirically test in future studies, and assist executives, human resource professionals, and managers throughout an organization, in building community at work.

Community experiences in the strategic human resource management black box.

Recent research suggests experiencing community at work (i.e., perceiving a sense of community [SOC] and a sense of community responsibility [SOC-R]) is important for employee and organizational outcomes, however, we know very little about how these constructs operate in human resource management contexts. This study peers into the strategic human resource management "black box," which is an organizational setting where psychological and social variables are believed to influence employee perceptions in ways that impact their individual functioning, and subsequently improve organizational outcomes. Specifically, the study tests hypotheses regarding the relationship between high-involvement work climate (i.e., a human resource context), psychological need satisfaction, SOC, SOC-R, organizational identification, and organizational citizenship behaviors, in an attempt to theoretically ground, and empirically test, if experiences of community matter in the human resource management "black box." Data from 312 employees across multiple organizations were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling, and the findings reveal that experiences of community likely play an important role in the strategic human resource black box. The findings highlight that human resource practitioners, and scholars at the intersection of community psychology and human resource management, should consider further evaluation and action around experiences of community at work. Such a focus may help to create and build more socially sustainable organizational contexts for employees where they can thrive while organizations attempt to achieve collective goals.

Organizational cultures that support community: Does the competing values framework help us understand experiences of community at work?

Recent evidence has shown that when employees experience perceptions of community at work (i.e., a sense of community and a sense of community responsibility), psychological well-being and behavioral engagement improve (e.g., greater job engagement, organizational citizenship, and leadership). Recent evidence also shows that experiences of community, as a motivational state, are better able to predict employee outcomes compared to a series of factors that have long been studied in the general management (i.e., affective organizational commitment, organizational identity) and in the public management literature (i.e., public service motivation). However, we know less about the conditions that lead to perceptions of community experiences at work. One recent qualitative investigation exposed a series of organizational conditions that appear to stimulate perceptions of community at work including C-Suite leadership support, organizational structure and context, characteristics of connection, managerial, job, and work unit characteristics, and responsibilities of human resource management professionals. The present study extends this study by empirically investigating organizational cultural conditions that are associated with perceptions of community at work. We test the ability of the Competing Values Framework, which includes constructs of Hierarchy, Market, Adhocracy, and Clan organizational cultures, and their ability to predict perceptions of the community. Findings showed that clan culture was most associated with perceptions of community in general and that clan culture within a department plays an important role in perceiving community at work. This study helps scholars understand cultural conditions that can lead to psychological experiences of community, it begins to frame cultural factors that scholars can empirically test in future studies, and it assists executives and managers in conceiving approaches to building cultures of community at work.

Sense of community responsibility in community collaboratives: advancing a theory of community as resource and responsibility.

This paper contributes to the growing body of scholarship aimed at advancing our understanding of the experience of community by empirically investigating sense of community responsibility (SOC-R) in relation to traditional measures of sense of community (SOC) and indices of satisfaction, engagement, and leadership in interorganizational collaborative settings. Findings support the proposition that, although both are related to the experience of community, SOC and SOC-R emphasize different aspects of that experience and operate under different theoretical mechanisms of influence. SOC emphasizes community as a resource which was found to be a more salient aspect in differentiating those who will be more or less satisfied with their experience. In addition, SOC was found to predict general participation in a community collaborative. SOC-R emphasizes the experience of community as a responsibility which appears to be a stronger predictor in explaining higher order engagement requiring greater investment of time and resources. Even more importantly, this study indicates that SOC-R is uniquely equipped to help us advance models of community leadership. As such, it represents an important contribution to expanding our understanding of the factors that drive members' willingness to give of themselves toward collective aims.

Helping organizations help others: organization development as a facilitator of social change.

This article explores organization development (OD) interventions and their likelihood of increasing social change outcomes in public agencies. The central argument of this work is that public and nonprofit organizations can deliver better social outcomes by systematically engaging in OD interventions. An in-depth survey was conducted in 3 agencies of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania at the end of the gubernatorial administration of Tom Ridge (1995-2002). During his administration, Governor Ridge led the agencies of Pennsylvania government through a large-scale change effort to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery to the citizens of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The change effort was a remarkable event for the Commonwealth because no other governor in the history of the state had attempted to conceptualize and deliver a comprehensive large-scale change management initiative. The successes and setbacks served as a fertile context to shed light on the following research question: Do OD interventions increase the likelihood that public organizations will deliver better social outcomes? This question is important in that public organizations may need to engage in organization development activities to improve their internal operations, which in turn may help them provide exemplary social outcomes to those whom they serve. In short, organization development interventions might allow public organizations to help themselves to help others.