Aug 17, 2003 - âBecause every time I close a work order ticket, he calls help desk and ..... As noted, exchange, career, and relational aspects are the facets ...
Broken Promises - 1 Broken Promises: An Autoethnography of Psychological Contract Breach and Organizational Exit August 17, 2003: “You look exhausted,” Brian, the Associate Vice President of ITS, says in the hallway. “I am. I worked 82 hours this week trying to catch up from the latest virus attack that swept though the Humanities building. And there’s the usual smash of the new semester, getting newly purchased faculty machines installed, and imaging the computer labs.” “You are salary, right?” I nod. “Good, because if you weren’t we would have to pay you overtime.” Um. What the hell? No ‘thanks’ for working hard? For putting in the extra time? For spending the weekend getting all those computers fixed? I see how it is. I walk into the bathroom and stare at the floor. Moments pass. I look up from the tiled bathroom floor at my reflection in the mirror. I feel a small wave of heat simmering. The simmer gets hotter. My reflected self tenses up. My face quickens to red, the internal burning and heat speading flush across my skin. I’m boiling hot, clenching and unclenching my fists, my jaw set in stone. I can’t believe it. Phrases flit across my mind. “That’s it.” “I’m done.” “The last straw.” “Get the hell out.” And finally, “Fuck this.” It’s ephiphinal. I loved this job. I once thought of this as the beginning of a new career. How did I get here? How did this happen? Once home, I read my journal entry from my first day at work. **** August 7, 1999: “I started the new position today!! Officially, I am the ‘Information Technology Coordinator for the College of Arts and
Broken Promises - 2 Sciences.’ That won’t fit on the business card. I’ll be working for the college and working with ITS. I met with the Associate Dean Laura, and the Academic IT Director Sam. My job, as described in my interviews, will be to coordinate activities and projects between the College and ITS, and working on faculty development. I am looking forward to this. My office is embedded in a building that houses the Department of Communication. On the campus tour a professor says, “You’ll find this place runs as slow as the Byzantine Empire with twice the paper work.” I’ll change that. I’m very efficient. I’m proactive.
**** Quitting is a significant juncture in organizational life, for the employee that quits, employee family members, the organizational members that remain, and sometimes for the organization itself (Jablin, 2001; Kramer, 2010). Although it is an important choice, quitting is the least studied reaction to organizational dissatisfaction (Klotz & Zimmerman, 2015; Kramer & Miller, 2014). Quitting is an especially important dilemma in information technology (IT), where turnover rates are high compared to other occupations (Lo, 2013). There is a lot of research examining IT, providing statistical data on nonvoluntary exit (firings), and related topics such as burnout, stress, and survivorship (Ladelski & Cantana, 2013). That’s not enough. Scholars reissued the call to incorporate new methods to answer questions about exit in IT, as well as quitting in general (Kramer & Miller, 2014; Lo, 2013; Russell, 2013). Personal narratives and autoethnographies help fill this gap by incorporating the evocative, and poignant qualities of life, connecting our lived experiences with the lives of others (Ellis, Adams, & Bochner, 2010; Bochner 2014). Narrative and autoethnographic researchers note critical life
Broken Promises - 3 events and epiphanies generate vivid memories and recollections less likely to fade over time than other memories (Ellis & Patti, 2014; Herrmann, 2016). Epiphanies “are an acute awareness of something new, something which the individual had previously been blind to” (McDonald, 2007, p. 19) and “remembered moments perceived to have significantly impacted the trajectory of a person’s life” (Ellis, Adams & Bochner, 2010, para. 6). Quitting one’s job is often one of these life events, and epiphanies and turning points are key to understanding how an individual’s perception of her relationship to the organization and organizational members is altered (Ibarra, 2003). What, however, is like to live the process of quitting? And what can autoethnographic perspectives tell us about quitting, organizational trust, and the psychological contract between organizations and employees? This is a layered account (Ronoi, 1995) of my workplace reality as an information technology professional (ITP) for a private university in the Midwest, a position I held for five years. I offer a narrative approach to interrogate the Exit-Voice-LoyaltyNeglect (EVLN), the psychological contract, and how organizational scholars conflate various issues in their research. To protect the innocent and the guilty (including me), all the names have been changed. Exit, Voice, Loyalty, Neglect The EVLN is a framework for job dissatisfaction research, outlining four options for dissatisfied employees (Hirschman, 1970; Rusbult, Farrell, Roger, & Mainous, 1988). First is exit. The second is voice, “any attempt at all to change rather than escape from an objectionable state of affairs” (Hirschman, 1970, p. 30). The third option is loyalty, as employees wait for positive organizational change. Finally, there is neglect: employee indifference. Although the “I quit!” or “I’m giving you my two weeks” moment seems instantaneous, according organizational
Broken Promises - 4 socialization scholars it is a process involving three sub-phases (Jablin, 2001). In the preannouncement period, people give cues or disengage from the organization before they proclaim they are leaving. The announcement/actual exit stage includes when individuals reveal they are leaving and exit. The post-exit phase happens after a person has quit. Numerous studies examine voice, neglect, and loyalty. Quitting is the least studied reaction to job dissatisfaction, and there are several reasons for the lack of research on quitters (Sheehan, 1995). For one, the reasons for employee dissatisfaction are examined less often than other variables – a result of a general managerial bias (Kramer, 2010). After all, it is more comfortable to believe the employee that quit was problematic than for an organization to reflect upon its own practices and culture. Second, variables associated with quitting can be difficult to isolate and can be misinterpreted (Jablin, 2001). Third, those who quit are not easily contactable, moving to different companies, occupations, and geographic locations, or into unemployment or retirement (Gordon, 2011). Similarly, data used to understand why an employee quit is often based on exit interviews which provide dubious results (Feinberg & Jeppeson, 2000). We’ll get back to this latter point momentarily. Flash Forward: One Year Later August 14, 2004: I’m sitting in a chair across from a medium-sized office desk. The office and the chair look exactly like what they are: brand new and uncomfortable. I’m not comfortable. I don’t want to be here. I am here, because if I’m not, I won’t get my last paycheck. It feels like blackmail. Still, the Human Resources Specialist sitting across from me seems earnest.
Broken Promises - 5 “What we are doing here today is a formal exit interview. So what we want to do is ask you questions about why you are leaving; if there were any problems that led you to decide to depart the university.” Do I want to talk about the lack of trust that’s developed? About how being a boundaryspanner between the Information Technology Services Department and the College of Arts and Sciences was impossible? About the instability of management? About the identity threats? About the arbitrary managerial decisions? Do I want to tell her that I originally wanted to stay and do ITS training and development? Do I want to talk about how I was never going to get promoted? Do I want to tell her the story about Brian? Do I want to tell the truth? Hell no. “I don’t have any complaints, really. I’m leaving to persue my Ph.D. in Tampa at the University of South Florida.” And that’s true. Now. It wasn’t true when I started this job five years ago. **** The skepticism regarding exit interviews is not unfounded (Franckiess, 2010; Hinrichs, 1975). Human resources staff usually conduct exit interviews, and research suggests employees who quit alter answers when collected by organizational personnel (Nalbantain & Szostak, 2004). Notably, employees do not believe the organization will put their constructive criticism into practice. In other words, “What’s the point?” Likewise, employees who quit are afraid telling the truth will have a negative impact on former co-workers, and believe answering honestly reduces their chances of getting good references as they look for new employment (Farazmand, 2009). Most people hedge their answers in exit interviews, just like I did in mine. Ironically, I did not know the scholarship on problematic exit interviews until years later.
Broken Promises - 6 Trust and The Psychological Contract While there is good reason for examining why employees quit from a communicative perspective, many studies use the psychological contract as their basis. The psychological contract is “one form of social exchange that develops between employers and employees” (Johnson & O’Leary-Kelly, 2003, p. 628), based upon the material and emotional expectations of benefits employers and employees have of each other (Conway & Briner, 2005). The dimensions of the psychological contract include exchange, career, and relational aspects (Maguire, 2002). The exchange aspect includes the basics of employment: employees provide time and fulfill the responsibilities of their position in return for rewards such as pay, benefits, et al (Rousseau, 1989). The career aspect involves employee commitment in return for upward organizational mobility and training/development to increase employability. The relational aspect is based upon managerial competency, managerial support to perform labor, participation in decision-making, and a sense of organizational belonging. Trust lies at the heart of the psychological contract (Guest & Conway, 2002; Robinson, 1996). Trust is a multi-dimensional process by which employees evaluate relationships with peers, superiors, and the organization as a whole. While some trust is given to the organization at the beginning of an employee’s tenure, trust is also developed over time as the employer fulfills various obligations (de Vos, Buyens & Schalk, 2003). If obligations continue to be fulfilled, employees hold more confidence and invest more in the relationship with employers (Gillespie & Dietz, 2009). Trust also helps employees recognize psychological contract breach and how to respond to that breach (Lambert, Edwards & Cable, 2003). From communication perspective, the psychological contract is co-constructed communicatively between the organization – including one’s supervisor who acts as the
Broken Promises - 7 organization’s proxy – and the employee (Bambacas & Patrickson, 2008). This relationship is constituted over time through the development of truthfulness, transparency, and kept promises (Lester, Kickul & Bergman, 2007). Promises are particularly important in building trust in relationships, as keeping or breaking them are important factors in the maintenance or breakdown of trust in organizational relationships. In organizations, broken promises specifically impact the psychological contract. Most research on the psychological contract, however, minimizes communication – considering it another variable among many – rather than the means by which the contract is created, or broken, over time. Interlude: Becoming an Academic September 2002: I now straddle two worlds. I work in IT. I’m also in a communication masters program studying organizational communication. I span both worlds and they help define my personal identity, yet they stand on opposite paradigmatic poles. IT research is situated in the post-positivist mode with statistics, charts, schemas, and numbers. Organizational communication research, however, includes the discursive, interpretive, qualitative, and critical paradigms. To misquote the classic rock song: “Numbers to the left of me/Stories to the right.” Sometimes I feel bi-polar. I’m slowly being socialized into a new world, with new experiences, meeting new people, understanding and playing with new ideas. As an undergraduate I was a slacker and a “party favor.” I was smart, but unmotivated. Eleven years later, I enter the graduate program in Communication to prove to myself that I can succeed as a student, that I have what it takes to be the kind of student I knew I could have been. While it would be years before I became an academic proper – I wasn’t thinking about making a career change when I started – I was making a life changing decision, since academic
Broken Promises - 8 socialization commences before and during graduate school, rather than with initial faculty appointments (Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006). During a late night conversation, Art Herbig, a fellow graduate student says, “You need to get your Ph.D. You’re good at this. You have important things to say and research to do.” For the first time, I start thinking about it. **** As I continued to work, and using what I was learning in my MA program, I started to recognize trends emerging in the communicative activty with my superiors: disconfirmation, communicating distrust by management, and broken promises, each of which will be discussed in detail, followed by a discussion regarding the relational communicative aspects of the psychological contract. Disconfirmation I received an email from Laura today. ITS officially purchased my position. I no longer work for the College of Arts & Sciences. What an awful time to tell me. She could have waited until I got back in town from my stepfather’s funeral. My life outside my position as IT Coordinator simply does not matter. I begin to write an email back, but think better of it. She may have no empathy, but I like this job. Pissing off an Associate Dean would likely get me fired. **** One of the powerful qualities of communication is how people confirm or disconfirm other individuals. According to Buber (1965) confirmation is the acceptance and acknowledgement of another individual as whole and significant in their own right. “HRD and organizational communication scholars have found encouragement and confirmation, the opportunity to realize their potential, grow, and develop as immensely important to employees”
Broken Promises - 9 (Herrmann, 2013, p. 355). Disconfirmation, on the other hand, is a rejection of the other’s value. The disconfirmed feel “discounted and devalued,” (Herrmann, 2007, para. 58) and a “social death” (Hyde, 2005, p. 190), when ignored, stigmatized, maligned, or personally diminished. Disconfirmation is an identity threat, since identities in the workplace are “negotiated – created, threatened, bolstered, reproduced and overhauled – through ongoing, embodied interaction” (Alvesson, Ashcraft, & Thomas, 2008, p. 11). Disconfirmation – as a type of non-recognition – is associated with organizational injustice and unfair processes. When people feel disconfirmed they articulate emotional distress as disconfirmation implicates personal identity (Iberra, 2003). When one’s face, “an image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes — albeit an image that others may share” (Goffman 1967, p. 5) is threatened in such a way, individuals take upon themselves restorative activities to regain and protect their self. **** February 17, 2003: We had an all IT meeting today with the new CIO. She makes some preliminary remarks and says, ‘One of the things we are implementing is a new and simplified structure for job titles. We have a confusing array of job titles, so in a few months we are going to change everyone’s title to Information Technology Specialist.’ We are all appalled. On the way out I start shaking people’s hands, sarcastically introducing myself as ‘IT Specialist 142873.’ Someone mentions Bladerunner, calling us replicants and androids. Star Trek references start. ‘We are the Borg. Resistance is futile.’ IT jobs are vastly differentiated and you need different skill sets for each, whether one is a computer programmer, computer support specialist, network administrator, web designer, computer lab technician, database administrator, web programmer, systems analyst, etc. I don’t
Broken Promises - 10 get it. ‘IT Specialist’ is not a job title. Worse, management is exempted from taking the title. My identity is tied to my job and they quashed it. My identity doesn’t matter. I am merely an IT Specialist. No wonder she called this meeting at four o’clock on a Friday afternoon. ****
Occupational identity and status “is not given or determined but is rather a precarious, contested formation constantly negotiated through discursive activity” (Cheney & Ashcraft, 2007, p. 165). Through management’s blanket disconfirmation, my individual and occupational identities became destabilized, my individual distinctiveness, one of the bases of self-identity, was called into question. “Identity work is prompted by social interaction that raises questions of ‘who am I?’ and ‘who are we?’” (Alvesson, Ashcraft & Thomas, 2008, p. 15). Disconfirmation falls under the relational aspect of the psychological contract. However, there were other reasons I quit. Managerial decisions impeded my sense of self-determination and the freedom to make workplace decisions. In other words, management communicated they did not trust me. Communicating Distrust by Management January 12, 2002: It is after dinner at my brother’s house. He works on the university Web Team. “I just got this job from the guys in Special Projects, who got it from your boss Chuck. They want me to build a website including a database for this famous English scholar.” For a moment I stare in disbelief. Then I explode. “That asshole! That’s the project I brought to his attention. That’s one of the departments I’m supposed to be the ‘coordinator’ for. I finally had something besides fixing viruses and crap, and he just took it and gave it to someone else. That red-haired mustachioed ass!” Numerous expletives follow. My brother looks at me and says flatly, “He doesn’t care about anything except those projects that make him look good.”
Broken Promises - 11 **** It is important to recognize the a priori supposition by employees that their employer will operate honorably, and high levels of trust are customary early in such relationships (Galford & Drapeau, 2003). In the absence of conflicting evidence, trustworthiness is a “given.” Due to the lack of formal rules and the ‘do-it-yourself learn-it-yourself’ ethic in the IT occupational subculture, individuals working in technology have high-levels of self-efficacy and prefer a high level of autonomy and responsibility (Guzman & Stanton, 2009). As I was socialized into this occupation, I expected to be trusted by management. I began to recognize management did not trust my competencies, effort, and expertise. **** July 23, 2002: Chuck called me into his office. I can tell he is mad. “Why haven’t you worked on Dr. Smith’s computer?” “Because he calls helpdesk. They put in a work order ticket. I look at the ticket, go up to his office, and what do I find, each and every time? Sitting on his office floor is his home computer. That’s what he wants me to fix.” “How do you know it’s his home computer?” “The university has never had a contract with HP, and the HP in his office is new. So I close the ticket. I’m not fixing that.” “Why are there so many tickets?” “Because every time I close a work order ticket, he calls help desk and asks them to put in another. I am not working on his home computer. He’s trying to work the system. He wants his home computer fixed for free.” ****
Broken Promises - 12 On the way back to the office, I’m fuming. This is just like you Chuck. Always take the other person’s side. Bet I last longer at the university than you, you jerk. Management positions here are like keyboard players for the Grateful Dead. They just keep changing. **** October 30, 2002: Today I told my Macintosh users how to connect to the academic server using the Terminal program. They’ve been waiting for weeks to reconnect, while I’ve been waiting for the ITS management team for the go-ahead. I doubted they looked into the solution I proposed, since there is an anti-Mac bias in ITS. However, faculty and staff have work to do. Today I went ahead and told my clients how to connect. Within hours I got called into Chuck’s office. “You should have waited until ITS management approved a solution for the Mac users,” he begins.“There can be all sorts of problems. Worms. Viruses.” “There are no viruses for Mac OS X,” I reply. “No matter. My main concern is that you broke the chain of command. You took matters into your own hands rather than waiting for direct approval.” “Look, this problem has existed for weeks, and there’s been no action. I cound not wait any longer. Student advising and class registration start in three days. You know if Laura starts getting calls from professors, I am in deep trouble. No one else knows how to fix this because no one else wants to know how to fix it. Since the higher-ups fired Alex, I’m now the sole Macintosh guru on this campus. One of the reasons they hired me was for my Mac expertise. So I did it. I found a solution. That’s my job.” ****
Broken Promises - 13 Reprimand – in writing – on my record. I’m called insubordinate. Chuck suggests I get some career counseling through Human Resources so that I can keep my job. I know what I’m doing, but no one seems to want to listen. **** A long line of research demonstrates the importance of listening for relationships, whether interpersonal or professional (Anderson, Cissna & Arnett, 1994). In fact, careful listening and utilizing the advice of expert employees consistently builds stronger relations by building competence trust that acknowledges employees’ expertise, skills, and abilities while allowing them a modicum of freedom to make important organizational decisions (Newell & Swann, 2000; Reina & Reina, 2006) . It is also built when management seeks input from trusted employees. Both autonomy and responsibility are linked with higher levels of performance and more positive work attitudes. The more autonomy, the more responsible the individual will feel for the outcomes leading to increased motivation, satisfaction, work effectiveness, and organizational citizenship behaviors (Yildirim, 2014). Likewise, not listening or ignoring the advice of the experts one works with communicates lack of trust in another’s capabilities and competence. When decisions are made without listening to expert advice, it negatively impacts competence trust. Similarly, taking away autonomy and responsibility is often viewed as betrayal (Krantz, 2006). **** November 12, 2002: I got demoted today. Not that I don’t still have my job title. But now that they have taken all my part-time work-study students and moved them over to Helpdesk, I don’t have anything or anyone to coordinate. My title, ‘IT Coordinator,’ is laughable. The Police song Dead End Job describes my position here now. ‘Don’t wanna work no assembly line like my
Broken Promises - 14 uncle Dave.’ I want to move up into management, but in essence I was downgraded. I’m now basically a troubleshooter, the ultimate dead end IT job. I’ll never move up here. I’ll never get promoted. Still, the National Communication Association Convention is a few days away. I’m looking forward to meeting lots of smart people talking about exactly the stuff I am interested in. **** Competence trust is important to employees who “want to care about their work. They want work they can feel good about when they get up in the morning, that they look forward to and think is worthwhile” (Collins & Porras, 1993, p. 83). In particular, ITPs want new levels of responsibility and professional empowerment, and are often involved in organizational citizenship behaviors, going above and beyond their normal job duties (Paré & Trembly, 2007). The employee who pursues new responsibility is not someone who waits for projects to come to her, but someone who foresees organizational needs by identifying what has to be done and then doing it. **** June 2003: I started a project to help improve IT communication to the rest of the university. I volunteered to do this and did a small network analysis study and some interviewing to assess who talks to whom, and how we as a division could be more effective. I presented the proposal. “We decided your idea was good,” the CIO tells me. “So we hired some people in the Business School to do a real audit. It’s not that we don’t trust you, it’s just if the report comes from actual scholars it will appear more official.” I leave, disappointed. ****
Broken Promises - 15 Later, I sit in my academic mentor’s office (in the dental chair he has, no less) relating this story. “Balls! It’s because they don’t trust me. Not only do they not trust my IT expertise, they don’t repect what I’ve learned in this program.” “Andrew,” he begins, leaning back in his chair. “Never attempt to do critical communication research on the organization you are currently working for. It can backfire. You’ll find yourself learning more about this university than you ever wanted, and that, in turn, can make you angrier, to the point where you might do something stupid and get fired. Or quit. I’ve seen it happen.” I drop my initial thesis idea to do a full communication audit of ITS. “Between you and me, and this can go no further, I think I’m out of here after I graduate. Part of me wants to stay, but I’m going no place here.” I finally said it out loud. Even my fiancé doesn’t know what I’m thinking. My advisor nods and our discussion turns towards a new thesis idea, a combination of organizational sensemaking and online research. **** Trust affects numerous organizational concerns, including organizational citizenship behaviors, extra-role and helping behaviors, intra-organizational negotiation processes, conflict resolution, satisfaction, commitment, and acceptance of organizational goals (Organ, 1988). Broken trust has the opposite effect, and employees experience disappointment and feelings of loss, anger, despair, and cynicism. Like disconfirmation, communicating distrust affects the relational aspects of the psychological contract, supporting Turnley and Feldman’s (1999) analysis that employees who feel betrayed are more likely to exit their organizations. Broken Promises: Loss of Trust in Management
Broken Promises - 16 On the one hand, managers communicated distrust of me. On the flip side of this, my distrust in management developed over time from my perception that management failed to keep its promises and commitments. Promises, as noted, are important communicative activities upon which trust is built or broken. In organizational communication theory, the institution itself as rhetor – and the manager as a proxy for the organization – can and do make promises to employees, and broken promises negatively effected my relationship and helped lead to my intention to quit. **** July 2003: My brother quit today. “Lot’s of promises,” he says, “Like Microsoft’s ‘vaporware.’ They tell you you’ll get a real raise and help and a promotion is coming, but it never arrives. I waited for years. Enough is enough. My goodwill only lasts so long. Know what I call broken promises?” “What?” “Lies,” he smirks. “I know. I was promised some PDOs (Professional Development Opportunities). There was supposedly a thousand dollars I could use. So when the time came to use that money so I could get some training, my boss told me they spent that money on something else. I didn’t want to call him a liar, but that’s exactly what I wanted to call him.” **** As Coyle-Shapiro (2002) noted, “Employees who have greater trust in their employer are more likely to invest in the future of that relationship based on their belief that the employer will continue to maintain the relationship by delivering on future promises” (p. 941). Broken promises – communicating breaches in the psychological contract – however, have an important,
Broken Promises - 17 negative impact on the relationship between the employees and their supervisors. My brother and I equated broken managerial promises with lies. The breaching of the psychological contract supports Guest and Conway’s (2002) survey research which noted, “a breach of the contract is associated with a more negative assessment of the impact of the management of promises and commitments on employee-related outcomes” (p. 36). Broken promises negatively affected how I perceived managerial trustworthiness and contributed to eventual decision to quit. Interestingly, my brother and I mention various resources to do our jobs. As such, our complaints about lacking resources would initially appear to fall under the exchange component of the psychological contract. However, our exeriences are framed not through the exchange dimension of the psychological contract – providing time and fulfilling the duties and responsibilities of our positions in return for appropriate levels of rewards – but through the communicative acts of our superiors. We discused resources not in terms of exchange, but in terms of relationships with our supervisors. Similarly, communication regarding career path aspects also came into play. The career path was implicitly implicated in the earlier vignettes on disconfirmation regarding the new IT Specialist titles, and the PDO monies. Management often broke career aspect promises explicitly. **** April 14, 2003: Today, Chuck called a meeting. We spent two hours discussing a new ITS slogan. Seriously. His suggestion was ‘I.T.S.: ITS about service.’ After the meeting the rest of the academic IT team came up with our own. ‘It’s Technology, Stupid.’ ‘I Take Shit.’ ‘Idiocy Takes Skill.’
Broken Promises - 18 Instead of discussing training and development, we spent our time on ‘ITS about service.’ It was ridiculous. Part of me still wants to move up here. That’s the entire point of getting my MA. Maybe that’s NOT what I should be doing, maybe I should be getting out of here. I want things to get better, but they are not getting any better. They are, in fact, getting incrementally worse. **** It is well known that training and development contribute to the retention of ITPs and that knowledge workers desire a high level of focus on personal career development (Sutherland & Jordan, 2004). Like the instances of disconfirmation and communicating distrust by management, broken career aspect promises triggered my own organizational leave-taking activities, activities leading to my decision to quit. It is important to recognize the occupational cultural differences in play within the organization. As noted, due to the ‘do-it-yourself, learn-it-yourself’ ethic, ITPs prefer positions with higher degrees of job autonomy and self-efficacy. These proclivities are often at odds with managerial prerogatives, which are modeled on short-term accomplishments, and the necessity of frugality over resources, rather than developmental investments in people, multi-directional career paths, and less structured workplace environments (Guzman & Stanton, 2009). As such, when opportunities for training or advancement go unrealized, ITPs are more likely to quit. **** June 22, 2003: Chuck was asked to resign today. I knew I’d outlast him. I now report to Brian, one of the associate vice presidents. October 2003: I present at the 16th Annual Organizational Communication Miniconference in Kalamazoo, MI on the narratives CEOs tell in corporate annual reports. Graduate
Broken Promises - 19 school is the best move I’ve ever made. This organizational research turns me on. I’ve made my decision. All I need to do is hang on long enough to finish my thesis. November 19, 2003: At the National Communication Association Convention in Miami, my advisor is introducing me around, and I, along with Art Herbig, am doing the graduate school schmoozefest. At the off-site USF party, I tell Carolyn Ellis, “I want to come to USF to prove that autoethnography is not a viable research method.” She looks at me funny. Then starts laughing. (Pro Tip: That’s a stupid thing to say to the preeminent autoethnographer who works at the university you want to attend. I do not recommend this tactic.) **** According to organizational scholarship, I am in the pre-announcement stage of organizational exit, where I should be giving exit cues and disengaging from the university (Jablin 2001). Although I have explicitly told two people – my friend Art and my advisor – I have told no one else. In fact, because the limitations on my time as a full time employee, as well as taking classes and doing thesis research, I’m keeping my head down and my mouth shut. Laura, the associate dean, says she likes my new attitude, and my new work ethic. What she doesn’t know is that I have been going through the process of occupational and vocational socialization into academia. Exit and entry are not the discrete processes organizational scholarship often frames them as. I’m becoming an academic and am imagining my future self as a professor. I am exiting one occupation and simulteneously entering another. Heading Out December 5, 2003: Brian called me into his office for my annual performance review. He raves at my work ethic. He says I am more efficient, more of a team player. Basically I am less of a pain in the ass. He looked over the reprimand from Chuck and thought it was a “load of crap.”
Broken Promises - 20 He wishes he could expunge that from my record, but he can’t. He tells me with this on my record, he won’t be able to offer me a salary increase come the turn of the fiscal year. “That sucks,” I say. Oh, I still hate my job. But this newfound efficiency and work ethic isn’t loyalty. This is exit. They just don’t know it yet. My socialization in academia proper is changing my attitude. I’m preparing for my repositioning as an academic. I’m now biding my time. Nine months. I would have quit months ago, but the university is paying my tuition. Applications to the doctoral programs at Purdue, University of South Florida, and Arizona State University are in the mail. Loyalty? I’m not loyal to the university. I am loyal to certain individuals, departments, and groups. I am not neglectful of my duties either. In fact, in some ways I perform efficiently by completing projects quicker. From an outsider’s perspective this looks like organizational loyalty. It is not. **** Letters start coming in the mail. I am accepted into USF and ASU. USF will fund me. **** February 22, 2004: I’ve accrued all the vacation days I can. I start taking every other Friday off so I do not lose any vacation time. This gives me an extra two days a month to work on my thesis. I hunker down in my office on my lunch hour, coding and catagorizing the discussion board posts, analyzing them through Weick’s process of sensemaking. Suddenly, it dawns on me. “Gender!” I yell. “This is also about gender!” It was so obvious, but I hadn’t seen it before. I run down the hall and excitedly tell my advisor what I’ve discovered. “We’ll make a professor of you yet,” he laughs.
Broken Promises - 21 **** June 17, 2004: My last day. Florida or bust. The pay cut will be worth it. Discussion This narrative on organizational exit provides some unique understandings. This discussion will include a demarcation between giving an account and an explanation. I then explore the relationship of quitting through the three aspects of the psychological contract, and how the psychological contact itself conceals issues of power. I then delineate the sometimes confusing conflation surrounding the term “employer” as used in organizational studies. Finally, I present directions for future research. As Bochner and Ellis (1997) remind us, “narrative has little to do with brute facts and a great deal to do with human meanings” (p. 497), and our narratives are the cornerstones of our identities. As noted, turning points are connected to epiphanies; emotionally absorbing and transforming experiences. Unlike our more mundane daily experiences, highly stressfull and lifechanging decisions maintain their emotional integrity over time. The decision to quit might seem instantaneous, and sometimes can be. However, it can also be a slow process entailing the gradual degradation of trust between the employer and the employee. Personal narrative and autoethnography therefore are an important and necessary arena of research on the processses of quitting, providing more meaningful interpretations than standard exit interviews. From an organizational communicative perspective, personal narrative informs previous research on explanations and accounts, two important communicative processes (Benoit 1995; Hodgins & Liebeskind, 2003). Explanations occur in situations where an action is judged as appropriate and has no serious negative implications on the relationship between two or more parties. An explanation, however, becomes an account when an action is perceived as
Broken Promises - 22 “problematic in the sense that they do not fit into the flawless progress of social interaction” (Semin & Manstead, 1983, p. 1). Supposedly, quitting violates expectations and is often considered a “failure event” for which one must give an account (Schönbach, 1980). This perception however, is biased toward managerial standpoints. Certainly when an employee leaves, managers and supervisors are often surprised (Kramer, 2010). However, I never felt I failed the organization. My narrative explains why I quit, and experiences that led up to my decision, but I did not give an account, because I did not view quitting as a “failure event” on my part. I didn’t give an account, because I believed quitting was justifiable in response to my organizational situation. It wasn’t I who failed. Rather the organization – or superiors – failed me through their communicative practices and actions which in effect, dishonored aspects of the psychological contract. As noted, exchange, career, and relational aspects are the facets included in the psychological contract. My narrative vignettes revealed my decision to leave was based upon the relational and hence communicative aspects of the psychological contract, in the form of disconfirmation, lack of trust by management, and broken promises, the latter which included resource support. In fact, the exchange aspect of the psychological contract was itself framed in relational terms between me and my superiors, not between me and the organization. The relational basis of all three aspects of the psychological contract means scholars need to reimagine the psychological contract itself through the lens of communicative praxis, particularly surrounding promises which are the basis of trust that constitutes the contract. This examination shows that in the communicative context of the organization, I believed managerial promises were made in good faith and that they would make good on those commitments. Rather than trust and the psychological contract as givens of employment, they are actually constituted by the
Broken Promises - 23 communicative activities of management, particularly whether promises are kept or broken. These connections are an area in need of greater study and theoretical exploration. The psychological contract and trust are multi-faceted constructs that vary across disciplinary literatures. Importantly – and too often – literature on employment and the psychological contract conflates the terms “employer” and “organization.” In some instances employer is utilized to mean manager or supervisor. In other instances, employer is used to designate the employing organization. This project helps differentiate these from an employee perspective. I never mentioned disconfirmation, broken promises, or other negatively perceived communication with the “organization.” Nor do my narratives question the exchange aspects of the psychological contract with the “organization.” This supports Thomas, Zolan, and Hartman’s (2009) findings that trust in one’s supervisor is paramount and positively related organizational openness, employee involvement, and commitment to the organization. This supports the idea that it is not primarily the relationship with the organization itself and the attendant exchange aspects that lead to voluntary exit per se, but relationships with superiors. It wasn’t the university itself that broke promises or disconfirmed my worth. It was the associate vice president, “my boss,” Chuck, or the CIO, etc. This appears trivial, but is an important distinction. Organizational researchers studying the psychological contract, organizational trust, and quitting would be judicious to use the terms organization and supervisor/superior for differentiation and demarcation, rather than maintain the conflation and confusion surrounding the term “employer.” While the university obviously emplyed me, it is without exception the relationships with my supervisors that were problematic. This project also supports research that the psychological contract is not based on mutuality. According to Cullinane and Dundon (2006) in most conceptions of the psychological
Broken Promises - 24 contract, it is assumed the contract is made between equals. This, however, is seldom the case and ignores the issue of power in organizational relationships (Ashcraft, 2000; Ashcraft & Flores, 2000; Robinson, 1996). “In entering into a relationship with an employer, for the majority of employees, it means that they become subordinate to their employers’ power and authority, because it is employers who control and direct the productive resources of the enterprise” (Cullinane & Dundon, 2006, p. 119). Most employees are subservient to their supervisors’ privileges and power, and recognize this imbalance simply because supervisors administer and dictate how, where, and when resources are allocated (Ashcraft, 2000). As Cullinane & Dundon (2006) noted, “When we consider this imbalance of power between management and employees and its implications for how unvoiced expectations are supposed to be communicated and understood, it is perhaps not surprising that authors find increasing contract violation” (p. 119). The psychological contract appears to be natural and obvious, but it is an artifact of a particular culture and the social processes that produce it. Socially constructed ways of making sense of the world are often conditioned by hegemonic influences that often go unexamined (Ashcraft, 2000; Cullinane & Dundon, 2006; Herrmann, in press). Through the psychological contract, employees take upon themselves the expectations and obligations the organization is supposed to supply to them in compact for their work. As such, the belief in a psychological contract is another way to get employees to see the organization they work for as supplying psychological, social, and self-esteem needs, even if the organization does not (Cullinan & Dundon, 2006). In essence, the conviction by employees that a psychological contract exists reifies managerial power. Organizational researchers would do well to remember how the socially constructed psychological contract disguises, masks, and conceals other organizational realities, particularly power imbalances.
Broken Promises - 25 Lastly, in the literature, exit and socialization into a new career or position are often treated as discrete and separate activities, overlooking that many individuals are in the process of being socialized into something new as they are preparing to quit. Personal narrative writers and autoethnographers note that a changing story includes re-examining the past, analyzing the present, and imagining possible futures (Bochner, 2014; Herrmann, 2012, McAdams, 1985). From a narrative perspective I was putting on a new “possible self” (Iberra). As an ITP I had no prospective narrative in what I eventually considered a dead end job. However, I was in a twoyear process of occupational socialization into academia, whereby I was developing “expectations about a prospective career” (Herrmann, 2013, p. 348). The simultaneity of exit and entry is one more area for organizational scholars to investigate. The point of this project was “to think with” my story…rather than dismantling and deconstructing” it (Herrmann & Di Fate, 2015). As such, I was less concerned with the ultimate “truth,” but with understanding the meanings I ascribed to the organization’s activities, as well as how I understood and interpreted my own actions. My understandings should be considered localized. For example, in universities power relationships are different than they are in for-profit organizations, particularly in regard to power differentials between faculty, students, and staff (Lin & Ha, 2009). Similarly, my narrative is situated within the auspices of the advanced, technologically adept American culture. There are likely to be major differences when studying ITPs in different cultures, and ITPs in different positions, whether one is a network administrator, a WebMaster, etc. There is, no doubt, more organizational autoethnographic research to do.
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