BI Leadership toolbox on prosocial motivation

Posted on by Miha Škerlavaj

BIOn Friday, October 25th (8:00 – 9:30 AM), my-humble-self, Anders Dysvik and Arne Carlsen will talk to Norwegian executives at the BI Leadership Toolbox seminar series. The hot and emerging topic of prosocial motivation is highly relevant to anybody curious about what truly drives people at work to achieve extraordinary results.

Title:  Prosocial motivation – How can internal and external beneficiaries inspire our work?

Short description: There is increasing evidence that the primary job motivation is relational and other-focused. Prosocial motivation, the desire to protect and promote the well-being of others is an innovative approach to lead people at work. It builds upon the premise that beneficiaries (e.g. customers and coworkers) are best source of inspiration (as opposed to inspiring leaders prevalent in the current literature). Most recent research shows that giving- and helping-orientation in social interaction leads to better performance (creativity and innovation, knowledge sharing, work engagement, sales, accuracy, etc.). Hence, prosocial motivation can be a powerful and inexpensive source of performance boosting and this lecture aims to show some of the tools leaders can use to facilitate prosocial behaviors at work.

Welcome to join at BI Norwegian Business School, Nydalsveien 27, Oslo, Norway and register.

Publication in the AMJ

Posted on by Miha Škerlavaj

AMJ_cover_blankThanks to a wonderful group of co-authors and friends from Slovenia and Norway, amazingly developmental feedback from the three anonymous reviewers and AMJ associate editor Adam Grant, we got accepted our first Academy of Management Journal publication:

ČERNE, Matej, NERSTAD, Christina, DYSVIK, Anders, ŠKERLAVAJ, Miha (Forthcomming): What goes around comes around: Knowledge hiding, perceived motivational climate, and creativity.  Academy of Management Journal. 

Here is the abstract for those interested:

Knowledge hiding prevents colleagues from generating creative ideas, but it may also have negative consequences for the creativity of the knowledge hider. Drawing on social exchange theory, we propose that when employees hide knowledge, they trigger a reciprocal distrust loop in which coworkers are unwilling to share knowledge with them. We further suggest that these effects are contingent on the motivational climate such that the negative effects of hiding knowledge on one’s own creativity are enhanced in a performance climate and attenuated in a mastery climate. A field study of 240 employees, nested into 34 groups, revealed a negative relationship between knowledge hiding and the knowledge hider’s creativity as well as the moderating role of a mastery climate. Study 2 replicated these findings in an experimental study of 132 undergraduate students, testing a reciprocal distrust loop and comparing it with an alternative intra-psychic explanatory process based on situational regulatory focus. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

You never forget your first time! 🙂