What is the nature of the extremely negative attitudes expressed by so many employees toward their organizations? To respond to this question, we introduce the concept of organizational cynicism. We review the literature from several disciplines on this concept and suggest that organizational cynicism is an attitude composed of beliefs, affect, and behavioral tendencies toward an organization. Following our review and conceptualization, we derive implications of this concept and propose a research agenda for organizational cynicism.Cynicism is everywhere-widespread among organization members in the United States (Kanter & Mirvis, 1989), Europe, and Asia (Kouzes &Posner, 1993). Organizational change and quality improvement efforts particularly seem to engender cynicism (Shapiro, 1996). For example, Cunniff notes that employees are increasingly cynical about the "constant parade of initiatives that come with the usual promise of imminent improvement" (1993: 4). Employees in one company circulated clandestine copies of their firm's "adaptation" of the Deming Principles, which included "Humor all employees in phony efforts to include them in process improvement methodologies .... Provide slogans, meaningless exhortations [and] numerical goals.... Drive in fear by discouraging communicationand by instituting a policy of Continuous Layoff."These observations are echoed in our own experience by the reaction of part-time MBA students to the topic of "teamwork" (cross-functional collaboration) in organizations. These students could see the benefits of teamwork in theory but perceived it, in practice, as merely a slogan used by their organizations to appear progressive, without changing anything about how work actually gets done (cf., Aktouf, 1992). A young woman in this class was so appalled by her organization that she thought she must be part of "some huge experiment on unmotivating employees." Another young man had been invited to lunch with his coworkers by the management of his organization; he accepted the invitation but worried that management had only made the offer "to keep us off guard." Even the popularity of the comic strip "Dilbert," about an engineer whose organization plumbs the depths of unscrupulousness, suggests that many people perceive their organizations in these terms. In fact, much of the material for the strip actually is sent to the cartoonist via e-mail by frustrated employees (Greilsamer, 1995).

Set within the political economy framework, marketing channels literature predominantly has used an efficiency-based task environment perspective and largely overlooked a legitimacy-based institutional environment approach in studying channel attitudes, behaviors, processes, and structures. The purpose of this article is to highlight the importance of the institutional environment and develop a comprehensive conceptual framework that incorporates the institutional environment into current marketing channels research. The institutional environment perspective relies on the primacy of (1) regulatory institutions (e.g., laws), (2) normative institutions (e.g., professions), and (3) cognitive institutions (e.g., habitual actions) in influencing the legitimacy of channel members. Using institutional theory, the authors augment the current task environment approach by developing three institutional processes and their underlying mechanisms and elaborating on how these institutions might influence channel relationships. The article ends by laying out a research agenda and highlighting managerial implications.

Manuscript Type: EmpiricalResearch Question: Is the relationship between corporate governance mechanisms and corporate social responsibility (CSR) contingent on satisfaction with firm performance?c org_843 136..152 Research Findings/Insights: Our results suggest that while effective corporate governance discourages both positive (proactive stakeholder relationship management) and negative (violation of regulations and standards) CSR, higher slack and positive attainment discrepancy lead to higher positive and lower negative CSR, respectively. More significantly, we find that the association between effective corporate governance and both positive and negative CSR depends on satisfaction with firm performance as indicated by the levels of slack and attainment discrepancy. Put simply, the impact of corporate governance on positive CSR is more pronounced under low slack/negative attainment discrepancy conditions, and that on negative CSR is more pronounced under high slack/positive attainment discrepancy conditions. Theoretical/Academic Implications: Our study provides robust support for the behavioral theory of the firm. Previous research has not adequately considered the role of satisfaction with firm performance in studying the impact of corporate governance on managerial decision-making. We show that the association between corporate governance and CSR dimensions depends on differences in decision-making latitude originating from relative firm performance compared to those of peer firms. Practitioner/Policy Implications: First, to understand how effective corporate governance can constrain positive CSR and more importantly reduce negative CSR. Second, to appreciate that the effectiveness of an organization's governance mechanisms is contingent on slack and performance and the marginal returns from improving governance mechanisms when things are going well may be low.

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What is the nature of the extremely negative attitudes expressed by so many employees toward their organizations? To respond to this question, we introduce the concept of organizational cynicism. We review the literature from several disciplines on this concept and suggest that organizational cynicism is an attitude composed of beliefs, affect, and behavioral tendencies toward an organization. Following our review and conceptualization, we derive implications of this concept and propose a research agenda for organizational cynicism.Cynicism is everywhere-widespread among organization members in the United States (Kanter & Mirvis, 1989), Europe, and Asia (Kouzes &Posner, 1993). Organizational change and quality improvement efforts particularly seem to engender cynicism (Shapiro, 1996). For example, Cunniff notes that employees are increasingly cynical about the "constant parade of initiatives that come with the usual promise of imminent improvement" (1993: 4). Employees in one company circulated clandestine copies of their firm's "adaptation" of the Deming Principles, which included "Humor all employees in phony efforts to include them in process improvement methodologies .... Provide slogans, meaningless exhortations [and] numerical goals.... Drive in fear by discouraging communicationand by instituting a policy of Continuous Layoff."These observations are echoed in our own experience by the reaction of part-time MBA students to the topic of "teamwork" (cross-functional collaboration) in organizations. These students could see the benefits of teamwork in theory but perceived it, in practice, as merely a slogan used by their organizations to appear progressive, without changing anything about how work actually gets done (cf., Aktouf, 1992). A young woman in this class was so appalled by her organization that she thought she must be part of "some huge experiment on unmotivating employees." Another young man had been invited to lunch with his coworkers by the management of his organization; he accepted the invitation but worried that management had only made the offer "to keep us off guard." Even the popularity of the comic strip "Dilbert," about an engineer whose organization plumbs the depths of unscrupulousness, suggests that many people perceive their organizations in these terms. In fact, much of the material for the strip actually is sent to the cartoonist via e-mail by frustrated employees (Greilsamer, 1995).