The bright side and dark side of performance expectations: the role of organizational culture and the impact on employee performance and wellbeing

Roy K. Smollan and Shelagh K. Mooney

International Studies of Management & Organization, 2024, vol. 54, issue 3, 218-237

Abstract: Organizational culture has the potential to contribute to employee performance and wellbeing when it creates reasonable expectations and provides employees with the necessary skills and other resources to succeed. A wide range of stakeholders inside and outside the organization influence performance expectations, which largely revolve around workload (the quantity, quality and timeliness of the tasks they are entrusted with), customer service, innovation, and internal relationships. Given the relative lack of attention paid in prior research to performance expectations as an element of organizational culture, our qualitative study sought to investigate the sources and types of expectations of employees and the impact on their actual performance and wellbeing. We focused on the finance industry, which has received considerable criticism in various countries in terms of the undue pressure exerted on employees and the effects on their stress levels. It was therefore surprising to find that most of our New Zealand participants felt that expected performance levels were reasonable, apart from the extra but temporary demands created by the Covid-19 pandemic, and that their wellbeing was a genuine concern to their employers. We signal new research directions to explore how organizations can shape cultures where performance expectations lead to good results and staff wellbeing.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00208825.2024.2320580 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:mimoxx:v:54:y:2024:i:3:p:218-237

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/mimo20

DOI: 10.1080/00208825.2024.2320580

Access Statistics for this article

International Studies of Management & Organization is currently edited by Abraham Stefanidis

More articles in International Studies of Management & Organization from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().