to change the world: Persisting and Resiling When Selling Social Issues

1. to change the world: Persisting and Resiling When Selling Social Issues Scott Sonenshein Nardia Haigh Sue Ashford Jane Dutton

2. The Organization • Global Business Coalition (GBC) • Mission: GBC is NGO • Close relationship with United Nations • Applies “the private sector's special capabilities to the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.” • Coalition members "re-purpose" their business know-how, infrastructure and create tools for improving public health. • Varying levels of commitment • All pay membership fee • Some member companies (all for profit businesses) much more involved • Spread best practices to help members advocate for issues at work

3. Motivation • Issue selling is hard, selling social issues even harder • Contested, intractable, peripheral, inhospitable • Issues often not central to organization’s purpose • Gaps • Manage setbacks likely to arise in this type of work (resilience and persistence) • Context: selling logic, relationships with others in this space, org. support of issues • Motivation: intrinsic motivation, Psychological capital • Emotions: approach or avoidance • Overall Goals • Deepen understanding of social psychology of change agentry within organizations • Deepen understanding of how contexts might differentially enable individuals to be effective agents of change

4. The Opportunity • GBC’s enthusiastic to support issue-selling study • 180 companies, many with more than 1 member to be surveyed • Members assigned to a liaison role with GBC and frequently responsible for selling social issues • Issues include GBC issues but may also include other issues such as the environment. • Sue to lead session for GBC on findings in June

5. Overarching question: How does the psychology of change agents influence their effectiveness in different contexts? • Study 1: How do emotions, issue selling logic and organizational context affect individuals’ resilience and issue selling effectiveness? • Study 2: How does individuals’ motivation affect their resilience and issue selling effectiveness?

6. Study 1 Overview • Identify a social issue • Read a prompt for an issue selling plan that contains a 2x2 manipulation (emotions X issue selling logic) • Write an issue selling plan • Be informed that issue selling plan failed • Write response to failure (setback)

7. Study 1 Design • Identify a social issue • Manipulation (2x2 design) • Emotion • Negative emotions: We know it can sometimes be frustrating, or even energy-depleting, to sell social issues. • Positive emotions: We know it can sometimes be exciting, or even energizing, to sell social issues • Selling logic: Common wisdom suggests that the best strategy for selling an issue is by: • Business logic: appealing to a business case, such as how addressing the issue will improve your company’s profits and the business importance of taking action • Normative logic: appealing to the human good that will come from addressing the issue and the moral importance of taking action

8. Study 1: Issue Selling Plan • (positive/negative emotions).One way that individuals prepare to sell social issues is to create an “issue selling plan,” which documents how they will go about selling an issue. Please write an “issue selling plan” which details, as specific as possible, how you will sell the [insert “the issue” from Q1] issue inside your current organization. You should talk about the specific tactics you will use, and on whom, to get members of your organization to pay attention to and allocate resources to this issue. Please be as detailed, but also as realistic, as you can. Common wisdom suggests that the best strategy for selling an issue is by (business/normative logic)

9. Study 1: Resilience • Imagine that your issue selling plan failed to bring attention and get resources for the issue. Members of your organization neither paid more attention to the issue, nor did they allocate resources for it. What do you do now? Please be as concrete and detailed about how you would proceed.

10. Study 1: Analysis • Coding • Issue selling plan: tactics • Setback: resilience techniques • Analysis of issue selling plan • Expert rater assess how effective the plan is • Relate text data to manipulations and some survey items

11. Study 1: Theory Development • Some examples of Hs we will test; other ideas? • Positive emotions more likely to be resilient, negative emotions less likely to be resilient. • Business logic one way of overcoming inhospitable context for social issues (business logic X context favorability) • Negative vs. positive emotions (competing hypotheses) for issue selling effectiveness

12. Study 2: Survey • Research questions: • what explains individuals persistence in selling social issues that are not consensually strategic for the organization? • What explains selling effectiveness?

13. Predictor Variables • Self-determination theory • Activities will be motivating (people will persist longer) if those activities fulfill needs for: • Autonomy • Relatedness • Competence • Identification • People’s persistence in selling an issue is related to their identification with that issue • Open question – how will persistence be affected by identification with the firm? • Organizational context and commitment • How engaged focal company is with GBC

14. Study 2: Mediators • Autonomy, relatedness and competency need fulfillment affects motivation (persistence) through the creation of psychological capital. • Psych Capital = Hope, Efficacy, Optimism and Resiliency • Persistence directly affects effectiveness outcomes.

15. Study 2: “Model” Fulfillment of need for: Autonomy Relatedness Competence Psychological Capital: Optimism Resiliency Hope Efficacy Identification with the issue Persistence Selling Effectiveness Identification with the company

16. Study 2: Explorative • Tactics of Issue Selling • Rationality • Ingratiation • Involving Others • Moral Appeal • Private Settings

17. Your Help • General reactions to the study studies? • Additional theoretical perspectives to address? • How would you make the study more “meaning focused”?

18. And for the survey/measurement wonks • Self-determination theory • IdentificationEdwards & Peccei 6 items • Psychological Capital Luthans, Avolio, Avey & Norman, 2006 • Persistence [Dutton & Ashford 1993 (adapted) ?] • Selling effectiveness • Tactics Piderit & Ashford, 2003