Organizational behavior is influenced by a variety of factors, complicating the establishment of an ideally productive environment in the workplace. Two of the more critical concepts that scholars have identified in this context are inclusivity and accountability. The effectiveness of an individual or team as well as organizational performance can often depend on each individual’s ability to take responsibility for his or her conduct and contribute meaningfully.
Inclusivity is also pertinent to productivity as it fosters trust and allows employees to exercise their skills and strengths. If an organization cannot maintain an environment where employees’ inputs are valued and they are willing to perform diligently, the organization may face serious consequences.
In one case, the University of Washington Advancement team faces a particularly challenging task, generating the need to mobilize every possible effort to manage inclusivity and accountability to produce outstanding results. In light of the theoretical and practical relevance of these concepts, the present research has undertaken an effort to explore their impact in the context of organizational behavior within UW Advancement.
Organizational Context
The UW Advancement department is a body of professionals that is aimed at raising money for a variety of activities in the realms of individual and group development. Included in the organization’s values are meaningful engagement among students, alumni, and other stakeholders as well as pride, advocacy, and philanthropy (the University of Washington Advancement, n.d.). A recent Gallup (2018) engagement survey conducted among the employees of this department revealed that the team received low scores in parameters such as inclusivity (3.95/5) and accountability (3.85/5).
This assessment outlined critical problems within the UW Advancement that are having an impact on its efficiency and effectiveness. Consequently, the present research is aimed to explore factors affecting inclusivity and accountability. The study will be set within the UW Advancement organization.
Theoretical Foundations
One key goal of an enterprise is to achieve maximum profitability while incurring minimum costs. The attempt to attain this goal has fostered the emergence of many theoretical conceptions aspiring to explain and enhance business performance, which is a complex and multifaceted issue made up of multiple constituents. Among these are notions of commitment, motivation, job satisfaction, leadership, inclusion, and accountability.
The interrelations of these concepts are usually viewed under the umbrella term of organizational behavior (Miner, 2015). Organizational behavior—the set of traits, characteristics, and principles of individual interactions within a group—also targets enhancing the effectiveness of business performance. Theorists and practitioners are seeking the means to introduce factors into an organizational culture that will promote the emergence of productive behaviors in teams.
The problem of on-the-job performance can be viewed from the standpoint of multiple theories. Particularly relevant to the research question of this paper is cooperation theory as originally proposed by Tjosvold (1984), who suggested that meaningful relationships within a team are critical for productivity. In essence, cooperation theory revolves around goal attainment and cohesion. The effective achievement of goals by individuals on a team, according to Tjosvold (1984), tend to increase the effectiveness of others. Within a team, where team members proactively associate their goals with the goals of the organization, scholars have observed elevated performance and engagement rates (Tjosvold, 1984).
While the cooperation theory has been regarded as a comprehensive and reliable predictor of the performance of teams, a certain criticism of its concepts is possible. Thus, Buckley and Casson (2010) have suggested that a blanket attribution of this theory across diverse settings leads to a violation of internal team dynamics and, therefore, lowers organizational performance. Indeed, the current variety of teams and organizational settings lends itself to models that allow the implementation of both competition-based and cooperation-based paradigms without a drop in performance. Thus, among theorists, an understanding of the necessity to focus on standalone elements of organizational behavior has emerged (Buckley & Casson, 2010).
Motivational theory can also be a solid framework for the work’s topic. For example, Vroom has identified several motivational variables that affect proactive organizational behavior such as instrumentality, valence, and expectancy (as cited in Lloyd & Mertens, 2018).
Within the scope of inclusivity and accountability, instrumentality appears to be the most pertinent domain. This quality is understood as reward-based performance orientation, where the individual expects to receive a benefit for work well done. The absence of clear leadership in the ranks of UW Advancement and the motivational problems stemming from a vague rewards scheme make the motivation theory relevant to the current study.
Gaps in achieving positive instrumentality seem to pose a risk of valence, as a measure of corporate outcome importance, being low. Following such considerations, it appears that a review of the concepts of inclusion and accountability as constituents of organizational behavior that affect cooperation and motivation would be pertinent to the discussion at hand. These frameworks, despite their intrinsic diversity of processes and group mechanics, are also dependent on the factors of inclusivity and accountability.
Inclusion
In an increasingly globalized world, the diversity of the workforce becomes problematic in certain ways. As such, common to human nature is the individual’s craving for validation and affinity that is often connected to a simultaneous desire to demonstrate uniqueness (Sabharwal, 2014). Inclusion in the business environment involves, as defined by Sabharwal (2014), recognition and non-isolation of people who represent minorities or have different cultural, social, and knowledge backgrounds, along with those having disabilities or differing sexual orientation.
Thus, inclusive organizational behavior implies the ability to treat other members of the group fairly and equally. In the United States, the diversity of the workforce poses a strict requirement for inclusive practice not only due to ethical concerns but also as it relates to issues of performance. Low group cohesion appears to have a significant effect on the quality of team outcomes.
Thus, Sabharwal (2014) has found that racial, ethnic, or other inclusion-related tensions significantly undermine team productivity. Among key concerns, she mentioned incongruence in the availability of opportunities for diverse individuals within groups as well as indirect negativity and passive aggression toward “outsiders” or “non-conformers.” The existence of individual tensions between the members of a group does not favor cooperation, specifically in group-oriented tasks, inspiring the need for solutions in the sphere.
Another domain of inclusion is input recognition. The value of employee opinions was found to be significantly relevant to self-esteem and employee commitment. A precursor to that was the organizational policy that encouraged employees to add value in any possible and convenient way (Sabharwal, 2014). Besides, Sabharwal (2014) noted that firms that introduced alternative work arrangements and flexible payment schemes increased inclusion, resulting in higher individual and group performance. Given such findings, it is reasonable to believe that inclusive practices in an environment with a diverse workforce make a company more competitive in the market.
On the other hand, evidence also shows that workforce diversity with or without proper management can be an impediment to productivity or has no effect on it. These results were found to stem from low decision-making speed in heterogeneous teams, which led them to be less productive as understanding between them was lower (Potts, Vella, Dale, & Sipe, 2016). Given such considerations, the literature on inclusion seems to have produced conflicting results, which calls for further studies. Overall, the concept appears pertinent to organizational behavior, yet its nature within certain organizational contexts remains to be explored.
Accountability
Another prominent concept within organizational behavior theory is accountability. Accountability, as defined by Hall, Frink, and Buckley (2017), is a feeling of responsibility for one’s performance and an inclination to deliver the quality of work that is expected. In certain studies, accountability has been used interchangeably with responsibility, yet Hall et al. (2017) have suggested a significant difference in terms of the presence of an external audience in the case of accountability.
Also, the authors noted that responsibility as an often unconditioned and internalized inclination to perform is an important component of accountability as a term, substantiating a part-whole kind of relationship. For the most part, the scholars regarded the presence of accountability in an employee as a positive trait, directly relevant to his or her performance. Indeed, individuals imbued with a sense of liability may exercise stronger control of their efforts and thus contribute to the outcomes of the team.
Generally implied when accountability is viewed within an organizational context is the presence or possibility of evaluation or assessment. Besides, felt accountability is also conditioned by the existence of a reward or punishment based both on quality and delivery. Accountability is an important constituent of organizational behavior as businesses tend to value this quality in team members and leaders, thus extending the theoretical belief in the importance and inherently positive connotation of accountability.
At a deeper level of analysis, researchers have tended to identify the difference between process accountability and results in accountability. The former is positively associated with high-quality decision-making and proactive organizational behavior. The latter, on the other hand, has been accompanied by work-related stress and has decreased the quality of outcomes. One lack in the literature covering the accountability concept is that it appears to be rare compared to the standpoints of staff and higher executives. Given its major effect on performance, this parameter should be explored from a variety of perspectives, which the current study will address.
In summary, organizational behavior theorists have found many significant links among motivation, performance, and cooperation, which inclusivity and accountability directly influence. The significance of the latter two concepts and the gaps in the literature about the insufficient coverage of a worker-executive view of them establishes a solid theoretical foundation for the present study.
Research Methods and Quality
To address the goal of this research, mixed-methods design was chosen. Implementing elements from both quantitative and qualitative assessment allows for a more balanced evaluation. Quantitative surveys, while providing breadth and generalizability of the results of a study, impose limitations in terms of depth (Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2015). Qualitative studies, on the other hand, while often in-depth and insightful are also time-consuming and provide unique but narrow results.
Combining both techniques provides mutual complementarity and enhances the clarity of results. Besides, the strength and value of findings will also increase (Saunders et al., 2015). In this particular case, a mixed-method also provided the benefit of testing and proving the initial qualitative data with quantitative results gained from a survey.
The initial phase of research presupposed qualitative data collection through the means of independent interviews with upper management in different branches of UW Advancement. The selection of candidates for the interview was guided by non-probability sampling to ensure generalizability. Thus, three participants occupying managerial roles from the departments of Gift Officers, Donor Relations, and Marketing/Communications were chosen to reflect their understanding of accountability and inclusivity so that the findings should cover all major structures of the organization and provide a perspective from the executive side of the question.
The interview questions were designed with support from the professional literature including Gallup (2018), Saunders et al. (2015), and Christensen and Lægreid (2015). The interview questions were designed in a manner to shield the interviewee from researcher bias and question-framing, thus establishing the quality of the assessment. The interviews focused on each participant’s view of accountability and inclusivity through capturing his or her definition, factors, and implementation of each concept in the individual’s workplace as well as measures for improvement.
Consistent with the psychology literature, one of the best ways to measure the depth of conceptual understanding is through assessing an individual’s definition (Ones, Anderson, Viswesvaran, & Sinangil, 2017). The data were manually analyzed with the implementation of thematic analysis that allowed for capturing recurrent themes.
The second, quantitative phase of the study was aimed at capturing UW Advancement employees’ perception and understanding of accountability and inclusivity as well as their ranking of related factors. To accomplish this goal, a 28-item survey was sent to all workers.
In this case, probability sampling was used to capture the opinions of all possible groups represented within the organization. The items were crafted using a variety of approaches including multiple-choice, 5- and 7-point Likert scales, and open-ended questions. According to Saunders et al. (2015), the employment of various answer modes facilitates a greater depth and versatility of assessment, which is often lacking in quantitative surveys.
A total of 14 email invitations were sent, yielding eight participants who completed the questionnaire. Data analysis was also manual, which was warranted by the small sample. The latter was a major limitation because, even though the majority of the organization’s employees were able to participate, a sufficient number remained whose opinions were unassessed. This limitation will be addressed in a follow-up administration of the survey to the team members that will cover the rest of the UW Advancement staff. The professional analysis of the data is supported by the fact that the captured results were consistent with other researchers’ findings, such as Steinbauer, Renn, Taylor, and Njoroge (2014) and Barak, Findler, and Wind (2016).
Research Results
As a result of the interviews, it was possible to identify several sources of problems regarding the understanding of accountability and inclusivity. The latter, as also suggested by Barak et al. (2016), was found to be confused with diversity, even though the nature and direction of the concepts are dissimilar. Two out of three people used “embracing differences” or “togetherness” as major defining criteria of inclusivity. This might be perceived as a knowledge gap that constitutes the majority of inclusivity issues faced by UW Advancement such as the lack of input recognition and fairness of judgment.
Another major finding from the qualitative phase was a lack of connection between the goals and the everyday assignments of UW Advancement’s departments. As employees tended to focus on their own department’s goals, the overall cohesion of the organization staff was low, as found by Gallup (2018). Where accountability was concerned, interviewees tended to agree that the overall disconnectedness of departments prevented the formation of uniform goals and a vision that would be shared by all workers. Table 1 shows the recurrent themes that the managers mentioned.
Table 1. Core Recurrent Themes Identified During Interviews (self-generated).
As the survey demonstrated, the employees’ reports reflected no apparent consensus on the issues of accountability as the results varied from neutrality to strong agreement concerning the presence of clear and unambiguous subordination. On the other hand, 65% of employees agreed on the presence of and need for personal accountability for one’s work (see Figure 1). Moreover, 24% of the sample agreed that responsibilities keep shifting depending on the task, creating certain ambiguity.
Indeed, the lack of definitive roles, as noted by Steinbauer et al. (2014), seems to be indicative of vague accountability and, consequently, decreased motivation. Overall, the results demonstrate the need for intervention based on awareness because both quantitative and qualitative assessments revealed confusion regarding concepts and ambiguity among executives and employees.
Solution
The issues with accountability and inclusivity evidenced at UW Advancement require a systematic approach that will tackle the problems related to ambiguity and awareness. Among the measures proposed by workers and managers were staff training, the creation of a supportive work environment, inclusive hiring policies, outreach, and other initiatives. In any case, a unanimity of efforts that come from all departments and upper management for the initiatives to be integrated into an effective complex of measures appears to be needed.
From the standpoint of motivation theory, because an intervention should also be considered beneficial, it is important to emphasize in any training interventions the individual implications of inclusivity and accountability. In the planning of such an intervention, it could also be reasonable to introduce SMART Goals to further amplify the effectiveness of adopted measures as well as employees’ adherence to them.
Conclusion
In all, the problem of inclusivity and accountability in UW Advancement is pertinent due to the implications related to performance and motivation that could undermine the effectiveness of the whole organization. Following the results of the study, the main reasons for low inclusivity and accountability scores included ambiguity of terms and disconnectedness of departments, intensified by shifting tasks and an absence of common values and goals. To address these issues, a possible solution would be to initiate educational and training measures based on strong leadership and unanimity of response from the upper management.
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