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JMD
29,4 Beyond Pygmalion effect: the role
of managerial perception
Takao Inamori and Farhad Analoui
306 Department of Development and Economic Studies, University of Bradford,
Bradford, UK
Received 22 October 2009
Accepted 26 November 2009
Abstract
Purpose – The influences of perception have been studied in educational, army, sports and business
settings but never in the development field. The Pygmalion effect generally suggests that the
perceiver’s positive expectation enhances the target’s performance. This first time research seeks to
explore how managerial perceptions of the aid workers of the local staffs affect their behaviour and
performance in cross-cultural project settings.
Design/methodology/approach – With the cooperation of Japan International Cooperation
Agency ( JICA), 244 valid responses were obtained from the aid workers through a web-based
survey. Using factor analysis, five perception-related factors and two behaviour-related factors were
extracted. Subsequently, in order to clarify the causal relationship, the above factors and one observed
organisational performance variable were tested using path analysis.
Findings – Positive causal relationships were confirmed between two perception-related factors and
one behaviour-related factor, and also between the behaviour-related factor and the organisational
performance variable. These results strongly suggest that aid workers’ positive perception causes
positive behaviour in local colleagues and will result in higher organisational performance.
Practical limitations/implications – Whilst avoiding generalisation, nevertheless, the results
suggest that there is a need for people-related and cross-cultural management skills to ensure
successful future activities, and stress management competencies to maintain the positive managerial
perception on the part of the aid workers.
Originality/value – Despite the considerable influence of donor staff’s managerial perception on the
quality of the human relationships and organisational performance, this field of enquiry has remained
neglected. The study provides first-time empirical evidence on its significance.
Keywords Managerialism, Perception, Skills, Design and development, Aid agencies, Japan
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Numerous studies have been carried out which explore the relationship between the
perceiver’s expectation and the target’s performance. These studies, often referred to as
a “Self-fulfilling prophecy” (Merton, 1948) and/or the “Pygmalion effect” (Rosenthal
and Jacobson, 1968), attempt to explain how the perceiver’s positive expectation may
enhance the target’s performance. Similarly, McGregor’s (1960) Theory XY also offers
two sets of managerial assumptions, based on positive or negative beliefs and
perception on the part of the managers, which influence followers’ performance at
work. The possible influence resulting from having positive expectations has been
given much attention in education, sport, military and business settings (Kierein and
Journal of Management Development Gold, 2000; McNatt, 2000) and these results generally support the notion that positive
Vol. 29 No. 4, 2010
pp. 306-321 expectation works in certain situations.
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0262-1711
In an international setting, particularly in aid projects, the cross-cultural work
DOI 10.1108/02621711011039132 environment exerts considerable influence on both the donor’s and the local staff’s
perception and makes the task of working harmoniously together much more difficult Beyond
(Analoui, 1998; Analoui and Karami, 2002). Moreover, differing perceptions on the part Pygmalion effect
of the actors in the field might also provoke conflicts between donor and local staff,
consequently resulting in ineffective work relationships (Hofstede, 1991; Kakabadse
et al., 2004; Adler and Gundersen, 2007).
After the Second World War, development projects were widely used whereby
initially donors focused more on economic development (Cracknell, 2000). However, 307
since the 1980s, participatory approaches have become increasingly popular and
attempts have been made to involve project participants and beneficiaries in the
projects and development activities (Chambers, 1983; Smith, 1989; Cernea, 1991).
Moreover, since the 1990s, human capacity development also began to be recognised as
an important factor towards sustainable development (UNDP, 1997; Analoui, 1998).
Thus, people as opposed to task-related perceptions, knowledge and relationships
(Analoui, 1993, 1998; Analoui and Al-madhoun, 2006), have been increasingly regarded
as an essential ingredient for the successful management of work organisations.
However, despite its considerable importance the influence of the actor’s perception
and expectations in development projects and programmes has received little attention
(Eyben, 2006) and has remained relatively a neglected field of enquiry.
Hence, in light of paucity of studies addressing influences of perception in aid project
setting, this paper examines the extent of the influence of the Japanese aid worker’s
perceptions of the local staff and partner country on organisational performance of the
development project. To achieve this, a brief review of the related literature, which forms
the basis for the development of hypothesis, will be discussed in some detail. Then, the
research methodology, a web-based survey that was conducted amongst Japanese aid
workers to generate the relevant data, will be introduced, the findings of this novel study
will be discussed and relevant conclusions will be reached.
2. Theoretical background
2.1 Perceptual tendency
People’s perception is affected by internal factors such as personal experiences,
personality and external factors such as stimuli from environment and context in
which they operate (George and Jones, 1999; Buchanan and Huczynski, 2004; Analoui,
2007). People continually attempt to understand and make sense of the information
received from their environment. In order to achieve this, people select, organise
(groups and categorise) and interpret the information (Brewer and Miller, 1996). Bruner
and Tagiuri (1954) have introduced “Implicit personality theory” on how the grouping
and categorisation of people takes place. The theory explains that certain personality
traits, behaviour, attitude and values tend to associate with certain types of
individuals. Evidently, these early interpretations were found to be oversimplified and
not always true (Pettigrew, 1979; Bodenhausen, 1988). As for stereotyping in groups,
the concept of in-group and out-group were offered in perception studies (Allport,
1979). In-group is defined as any group to which one belongs and out-group is viewed
as any group to which one does not belong. “Out-group homogeneity” is based on the
belief that people tend to classify out-group members as more similar to each other
than members of their own group. In other words, people are apt to perceive in-group
members individually and other members as a group (Hamilton, 1976; Quattrone, 1986;
Linville et al., 1989).
JMD Studies of attribution were originally developed by Heider (1958) and Kelley (1972,
29,4 1973) and referred to as “Attribution theory”. Heider suggested that explanations of
behaviour fall into two categories. One is internal attribution and the other is external
attribution. Internal attribution is associated with personal factors such as personality,
ability and motivation. In contrast, external attribution is related to environment
factors such as organisational rules, luck and natural environment. The notion of
308 “Correspondent inference theory” ( Jones and Davis, 1965; Gilbert and Malone, 1995)
explained that people tend to think that each individual is responsible for internal
factors and that external factors are essentially uncontrollable and out of one’s own
responsibility, however, observations showed that internal factors are often
overestimated. Similarly, ‘Fundamental attribution error’ ( Jones and Harris, 1967)
describes that the overestimated perception might be wrong. “Actor-observer effect”
(Storms, 1973; Baxter and Goldberg, 1988) refers to a tendency to see the behaviour of
others as being caused by internal causes, while own behaviour is caused by external
causes. Furthermore, “Self-serving attribution” (Zuckerman, 1979; Roesch and
Amirkham, 1997) explains that people generally associate their success with internal
factors whereas they tend to blame their failure on external factors.
Figure 1.
Integrated model of the
Pygmalion effect
for accelerating organisational performance. As the Hawthorne effect (Franke and Beyond
Kaul, 1978; Jones, 1992; Metzgar, 1995; Hamilton et al., 2002) and transactional analysis Pygmalion effect
(Berne, 1968; Stewart and Joines, 1987) explained, healthy human interactions and
relationships are essential for an effective organisation.
3. Research methodology
After an extensive review of the related literature as illustrated in previous section, the
survey planning procedure offered by of Czaja and Blair (2005), was adapted to design
Figure 2.
Hypothesised
perception-behaviour-
performance model
JMD a survey (questionnaire). The questionnaire was piloted in July 2008 and it was
29,4 amended accordingly.
4. Results
4.1 Demographics
There were 184 male (75.4 per cent) and majority of the respondents had over five years 311
work experience in developing countries (52.9 per cent, n ¼ 129). Mode of age group
was 40s age group which occupied 29.0 per cent of the respondents (n ¼ 73). Regarding
educational background, master degree holders was the first mode (42.2 per cent,
n ¼ 103) and the second was bachelor degree holders (40.2 per cent, n ¼ 98). Most of
the respondents work in the Asian region, which consists of East Asia, South-East
Asia, South Asia and Central Asia, and the total number 110 represents 45 per cent of
the total respondents. Mode of assigned region was in South-East Asia and it
represented 25.4 per cent (n ¼ 62) of the total responses. The demographic profiles of
the respondents are shown below in Table I.
“Work” to “Relatedness” (path coefficient ¼ 0:37). These paths support H3. On the
other hand, paths from the perception related factors to behaviour related factor
“Encouragement” showed ambiguous results. The “Encouragement” received two
positive medium effect paths; one from “Understanding” (Path coefficient ¼ 0:47) and
the other from “Work” (Path coefficient ¼ 0:38) but also two negative medium effect
paths; one from “Environment” (Path coefficient ¼ 20:27), another from “Stress” (Path
coefficient ¼ 20:39). These negative paths contradict H3.
Regarding H4, observed variable “Performance” received positive medium effect
path only from “Relatedness” (Path coefficient ¼ 0:33), however, there was no path
from “Encouragement” to “Performance”. Therefore, it can be concluded that H4 was
only partly supported.
JMD
Factor Cronbach’s
29,4 Type of perception loading alpha
1. Understanding 0.764
P12. Local colleagues will enhance their ability through working with me 0.855
P15. Local colleagues work hard with my encouragement 0.656
314 P13. My attitude affects behaviour of local colleagues 0.588
P14. I believe local colleagues implement their task as we planned 0.579
2. Work 0.821
P1. I feel my work is challenging 0.939
P2. I enjoy my work 0.858
P4. My activities are appreciated by local colleagues 0.407
3. Environment 0.743
P7. I can accept the process/practice of my partner organisation 0.835
P6. My workplace environment is well prepared by my partner 0.726
organisation
P5. I like the atmosphere of my workplace 0.494
4. Expectation 0.614
P10. When I work hard, I feel local colleagues also should work hard 0.720
P9. In a busy period, if local colleagues are not working hard, I will be 0.658
irritated
P11. Local colleagues should feel grateful for what the Japanese side has 0.433
done for them
5. Stress 0.552
P8. I am stressed from responsibility to achieve our project purpose 0.749
Table III. P3. Sometimes I am depressed about my work 0.517
Factors of JICA aid
workers’ perception Source: Data analysis
Factor Cronbach’s
Type of perception loading alpha
1. Relatedness 0.794
B1. I keep good relation with local colleagues 0.832
B2. I keep close communication with local colleagues 0.787
2. Encouragement 0.599
B3. I have attempted some activities to establish favourable human 0.698
relations with local colleagues
Table IV. B4. I have attempted to motivate local colleagues 0.607
Factors of JICA aid
workers’ behaviour Source: Data analysis
5. Discussion
Except for the four variables (P3, P8, P10 and P11) in the perception related questions,
overall the results indicated the presence of positive perceptual and behavioural
tendencies. The underlying reason for this ought to be explored by further analysis.
Concerning the P9 and P10 in “Expectation”, these questions were designed to clarify
how the aid workers with a Japanese organisational culture mindset worked in
Beyond
Pygmalion effect
315
Figure 3.
Path coefficient in
hypothesised relationship
.
Those who are not stressed regarding their work tend not to have high levels of
expectation about their local colleagues.
.
Those who are satisfied regarding their work environment tend not to have high
levels of expectation about their local colleagues.
.
Those who have a positive understanding of their local colleagues tend to have
high levels of expectation about their local colleagues.
6. Conclusion
This study intended to extend the theory of the “Pygmalion effect” to performance of the
organisation within the developing world. It does not intend to criticise the aid workers
(donors) for having negative perceptions and behaviours towards the local staff. Rather,
it aims to explore and explain the phenomenon in order to provide a basis for better
understanding the behaviour of actors involved. It is not uncommon to see people with a
negative perception of others and situations due to their differing perceptual tendencies.
In this study, although the majority of the respondents generally showed positive
perceptions, the results pointed to the presence of tendencies that stressed Japanese aid
workers due to frustration from the environment and their high expectation from their
local counterparts with whom they shared the responsibility of work.
Analysis of the data indicated the presence of causal relationships between
perception related factors (Understanding and Work), behaviour related factors
(Relatedness) and the organisational performance variable (Performance). Positive
perception on the part of the aid workers causes close human relationships between
them and their local colleagues. Moreover, harmonised human relationships work
positively towards enhancing organisational performance.
However, the analysis clearly shows that lack of positive encouragement behaviour
on the part of the aid workers, due to experiencing stress and frustration, failed to
increase organisational performance. Thus, this indicates that maintaining positive
perception is imperative for successful management of people and operations. It is
therefore prudent for the future success of the project implementation that
cross-cultural management training should be included in the briefing of workers
prior to embarking on the management of development projects in order to remove
unnecessary misunderstanding and tension between the actors involved. In addition,
the aid worker’s mental health also needs to be nurtured because positive perceptions
underpin a healthy mind. As a number of studies in management have proven,
understanding and maintaining healthy psychological well being in the organisation is
essential for successful management. In this sense, these results shed light on the
importance of people-related management skills in development projects. Moreover,
further analysis is required to clarify the complexity of the relationships at work,
especially in the context of development.
Action levers
.
Cross-cultural management is vitally important for the success of the projects
and organisations and should be considered in order to reduce
misunderstanding.
JMD .
Prior to embarking to new mission abroad, aid workers ought to be familiarised
29,4 with stress-management techniques to maintain positive perception.
.
Owing to presence of human relation challenges in the field, people-related skills
and competencies ought to be provided.
.
Aid workers need to understand that their negative perception of local colleagues
and work environment will not contribute to enhanced organisational
318 performance.
. Aid workers have to understand the value of positive perception and
encouragement towards achieving the organisational goal.
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Corresponding author
Farhad Analoui can be contacted at: f.analoui@bradford.ac.uk