Chapter 4 Case Analysis
4.3 Analysis of Employee Psychological Ownership
4.3.1 Organizational Psychological Ownership
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the organization (Chi and Han, 2008), and at the same time asks the question “How much do I feel this organization is mine?” (Van Dyne and Pierce, 2004). In addition to
organizational psychological ownership, the other state of ownership generated by the employees is possessive feeling toward corporate brand. As such, when employees possess a positive sense of feelings toward the corporate brand, it signals the emergence of brand psychological ownership among employees (Chiang, 2009).
According to analysis of internal marketing within Sinyi Realty, it seems the company makes efforts to contribute to the integrity of internal marketing. In this regard, this study then turns to the state of psychological ownership owned by the employees to figure out the extent to which they feel this corporate is theirs. In other words, the performances of employee psychological ownership can be considered to be an indicator of the degree of effectively carrying out internal marketing. Further, this study divides employee psychological ownership into two parts in order to discreetly examine their psychological ownership toward different objects which respectively are the company itself and the corporate brand.
4.3.1 Organizational Psychological Ownership
In terms of organizational psychological ownership, it is widely confirmed that it positively correlates with the ensuing work-related attitudes and behaviors (Pierce et al., 2001; Van Dyne and Pierce, 2004; Avey et al., 2009). Thus, organizational
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psychological ownership can be seen as contributor to the relation between the organization and its members. When it comes to satisfying basic needs, employees with organizational ownership are able to meet the needs of having a sense of place, feeling efficacious and expressing self-identity in the organizational setting (Pierce et al., 2001). Besides, traits of organizational psychological ownership are also
recognized by scholars (Van Dyne and Pierce, 2004), including attitudes, self-concept and sense of responsibility. As for Sinyi Realty, its employees show disparities of degree of psychological ownership for the company, and interestingly their reasons are almost totally different from each other.
Firstly, we focus on the need of having a sense of place, which is always
considered to be a sense of belonging as well. Mostly, for those who sense a feeling of being at home when they are in the workplace, formation of members in certain store or division is the most critical contributor to having a sense of belonging for these
employees:
Due to the personalities of my colleagues I do sense a feeling of being at home; we share personal feelings and many other things with each other and they’re just like my families. ……and store manager also plays a very important role in influencing my sense of feeling like home specific to the store I stay. (FH01)
My age is close to my colleagues and we’re soon to get along with each other,
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so we are indeed in great relationships. Frankly, I felt sad when I was going to leave them. (FI16)
By that time I was a store secretary and the store I stayed was totally like a home to me. In addition to attending to agents’ sales performances, I also have to care about everything related to them. As for me at that time, I desperately wanted to take good care of them. Compared to my current work (different position) that have to deal with around 50 persons, there were only 7-8 people you had to get along with when being a store secretary. So the degree of closeness among us derived from the past work is much higher than from my current position. (FH12)
Accordingly, the colleagues they work with and the positions they take are the most decisive factors in influencing the formation of a sense of belonging toward their workplaces. On the other hand, there are definitely opposite feelings of having a place
in the working context:
During my late stage of being a realty agent, what matters to me is the sense of belonging formed in my workplace and there is nothing to do with Sinyi Realty. ……after changing my career to be a staff member, I don’t think of Sinyi Realty as my home because I don’t have 100% trust in it and still have my own career plan. (MI11A)
…… since I have been transferred to different stores frequently and I can’t stay in one store for a long time, I don’t produce stronger psychological ownership toward any store. Comparatively, I have owned a higher degree of
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psychological ownership for the company. (MH21)
Besides, there are different explanations for the state of “having a place” found in other employees within Siniyi Realty:
The company indeed has gradually transformed its working atmosphere into a working place conducive to encouraging more communications and
collaborations. Besides, the company began to focus on fully implementing the regulation of monthly leave, which stresses that living is as important as working. Under this changing condition, I would like to keep staying here in the future. (MI08)
Sinyi Realty creates a working place regulated by explicit rules.
Comparatively, working at this place makes me feel relieved and secured.
(FH01)
Higgins (1997, 1998) suggests that there are two forms of psychological ownership based on the concept of self-regulation system for individuals which are
promotion and preventative-oriented focus. As an employer who promotes promotion-focused approach, he or she is much more inclined to see corporate’s improvement as
personal fulfilment (Avey et al., 2009), which indicates that the company would be more willing to adopt internal marketing in an attempt not only to motivate employees to possess ownership for the corporate, but to encourage them to act favorably toward the company. On the other hand, those with preventative focus are more inclined not to exchange possessed objects regardless of tangible or intangible because they seek
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to avoid change and maintain stability. In this regard, it refers to the role of
territoriality in psychological ownership. Simply speaking, if individuals anticipate infringement on their targets of ownership, they may immediately take actions to maintain the levels of ownership and to expel the threats taken by others. When applied to the context of corporate, territoriality is usually considered to lead
employees to become more “preoccupied with “objects of ownership”, at the expense of their performances or other pro-social behaviors” (Avey et al., 2009, p.176)
However, there is no superior psychological ownership than the other because both of them are required to meet different needs. Within Sinyi Realty, employees have different opinions on exhibition of promotive and preventive psychological ownership
possessed by realty agents in particular:
From the aspects of realty agents, the stronger they hope to become, the more help they need. The best recourse of the company is the platform formed by more than 400 stores in which there are so many opportunities to obtain. In other words, it’s supposed to adopt collaborative approach instead of working hard on your own. (MA04B)
Frankly, realty agents are prepared to work and fight alone. In reality, one customer is served by one agent; if other agents come to offer services to my customer, perhaps I wouldn’t allow them to do that. Back to the time when I was a realty agent, I thought my colleagues and I were in the relationships of frenemy with each other. (MI11A)
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Organizational psychological ownership also has to meet employee’s need of expressing self-identity to others. In this regard, symbolic expressions of the self is based on our interaction with possessions. In a corporate’s context, some employees’
behaviors are well-explained by an attempt to define themselves with the use of
tangible and intangible possessions:
When other employees of different stores praise our store for having excellent sale performances, I feel exalted and so proud of it! …… I’m proud of Siny Realty and hope Sinyi Realty would also feel proud of me in return. (FU03)
I did enjoy staying in Sinyi branch store because it has continued to win first place of best sales performance for more than 6 years. I was one of them providing assistance in making the store’s history! …...though I was assigned to other store for the purpose of providing assistance, I still think of Sinyi store as part of me. (MI11B)
Frankly, it’s necessary for me not to involve myself in the corporate’s context in an attempt to make me clear-headed. More specifically, I have to tell myself I’m not part of Sinyi Realty, otherwise I couldn’t remain neutral to do my current work. (MI11A)
Feelings of ownership also trigger a sense of responsibility for the tangible or intangible possessions. As for employees of Sinyi Realty, they possess different interpretations of exhibiting sense of responsibility:
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It is my store that I have to manage it to become like a home in which the colleagues gradually possess a sense of belonging to this store. It’s not easy to operate a family-like store, but it’s a definite objective for which I have to work hard. (MI08)
I’m now responsible for the part, so I would pour 100% concern in this company (certain subsidiary of Sinyi Realty), deeply care about the division I stay now and anticipate its future development wholeheartedly. (MA04B)
Frankly, I don’t want to leave the store when it is still in a bad state because I’m afraid my leave would have a negative influence on the sales performance of the store. I started to work here when it was just founded and it is indeed like my child! I desperately hope to see its growth and wish it best. (FU03)
Accordingly, feelings of ownership for certain entity can be expressed by trait of a sense of responsibility. Further, possessing organizational ownership is able to meet
the need of feeling efficacy over the organization or related entities:
My work requires me to exert an influence on the company because I’m responsible for designing corporate regulations. The reason why I do my work cautiously and deliberately is because I possess this kind of influence over the employees. Wrong-designed regulation would trigger incorrect behaviors done by employees. (FH12)
…… in other words, to what extent I can control and exert influence over the company is a decisive factor to the level of my psychological ownership for the company. Besides, promotion of the position also increases the degree of
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my possession for the company. (MI11A)
The store manager I work with now is more acceptive for our opinions. On this basis, I think I can exert my influence through the store manager because what I raise and suggest for the store is more likely to be accepted and put into practice finally. (FH01)
However, there are still others hold opposite feelings in terms of sense of
responsibility within Sinyi Realty:
My psychological ownership for the company can be described by a learning curve; at the very beginning, there are pretty much things to learn, until now I find myself arriving at the plateau, and this situation is mostly applied to realty agents. To me, I’ve done well in terms of my sales performance and I’m almost going to reach the best state of some seniors. As a result, I feel that the future prospects for employees are limited and that’s all there’s to it. (MI11B)
When time goes by, my psychological ownership for the company is on the wane. The company scales up and the way of management is always carried out by downward communication. In this regard, it’s almost impossible to exert influence over the company and to ask for change within the company on my own. (MH21)
The facts above indicate that when employees figure out they don’t possess sense of accomplishments or exert their influences as much as before, their psychological ownership toward the company would gradually go down. Accordingly, it’s necessary
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for the company to satisfy employees’ innate needs to be efficacious, and at the same time to convince them of the importance of their roles in the company.