The Effect of Corporate Mantra Personalization on Newcomer Attitudes
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Date
2020-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
"Corporate mantras" are internally-resonating phrases aimed to perpetuate values and guide decisions at every level of an organization (e.g., Nike's mantra is "authentic athletic performance"). Despite the commonality of these phrases, no scholarly work has examined instantiation and repetition of such mantras from an intraorganizational perspective. When multiple employees are involved in "onboarding" (orienting) a new colleague, those employees might be viewed as multiple independent sources (where multiple sources have a more polarizing effect than a single source delivering the same arguments; Harkins & Petty, 1981a). Yet, if people view the employees as all representing the organization, and therefore not independent, the potential benefit of multiple sources is lost unless the employees are made to seem more independent (cf. Harkins & Petty, 1987). This study aims to assess the extent to which personalized expressions of corporate mantras might capitalize on the multiple source effect, mitigating any perceptions of non-independence across employees, to produce favorable attitudes towards an organization and an increased sense of autonomy amongst group members. Participants imagined going through orientation at a new corporation and hearing from three employees. The canned-mantra condition had each employee stating the exact same mantra and subsequent argument within their description. In preliminary data collection, the "middle" partially-personalized condition (same mantra but varied argument expression) did not significantly differ from the canned or fully-personalized conditions and was removed from the main study. The fully-personalized mantra variation condition maintained the argument variations from the middle condition but synonymized (personalized) the common values in each mantra. Participants were asked a series of questions on their perceptions of the employees, their attitudes toward the company, and their fit with the company's mantra and values. Fully-personalized mantras (vs. canned-mantras) significantly affected the participants' perceived fit and autonomy in the organization and led to a more positive organizational evaluation.
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Keywords
brand mantras, corporate mantras, organizational attitudes, industrial-organizational psychology, attitudes and persuasion