[Essentials of Effective Manageme nt]

Analysis of five journal articles

Sameer Moolana

Sameer Moolana

Contents
Contents..................................................................................................................... 2 BARRIERS TO COMMUNICATION..................................................................................4 1.1 ARTICLE SUMMARY...........................................................................................39 1.2 REFLECTIONS................................................................................................... 39 1.3 CONCLUSION....................................................................................................40 PERSONAL PERCEPTION............................................................................................41 2.1 ARTICLE SUMMARY...........................................................................................77 2.2 REFLECTIONS................................................................................................... 77 2.3 CONCLUSION....................................................................................................78 WORK-RELATED STRESS............................................................................................79 3.1 ARTICLE SUMMARY.........................................................................................104 3.2 REFLECTIONS.................................................................................................104 3.3 CONCLUSION..................................................................................................105 TECHNIQUES USED BY ORGANIZATIONS FOR REDUCING STRESS............................106 4.1 ARTICLE SUMMARY.........................................................................................121 4.2 REFLECTIONS.................................................................................................121 4.3 CONCLUSION..................................................................................................122 MOTIVATION STRATEGIES USED IN ORGANIZATIONS...............................................123 5.1 ARTICLE SUMMARY.........................................................................................137 5.2 REFLECTIONS.................................................................................................137 5.3 CONCLUSION..................................................................................................138 Works Cited............................................................................................................. 139

Sameer Moolana

Sameer Moolana

BARRIERS TO COMMUNICATION

Sameer Moolana

Risky Business or Managed Event? Perceptions of Power and Deception in the Workplace

by Lisa L. Massi Lindsey , Norah E. Dunbar , Jessica C. Russell INTRODUCTION Deception is a part of everyday social interaction. In fact, some scholars argue that deception is a fact of social life rather than an extraordinary or unusual event (Kashy & DePaulo, 1 998). Often deception goes undetected, but if a lie is told to an authority figure the repercussions can be serious. Some researchers argue that manipulative ability is a foundation of social power and the ability to lie successfully is an important skill linked to personal and professional success (DePaulo, LeMay, & Epstein, 1 99 1 ). The motivations and the risks for people deceiving authority figures is likely quite different from the motivations ofthe deceptive authority figures themselves. Thus, the goals ofthe current study were to investigate the link between power and deception, understand how deception occurs in the workplace, and identify the impact of deception on power-laden relationships. Deception Defined Although definitions abound in the literature, the current investigation conceptualized deception as the successful or unsuccessful deliberate attempt, without forewarning, to create in another a belief which the communicator considers to be false (Vrij, 2000). This definition emphasizes that deception is an intentional, strategic act and does not necessarily require the use of words. Although many consider deception to include only outright fabrications or blatant lies,

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deception can take many forms including concealment, omissions, exaggerations, half-truths, misdirection, and even playfulness such as tricking or bluffing (Buller & Burgoon, 1994). Telling literal truths that are designed to mislead should be considered deception, as well. For example, when President Clinton told the American public that he "did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky" he gave the impression that nothing sexual happened when he meant that they had not had sexual intercourse (Vrij, 2000). Unfortunately, trying to determine what strategy the speaker is using, whether it is omission, fabrication, or deception embedded with truths, requires knowledge of the speaker's intent and his or her existing knowledge. As such, we will follow the example of other scholars and will be using the terms "lying" and "deception" interchangeably through this manuscript (Masip, Garrido, & Herrero, 2004; Vrij, 2008). The reasons for deception depend greatly on the situation and the motives of the deceiver. In a pair of diary studies of lying in everyday life, people admitted telling between 0 and 46 lies a day (DePaulo, Kashy, Kirkendol, Wyer, & Epstein, 1996). DePaulo and colleagues (DePaulo & Bell, 1996; DePaulo & Kashy, 1998; Kashy & DePaulo, 1996) differentiate between selforiented lies that benefit the deceiver and other-oriented lies that are told for another person's benefit. In addition, Vrij (2000) further elaborated on the motives for deception which include deceiving in order to make a positive impression on others, protecting themselves from disapproval or embarrassment, obtaining an advantage, making others appear better or to benefit others in some way, or protecting a social relationship. Some of these motives maybe both self- and other-oriented such as when you are dishonest about an embarrassing topic to save your own face and prevent embarrassment on the part of the interaction partner. The power relationship between the two interactants is one situational variable that might greatly influence

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the type of deception used and the reason for the deception. The motives for deception change when speaking to someone who differs in status. Power and Deception Dominance and power have been regarded for some time by sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, and communication scholars as one of the fundamental dimensions of interpersonal relationships (e.g., Burgoon & Hale, 1984). Power influences how people in relationships interact with each other, both verbally and nonverbally, and determines whether they engage in or avoid conflict. Also, power influences what types of messages will be used when attempting to reconcile incompatible goals in conflict situations. Power is a social concept that involves a relationship between two parties that goes beyond the individual (Dunbar & Burgoon, 2005; Langner & Keltner, 2008). A definition of power is elusive, but despite the many definitions of power that exist in the literature, scholars from diverse fields are converging on the definition of power generally as the capacity to produce intended effects, and in particular, the ability to influence the behavior of another person (see Berger, 1994 for a more thorough review of definitions of power in social interaction). Power is often derived from certain power bases which are resources such as rewards or knowledge possessed by individuals that form the basis for control over others. French and Raven (1959) identified five power bases that have been used extensively in the communication literature. The five bases include reward power and coercive power which represent, respectively, a person's right to reward and punish; legitimate power, which is power that comes from holding a high status position that is sanctioned by society; referent power, which is the power that results when others admire and emulate a person; and expert power, which is derived

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from having expertise in a needed field. Other scholars have since added additional power bases such as informational power which stems from the ability to persuade another (Raven, Centers, & Rodrigues, 1975) and credibility (Aguinis, Simonsen, & Pierce, 1998). Additionally, supervisors in the workplace may also have personality traits or leadership qualities that have lead them to their more powerful position and on which they draw when they need to influence or control others (Schmid Mast & Hall, 2003). Although supervisors typically have access to most, if not all, of these power bases, deception is a way to manipulate information and thus may be used by any party to increase informational power over another. Buller and Burgoon (1 994) argued that deceptive individuals strategically manipulate their messages in four ways through the use of: (1) uncertainty and vagueness, (2) nonimmediacy, reticence, and withdrawal, (3) disassociation, and (4) image- and relationship-protecting behavior. The particular strategy one chooses might depend on the power relationship between the interactants. Deceptiveness is a particularly important influence strategy when considering power differences because power is not always salient in every interaction. Komter (1989) distinguishes between manifest power and latent power. Manifest power concerns the visible outcomes of power such as open conflicts or direct verbal and nonverbal strategies used to achieve certain ends. Latent power is identified when the needs ofthe powerful person are identified or conflicts are avoided due to fear of retaliation by the powerful partner. According to dyadic power theory (DPT; Dunbar, 2004; Dunbar & Burgoon, 2005), dyads with high power differences, such as those in the supervisor-subordinate relationship in the workplace, are more likely to use latent power strategies than those who are relatively equal in power. Extremely powerful individuals do not need to make their influence attempts manifest because by virtue of their powerful position;

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they may maintain control without even appearing dominant. By the same token, powerless individuals are unlikely to express their grievances if they fear that retaliation, termination of the relationship, or other negative relational consequences will result from their control attempt (Dunbar, 2004). These individuals weigh the potential gain or loss of engaging in conflict and find that tolerating or accommodating a conflict at a minor cost is more beneficial than running the risk of pursing the conflict and disrupting the relationship (Leung, 1988). Dunbar does not make specific predictions about the types of strategies power-unequal dyads will use in place of overt dominance but because of its surreptitious nature, deception is necessarily a latent strategy and is consistent with the power use strategies of those either high or low in power in the workplace. For example, individuals may use deception to avoid confrontation with a supervisor or subordinate at work or to protect their power position in the workplace if they fear the truth will cause them to lose credibility. On the other hand, supervisors may use deception in order to maintain their informational power over their subordinates by concealing information that would weaken their position. Research examined the connection between deception and power by examining deception between students and teachers (Kaye, 1 99 1 ), teachers and administrators (Sweetland & Hoy, 200 1 ), parents and children, (Knox, Zusman, McGinty, & Gescheidler, 2001; Thomas, BoothButterfield, & Booth-Butterfield, 1995), doctors and patients (Burgoon, Callister, & Hunsaker, 1 994; Fainzang, 2002), social workers and clients (Kagle, 1998), police officers and suspects (Vrij, 1994), supervisors and subordinates in the workplace (Barrick & Mount, 1996), and even researchers and subjects (Korn, 1997). Indeed, Hample (1980) argued that three out of four lies are told to economic or social supervisors. The relationship between power and deception detection, however, is an under-studied topic and warrants further investigation. Previous

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research suggested that those who are lower in power can detect deception more effectively than others (Bugental, Shennum, Frank, & Ekman, 200 1 ) although this finding contradicts other research that suggested dominant individuals are highly skilled at deception and whose lies are more difficult to detect (Burgoon & Dunbar, 2000; Cody & O'Hair, 1983; Keating & Heltman, 1994). Thus, it is unclear who in the relationship will find it more difficult to detect deception and what tactics they will use to perpetuate deceptive communication. The motives for deception of those in a position of power differ greatly from those in a position of powerlessness. For example, in the doctor-patient relationship (where physicians' expertise gives them greater power over patients), doctors and patients have different reasons for lying. Fainzang (2002) argued that doctors might lie in order to emphasize the importance of treatment, such as telling alcoholics that even one drink will cause them to relapse into alcoholism when the doctor is aware that moderate consumption of alcohol is possible and has been used successfully by other patients. Patients, on the other hand, might lie to their physicians when they do not take their medication as prescribed or do not tell their physician about prior treatments, such as homeopathic treatments, when they fear disapproval from their doctor (Fainzang, 2002). Burgoon et al. (1994) contend that 32% of patients overtly lie to their doctors and 85% use some form of concealment or equivocation strategy. Also, Kagle (1998) illuminated the use of deception by patients towards their social workers as a method to establish boundaries, establish and maintain their identities, and address imbalances of power whether real or perceived. Deception and Power in the Workplace The workplace is a unique context because the power hierarchies are more formalized than in

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most interpersonal relationships and deception is often seen as a necessary strategy when climbing the corporate ladder. Although most people see lying in business negotiations as highly unethical, although they might be willing to do so if they have a specific goal or do not foresee any harm that will result from their deception (Aquino & Becker, 2005). In fact, in Robinson, Shepherd, and Heywood's (1998) study of college students, 83% said they would lie in order to get a job and said they believed prospective employers were expecting them to exaggerate their qualities in a job interview. Nearly half of managers interviewed by Strout (2002) suspected their sales representatives had lied to clients in their sales calls. Scholl and O'Hair (2005) argued that the decision to use deception might be a way to react to seemingly uncontrollable circumstances, particularly when the individual lacks the efficacy to deal with them in more honest ways. Indvik and Johnson (2009) argue that lying is more prevalent in the workplace than the home because the workplace is seen as more impersonal. Whatever, the reason, if the workplace is like other contexts, deception is a common occurrence. When people lie at work, however, it is not without consequence (Indvik & Johnson, 2009). DePaulo et al. (1991) argued that leaders incur large risks because with every lie told they gamble their future credibility. Leaders are motivated, at the very least, by their desire to maintain social power so lying to subordinates can be a dangerous communicative ploy. Logically, deception is dangerous; leaders perceived as deceptive will carry with them an unethical reputation and lose their ability to lead. Trust harmed by deception never recovers fully (Schweitzer, Hershey, & Bradlow, 2006). On the other hand, leaders often have many ofthe personality traits associated with more frequent lying including Machiavellianism, social adroitness, and sociability (Kashy & DePaulo, 1996). Burgoon and Dunbar (2000) found that the profile of dominant individuals is in many ways isomorphic with those who can deceive and

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Additionally, subordinates and less powerful people have motivation to deceive their supervisors. Studies indicated that subordinates often use deception to manage their supervisor's impressions (Barrick & Mount, 1996; Deluga, 1991). Deception on the part of less powerful individuals appears to be a common occurrence but differential power might place subordinates in a dangerous position if their deception is detected (e.g., an employee would get fired for lying to the boss). The result might be an anxiety-inducing situation in which deception detection is most likely (McCornack & Levine, 1990). Risk is involved for both supervisors and subordinates and both are motivated to appear credible even when being deceptive; however, important differences might exist in the ways these are perceived by supervisors and subordinates. Therefore, to better understand deception in the workplace, the following research questions were posed: RQ1: Do supervisors and subordinates differ in their perceptions of power, risk, willingness to lie, ability to lie, or the acceptability of lying? RQ2: What is the relationship between one's perceived power in the manager-employee relationship and one 's willingness to lie, perceived ability to lie, perceived acceptability of being lied to, and perceived risk of deception? RQ3: Do supervisors and subordinates differ regarding the circumstances and topics under which they are willing to use deception? It should be noted that this investigation considers perceived power differences rather than actual or structural power differences and their effect on deception. Although there is a

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structural power difference between supervisors and subordinates in the workplace, the interactants must perceive that this power difference is relevant in order for it to control their actions. Cloven and Roloff (1993; Roloff & Cloven, 1990) argue it is "the perceptions individuals have of potential actions that induces the chilling effect. . .these expectations may or may not be shared by relational partners, and whether the powerful partner actually or intentionally withdraws rewards to responds aggressively is less important than the perception that he or she might take such action" (p. 201, italics in original). In other words, subordinates lie to their supervisors at work because they fear the repercussions of the truth (why they were late to work or why they broke a rule of the workplace) even if the supervisor would really not punish them for telling the truth. Thus, the perception of powerfulness is more important than the actual power discrepancy dictated by the organizational hierarchy. Cues to Deception Detection Accuracy A substantial body of literature explored issues related to deception accuracy and to the identification of specific cues that differentiate liars from truth-tellers (Cody and O'Hair, 1983). Specific nonverbal cues, such as a lack of eye contact or foot tapping, are often thought to be associated with deception; however, few cues are reliable indicators of deception (Zuckerman & Driver, 1985). Despite the depth of this literature, extant research provided inconsistent findings about our ability to detect the deceiver (O'Hair, Cody, & McLaughlin, 1 98 1 ). A recent meta-analysis by Bond and DePaulo (2006) examined 206 studies and found the average detection accuracy reported is only 54% (not far from what could be expected by chance). Nonverbal cues have been supported in some studies (Cody & O'Hair, 1983), but others argued deception cannot be revealed in the moment. DePaulo, and colleagues' (2003) meta-analysis of 158 cues to deception revealed that many behaviors showed no discernible links, or only weak

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links, to deceit. Park, Levine, McCornack, Morrison, and Ferrara (2002) contended, in reality, people do not discover lies for days, weeks, or even months and deception is typically revealed by a third party, making non-verbal cues leaked during the deception quite irrelevant. Verbal cues were only slightly more reliable, and research suggested that deceivers are less forthcoming than those who tell the truth and their lies are less plausible, less likely to be structured in a logical, sensible way, and more likely to be internally discrepant or to convey ambivalence than truthful statements (DePaulo et al., 2003). This body of research led to the following research questions: RQ4: What strategies do supervisors and subordinates use to make deceptive messages effective? RQ5: When telling a lie to supervisors or subordinates, on what do people base their deceptive messages (e.g., where does one get the idea to use the particular deceptive message they used)? STUDY OVERVIEW The typical deception study takes place in a laboratory setting; unfortunately, the lab might be an intimidating place to deceive. When people enter a research setting, they instantly know they are being evaluated which might alter their natural behavior. In addition, it is difficult to account for motivation in a lab setting. Ekman (1985) argued that lies in contrived laboratory settings do not have the same repercussions as real-life lies, which results in lower motivation to lie successfully. DePaulo et al. (2003) argued that cues to deception are more pronounced when people are motivated to succeed, especially when the motivations are identity-relevant rather than monetary or material. The current investigation' s interest in motivation for the deception means that experimental methods were not preferred; therefore, a quasi-experimental design

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was used to ask participants about their real experiences with deception in situations with a power differential, the workplace. The current study was quite different from the types of research most other scholars have conducted in the area of deception. It was modeled on the Park et al. (2002) study because we asked participants to recall real instances of deception and describe how and when the deception was detected (if in fact it was detected) and what messages were used to create credible impressions. Whereas Park et al. were interested in the perceptions of the deception recipients, this study is interested in the perceptions ofthe lie perpetrators because there are likely many instances where deception occurs but is not detected. METHOD Participants Participants were 214 currently employed individuals, recruited from organizations throughout a Western state and from three universities in the same state (approximately 50% of participants were college students), who reported on their attitudes towards deception. A subset of the sample (n = 96) reported on an actual deception incident they recalled. The initial goal was to sample a non-student population by recruiting participants through local organizations, but many organizations were reluctant to allow access to their employees given the sensitive nature of the topic of the current research. Thus, this investigation included employed university students to increase the sample size. Forty-five percent of the respondents reported being a manager/supervisor (55%) of the sample was therefore coded as being subordinates), and the number of people managers supervised ranged from 1 to 241 (M= 25.43, SD = 43.45, median = 10.00).

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With regard to place of work, 18.20% identified their company type as corporate, 18.20% were military, 15.90% were retail/sales, 10.30% were food service, 6.50% were education, 4.70% were real estate and mortgage, 4.20%> were medical and dental, 4.20%> were civil servants (e.g., local and state government), and the remaining participants reported myriad other company types (e.g., construction, non-profit, legal profession). Thirty-five percent of respondents indicated their place of work was a national organization, 22.40% were small business, 16.40%> were local/regional business, 14.00% were global/international organizations, 10.30% were statewide organizations, and 1.90% did not indicate the type of organization. The number of employees who worked at the same physical locations as the respondents ranged from 1 to 6,000 (M= 280.87, SD = 861 .48, median = 35.00). Participants ranged in age from 1 8 to 73 years old (M= 27.50, SD = 8.83, median = 24.00). Ninety-eight participants (45.80%) were male, 49.50% were female (4.70% declined to state their sex); 59.30% reported their race/ethnicity as Caucasian, 10.70% were Hispanic, 9.30% were Asian, 4.70% were African American, 3.70% were Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, 2.80% identified their race/ethnicity as Middle Eastern, 0.50% were Native American, and 8.90% declined to state their race/ethnicity. Respondents' annual income ranged from under $30,000 to over $100,000 (median = $30,000). Procedure Survey data were collected to answer the proposed research questions. Respondents first read and signed a consent form assuring them that their participation would be anonymous and confidential, and that the data would only be reported in aggregate form. Second, participants were asked to provide information regarding their place of work (e.g., type of company, how

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many employees work at the respondent's primary work location). Next participants were asked, "Thinking about your primary role at work, do you consider yourself a supervisor or manager." Respondents who answered "yes" were coded as supervisors and completed the supervisor survey. Participants who answered "no" were coded as subordinates and were asked to skip to the subordinate survey. Both surveys were identical (e.g., same items) with the exception that each item was worded to ask about respondents' supervisors or subordinates, depending on the primary role they self-identified. Supervisors were informed, "In the questions that follow, 'subordinates' refers to any or all people you supervise, manage, or work under you." Subordinates were informed, "In the questions that follow, the term 'supervisor,' refers to your 'boss' or 'manager' or any people who supervise or monitor your work." After describing their places of work and identifying their primary role at work, all respondents completed a series of scales to assess their willingness to engage in deception with their supervisor/subordinates. Next, they answered an open-ended item asking them to explain the circumstances under which they would be willing to deceive the people they supervise (subordinates were asked about deceiving their supervisors). Subsequently, all participants completed scales to assess their perceived ability to lie, their subordinates'/supervisors' ability to lie, and their perceptions of power in the supervisor-subordinate relationship. Next, respondents were instructed, "Now we would like you to think of a recent situation where you lied to your supervisor(s) [subordinate(s)]. When you answer each ofthe following questions, please keep this incident in mind and answer each question as completely as possible." Participants were told that if they had never lied to a supervisor/subordinate, they should skip to the demographic section on the last page ofthe survey (n = 118). Those respondents who did report a recent deception event (n = 96) were asked a series of open-ended

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items regarding that event (e.g., the topic on which they lied, the setting in which they lied, what they said, how the supervisor/subordinate discovered the lie, if at all). Finally, all participants answered a series of demographic items. Instrumentation Except where noted, measures were comprised of seven-point, Likert-type items on a scale ranging from one (very strongly disagree) to seven (very strongly agree), and were scored such that higher scores indicated greater perceptions ofthe construct being measured. Given that certain items were specified a priori to measure specific factors, confirmatory factor analysis was employed to test the measurement model (Anderson, Gerbing, & Hunter, 1987; Hunter & Gerbing, 1982; Levine, 2005). The data were found to be consistent with the proposed factors. Specifically, internal consistency tests showed that (a) inter-item correlations were substantial mean inter-item correlations ranged from .78 to .92, and (b) the errors calculated between items measuring the same construct were within sampling error of zero (all were < |.07|). Likewise, the parallelism test indicated that the errors calculated between items measuring different constructs were within sampling error of zero (all were < |.09|). Power A seven-item scale (Dunbar & Burgoon, 2005) was used to measure participants' perceptions of power in the subordinate-supervisor relationships on which they were reporting in the study (e.g., "In general, who has more power in this relationship?"). Power was measured on a sevenpoint scale such that higher scores indicated greater perceptions of the participants' own power in the relationship (i.e., 1 = my subordinate/supervisor, 4 = both equally, 7 = me). Respondents' perceptions of relational power had a mean of 3.86 (SD = 1 .59, skewness, = 0.12, kurtosis =

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-1 .36, ;1 = .88). Perceived risk of deception Among those participants who reported using deception, five items were used to measure their perceptions of the risk involved with the deception and included statements such as "Before I lied, I knew that there were serious consequences if I was caught lying." Perceived risk had a mean of 3.80 (SD= 1.49, skewness, = 0.28, kurtosis = -0.39, a = .83). Willingness to lie to supervisor/subordinates All respondents' willingness to lie was measured in two ways. First, four items were employed to measure the degree to which participants were willing to engage in deception generally and included items such as "/ general, I would feel comfortable lying to [the people I supervise or my supervisor]." Generalized willingness to lie had a mean of 2.26 (SD = 1.48, skewness, = 1.29, kurtosis = 0.84, a = .95). Second, four items were employed to measure the degree to which participants were willing to engage in deception when they perceived it was necessary and included items such as "I am willing to lie to [the people who work for me or my supervisor] when a situation calls for it." Respondents' willingness to lie when necessary had a mean of 3.46 (SD = 1.93, skewness, = 0.24, kurtosis = -1.24, a = .96). Ability to lie All participants' ability to lie was measured in four ways. The first two scales related to participants' perceptions of their own ability to deceive. First, four items measured respondents' ability to lie in general and included items such as "/ general, I think I am a good liar." Generalized self ability to lie had a mean of 3.58 (SD = 1.88, skewness, = 0.18, kurtosis =

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-1.22, a = .97). Second, four items measured participants' ability to lie to their supervisor/subordinates. For example, items were worded such that supervisors were asked about their ability to lie to their subordinates (example item: " When I lie to [the people ! supervise or my supervisor], I can get away with the deception"). Respondents' ability to lie to their supervisors/subordinates had a mean of 3 .27 (SD = 1.78, skewness, = 0.23, kurtosis = -1.11, a= .95). The next two scales related to participants' perceptions of their supervisor's/subordinate's ability to deceive them. Four items measured subordinates' perceptions of their supervisor's ability to lie in general (or supervisor's perceptions of their subordinates' ability to lie in general). This scale included items such as. "In general, [my subordinates are or my supervisor is] good at lying." Respondents' perceptions of their supervisors'/subordinates' ability to lie in generalhad a mean of 3.38 (SD = 1.51, skewness, = 0.30, kurtosis = -0.35, ;1 = .94). Finally, three items measured subordinates' perceptions of their supervisor's ability to lie to them (or supervisor's perceptions of their subordinates' ability to lie to them). This scale included items such as. "[The people I supervise or My supervisor] can lie well to me." Participants' perceptions of their supervisors/subordinates ability to lie to them had a mean of 3.01 (SD = 1.48, skewness, = 0.41, kurtosis = -0.29, ;1 = .97). Acceptability of being lied to by supervisor/subordinates Among all respondents, three items were used to measure the degree to which they believed it was acceptable for somebody to deceive them and included statements such as "/ general, I think it is ok for [the people I supervise or my supervisor] to lie to me" Perceptions of deception acceptability had a mean of 1 .62 (SD = 1 .07, skewness, = 2.48, kurtosis = 7.37, ;1 = .87).

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Open-ended items To answer five ofthe research questions, participants were asked to answer a series of openended questions (each is reported in the results section with the analysis of its respective RQ). Two coders worked independently to develop a precise coding scheme for each research question, save some codes that were developed a priori by the researchers based on previous research. After roughly 35% ofthe responses to each question had been coded, the coders met with one ofthe authors to review the codebook. After the categories were reviewed and any discrepancies were resolved, each ofthe coders worked independently to code the remaining data (all responses were coded independently by both coders). Overall, coders spent approximately 70 hours coding participant responses. Cohen' s kappa was used to calculate inter-coder reliability on the final coding scheme as it compensates for agreements by chance (Cohen, 1960). Strong reliability was established from 100% ofthe data (Cohen's Kappa = .92). RESULTS Overview Ninety-six participants (44.86% of the total sample) reported using deception in the workplace. Specifically, 51 .28% of subordinates reported deceiving their supervisors, and 37.1 1% of supervisors reported deceiving their subordinates. It is important to note that because the current study was interested in power and deception in the subordinate-supervisor relationship, the study did not ask respondents to report deception among their peer groups (e.g., managers deceiving other managers). Although these data appear to indicate that subordinates are more likely to deceive their supervisors than managers deceiving their subordinates, a chi-square test indicated the difference was not statistically significant, %2(df= 1 , TV = 2 14) = 3.8 1 ,p = .05

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1 . Each of the research questions, unless otherwise noted, was answered by examining the data of only those supervisors and subordinates who reported an incident in which they used deception in the workplace. Of those participants who reported using deception, the two most common settings for the deception were face-to-face conversations (including group meetings; 77.80% for supervisors, 54.20% for subordinates) and phone conversations (including leaving a voicemail; 8.30% for supervisors, 33 .90% for subordinates). Other settings identified only by subordinates included email, text messaging, and written notes; only supervisors reported using loudspeaker announcements. Both groups had participants who reported more than one of these methods (8.30% of supervisors, 5.1 0% of subordinates). The settings in which the reported deception occurred differed significantly between supervisors and supervisors c2(df= 9, N= 94) = 23.03, p = 006. Supervisors and subordinates were asked how their lies were detected. First, respondents were asked, "Did your subordinate(s) [supervisor(s)] ever find out that you lied?" Of the 96 participants who reported using deception, only 8 (or 8.33%) reported that the deception was discovered. Given that so few lies were uncovered (to the knowledge of the participants), the subsequent results should be viewed with caution. The eight participants who reported that their deception had been discovered were asked, "When did your subordinate [supervisor] find out that you lied? (In other words, how long did it take for your subordinate [supervisor] to find out that you lied?). A total of five supervisors reported that their deception was discovered by their subordinates. Three supervisors reported that deception was discovered within 24 hours (but not immediately), one reported that it was

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discovered within a week, and one supervisor reported it was discovered a while afterwards, but did not specify a timeframe. A total of three subordinates reported that their deception was detected. One subordinate indicated that the deception was discovered within 24 hours (not immediately following the lie), and the other two subordinates did not specify a time frame. These eight participants were asked, "How did your subordinate(s) [supervisor(s)] find out that you lied?" Three supervisors reported that they confessed to the lie, one supervisor said the subordinates uncovered evidence of the lie, and one supervisor indicated he/she was caught "red handed" by the subordinates (i.e., the manager took a valet tip and pocketed it rather than sharing with other valets, and the employees saw it and confronted the manager about the tip money). Only one subordinate provided an answer to this question. He/she indicated that the supervisor found evidence of the lie. Research Questions The first research question asked about differences between supervisors' and subordinates' perceptions on a variety of outcomes in their manager-subordinate relationships. On the perceived power difference, results indicated that supervisors perceived themselves to have significantly more power in the manager-subordinate relationship than subordinates perceived themselves to have , t(205) = 22.6 1 ,p < .00 1 , r = .85 . For those participants who reported using deception, results showed that supervisors and subordinates did not differ with regard to how risky they perceived the deception to be, (91) = -.27, p = .79, r = -.03. The means for these and other variables comparing superiors and subordinates can be found in Table 1. In terms of willingness to tell a lie, we assessed participants' willingness to lie in general, and their willingness to lie when necessary. Results indicated that supervisors and subordinates did

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not differ in their willingness to use deception in general, t(2 1 2) = - 1 .66, p = . 1 0, r = -. 1 1 . Similarly, supervisors and subordinates did not differ in their willingness to use deception when they deemed it necessary, t(212) = -1.43, ? = .16, r = -.10. A independent samples t-test indicated that all participants' willingness to lie out of necessity (M= 3.46, SD = 1 .93) was significantly greater than their willingness to lie in general (M= 2.26, SD = 1.48), t(213) = -13.83, p < .001, r = -0.69. It is important to note here, however, that respondents' mean willingness to use deception is below the midpoint of the scale regardless of the perceived necessity of the lie. The participants' ability to tell a lie was assessed four ways. First, results indicated that supervisors perceived their own ability to lie in general was lower than subordinates' perceived ability, t(210) = -2.73, p < .01, r = -.19. Second, the data showed that supervisors perceived their own ability to lie to their subordinates did not differ significantly from subordinates' perceived ability to lie to their supervisors, t(208) = -1.83, = .07, r = -.13. Third, results indicated that supervisors perceived their subordinates to be less able to lie in general than subordinates' perceived their supervisors' ability to lie in general, t(208) = -2.63, p < .0 1 , r = -. 1 8. Finally, the data showed that supervisors perceived their subordinates to be less able to lie to them than subordinates' perceived their supervisors' ability to lie in general, t(208) = -2.07, p = .04, r= -.14 (see Means in Table 1). Also, a independent samples t-test indicated that participants' perceived ability to lie to their supervisors/subordinates did not differ significantly from their perceptions of their supervisors'/subordinates' ability to lie to them t(208) = 1 .77, p = .08, r = 0. 1 2. As with participants' willingness to lie, their perceived ability to lie was below the midpoint of the scale. Finally, we examined whether differences existed between all supervisors ' and subordinates '

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perceived acceptability of lies. Results indicated that supervisors believed it was less acceptable to be lied to by their subordinates than subordinates being lied to by their managers t(212) = -2.32, p = .02, r = -.16; however, the means for both groups neared a floor effect. This indicated that both supervisors and subordinates believed that being deceived in the workplace was unacceptable. The second research question asked to what degree one's perceptions of power in the managersubordinate relationship were related to one's willingness to use deception, perceived ability to lie, the acceptability of being lied to, and perceptions of risk associated with the lie. Results indicated that the power people perceived themselves to have was not related to how willing they were to lie in general (r = -.06, p = .36), how willing they were to lie when necessary (r = -.05, p = .47), their perceived ability to lie to their subordinate/supervisor (r= -.07, p = .31), or how risky they perceived the lie (r = -.08, p = .44). On the other hand, as one's perceptions of power increased, their perceptions of their supervisors'/subordinates' ability to lie in general (r = -. 1 9, p = .005) and lie to them (r = -.17, p = .014) decreased, and the less acceptable they thought it was to be lied to by their supervisor/subordinate (r = -.16, p = .02). The third research question asked if differences existed between supervisors and subordinates with regard to the circumstances under which they would use deception. All participants were asked to "please explain under what circumstances you are willing to deceive the people you supervise" (or "your supervisor"). It is important to note that 67.80% of all supervisors and 62.10% of all subordinates did not provide an answer to this question. Of those who did answer the question, managers' most common response was an unwillingness to lie under any circumstances (17.40%), 15.90% cited the necessity of omitting information (e.g., for confidentiality purposes; to deny how much they know about a work situation, such as why

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somebody quit), 13.00% reported job performance reasons (e.g., to ensure tasks get completed, to change employee behavior), 11.60% reported information control (e.g., for security reasons), 5.80% said they were willing to use deception to protect others, 5.80% cited the company's best interest/success, and 15.90% reported two or more reasons. The remaining managers reported myriad circumstances such as avoiding personal questions, to save face, and to protect their own self interest (e.g., to make personal gains at work). Subordinates' most common response was a willingness to use deception to get time off (19.80%> ), 13.60%) said they were not willing to use deception under any circumstance, 11.10% cited protecting others, 9.90%> would lie to protect their own interest, 8.60% to avoid personal questions, 7.40% to impact work product (e.g., buy more time on a task, avoid work duties), 6.20% to stay out of trouble, and 8.60%> reported two or more reasons. The remaining subordinates indicated they would be willing to use deception for other reasons such as saving face, if they had negative perceptions of their boss (e.g., did not respect the boss, the supervisor lied to them previously), and if they perceived a work policy or decision to be unreasonable. These data indicate that respondents varied with regard to the circumstances under which they would be willing to deceive their supervisors/subordinates, <7^sup 2^ (N= 149, df= 17) = 68.94, p < .001. With regard to the topics for which they reported using deception, those participants who reported using deception were asked, "Now please tell us what you lied about. Please be as specific as possible." Supervisors reported many, varied topics. The most common were 9.70% who lied about knowing specific information (e.g., denying knowledge such as downsizing or why an employee was fired), 9.70% lied about employee performance (e.g., telling an employee that an evaluation rating was based on needing more education rather than saying honestly that

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it was due to overall job performance), 9.70%> lied about the reasons for following a required procedure (e.g., why an employee was required to go to a different location), 9.70% lied about employee schedules (e.g., when an employee was scheduled to work next), 6.50% lied about the urgency/amount of work that needed to be done (e.g., falsely claiming work as urgent to ensure the task is completed by a deadline), 6.50% lied about the status of paychecks, 6.50% lied about meeting with higher authorities about employees concerns (e.g., the supervisor told subordinates that their desires/needs were brought to the supervisor's boss to resolve subordinates' concerns), 6.50% lied about the status of work (e.g., claiming tasks were completed that were not), and 6.50% lied about their personal relationships (e.g., denying they were actually dating someone at work, denying they were going through a divorce). The remaining managers reported myriad topics such as keeping money, the urgency of tasks, and withholding information about spying on their subordinates. Subordinates, on the other hand, reported few topics. The most common topic was getting time off (55.60%; exactly half of these were subordinates who called in sick when they were not), 22.20% lied about the status and quality of work (e.g., claiming that projects were advanced farther than actuality), 11.10% lied about promptness (e.g., why they were late for work), 7.40%> denied knowledge of an event (e.g., avoided revealing information that would get themselves or others in trouble, such as eating in the backroom when it was forbidden), and 3.70% used deception to mask their true emotion (e.g., pretending to be happy in their position, pretending to like the boss or a coworker). These data indicated that supervisors and subordinates differed significantly with regard to the topics about which they reported lying, ?\? = 85, df= 19) = 58.95,/? < .001. The fourth research question asked about the messages supervisors and subordinates used to

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make their deceptive messages effective. This question was answered by focusing on three different questions. First, participants were asked, "What did you say to make your supervisor(s) [subordinate(s)] think you were telling the truth? In other words, how did you create the message to be certain your boss [subordinate] would believe you?" Supervisors most commonly reported using their credibility (17.1 0%, e.g., claiming their authority/credibility spoke for them and nothing else was required), 17.10% tried to relate to their subordinates (e.g., coming across as an equal to the subordinate, downplaying the power difference), 16.20% reported using nonverbals (instead of reporting what they actually said, e.g., they made sure they "acted the part" or used direct eye contact), 14.30%) used their authority to make threats, and 8.60% lied by omission (e.g., told the truth but omitted pieces to lead subordinates to a false conclusion). The remaining supervisors reported using other messages such as falsely referencing documents/evidence, creating a false sense of urgency, and using vague language. Subordinates most commonly reported relying on nonverbals rather than reporting what they actually said (3 1 .60%), 22 .20% reported that they made up a whole story around the lie, 14.80% added details and embellished the lie, whereas 7.40% reported avoiding details and making the lie short. Subordinates reported saying various other messages such as ensuring consistency, referencing physical evidence, and using a partial truth. These data indicate that supervisors and subordinates differ significantly with regard to what they say, or how they create their deceptive messages, %2(N= 88, df= 15) = 50.86, p < .001. Second, respondents were asked, "Other than what you actually said, did you do anything else to make yourself appear truthful?" Supervisors most commonly reported "no," indicating they did not do anything else (55.90%), 14.70% used nonverbals (e.g., using direct eye contact and "showing emotions"), and 8.80% reported they were unsure if they had done anything else.

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Managers reported additional ways they made themselves appear truthful such as being backed by other supervisors, using persistency/repetition, and staying positive. Subordinates most commonly reported "no," indicating that they did not do anything else (36.00%) and 32.00% reported relying on nonverbals (e.g., using direct eye contact). The remaining subordinates noted they made themselves appear truthful using strategies such as relying on and playing up their own credibility, changing the subject quickly, and preparing for the lie in advance. Chisquare analysis indicated that supervisors and subordinates differed significantly as to what other strategies they used to ensure they appeared truthful, <7^sup 2^(= 83, df= 15) = 29.83, p = .013. Third, participants were asked, "What do you think was the most persuasive part of your lie? In other words, what part of your lie do you think was most influential in making your subordinate [supervisor] think you were telling the truth?" The most common response from supervisors was the simple "believability" ofthe lie (28.10%), 18.80% cited their own leverage/power as an authority, 12.50% indicated their ability to remove the power distance and act as a friend rather than a boss, 12.50% cited their credibility (deception was uncharacteristic of them), and 6.20%> indicated their nonverbals were the most persuasive part ofthe deception (e.g., their tone of voice, eye contact). Supervisors reported other reasons such as their lies being rational, using documentation, and being consistent. On the other hand, subordinates indicated that their nonverbals were the most persuasive part of their deception (23.10%, e.g., tone, eye contact, "playing the part"), 15.40% cited the actual content they used (e.g., relying on medical or school excuses), 1 3 .50% reported their use of emotion (e.g., making emotional appeals based on family), and 13.50% cited their own credibility. Subordinates reported other reasons, as well, such as the lie being simple (e.g., short, not complicated), the use of physical evidence to

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support the lie, and calling (to lie) when the supervisor would be busy and unable to answer the phone. These data indicates that significant differences were present with regard to what supervisors and subordinates believed was the most persuasive part of their deception, c2(N= 83, df= 17) = 55.91, p < .001. The fifth research questions asked what served as the motivation for the specific deception used by supervisors or subordinates in the workplace. Specifically, participants were asked, "Please explain where you came up with the idea for the lie. In other words, please tell us what gave you the idea to use the specific lie you employed." Managers reported that they "just came up with it" (16.10%), 16.10%) used a standard procedure or company norm, 16.10% based their deception on aprevious experience (e.g., saw someone else use the same deception successfully), 9.70%> reported it was a "logical" lie, and 9.70% reported it was an "easy way out." Supervisors provided other ideas for the deception such as its simplicity or being told by their own supervisors to use the specific deception. Subordinates reported that they used their work situation (e.g., disliking the boss, not caring about the job) as motivation for the lie (18.50%), 16.70%> said they simply "came up with" the idea, 14.80% reported their lie was a commonly employed excuse (e.g., calling sick when one wants time off for other reasons), 14.80% reported it was "the easy way out" to avoid conflict, 7.40%) based their lie on an actual truth (e.g., using a partial truth and lying by omission), and 7.40% relied on a coworker or other third party to help devise the lie. The data reported here indicated that supervisors and subordinates differed significantly with regard to how they "came up" with the idea for their deceptive message, c2(N = 84, df= IS) = 46.86, p < .001. DISCUSSION

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Perceptions of Power and Deception Power is an important situational and relational variable in the workplace and has important implications for the study of deception in this context. Dunbar's (2004) dyadic power theory suggests that power is derived both from differences in the access to resources and the legitimate authority to use those resources. In the workplace, supervisors have an advantage in both areas, which impacted the substantial perceived differences (effect size = 0.85) in power between supervisors and subordinates in the current study. These perceived power differences translated into differences in their use of deceptive messages, as well. Whereas supervisors reported using their power to create their deceptive messages and make their lies more believable (using their own leverage/power as an authority, removing the power distance by acting as a friend rather than a boss, or relying on their own credibility), subordinates did not have access to those resources and thus relied most heavily on their ability to manipulate their own nonverbal behavior, emotional displays, and story telling. Interestingly, managers relied on the very latent resources (e.g., credibility) that DePaulo et al. (1991) and Schweitzer et al. (2006) argued are risky for people in a powerful position to use. If deception is dangerous for supervisors because they are gambling with their future credibility, and trust harmed by deception never recovers fully, managers are taking a large risk by leveraging their credibility and authority to engage in deception with their subordinates. Subordinates who use deception might be placing themselves in a dangerous situation, as well, if the lie is detected (e.g., being fired, demoted, punished). Results related to perceptions of the risk associated with the deception were therefore surprising. Managers and subordinates did not differ with regard to how risky their deception was, and their perceptions of risk were lukewarm at best. This might be due to respondents' choices to report less-risky deception, or the fact that

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perhaps people engage in deception primarily when they perceive the risks are low (e.g., to avoid the consequences noted above). Also, this result might reflect that most respondents "got away" with their deception and therefore hindsight tells them there was little risk involved with the particular lie they reported in this study. In addition to perceptions of risk, supervisors and subordinates were similar in other areas. They exhibited no differences with regard to their (un)willingness to use deception in the workplace in general and when necessary and both supervisors and subordinates indicated a reluctance to engage in deception in the workplace under any circumstance. This finding is consistent with previous studies demonstrating a general unwillingness to deceive in the workplace (e.g., Aquino & Becker, 2005). Given that managers' and subordinates' willingness to lie was low overall, it was not surprising to note that all respondents reported a greater willingness to lie out of necessity than in general. Also, supervisors and subordinates reported similarly low abilities to deceive each other in the workplace, and findings indicated that all participants' perceived ability to lie to their supervisors/subordinates did not differ significantly from their perceptions of their supervisors'/subordinates' ability to lie to them. Despite the similarities among managers and subordinates, a number of differences existed. Dunbar (2004) predicts that power-unequal dyads will demonstrate less overt dominance than power-equal dyads but the theory does not make specific predictions about the types of strategies that power-unequal dyads will use in place of overt dominance. Our results revealed that subordinates believed it was more acceptable to be lied to by their managers (compared to how acceptable managers found it to be lied to by their subordinates) suggesting that the power difference likely played a role - it is less acceptable for a less powerful person to lie to us, compared to a more powerful person deceiving us. It is important to note here, however, that

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the acceptability of deception was very low overall. Also, although subordinates had greater perceptions of their own ability to lie in general when compared to managers' own perceived ability to lie in general, subordinates perceived that their supervisors were better able to lie, both in general and to them specifically (compared to supervisors' perceptions of subordinates' ability to lie). One's perceived power in the managerial-subordinate relationship was related negatively to their perceptions of their supervisors '/subordinates' ability to lie to them, to lie in general, and the acceptability of being lied to by their supervisor/subordinate. Therefore, more powerful people believe it is less acceptable to be lied to, and believe subordinates to have a lesser ability to use deception and get away with it. This is consistent with other findings by Dunbar and her colleagues (Dunbar & Abra, 2008; Dunbar, Bippus & Young, 2008) suggesting that although power-unequal dyads display less overall dominance than their power-equal counterparts, the subtle dominance displays by those in power "leak" out to their subordinates and reaffirm their powerful position. Deception Reported in the Workplace Perhaps of most interest were the findings that surfaced with regard to the actual deception reported by managers and subordinates. First, subordinates lied about very few topics. The vast majority of subordinates lied either to get time off of work (or to explain being late to work) or to impact their managers' perceptions ofthe status/quality of their work (e.g., to buy more time to complete tasks). Also, many ofthe lies centered on managing supervisors' impressions, consistent with previous research (e.g., Barrick& Mount, 1996;Deluga, 1991). Supervisors, on the other hand, lied to subordinates about a wide range of topics from the relatively innocuous

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(e.g., overestimating the urgency of a task) to the more odious (e.g., spying on subordinates). This range might again reflect the power differential between supervisors and subordinates in that supervisors have legitimate authority over a wider range of workplace topics. The messages supervisors and subordinates created differed with regard to what they said, how they attempted to appear truthful, and what they perceived was the most believable part ofthe lie. As noted previously, managers relied heavily on their credibility and authority; however, just as many supervisors tried to downplay their legitimate power role to create their messages and make themselves appear more believable. Thus, the very fact that managers had more power in the relationship allowed them to use it as communicative ploy - decreasing the power distance proved important for supervisors. Subordinates most often relied on controlling nonverbal behaviors, or focused heavily on the "stories" surrounding the deception. Although some reported keeping the stories short by avoiding details, more often subordinates reported embellishing the stories with added details to improve the believability ofthe lie. The reported focus on the structure ofthe story was interesting given that (a) embellishment increases the information the deceiver must remember to maintain consistency in future interactions, and (b) previous research indicated that deceptive messages tend to be less plausible and more internally discrepant (DePaulo et al., 2003). The differences uncovered in the current study indicated that powerful people relied on the very nature of the qualities/resources inherent in their position (e.g., credibility and authority) for successful deception, whereas less powerful people relied more often on manipulating their appearance through nonverbal behaviors and story crafting. Finally, despite the extremely low number of discovered lies in the current investigation, the findings warrant a brief mention here because they emphasize the fact that detecting deception

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in the "heat ofthe moment" is not the typical way deception is uncovered (Park et al., 2002). No lies were uncovered through the interpretation of nonverbal cues, rather they were discovered after the fact through evidence or confessions. Therefore, despite the importance placed in the research literature on detecting deception in real time by observing nonverbal cues (e.g., Cody & O'Hair, 1983), both supervisors and subordinates seemed to detect deception using other information. Limitations and Future Directions Only 96 people (fewer than half of all participants) reported using deception in the workplace. Although this is consistent with findings that a few prolific liars are responsible for the majority of lies (Serota, Levine, & Boster, 2010) and is consistent with samples sizes of other deception work (e.g. Enis, Vrij, & Chance, 2008), it was somewhat surprising to find so few participants who would admit to lying. One possibility is that despite the anonymity ofthe survey, participants' social desirability bias or fear that their employers would discover their deception meant that they were reluctant to report that they had been deceptive at work. This was evidenced by the fact that several potential research subjects refused to participate once they heard they would be required to describe their own deceptiveness and some organizations refused the researchers access to their employees once they heard the study was about deception in the workplace. The authors went to great lengths to assure the respondents that their survey could not be connected to them or their organization in any way, but future researchers should be aware of participants' reluctance and guard against self-selection bias. Also, it might be that the wording used to ask participants to describe a "lie" was interpreted narrowly by respondents to mean "fabrication" and were more likely to responded about outright lies rather than omissions or vagueness that could be construed as deception if a more inclusive term was used.

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Perhaps examples of deception could be provided so that respondents would know exactly what researchers are looking for, However, if it is true that fewer than half of the participants had actually engaged in deception at work, then it may be that so few have used deception because they view it as highly unethical, as evidenced by (a) many participants' unwillingness to use deception under any circumstances and (b) findings in previous research arguing that workplace deception is generally seen as unethical (e.g., Aquino & Becker, 2005). Also, this finding might be due to the power difference inherent in the types of lies examined in this study. Specifically, fewer lies might happen between managers and subordinates than between equal-status coworkers given that both parties have a great deal to lose (e.g., DePaulo et al., 1991; Schweitzer et al., 2006) if the deception is detected. Perhaps the supervisors in this study fear not only the loss of credibility with their employees but the repercussions from their own supervisors, as well. Also, if previous research is accurate that deception is used frequently in the workplace (e.g., Robinson et al., 1998; Strout, 2002), it might be that deception is used more frequently in relationships with a more equal balance of power. Regardless of the reason for the low number of deceivers in this investigation, future studies should seek to increase the number of deceptive interactions included for examination. It also is important to note that participants likely chose to discuss deception events in which they were successful, or where the lie had not yet been detected given that Park et al. (2002) reported that deception is often uncovered long after it takes place. Although participants were asked to report a recent deception event, increasing the chance that the lie had not been uncovered, the current findings might be inaccurate with regard to the larger picture of deception in the workplace if only successful lies were reported. Also, it is possible that more participants' lies were uncovered but they were not aware of the discovery. For example, the

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subordinates might be unlikely to confront supervisors with a discovered lie given the reported perceived power differential. Therefore, the results might be biased such that the reported deception was overwhelmingly successful (possibly painting a lopsided portrait of workplace deception) and overwhelmingly undetected. A final limitation is the fact that the current study relied solely on the participants' recollections of deception, not actual deception as it might occur. This investigation sought to examine how perceptions of power influence the perceptions of deception use and strategies used by deceivers, but these recollections might be tainted by subsequent events, lapses in memory, or even fundamental attribution error. Also, the participants might be unaware of their nonverbal cues that the receivers observed and were able to report only on what they intentionally manipulated rather than what they unintentionally "leaked." The advantages of this method are that it yields insight into the mind of the deceiver and allows us to know when deception has been detected, perhaps weeks later. Despite these advantages, future research should look at actual interactions, whether in the laboratory or the field, so that the nonverbal cues, behaviors of both the deceiver and receiver, and message construction can be examined more closely. CONCLUSION Although deception in the workplace might be perceived as unethical (Aquino & Becker, 2005), if the workplace is like the other areas of our lives, it is pervasive. Regardless of its ubiquity at work, deception can carry serious consequences for supervisors and subordinates alike, especially given the power-laden relationships in which they operate. To that end, the current study was the first step in exploring how deception occurs in the workplace, and the role of perceived power in the deception process. Just as power is an important situational and

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relational variable in the workplace, it had key implications for how deception is experienced in the workplace. It is our hope that this work can be used to develop theoretical models to more closely examine the intersection of deception and power not only in the workplace but in many other contexts as well. -1Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com

Publication Information: Article Title: Risky Business or Managed Event? Perceptions of Power and Deception in the Workplace. Contributors: Lisa L. Massi Lindsey - author, Norah E. Dunbar author, Jessica C. Russell - author. Journal Title: Journal of Organizational Culture, Communication and Conflict. Volume: 15. Issue: 1. Publication Year: 2011. Page Number: 55+. 2011 The DreamCatchers Group, LLC. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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1.1 ARTICLE SUMMARY

The article selected for discussion is Barriers to Communication written by Narelle Higgs which was published in Fraser Coast Chronicle. The article briefly sheds light on the importance of understanding different barriers to communication in order to have a smooth communication flow in the workplace. The author has brilliantly equated workplace communication with oil in the engine that lubricates the entire machine and helps moving parts to run smoothly. If inadequate, it will result in engine getting all heated up while too much of it will eventually stick things up. Similarly it is immensely important that employers or managers chose the right medium and length of the message they intend to convey to their employees. The author emphasized on the need to what we want to communicate and to whom before starting with a dialogue for avoiding misinterpretations and confusions.

1.2 REFLECTIONS
The article summarized above is a short yet impactful in the sense that it has remarkably highlighted the importance of removing barriers for effective communication by comparing it to oil in the engine. There are two main things that we learn from the article; first, it is highly important to choose the appropriate medium of communication according to the nature of the message. For e.g. it would be unfitting to discuss about the annual dinner menu with employees face-to-face. Here an email or text message will do to effectively convey the message. Second, the manager should form his message keeping in view the person to whom the message is to be communicated, the surroundings or place and the timing. The article, however, does not provide enough examples to clarify the consequence that poor communication can have.

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1.3 CONCLUSION
In order to communicate effectively to the subordinates, the supervisor must consider and select the correct medium for a particular kind of message as a poorly chosen medium can have adverse effects on the key purpose of the message.

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PERSONAL PERCEPTION

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Risky Business or Managed Event? Perceptions of Power and Deception in the Workplace

by Lisa L. Massi Lindsey , Norah E. Dunbar , Jessica C. Russell INTRODUCTION Deception is a part of everyday social interaction. In fact, some scholars argue that deception is a fact of social life rather than an extraordinary or unusual event (Kashy & DePaulo, 1 998). Often deception goes undetected, but if a lie is told to an authority figure the repercussions can be serious. Some researchers argue that manipulative ability is a foundation of social power and the ability to lie successfully is an important skill linked to personal and professional success (DePaulo, LeMay, & Epstein, 1 99 1 ). The motivations and the risks for people deceiving authority figures is likely quite different from the motivations ofthe deceptive authority figures themselves. Thus, the goals ofthe current study were to investigate the link between power and deception, understand how deception occurs in the workplace, and identify the impact of deception on power-laden relationships. Deception Defined Although definitions abound in the literature, the current investigation conceptualized deception as the successful or unsuccessful deliberate attempt, without forewarning, to create in another a

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belief which the communicator considers to be false (Vrij, 2000). This definition emphasizes that deception is an intentional, strategic act and does not necessarily require the use of words. Although many consider deception to include only outright fabrications or blatant lies, deception can take many forms including concealment, omissions, exaggerations, half-truths, misdirection, and even playfulness such as tricking or bluffing (Buller & Burgoon, 1994). Telling literal truths that are designed to mislead should be considered deception, as well. For example, when President Clinton told the American public that he "did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky" he gave the impression that nothing sexual happened when he meant that they had not had sexual intercourse (Vrij, 2000). Unfortunately, trying to determine what strategy the speaker is using, whether it is omission, fabrication, or deception embedded with truths, requires knowledge of the speaker's intent and his or her existing knowledge. As such, we will follow the example of other scholars and will be using the terms "lying" and "deception" interchangeably through this manuscript (Masip, Garrido, & Herrero, 2004; Vrij, 2008). The reasons for deception depend greatly on the situation and the motives of the deceiver. In a pair of diary studies of lying in everyday life, people admitted telling between 0 and 46 lies a day (DePaulo, Kashy, Kirkendol, Wyer, & Epstein, 1996). DePaulo and colleagues (DePaulo & Bell, 1996; DePaulo & Kashy, 1998; Kashy & DePaulo, 1996) differentiate between selforiented lies that benefit the deceiver and other-oriented lies that are told for another person's benefit. In addition, Vrij (2000) further elaborated on the motives for deception which include deceiving in order to make a positive impression on others, protecting themselves from disapproval or embarrassment, obtaining an advantage, making others appear better or to

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benefit others in some way, or protecting a social relationship. Some of these motives maybe both self- and other-oriented such as when you are dishonest about an embarrassing topic to save your own face and prevent embarrassment on the part of the interaction partner. The power relationship between the two interactants is one situational variable that might greatly influence the type of deception used and the reason for the deception. The motives for deception change when speaking to someone who differs in status. Power and Deception Dominance and power have been regarded for some time by sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, and communication scholars as one of the fundamental dimensions of interpersonal relationships (e.g., Burgoon & Hale, 1984). Power influences how people in relationships interact with each other, both verbally and nonverbally, and determines whether they engage in or avoid conflict. Also, power influences what types of messages will be used when attempting to reconcile incompatible goals in conflict situations. Power is a social concept that involves a relationship between two parties that goes beyond the individual (Dunbar & Burgoon, 2005; Langner & Keltner, 2008). A definition of power is elusive, but despite the many definitions of power that exist in the literature, scholars from diverse fields are converging on the definition of power generally as the capacity to produce intended effects, and in particular, the ability to influence the behavior of another person (see Berger, 1994 for a more thorough review of definitions of power in social interaction). Power is often derived from certain power bases which are resources such as rewards or knowledge possessed by individuals that form the basis for control over others. French and

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Raven (1959) identified five power bases that have been used extensively in the communication literature. The five bases include reward power and coercive power which represent, respectively, a person's right to reward and punish; legitimate power, which is power that comes from holding a high status position that is sanctioned by society; referent power, which is the power that results when others admire and emulate a person; and expert power, which is derived from having expertise in a needed field. Other scholars have since added additional power bases such as informational power which stems from the ability to persuade another (Raven, Centers, & Rodrigues, 1975) and credibility (Aguinis, Simonsen, & Pierce, 1998). Additionally, supervisors in the workplace may also have personality traits or leadership qualities that have lead them to their more powerful position and on which they draw when they need to influence or control others (Schmid Mast & Hall, 2003). Although supervisors typically have access to most, if not all, of these power bases, deception is a way to manipulate information and thus may be used by any party to increase informational power over another. Buller and Burgoon (1 994) argued that deceptive individuals strategically manipulate their messages in four ways through the use of: (1) uncertainty and vagueness, (2) nonimmediacy, reticence, and withdrawal, (3) disassociation, and (4) image- and relationship-protecting behavior. The particular strategy one chooses might depend on the power relationship between the interactants. Deceptiveness is a particularly important influence strategy when considering power differences because power is not always salient in every interaction. Komter (1989) distinguishes between manifest power and latent power. Manifest power concerns the visible outcomes of power such as open conflicts or direct verbal and nonverbal strategies used to achieve certain ends. Latent

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power is identified when the needs ofthe powerful person are identified or conflicts are avoided due to fear of retaliation by the powerful partner. According to dyadic power theory (DPT; Dunbar, 2004; Dunbar & Burgoon, 2005), dyads with high power differences, such as those in the supervisor-subordinate relationship in the workplace, are more likely to use latent power strategies than those who are relatively equal in power. Extremely powerful individuals do not need to make their influence attempts manifest because by virtue of their powerful position; they may maintain control without even appearing dominant. By the same token, powerless individuals are unlikely to express their grievances if they fear that retaliation, termination of the relationship, or other negative relational consequences will result from their control attempt (Dunbar, 2004). These individuals weigh the potential gain or loss of engaging in conflict and find that tolerating or accommodating a conflict at a minor cost is more beneficial than running the risk of pursing the conflict and disrupting the relationship (Leung, 1988). Dunbar does not make specific predictions about the types of strategies power-unequal dyads will use in place of overt dominance but because of its surreptitious nature, deception is necessarily a latent strategy and is consistent with the power use strategies of those either high or low in power in the workplace. For example, individuals may use deception to avoid confrontation with a supervisor or subordinate at work or to protect their power position in the workplace if they fear the truth will cause them to lose credibility. On the other hand, supervisors may use deception in order to maintain their informational power over their subordinates by concealing information that would weaken their position. Research examined the connection between deception and power by examining deception between students and teachers (Kaye, 1 99 1 ), teachers and administrators (Sweetland & Hoy,

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200 1 ), parents and children, (Knox, Zusman, McGinty, & Gescheidler, 2001; Thomas, BoothButterfield, & Booth-Butterfield, 1995), doctors and patients (Burgoon, Callister, & Hunsaker, 1 994; Fainzang, 2002), social workers and clients (Kagle, 1998), police officers and suspects (Vrij, 1994), supervisors and subordinates in the workplace (Barrick & Mount, 1996), and even researchers and subjects (Korn, 1997). Indeed, Hample (1980) argued that three out of four lies are told to economic or social supervisors. The relationship between power and deception detection, however, is an under-studied topic and warrants further investigation. Previous research suggested that those who are lower in power can detect deception more effectively than others (Bugental, Shennum, Frank, & Ekman, 200 1 ) although this finding contradicts other research that suggested dominant individuals are highly skilled at deception and whose lies are more difficult to detect (Burgoon & Dunbar, 2000; Cody & O'Hair, 1983; Keating & Heltman, 1994). Thus, it is unclear who in the relationship will find it more difficult to detect deception and what tactics they will use to perpetuate deceptive communication. The motives for deception of those in a position of power differ greatly from those in a position of powerlessness. For example, in the doctor-patient relationship (where physicians' expertise gives them greater power over patients), doctors and patients have different reasons for lying. Fainzang (2002) argued that doctors might lie in order to emphasize the importance of treatment, such as telling alcoholics that even one drink will cause them to relapse into alcoholism when the doctor is aware that moderate consumption of alcohol is possible and has been used successfully by other patients. Patients, on the other hand, might lie to their physicians when they do not take their medication as prescribed or do not tell their physician about prior treatments, such as homeopathic treatments, when they fear disapproval from their

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doctor (Fainzang, 2002). Burgoon et al. (1994) contend that 32% of patients overtly lie to their doctors and 85% use some form of concealment or equivocation strategy. Also, Kagle (1998) illuminated the use of deception by patients towards their social workers as a method to establish boundaries, establish and maintain their identities, and address imbalances of power whether real or perceived. Deception and Power in the Workplace The workplace is a unique context because the power hierarchies are more formalized than in most interpersonal relationships and deception is often seen as a necessary strategy when climbing the corporate ladder. Although most people see lying in business negotiations as highly unethical, although they might be willing to do so if they have a specific goal or do not foresee any harm that will result from their deception (Aquino & Becker, 2005). In fact, in Robinson, Shepherd, and Heywood's (1998) study of college students, 83% said they would lie in order to get a job and said they believed prospective employers were expecting them to exaggerate their qualities in a job interview. Nearly half of managers interviewed by Strout (2002) suspected their sales representatives had lied to clients in their sales calls. Scholl and O'Hair (2005) argued that the decision to use deception might be a way to react to seemingly uncontrollable circumstances, particularly when the individual lacks the efficacy to deal with them in more honest ways. Indvik and Johnson (2009) argue that lying is more prevalent in the workplace than the home because the workplace is seen as more impersonal. Whatever, the reason, if the workplace is like other contexts, deception is a common occurrence. When people lie at work, however, it is not without consequence (Indvik & Johnson, 2009).

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DePaulo et al. (1991) argued that leaders incur large risks because with every lie told they gamble their future credibility. Leaders are motivated, at the very least, by their desire to maintain social power so lying to subordinates can be a dangerous communicative ploy. Logically, deception is dangerous; leaders perceived as deceptive will carry with them an unethical reputation and lose their ability to lead. Trust harmed by deception never recovers fully (Schweitzer, Hershey, & Bradlow, 2006). On the other hand, leaders often have many ofthe personality traits associated with more frequent lying including Machiavellianism, social adroitness, and sociability (Kashy & DePaulo, 1996). Burgoon and Dunbar (2000) found that the profile of dominant individuals is in many ways isomorphic with those who can deceive and avoid detection. Additionally, subordinates and less powerful people have motivation to deceive their supervisors. Studies indicated that subordinates often use deception to manage their supervisor's impressions (Barrick & Mount, 1996; Deluga, 1991). Deception on the part of less powerful individuals appears to be a common occurrence but differential power might place subordinates in a dangerous position if their deception is detected (e.g., an employee would get fired for lying to the boss). The result might be an anxiety-inducing situation in which deception detection is most likely (McCornack & Levine, 1990). Risk is involved for both supervisors and subordinates and both are motivated to appear credible even when being deceptive; however, important differences might exist in the ways these are perceived by supervisors and subordinates. Therefore, to better understand deception in the workplace, the following research questions were posed:

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RQ1: Do supervisors and subordinates differ in their perceptions of power, risk, willingness to lie, ability to lie, or the acceptability of lying? RQ2: What is the relationship between one's perceived power in the manager-employee relationship and one 's willingness to lie, perceived ability to lie, perceived acceptability of being lied to, and perceived risk of deception? RQ3: Do supervisors and subordinates differ regarding the circumstances and topics under which they are willing to use deception? It should be noted that this investigation considers perceived power differences rather than actual or structural power differences and their effect on deception. Although there is a structural power difference between supervisors and subordinates in the workplace, the interactants must perceive that this power difference is relevant in order for it to control their actions. Cloven and Roloff (1993; Roloff & Cloven, 1990) argue it is "the perceptions individuals have of potential actions that induces the chilling effect. . .these expectations may or may not be shared by relational partners, and whether the powerful partner actually or intentionally withdraws rewards to responds aggressively is less important than the perception that he or she might take such action" (p. 201, italics in original). In other words, subordinates lie to their supervisors at work because they fear the repercussions of the truth (why they were late to work or why they broke a rule of the workplace) even if the supervisor would really not punish them for telling the truth. Thus, the perception of powerfulness is more important than the actual power discrepancy dictated by the organizational hierarchy. Cues to Deception Detection Accuracy

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A substantial body of literature explored issues related to deception accuracy and to the identification of specific cues that differentiate liars from truth-tellers (Cody and O'Hair, 1983). Specific nonverbal cues, such as a lack of eye contact or foot tapping, are often thought to be associated with deception; however, few cues are reliable indicators of deception (Zuckerman & Driver, 1985). Despite the depth of this literature, extant research provided inconsistent findings about our ability to detect the deceiver (O'Hair, Cody, & McLaughlin, 1 98 1 ). A recent meta-analysis by Bond and DePaulo (2006) examined 206 studies and found the average detection accuracy reported is only 54% (not far from what could be expected by chance). Nonverbal cues have been supported in some studies (Cody & O'Hair, 1983), but others argued deception cannot be revealed in the moment. DePaulo, and colleagues' (2003) meta-analysis of 158 cues to deception revealed that many behaviors showed no discernible links, or only weak links, to deceit. Park, Levine, McCornack, Morrison, and Ferrara (2002) contended, in reality, people do not discover lies for days, weeks, or even months and deception is typically revealed by a third party, making non-verbal cues leaked during the deception quite irrelevant. Verbal cues were only slightly more reliable, and research suggested that deceivers are less forthcoming than those who tell the truth and their lies are less plausible, less likely to be structured in a logical, sensible way, and more likely to be internally discrepant or to convey ambivalence than truthful statements (DePaulo et al., 2003). This body of research led to the following research questions: RQ4: What strategies do supervisors and subordinates use to make deceptive messages effective? RQ5: When telling a lie to supervisors or subordinates, on what do people base their deceptive

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messages (e.g., where does one get the idea to use the particular deceptive message they used)? STUDY OVERVIEW The typical deception study takes place in a laboratory setting; unfortunately, the lab might be an intimidating place to deceive. When people enter a research setting, they instantly know they are being evaluated which might alter their natural behavior. In addition, it is difficult to account for motivation in a lab setting. Ekman (1985) argued that lies in contrived laboratory settings do not have the same repercussions as real-life lies, which results in lower motivation to lie successfully. DePaulo et al. (2003) argued that cues to deception are more pronounced when people are motivated to succeed, especially when the motivations are identity-relevant rather than monetary or material. The current investigation' s interest in motivation for the deception means that experimental methods were not preferred; therefore, a quasi-experimental design was used to ask participants about their real experiences with deception in situations with a power differential, the workplace. The current study was quite different from the types of research most other scholars have conducted in the area of deception. It was modeled on the Park et al. (2002) study because we asked participants to recall real instances of deception and describe how and when the deception was detected (if in fact it was detected) and what messages were used to create credible impressions. Whereas Park et al. were interested in the perceptions of the deception recipients, this study is interested in the perceptions ofthe lie perpetrators because there are likely many instances where deception occurs but is not detected. METHOD

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Participants Participants were 214 currently employed individuals, recruited from organizations throughout a Western state and from three universities in the same state (approximately 50% of participants were college students), who reported on their attitudes towards deception. A subset of the sample (n = 96) reported on an actual deception incident they recalled. The initial goal was to sample a non-student population by recruiting participants through local organizations, but many organizations were reluctant to allow access to their employees given the sensitive nature of the topic of the current research. Thus, this investigation included employed university students to increase the sample size. Forty-five percent of the respondents reported being a manager/supervisor (55%) of the sample was therefore coded as being subordinates), and the number of people managers supervised ranged from 1 to 241 (M= 25.43, SD = 43.45, median = 10.00). With regard to place of work, 18.20% identified their company type as corporate, 18.20% were military, 15.90% were retail/sales, 10.30% were food service, 6.50% were education, 4.70% were real estate and mortgage, 4.20%> were medical and dental, 4.20%> were civil servants (e.g., local and state government), and the remaining participants reported myriad other company types (e.g., construction, non-profit, legal profession). Thirty-five percent of respondents indicated their place of work was a national organization, 22.40% were small business, 16.40%> were local/regional business, 14.00% were global/international organizations, 10.30% were statewide organizations, and 1.90% did not indicate the type of organization. The number of employees who worked at the same physical locations as the respondents ranged from 1 to 6,000 (M= 280.87, SD = 861 .48, median = 35.00).

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Participants ranged in age from 1 8 to 73 years old (M= 27.50, SD = 8.83, median = 24.00). Ninety-eight participants (45.80%) were male, 49.50% were female (4.70% declined to state their sex); 59.30% reported their race/ethnicity as Caucasian, 10.70% were Hispanic, 9.30% were Asian, 4.70% were African American, 3.70% were Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, 2.80% identified their race/ethnicity as Middle Eastern, 0.50% were Native American, and 8.90% declined to state their race/ethnicity. Respondents' annual income ranged from under $30,000 to over $100,000 (median = $30,000). Procedure Survey data were collected to answer the proposed research questions. Respondents first read and signed a consent form assuring them that their participation would be anonymous and confidential, and that the data would only be reported in aggregate form. Second, participants were asked to provide information regarding their place of work (e.g., type of company, how many employees work at the respondent's primary work location). Next participants were asked, "Thinking about your primary role at work, do you consider yourself a supervisor or manager." Respondents who answered "yes" were coded as supervisors and completed the supervisor survey. Participants who answered "no" were coded as subordinates and were asked to skip to the subordinate survey. Both surveys were identical (e.g., same items) with the exception that each item was worded to ask about respondents' supervisors or subordinates, depending on the primary role they self-identified. Supervisors were informed, "In the questions that follow, 'subordinates' refers to any or all people you supervise, manage, or work under you." Subordinates were informed, "In the questions that follow, the term 'supervisor,' refers to your 'boss' or 'manager' or any people who supervise or monitor your work."

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After describing their places of work and identifying their primary role at work, all respondents completed a series of scales to assess their willingness to engage in deception with their supervisor/subordinates. Next, they answered an open-ended item asking them to explain the circumstances under which they would be willing to deceive the people they supervise (subordinates were asked about deceiving their supervisors). Subsequently, all participants completed scales to assess their perceived ability to lie, their subordinates'/supervisors' ability to lie, and their perceptions of power in the supervisor-subordinate relationship. Next, respondents were instructed, "Now we would like you to think of a recent situation where you lied to your supervisor(s) [subordinate(s)]. When you answer each ofthe following questions, please keep this incident in mind and answer each question as completely as possible." Participants were told that if they had never lied to a supervisor/subordinate, they should skip to the demographic section on the last page ofthe survey (n = 118). Those respondents who did report a recent deception event (n = 96) were asked a series of open-ended items regarding that event (e.g., the topic on which they lied, the setting in which they lied, what they said, how the supervisor/subordinate discovered the lie, if at all). Finally, all participants answered a series of demographic items. Instrumentation Except where noted, measures were comprised of seven-point, Likert-type items on a scale ranging from one (very strongly disagree) to seven (very strongly agree), and were scored such that higher scores indicated greater perceptions ofthe construct being measured. Given that certain items were specified a priori to measure specific factors, confirmatory factor analysis

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was employed to test the measurement model (Anderson, Gerbing, & Hunter, 1987; Hunter & Gerbing, 1982; Levine, 2005). The data were found to be consistent with the proposed factors. Specifically, internal consistency tests showed that (a) inter-item correlations were substantial mean inter-item correlations ranged from .78 to .92, and (b) the errors calculated between items measuring the same construct were within sampling error of zero (all were < |.07|). Likewise, the parallelism test indicated that the errors calculated between items measuring different constructs were within sampling error of zero (all were < |.09|). Power A seven-item scale (Dunbar & Burgoon, 2005) was used to measure participants' perceptions of power in the subordinate-supervisor relationships on which they were reporting in the study (e.g., "In general, who has more power in this relationship?"). Power was measured on a sevenpoint scale such that higher scores indicated greater perceptions of the participants' own power in the relationship (i.e., 1 = my subordinate/supervisor, 4 = both equally, 7 = me). Respondents' perceptions of relational power had a mean of 3.86 (SD = 1 .59, skewness, = 0.12, kurtosis = -1 .36, ;1 = .88). Perceived risk of deception Among those participants who reported using deception, five items were used to measure their perceptions of the risk involved with the deception and included statements such as "Before I lied, I knew that there were serious consequences if I was caught lying." Perceived risk had a mean of 3.80 (SD= 1.49, skewness, = 0.28, kurtosis = -0.39, a = .83).

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Willingness to lie to supervisor/subordinates All respondents' willingness to lie was measured in two ways. First, four items were employed to measure the degree to which participants were willing to engage in deception generally and included items such as "/ general, I would feel comfortable lying to [the people I supervise or my supervisor]." Generalized willingness to lie had a mean of 2.26 (SD = 1.48, skewness, = 1.29, kurtosis = 0.84, a = .95). Second, four items were employed to measure the degree to which participants were willing to engage in deception when they perceived it was necessary and included items such as "I am willing to lie to [the people who work for me or my supervisor] when a situation calls for it." Respondents' willingness to lie when necessary had a mean of 3.46 (SD = 1.93, skewness, = 0.24, kurtosis = -1.24, a = .96). Ability to lie All participants' ability to lie was measured in four ways. The first two scales related to participants' perceptions of their own ability to deceive. First, four items measured respondents' ability to lie in general and included items such as "/ general, I think I am a good liar." Generalized self ability to lie had a mean of 3.58 (SD = 1.88, skewness, = 0.18, kurtosis = -1.22, a = .97). Second, four items measured participants' ability to lie to their supervisor/subordinates. For example, items were worded such that supervisors were asked about their ability to lie to their subordinates (example item: " When I lie to [the people ! supervise or my supervisor], I can get away with the deception"). Respondents' ability to lie to their supervisors/subordinates had a mean of 3 .27 (SD = 1.78, skewness, = 0.23, kurtosis = -1.11, a= .95).

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The next two scales related to participants' perceptions of their supervisor's/subordinate's ability to deceive them. Four items measured subordinates' perceptions of their supervisor's ability to lie in general (or supervisor's perceptions of their subordinates' ability to lie in general). This scale included items such as. "In general, [my subordinates are or my supervisor is] good at lying." Respondents' perceptions of their supervisors'/subordinates' ability to lie in generalhad a mean of 3.38 (SD = 1.51, skewness, = 0.30, kurtosis = -0.35, ;1 = .94). Finally, three items measured subordinates' perceptions of their supervisor's ability to lie to them (or supervisor's perceptions of their subordinates' ability to lie to them). This scale included items such as. "[The people I supervise or My supervisor] can lie well to me." Participants' perceptions of their supervisors/subordinates ability to lie to them had a mean of 3.01 (SD = 1.48, skewness, = 0.41, kurtosis = -0.29, ;1 = .97). Acceptability of being lied to by supervisor/subordinates Among all respondents, three items were used to measure the degree to which they believed it was acceptable for somebody to deceive them and included statements such as "/ general, I think it is ok for [the people I supervise or my supervisor] to lie to me" Perceptions of deception acceptability had a mean of 1 .62 (SD = 1 .07, skewness, = 2.48, kurtosis = 7.37, ;1 = .87). Open-ended items To answer five ofthe research questions, participants were asked to answer a series of openended questions (each is reported in the results section with the analysis of its respective RQ). Two coders worked independently to develop a precise coding scheme for each research question, save some codes that were developed a priori by the researchers based on previous

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research. After roughly 35% ofthe responses to each question had been coded, the coders met with one ofthe authors to review the codebook. After the categories were reviewed and any discrepancies were resolved, each ofthe coders worked independently to code the remaining data (all responses were coded independently by both coders). Overall, coders spent approximately 70 hours coding participant responses. Cohen' s kappa was used to calculate inter-coder reliability on the final coding scheme as it compensates for agreements by chance (Cohen, 1960). Strong reliability was established from 100% ofthe data (Cohen's Kappa = .92). RESULTS Overview Ninety-six participants (44.86% of the total sample) reported using deception in the workplace. Specifically, 51 .28% of subordinates reported deceiving their supervisors, and 37.1 1% of supervisors reported deceiving their subordinates. It is important to note that because the current study was interested in power and deception in the subordinate-supervisor relationship, the study did not ask respondents to report deception among their peer groups (e.g., managers deceiving other managers). Although these data appear to indicate that subordinates are more likely to deceive their supervisors than managers deceiving their subordinates, a chi-square test indicated the difference was not statistically significant, %2(df= 1 , TV = 2 14) = 3.8 1 ,p = .05 1 . Each of the research questions, unless otherwise noted, was answered by examining the data of only those supervisors and subordinates who reported an incident in which they used deception in the workplace. Of those participants who reported using deception, the two most common settings for the

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deception were face-to-face conversations (including group meetings; 77.80% for supervisors, 54.20% for subordinates) and phone conversations (including leaving a voicemail; 8.30% for supervisors, 33 .90% for subordinates). Other settings identified only by subordinates included email, text messaging, and written notes; only supervisors reported using loudspeaker announcements. Both groups had participants who reported more than one of these methods (8.30% of supervisors, 5.1 0% of subordinates). The settings in which the reported deception occurred differed significantly between supervisors and supervisors c2(df= 9, N= 94) = 23.03, p = 006. Supervisors and subordinates were asked how their lies were detected. First, respondents were asked, "Did your subordinate(s) [supervisor(s)] ever find out that you lied?" Of the 96 participants who reported using deception, only 8 (or 8.33%) reported that the deception was discovered. Given that so few lies were uncovered (to the knowledge of the participants), the subsequent results should be viewed with caution. The eight participants who reported that their deception had been discovered were asked, "When did your subordinate [supervisor] find out that you lied? (In other words, how long did it take for your subordinate [supervisor] to find out that you lied?). A total of five supervisors reported that their deception was discovered by their subordinates. Three supervisors reported that deception was discovered within 24 hours (but not immediately), one reported that it was discovered within a week, and one supervisor reported it was discovered a while afterwards, but did not specify a timeframe. A total of three subordinates reported that their deception was detected. One subordinate indicated that the deception was discovered within 24 hours (not immediately following the lie), and the other two subordinates did not specify a time frame.

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These eight participants were asked, "How did your subordinate(s) [supervisor(s)] find out that you lied?" Three supervisors reported that they confessed to the lie, one supervisor said the subordinates uncovered evidence of the lie, and one supervisor indicated he/she was caught "red handed" by the subordinates (i.e., the manager took a valet tip and pocketed it rather than sharing with other valets, and the employees saw it and confronted the manager about the tip money). Only one subordinate provided an answer to this question. He/she indicated that the supervisor found evidence of the lie. Research Questions The first research question asked about differences between supervisors' and subordinates' perceptions on a variety of outcomes in their manager-subordinate relationships. On the perceived power difference, results indicated that supervisors perceived themselves to have significantly more power in the manager-subordinate relationship than subordinates perceived themselves to have , t(205) = 22.6 1 ,p < .00 1 , r = .85 . For those participants who reported using deception, results showed that supervisors and subordinates did not differ with regard to how risky they perceived the deception to be, (91) = -.27, p = .79, r = -.03. The means for these and other variables comparing superiors and subordinates can be found in Table 1. In terms of willingness to tell a lie, we assessed participants' willingness to lie in general, and their willingness to lie when necessary. Results indicated that supervisors and subordinates did not differ in their willingness to use deception in general, t(2 1 2) = - 1 .66, p = . 1 0, r = -. 1 1 . Similarly, supervisors and subordinates did not differ in their willingness to use deception when they deemed it necessary, t(212) = -1.43, ? = .16, r = -.10. A independent samples t-test

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indicated that all participants' willingness to lie out of necessity (M= 3.46, SD = 1 .93) was significantly greater than their willingness to lie in general (M= 2.26, SD = 1.48), t(213) = -13.83, p < .001, r = -0.69. It is important to note here, however, that respondents' mean willingness to use deception is below the midpoint of the scale regardless of the perceived necessity of the lie. The participants' ability to tell a lie was assessed four ways. First, results indicated that supervisors perceived their own ability to lie in general was lower than subordinates' perceived ability, t(210) = -2.73, p < .01, r = -.19. Second, the data showed that supervisors perceived their own ability to lie to their subordinates did not differ significantly from subordinates' perceived ability to lie to their supervisors, t(208) = -1.83, = .07, r = -.13. Third, results indicated that supervisors perceived their subordinates to be less able to lie in general than subordinates' perceived their supervisors' ability to lie in general, t(208) = -2.63, p < .0 1 , r = -. 1 8. Finally, the data showed that supervisors perceived their subordinates to be less able to lie to them than subordinates' perceived their supervisors' ability to lie in general, t(208) = -2.07, p = .04, r= -.14 (see Means in Table 1). Also, a independent samples t-test indicated that participants' perceived ability to lie to their supervisors/subordinates did not differ significantly from their perceptions of their supervisors'/subordinates' ability to lie to them t(208) = 1 .77, p = .08, r = 0. 1 2. As with participants' willingness to lie, their perceived ability to lie was below the midpoint of the scale. Finally, we examined whether differences existed between all supervisors ' and subordinates ' perceived acceptability of lies. Results indicated that supervisors believed it was less acceptable to be lied to by their subordinates than subordinates being lied to by their managers t(212) =

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-2.32, p = .02, r = -.16; however, the means for both groups neared a floor effect. This indicated that both supervisors and subordinates believed that being deceived in the workplace was unacceptable. The second research question asked to what degree one's perceptions of power in the managersubordinate relationship were related to one's willingness to use deception, perceived ability to lie, the acceptability of being lied to, and perceptions of risk associated with the lie. Results indicated that the power people perceived themselves to have was not related to how willing they were to lie in general (r = -.06, p = .36), how willing they were to lie when necessary (r = -.05, p = .47), their perceived ability to lie to their subordinate/supervisor (r= -.07, p = .31), or how risky they perceived the lie (r = -.08, p = .44). On the other hand, as one's perceptions of power increased, their perceptions of their supervisors'/subordinates' ability to lie in general (r = -. 1 9, p = .005) and lie to them (r = -.17, p = .014) decreased, and the less acceptable they thought it was to be lied to by their supervisor/subordinate (r = -.16, p = .02). The third research question asked if differences existed between supervisors and subordinates with regard to the circumstances under which they would use deception. All participants were asked to "please explain under what circumstances you are willing to deceive the people you supervise" (or "your supervisor"). It is important to note that 67.80% of all supervisors and 62.10% of all subordinates did not provide an answer to this question. Of those who did answer the question, managers' most common response was an unwillingness to lie under any circumstances (17.40%), 15.90% cited the necessity of omitting information (e.g., for confidentiality purposes; to deny how much they know about a work situation, such as why somebody quit), 13.00% reported job performance reasons (e.g., to ensure tasks get completed,

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to change employee behavior), 11.60% reported information control (e.g., for security reasons), 5.80% said they were willing to use deception to protect others, 5.80% cited the company's best interest/success, and 15.90% reported two or more reasons. The remaining managers reported myriad circumstances such as avoiding personal questions, to save face, and to protect their own self interest (e.g., to make personal gains at work). Subordinates' most common response was a willingness to use deception to get time off (19.80%> ), 13.60%) said they were not willing to use deception under any circumstance, 11.10% cited protecting others, 9.90%> would lie to protect their own interest, 8.60% to avoid personal questions, 7.40% to impact work product (e.g., buy more time on a task, avoid work duties), 6.20% to stay out of trouble, and 8.60%> reported two or more reasons. The remaining subordinates indicated they would be willing to use deception for other reasons such as saving face, if they had negative perceptions of their boss (e.g., did not respect the boss, the supervisor lied to them previously), and if they perceived a work policy or decision to be unreasonable. These data indicate that respondents varied with regard to the circumstances under which they would be willing to deceive their supervisors/subordinates, <7^sup 2^ (N= 149, df= 17) = 68.94, p < .001. With regard to the topics for which they reported using deception, those participants who reported using deception were asked, "Now please tell us what you lied about. Please be as specific as possible." Supervisors reported many, varied topics. The most common were 9.70% who lied about knowing specific information (e.g., denying knowledge such as downsizing or why an employee was fired), 9.70% lied about employee performance (e.g., telling an employee that an evaluation rating was based on needing more education rather than saying honestly that

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it was due to overall job performance), 9.70%> lied about the reasons for following a required procedure (e.g., why an employee was required to go to a different location), 9.70% lied about employee schedules (e.g., when an employee was scheduled to work next), 6.50% lied about the urgency/amount of work that needed to be done (e.g., falsely claiming work as urgent to ensure the task is completed by a deadline), 6.50% lied about the status of paychecks, 6.50% lied about meeting with higher authorities about employees concerns (e.g., the supervisor told subordinates that their desires/needs were brought to the supervisor's boss to resolve subordinates' concerns), 6.50% lied about the status of work (e.g., claiming tasks were completed that were not), and 6.50% lied about their personal relationships (e.g., denying they were actually dating someone at work, denying they were going through a divorce). The remaining managers reported myriad topics such as keeping money, the urgency of tasks, and withholding information about spying on their subordinates. Subordinates, on the other hand, reported few topics. The most common topic was getting time off (55.60%; exactly half of these were subordinates who called in sick when they were not), 22.20% lied about the status and quality of work (e.g., claiming that projects were advanced farther than actuality), 11.10% lied about promptness (e.g., why they were late for work), 7.40%> denied knowledge of an event (e.g., avoided revealing information that would get themselves or others in trouble, such as eating in the backroom when it was forbidden), and 3.70% used deception to mask their true emotion (e.g., pretending to be happy in their position, pretending to like the boss or a coworker). These data indicated that supervisors and subordinates differed significantly with regard to the topics about which they reported lying, ?\? = 85, df= 19) = 58.95,/? < .001.

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The fourth research question asked about the messages supervisors and subordinates used to make their deceptive messages effective. This question was answered by focusing on three different questions. First, participants were asked, "What did you say to make your supervisor(s) [subordinate(s)] think you were telling the truth? In other words, how did you create the message to be certain your boss [subordinate] would believe you?" Supervisors most commonly reported using their credibility (17.1 0%, e.g., claiming their authority/credibility spoke for them and nothing else was required), 17.10% tried to relate to their subordinates (e.g., coming across as an equal to the subordinate, downplaying the power difference), 16.20% reported using nonverbals (instead of reporting what they actually said, e.g., they made sure they "acted the part" or used direct eye contact), 14.30%) used their authority to make threats, and 8.60% lied by omission (e.g., told the truth but omitted pieces to lead subordinates to a false conclusion). The remaining supervisors reported using other messages such as falsely referencing documents/evidence, creating a false sense of urgency, and using vague language. Subordinates most commonly reported relying on nonverbals rather than reporting what they actually said (3 1 .60%), 22 .20% reported that they made up a whole story around the lie, 14.80% added details and embellished the lie, whereas 7.40% reported avoiding details and making the lie short. Subordinates reported saying various other messages such as ensuring consistency, referencing physical evidence, and using a partial truth. These data indicate that supervisors and subordinates differ significantly with regard to what they say, or how they create their deceptive messages, %2(N= 88, df= 15) = 50.86, p < .001. Second, respondents were asked, "Other than what you actually said, did you do anything else to make yourself appear truthful?" Supervisors most commonly reported "no," indicating they

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did not do anything else (55.90%), 14.70% used nonverbals (e.g., using direct eye contact and "showing emotions"), and 8.80% reported they were unsure if they had done anything else. Managers reported additional ways they made themselves appear truthful such as being backed by other supervisors, using persistency/repetition, and staying positive. Subordinates most commonly reported "no," indicating that they did not do anything else (36.00%) and 32.00% reported relying on nonverbals (e.g., using direct eye contact). The remaining subordinates noted they made themselves appear truthful using strategies such as relying on and playing up their own credibility, changing the subject quickly, and preparing for the lie in advance. Chisquare analysis indicated that supervisors and subordinates differed significantly as to what other strategies they used to ensure they appeared truthful, <7^sup 2^(= 83, df= 15) = 29.83, p = .013. Third, participants were asked, "What do you think was the most persuasive part of your lie? In other words, what part of your lie do you think was most influential in making your subordinate [supervisor] think you were telling the truth?" The most common response from supervisors was the simple "believability" ofthe lie (28.10%), 18.80% cited their own leverage/power as an authority, 12.50% indicated their ability to remove the power distance and act as a friend rather than a boss, 12.50% cited their credibility (deception was uncharacteristic of them), and 6.20%> indicated their nonverbals were the most persuasive part ofthe deception (e.g., their tone of voice, eye contact). Supervisors reported other reasons such as their lies being rational, using documentation, and being consistent. On the other hand, subordinates indicated that their nonverbals were the most persuasive part of their deception (23.10%, e.g., tone, eye contact, "playing the part"), 15.40% cited the actual content they used (e.g., relying on medical or school

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excuses), 1 3 .50% reported their use of emotion (e.g., making emotional appeals based on family), and 13.50% cited their own credibility. Subordinates reported other reasons, as well, such as the lie being simple (e.g., short, not complicated), the use of physical evidence to support the lie, and calling (to lie) when the supervisor would be busy and unable to answer the phone. These data indicates that significant differences were present with regard to what supervisors and subordinates believed was the most persuasive part of their deception, c2(N= 83, df= 17) = 55.91, p < .001. The fifth research questions asked what served as the motivation for the specific deception used by supervisors or subordinates in the workplace. Specifically, participants were asked, "Please explain where you came up with the idea for the lie. In other words, please tell us what gave you the idea to use the specific lie you employed." Managers reported that they "just came up with it" (16.10%), 16.10%) used a standard procedure or company norm, 16.10% based their deception on aprevious experience (e.g., saw someone else use the same deception successfully), 9.70%> reported it was a "logical" lie, and 9.70% reported it was an "easy way out." Supervisors provided other ideas for the deception such as its simplicity or being told by their own supervisors to use the specific deception. Subordinates reported that they used their work situation (e.g., disliking the boss, not caring about the job) as motivation for the lie (18.50%), 16.70%> said they simply "came up with" the idea, 14.80% reported their lie was a commonly employed excuse (e.g., calling sick when one wants time off for other reasons), 14.80% reported it was "the easy way out" to avoid conflict, 7.40%) based their lie on an actual truth (e.g., using a partial truth and lying by omission), and 7.40% relied on a coworker or other third party to help devise the lie. The data reported here indicated that supervisors and

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subordinates differed significantly with regard to how they "came up" with the idea for their deceptive message, c2(N = 84, df= IS) = 46.86, p < .001. DISCUSSION Perceptions of Power and Deception Power is an important situational and relational variable in the workplace and has important implications for the study of deception in this context. Dunbar's (2004) dyadic power theory suggests that power is derived both from differences in the access to resources and the legitimate authority to use those resources. In the workplace, supervisors have an advantage in both areas, which impacted the substantial perceived differences (effect size = 0.85) in power between supervisors and subordinates in the current study. These perceived power differences translated into differences in their use of deceptive messages, as well. Whereas supervisors reported using their power to create their deceptive messages and make their lies more believable (using their own leverage/power as an authority, removing the power distance by acting as a friend rather than a boss, or relying on their own credibility), subordinates did not have access to those resources and thus relied most heavily on their ability to manipulate their own nonverbal behavior, emotional displays, and story telling. Interestingly, managers relied on the very latent resources (e.g., credibility) that DePaulo et al. (1991) and Schweitzer et al. (2006) argued are risky for people in a powerful position to use. If deception is dangerous for supervisors because they are gambling with their future credibility, and trust harmed by deception never recovers fully, managers are taking a large risk by leveraging their credibility and authority to engage in deception with their subordinates.

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Subordinates who use deception might be placing themselves in a dangerous situation, as well, if the lie is detected (e.g., being fired, demoted, punished). Results related to perceptions of the risk associated with the deception were therefore surprising. Managers and subordinates did not differ with regard to how risky their deception was, and their perceptions of risk were lukewarm at best. This might be due to respondents' choices to report less-risky deception, or the fact that perhaps people engage in deception primarily when they perceive the risks are low (e.g., to avoid the consequences noted above). Also, this result might reflect that most respondents "got away" with their deception and therefore hindsight tells them there was little risk involved with the particular lie they reported in this study. In addition to perceptions of risk, supervisors and subordinates were similar in other areas. They exhibited no differences with regard to their (un)willingness to use deception in the workplace in general and when necessary and both supervisors and subordinates indicated a reluctance to engage in deception in the workplace under any circumstance. This finding is consistent with previous studies demonstrating a general unwillingness to deceive in the workplace (e.g., Aquino & Becker, 2005). Given that managers' and subordinates' willingness to lie was low overall, it was not surprising to note that all respondents reported a greater willingness to lie out of necessity than in general. Also, supervisors and subordinates reported similarly low abilities to deceive each other in the workplace, and findings indicated that all participants' perceived ability to lie to their supervisors/subordinates did not differ significantly from their perceptions of their supervisors'/subordinates' ability to lie to them. Despite the similarities among managers and subordinates, a number of differences existed. Dunbar (2004) predicts that power-unequal dyads will demonstrate less overt dominance than

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power-equal dyads but the theory does not make specific predictions about the types of strategies that power-unequal dyads will use in place of overt dominance. Our results revealed that subordinates believed it was more acceptable to be lied to by their managers (compared to how acceptable managers found it to be lied to by their subordinates) suggesting that the power difference likely played a role - it is less acceptable for a less powerful person to lie to us, compared to a more powerful person deceiving us. It is important to note here, however, that the acceptability of deception was very low overall. Also, although subordinates had greater perceptions of their own ability to lie in general when compared to managers' own perceived ability to lie in general, subordinates perceived that their supervisors were better able to lie, both in general and to them specifically (compared to supervisors' perceptions of subordinates' ability to lie). One's perceived power in the managerial-subordinate relationship was related negatively to their perceptions of their supervisors '/subordinates' ability to lie to them, to lie in general, and the acceptability of being lied to by their supervisor/subordinate. Therefore, more powerful people believe it is less acceptable to be lied to, and believe subordinates to have a lesser ability to use deception and get away with it. This is consistent with other findings by Dunbar and her colleagues (Dunbar & Abra, 2008; Dunbar, Bippus & Young, 2008) suggesting that although power-unequal dyads display less overall dominance than their power-equal counterparts, the subtle dominance displays by those in power "leak" out to their subordinates and reaffirm their powerful position. Deception Reported in the Workplace

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Perhaps of most interest were the findings that surfaced with regard to the actual deception reported by managers and subordinates. First, subordinates lied about very few topics. The vast majority of subordinates lied either to get time off of work (or to explain being late to work) or to impact their managers' perceptions ofthe status/quality of their work (e.g., to buy more time to complete tasks). Also, many ofthe lies centered on managing supervisors' impressions, consistent with previous research (e.g., Barrick& Mount, 1996;Deluga, 1991). Supervisors, on the other hand, lied to subordinates about a wide range of topics from the relatively innocuous (e.g., overestimating the urgency of a task) to the more odious (e.g., spying on subordinates). This range might again reflect the power differential between supervisors and subordinates in that supervisors have legitimate authority over a wider range of workplace topics. The messages supervisors and subordinates created differed with regard to what they said, how they attempted to appear truthful, and what they perceived was the most believable part ofthe lie. As noted previously, managers relied heavily on their credibility and authority; however, just as many supervisors tried to downplay their legitimate power role to create their messages and make themselves appear more believable. Thus, the very fact that managers had more power in the relationship allowed them to use it as communicative ploy - decreasing the power distance proved important for supervisors. Subordinates most often relied on controlling nonverbal behaviors, or focused heavily on the "stories" surrounding the deception. Although some reported keeping the stories short by avoiding details, more often subordinates reported embellishing the stories with added details to improve the believability ofthe lie. The reported focus on the structure ofthe story was interesting given that (a) embellishment increases the information the deceiver must remember to maintain consistency in future interactions, and (b)

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previous research indicated that deceptive messages tend to be less plausible and more internally discrepant (DePaulo et al., 2003). The differences uncovered in the current study indicated that powerful people relied on the very nature of the qualities/resources inherent in their position (e.g., credibility and authority) for successful deception, whereas less powerful people relied more often on manipulating their appearance through nonverbal behaviors and story crafting. Finally, despite the extremely low number of discovered lies in the current investigation, the findings warrant a brief mention here because they emphasize the fact that detecting deception in the "heat ofthe moment" is not the typical way deception is uncovered (Park et al., 2002). No lies were uncovered through the interpretation of nonverbal cues, rather they were discovered after the fact through evidence or confessions. Therefore, despite the importance placed in the research literature on detecting deception in real time by observing nonverbal cues (e.g., Cody & O'Hair, 1983), both supervisors and subordinates seemed to detect deception using other information. Limitations and Future Directions Only 96 people (fewer than half of all participants) reported using deception in the workplace. Although this is consistent with findings that a few prolific liars are responsible for the majority of lies (Serota, Levine, & Boster, 2010) and is consistent with samples sizes of other deception work (e.g. Enis, Vrij, & Chance, 2008), it was somewhat surprising to find so few participants who would admit to lying. One possibility is that despite the anonymity ofthe survey, participants' social desirability bias or fear that their employers would discover their deception

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meant that they were reluctant to report that they had been deceptive at work. This was evidenced by the fact that several potential research subjects refused to participate once they heard they would be required to describe their own deceptiveness and some organizations refused the researchers access to their employees once they heard the study was about deception in the workplace. The authors went to great lengths to assure the respondents that their survey could not be connected to them or their organization in any way, but future researchers should be aware of participants' reluctance and guard against self-selection bias. Also, it might be that the wording used to ask participants to describe a "lie" was interpreted narrowly by respondents to mean "fabrication" and were more likely to responded about outright lies rather than omissions or vagueness that could be construed as deception if a more inclusive term was used. Perhaps examples of deception could be provided so that respondents would know exactly what researchers are looking for, However, if it is true that fewer than half of the participants had actually engaged in deception at work, then it may be that so few have used deception because they view it as highly unethical, as evidenced by (a) many participants' unwillingness to use deception under any circumstances and (b) findings in previous research arguing that workplace deception is generally seen as unethical (e.g., Aquino & Becker, 2005). Also, this finding might be due to the power difference inherent in the types of lies examined in this study. Specifically, fewer lies might happen between managers and subordinates than between equal-status coworkers given that both parties have a great deal to lose (e.g., DePaulo et al., 1991; Schweitzer et al., 2006) if the deception is detected. Perhaps the supervisors in this study fear not only the loss of credibility with their employees but the repercussions from their own supervisors, as well. Also, if previous research is accurate that deception is used frequently in the workplace (e.g., Robinson et al., 1998; Strout, 2002), it might be that deception is used more frequently in

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relationships with a more equal balance of power. Regardless of the reason for the low number of deceivers in this investigation, future studies should seek to increase the number of deceptive interactions included for examination. It also is important to note that participants likely chose to discuss deception events in which they were successful, or where the lie had not yet been detected given that Park et al. (2002) reported that deception is often uncovered long after it takes place. Although participants were asked to report a recent deception event, increasing the chance that the lie had not been uncovered, the current findings might be inaccurate with regard to the larger picture of deception in the workplace if only successful lies were reported. Also, it is possible that more participants' lies were uncovered but they were not aware of the discovery. For example, the subordinates might be unlikely to confront supervisors with a discovered lie given the reported perceived power differential. Therefore, the results might be biased such that the reported deception was overwhelmingly successful (possibly painting a lopsided portrait of workplace deception) and overwhelmingly undetected. A final limitation is the fact that the current study relied solely on the participants' recollections of deception, not actual deception as it might occur. This investigation sought to examine how perceptions of power influence the perceptions of deception use and strategies used by deceivers, but these recollections might be tainted by subsequent events, lapses in memory, or even fundamental attribution error. Also, the participants might be unaware of their nonverbal cues that the receivers observed and were able to report only on what they intentionally manipulated rather than what they unintentionally "leaked." The advantages of this method are that it yields insight into the mind of the deceiver and allows us to know when deception has

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been detected, perhaps weeks later. Despite these advantages, future research should look at actual interactions, whether in the laboratory or the field, so that the nonverbal cues, behaviors of both the deceiver and receiver, and message construction can be examined more closely. CONCLUSION Although deception in the workplace might be perceived as unethical (Aquino & Becker, 2005), if the workplace is like the other areas of our lives, it is pervasive. Regardless of its ubiquity at work, deception can carry serious consequences for supervisors and subordinates alike, especially given the power-laden relationships in which they operate. To that end, the current study was the first step in exploring how deception occurs in the workplace, and the role of perceived power in the deception process. Just as power is an important situational and relational variable in the workplace, it had key implications for how deception is experienced in the workplace. It is our hope that this work can be used to develop theoretical models to more closely examine the intersection of deception and power not only in the workplace but in many other contexts as well. -1Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com

Publication Information: Article Title: Risky Business or Managed Event? Perceptions of Power and Deception in the Workplace. Contributors: Lisa L. Massi Lindsey - author, Norah E. Dunbar - author, Jessica C. Russell - author. Journal Title: Journal of Organizational Culture, Communication and Conflict. Volume: 15. Issue: 1. Publication Year: 2011. Page Number: 55+. 2011 The DreamCatchers Group, LLC. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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2.1 ARTICLE SUMMARY

The scholarly article which will be discussed in this part of the paper is Risky Business or Managed Event? Perceptions of Power and Deception in the Workplace taken from the Journal of Organizational culture, communication and conflict. The article ingeniously links deceptions that occur in a workplace with personal perceptions and attitudes of the employees. Even though deception is often considered to be a lie, however, literal truths that are intended towards misleading someone should also be considered as deceptive. Personal perceptions play a prominent role in designing an individuals overall conduct within an organization and are a chief predator of his personality and level of sincerity and commitment. For instance, employees may use deception in order to avoid any direct confrontation with manager or coworker for protecting the authenticity and honorability of their position in the company, as they perceive that telling the truth will result in loss of their credibility. The article provides an extensive account of the part personal perceptions play in shaping the conduct of individuals in a workplace. It has been argued that the perceptions an employee hold about particular actions that induces fear within him, may not be necessarily shared by other coworkers. Hence most of the workers use lies and deception to escape from the perceived dangerous consequences of the truth and so their perceptions of powerlessness has a deeper influence than the real power and authority practiced by the top level management.

2.2 REFLECTIONS
The article successfully manages to correlate workplace deception with a workers personal perception. While it gives a detailed explanation of the reasons behind workplace deception and how to distinguish between liars and deceivers, it also provides a simple and practical evaluation of

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the role personal perceptions relating to deception and power in the organizational environment. It is suggested that since supervisors enjoys the power in terms of accessing resources and using those resources, it is an important cause of the significant difference between the perceptions of subordinates about the supervisors and vice versa. Furthermore, if an employee perceives that any fault on his part will make him less reliable and likeable in the eye of the management, he is likely to rely on deception for covering up any of his shortcomings or mistakes.

2.3 CONCLUSION
There is a strong relationship between an individuals personal perceptions about himself or others and his ability to use unfair means such as lies and deception to shield his position in an organization.

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WORK-RELATED STRESS

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A Qualitative Study of Work-related Stress among Male Staff in Hong Kong's Social Welfare Sector

by Gary C. T Wong , Zenobia C. Y Chan Mental health is a major public health concern in the twenty-first century. According to the World Health Organization, at the turn of the millennium, approximately 450 million people have been diagnosed with mental illness worldwide (World Health Organization, 2001a). Prolonged and high levels of stress may affect mental health, leading to psychological problems and even psychiatric disorders. Stress is one of the most significant mental health problems in the workplace. It is associated with insomnia, depression and anxiety (Tang, Lee, Leung, Tsang, Ho, & Choy, 2006). At the organisational level, high levels of stress increase operating costs (medication, treatment, compensation). Indirect costs include absenteeism, productivity loss, high staff turnover, early retirement and low morale in the work environment (Coffey, Dugdill, & Tattersall, 2004; Tang, Lee, Leung, Tsang, Ho, & Choy, 2006; World Health Organization, 2001b). Hong Kong is one of the world's largest trading economies, with a major service sector. Employees suffer stress as a result of high work demands, job insecurity, long working hours, and competition for wealth as well as social status. Moreover, strong organisational commitment at work is emphasised in the Chinese culture (Department of Health, 2003a; Siu &

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Cooper, 1998). This traditional value imposes additional pressures on employees. The Hong Kong government's implementation of a subvention system in the social service sector in the twentieth century placed a financial burden on social service agencies. To cope, these agencies tended to hire contract-based or temporary staff, which caused job insecurity among employees and negatively affected employer-employee relationships. In addition, following the worldwide trend, expectations from the government, clients, and the public became much higher. Additional service output and tailor-made services became essential to satisfy the needs of the public, and this created more work for service staff: Research has shown that the influence of stress in the workplace has been increasing over the past two decades (Danny, Subadra, & Clara, 2004; Gellis, 2002; Margaret, Lindsey, & Andy, 2004). Gender roles as defined by both the ethnic culture and the dominant culture plays an important role in shaping individuals' health beliefs, their patterns of help-seeking, and their well-being (Chang & Subramaniam, 2008; Mussap, 2008) Following the masculinity gender role, men in Hong Kong adapt socially produced gender behaviors, by receiving the least health attention, including occupational health support. The concern for men's health is commonly viewed as being limited to diseases such as prostate disease or erectile dysfunction (Disease Prevention and Control Division, 2002). The men's mental health problems due to poor lifestyle and limited health- seeking practices are often overlooked, and these should be emphasized in health promotion. Studies on the promotion of men's mental health, especially in the context of Hong Kong's social welfare sector, are limited. This study was therefore undertaken to explore work-related

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stress among male staff in Hong Kong's social welfare sector. OVERVIEW Being mentally healthy is viewed as having a positive sense of well-being and being able to develop and sustain good interpersonal relationships (Tang et al., 2006). People with optimum mental health know their strengths and weaknesses, are able to cope with stress and lead productive lives (World Federation for Mental Health, 2001). Mental illness problems cover a wide range of psychological, neurological, and behavioural disorders. They are the results of interactions between biological, psychological, and social factors (World Health Organization, 2001a). Over 6 million people live in Hong Kong, of whom 3.62 million are in the labour force (Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, 2007). In 2005, it was estimated that over 15,000 people in Hong Kong suffered from mental illness. Depression, distress or anxiety, schizophrenia, and suicidal tendencies are the more common mental and behavioural problems (Department of Health, 2003b). Previous studies revealed that nearly half of the working population in Hong Kong felt tense or under great pressure, with a majority of the pressure caused by their work (Centre for Social Policy Study, 2000; Lingnan University, 2001; World Health Organization, 2001a). Long working hours, heavy workload, excessive work demands, conflict between work and family roles, anxiety, and job dissatisfaction are major job stressors (Myung, Sang, Bong, Jong, Soon, & Sei, 2005; Siu & Cooper, 1998; Tang, Lee, Leung, Tsang, Ho, & Choy, 2006). Work-related stress can disrupt family and social life, and increase the risk of accidents. As stress is associated with mental illness, it is important to

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be concerned with work-related stress in the Hong Kong population. The perception of stress in men is influenced by socio-cultural factors. Traditional Chinese values, typically place the men higher in the family hierarchy and emphasize among men and women his position as economic provider. In addition, appearing physically adequate, suppressing emotions, being superior to women, being intellectually superior, and being able to perform in their work and sex life, are viewed as masculinity (Chang & Subramaniam, 2008; Das & Kemp, 1997; Lee & Saul, 1987). Masculinity is recognized as a fixed socially produced gendered "performance" (Mussap, 2008). The traditional masculinity gender roles shape men in Hong Kong suppress help-seeking behaviors. Some men view help-seeking as a personal affront to their masculinity, and to avoid being stereotyped as a sign of femininity they mask their stress in work. This led to the gender specific stressors (Gough & Flanders, 2009; Kolmet, Marino, & Plummer, 2006; Plummer, 1999). Men in Hong Kong may attempt to overcome negative stereotypes of them by trying to meet the ideals of the dominant cultural masculinity. This involves masking their problems faced in work and family in front of others. Many men may become disempowered and compensate for it by the pursuit of risky behaviours such as smoking and heavy alcohol consumption. Both strategies can lead to a denial of real health problems (Chang & Subramaniam, 2008; Nagurney, 2007). Work significantly impacts the physical, mental, and social health of men. Work provides not only financial security but also self-efficacy in supporting a family-rCompared with women, men generally work longer hours and are expected to have a stronger commitment to work. Earlier studies have found that full-time male workers work more hours per week than their

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female counterparts (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002; Kolmet, Marino, & Plummer, 2006). In Hong Kong, 37 percent of men worked more than 10 hours a day. Among those who had not slept well in the past 12 months, 45 percent reported that their work caused sleep problems (Disease Prevention and Control Division, 2002; Family Planning Association, 2001). These indicate men in Hong Kong adopt stressful lifestyles. There are 370 social service agencies in Hong Kong, providing services and support for 57 million client hours per year. The social welfare sector has over 40,000 personnel, the majority of whom are women working in different positions in social work and health care (Hong Kong Council of Social Service, 2007). Men in the social welfare sector are a minority population. In a female-dominated working environment, men feel the need to suppress their stress. The difficulty of voicing this in front of women colleagues creates additional stress. Besides stress from socially produced gender behaviors, it is known that social welfare sector personnel in general suffer a high level of stress. Previous studies classify the stressors into three main categories: (a) those related to the nature of the worker's role (task-related stressors), (b) those related to the organisational framework (organisational stressors), and (c) those referring to personal issues (personal stressors) (Centre for Health Protection, 2006; Chi & Ho, 2006; Posen, 1995; Stokols, 1992; Warr, 1994). Stress affects individuals at the emotional, physiological, and behavioural levels. When under stress, people tend to experience unpleasant emotions, including annoyance, anger, anxiety, fear, dejection, and grief (Weiten, 1998). Chronic and prolonged everyday stress contributes to psychological problems and mental disorders such as depression, schizophrenia and anxiety

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disorder (Goldberg & Breznitz, 1993; Tang, Lee, Leung, Tsang, Ho, & Choy, 2006). Stress may also cause psychosomatic diseases such as hypertension, ulcers, asthma, skin disorders and headache. Research identifies heart disease, stroke, tuberculosis, arthritis, diabetes, leukaemia, cancer, various types of infectious diseases, and common colds have also been related to stress (Cheren, 1989; Elliott & Eisdorfer, 1982; Kaplan & Sadock, 1989). People adopt various coping strategies to deal with stress, depends on their personality. Those who are optimistic employ constructive coping strategies, while some adopt negative coping strategies such as aggression, giving up and defensive coping (Vaillan, 1994; Weiten, 1998), which tend to diminish the quality of work and life. From an organisational perspective, the high level of stress affects the organisation's socioeconomic environment. One of the direct costs is medical compensation. Indirect costs include absenteeism, reduced productivity and job satisfaction, high staff turnover and early retirement (Chi & Ho, 2006; Gellis, 2002; World Health Organization, 2001a). STRESS MANAGEMENT To effectively manage stress, the first step is to identify the internal and external sources of the stressors. Internal stressors are psychological and psychosocial aspects such as relationships with co-workers, and external stressors may include sociological aspects of the working environment such as the hours worked, shift work, and the person's socio-economic status (Kaeasek & Theorell, 1990). Both internal and external stressors can be assessed through quantitative as well as qualitative methods (e.g., questionnaires and in-depth interviews

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respectively). Heaney and van Ryn (1990) have developed a model to identify stress management strategies. When the stressor is present among subgroups or a few individual employees, it is better to influence the individual-level stressor. At the individual level, education, relaxation training and cognitive structuring are recommended to train individuals to effectively cope with stressors. When a majority of employees in an organization feel stressful, it requires modifying organisational level stressors. Suggestions include senior staff mentoring new staff and improving the level of communication between supervisors and their staff. However, organisational-level stressors may be related to the organisational culture and management style, which requires the organisation to develop good management practices (Chi & Ho, 2006). This study focuses on work-related stressors and stress management strategies among men in the Hong Kong social welfare sector. It employs a qualitative approach and aims to fill the knowledge gap between men's health and the perception of stress in Hong Kong's social welfare sector. THE PRESENT STUDY This study has the following objectives: * To identify the sources of stressors among male staff in Hong Kong's social welfare sector * To explore the roles of male staff in the sector

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* To identify the effects of stress on men's health * To identify stress management strategies adopted among male staff Research questions were categorised into three areas: (a) work-related stressors; (b) gender role on stress and health; and (c) stress management strategies. The research questions were: a) Work-related stressors * What were the sources of stress among male staff in Hong Kong's social welfare sector? b) Gender role on stress and health * What were the roles of male staff in Hong Kong's social welfare sector? * How did stress affect men's health? c) Stress management strategies * How did the male staff relieve their stress? METHODS Study Design A multiple case study design for a qualitative research approach was used in this study to examine multiple dimensions of the complicated, yet little understood phenomenon (Polit & Beck, 2004) of work stress in the social welfare sector. Male staff in the field were asked to describe their experience in their own words, and the researchers of such narratives were invited

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to enter into and experience their world (Hipsky, 2006; Hsieh, Spaulding, & Riney, 2004). An exploratory type of case study was adopted to enable the researchers to identify the problems or discrepancies behind the phenomenon, and to provide a certain degree of flexibility. Case studies are a good way of investigating in depth the thoughts of individuals, groups or communities, allowing researchers to develop intimate knowledge of the participants' conditions, thoughts, feelings, and environment (Polit & Beck, 2004; Yin, 1993). Participants As this was an exploratory type of study that aimed at describing experiences, a convenience sample was recruited for easier access to participants. Sixty invitations were sent and 40 participants volunteered for the study, yielding a response rate of 66%. The participants were from six major Hong Kong social service agencies providing services for the elderly, families, youth, and people with disabilities. All participants were male Chinese, with 25 of them (63%) between the ages of 21 and 29. On average, the participants had seven years of experience in the social welfare sector. Twenty-seven participants were frontline staff (68%) providing direct service to users, while 13 were either at the professional grade or management staff providing consultation or supervisory services. Nineteen participants had a monthly salary below HKD$ 10,000 (USD$ 1,282). Twenty-eight participants (70%) rated their stress level at 5 on a Likert scale of 0 to 10, indicating a moderate level of stress. Table 1 shows the demographic information of the participants. Instrument The personal essay, a semi- structured data collection method, was employed to collect ideas

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from the participants (Ausband, 2006). The personal essay was designed as a question sheet divided into two parts. In the first part, demographic information including gender, age, salary, years of work experience in the field, marital status, number of family members, and the nature of work were obtained. An item to measure self-perceived stress level, rated on an 1 1-point Likert scale of 0 (no stress) to 10 (highest stress) was used. In the second part, eight guided questions were used to assist participants in focusing their thoughts. Participants wrote essays expressing their views on work-related stress, their roles in the social welfare sector, and stress management strategies. The guided questions were openended, and participants were encouraged to write 50-100 words for each question using a narrative format (Andrews & Ridenour, 2006). This gave them the freedom to elaborate on the issues (Andrews & Ridenour; Yin, 1994). The completed question sheets were sealed and mailed to the researcher directly. Procedure Participants were recruited from six social service agencies in Hong Kong. Question sheets with guided questions for the personal essay were mailed to the agencies to invite participant. The participants volunteered to participate by completing the question sheets and sending them back to the researcher. Data Analysis Content analysis, which consists of examining, categorising, tabulating, or otherwise recombining the evidence to address the initial propositions of a study, (Polit & Beck, 2004;

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Yin, 1994) was used. The results were first analysed by the researchers, and relayed to the representatives of the six social service agencies for comments. RESULTS The participants identified communications with colleagues, the lack of resources and service restructing were the most common sources of stressors. Other sources, namely, were rising expectations from society, complicated work environment, feeling of incompetence, and irregular work schedule. Communication Problems with Colleagues Communication problems were the most common among the participants. Over half of the participants (n = 23) faced difficulties in communicating with supervisors, colleagues, and service users. One participant responded. "It is stressful to handle relationships with seniors in the agency, because we have different point of views. I think social services should have a mission to help the public. When I have completed my routine work, why can't I help others? For example, I have initiated a project to help the poor, and I think it is meaningful. But my seniors always think that I am troublesome in creating this extra work. I think this violates the mission of the agency." The participant's view reflects teamwork is highly emphasized in social welfare sector, and effective communications are essential. The different modes of communications among management and frontline staff create stress. The Lack of Resources Participants commonly viewed the lack of resources led to stress. A number of them (n = 16)

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faced workforce reduction despite the workload increase, and they found it difficult to adapt to the demanding work environment. Financial support from the government or other funders were cut back to enhance cost-effectiveness. Resources in Hong Kong's social welfare sector became insufficient to meet rising demands. One participant reported, "Many service units are facing the problem of long-term insufficient resources. Mental stress among staff is rising. It is hard to provide high output under limited resources. The work causes (me) fatigue and exhaustion." Service Restructuring The rapid change in Hong Kong's socio-cultural environment resulted in a concomitant restructuring of the social welfare sector, and this become a significant stress among participants (n = 10). They pointed out that they needed extra time and effort to develop new skills and to adapt to the new work environment. A participant observed that, "Adding new elements in work causes a certain stress. It is good, because I think stress is a pushing power. However, stepping forward too much, such as commercializing the social welfare sector, creates a huge amount of stress." The comments indicated that when facing new and challenging environments, they sometimes feel harmed and threatened (Balloch, Jan, & Mclean, 1998; Taylor, 2006). Other Sources of Stress Ten participants indicated that the service users and the society have high expectations on them. This created an extra workload, and they felt somewhat incompetent to carry out their duties. One participant in our study made statements such as, "The public has expectations in my work. It doesn't want the quality of service to deteriorate because of the increasing workload. They

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want service users to receive good quality services." Some participants (n = 10) felt that the work environment in the social welfare sector was complicated. They were required to handle emergencies such as emotional burnout and behavioural problems. Six participants felt that they were incompetent to provide quality service, while four Participants who work on shift basis, they felt that this irregular work pattern affected their daily lives. Stressors Specific to Men in the Social Welfare Sector The majority of the participants (n = 27) felt that men in the social welfare sector faced more stress. Among them, the most significant men's stressor is dealing with women's service users. Other common stressors include extra workload and the effects of gendered socially produced behaviors on work. Dealing with Women's Service Users Most participants (n = 12) viewed the men had the responsibility to protect women's service users; they also needed to monitor the inappropriate behaviours of women's service users. Men were hesitant to contact women's service users. They needed to pay extra attention in communicating or in any kind of contact with women's service users as they ran the risk of being accused of sexual harassment. One participant noted that [I]t is risky for a male staff member to serve a woman's service user. For example, women staff can have visual contact with or even touch the body of a man's service user in order to help him perform daily functions, but a man's staff cannot do the same for women's clients and cannot help them even when help is needed. Men need to be very careful when dealing with women's

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service users, and so will try to avoid such situations. It is risky for men's staff to serve women's service users with mental illness, because they sometimes have delusions and accuse men's staff of abuse. This puts the men's staff at a big disadvantage. Extra Workload Some participants (n = 4) expressed that they were required to do extra work compared with women, which was stressful. They viewed in a numerically women's dominated work environment; men were expected to handle situations that demanded physical strength, such as handling violence among service users. As a result, men in the sector were more likely to experience violence and stress than their women's counterparts. Effects of Men's Socially Produced Gender Behaviors on Work Some participants (n = 8) held the view that the working pattern of men were influenced by the socially produced gender behaviors. They felt that men were socially viewed as more active, casual, and humorous, while women were more attentive and patient with service users. This difference in gendered socially constructed differences has led to different perceptions at work, causing communication problems. One participant pointed out, "The points of view of men and women are different. Women are more impressionable and affective. The different working styles cause constraints and lower efficiency in a women-dominated work environment. This is my work stress." Role of Men in Social Welfare Sector Participants wrote different roles of men in the sector. The most common role suggested by the

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participants (n=12) were leaders. They were expected to be highly competent in organisational management. Some participants' comments were controversial as they expected men were often expected to be more decisive than women. Men would have a clear focus, and were socially expected to be more comprehensive in their judgment and more objective in decision-making. When facing an unjust situation, men would unite their power to fight for resources. One participant held that men were socially expected to be the leaders in the social welfare sector. A careful attention is required to understand the negative and stereotypical values: I think men need to rise up! Because men are leaders and women are followers. Although women are more caring in their attitudes, they are slower than men in leadership, and not decisive enough. Also, men consider different perspectives before making decisions, while women make decisions based on moods. Men consider a wider scope in their work. As influenced by the traditional Chinese culture, men are stereotyped to take up masculine figures. This stereotype is typical in social welfare sector. The participants (n = 8) viewed men as adopting a masculine figure in a female-dominated working environment. Men are responsible for challenging tasks and duties where some violence may be encountered to represent an authority role. A participant explained his masculine role at work: Due to the traditional concepts of our society, men are treated as authority figures . Sometimes, although I may be incompetent, I am needed to handle challenging tasks like handling violence of service users because I am the only male staff member in the organisation.

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It is worth notice that in a women-dominant working environment, a number of participants (n = 10) thought that they were marginalised in the organisation. They have negative and stereotypical comments that women were more appreciated, while men usually took on assistant roles. Some of them (n = T) viewed men were the subordinates of women and thus needed to be obethent, even though they sometimes had disagreements. Others felt that women were more impressionable in making decisions, and were thus more likely to have conflicts with others. As a result, men faced more distress, which commented: Women in general focus on the minor issues and always change their mind. They do not accept different ideas are prejudiced against men, especially those who are competent. They prefer hiring female staff. Besides the above major roles, a few participants (n = 3) thought men were the key staff to handle male service users, because they are easily able to develop rapport. EFFECTS OF STRESS ON HEALTH The effects of stress on health among participants could be viewed from physiological and psychological perspectives. Physiologically, headache and insomnia were the most common problems faced among participants (n = 16). Others (n = 4) reported fatigue, dizziness, pain, elevated blood pressure, diarrhoea, stomach ache, and skin allergy. These cause a lack of energy and motivation to work during the daytime. Due to the physiological discomfort, participants presented low job satisfaction and commitment to the organisation. The low work commitment in turn affects productivity and efficiency.

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Psychologically, the great majority of the participants (n = 35) reported being shorttempered when faced with stress, as well as fatigued, depressed, and nervous. Some participants (n = 5) even had the tendency to have negative thoughts, lacking the confidence to try new things, and worrying about failure at work. They also noted the effects of stress on their daily lives. The most common problem is the disturbance of work-rest schedule, as half of the participants (n=20) needed to work overtime. The meal time and lesiure time were lessened. Even on holidays, some were still anxious. One participant pointed out particularly, "Even if I do not bring the work home, it is still on my mind. Therefore, the holiday is useless." Other effects of stress on daily lives were the relationships with family and friends. A number of participants (n = 5) had little time to spend with their families and friends. Even during their free time, they preferred to be alone rather than join social activities. Some participants (n = 4) worked in shifts. They had difficulty meeting friends because of their irregular working hours. Stress Management Strategies Participants used various strategies to manage work stress. Common strategies were seeking social and spiritual support, engaging in physical and sensory-based activities, self-reflections, and rearranging work schedules. Others suggested an innovative idea of establishing support groups for the well-being of male staff in the social welfare sector. Social Support One participant responded, "I relieve stress by finding family and friends with whom to air out my dissatisfaction with work. They may not agree with my views, or provide solutions. But my

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dissatisfaction is eased after I have ventilated my feelings." Another explained, "Better communication with service users and maintaining good relationships with them are important to relieve work stress. I also apologize to them if I do something wrong." The participants (n = 18) highlighted by gathering with friends and their families, they could shift their attention away from stress. Support from the family, partner, or spouse could act as a buffer to reduce work stress. Spiritual Support Besides supports from families and friends, a number of participants (n = 16) sought spiritual support. Some were able to achieve stress relief through different religious activities such as reading the Bible, praying, singing hymns, listening to religious music and participated in church activities. Physical Activities Physical activities helped some participants (n = 18) to reduce stress. They played ball games and sports, such as basketball, football, swimming, and jogging in their leisure time. Some engaged in outdoor activities such as hiking and going to the countryside or the seaside. They indicated that they could forget unpleasant things by engaging in physical activities. Sensory-Based Activities It was surprising to know that some participants (n = 13) engaged in sensory-based activities to relieve stress. They enjoyed playing video games, watching films and television, eating snacks or their favourite food, listening to music, shopping, and even shouting and using foul language

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to ventilate the emotions caused by their work stress. One participant described eating as a means to relieve stress in work, "I am in the habit of eating my favourite food to reduce work stress; it causes my body weight to increase." This view indicated some sensory-based stress management strategies led to health problems, causing another stress. Self-Reflection One participant responded, "Taking time to undergo self-reflection is important. Upon recovery, I can develop new ideas. It brings out my best capacities." Self-reflection helped to relieve work stress in some of the participants (n = 10). Through reflection, they found methods of improving work performance and overcoming their difficulties. This also allowed participants to forget unpleasant things at work and restructure their thoughts. A participant described: "I think the best way to handle work stress is to put down one's duties, then observe and think about how to work accurately and smoothly before picking up the task again." Rearrange the Work Schedule Some participants (n = 12) pointed out to reduce work stress by rearranging their work schedules. If they completed their work within office hours and refrained from working during holidays, work stress did not affect their daily lives. Participants were positive towards their work, in accordance with the traditional Chinese saying, "respect the job, enjoy the job." From this point of view, stress was seen as a motivating force for an individual to learn and improve their work (Taylor, 2006). Setting Up Support Groups

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Some participants (n = 4) suggested stress management strategies from the organisational perspective. Social service agencies might consider organising "staff support groups" to facilitate staff leisure activities and improve social relationships at work. One participant particularly believed that joining the social service union could relieve stress because it would enable his directly to voice out their stress and difficulties to policymakers. Other stress management strategies adopted by the participants (n = 9) included sleeping, reading, keeping pets, travelling, housework, helping neighbours, and seeking help from professionals such as clinical psychologists. DISCUSSION Implications for Health Education and Health Promotion The findings from this study could serve as a reference in exploring the directions of health education and promotion in Hong Kong's social welfare sector. The results of the present study are consistent with those of previous studies in terms of major workrelated stressors, effects of stress on health, and stress management strategies. Our findings are consistent with those of Fischer and Good (1997) that the influence of masculine gender role affect men to communicate with colleagues effectively. Our findings are also consistent with those of Miller, Cohen, and Ritchey (2002); Kolmet, Marino, and Plummer (2006); Shaver, Johnston, Lentz, and Landis (2002); and Taylor (2006), which suggest that long-term work stress can affect men's health. Finally, our findings are also consistent with Balloch, Jan, and Mclean (1998), Barak, Nissly, and Levin (2001), and Lechner (1993), who suggested that support from families, friends, and social service agencies, could act as a buffer to reduce work stress, and is healthprotective for

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men. Several results in this study are interesting and noteworthy. A number of participants revealed that stress came from communications with women's supervisors and colleagues, as well as contact with women's service users. The masculine gender role views men to be superior to women. However, men are often the minority in the sector and this suppresses masculinity. Job satisfaction is reduced when employees feel emotional strains (Lechner, 1993). Our results highlight the experiences of effects of stereotyped gender roles of men on the social welfare sector, and help fill the knowledge gap in men's health and stress in the social welfare sector. On the level of clinical practice, we explored work-related stressors to develop stress management programmes for men in the sector, as men usually refuse to address their stress and its impact on their health (O'Brien, Hart, & Hunt, 2007). Participants identified communications with colleagues, dealing with women service users, and extra workload due to masculine gender role as common stressors. These issues could become the focus in stress management programmes for male staff in the sector. Furthermore, some participants relied on sensory-based activities to relieve stress, such as watching television, playing video games, and eating. These strategies may have negative health consequences and create extra stress. Sharing groups may be a useful stress management strategy for facilitating peer learning of appropriate methods. Asserti veness training, adoption of healthy lifestyles, and the social support from sharing groups could also relieve work-related stress (Lechner, 1993; Taylor, 2006). Some participants perceived stress as a catalyst to improve work performance. This positive effect of stress is often overlooked, and it may be useful to highlight such positive effects of

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stress to male staff in the social welfare sector (Taylor, 2006). Some participants view men work issues are negative and stereotypical values. This shows that although the majority of men adopt problem- focused strategies to cope with stress, some are emotion-focused (Ptacek, Smith, & Dodge, 1994; Pugliesi, 1999). Further improvement in gender relationships in the sector could enhance the harmonious working environment. Policymakers in the social service agencies can provide effective communication channels for men and women staff to understand the stress of each other. Study indicates that men's stress is more related to work and finance, while women's stress is more related to family and health (Billings & Moose, 1984). Policymakers could let men and women understand the stress of each other, and develop stress management programmes for them. Based on our findings, effective communications with supervisors and colleagues can relieve stress at work. Participants also indicated that sharing groups and recreational activities could relieve stress. Staff support groups with both genders involved could also be formed to plan different social activities. Although the social welfare sector is female-dominated, it is surprising to learn that some of the participants expected themselves to take on the leadership roles. Policymakers might develop clear and objective measures in assigning decision-making duties to staff. This help men understand the appointment is based on relevant experience and education, and both genders have equal opportunities. LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS There are several limitations in the study. First, the transferability of our results is limited since

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participants were recruited by convenience sampling and may not be representative of the true situation in Hong Kong. Future studies could consider using purposive sampling to include participants with specific knowledge on the topic and with atypical experience. This would also provide broad and specific ideas about the participants to enrich the findings (Ausband, 2006). Second, although the personal essay has several advantages, it is difficult to obtain comprehensive information from the participants. The personal essay also requires adequate literacy skills and a high level of participant cooperation (Polit & Beck, 2004). As a result, some potential participants who were illiterate or not interested in writing were not inclined to participate in the study. Some participants preferred interviews rather than writing. Future studies might consider adding an interview component in the data collection. Third, it is interesting to note that most participants wrote less in the latter parts of the personal essay, possibly reflecting a drop in their attention. To enhance the transferability of the data, it is recommended to use a triangulation design (Hsieh, Spaulding, & Riney, 2004) with multiple and different references to form categories and themes, and draw conclusions (Denzin & Lincoln, 1998; Golafshani, 2003; Polit & Beck, 2004). Finally, since the study took place in the context of Hong Kong's social welfare sector, the results were influenced by the unique mix of Eastern and Western cultures in Hong Kong. Further research comparing the Western and Eastern contexts may be valuable to explore any culture- specific factors related to men's stress in the social welfare sector. In conclusion, this study identified the work-related stress facing male staff in Hong Kong's social welfare sector, its effects on their health, and stress management strategies. It is hoped that based on this information, stress management programmes may be developed by the

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various social service agencies to address the needs of this special group. Further research is needed to examine men's stress in social welfare sectors in the Western and Eastern contexts for a comparative perspective. -1Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com

Publication Information: Article Title: A Qualitative Study of Work-related Stress among Male Staff in Hong Kong's Social Welfare Sector. Contributors: Gary C. T Wong - author, Zenobia C. Y Chan - author. Journal Title: International Journal of Men's Health. Volume: 9. Issue: 3. Publication Year: 2010. Page Number: 221+. 2010 Men's Studies Press. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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3.1 ARTICLE SUMMARY

For discussing the problem of work-related stress, the article chosen for review and analysis is A Qualitative Study of Work-related Stress among Male Staff in Hong Kong's Social Welfare Sector by Gary Wong and Zenobia Chan. Workplace Stress is one of the top reasons for the growing number of patients with mental illness. The research study focuses on the stress level of employees in Hong Kong and the factors contributing to it. Some of the major factors leading to work-related stress is job insecurity, poor employee-employer relationship, long working hours, incompetent wages, office politics, rising class differences and high cost of maintaining a lifestyle. According to the study, men in Hong Kong are more likely to be affected by work stress as it is primarily driven by several socio-cultural factors. For instance, in Hong Kong man have the ultimate responsibility of earning bread for the family and work for longer hours as compared to their female counterparts and so male population suffers more from work-related stress. Work stress if left untreated can cause serious psychological, emotional and physical problems such as depression, insomnia, anxiety disorder, hypertension, asthma, ulcer, heart diseases and strokes. The investigative study was undertaken to determine the sources of stress and its effects on males health and it was found that a majority of participants experienced various above mentioned outcomes of stress.

3.2 REFLECTIONS
The research study provided a detailed insight on the causes, symptoms and consequences of work related stress. The perceptions of individuals regarding stress are deeply linked to socioeconomic and socio-cultural factors along with workplace elements such as bad relation with

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employer or coworkers, jobs on contract basis or insecurity, rising cost of living etc. The findings of the researches were in conformity with the academic literature that already exists in this field and previous studies. The stress management strategies described in the study; social support, spiritual support, exercise and other enjoyable physical activities, are the common practices used by people all around the world to deal with work stress.

3.3 CONCLUSION
Work related stress is the root cause of a hoard of psychological and physical diseases and in Asian and Middle-Eastern societies, males are heavily affected by it.

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TECHNIQUES USED BY ORGANIZATIONS FOR REDUCING STRESS

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Efficacy of Different Techniques for Reducing Stress: a Study among Business Students in the United States

by Charles J. Hobson , Linda Delunas Introduction Managers often find themselves in stressful situations; a crisis or a series of small annoyances can lead to physical symptoms of stress such as rapid heartbeat, sweating, headache, or anxiety. Over the long term, repeated episodes of unchecked stress can lead to physical illness, lack of productivity, or missed time from work. Stressful life-events (see Hobson, Kamen, Szostek, Nethercut, Tiedmann, & Wojnarowicz, 1998; Hobson & Delunas, 2001 for revisions of the original scale of lifeevents in the United States, the Social Readjustment Rating Scale by Holmes & Rahe, 1967) can also negatively affect managers in the workplace. Compelling validation of this phenomenon was offered in a recent study of 75,000 Danish companies by Bennedsen, Pe ez-Gonzlez and Wolfenzon (2007). The authors found that significantly stressful events (death of a child or spouse for example) in the lives of CEO's "lead to economically and statistically large declines in the firm

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performance as measured by firm profitability, investment or sales growth." (p. 24). Clearly, it is imperative that managers have tools that they can use to help reduce physical symptoms of stress and lower anxiety. Although many stress reduction techniques are well known, there is a lack of research about their usefulness. The goal of the article is to suggest several, easily learned stress reduction techniques, and to assess their impact in ameliorating the physical symptoms of stress. Stress has been defined in many ways. In terms of one's work life, a fitting definition is "a complex pattern of emotional states, physiological reactions, and related thoughts in response to external demands" (Greenberg & Baron, 2000). Stressful demands in the workplace have been described as workload, pace of work, career insecurity, role ambiguity, and perception of lack of control (Karim, Mir, & Bingi, 2005). It is well known that stress, especially stress occurring repeatedly over the long term, can contribute to the incidence of high blood pressure, heart attack, depression, and eating disorders (Baum & Posluszny, 1999). It is also known that there are real costs to employers associated with employee stress. These costs are associated with decreased productivity, lower work quality, higher absenteeism, and increased health care costs (DeFrank & Ivancevich, 1998; Jex & Beehr, 1991). According to Hobson, Kesic, and Delunas (2001), organizations should be encouraged to offer programs for managers and employees that address health and wellness, and specifically include stress management among other physical and psychological programs to improve quality of life. In fact, Karim et al. found that, among 138 organizations surveyed regarding the types of stress management services offered to employees, 81% reported employee assistance

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programs (EAP), 37% reported stress management training, and 1 1% reported that psychological counseling is offered. Respondents also indicated that they believed that stress management training is useful in relieving job stress. Raitano and Kleiner (2004) suggested that within organizations, stress management should include primary prevention measures such as job redesign and participatory management; secondary measures such as relaxation training; and tertiary measures such as counseling aimed at minimizing or coping with extreme distress. Relaxation training, although not as effective for long term management of stress as, say, physical conditioning, is much less time consuming, inexpensive, and can be performed anywhere at almost anytime. Its usefulness is through the moderation of the physical response to stress, creating a feeling of well-being and an increased ability to focus (Raitano & Kleiner). Specific relaxation techniques include deep breathing, imagery, and progressive relaxation. According to Dewe & O'Driscoll (2002), it is important that the benefits and limitations of various stress intervention techniques be understood so that managers may use those that are most helpful, and advocate their use by organizations for employees. Method of study The purpose of this study was twofold. First, it was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of three commonly recommended stress reduction techniques in a sample of working adults. The second purpose was to assess the utility of a self-experiment protocol in helping working adults understand, appreciate, and measure the personal impact of stress reduction strategies. Participants in this project were students enrolled in an Organizational Behavior class at the MBA (evening) or upper-division undergraduate level. The educational institution was an urban

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regional commuter campus in a large midwestern state university system in the United States. Virtually all of the students were employed, most full-time, pursuing degrees on a part-time basis. Three commonly utilized stress reduction techniques were introduced and practiced in class: (1) deep breathing, (2) imagery, and (3) progressive relation. Each will be briefly described below. Instructions directed students to slowly inhale, filling their lungs to capacity, then slowly exhale, and repeat the sequence. In order to help maintain mental attention and focus on slow deep breathing and avoid distractions, two recommendations were made, both involving silent repetition of words. One option was to silently repeat "I am" upon inhaling and "relaxed" upon exhaling. The second option involved simply counting "one" when breathing in and "two" when breathing out. The imagery technique was presented by asking everyone to identify the most peaceful, serene, physical setting or location they had ever personally experienced. For purposes of illustration, the ocean beach front (the most commonly mentioned setting) was used to demonstrate the procedure. Participants were instructed to close their eyes and begin to imagine that they were actually at an ocean beach, involving all of their senses. Thus, they were asked to imagine that they were: ( 1 ) looking out over the waves gently coming ashore, (2) hearing the sounds of the waves and seagulls, (3) smelling the salt air, and (4) feeling the warmth of the sun on their skin. In a similar manner, students were directed to imagine their own personal peaceful setting, using all of their senses. Participants were introduced to a 4-page standard progressive relaxation routine which called

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for systematic, sequential tensing and relaxing of major muscle groups in the body. The routine consisted of four sections on: (1) relaxation of the arms, (2) relaxation of the face, neck, shoulders, and upper back, (3) relaxation of the chest, stomach, and lower back, and (4) relaxation of the hips, thighs, and calves. A brief sample follows: "Now clench your jaws, push your teeth together. Study the tension throughout the jaws. Relax your jaws now. . .let your lips part slightly. . .appreciate the relaxation." (A complete copy is available from the first author). A portion of the routine was read in class, while students followed the instructions. It was recommended that participants tape someone slowly reading the routine into a recorder and then play the tape when performing the technique. Self-Experiment Project One of the class projects required students to conduct a self-experiment with the three stress reduction techniques. Before beginning a description of the project, everyone was taught how to take their own resting pulse rate, on their neck or wrist. For most healthy individuals, resting heart rate provides a general indicator of stress or arousal levels. Students were asked to try each of the three techniques on three occasions for a period of 10-15 minutes. Before beginning each period, they were to measure their resting pulse and write it down. At the conclusion of each period, they were to again take their resting pulse and calculate any difference from the beginning value. After three tries or trials for a particular technique, students could calculate an average change in resting heart rate.

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Students were advised to conduct their trials with the techniques at the same time of the day, to control potential biorhythmic fluctuations. The recommended time was a weeknight, after work and school, but before going to bed. After trying each technique three times and calculating average changes in resting heart rate, students were asked to write a 1-2 page summary of their self-experiment. It is important to note that projects were graded in terms of adherence to the recommended procedures in conducting the self-experiment, not in terms of the magnitude observed changes in resting heart rate. Data Analysis Student data were coded and entered in SPSSX for analysis. The following specific statistical analyses were conducted: (1) mean changes in resting pulse for each of the three techniques were calculated, along with associated t-tests, (2) mean effectiveness scores for the three techniques were compared using pairwise t-tests, (3) mean effectiveness scores for the three techniques were compared for males and females using t-tests (4) the percentages of participants who experienced each individual technique as effective were computed, and (5) the percentages of participants were calculated for whom 0/3, 1/3, 2/3, or 3/3 techniques were effective. Results A total of 233 MBA and upper-division undergraduate business students participated in this study. Wimin this group, 91 (39%) were male and 140 (61%) female. In order to assess the effectiveness of the individual techniques, t-tests were preformed on the observed mean changes in resting pulse rates (Hays, 1973). The null hypothesis in each instance was that the

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population mean change in resting pulse was equal to zero. In other words, the technique had no impact in reducing resting pulse. The alternative hypothesis was that the population value was greater than zero. Findings for the three techniques are presented in Table 1. All three resulted in statistically significant mean reductions in pulse rate, with large associated effect sizes (Cohen, 1977), ranging from .73 for progressive relaxation to .81 for deep breathing. The relative effectiveness of the three techniques in this sample was evaluated using a simple, easy to understand and interpret, statistical approach recommended by McGuigan (1997). It involves conducting comparisons between each possible pair of means, using within-subjects ttests. Thus, three t-statistics were calculated comparing mean reductions in pulse rate for deepbreathing v. imagery, deep-breathing v. progressive relaxation, and imagery v. progressive relaxation. Results are provided in Table 2. The mean pulse reduction for deep breathing (7.22) was significantly larger than those for imagery (5.74) or progressive relaxation (5.26), with modest effect sizes (Cohen, 1977) of respectively, .33 and .40. No difference was found when comparing the means for imagery and progressive relaxation. As the data in Table 3 indicate, there were no differences in mean reductions in pulse rate between men and women for any of the three techniques. However, it is interesting to note that the female mean reduction in pulse was higher than that for males in all three comparisons. Substantial variance in pulse rate reduction scores within both genders statistically overshadowed the observed mean differences between genders. Table 4 presents the percentage of participants that experienced each of the three techniques as

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effective (i.e., mean pulse reduction > 0). The simplest technique, deepbreathing, was effective for 99.6% of the sample, while the most involved, complicated technique, progressive relaxation, was effective for 92.2%. Results in Table 5 indicate that 205/233 (88.0 %) individuals in the sample experienced success (mean pulse reduction > 0) with all three techniques. For the sample as a whole, everyone found that at least one of the three techniques worked. Discussion of Results The data collected and analyzed in this study confirmed the effectiveness of all three techniques (deep breathing, imagery, and progressive relaxation) in reducing resting pulse rate, respectively 7.22, 5.74, and 5.26 beats per minute. These mean reductions are especially impressive in view of the fact that most participants were using the techniques for the first time. Thus, one could reasonably expect increased effectiveness with continued practice and utilization of each technique. The self-experiment protocol proved successful in helping participants understand the three techniques and assess their impact. As reported in the Results section above, fully 88.0% of the sample (205 of 233) experienced success with all three techniques, while everyone found that at least one of the three worked for them. Empirical data collected using the self-experiment protocol enabled each participant to document that they were able to successfully lower their resting pulse rate. This firsthand knowledge is empowering and reassuring. When confronted with stressful situations and during particularly stressful periods of time, each participant realized that she/he could implement one or more of the proven techniques to lower their resting

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pulse rate. Thus, they had a tool or tools to use in combating stress. Busy managers with stressful work and family lives should be encouraged to try the techniques presented in this paper. They are fairly simple and easy to learn and use. The self-experiment format is also straightforward and provides evidence of how well the techniques actually work. Based upon the results obtained in this study, managers can be confident that at least one of the techniques will work well, and most will confirm that all three of them are effective in lowering resting pulse rates. Conducting a selfexperiment like this can also serve to stimulate renewed interest in one's health and the need to manage stress successfully. Several points are important to keep in mind when considering use of the three techniques evaluated in this study. First, managers should try to approach each of the three techniques with an open mind. They should not allow perceived notions to prevent them from experimenting with each one. Past experience confirms that many people with negative expectations about a technique, find that it does in fact work well to lower their resting pulse. Second, manager should remember that none of the three techniques works well for everyone. For example, the ranges in mean resting pulse changes for each of the three techniques were as follows:_Deep Breathing- a mean increase in pulse of 1.0 to a mean decrease in pulse of 29.0,Jmagery- a mean increase in pulse of 10.0 to a mean decrease of 24.0._Progressive Relaxation- a mean increase in pulse of 4.0 to a mean decrease in pulse of 22.0. The goal should be to try each of the techniques and empirically determine which ones work and which ones do not. Third, for all three of the techniques, a critical success factor involves the capacity to focus all of one's attention on the steps involved in executing the technique. Mental focus is needed in

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order to prevent anxiety producing thoughts from obstructing the relaxation process. For each individual, the technique that best facilitates the necessary mental focus typically emerges as the most successful one. Fourth, as with any newly learned behavioral skill, additional practice with the three techniques will help one more easily and automatically execute the steps involved and enhance proficiency. Fifth, anecdotal evidence from participants suggests that increased effectiveness in lowering resting pulse rates can be achieved by combining techniques into a hybrid procedure. The most popular hybrids were Deep Breathing + Imagery and Deep Breathing + Progressive Relaxation. Sixth, many participants reported that the stress reduction techniques were also very useful in dealing with insomnia. The experienced relaxation effects were so powerful that they induced sleep before bedtime. Thus, not only can these three techniques assist in dealing with stress, they can be helpful in combating sleeplessness. Seventh and last, while the techniques in this study were assessed among working adults, they can also be utilized with children. Learning to take one's pulse and then mastering simple techniques to lower it can be an especially intriguing and empowering exercise for children. While deep breathing was the simplest and most effective of the three techniques, a challenge faced by many participants involved maintaining focus on slow deep breathing and not allowing their minds to wonder to more stressful thoughts. For example, one participant reported that after trying the recommended counting of 1 - upon inhaling and 2- upon exhaling, his mind had the time to wander and did in fact wander to other stressful thoughts resulting in a loss of focus and effectiveness. He formulated and successfully tested a solution that entailed counting from 1 to 7 upon inhaling and backwards from 7-1 upon exhaling. This simple mental task

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sufficiently focused his attention on slow deep breathing and prevented his mind form wandering. One particular advantage of the deep-breathing technique is that it can be used at any time and in any location. After some concentrated practice, most users are able to dispense with the counting upon inhaling and exhaling, as concentration comes more automatically. This technique also begins to work almost immediately for most people-another major advantage. Finally, deep breathing can be effectively used as a preventive or pre-emptive technique prior to encountering a stressful situation. Slow deep breathing that is started and continued in anticipation of a stressful stimulus allows one to remain calmer throughout the episode. In fact, for most people, it is virtually impossible to become physiologically aroused while engaged in slow deep breathing. This revelation can be very empowering and reassuring to anyone who routinely deals with stressful situations or individuals: i.e. public speaking or irate customers Once again, with continued practice, the slow deep breathing becomes more automatic and efficacious. For this technique, the choice of a setting to imagine is critical. Some people mistakenly assume that since "the ocean beach" is the most popular setting, it should work well for them. However, if their experiences with "the ocean beach" setting have been arousing and stimulating, use of imagery can actually result in substantial increases in resting pulse. Suffice it to say that the setting chosen for this exercise must be perceived as calming for the individual using it. Many people find it helpful when trying imagery to make use of physical stimuli to assist the imagination process. For example, if using the ocean beach as one's relaxing setting, the following enhancing stimuli can be very useful in simulating realism: (1) a tape recording of

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ocean waves and seagulls, (2) a heat lamp, and (3) suntan lotion. These props reduce the demands on one's imaginative capabilities and aid in more quickly and concretely recreating the relaxing environment. Understandably, people who tend to be creative, with active imaginations, are often the most successful with this technique and enjoy using it. With continued practice, the ability to quickly create and maintain the relaxing image improves. One busy manager, for whom the technique worked very well, reported using it routinely at work. She took a 15-minute break each afternoon, went to a vacant meeting room, locked the door, set her watch alarm for 15 minutes, shut off the lights, and "traveled" to her favorite Caribbean island for a refreshing break. Progressive Relaxation When using this technique, the choice of a reader to tape record the progressive relaxation routine is critical. The person should be someone who has a calm, reassuring demeanor. Good choices have included clergy members, grandparents, aunts or uncles, and close friends. Most people are not successful using their own voice to make the recording and utilizing a new boyfriend or girlfriend as a reader can actually result in a significant increase in resting pulse. If one is uncertain about whom to choose for their reader, a prudent alternative would be to purchase a professional tape-recorded routine at any large bookstore. For people who experience the most success with progressive relaxation, in many cases, the primary contributor is the subroutine that deals with "relaxation of the face, neck, shoulders, and upper back." This sequence of commands can be more easily committed to memory than the full routine, and thus allows one to utilize the abbreviated version without listening to the

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tape recording. Proper use of this technique requires sustained contraction and tensing of major muscle groups, followed by relaxation. Not surprisingly, physically fit individuals often find the technique to be very effective, while those who are not as fit frequently view it as requiring too much effort and work, negatively impacting their results. Three caveats should be taken into consideration when interpreting the results of this study. First, all of the data were collected via self-report. Thus, the potential for unintentional and intentional mistakes in recording pulse rates and conducting the selfexperiment cannot be eliminated. However, the following characteristics of the study should work together to reduce these mistakes: ( 1 ) students were trained in how to take their own pulse and practiced this in class , (2) the grade for the project was independent of the actual obtained results; therefore motivation to embellish results was absent, (3) the topics of stress and stress management were of considerable interest to the adult participants confronted with balancing the demands of work, school, and family, and (4) the notion of conducting a self-experiment to empirically determine the effectiveness of three stress reduction strategies was innately appealing to most participants. A second potential limitation involves the lack of a true control condition in which the effect of simple sitting/resting on heart rate would be examined. Interestingly, the original research plan did call for the use of a control condition. However, reactions of participants in the early stages of data collection were so uniformly negative that the control condition was deleted. Reported reactions included: (1) frustration and agitation with doing nothing, while ignoring other

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responsibilities, often resulting in pulse rate increases (approximately two-thirds of the sample tested as Al 's or A2's on the Glazer Stress Control Life-Style Questionnaire, with the other onethird being AB's, and virtually no Bl's or B2's) and (2) mind wandering to unfinished tasks and responsibilities, again leading to increased pulse rates. One very clear message from these busy working adults was that stress reduction techniques needed to capture and maintain intentional focus in order to preclude mentally dealing with current problems and unmet responsibilities. Finally, a third potential limitation to the generalizability of these finding is the composition of the sample. All participants were enrolled in college classes (graduate and undergraduate business) at an urban commuter campus in the United States and virtually all of them worked. As mentioned previously, approximately two-thirds of the samples were Type Al 's or A2's on the Glazer Stress Control Life-Style Questionnaire, one-third were AB's, and there were virtually no Type B 1 's or B2's. To the extent that a target population differs on these dimensions, the results may not generalize. However, one could argue that the inner drive that motivates these individuals to simultaneously work and continue their business education is a characteristic shared by successful managers everywhere. -1Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com

Publication Information: Article Title: Efficacy of Different Techniques for Reducing Stress: a Study among Business Students in the United States. Contributors: Charles J. Hobson - author, Linda Delunas - author. Journal Title: International Journal of Management. Volume: 26. Issue: 2. Publication Year: 2009. Page Number: 186+. 2009 International Journal of Management. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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4.1 ARTICLE SUMMARY

The article Efficacy of Different Techniques for Reducing Stress: a Study among Business Students in the United States aims at exploring the various causes and effects of stress. According to the scholars workload, pace of work, career insecurity, role ambiguity, and perception of lack of control are some of the major reasons that can cause stress for a manager and the manager as a result may suffer physical ilness, lack of productivity, or missed time from work. Time and again there have been researches regarding the causes and effects of stress however very little research has been conducted that explores the usefulness of stress reducing techniques for managers. Greenberg & Baron (2000) have defined stress as a complex pattern of emotional states, physiological reactions, and related thoughts in response to external demands". The scholars argue that organizations should offer its managers and employees with programs that address health and particularly focus upon stress management among other psychological and physical programs for the improvement of the quality of life. Relaxation training is another technique which according to the sholars will help the managers in effective stress management. The stress reduction techniques used in the experiment by the scholars were deep breathing, progresive relation and imagery. The results were generated by analysing the pulse rates of the participants and the final findings indicated 99 percent success of the stress reduction techniques.

4.2 REFLECTIONS
I also agree with the writers Charles J. Hobson and Linda Delunas on the fact that at time of stress, one needs to use certain techniques in order to avoid losing ones mind and staying focused on the task at hand. The techniques such as deep breathing etc. helps you to clear your head and think

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straight. Another technique that helps one in stress reduction is by staing hopeful and optimistic, as such positive feelings and positive thinking can help one gain self-control and focus on the work more efficiently. It also helps one be more creative and productive.

4.3 CONCLUSION
Managers and employees should be given special training regarding stress management as it greatly assists one in leading a healthy, controlled and productive life.

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MOTIVATION STRATEGIES USED IN ORGANIZATIONS

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Employee Motivation.

by Regina Creech Psychologists define motivation as "that which gives impetus to our behavior by arousing, sustaining, and directing it toward the attainment of goals" (Wortman and Loftus, 353). Because I supervise five individuals on a full-time basis and twenty people in the absence of my manager, I am particularly interested in ways to motivate employees. The purpose of this article is to gain knowledge, so that I might assist others in performing their job duties to the best of their ability while maintaining their quality of work life. The work of Abraham Maslow helps explain why the process of motivation is not a simple process that can be administered externally. Rather, according to Maslow, it is the result of needs within everyone that make people act the way they do. Under his hierarchy theory, people are first motivated by the desire to secure first-level needs of food and shelter for survival. After that, security and safety become major motivators, followed by assimilation into social groups where ego needs can be satisfied to the final step of self-actualization (Personnel, 3411-3412). Examination of how this hierarchy fits into present-day society will explain why the tools of motivation have been forced to change from early industrial times. Employees today have basically satisfied their first- and second-level needs as assured levels of income and purchasing power have basically risen above survival requirements. For this reason, pay alone is no longer the universal motivator. Now the workforce is more educated and able to handle creative, mental work. In fact, the employees demand it in order to satisfy the upper-level needs they find

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So what motivates employees? The "rewards" an employee may seek from the employment relationship can have varying effects on attitude and performance. In one instance, they can actually motivate the worker to work better in an effort to achieve personal and company goals if they are assured to be realized through better performance. On the other hand, the "reward" that an employee receives may just tend to avoid dissatisfaction by maintaining an emotional status quo with little or no motivational impact on the employee to perform better. Under the classifications developed by Frederick Herzberg, the former set of influences is called motivators while the latter set of influences are labeled dissatisfiers (Personnel 3406). Dissatisfiers refer to matters that have been used by management in attempts to keep employees happy and, to some extent, avoid unionism. They relate mainly to an employee's maintenance and hygiene needs by providing a work situation that allows employees to perform in as much comfort as possible. Dissatisfiers include pay, physical plant conditions, supervisory behavior, supplemental benefits, company policy and administration, fairness of work rule enforcement, vacations and other matters that are basically peripheral to the actual job of employees. While these job aspects can have some motivational value, it will be of short duration (Personnel 3406). Motivators, on the other hand, are more closely related to the work an employee does and usually function independently of hygiene factors. The aspects of motivational factors are usually a result of the feedback generated between the employee and the job. According to M. Scott Myers, motivational factors can be grouped into categories of growth, achievement, responsibility, and recognition (Personnel 3406). Growth refers to the mental abilities of employees. Mental growth should not be limited to the

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young rising stars within the organization itself. Older employees may still be able to learn new aspects of their job that can make them work smarter. Also, promotion should not be viewed as the only means of growth (though often it is the most tangible), as many employees do not have to move out of their current jobs in order to experience mental enrichment on the job. An employee who is able to learn from the daily interaction with work will know that he is receiving a benefit above that of simple pay, and will be willing to put much more effort into a process that is making him a more interesting and educated person (Personnel 3407). Achievement comes from the sense of accomplishment felt when an employee meets either long-term or short-term goals. Much of the lack of opportunity for achievement comes from the scientific school that seeks to have workers perform simple, repeatable tasks. This type of work ignores the capacity of the worker to think and assumes that employees do not want to face the challenge of more complex tasks (Personnel 3407). There are individual differences in achievement motivation. Some people have a higher need for achievement than others, and they will persist longer and show better performance on whatever tasks they are asked to do. Other factors that help explain the differences in achievement strivings include the expectations that people hold regarding their potential for success or failure, and also the positive or negative value that someone places on success or failure (Wortman and Loftus 376-378). Responsibility denotes a feeling that a person has toward the job, through a commitment that stems from a possessory interest in some aspect of that job. The employee is responsible for some aspect of the job and has the authority to carry it out. Without delegation of authority, the employee is merely an order taker, and the best that can be expected in such a situation is a force of obedient and conforming employees. Given a changing work force that does not hold

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authority in such deep respect as past generations, obedience and conformity will not be sustained for long (Personnel 3407). Recognition should be earned directly through the job rather than be in the form of unexpected gratuities heaped upon the workers by a supervisor with the best intentions of being friendly. The recognition must be related to merit, so that the employee knows efforts are being observed and appreciated by management (Personnel 3408). Whether an employee is concerned with motivational factors or hygiene factors depends upon the workplace environment. It is only in the environment where motivation needs can be fulfilled that employees become motivation seekers. These employees will show positive feelings about their work and experience greater satisfaction and motivation. Therefore, it is the supervisor who becomes a key element in making sure that management affords the motivational opportunities required for workers to be really productive. The supervisor must see that his workers are provided conditions for motivation while at the same time maintenance needs are catered to. This in turn requires planning and competent organization of work so that each employee has the control over his work task needed to foster motivational opportunities (Personnel 3409). POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT One of the most important lessons from B.F. Skinner is the supervisor's role of positive reinforcement, of rewards for jobs well done. Positive reinforcement not only shapes behavior but also teaches and in the process enhances our own self-image (Peters and Waterman 70). Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman, authors of In Search of Excellence, feel their general observation is that most managers know very little about the value of positive reinforcement. Many either appear not to value it at all or consider it undignified or beneath them or not

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macho. The evidence from the excellent companies strongly suggests that managers who feel this way are doing themselves a great disservice. Excellent companies seem not only to know the value of positive reinforcement but how to manage it as well (70). As Skinner notes, the way the reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount. First, it ought to be specific, incorporating as much information content as possible. Second, the reinforcement should have immediacy. Third, the system of feedback mechanisms should take account of achievability. Companies should reward small wins. Good news swapping is common in the excellent companies. The fourth characteristic is that a fair amount of the feedback comes in the form of intangible but meaningful attention from top management. Finally, Skinner asserts that regular reinforcement loses impact because it comes to be expected. Unpredictable and intermittent reinforcements work better. Small rewards are frequently more effective than large ones (Peters and Waterman 71). As a supervisor, I firmly believe in positive reinforcement. As an example, I supervise three employees whose main job function is to talk with consumers either by phone or in person, and to take information regarding a meter set, consumer change, or disconnect. In addition, they have also become very proficient in finding and collecting bad debts from some of the consumers who moved off of our lines and left owing us money. I tease them all of becoming "bloodhounds" in researching and collecting these monies. I had asked each one to write down their figures throughout the year and to turn them in to me at the first of December. Just before Christmas, I surprised these employees in a private meeting with the general manager and my boss, the manager of office services. I wanted upper management to know that these three employees go beyond the call of duty in collecting bad debt before they set up the accounts. I recognized each one individually by providing the exact

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dollar figure for each employee and adding a short story about each one. For instance, one employee had managed to collect from one consumer who left owing uS at three or four accounts and no one, including the collection agency, had been able to catch up with them, but "Delores" did! She had managed to recover a total of $1,204.94 from that one consumer alone. Each employee was presented with a certificate of appreciation, and the employee who collected the most was presented with a "traveling trophy," which was a sandcast bloodhound, to be proudly displayed on her desk until next year. I also had refreshments of cupcakes with dollar signs on them. This meeting gave me the opportunity to let top management know how proud I am of these employees and what an excellent job I felt they were doing. I had the chance to let the managers know that these employees average 1,000 calls per month, which they handle smoothly and efficiently, and that they may be the only contact a consumer will have with the cooperative. It also gave me an opportunity to sneak in a comment on their excellent attendance records and their willingness to help each other when one is on vacation, out sick, etc. I brought my camera and took pictures of them with the two managers, and left feeling so proud of their accomplishments. This may seem like a small gesture, but it proves to me that with just a little time and very little expense, employees can be recognized and rewarded. And it has done wonders for their dispositions - they have become even more motivated than they were before this meeting. Much has been written recently about American laziness and the decline of productivity. But what do American workers think about these problems - and most important, what kinds of solutions do they suggest? A survey of 689 working Americans was conducted randomly by telephone in February 1992

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by TeleNation, an independent survey organization headquartered in Chicago, on behalf of the SITE Foundation, a New York City-based research group. Respondents reflected a crosssection of American workers, with 6% in positions requiring an advanced degree; 22% were managers and administrators; 19% were teachers, registered nurses, technicians, or analysts; 10% were craftspeople or artists; 8% were in sales; 9% were clerical workers; 20% were laborers or in service positions; and 6% were in other positions (Quick 113). The survey revealed that nearly 95% of American workers rank a cash bonus as a meaningful incentive. I was surprised at some of the other things that workers perceived as meaningful. For example. 87% believe that special training is a positive incentive, followed by stock options (85%), a trip to a desirable destination with a spouse or guest (77%), and recognition at a company meeting (76%). Tied at 63% were merchandise incentives and the simple and inexpensive "pat on the back" (Quick 113). The employees also wanted information about the operation of the company, including its plans and projections. They wanted to be a part of the inner workings of the corporation (Quick 121). LEADERS VS. MANAGERS I believe you must be a leader to effectively motivate employees. A lot has been said and written about the lack of leaders in America, but what exactly distinguishes leaders from managers? Managers are typically well-educated, very experienced individuals who develop plans and make decisions in organizations. They are sincere and hard-working and stay abreast of management science by attending seminars, working toward advanced degrees, and reading the best periodicals and management literature. They habitually make use of the latest management strategies and are constantly in the process of implementing some new "tool," such as total

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quality management, quality circles, and the like. Their training and liking for staying current cause managers to be very predictable, because they are sure to be implementing the latest business fad. Managers are acutely aware of "the system," with its rules and procedures, both documented and unwritten (Hill 16). Leaders, on the other hand, are visionaries who do not seek to perpetuate the existing establishment. Leaders are innovative and rely much less than managers on "accepted management techniques." They may consistently violate the chain-of-command concept by going directly to the source of information in the organization, rather than communicating through the company's formal management hierarchy (Hill 16). Managers are firm believers in highly quantitative measurements to determine progress and value. They focus heavily on short-term achievement and black and white results (Hill 16). Leaders believe that simplicity is a major key in successful operations. They tend to communicate simple improvement-oriented operational techniques to all of their people, as opposed to managers, who are prone to teach complex techniques to a few experts in the organization (Hill 16). Effective managers understand that they are paid to plan, organize, staff and control their company's workforce. Quite often, much of their activity is based on the unspoken premise that subordinates, though competent, are never quite motivated or trustworthy enough to make significant progress in the absence of fairly elaborate controls and nudging (Hill 16). Leaders provide well-communicated, clear-cut visions and goals, and work with an attitude of equality with their people, as opposed to one of superiority. Leaders routinely provide very high goals for the people in their organization. They acknowledge high levels of talent and motivation among co-workers, encourage them to be innovative, and trust them in their areas of

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competence. They acknowledge that the real experts in any area are those actually performing the work. They encourage risk taking and accept failures as steps in the process of growth and goal achievement (Hill 16). Managers are typically very busy people and, because of this, they are often inaccessible or have little time to listen to the people they manage. It is not uncommon for them to slowly lose touch with the day-to-day realities of their organization and the people who are involved in really doing the work. They usually appoint several levels of management between themselves and their people to overcome this problem (Hill 17). When profits or results are down, managers seem drawn toward tight-fisted cost reduction and controls to raise profits. They also tend to tell workers what they must do to overcome this problem, and it usually involves working harder or longer, as opposed to soliciting ideas (Hill 17). Leaders see themselves as resources and helpers to the group or organization, as opposed to being the pushers and controllers. Leaders seldom use real or implied threats as a motivator, and they emphasize the benefits of goal achievement to everyone. They are unpredictable, inventive, and imaginative movers and doers whose situation-oriented innovations facilitate the achievement of goals and eliminate or circumvent obstacles. When profits or results are down, leaders usually ask team members for help and look to positive avenues such as building market share or developing innovative new marketing approaches, as opposed to managers' focus on controlling and cutting costs (Hill 17). Managers are intolerant of mistakes in themselves or others. They seldom encourage their subordinates to take significant risks in order to improve operations or grow personally. They typically do not admit mistakes, nor do they feel any obligation to apologize for having made

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Managers believe that crises require them to reestablish who is in charge and to aggressively direct the people in the organization to elicit the performance they want. Still, managers are very conscious of what others think of them and strive to be liked by their subordinates and peers, even though they often conclude that this is impossible because of the conflicting roles of management and workers (Hill 17). Leaders are usually candid in acknowledging their mistakes and are not afraid to openly take whatever steps are necessary to rectify them. They are conscious of what others think about them, but are usually less concerned than managers about whether their subordinates like them. They do, however, value having the respect of subordinates. They often exhibit humility, but are totally confident in the value of their visions and of their ability to lead movement toward them. Leaders have a reputation of maintaining a very high level of personal ethics. They value co-workers and always work toward their best interests. Employees exhibit a fierce loyalty to leaders and will even make personal sacrifices for them (Hill 17). Managers are totally dedicated to adhering to and nurturing the organizational system within which they operate. They often acquire a staff of people reporting to them who possess backgrounds, beliefs, and operational modes similar to their own. Managers ask subordinates for "participative input," but rarely encourage real dissent with their own views (Hill 17). Leaders routinely recognize and reward all their people for effective performance, and team members usually have an accurate impression of how well they are doing (Hill 17). Leaders are often autocrats. However, their autocracy is dissimilar from traditional autocracy as taught in most business schools. Leaders have an autocracy of values in areas such as integrity, consideration for the individual, insistence on the highest achievable level of quality, continuing

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growth, and consideration of the customer and his needs. The leader advocates continual improvement in both people and operations. In a Cooperative environment, there must be leaders. As I stated earlier, leaders are visionaries, and while our cooperative has many leaders, one in particular comes to mind. He has a vision for our cooperative, and that vision is to make certain that we remain the "utility of choice." He has displayed his leadership role in many ways, and that role moves beyond the traditional comfort level. Rather than perform "business as usual" on a daily basis, he has been innovative in taking us down different paths to accomplish his vision. He has shown a healthy attitude by embracing competition. He, along with other staff members and the Board, went through an extensive strategic planning process in which they discussed and agreed upon the competitive forces that our system is facing and, together, made decisions regarding the actions to be implemented. Importantly, the entire organization now understands the competition we face. As a result of this planning, we have offered a rate reduction to our consumers for the second consecutive year. We have begun to refund capital credits to our new consumers, as well as to those who have been on our lines for many years. He continually strives to improve our quality of service in all areas and to stay abreast of the charges to consumers and how those charges might affect our relationship with that consumer. He has used initiative in giving our cooperative a growing, expanded role by developing an industrial park, so that we might add on load to our mostly residential population. He has ensured that our cooperative will have a sufficient power supply by negotiating a long-range contract with our supplier. He recognizes and appreciates the importance of community, for our cooperative must be dedicated to the vitality of the communities in which we serve. He wants us to be seen, not just

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as an organization who provides electric service, but as individuals who comprise the organization and contribute to the welfare of the community. We do this is many ways. Aside from the involvement in the many civic organizations, our employees construct floats and participate in local parades; we contribute to and participate in the United Way and March of Dimes; we send students to Washington, D.C. for the Youth Tour; and we assist in hanging lights at schools and ball fields. It is through his directive that we are allowed to become involved in the community and to establish ourselves as good citizens. He proves himself to be effective by continually using foresight and initiative to make our Cooperative "Number One." Realistically, he knows that he can't do it all by himself, and this is where his leadership abilities come into play once again. All of his employees must understand his vision, and he communicates that vision to them through regular meetings. As he explains his plans for the cooperative, he has an aura of competitiveness and confidence that we can feel and see. We know that this should also be our vision, and that he will let us know when we have done something well to assist in accomplishing this vision. The vision can only be achieved if high standards are established and met by everyone. I am proud to say that we have leaders at our cooperative. Whenever managers displace leaders, according to author F. Cecil Hill, performance and creativity will decline. References Hill, F. Cecil. "Are You a Manager or a Leader?" Industry Week April 1989: 16-17. "Personnel Practices/Communications." Human Resources Management. Chicago: Commerce Clearing House Inc., 1994: 3306-3412. Peters, Thomas J. and Robert H. Waterman, Jr. In Search of Excellence. New York: Warner Books, 1982.

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Quick, Thomas L. "What Motivates Best?" Sales and Marketing Management April 1992: 113121. Wortman, Camille B. and Elizabeth F. Loftus. Psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1992. Regina Creech is the Assistant Manager, Office Services at Cuivre River Electric in Troy, Missouri. She supervises five employees, manages the daily activity of cooperative funds and serves as Wellness Coordinator. She possesses an associate degree in business from Missouri Baptist College and is working toward her bachelor of science degree in business administration. Regina completed the NRECA Supervisory Training Courses in 1993. She has worked 20 years for Cuivre River, nine of those in her current position. Cuivre River Electric is currently the largest cooperative in Missouri, serving more than 35,000 consumers spanning a four-county area. In addition to the main office in Troy, the cooperative has two branch offices located in Lake Saint Louis and Harvester. -1Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com

Publication Information: Article Title: Employee Motivation. Contributors: Regina Creech - author. Journal Title: Management Quarterly. Volume: 36. Issue: 2. Publication Year: 1995. Page Number: 33+. COPYRIGHT 1995 National Rural Electric Cooperative Association; COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group

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5.1 ARTICLE SUMMARY

The article chosen for reviewing the importance of motivation is Employee

Motivation written by Regina Creech. It is a widely accepted fact that motivated employees are the backbone of any organization because employee engagement in its work and the quality of his overall performance is directly proportional to the degree to which he or she is motivated. With the growing passage of time, employers and HR practitioners around the world have realized the significance of motivating employees and are employing different strategies to encourage employees to work harder. The author has provided four categories of motivational factors; growth, recognition, responsibility and achievement. Growth refers to developing cognitive abilities of employees by provided constant feedback and vocational training. Recognition represents the set of techniques that are used to appreciate a worker on a job well done whereas responsibility refers to motivating an individual by considering him credible enough to handle high level positions.

5.2 REFLECTIONS
Numerous researches have been carried out to determine the effect of motivated employees on an organizations overall performance and productivity. It is believed that the key to effective operations and desired level of productivity and success heavily relies upon the involvement of team members and this engagement with work can only be obtained if innovative strategies are used to encourage and motive workers. Managers have to take into account different ways of motivating employees at each organizational level. For instance, in the first phase of any project, clear-cut and straight communication about the short and long term goals of the project would clarify the employees about what is expected of them and would serve as an encouragement to

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perform up to the expectation. Similarly, on a larger scale, techniques such as appreciation, financial rewards, bonuses, dinners, passes to movies, clubs or theme parks, trainings, are some of the ways to boost employee morale. In an organization where employees are actively involved and highly motivated, leaders frequently recognize and reward their talents and are open to communication.

5.3 CONCLUSION
For a business firm to achieve operational efficiency and its business goals, it is extremely vital to have a motivated workforce.

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Works Cited
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