How are we able to create and maintain cooperation in the workplace? And what if cooperation can lead to more harm than good? In her dissertation, Sayoni Santara calls organisational cooperation ‘a fragile achievement,’ because it only holds if employees at the micro, structural, and cultural levels work together to reinforce an organisation’s shared purpose and guiding principles.
How organisations collapse
Sayoni’s research found that one of the reasons organisations break down is cultural decay, which occurs when an organisation ‘has unsustainable practices that lead to its own collapse.’ Examples of cultural decay are information silos, individualism, lack of reciprocity, dishonesty, and especially when a business fails to uphold its guiding principles. This sort of cultural erosion can result in what Sayoni calls complicit cooperation – when employees and managers jointly work toward ethically questionable, if not illegal, business practices – and ultimately contribute to organisational collapse.
This is what happened during the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-8. Sayoni analysed bankers’ accounts of the leadup to the economic downturn, and found that the industry’s failure wasn’t because of cooperational collapse, but changes in organisational structure. Banks like Goldman Sachs and Layman Brothers hired new leaders, began to employ more salespeople (rather than bankers with ethical training), and paid staff on a target instead of monthly basis. ‘I had hoped to find it was a lack of cooperation that led to the Crisis, but it was really because of cultural decay. The banks lost their guiding principles and became short-term oriented.’
‘Cooperation can vary in its quality, stability, and direction depending on an organisation’s culture and the people involved. Cooperation can be present, and backfire at the same time. That is, people can keep working together while also contributing to harmful outcomes.’
Culture vs structure
Sayoni is curious about what motivates people to work together within organisations: is it the formal structures, or does culture have something to do with it? Her research found that good management rests less on formal rules than on the relationships between employees. In fact, it is often the case that employees find good workplace culture more important than traditional management reward strategies like bonus packages and work flexibility. This is because people tend to value the relational side of work rather than formal organisational structures.
From her interviews conducted with employees, Sayoni found that people want to work in organisations where leaders and colleagues are approachable and accountable, seniors have an open-door policy, and there are social outings and bonding activities. But above all, Sayoni argues, ‘People are motivated to cooperate by having a strong sense of a guiding cause that’s regularly reinforced. They like to be reminded of what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.’ However, in organisations that predominately work online or for new teams that don’t already have a guiding cause or culture, cooperation is held together by strong organisational structures.
Ultimately, Sayoni notes that cooperation is sustainable only if there’s ‘constant support from the organisation – it has to regularly invest in ensuring that the employees can cooperate.’
You can read more about Sayoni’s dissertation, “A Fragile Achievement: The Production, Sustainability, and Complicity of Cooperation in Organizations,” here.
