Work and Quality of Life : Ethical Practices in Organizations

Employees have personal responsibilities as well as responsibilities to their employers. They also have rights. In order to maintain their well-being, employees need opportunities to resolve conflicting obligations. Employees are often torn between the ethical obligations to fulfill both their work and non-work roles, to respect and be respected by their employers and coworkers, to be responsible to the organization while the organization is reciprocally responsible to them, to be afforded some degree of autonomy at work while attending to collaborative goals, to work within a climate of mutual employee-management trust, and to voice opinions about work policies, processes and conditions without fear of retribution. Humanistic organizations can recognize conflicts created by the work environment and provide opportunities to resolve or minimize them.

This handbook empirically documents the dilemmas that result from responsibility-based conflicts. The book is organized by sources of dilemmas that fall into three major categories: individual, organizational (internal policies and procedures), and cultural (social forces external to the organization), including an introduction and a final integration of the many ways in which organizations can contribute to positive employee health and well-being.

This book is aimed at both academicians and practitioners who are interested in how interventions that stem from industrial and organizational psychology may address ethical dilemmas commonly faced by employees.

NORA P. REILLY is an organizational social psychologist (Ph.D., Dartmouth, 1985), Professor of Psychology, and Associate Dean of the College of Graduate and Professional Studies at Radford University in Virginia, US. She has published in the areas of quality of work life, the behavioral expression of commitment, perceptions of/reactions to stigmatizing conditions in the workplace and the self-regulation of affect in such outlets as The Journal of Vocational Behavior, Motivation and Emotion, Journal of Business and Psychology, Applied Research in Quality of Life, and The Academy of Management Journal, as well as serving on several editorial boards.   Her teaching interests range from organizational psychology, applied social psychology, psychometrics, methodology, statistics and organization development.  She has served as the coordinator of the master’s program in industrial and organizational psychology at Radford as well as in numerous internal governance positions, including president of the faculty senate.  She is currently responsible for graduate academic course and program reviews as well as the administration of graduate assistantships at Radford.  She is a member of several professional organizations, including the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, where she served on the Education and Training Committee.  Finally, she is an active OD consultant, primarily in the area of healthcare.  She may be reached at nreilly@radford.edu.

M. JOSEPH SIRGY is a management psychologist (Ph.D., U/Massachusetts, 1979),Professor of Marketing, and Virginia Real estate Research Fellow at VirginiaPolytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). He has publishedextensively in the area of consumer behavior, marketing/quality-of-life, andbusiness ethics. He is the author/editor of many books related to consumerbehavior, marketing communications, marketing and society, and quality of life.

He co-founded the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS) in1995 and is currently serving as its Executive Director. In 1998, he received theDistinguished Fellow Award from ISQOLS. In 2003, ISQOLS honored him as theDistinguished QOL Researcher for research excellence and a record of lifetimeachievement in QOL research. He also served as President of the Academy ofMarketing Science from which he received the Distinguished Fellow Award in

the early 1990’s and the Harold Berkman Service Award in 2007 (lifetimeachievement award for serving the marketing professoriate). In the early 2000’s,he helped co-found the Macromarketing Society and the Community IndicatorsConsortium and currently is serving as a board member of these twoprofessional associations. Furthermore, he is the current editor of the QOLsection in the Journal of Macromarketingand the editor-in-chief of Applied Researchin Quality of Life. He received the Virginia Tech’s Pamplin Teaching ExcellenceAward/Holtzman Outstanding Educator Award and University Certificate ofTeaching Excellence in 2008. In 2010, ISQOLS honored him for excellence andlife-time time service to the society. Also, in 2010 he won the Best Paper Award inthe Journal of Happiness Studies.

C. ALLEN GORMAN is the coordinator of the I/O Psychology Master’s program at Radford University in Radford, VA. Allen received his B.A. in Psychology from the University of Georgia, his Master’s in I/O Psychology from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and his PhD in I/O Psychology from the University of Tennessee. His research on performance appraisal, training, and individual differences in work performance has been published in journals such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, the Journal of Vocational Behavior, and Performance Improvement Quarterly. Allen is a member of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the American Psychological Association, the Academy of Management, and the Society for Human Resource Management.