Negative Organizations and [Negative] Powerful Relationships and How They Work against Innovation—Perspectives from Millennials, Generation Z and Other Experts

Abstract

Negative organizations, where powerful people manage to keep a negative strategy in place, one which does not benefit the firm but perpetuates their power, is a reality discussed herein. Positive organizations, led by positive leaders who do not feel threatened by brilliant employees who have brilliant ideas, may be less prominent than we think and should not be taken for granted. Following thirty years of working in organizations, both large and small, the author has come to realize that the status quo tends to be very strong, and that innovating and disrupting that balance is not only dangerous but seldom succeeds. More research is necessary in this field to prove this theory right. This article aims to point readers and researchers in the right direction and to challenge one to think just how negative organizations may be. The article is based on the experience of the author; on a look at the case of Nokia (the former handheld mobile phone division), seen to be a negative organization; as well as on in-depth personal interviews with three experts (a purposive sample) on the topic of positive versus negative organizations; and, finally, the results of two surveys (n = 116—millennials; and n = 115—Generation Z) are shared. A total of 94.8% of the Generation Z respondents (109 respondents in total) believe negative organizations to exist (where the status quo may prevail over innovative individuals and innovation to the detriment of the global organizational strategy), which is seen to be very encouraging for this research study.

1. Introduction

“It is critical to understand both the multifaceted nature of workplace politics and its potential detrimental effects.”

[1] (pp. 1900–1901).

In addition, “our research underscores the importance of recognizing the negative consequences of different facets of organizational politics, and more importantly, acting upon them.” [1] (p.1900). The specific negative consequence, namely, a lack of innovation, is not focused on in much of the previous literature, as resulting from organizational political processes; hence, there is a gap in the literature which we seek to fill.

The objective of this article is to answer the following research questions: What is a negative organization? Do negative organizations exist? We feel that this concept, as we see it, needs to be clarified. Negative organizations are a relatively novel concept, are not talked about much, and are ones in which the status quo and the powerful relationships in the organization triumph over disruptors and innovators. The danger of that is that such firms will lose competitiveness, which may lead to their demise. Innovation is the basis of all strategy, and, according to Michael Porter, there is no strategy without innovation: “As I stress in my book The Competitive Advantage of Nations, the ability to sustain an advantage from cheap labor or even from economies of scale–these are the old paradigms. These paradigms are being superseded. Today, the only way to have an advantage is through innovation.” (Michael Porter as quoted in an interview [2]).

So, eliminating innovators or disregarding them, or, stated another way—the existence of anti-innovators in the organizational context—is very dangerous for the future of firms.

Let us be reminded that marketing innovation is also a form of innovation, which, according to interviewee João Ranito, Apple is very good at. Product innovation is not the only type of innovation in industry today. Interviewee Pedro Pereira also emphasized how, where he currently works, marketing innovation is very important and prominent and where the firm spends many millions of euros per year—on innovative TV adverts and on sponsoring certain people and initiatives.

The book on negative organizations [3] aims to deal with the negative organization problem in more depth and how, especially in relationship cultures, such as is found in Portugal [4], the status quo may triumph over innovation, in which case the firm may only survive due to subsidies and to other artificial props. Over time, they are, however, not sustainable. This article seeks to add to the debate and to reach more readers than perhaps a book might (which is not present on the major social science databases such as Scopus but instead only on commercial online platforms).

The remainder of the article is organized as follows: a look at the literature comes next; a methodology section; a case study section on Nokia and how it is seen to have been a negative organization; then, a discussion of the interview results and surveys follow; and, finally, a conclusion section and suggestions for future research section precede the references at the end of the article.

2. A Look at Gaps in the Literature Regarding Negative and Positive Organizations

“Politics is one of the most pervasive, yet negative attributes of modern workplaces”

[1] (p. 1900); see also [5].

The topic of the study herein is to investigate further how negative organizational political climates are seen to inhibit innovation in what we call negative organizations, where the global firm strategy is not the priority, but organizational relationships and the status quo are.

A search on the major database Scopus on 26 October 2022 using the key terms “negative organization” OR “negative organisation” (in the abstract, title and keywords) revealed nine documents. The first article (on positive and negative narcissism) dates back to 2002 [6], and the last article (on negative organization-related career shocks) is from 2021 [7]. One article was irrelevant and was thus discarded, leaving eight articles on the topic of negative organizations. The most relevant article was by [8] and was on the perceptions of organizational politics, which may lead to positive (challenge) or negative (hindrance) views of organizational politics and subsequent engagement or disengagement by employees. Hence, negative organizational politics have a negative outcome for the organization, as employees decrease their engagement, narrow the focus of their engagement or disengage. Both problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies are followed. These reactions, however, are beneficial to the employee and lead to their “positive well-being” [8] rather than causing them to try to fight a difficult political battle against the status quo.

A search on the major database Scopus on 26 October 2022 using the key terms “positive organization” OR “positive organisation” (in the abstract, title and keywords) revealed 86 documents; hence, this topic has attracted much more attention by scholars than the topic of negative organizations. The first such article dates back to 1975 (on organizational climate) [9]. The most recent article was published in 2022 (on employee emotional intelligence, organizational citizen behavior and job performance) [10].

A search on the major database Scopus on 22 November 2022 using the key terms “innovation” AND “negative” AND “politics” AND “organizations” OR “organisations” (in the abstract, title and keywords) revealed 32 documents. A strategic mismatch is seen to exist between both organizational politics and creative propensity [11]. The literature indicates that “negatively perceived organizational politics appears to have a negative relationship with not only creative propensity but also job satisfaction and organizational commitment.” [11] (p.223). The above study does seek to fill a gap in the literature regarding politics and innovation, as identified in the source of the following quote: “In the private, non-profit and public sectors innovation is promoted and considered adaptive, but little evaluation of its impacts or fate has been done.” [12]. The publication source of the following quote does the same, which emphasizes the role of organizational political climate: “A strongly negative organizational political climate negatively moderated the effect of emotional intelligence on innovative process engagement [...]. These results support the need to strengthen the management of employees’ emotions; to build a new ecology of organizational politics in China (e.g., offering fair pay and promotions); and to promote coworker relationships that are characterized by openness, transparency, and integrity, to promote innovation among employees.” [13]. On the other hand, and yet further, [14] (p. 187) “considers how employees’ Perceived Organizational Compliance-defined as their beliefs that the organizational climate stifles change and values compliance with the status quo—reduce their trust in top management”—an essentially negative relationship. Albeit, “this might be buffered by access to two personal resources that support organizational change: openness to experience and affective commitment to change” [14] (p. 187). What is openness to experience? “Openness to experience means that employees are motivated to find creative ways to deal with negative organizational climates, such as those that do not grant them room to take personal initiative” [14] (p. 194). This is important. What is seen as being essentially detrimental (and near impossible for some) is the “yea-saying climate” [14] (p. 194), whereby one is expected to agree with superiors and not “make waves”. Indeed, employees do interpret an organizational culture of compliance as being counterproductive and, furthermore, as being disrespectful [15].

Clearly, according to the literature, working in organizations is complex—particularly for those who are innovative and who show initiative. The effect of having to comply with the status quo, or else suffer the consequences, can be remedied, however, if there is a commitment to change and the necessary motivation to get around the problem (creatively and by adopting new personal/organizational tactics) while “maintaining positive relationships between employees and organizational authorities” [14] (p. 201) in the process. We hope the message to be one of hope upon reading this article.

3. Methodology

This article communicates its findings via a qualitative and quantitative methodology (a mixed method) [16]. A mixed-methods study may be useful to get across little-known concepts in an exploratory study.

Aside from a look at the literature, this article was written based on the author’s [autoethnographic] experience [17] (including over 15 years working in industry before becoming an academic), also to be seen in [3]; it was written based on an analysis of the Nokia case and related literature; and it was also written based on in-depth interviews (with an interview script) [16,18] (on 18 October 2022; 3 November 2022; and on 6 November 2022) with a manager, entrepreneur and former senior manager (João Ranito) at a major technology company in Portugal (Novabase), as well as with a former senior manager in an SME (small and medium enterprise) and current middle manager (the team leader of a team of 13) in a large telecommunications firm (Pedro Pereira, who has also had an international career); finally, Emídio Gomes was interviewed, a full professor (University of Porto), an entrepreneur, a senior manager and administrator of large firms, and former government-related official and current Rector of UTAD—Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro—a major public university in Portugal (a purposive sample whereby the informants were chosen for their knowledge on the subject) [16]. The interviews lasted for one hour and 16 min (João Ranito), over half an hour (Pedro Pereira) and for 30 min (Emídio Gomes) and were all audio-recorded, with permission. After the interview with João Ranito took place, certain issues and concepts were further clarified via e-mail and telephone. The interviewees were chosen because they were familiar with the term described herein—negative organization—having all read the introductory text [3]. The interviewees also have relevant work experience in what we call positive organizations as well as in negative organizations, hence bringing together a relevant perspective to help us communicate our vision. Data saturation—“where additional data collection provides few if any new insights into the research question and objectives” [16] (p. 165)—was considered to be reached in this study, the purpose of which was to define negative organizations (do they exist?) and discuss the powerful [negative] relationships that may be in place and working against innovation (and the global strategy of the firm). Furthermore, the process of triangulation was performed to see whether the views of the interview respondents which were shared did in fact correspond to the truth in each case (to determine whether the research findings are credible) [16]. This was verified through a multitude of interactions (involving direct observation and the reading of media and company reports) before and after the formal interviews with the respondents. Additionally, a thematic analysis (a form of data coding or data categorizing) [16,18] was performed on the interview data.

Finally, a recent survey conducted by the author involving millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) [19] was analyzed herein (n = 116), where inferential statistics were conducted to calculate the chi-square statistic (a statistically significant association was found at the 1% level) [20]. Another survey involving Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012) [19] was also conducted (n = 115) and is also discussed herein (using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis). The survey samples involved students—much as Nobel Laureate Richard Thaler speaks about in [21], (pp. 38–39) “Then they [Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman’s research team] would check by asking subjects, typically students... I found the idea that you could just ask people questions and take their answers seriously to be quite liberating.” As [22] (p. 201) also states, “it is relatively common for business researchers to make use of the opportunities they have [...] when carrying out research”—to draw a sample from organizations they have access to. Of note is that the survey respondents were previously versed upon the concept and context of negative organizations and innovation so as to then be able to give their perspective on the subject in the survey.

Therefore, the article follows a mixed methodology and aims to clarify and discuss the label “negative organization”, which is in the title of the article.

4. The Case of Nokia

Picture a major firm, a market leader, which has been innovating but where those innovations are not reaching the market as they should. As those innovations would mean a change in strategy and in who has power in the organization, certain people will just not allow for that change to occur and for their losing power. Is this what happened at Nokia? Apparently so. The dumbphone continued to triumph (internally, at Nokia) over the smartphone until it was too late. Nokia dominated the market for fourteen years [23] until the iPhone 1 was launched by Apple, in 2007, and the rest is history. A certain inability to adapt to the new technological era was noted at Nokia back then which it was unable to deal with [23,24]. Albeit, Nokia had been ahead in the smartphone race for some time but just did not capitalize on it as it should have. An internal war at Nokia is seen to have existed, with the dumbphone devices’ division winning, which, with its power (indeed, still selling billions of euros in dumbphones), “crushed” the emerging smartphone division (which had a virtually nonexistent market, worth ”zero” euros in the beginning, as happens with all radical innovations, and which is hard to grow, given that there are no competitors helping to develop the market, but which Apple is able to do well). Indeed, Nokia was even more advanced than Apple [25], technologically speaking, toward the end of the 20th century, as the following passage shows:

“More than seven years before Apple Inc. rolled out the iPhone, the Nokia team showed a phone with a color touch screen set above a single button. The device was shown locating a restaurant, playing a racing game and ordering lipstick. In the late 1990s, Nokia secretly developed another alluring product: a tablet computer with a wireless connection and touch screen–all features today of the hot-selling Apple iPad”

[25].

In fact, consumers saw neither of the devices mentioned above. Nokia’s smartphone and its tablet, which [25] talks about, were what they called “casualties” of an organizational culture that spent a lot of money on research and development but ended up missing opportunities to bring the produced innovation to market.

Nokia did not have a problem linked to a lack of innovation nor linked to a lack of researchers and engineers capable of producing radical innovation. The problem was something else, and perhaps something common when it comes to radical innovation related to the creation of a product line distinct from the company’s “reigning” product line. Did the status quo triumph? The data indicate that it did, which led to the sale of the Nokia hand-held mobile telephone division to Microsoft (for EUR 6.5 billion, in 2014), which led to a second sale as the division still continued to underperform (a sale for “only” EUR 320 million, thus at a tremendous loss to Microsoft, arguably turning out to be the worst deal in Microsoft’s history) [26,27].

5. Discussion of the Interview Results

“Of course, negative organizations exist, and the status quo can impose itself and prevail over innovation.”

(interviewee Pedro Pereira).

“Negative organizations are a reality. Often organizations, instead of focusing on global strategies, which aim for improvement and success, also self-annihilate by looking inward and expending energy in trying to annihilate internal rivals and their support systems; which will be greatly reflected in the future performance of organizations. Therefore, according to this dimension, we can admit clearly that, unfortunately, negative organizations are a fact and a reality.”

(interviewee Emídio Gomes).

As interviewee, entrepreneur, manager and former senior leader at a major technology firm in Portugal, João Ranito, stated, a negative firm is:

“... an organisation that... lives in the present, mortgages the future, does not want to improve, does not distribute its “results” evenly among its stakeholders.

There are as many types of negative companies as there are combinations of neglecting stakeholders. For example, a company that “diverts” all its results to shareholders tends to treat its employees worse and to enter a negative spiral of high turnover.

But a company that ignores shareholder rewards, diverting all the results to the employees, will find it difficult to invest, which takes away agility and growth potential, which will be bad for the employees in the long run.

A borderline case is the Civil Service, which long ago forgot its customers, becoming (almost) only an organisation that guarantees jobs to people (at all levels...).

By the way, it is easy (and simplistic) to look at the negativity or positivity of an organisation from the employees’ point of view, and to classify an organisation as “positive” when it focuses on its employees.

The example of the Civil Service (whose reason for existence, in a large percentage, are its employees) is paradigmatic of how this vision is narrow, and the positive company takes into account ALL its stakeholders (even Planet Earth...).”

So, living “in the present” (perpetuating the status quo) may define a negative organization. Mortgaging the future, by discouraging, or eliminating, for example, brilliant innovators, is also a sign of a negative organization.

Ref. [28] shared the perspective that a sustainable strategy will depend on the vision articulated and on the challenging and inspirational goals set (preferably “big, hairy, audacious goals”). Firms should not part with these, or with their core ideology [29], or they may fail very quickly.

According to interviewee Pedro Pereira:

“The environment involves creativity. In a “heavy” environment you will not have much chance to innovate. You will be: “rowing against the tide”. People who try to innovate in a negative organization are looked upon differently, depreciatively. They are set aside, ostrasized, thought to be crazy and not contributing to the firm...”.

What is an organizational environment? It is made up of resources (tangible and intangible) and capabilities organized so as to capture value [30]. One hopes that innovating will not involve “rowing against the tide”, internally. External competition (the external environment) is strong enough and requires internal unity to contend with it [29,31].

According to interviewee Emídio Gomes:

“Though not formally being like this, small power groups often exist in organizations, some more hidden than others (as mentioned, they are formally not very visible), but are power groups which are felt in operational terms, and that considerably condition global performance; there is clearly a level of negative organization in institutions; more or less visible, according to their dimension; and as a function of their situation and location [...] which, when added up, cause damage to the global strategy.”

On the other hand, according to interviewee João Ranito, a positive organization is:

“... an organisation that acts in order to promote its own growth and sustainability and that knows how to balance the distribution of its “results” among its main stakeholders: customers, employees, shareholders and partners, safeguarding the resources necessary for growth. It is a company that sees itself in the future and knows how to moderate the temptations to mortgage it for a better, or easier, present.”

Well, in fact, this latter definition of a positive organization fits our purpose very well. The statement “... a company that sees itself in the future, and knows how to moderate the temptations to mortgage it for a better, or easier, present” means that a negative organization may indeed prefer the present status quo over more innovative alternatives—if it means that power is maintained as is so desired. That is the temptation. One needs to have a vision for the future of the firm and of the market and to move toward that vision.

According to interviewee Pedro Pereira:

“In a positive firm there is a meritocracy, the best collaborator wins, gets promoted... In a positive firm those who contribute more to the firm with innovative ideas and think outside-the-box get recognized for that, and not ostrasized for it and put aside for doing good things. Those who do not align with “the system” of a firm that functions badly [are good employees].”

Emídio Gomes shared, on the other hand, on the topic of positive organizations, that:

“Positive organizations exist. The great message which has to be passed is that these small power groups should be fought, with serenity, but with firmness, so that they do not superimpose themselves too much on the performance of the group, which has to be positive. Otherwise, it will be the organization which will be badly affected over time. When the power of the negative organization excessively overlays the global group, it is the organization and institution that will suffer. Often there are not more dramatic consequences from the point of view of the institution itself when we are witnessing some protection in the public sector; contrarily, when we are subject to [free] market forces, the organization may disappear.”

Hence, powerful relationships may get the better of a firm. Strategy is, in essence, defined by people, at this moment in time, until artificial intelligence takes over that task. Until then, all strategy will continue to be a political issue—decided by humans who are fallible and highly irrational—according to the work of Amos Tversky, Daniel Kahneman and Richard Thaler. Indeed, behavioral economics is the triumph over the optimizing homo economicus, who may just not exist (at least, as we see them, they are definitely not the norm or mainstream).

Regarding the influence of innovation for a firm’s competitiveness, João Ranito stated:

“My view of the business market is very “Darwinian”. The most “competitive” companies are the most “adapted”, and adaptation implies change, whenever the ecosystem changes. For a certain company, change is always innovating, even when the change has already been made by other companies, and it is the last to change. So, from the company’s point of view, change is critical to keep up with the market (and to compete), and by definition, innovating is also, even if they are small changes in processes, for example locally optimising something (what is usually called Incremental Innovation or Continuous Improvement).

But, even if it is an innovative company, it is important to understand that the mix of betting on innovation (disruption vs. optimisation) can vary a lot according to the life cycle of the company and the market.

At one extreme, we have companies that are founded to take advantage of a potentially disruptive innovation. At this extreme, the answer is obvious...

At the other extreme, we have a mature company in a mature market. In this case, and in the short term, the influence of disruptive innovation is low, and the focus tends to be on local process optimisation (and which is not, today, typically classified as Innovation, being rather classified as Continuous Improvement and under the remit of Quality, whose main attribution is to ensure that the defined processes are executed according to tolerances and to produce evidence of this...).”

Hence, yes, innovation is essential, but the centrality of its role will vary, according to interviewee João Ranito. As stated herein, and by João Ranito, we perceive organizations to perhaps become more negative as they mature, a time at which optimization may prevail as an organizational path over disruption. Innovation ceases to be the core, and continuous improvement does instead. If the next best [radical] product line is put aside due to a desire to optimize and improve incrementally, that decision may be seen to be negative, by our standards, and may lead to the demise of the firm—especially in technology markets.

According to interviewee Pedro Pereira, large firms have more bureaucracy, internal processes and rules, and innovating is therefore more difficult than in smaller firms and in startups. However, innovation is present in all good firms; they all need it, big or small. Currently working in a large firm, Pedro stated that where he works, resources for innovation are channeled to certain departments which are charged with coming up with new products and services. Therefore, innovation is not widespread to all departments, in his view. Having worked in both large and small firms, Pedro prefers large firms, despite the added bureaucracy, as, according to his experience, there is less negativity in large firms and less negative politics—especially when compared to family-owned and family-run firms.

As regards organizational culture—“The collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another.” [32] (p. 9)—Pedro Pereira stated that:

“Organizational culture is very important. You feel it straight away in any firm you enter. An individual with experience notices the organizational culture right away. It is “in the air”. It is hard to explain in words. There is no need to speak to a lot of people... it is a question of seeing the environment, seeing how people look. Then by talking to certain people you will know. You do not need to ask a lot of questions to learn about the environment of a firm. A firm environment involves a lot of things–promotions, meritocracy, career advancement...”

The above confirms the literature on organizational culture. Namely, that organizational culture is “The pattern of beliefs, values and learned ways of coping with experience that have developed during the course of an organization’s history, and which tend to be manifested in its material arrangements and in the behaviours of its members.” [33] (p. 32). Organizational cultures may turn negative, playing against innovators, in negative firms. The status quo may prevail to the detriment of the organization.

According to interviewee Emídio Gomes, regarding organizational culture:

“It is very, very difficult for a leader to have an effect on the organizational culture, we are talking about only marginal gains. Marginal and temporary gains, as there is always an organizational culture installed with some resistance to change. It is curious that people say, they complain, that they want and like change. They like that. Albeit when they are confronted with specific change decisions, they resist, in a very accentuated way. There is an enormous resistance to change. Everywhere, but especially in Portugal, where it is very evident. In Portugal there are little options and ways to change situations... The resistance to change here is very strong and that resistance is very cultural, very strong.”

In effect, the literature is very clear that an organizational culture may take 25 years to change, and that a given national culture may take 50 to 100 years to change [32], as it is a very stable variable and concept, over time; and more so in Portugal, where we witness one of the most change-averse cultures in the world [32]. Hence, the status quo is predicted to be stronger in Portugal (and Greece, another very change-averse country [32]) than in other countries.

Table 1. A thematic analysis of the interviews.

Theme (x 5)	Evidence from the Interviews
Negative organization	“Negative organizations are a reality. Often organizations, instead of focusing on global strategies, which aim for improvement and success, also self-annihilate by looking inward and expending energy in trying to annihilate internal rivals and their support systems; which will be greatly reflected in the future performance of organizations.” (Emídio Gomes). “Of course, negative organizations exist, and the status quo can impose itself and prevail over innovation.” (Pedro Pereira).
Positive organization	“... an organization that acts in order to promote its own growth and sustainability... It is a company that sees itself in the future and knows how to moderate the temptations to mortgage it for a better, or easier, present.” (João Ranito). “In a positive firm there is a meritocracy, the best collaborator wins, gets promoted...” (Pedro Pereira).
Organizational culture	“The influence of organizational culture as regards competitiveness is total. A company’s culture determines its competitive potential, as it also determines the comfortable balance point between ‘agility’ and ‘optimization’” (João Ranito).
Innovation	Let us be reminded that marketing innovation is also a form of innovation, which Apple is very good at, according to interviewee João Ranito. Product innovation is not the only type of innovation in industry today.
Resistance to change	“... there is always an organizational culture installed with some resistance to change. It is curious that people say, they complain, that they want and like change. They like that. Albeit when they are confronted with specific change decisions, they resist, in a very accentuated way... Everywhere, but especially in Portugal, where it is very evident. In Portugal there are little options and ways to change situations...” (Emídio Gomes).

summarizes the interview research findings, whereby a thematic analysis was performed (five themes were identified).

6. A Survey on Negative and Positive Organizations Involving Millennials

Recent research by the author on millennials points out, for example, that most individuals (54.31%) see organizations as being negative (

Table 2. Results of a survey and to the question “do you see organisations as negative or positive?” [3].

Are Organisations Negative or Positive?	Organiz ations are Negative	Organizations are Positive	There are Negative and Positive Organizations	Total
	63 (54.31%)	35 (30.17%)	18 (15.52%)	116

; see also [3]). Women, in particular, see organizations as being more negative than men (

Table 3. Results according to gender and regarding how respondents see organizations [3].

	Negative	Positive	Both	Total
Men	18	25	10	53
Women	45	10	8	63
Total	63	35	18	116

; see also [3]).

A chi-square test (

Table 4. Chi-square calculations showing that a relationship exists between gender and how they see organizations [3].

O	E	(O − E)	(O − E)2	(O − E)2/E
18	28.78	−10.78	116.21	4.038
25	15.99	9.01	81.18	5.077
10	8.22	1.78	3.17	0.386
45	34.22	10.78	116.21	3.396
10	19.01	−9.01	81.18	4.27
8	9.78	−1.78	3.17	0.324
			Sum	17.491

; see also [3]) showed that, at the 1% significance level, there is an apparent association between gender and seeing organizations as being positive or negative [3]. The null hypothesis was rejected.

This we attribute to gender inequality and to the fact that, in Portugal at least, most of the main and good jobs belong to men (prime minister, president of the republic, president of the supreme court of justice, etc.), especially including in organizations (e.g., CEO positions in large public-listed companies, presidents of football clubs, city mayors, etc.). Hence, we may conclude that female innovators realize they stand even less of a chance than their male counterparts in organizations and when up against the powerful status quo. We hope this will change.

7. A Survey on Negative and Positive Organizations Involving Generation Z

A second survey, with Generation Z, is discussed herein. The survey questions of this second survey (performed using Google Forms and accessible in November 2022) are in Appendix A—Annex I.

The respondents were mainly students at the master’s level (80.9%) or student workers (16.5%) (question 4) (Figure 1).

The respondents were 57.4% male and 42.6% female (question 3) (Figure 2). Practically 95% of the respondents (109 respondents in total) believe negative organizations to exist (where the status quo may prevail over innovative individuals and innovation to the detriment of the global organizational strategy) (question 8) (Figure 3), which is seen to be very encouraging for this research study. Another 18% currently work or study in a negative organization (question 10) (Figure 4). A total of 97% of the respondents would rather work in a positive organization than in a negative one (question 12) (Figure 5). Over 84% of the survey respondents are Portuguese (Figure 6). Additionally, 67% of the respondents perceive that in relationship cultures (cultures based on friends and a network versus transaction cultures, which are based on transactions rather than on life-long loyalty and trust), negative organizations will be more numerous (question 13). Close to 42% of the respondents feel comfortable working or studying where they need to manage the powerful relationships that govern the organization (i.e., in a negative organization) (question 14) (Figure 7). This may be due to the fact that 84% of the sample is Portuguese (where there is a relationship culture) (question 2 on nationality) (Figure 6).

There was also a qualitative question (question 15): How may one make a negative organization more positive (more based on a meritocracy and where innovation is not stifled)? Very interesting answers included:

- “Formal evaluation (3/6/12 months) and meetings within departments every once in a while where everybody can give and discuss new ideas.”

- “Improve peoples’ skills via training courses and make better evaluations of people’s work using more metrics, ideally by people outside of the team. Have a more competitive environment, where people are promoted based on work completed and ones’ skills.”

- “Turn the workplace into a more impersonal space.”

- “Value people for what they are worth and not due to relationships.”

- “I deeply believe the problem comes from the bottom, people tend not to sell themselves to their bosses and just live their whole work lives complaining about their boss who won’t give them a promotion. There is meritocracy, it is simply not given to those who don’t seek it.”

- “Working hard and demonstrating that quality of work can’t be bought with amenities. By being the best at what I do, valuing my time by not letting the status quo get in the way of an objective I find to be optimal.”

- “Periodical testing of employees.”

- “Make the hierarchy more horizontal, make decisions through collective discussion, reward the workers fairly (stop wage theft).”

- “Rewards for good performance at work.”

- “Don’t promote people without hard skills.”

- “It has to be someone in the top ranks to change something. They have to value innovation and hard work more than relationships.”

- “Lower micromanagement more and let workers be more autonomous.”

- “If you are in a position of power focus on picking the right people for the job rather than the ones you have a better relation with.”

- “Organizations may start losing money if they do not get up to date and start revolutionizing. This may only happen in societies where oligarchies are not the norm.”

- “An external person (impartial) do the evaluation of the team and promote based on that evaluation.”

- “Better evaluation systems.”

The 12 themes (thematic analysis) identified in the qualitative data are: formal evaluation; impartial evaluation; periodic evaluation; hard skills; oligarchies; autonomy; relationships; impersonal workspace; senior management; horizontal hierarchy; collective discussion; rewards.

8. Discussion and Conclusions

“Openness to experience might stimulate [... the] employees’ ability to address the negative consequences of covert political behavior”

[14] (p. 194).

According to [1] (p. 1887), who did a multimethod study, their findings “suggest that distinctive types of perceived political behaviours at work influence individuals in negative ways, eventually inducing employees to lower their performance and engage in deviant practices.” Namely, “Subjects in the condition depicting high politics in pay and promotion reported the highest levels of emotional exhaustion” [1] (p. 1887). This is unfortunate, as the global strategy of the enterprise will seemingly be forgotten while the small reigning powers in the organization, or the status quo, decide who gets paid more and who gets promoted, in a worrying and political (as stated) process perhaps because it is removed from a meritocracy. This was also reinforced by the interviewees in this study.

On a positive note, the literature [34] suggests that certain political characteristics (of individuals working in a group) may benefit innovators. That is, certain abilities in a group setting may set innovators ahead when trying to get their way (e.g., implement their innovation):

“Knowledge of oneself (capabilities and personality) is essential in combatting anti-innovators (note that one may change and improve, by learning, over time). Emotional intelligence (ability to self-manage oneself, emotionally, including how one communicates and empathizes with others), not surprisingly, is very important. Finally, showing and feeling anxious is bad in the fight against anti-innovators.”

[34] (p. 83).

One such ability is to be able to minimize envy, a topic which is also interesting and relevant to the discussion [35]. Envy may lead to ostracism and to good employees exiting the firm when they generate negative feelings because they are innovative. Yes, creativity is at a premium and much valued by firms. However, creativity is also a source of envy in organizations:

“Envy can act as a barrier to innovation by triggering counterproductive behaviors such as ostracism and a decrease in predisposition to innovative behaviors, either due to innovative individuals prematurely exiting the organization or due to them lessening/dampening their innovativeness to avoid the negative consequences”

[35].

Where the above occurs, we would be witnessing what we what we call a negative organization, where we see envy prevailing or the strong presence of anti-innovators. This article aims, as in [35], to “increase managerial awareness on the subject to manage negative emotions to promote the conditions for organizational innovation” [35].

Positive organizations, much more popularized in the management literature than negative organizations, as we have seen above, may not be as commonplace in the marketplace as we think. In fact, as the status quo is indeed very strong, are we witnessing a generalized inefficiency at the organizational level, whereby existent relationships triumph over innovation on a daily basis and on a tremendous scale? This may explain why startups are so innovative: because their status quo is not powerful, not-yet cemented by years of operation, and they desperately need innovation to survive.

Hence, strategy may be more linked to motivation than we first thought possible.

The author’s experience of over thirty years in organizations of all kinds has shown that brilliant people are perhaps not necessary in organizations [3]. Indeed, they will tend to be crushed by the organization itself, even if the organization is failing. Yes, the captain should be the last to leave the ship. That is their privilege.

Positive organizations do exist. They will have positive leaders who do not feel fear, or envy, of their exceptional employees and they will enable rather than hinder their work and accomplishments. Such leaders may be in short offer in the marketplace on a worldwide level. What should we do about that?

Of course, we could increase training and give people data on what makes a firm competitive and profitable, answering questions such as what sort of leadership behavior leads to profits, strong brands and satisfied stakeholders [36,37] (including our planet)?

On the other hand, we could choose our leaders according to values. Discrete people who do not seek the limelight may be a good option. People who are secure enough in their own ability to create winning teams that they will indeed do so could be another good option. What is important is that “rockstar” (leaders who seek attention just for the sake of it), selfish and egotistical leaders are chosen with care and at the peril of local communities and interested stakeholders, because negative organizations do exist, led by negative leaders, who may be doing significant damage to the economy.

9. Suggestions for Future Research and Limitations of the Study

Future research ought to address this topic—the economic effect of powerful people rooting for their own organizational continuity rather than being willing to give way to the future of the firm—the next innovative generation. Is it possible to coexist with innovators if you are not one? In sports, the “assist” to the goal scorer is of utmost importance. Is it time to start valuing “assists” in organizational settings? We perceive it to be so. We hence also “pass the ball” to human resource experts so they can devise ways and policy to take advantage of those who assist “goal scoring” in organizational settings. The qualitative data in the survey also revealed interesting solutions to be considered in the future.

Change is indeed necessary. The current crisis (high inflation, the post COVID-19 period, the scenario of enduring war, among others) warrants it. Yes. A big “Hurrah” for innovators and for those who, selflessly, assist them in their innovative endeavors. How may we popularize and perpetuate this phenomenon?

A limitation of the study is that the survey samples are small (n = 116 and n = 115) and involve only millennials (survey 1) and Generation Z (survey 2). It would be interesting to continue the study by including larger samples and with more generations.