Organisational cronyism
An invisible hand in workplace
Ahmed Al Asheq
Cronyism has been an eclectic socio-economic phenomenon in the todays capitalist business world. Literally, the concept of cronyism can be explained as a common propensity to favor or being biased toward one person or a specific group of people against others. Cronyism is a state of circumstance where an organisations superior direct or indirectly and visibly or invisibly favours his subordinate colleagues, based on their interpersonal relationship rather than the subordinates competency and qualification. Broadly, in organisational affair, cronyism tends to emerge when a subordinate employee may want to leverage the impression of his superiors through uncritically and unconditionally complying with the superior in context of work or non-work regarded issues and by speaking extraordinarily of the superior in front of the superiors immediate chief official.
So, in our capitalist business world, organisational cronyism is an undeniable prevailing fact for all of us. Now-a-days, cronyism is observed in every organisational culture; but its manifestation is varying from one business society to another. In business context, cronyism has been extensively deemed as a distinctive pattern of organisational politics also.
Consequentially, it is important to derive a clear distinction between two sets of organisational cronyism, namely horizontal and vertical. Horizontal cronyism usually transpires in peer groups such as coworkers, business colleagues, associates and friends in business platform. Horizontal cronyism has been widely blamed for lots of Asian financial corruptions, facilitating a path for cheap grants provided by the financial firms that have been given to their preferred cronies. This kind of cronyism can be either intra- or inter-organisational. On the other hand, vertical cronyism occurs in superior-subordinate relationship in an organization, in a form of interchanging of backing and patronaging downward with personal obedience upward. The emergence of vertical cronyism can be conceived from the organisational organogram in a form of hierarchical protection. Critically, the presence of vertical cronyism has been frequently observed in south Asian business society. The quote -- What is most important for me and my department is not what I do or achieve for the company, but whether the Masters favor is bestowed on me . . . This I have achieved by saying yes to everything the Master says or does . . . To contradict him is to look for another job -- by Negandhi, A. R. and S. B. Prasad: 1971, Comparative Management (Appleton Century Crofts, New York); broadly clarifies the concept of vertical cronyism in todays organisational structure.
In the prevalence of organisational cronyism, merit and talent may take back seat in promotional aspect. Sometimes, superior executives might unconsciously and consciously value the personal relationship as more salient factor than job performance in terms of promotional decision or pay raise recommendation. Therefore, such type of unheeded vertical cronyism still contravenes the proposition of equitable performance appraisal. The abstract feature of cronyism is proactive and dynamic. Perceived organisational loyalty has two kinds of dimensions: emotional and behavioral.
The emotional dimension of loyalty generally comes from the subordinates realized gratitude shown to his super officials. Circumstantially, emotions are invisible, subordinates obedience is widely evaluated by behavioral dimension; where perceived loyalty is regarded as a valued attribute. subordinate employees tend to exhibit loyal behavior to the higher authority to receive advantageous performance evaluation and other fringe benefits.
In organisational framework, particularism very often leads to cronyism, sometimes in a form of group cohesiveness that have been primarily substantiated on the basis of perceived interpersonal relationship; strengthening the notion of unquestionable loyalty to the ingroup superior boss and members. Particularism has been a medium of thinking that is found in collectivism cultures; in which the benchmarks, for the process an employee should be regarded, profoundly relies on the group to which that employee belongs.
An organisational consequence of cronyism, in the light of conserving of robust and tenacious ingroups bonding to eternise one-sidedness favoritism and ethnocentrism, is the unethical ingroup promotion, special pay raise and other actions purposefully aimed at benefiting the group members. Furthermore, when the accentuation in relationship has been so profound that it is transformed into intense ingroup predilection with unreserved loyalty, then organisational cronyism is likely to occur.
Organisational cronyism may induce certain pivotal ramifications at the personal and institutional levels. In terms of job satisfaction, ingroup members of a collectivist work division tend to develop a consciousness of gratefulness to their superiors. Cohesive ingroup members are likely to be contented with their assigned job duties, due to the ascertained presence of affective attachment in their working relationships. It is well observed that ingroup members have been elevated on motivational facets and experienced less job oriented hassle (work overload, role incompetency, role dubiety, and conflict). For outgroup workers who do not hold the imperative connections, their degree of job gratification is likely to be lower; because even if they are the best at their job performances, their possibilities of climbing the corporate ladder are very much shrunk.
Since in an organisational structure, every employee is recruited, assigned with specific tasks and rewarded by high ranked officials. The organisational commitment demonstrated by the employees may in fact express more of a commitment to their superiors. Naturally employees loyalty and obedience tend to be leaning toward the superiors; resulting in the shaping of an intense awareness of obligation and faithfulness for the superior, that could possibly overrule the responsibility and attachment towards the organization.
Such kind of experience is rendered more likely in business organizations with outspread cronyism. Furthermore, outgroup workers do not possess the job security and desired remuneration which have been enjoyed by the ingroup members. Outgroup employees are ignored and overpassed in regards of promotional opportunities, resulting in the lack of overall commitment to the organizations. Because, ingroup members are assigned with key tasks in the job title, whereas outgroup employees are delegated with easy replaceable job function.
In many aspects, cronyism does negatively influence overall organisational performance. Unconditional and unquestionable loyalty of ingroup subordinate employees make superior managers rate them highly in performance evaluation in an inflated way. Such kind of subordinate-superior relationships are a potentially dominant contaminant of organisational performance assessment ratings. During performance appraisal, ingroup members incompetency are likely to be overlooked. For this reason, ingroup members are engaged in organisational politics rather than enhancing their skills to perform job task for the organisational welfare maximisation. As a result, incompetent and unskilled employees are seen in a high rank in the organization; following the subordination and subservience of the loyalty to the interpersonal relations. In cronyism, talent and high caliber are extensively obstructed and limited by the lack of minimum fair equal opportunity; making the talented and skilled employees quit the organization. The continual leeching away of caliber employee undoubtedly incapacitates the strength of the organizations.
Finally, quality of organisational decision makings has been adversely influenced through cronyism. It is well practiced in our business society that senior managers or bosses are always right, subordinate employees are required to say yes to the superiors. Therefore, those managers who are surrounded by that kind of yes employees, are unable to leverage benefits from the manifold perspectives and knowledge of their subordinate employees. Sometimes, organisational cronyism can lead to hostility between ingroups and outgroups members because of differentiated treatment from their superiors.
Till now in our organisational culture, cronyism has been overlooked or not well addressed at all. The dysfunctional consequences of cronyism need to be discussed and it will be great use of diagnosing the factors of causing cronyism at organisational level so as to mitigate its prevalence and effect on behavioral operations in organizations.
The writer is a student of Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand.
