| This dissertation introduces and examines a framework that outlines how the presence of superior-subordinate conflicts (task, personal) lead managers to apply multiple forms of organizational controls (input, behavior, output) and initiate trust-building (calculative, institutional, relational) and fairness-building (distributive, procedural, interactional) activities. By broadening perspectives of managerial attention and action, this dissertation refines the work of control theorists who suggest that managers rely primarily on formal control mechanisms to align the goals and risk preferences of their employees with their organization (Ouchi, 1977; Merchant, 1985; Snell 1992; Kirsch 1996). The research in this dissertation also extends the work of justice and trust scholars have performed primarily on subordinates (Greenberg, 1987; Lind and Tyler, 1988; Tyler and Lind, 1992) by examining factors that lead managers to promote organizational trust and fairness.; This dissertation is comprised of two studies. The first study employs a simulation model to examine the efficacy of particular control combinations (i.e., singular input control, singular behavior control, singular output control; combined input/behavior/output control) under various task knowledge and superior-subordinate conflict conditions (i.e., low knowledge/low conflict, low knowledge/high conflict, high knowledge/low conflict, high knowledge/high conflict). Findings suggest that choices between singular and multiple controls are determined primarily by a manager's task knowledge but that choices between singular forms of control are influenced by levels of superior-subordinate conflict.; The second study uses a survey of managers and their subordinates to examine how a manager's task knowledge and both superior-subordinate task conflicts and personal conflicts affect the controls that managers employ and their attempts to build various forms of organizational trust and fairness. Results from the survey suggest that higher levels of task knowledge lead managers to apply input, behavior, and output controls as well as engage in distributive fairness-building activities. In addition, survey results suggest that superior-subordinate task conflicts lead managers to engage in various forms of fairness-building (distributive, procedural, interactional) and that personal conflicts between superiors and their subordinates lead managers to less actively engage in calculative trust-building, various forms of fairness-building, and applications of organizational controls. |
