Paternalism in contemporary organizations: A theory and test of organizational benevolence and decision-making control

Scholars generally discuss paternalism as existing in past eras or in cultures outside of the United States. Additionally, because paternalism involves decision-making control, it is assumed to negatively influence employees' job attitudes and behaviors. In contrast, the theory of organizational benevolence and paternalism that is developed and tested here proposes that these concepts are relevant to the study of all contemporary organizations. Organizational benevolence is proposed as a component of paternalism, a system or a practice of managing individuals that combines decision-making control with benevolence in providing for employees' welfare. The proposed model is based upon a social exchange framework and examines the associations among employees' perceptions of organizational benevolence, the human resource management (HRM) practices associated with these perceptions, organizational decision-making control and employees' job attitudes and behaviors. Questionnaire survey data are collected in the U.S. in one healthcare services and two software-development organizations, for a total of 298 supervisor and employee participants. The data are used to test the proposed model and hypotheses. Job-focused HRM practices exhibit a positive relationship with employee's perceptions of organizational benevolence. Additionally, organizational benevolence mediates the relationship between job-focused HRM practices and employees' job attitudes. Exploratory analyses support organizational benevolence as a mediator between organizational decision-making control and employees' job attitudes. Organizational benevolence is found to mitigate (1) the negative relationship between organizational control and employees' organizational commitment and (2) the positive relationship between organizational control and intentions to quit. Finally, in a series of competing tests, five out of twelve tests support organizational benevolence as a better predictor than its related construct, perceived organizational support (POS), of the relationships among job-focused HRM practices, organizational decision-making control and employees' job attitudes.