Seeing past the orange: an inductive investigation of organizational respect in a prison context

This dissertation develops grounded theory on how respect is received and internalized in organizations, and the personal and work-related outcomes of receiving respect. A company that employed inmates at a state prison to perform professional business-to-business marketing services provided a unique context for data collection, as respect is typically problematic in a prison environment but was deliberately instilled by this particular company. Data collection took place in three call centers (minimum, medium, and maximum security levels) and included extensive non-participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and archival documents. My sampling strategy focused on the experience of new employees as they went through the training and socialization process, a time when the experience of respect was particularly novel and salient to them. The emergent theoretical model suggests that receiving respect was experienced in two distinct ways, which were labeled generalized and personalized respect. These two types of respect were directly related to outcomes for the receivers' well-being and performance on the job. Receiving respect also changed the way that receivers thought and felt about themselves. The two types of respect (generalized and personalized) exerted different forces on the self-concept such that generalized respect led to social validation and identity security for social identities, and personalized respect led to social validation and identity security for personal identities. The social validation and subsequent identity security ultimately enabled the receiver of respect to integrate their conflicting personal and social identities into a coherent whole, an outcome referred to as identity holism. In addition to the direct effects of receiving generalized and personalized respect on individuals' well-being and performance, identity holism served as a partial mediator between received respect and individual outcomes. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, as well as future research directions aimed to build momentum for research on respect in organizations.