Article Critique: Management -- Organizational Theory

Management -- Organizational Theory

The article by Chieh-Peng Lin (Modeling Corporate Citizenship, Organizational Trust, and Work Engagement Based on Attachment Theory) is published in the Journal of Business Ethics (2010). This article delves into corporate citizenship and how to develop trust within an organizational environment. Lin posits that if more individuals in an employment environment could embrace a "work engagement" those individuals could avoid "burnout" and "low performance" (Lin, 2010, p. 517). Moreover, employees that embrace a "work engagement" approach would mean that those individuals would be furthering the interests of their organization (Lin, p. 517). Work engagement is defined by Lin as a "positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind" that is characterized by "vigor, dedication, and absorption" including a very strong identification with their efforts on the job and "feelings of enthusiasm, inspiration, pride and challenge" (Lin, p. 517). but, the theme in this article goes deeper: Lin seeks to know how work engagement dovetails with other emerging organizational / management theories.

What is the problem that is presented in this scholarly article? The author points out that while "corporate citizenship" or "corporate social responsibility" (CSR) are important initiatives in the community of companies that are competing for consumer attention, there is a lack of data that show how CSR helps build employee trust. And so the problem encountered by Lin is this: what is the relationship between CSR, organizational trust and work engagement? And moreover, Lin wants to know if the "attachment theory" can be used to explain the relationship between the three concepts mentioned in the sentence above. The author seeks to know which "dimensions of perceived corporate citizenship" influence a person's engagement with work and influence the amount of organizational trust the employee experiences (Lin, p. 518).

(the attachment theory, in Lin's definition: like all animals, humans make important and lasting "affectional bonds" (attachments) with "familiar, irreplaceable organizations"; if those bonds… [END OF PREVIEW]