Organizational Behavior

Organizational Behavior

Friendship and Favoritism in the Workplace

Introduction

However interesting it can be , there are many issues that beset friendships in the workplace . Employees may find it hard to adapt with co-workers without becoming friends in a non-professional sense . Others may even find themselves in a discriminating situation when they fail to develop friendships at work . In the same way , managers may find it hard to create a comprehensive management framework which will work for friendships in the workplace . Since friendship should be encouraged at work , going over the

norm is almost expected

The issue gets more serious when it concerns a manager who , based on some set of ideals or similarity , develops friendship with an employee This may happen if the manager is working with people who are of different background from him , such as an Asian manager in a workplace where Americans are a majority . The Asian manager may feel comfortable with Asian workers than the Americans . However , this scenario may not always be the case . An Asian manager , for instance , may develop friendship with Americans more than other Asians . In any case , this affects the organizational behavior of the firm . The issue affects how individuals work , how teams function , and how the company as a whole serves its clientele

While the workplace is supposedly a place to hone professional relationships and not personal ones , it cannot be denied that these happen . When the diversity of the organization is made complicated by going over set standards on professional relationships , many things are at stake . The managers risk becoming biased . They develop , sometimes unconsciously , an innate favor on their friends and set aside other workers in the process . The employees risk being subjected to bias as well . With this said , a change on organizational behavior is called for in an attempt to facilitate friendships at work while avoiding favoritism

Favoritism at Work

Favoritism can be associated with many situations . It can be a new boss bringing in a former employee and assigning him all the perks and privileges in the job , or the new boss who fancy a team while leaving other groups miserable . It can also be an old timer who fixes himself on women , or men , or those whose background is similar with him . In any situation , favoritism boils down to one thing . Nadler and Schulman (2006 ) defines favoritism as giving favor to people because of certain features - more than the person 's abilities or the lack of it

With favoritism , ethics is being attacked . The workplace should be somewhere that fairness and equality should be exercised , especially if each worker is assigned the same degree of a job . When an employee is favored more than someone who does a job in a similar capacity , this notion of workplace equality is gone . It is replaced with negativity among employees and managers alike (Nadler and Schulman 2006

Dual-faceted

Many people may say that they abstain from favoritism , but this cannot be always true . Goldsmith (2007 ) asserts that...