The Automatic Vigilance Effect is the unconscious negative reaction to critical input (Tourish, 2005). The most important characteristic of this reaction is that it is difficult to consciously control (Estes & Adelman, 2008). In the case of the organization, it the Automatic Vigilance Effect manifested itself when the management refused to listen to the employees’ criticism and started blaming them.
The Ingratiation Effect is the wrong assessment of one’s agreement with their superiors. It usually results in the forced submission and the lack of any negative feedback because of the belief that the superiors are correct (Tourish, 2005). When the management of the organization labeled employees’ doubts as fear of change, the subordinates stopped questioning the superiors and exaggerated their agreement with the managerial course of actions.
There are two main reasons why the organization has entered such a crisis. First, the management mistook the genuine concern of the employees for fear of change. It happened because of inadequate emotional intelligence of the top management, which is the ability to understand one’s own feelings and the feelings of other people (Bauer & Erdogan, 2017). The managers failed to recognize the employees’ emotions and respond to them appropriately.
The second problem is the way communication is organized between the superiors and the subordinates. It appears that employees are expected to silently comply with the management’s decisions. As a result, this mindset predetermines the lack of emotional courage necessary to stand up to the management (Howard & Reiley, 2020). Moreover, the management’s emphasis on employees’ complicity signifies the lack of organizational trust (Vosse & Aliyu, 2018). Combined with low emotional intelligence and lack of employee courage, insincere communication has precipitated the adoption of non-compatible technology.
References
Bauer, T., & Erdogan, B. (2017). Organizational behavior (2nd ed.). Soomo Learning.
Estes, Z., & Adelman, J. S. (2008). Automatic vigilance for negative words is categorical and general. EMOTION, 8(4), 453–457. Web.
Howard, M. C., & Reiley, P. J. (2020). Physical courage predicts relevant outcomes in associated contexts: The creation of a measure and empirical analysis into the construct. Journal of Business Research, 110, 80-94. Web.
Tourish, D. (2005). Critical upward communication: Ten commandments for improving strategy and decision making. Long Range Planning, 38(5), 485-503. Web.
Vosse, B. J. F., & Aliyu, O. A. (2018). Determinants of employee trust during organisational change in higher institutions. Journal of Organizational Change Management. 31(5), 1105-1118. Web.