Dear colleague,
b b I have taken interest in studying the impact of friendships
on workplace productivity and wanted to share the findings of two
relevant peer reviewed articles. The aim of article one was to
answer the research question, how does workplace friendships
influence innovative behavior? b Researchers were interested in the
interaction of multiple variables to include psychological safety,
transformational leadership, innovative behavior, and workplace
friendships (Cao, 2020). Researchers used Pearson’s r in SPSS 22 to
analyze strength of interactions between variables derived from the
sample of 441 participants. b A Person’s r correlation revealed a
statistically significant relationship between workplace friendships and
innovative behavior, r (440) = 0.606, p< .01, thus the null
hypothesis is rejected. In interpretation of analyzed results researchers
were able to conclude there is a significant influence between
workplace friendships and innovative behavior (Cao, 2020).
b b b Article 2 consisted of multiple research questions, but the
question of interest is how does workplace friendships impact hotel
employee wellbeing? Researchers measured a total of 4 variables to
include workplace friendships, employee well-being, organizational justice,
and workplace bullying (Sung, 2019). b Researchers collected data
from a sample of 310 participants and used regression to analyze
the strength of the influence between variables. A Pearson’s r
correlation revealed a statistically significant relationship between
workplace friendships and hotel employee wellbeing, r (309) = 0.55,
p < 0.01, thus the null hypothesis is rejected. b Through data
analysis the study concluded workplace friendships have a significant
positive influence on hotel employee well-being (Sung, 2019).
b b Both articles work together to strengthen my understanding
of the importance of organizations aiming to foster work-place
friendships in efforts to improve productivity. Both articles measured
the strengths of multiple variables as it relates to productivity, but
the conclusions were the same regarding the significance of
workplace friendships. These findings inform and enrich my personal
insight as it relates to fostering work friendships to enhance work
performance and wellbeing.
b b I hope I was able to clearly state my interest and explain
how relevant findings enriched my personal understanding of the
topic. Thank you for your time.
References
Cao, F. and Zhang, H., 2020. Workplace friendship, psychological
safety and innovative behavior in China. Chinese Management Studies,
14(3), pp.661-676. https://doi.org/10.1108/CMS-09-2019-0334 Links to
an external site.
Fu-Sung, H., Yuan-an, L., & Sheng-Hshiung Tsaur. (2019). The impact
of workplace bullying on hotel employees’ well-being: Do organizational
justice and friendship matter? International Journal of Contemporary
Hospitality Management, 31(4), 1702-1719. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-
04-2018-0330
