i i i i 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? i 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. i 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).
i i i i 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). i 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. i
Through data analysis the study concluded workplace friendships have a significant
positive influence on hotel employee well-being (Sung, 2019).
i i i i 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.
i i i i 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
