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