Aim
To explain how the implementation of interventions designed to improve the functioning of individuals and work-groups affects employee well-being, performance and cooperation in organizations.

Theoretical Background
Performance evaluations play an increasingly important role in the governance of modern organizations, and personal effectiveness becomes an integral part of such evaluations, not only for managers, but also for non-supervisory personnel. This is also reflected in the increasing number of training trajectories to improve "leadership effectiveness", as well as courses on time management and personal effectiveness. However, scientific evidence concerning the underlying mechanisms as well as the (unintended) consequences of specific self-improvement interventions still is rare. In order to be effective, such interventions need to strengthen individual self-regulation capabilities, while at the same time avoiding negative repercussions on intra-organizational cooperation. Lindenberg's (2009) goal-framing theory can be used to develop hypotheses on the interrelationships between individual and collective level effects of these interventions, as well as their viability. The project will focus on Covey's (1989) influential "7 habit" self-improvement intervention. A key assumption of this approach is that individuals need first to define a limited set of salient personal goals and values they consider to be fundamental for themselves. Based on this set of goals, they should then actively restructure the different types of (inter-)dependence relations with their direct colleagues and other members of their social networks. However, a focus on individual level improvements may have negative repercussions on their cooperative relations in the intra-organizational network, and therefore come at the expense of the functioning of the group as a whole. The project will analyze such social dilemmas as they might result from potentially contradictory demands created by self-improvement interventions.

Research Design
A combination of a time series discontinuities design and a constructed matched comparison group design will be used to assess the impact of self-improvement interventions. Access to several organizations (planning to) applying Covey's "7 habits" framework, as well as control groups, has already been secured. Interviews and questionnaires will be used to collect information on individual level performance, well-being, and the quality of cooperative relationships in work teams before, during and after the intervention.

Literature
Covey, S. (1989). The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Restoring the Character Ethic. Simon and Schuster, New York: (any chapter).
Lindenberg, S. (2010). Social Rationality and Well-Being. Forthcoming in Handbook of Rational Choice Social Research, edited by R. Wittek, T. Snijders & V. Nee. New York: Russell Sage (available electronically via http://....).

Project Initiators
Rafael Wittek (RuG), Gabriel Anthonio (Stenden Hogeschool Leeuwarden), Dean Collinwood (University of Utah & Franklin Covey Center for Advanced Research)

Location
Groningen and Leeuwarden