Organizational Cynicism

What is the nature of the extremely negative attitudes expressed by so many employees toward their organizations?To respond to this question, we introduce the concept of organizational cynicism.We review the literature from several disciplines on this concept and suggest that organizational cynicism is an attitude composed of beliefs, affect, and behavioral tendencies toward an organization.Following our review and conceptualization, we derive implications of this concept and propose a research agenda for organizational cynicism.Cynicism is everywhere-widespread among organization members in the United States (Kanter he accepted the invitation but worried that management had only made the offer "to keep us off guard."Even the popularity of the comic strip "Dilbert," about an engineer whose organization plumbs the depths of unscrupulousness, suggests that many people perceive their organizations in these terms.In fact, much of the material for the strip actually is sent to the cartoonist via e-mail by frustrated employees (Greilsamer, 1995).This article is about organization members' cynicism toward their organizations-an attitude that appears to be both widespread and ignored by organizational research.We address one major question: how should organizational cynicism be conceptualized?We organize this article as follows.First, we discuss the origin of the concept of cynicism and briefly review