Paper Title
The Influence of Organizational Death on Teachers’ Work Needs
Abstract
Turbulent economies have caused many organizations worldwide to undergo “organizational death.” This
experiment explored the effects of the salience of organizational death on teachers’ needs at work. 54 high-school and
elementary school teachers were randomly divided into an experimental condition where participants were asked to imagine
their organization (school) had to shut down and a control group. The two groups were asked to evaluate their needs at work
immediately after this priming. The results show that priming organizational death salience led to a decrease in needs for a
high salary, self-actualization and creativity at work. This experiment contributes to human resource management by
highlighting the influence of the saliency of organizational death on employees' evaluation of work needs.
Keywords: work needs; stress; organizational death