Relationship development and workplace integration: An evolutionary perspective.

In this paper we argue that recent scholarship emanating from the field of evolutionary psychology (EP) promises to further current understandings of organizational communication practices and processes. To this end, we review EP's core assumptions about human nature and behavior, and then examine two adaptive mechanisms that underlie the ubiquitous practice of workplace collaboration. Next, we describe how reciprocal altruism and preference for similarity underscore the exchange and coordination activities of employees' relationships at work. The model of relationship development we propose is then discussed in terms of uncertainty, employee adjustment and organizational integration processes. In conclusion, we highlight the potential of EP as both a meta-theoretic framework through which seemingly disparate areas of scholarship can be unified, as well as a vehicle for theoretical development, a catalyst of novel predictions about communication in organizations, grounded in ultimate, rather than proximate causation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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