Differential Reactivity and the Within-person Job Stressor-Satisfaction Relationship

Abusive supervision and cyberloafing: an investigation based on Stressor-Emotion-CWB theory

Purpose

Cyberloafing is an organization-directed counterproductive work behavior (CWB). One stream of literature deems cyberloafing to be bad for organizations and their employees, while another suggests cyberloafing is a coping response to stressful work events. Our work contributes to the latter stream of literature. The key objective of our study is to examine whether cyberloafing could be a means to cope with a stressful work event-abusive supervision, and if yes, what mediating and boundary conditions are involved. For this investigation, the authors leveraged the Stressor-Emotion-CWB theory which posits that individuals engage in CWB to cope with the negative affect generated by the stressors and that this relationship is moderated at the first stage by personality traits.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a multi-wave survey design, the authors collected data from 357 employees working in an Indian IT firm. Results revealed support for three out of the four hypotheses.

Findings

Based on the Stressor-Emotion-CWB theory, the authors found that work-related negative affect fully mediated the positive relationship between abusive supervision and cyberloafing, and work locus of control (WLOC) moderated the positive relationship between abusive supervision and work-related negative affect. The authors did not find any evidence of a direct relationship between abusive supervision and cyberloafing. Also, the positive indirect relationship between abusive supervision and cyberloafing through work-related negative affect was moderated at the first stage by the WLOC such that the indirect effect was stronger (weaker) at high (low) levels of WLOC.

Originality/value

This work demonstrates that cyberloafing could be a way for employees to cope with their abusive supervisors.

A diary study on the moderating role of leader-member exchange on the relationship between job characteristics, job satisfaction, and emotional exhaustion

Job characteristics play an essential role for the well-being of employees. When job characteristics are unfavorable, the experienced exchange relationship with one’s supervisor (i.e., leader-member exchange, LMX) may become relevant to weaken negative consequences. We conducted a diary study over ten consecutive working days with 112 academics. Based on conservation of resources theory, we assumed that daily LMX constitutes a resource for employees that moderates the link between job characteristics (job control and time pressure) and job satisfaction as well as emotional exhaustion. Additionally, we proposed lagged-effects of morning job characteristics and LMX on next-day morning job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion. Findings from hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) demonstrated that on the day-level higher perceived levels of job control in the morning were associated with higher perceived job satisfaction and lower perceived emotional exhaustion in the afternoon. The experience of increased time pressure in the morning was negatively related to perceived day-level afternoon job satisfaction and positively to perceived day-level afternoon emotional exhaustion. Within one day, perceived LMX moderated the relationship between perceived job control and perceived job satisfaction in the afternoon. We only found lagged effects of the interaction between afternoon job control and afternoon LMX on next-day morning job satisfaction. We discuss daily LMX as a resource for employees both within one day and from day-to day, along with future research directions on the buffering role of LMX.

What a week! A moderated-mediation crossover model for daily boundary violations at home and partner evening affect

Increasingly blurred boundaries allow work to breach home borders, disrupting personal tasks and goals which feel like violations to employees and thereby may trigger affective strain responses. Yet, the potential adverse effects of boundary violations at home on partner affective strain remains unexplored. Based on affective events and crossover theories, we considered the occurrence of violations at home as work-related stressors originating at home and thereafter evoking emotional strain in partners through employees' own affective strain response. Based on the differential reactivity model, we expected employee affective strain responses to boundary violations at home and subsequent emotional transmission to partners would be exacerbated during a period (i.e., one week) of high emotional strain when employees and partners are hyper-responsive to their home environments. Event data were collected for seven days from 69 employees and partners for 483 data points. Since the occurrence of homebound violations and associated effects on employees and partners likely fluctuates daily, a multilevel two-stage moderated-mediation model was tested. Results showed indirect effects of violations on partner affective strain through employee affective strain, with a backdrop of high emotional strain for the week moderating the affective event and crossover processes. Implications for scholars and organizations are discussed.

The Good Manager: Development and Validation of the Managerial Interpersonal Skills Scale

It is no secret that employees leave their organizations because of bad managers- but what about the good ones? How can researchers and organizations differentiate individuals in terms of the interpersonal skills needed to perform well in the managerial role? Although these are fundamentally important questions to organizational psychologists, there exists no conceptual model, definition, or measure of interpersonal skills specific to the managerial role. We address these questions and research gaps by developing a conceptual model and validating a concomitant measure of managerial interpersonal skills (MIPS) through a research program that included four studies across three phases: First, through a review of the literature and structured interviews with practicing managers; next, three quantitative studies in which we develop, refine and validate our MIPS scale; and finally, in a fourth validation study with matched supervisor-employee data from a large healthcare organization. Results suggest that MIPS are best represented by a three-dimensional model comprised of supporting, motivating and managing conflict all indicating a higher-order latent MIPS factor. Results also indicate the MIPS Scale predicts job attitudes and performance among both employees and managers above and beyond personality traits and leader-member exchange, as well as constructs closely related to MIPS, such as social support and conflict management style.

A Study on the Correlation between Working Pressure and Job Satisfaction from the Viewpoint of Work Exhaustion

Under the rapid industrialization, the country has become a major high-tech industry in Asia. Being an important industry in domestic strategic development, high-tech industry attracts a lot of manpower. During the depression after the financial crisis, organizations’ adoption of layoffs and unpaid leave to increase work or transfer positions induced employees’ worries. There was news about hi-tech millionaires dying young of overwork in past years. Working pressure therefore became the major problem emphasized by human resource managers. Stress management related issues have been discussed academically or practically in recent years. Aiming at high-tech employees of Hsinchu Science Park in Taiwan, 500 copies of questionnaire are distributed and 387 valid copies are retrieved, with the retrieval rate 77%. The research results reveal 1.positive relations between working pressure and work exhaustion, 2.negative relations between work exhaustion and job satisfaction, and 3.negative relations between working pressureandjob satisfaction. According to the results, suggestions are proposed, expecting to assist high-tech industry in improving employees’working pressure to largely benefit employee health and industrial yield.