Multi-Study Packages in Organizational Science Research

Losing the benefits of work passion? The implications of low ego-resilience for passionate workers

Purpose

This research assessed the interactive effects of employee passion and ego-resilience (ER) on relevant work outcomes, including job satisfaction, citizenship behavior, job tension, and emotional exhaustion. The authors hypothesize that higher work passion is associated with less positive work outcomes when employees are low in ER.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors collected data from three unique samples (N's = 175, 141, 164) to evaluate the moderating effect across outcomes. The authors conducted analyses with and without demographic controls and affectivity (e.g. negative and positive). The authors used a time-separated data collection approach in Sample 3. The authors also empirically assess the potential for non-linear passion and ER main effect relationships to emerge.

Findings

Findings across samples confirm that high passion employees with elevated levels of ER report positive attitudinal, behavioral, and well-being outcomes. Conversely, high passion employees do not experience comparable effects when reporting low levels of ER. Results were broadly consistent when considering demographics and affectivity.

Research limitations/implications

Despite the single-source nature of the three data collections, The authors took steps to minimize common method bias concerns (e.g. time separation and including affectivity). Future research will benefit from multiple data sources collected longitudinally and examining a more comprehensive range of occupational contexts.

Practical implications

Passion is something that organizations want in all employees. However, the authors' results show that passion may not be enough to lead to favorable outcomes without considering factors that support its efficacy. Also, results show that moderate levels of passion may offer little benefit compared to low levels and may be detrimental.

Originality/value

As a focal research topic, work passion research is still in early development. Studies exploring factors that support or derail expected favorable effects of work passion are needed to establish a foundation for subsequent analyses. Moreover, the authors comment on the assumed “more is better” phenomenon. The authors argue for reconsidering the linear approach to predicting behavior in science and practice.

Forty years of political skill and will in organizations: a review, meta-theoretical framework and directions for future research

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to review the scholarship on political skill and political will so that the authors might inspire future work that assesses these constructs individually and in tandem.

Design/methodology/approach

The “political skill” and “political will” concepts were introduced about 40 years ago, but they only have been measured and produced empirical results much more recently. Since that time, substantial research results have demonstrated the important roles political skill and political will play in organizational behavior. This paper provides a comprehensive review of this research, draws conclusions from this work and provides a meta-theoretical framework of political skill and political will to guide future work in this area.

Findings

Scholarship in this area has developed quite rapidly for political skill, but less so for political will. The authors hope that recent developments in a political will can set the stage for scholars to create a theoretical and empirical balance between these two related constructs.

Originality/value

The authors corral the vast and widespread literature on political skill and will and distill the information for scholars and practitioners alike.

Job insecurity and innovative work behaviour: A moderated mediation model of intrinsic motivation and trait mindfulness

Research has disregarded the processes and boundary conditions associated with the effects of job insecurity on innovative work behaviour. Combining the job demands-resources and the self-determination perspectives, the present study develops and tests a first-stage moderated mediation model that identifies intrinsic motivation as a key mechanism accounting for a negative effect of job insecurity on innovative behaviour and trait mindfulness as a buffer against the detrimental impact of job insecurity on intrinsic motivation and, indirectly, innovative work behaviour. Two time-lagged studies-a two-wave study of 138 employees from Canadian firms and a three-wave study of 157 employees from US firms-were conducted to test the hypothesized model. Supporting our predictions, intrinsic motivation mediated a negative relationship between job insecurity and innovative work behaviour. Moreover, high levels of trait mindfulness were observed to attenuate the negative relationship of job insecurity with intrinsic motivation and, indirectly, innovative behaviour. These findings contribute to the literature by disclosing the processes linking job insecurity with impaired work outcomes and help to elucidate how and when employee can keep their innovative potential alive in spite of insecure work conditions.

Does Leader Same-sex Sexual Orientation Matter to Leadership Effectiveness? A Four-study Model-testing Investigation

Despite the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States (U.S.) and an increasing number of out gay and lesbian business leaders, we have little knowledge of the role played by leaders' same-sex sexual orientation in the leadership process. To fill this important research void, we drew from a recent theoretical model on leaders' sexual orientation and conducted four experimental studies designed to test and retest whether leaders' same-sex sexual orientation affects followers' leadership perceptions and conformity to influence attempts, and how the intersectionality of leaders' same-sex sexual orientation with leaders' gender orientation and follower characteristics may modify the influences of leaders' same-sex sexual orientation on the follower outcomes. Based on over 2,100 working adults in the U.S., the results of the four studies, where leaders were depicted as charismatic, indicate that leaders' same-sex sexual orientation could have negative impacts on the follower outcomes. However, same-sex sexual orientation leaders did not suffer double stigma penalization by having additional marginalized identities (e.g., also being women). Female followers were more supportive of same-sex sexual orientation leaders than male followers. Our research advances knowledge of and responds to calls for more research attention to leader sexual orientation in the leadership process. Research and practical implications and directions for future research are discussed.

A two-nation investigation of leadership self-perceptions and motivation to lead in early adulthood: the moderating role of gender and socio-economic status

Purpose

Drawing on the social-cognitive and motivational literature of leadership, the present study examines the influence of young adults' self-perceptions of leadership on their leadership self-efficacy (LSE) and motivation to lead (MTL) in their future career. The authors further examine gender and socio-economic status (SES) as important moderators of the proposed relationships.

Design/methodology/approach

The present investigation consists of a two-study research design, based on data collected from young adult samples across two culturally different countries, namely the UK (N = 267) and Japan (N = 127).

Findings

The study presents evidence of self-perceptions of leadership influencing LSE and MTL. The results further support the mediating role of leader self-efficacy. Regarding the moderating role of gender, results in both samples showed that the effects of leader self-efficacy on MTL were stronger for males. SES was found to moderate the effects of leadership self-perceptions of negative implicit leadership theories (ILTs) on LSE in the UK sample and the effects of leadership self-perceptions of positive ILTs on LSE in the Japanese sample.

Originality/value

This study fills the gap of empirical research focused on early adulthood influences on leadership development. In particular, this study has a three-fold contribution, by, firstly, developing a conceptual model that examines the role of young adults' self-perceptions of leadership on their self-efficacy as leaders and MTL; secondly examining contingencies of the proposed relationships; and thirdly testing the conceptual model in two countries.

Workplace accountabilities: worthy challenge or potential threat?

Purpose

Combining early and untested accountability perspectives with stress research, the authors examined the degree to which employees perceive workplace accountabilities as either worthy challenges to be overcome or potential threats to be avoided.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors utilized structural equation modeling to evaluate our hypotheses and tested them across two data samples, using two different sampling techniques collected four years apart.

Findings

Employees' individual differences of attribution style, negative affectivity and core self-evaluations influenced how subjects approached accountability pressures in their workplace, which in turn, was associated with job satisfaction and turnover intentions.

Originality/value

By examining how employees evaluate accountability pressures, this investigation advances existing research by exploring the different ways in which employees perceive workplace accountabilities.

Work grit as a moderator of politics perceptions

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to test the interactive effects of grit (e.g. supervisor and employee) and politics perceptions on relevant work outcomes. Specifically, the authors hypothesized that supervisor and employee grit would each demonstrate neutralizing effects when examined jointly.

Design/methodology/approach

Three studies (N’s=526, 229, 522) were conducted to test the moderating effect across outcomes, including job satisfaction, turnover intentions, citizenship behavior and work effort. The authors controlled for affectivity and nonlinear main effect terms in Studies 2 and 3 following prior discussion.

Findings

Findings across studies demonstrated a unique pattern differentiating between grit sources (i.e. employee vs supervisor) and outcome characteristic (i.e. attitudinal vs behavioral). In sum, both employee and supervisor grit demonstrated neutralizing effects when operating in politically fraught work settings.

Research limitations/implications

Despite the single source nature of data collections, the authors took steps to minimize potential biasing factors (e.g. time separation, including affectivity). Future research will benefit from multiple sources of data as well as a more expansive view of the grit construct.

Practical implications

Work contexts have grown increasingly more political in recent years primarily as a result of social and motivational factors. Hence, the authors recommend that leaders investigate factors that minimize its potentially malignant effects. Although grit is often challenging to cultivate through interventions, selection and quality of work life programs may be useful in preparing workers to manage this pervasive source of stress.

Originality/value

Despite its practical appeal, grit’s impact in work settings has been under-studied, leading to apparent gaps in science and leadership development. Creative studies, building off the research, will allow grit to maximize its contributions to both scholarship and employee well-being.

The Effect of Paternalism on Incivility: Exploring Incivility Climate as an Important Boundary Condition

In this article, we examine the effects of paternalism on experienced incivility across two studies. Study 1 examines the paternalism—experienced incivility relationship in a sample of health care employees, and Study 2 examines a moderated–mediated relationship, with incivility climate as the moderator of the paternalism—experienced incivility relationship, and counterproductive work behavior as the outcome. Results from these studies suggest that paternalism has a significant positive direct effect on incivility, and an indirect effect on counterproductive work behavior through experienced incivility. Moreover, our results suggest that the relationship between paternalism and experienced incivility is moderated by incivility climate, such that the effect of paternalism on experienced incivility is stronger at higher levels of incivility climate tolerance and lower levels of incivility climate policy.

Mitigating influence of transcendence on politics perceptions’ negative effects

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine how a cognitive process, transcendence, moderates the relationship between perceptions of organizational politics (POPs) and several work outcomes.

Design/methodology/approach

Participants across two studies (Study 1: 187 student-recruited working adults; Study 2: 158 information technology employees) provided a demographically diverse sample for the analyses. Key variables were transcendence, POPs, job satisfaction, job tension, emotional exhaustion, work effort, and frustration.

Findings

Results corroborated the hypotheses and supported the authors’ argument that POPs lacked influence on work outcomes when individuals possessed high levels of transcendence. Specifically, high levels of transcendence attenuated the decreases in job satisfaction and work effort associated with POPs. Additionally, transcendence acted as an antidote to several workplace ills by weakening the increases in job tension, emotional exhaustion, and frustration usually associated with POPs.

Research limitations/implications

This study found that transcendence, an individual-level cognitive style, can improve work outcomes for employees in workplaces where POPs exist. Future studies should use longitudinal data to study how changes in POPs over time affect individuals’ reported levels of transcendence.

Practical implications

Although it is impossible to eliminate politics in organizations, antidotes like transcendence can improve individuals’ responses to POPs.

Originality/value

This study is one of the first to utilize an individual-level cognitive style to examine possible options for attenuating the effects of POPs on individuals’ work outcomes.

Mitigating influence of transcendence on politics perceptions’ negative effects

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine how a cognitive process, transcendence, moderates the relationship between perceptions of organizational politics (POPs) and several work outcomes.

Design/methodology/approach

Participants across two studies (Study 1: 187 student-recruited working adults; Study 2: 158 information technology employees) provided a demographically diverse sample for the analyses. Key variables were transcendence, POPs, job satisfaction, job tension, emotional exhaustion, work effort, and frustration.

Findings

Results corroborated the hypotheses and supported the authors’ argument that POPs lacked influence on work outcomes when individuals possessed high levels of transcendence. Specifically, high levels of transcendence attenuated the decreases in job satisfaction and work effort associated with POPs. Additionally, transcendence acted as an antidote to several workplace ills by weakening the increases in job tension, emotional exhaustion, and frustration usually associated with POPs.

Research limitations/implications

This study found that transcendence, an individual-level cognitive style, can improve work outcomes for employees in workplaces where POPs exist. Future studies should use longitudinal data to study how changes in POPs over time affect individuals’ reported levels of transcendence.

Practical implications

Although it is impossible to eliminate politics in organizations, antidotes like transcendence can improve individuals’ responses to POPs.

Originality/value

This study is one of the first to utilize an individual-level cognitive style to examine possible options for attenuating the effects of POPs on individuals’ work outcomes.

Development and Validation of a Comprehensive Work-Related Needs Measure

In a work context, employees tend to gravitate toward situations that are most conducive to meeting their needs. The purpose of this research is threefold. First, we define and specify the psychological needs under investigation, briefly highlight extant research, and differentiate needs from other individual difference variables. Second, we demonstrate the limitations of one of the most highly cited psychological needs instruments and introduce a new needs model. Third, we develop and evaluate a multi-dimensional needs inventory using a multi-study design. The strengths and limitations of the proposed and tested model are discussed, as are implications for future research.

Performance, Stress, and Attitudinal Outcomes of Perceptions of Others’ Entitlement Behavior: Supervisor–Subordinate Work Relationship Quality as Moderator in Two Samples

Supervisor–subordinate work relationships are based on a series of potentially fluctuating resource allocation episodes. Building on this reality, we hypothesized in the present research that supervisor–subordinate work relationship quality will neutralize the negative attitudinal and behavioral strain effects associated with perceptions of others’ entitlement behavior. We draw upon the transactional theory of stress, and the social exchange and support features of leader–member exchange theory, to explain our expected neutralizing effects on job tension, job satisfaction, and contextual performance/citizenship behavior. Results supported study hypotheses in Sample 1. Findings were replicated in Sample 2 and extended by also demonstrating the interaction effect on task performance. Contributions to theory and research, strengths and limitations, directions for future work, and practical implications are discussed.

Driving Away the Bad Guys

The previously uninvestigated role of work drive as a moderator of perceptions of politics–job outcomes relationships was examined in a series of field studies. Consistent with the underpinnings of sensemaking theory, we hypothesized that those with high levels of work drive would experience fewer adverse consequences when coupled with heightened perceptions of politics relative to those reporting less work drive. Across two independent studies, hypotheses were strongly supported. Specifically, perceptions of politics demonstrated a significant, direct influence on job satisfaction, job tension, and emotional exhaustion for those with less work drive in Sample 1 (municipal employees) and only a minimal impact for those with higher levels of drive. Results were replicated in Sample 2 (members of a management association). Implications of these findings for science and practice, strengths and limitations, and future research directions are discussed.

Do I Fit In? Perceptions of Organizational Fit as a Resource in the Workplace Stress Process

A large number of research studies in the stress literature over the previous 20 years have examined how organizational demands influence experienced stress; however, little research has examined how perceptions of organizational fit influence experienced stress and the stress process. In the present study, we use the conservation of resources (COR) theory to examine how perceptions of hindrance stressors, challenge stressors, and organizational fit (i.e., a resource) affect employees’ intrapersonal (i.e., job satisfaction and work intensity) and interpersonal (i.e., interpersonal workplace deviance and work-to-family conflict) outcomes through job strain (i.e., job tension) and motivational (i.e., vigor) cognitive stress processes. Results from three samples of data ( nSample 1 = 268, nSample 2 = 259, nSample 3 = 168) largely supported the hypothesized model and suggested that perceptions of organizational fit can be a resource associated with favorable effects on employees’ stress processes. Thus, we contribute to the stress and fit literatures by proposing and demonstrating empirical support for a COR theoretical explanation of why perceptions of organizational fit are a resource for employees. The results are important because they help provide a broader view of the effects of perceptions of organizational fit on employees’ stress processes than offered by prior research and suggest that organizational leaders have the opportunity to help employees manage workplace stress by fostering perceptions of organizational fit. Implications of results for theory and practice, strengths, limitations, and directions for future research are presented.

Creating One's Reality: The Interaction of Politics Perceptions and Enactment Behavior

The current study investigated the previously unexamined relationship between politics perceptions and employee enactment behavior. Consistent with previous job stress and sense-making research, we hypothesized that individuals reporting low levels of enactment behaviors would be more adversely affected by politics perceptions than those who engaged in high levels of enactment behavior. Results across two samples provided strong support for the hypothesized relationships. Specifically, employees who reported low levels of enactment behavior experienced less satisfaction, less person-environment fit, and reported lower levels of effort when faced with highly political environments. Conversely, levels of satisfaction and person-environment fit perceptions of individuals reporting high levels of enactment behaviors were largely unaffected by highly political contexts. Implications of these findings, strengths and limitations, and avenues for future research are provided.

Ferris G. Examining the interactive effects of accountability, politics, and voice

Purpose

– Research has shown accountability can produce both positive and negative outcomes. Further, because of inherent environmental uncertainty, perceptions of organizational politics often interact with accountability to produce negative effects. However, using uncertainty management theory, the purpose of this paper is to argue that employees can use proactive voice to exercise control in the ambiguity of highly accountable and political environments.

Design/methodology/approach

– This two sample study of graduate school alumni (n=211) and insurance employees (n=186) explored the three-way interaction of felt accountability×politics perceptions×proactive voice on work performance, job satisfaction, and job tension.

Findings

– As hypothesized, high levels of felt accountability and politics were most strongly associated with favorable outcomes when coupled with increased voice behavior. Conversely, felt accountability and politics were related to negative outcomes in settings associated with low proactive voice. Results supported in Sample 1 were then constructively replicated in Sample 2.

Practical implications

– All employees are held accountable to some degree, and all work in potentially political settings. Often, these environmental features are dictated to employees, leaving only employee reactions in direct control. One possible response is voice. As demonstrated in the present research, employees who engage in proactive voice appear to exercise some degree of control over their environment, resulting in more positive outcomes than their less active counterparts.

Originality/value

– The present research extends understanding regarding the effects of accountability in organizations by demonstrating that contextual factors (e.g. politics) and individual difference variables (e.g. in levels of proactive voice) differentiate favorable vs unfavorable outcomes of accountability.

Hochwarter W, L. Hampton H, R. Ferris G. Supervisor political support as a buffer to subordinates' reactions to politics perceptions

Purpose

– The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of subordinates' perceived supervisor political support (SPS) as a boundary condition capable of attenuating individuals' negative reactions to politics perceptions.

Design/methodology/approach

– Data for this three-sample investigation were obtained from employees of a package distribution firm (n=144), employees of an engineering firm (n=187), and individuals attending a manufacturing-related professional conference (n=174). Data were analyzed using hierarchical moderated regression analyses.

Findings

– Consistent with prior research, individuals' politics perceptions were directly associated with less than desirable workplace outcomes. However, individuals' who perceived their supervisors to provide them with SPS were less negatively affected by politics perceptions than their peers who perceived low levels of SPS.

Research limitations/implications

– SPS appears to provide information to subordinates to aid in sensemaking such that they are better able to deal with requisite uncertainty associated with their political settings, and in doing so, SPS shifts their perceptions of the political environment from that of threat to potential benefit.

Originality/value

– This investigation in one of a handful of studies to examine the other-benefitting role of political behavior as well as the conditions under which politics perceptions result in auspicious outcomes. Additionally, the manuscript is unique in that it introduces, conceptually delineates, and empirically evaluates a more active, behavioral form of supervisory support (i.e. SPS).

Leader Political Skill, Relationship Quality, and Leadership Effectiveness

Grounded in leader–member exchange, social exchange, political skill and influence theories, the present two-study investigation tests the model that leader political skill is related to both leader and follower effectiveness through leader–follower relationship quality. It is hypothesized that leader political skill is associated with leader effectiveness (Study 1) and follower effectiveness (Study 2) through relationship quality. The results support the hypotheses and were constructively replicated in Study 2, contributing to theory that leader political skill enhances relationship quality, which then ultimately affects leader and follower effectiveness relationships. Strengths, limitations, directions for future research, and implications for practice are discussed.

Theory in the organizational sciences

In this essay, we further delineate the defining characteristics of theory as well as what constitutes a theoretical contribution in organizational research cultivated by our collective experiences in the field. Additionally, we offer our views regarding the fragmented state of thinking that currently exists, how this view has come about, as well as available remedies. Unfortunately, an accurate and honest treatment requires the realization that many of the problems facing the field are not likely be solved without radical shifts in its philosophy. In our identification of issues and subsequent discussions, we err on the side of candor, which may offend some readers. Others may simply view our beliefs as unduly cynical. However, our intention throughout this essay is merely to “call-em-like-we-see-em” and not to overstate the case or elicit strong emotions or negative reactions. On the other hand, we view it as a disservice to simply reiterate the “party line,” which presents an existing knowledge base that is both robust and accommodating. Clearly, it is neither.