Category Archives: Management

It’s not my job: Compensatory effects of procedural justice and goal setting on proactive preventive behavior

Run Ren, Aneika L Simmons, Adam Barsky, Kelly E See, Celile Itir Gogus
Journal of Management & Organization,Pages: 1-19.
In two experiments, we examined the function of procedural justice in signaling individuals’ value to the group by arguing that individuals treated fairly are more likely to engage in proactive preventive behavior, a behavior that involves proactively revising or correcting the mistakes and intentional deceptions of coworkers. In addition, we extend Staw and Boettger’s (1990) work on task revision and demonstrate that procedural justice and goal setting have compensatory effects, such that procedural justice can be combined with performance goals to reap the valuable aspects of goal setting while minimizing some of the unintended side-effects. Our findings also contribute to the ongoing discussion of the mixed effects of goal setting, as well as the effects of multiple goal assignment.

When organizational politics matters: The effects of the perceived frequency and distance of experienced politics

John M Maslyn, Steven M Farmer, Kenneth L Bettenhausen
human relations,Vol. 70, Issue 12, Pages: 1486-1513.
Drawing from literature linking organizational politics with effects of challenge or hindrance stressors, this study investigated the effects of the frequency and psychological distance of positive and negative conceptualizations of perceived politics on the impact to the individual. It was hypothesized that the frequency of political behavior would exhibit an inverted-U-function relationship with favorable evaluations of political behavior and that this relationship would be moderated by distance. Two independent samples were used to test the hypotheses. Results for negative conceptualizations of perceived politics indicated a curvilinear frequency-evaluation relationship such that moderate levels of negative or dysfunctional politics are evaluated more favorably than either high or low levels. The distance of the political behavior was further found to moderate this relationship, with distant politics having little effect on the

Technology-driven changes in work and employment

Ramiro Montealegre, Wayne F Cascio
Communications of the ACM,Vol. 60, Issue 12, Pages: 60-67.
Y ZENZEN of enormous quantities of structured and unstructured data, requiring the adjective “big” to distinguish this new paradigm of development. Ubiquitous computing also blurs the boundaries between industries, nations, companies, providers, partners, competitors, employees, freelancers, outsourcers, volunteers, and customers. They also yield opportunities to unify the physical space, which has always used information to try to make an inherently inefficient system more efficient, and the electronic space, which enables information accessibility to overcome the limitations of the physical space. Merging the physical and the electronic also has implications for privacy and security, as well as how companies are organized and manage human talent.Given these rapid advances and our increased reliance on technology, the question of how to manage technologyenabled change in work and employment is highly salient for companies and their executives. General predictions anticipate significant changes in knowledge acquisition, sharing, and distribution, as well as related ripple

Training trends: Macro, micro, and policy issues

Wayne F Cascio
Human Resource Management Review,
The scope of the training enterprise is vast, the field is dynamic, and multi-level issues confront training researchers. After identifying three “mega trends” – globalization, technology, and demographic changes – this paper reviews training trends at the macro level, the micro level, and emerging policy issues and links each one to the mega trends. The macro-level trends – increasing demands for personal and professional development by job seekers and employees, the effects of digital technology on work, structural changes in labor markets, increasing training opportunities for non-standard workers, and training as an important aspect of an employer’s brand – reflect broad trends in the economy. Micro-level trends – better understanding of requirements for effective learning; use of short, digital lessons; and options for optimizing learning and preventing skill and knowledge decay – each focus on improving the

The Oxford handbook of talent management

David G Collings, Kamel Mellahi, Wayne F Cascio
Oxford University Press,
The Oxford Handbook of Talent Management offers academic researchers, advanced postgraduate students, and reflective practitioners a state-of-the-art overview of the key themes, topics, and debates in talent management. The Handbook is designed with a multi-disciplinary perspective in mind and draws upon perspectives from, inter alia, human resource management, psychology, and strategy to chart the topography of the area of talent management and to establish the base of knowledge in the field. Furthermore, each chapter concludes by identifying key gaps in our understanding of the area of focus. The Handbook is ambitious in its scope, with 28 chapters structured around five sections. These include the context of talent management, talent and performance, talent teams and networks, managing talent flows, and contemporary issues in talent management. Each chapter is written by a leading international scholar in the area and thus the volume represents the authoritative reference for anyone working in the area of talent management.

The Influence of Hierarchy on Idea Generation and Selection in the Innovation Process

Dongil (Daniel) Keum and Kelly E. See
Organization Science, Vol. 28, Issue 4, July-August 2017, pp. 653–669

The link between organizational structure and innovation has been a longstanding interest of organizational scholars, yet the exact nature of the relationship has not been clearly established. Drawing on the behavioral theory of the firm, we take a process view and examine how hierarchy of authority – a fundamental element of organizational structure reflecting degree of managerial oversight – differentially influences behavior and performance in the idea generation versus idea selection phases of the innovation process. Using a multi-method approach that includes a field study and a lab experiment, we find that hierarchy of authority is detrimental to the idea generation phase of innovation, but that hierarchy can be beneficial during the screening or selection phase of innovation. We also identify a behavioral mechanism underlying the effect of hierarchy of authority on selection performance and propose that selection is a critical organizational capability that can be strategically developed and managed through organizational design. Our investigation helps clarify the theoretical relationship between structure and innovation performance and demonstrates the behavioral and economic consequences of organizational design choice.

Science’s reproducibility and replicability crisis: International business is not immune

Herman Aguinis, Wayne F Cascio, Ravi S Ramani
Palgrave Macmillan UK,Vol. 48, Issue 6, Pages: 653-663.
International business is not immune to science’s reproducibility and replicability crisis. We argue that this crisis is not entirely surprising given the methodological practices that enhance systematic capitalization on chance. This occurs when researchers search for a maximally predictive statistical model based on a particular dataset and engage in several trial-and-error steps that are rarely disclosed in published articles. We describe systematic capitalization on chance, distinguish it from unsystematic capitalization on chance, address five common practices that capitalize on chance, and offer actionable strategies to minimize the capitalization on chance and improve the reproducibility and replicability of future IB research.

A Present Past: The Fallacy of Institutional Maintenance

David Chandler, William M. Foster
Academy of Management 77th Annual Meeting (Best Paper) Proceedings,
The idea that institutions are functions of complex processes that evolve gradually over long periods is taken-for-granted. In spite of this, our understanding of the past and how it informs current institutional configurations remains under-theorized. Where work exists, it tends to be overly literal-treating the past as a sequence of path-dependent, static events. In contrast, we theorize the past as a fluid resource (more stable or more fragile) that is interpreted in the present. The resulting model situates institutions both synchronically in nested hierarchies and diachronically in layers of sediment. We augment this model with a case-study of an essential U.S. institution (constitutional law) and the organization that embodies it (the Supreme Court). In particular, we analyze two Court decisions that define the constitutionality of the death penalty and reveal two conflict mechanisms (subversion in the present and excavation of

When organizational politics matters: The effects of the perceived frequency and distance of experienced politics

John M Maslyn, Steven M Farmer, Kenneth L Bettenhausen
Human Relations,Pages: 0018726717704706.

Drawing from literature linking organizational politics with effects of challenge or hindrance stressors, this study investigated the effects of the frequency and psychological distance of positive and negative conceptualizations of perceived politics on the impact to the individual. It was hypothesized that the frequency of political behavior would exhibit an inverted-U-function relationship with favorable evaluations of political behavior and that this relationship would be moderated by distance. Two independent samples were used to test the …
[Full Text]

Leniency bias in performance ratings: The big-five correlates

Kevin HC Cheng, C Harry Hui, Wayne F Cascio
Frontiers in psychology,Vol. 8, Pages: 521.
Some researchers assume that employees’ personality characteristics affect leniency in rating others and themselves. However, little research has investigated these two tendencies at the same time. In the present study we developed one index for other-rating leniency and another one for self-rating leniency. Based on a review of the literature, we hypothesized that a generous assessment of peers would more likely be made by those who are extroverted and agreeable than by those who are not. Furthermore, a generous assessment of oneself would more likely be made by people who are conscientious and emotionally stable, than by people who are not. We also investigated if the leniency in rating others and the leniency in rating oneself are part of a more general leniency tendency. Data collected from a sample of real estate dealers provided support for the above hypotheses. Limitations and implications for future research are discussed.

Anchoring Relationships at Work: High-Quality Mentors and Other Supportive Work Relationships as Buffers to Ambient Racial Discrimination

Belle Rose Ragins, Kyle Ehrhardt, Karen S. Lyness, Dianne D. Murphy, and John F. Capman
Personnel Psychology, Vol. 70, Issue 1, Spring 2017, Pages 211–256

Applying a unifying theoretical framework of high-quality work relationships, we conducted a set of 3 complementary studies that examined whether high-quality mentoring relationships can buffer employees from the negative effects of ambient discrimination at work. Integrating relational mentoring with relational systems theory, we first examined whether the presence of a high-quality mentoring relationship buffers employees in a sample of 3,813 workers. In support of the “mentors-as-buffers” hypothesis, we found that employees who witnessed or were aware of racial discrimination at work had lower organizational commitment than those not exposed, but employees with high-quality mentoring relationships experienced less loss of commitment than those lacking mentors. We then examined the specific buffering behaviors used by mentors in high-quality relationships and whether these behaviors were effective for other work relationships and outcomes. Applying Kahn’s typology, we developed and validated a measure of high-quality relational holding behaviors in a sample of 262 workers. Using this measure in a third sample of 557 workers, we found that mentors buffer by providing holding behaviors, but we did not find this buffering effect when supervisors or coworkers provided holding behaviors. This potent mentor buffering effect held across a range of outcomes, including organizational commitment, physical symptoms of stress, insomnia, and stress-related absenteeism. These studies suggest that mentoring may be a singularly effective relationship that offers a safe harbor for employees faced with ambient discrimination at work.

Collaborative Stakeholder Engagement: An Integration between Theories of Organizational Legitimacy and Learning

Vinit Desai
Academy of Management Journal,Pages: 2016.0315.

Organizations often collaborate with stakeholders such as customers, communities, and other groups to pursue shared goals, and these partnerships are known to affect an organization’s legitimacy with those groups as well as its access to information from them. While these concerns could be examined within each of their own independent literatures, existing theories are ill-equipped to handle this process in tandem. Thus, studying these collaborations provides an opportunity to more broadly explore how organizations …
[Full Text]

The Stretch Goal Paradox

Sim B. Sitkin, C. Chet Miller, and Kelly E. See
Harvard Business Review,  JVol. 95, Issue 1, Pages: 93-99

What executive hasn’t dreamed of transforming an organization by achieving seemingly impossible goals through the sheer force of will? We’re not talking about merely challenging goals. We’re talking about management moon shots—goals that appear unattainable given current practices, skills, and knowledge. In the parlance of the business world, these are often referred to as stretch goals. Our research suggests that though the use of stretch goals is quite common, successful use is not. Before launching stretch goals in sales, production, quality, or any other realm, how can you be confident that your grand aspirations will trigger positive attitudes and actions rather than negative ones? We focus on providing clear guidelines for assessing when stretch goals do and do not make sense, and when to employ them rather than set more achievable objectives.

The Strategic Use of Historical Narratives: A Theoretical Framework

William M. Foster, Diego M. Coraiola, Roy Suddaby, Jochem Kroezen, David Chandler
Business History,Vol. 59, Issue 8, Pages: 1176-1200.

History has long been recognised as a strategic and organisational resource. However, until recently, the advantage conferred by history was attributed to a firm’s ability to accumulate heterogeneous resources or develop opaque practices. In contrast, we argue that the advantage history confers on organisations is based on understanding when the knowledge of the past is referenced and the reasons why it is strategically communicated. We argue that managers package this knowledge in historical narratives to address …
[Full Text]

The dynamic effects of subconscious goal pursuit on resource allocation, task performance, and goal abandonment

Traci Sitzmann, Bradford S Bell
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes,Vol. 138, Pages: 1-14.

We test two potential boundary conditions for the effects of subconscious goalsthe nature of the goal that is activated (achievement vs. underachievement) and conscious goal striving. Subconscious achievement goals increase the amount of time devoted to skill acquisition, and this increase in resource allocation leads to higher performance when conscious goals are neutral. However, specific conscious goals undermine the performance benefits of subconscious achievement goals. Subconscious underachievement goals …
[Full Text]

Culpable leaders, trust, emotional exhaustion, and identification during a crisis

Sarah Kovoor-Misra, Shanthi Gopalakrishnan
Leadership & Organization Development Journal,Vol. 37 Issue 8, Pages: 1100-1116
The purpose of this paper is to investigate followers judgments of the culpability of their leaders and the organizations external stakeholders in causing a crisis. The authors study the differences in effects of these judgments on their trust toward their leaders, their emotional exhaustion, and their levels of organizational identification.

Third-Party Certifications as an Organizational Performance Liability

Vinit M Desai
Journal of Management,Pages: 0149206316659112.

Third-party accreditations and certifications can provide legitimacy or signal trustworthiness about an organization and its products or services, and with very little exception, the vast majority of research on these labels focuses on their benefits. Yet the value of becoming accredited may change dramatically over time. Little research, if any, has examined the processes through which this occurs. Here, I develop theory about three mechanisms that could each tarnish the value of accreditation and reduce its performance impact. First,” …
[Full Text]

An Examination of the Relationship Between the Work–School Interface, Job Satisfaction, and Job Performance

Rebecca Wyland, Scott W. Lester, Kyle Ehrhardt and Rhetta Standifer
Journal of Business and Psychology, Vol. 31, Issue 2, Pages. 187–203

Purpose: This study provides a comprehensive examination of how the work–school interface relates to work outcomes such as task performance and job satisfaction. Additionally, this study builds upon past research by examining a range of work- and school-related resources and demands that collectively influence the work–school interface.

Design/Methodology/Approach: Data were obtained from 170 working undergraduate students at multiple time points over the course of a semester, as well as from participants’ supervisors at the organizations in which the students work.

Findings: The strongest antecedent of job satisfaction, interpersonal facilitation, and job performance was work–school facilitation. Demands in one role create pressures in the other. Contrary to expectations, job demands positively related to work–school facilitation, while school demands positively related to school–work facilitation.

Implications: For practitioners, this study highlights the need to better understand the interplay between school and work roles for employees at a time when continuing education is emphasized. Employers benefit from the performance gains and positive attitudinal shifts that stem from experiences of facilitation between roles. From a theoretical perspective, this study reveals a unique pattern of results that adds to our understanding of the dynamics involved in the integrated work–school routines of working students.

Originality/Value: This is one of the first studies to investigate the relationships between four bi-directional forms of the work–school interface and subsequent multi-source assessments of organizational outcomes. As such, it offers an examination of how conflict and facilitation from both the work and school domains relate to work outcomes.

Learning to Learn from Failures: The Impact of Operating Experience on Railroad Accident Responses

Vinit Desai
Industrial and Corporate Change, Volume 25, Issue 2, Pp. 199-226

Failures are difficult to learn from, and organizations unable to learn may continue to fail. This study reconciles conflicting theoretical predictions regarding whether organizations are able to learn from failure, by examining the moderating role of knowledge gained through an organization’s operating experience. The study also forwards the possibility that generalist and specialist organizations systematically differ at this process. Hypotheses are tested on a panel of railroad companies. These tests provide strong support for the role of operating experience, and partial support for differences across generalists and specialists. Contributions to organizational learning theory and related literatures are discussed.