Category Archives: Management

Management

Are emotional display rules formal job requirements? Examination of employee and supervisor perception

Diefendorff, J.M., Richard, E.M., & Croyle, M.H.
Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Vol. 90 Issue 6, pp. 1256-1264.

This study explored whether emotional display rules are perceived by part-time employees and their supervisors as formal job requirements. Results showed that display-related behaviors were thought to be required activities (i.e., in-role) by the majority of the sample, and employees and supervisors generally agreed in this perception. Job-based differences in interpersonal requirements predicted the extent to which employees and supervisors categorized display-related behaviors as required, with more interpersonal requirements being associated with greater in-role categorization. Job-based differences in interpersonal requirements also predicted the level of agreement between employees and supervisors in categorizing display-related behaviors as in-role or extra-role. Finally, job satisfaction and job involvement predicted the extent to which employees categorized emotional display behaviors as being required in their jobs, with more satisfied and more involved individuals rating emotional display behaviors as in-role at a higher rate than less satisfied and less involved individuals

Management

Accounting for subordinate perceptions of supervisor power: An identity-dependence model

Farmer, S., & Aguinis, H.
Journal of Applied Psychology Vol. 90 Issue 6, pp. 1069-1083.

We present a model that explains how subordinates perceive the power of their supervisors and the causal mechanisms by which these perceptions translate into subordinate outcomes. Drawing on
identity and resource dependence theories, we propose that supervisors have power over their subordinates when they control resources needed for the subordinates’ enactment and maintenance of current and desired identities. The joint effect of perceptions of supervisor power and supervisor intentions to provide such resources leads to four conditions ranging from highly functional to highly dysfunctional: confirmation, hope, apathy, and progressive withdrawal. Each of these conditions is associated with specific outcomes such as the quality of the supervisor-subordinate relationship, turnover, and changes in the type and centrality of various subordinate identities.

Health Management, Management

Moving Into and Through Transitions

O’Connor, Edward J. and Fiol, C. Marlena
Physician Executive Vol. 31 Issue 5, pp. 64-65

Describes how to move into and through transitions between two buildings in case of emergency like fire. Discussion on the three things get people to move into and through transitions; Pain or anticipated pain in the present that demands doing something different; Reduction of the perceived risk during the transition; Object to move forward; Factors that tend to encourage people to move into and through transitions; Rewards for success; Minimization the perceived risk of trying to change through training.

Management

Institutional governance systems and variations in national competitive advantage: An integrative framework

Griffiths, A. & Zammuto, R.F.

Academy of Management Review Vol. 30 Issue 4, p823-842.

Creating competitive industries has become one of the key tasks of governments. Explaining different adaptation outcomes in industries across nations cannot be fully accounted for simply by an emphasis on firm-level capabilities, market-driven policies, or by state-level policies. This paper proposes an integrative framework that draws on the strategic management and political economy literatures to explain variations in national industrial competitiveness. Differences with respect to institutional characteristics and capabilities, competitive outcomes, conditions of best fit and who bears the cost of industry adaptation are discussed.

Management

Test development and use: New twists on old questions

Cascio, W. F., & Aguinis, H.
Human Resource Management, Vol. 44 Issue 3, pp. 219-235

Over the past several decades there have been some significant advances in psychological science, specifically, in our knowledge about important questions to address with respect to the development and use of assessment tools. This paper focuses on developments in research and guidelines for practice in five selected areas that, if applied, will lead to more informed use of assessment tools. The five areas that we discuss are: validity generalization, statistical significance testing, criterion measures, cutoff scores, and cross-validation.

Management

Legal standards, ethical standards, and responses to social-sexual conduct at work

Pierce, C. A., & Aguinis, H.
Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 26 Issue 6, pp. 727-732

When individuals investigate a sexual harassment claim that stems from a dissolved workplace romance, their responses to the claim are likely influenced by their ethical standards and legal
standards. We propose a person-situation interactionist decision-making process through which investigators’ ethical standards may override legal standards when responding to social-sexual conduct at work.

Management

From business partner to driving business success: The next step in the evolution of HR management

Cascio, Wayne F.
Human Resource Management, Vol. 44 Issue 2, pp. 159-163

In the 1980s, a combination of economic and political factors led to the demand for greater accountability in all functional areas of business, including HR. The massive restructuring of organizations in the 1990s led to the outsourcing of many of HR’s basic transactional functions. In order for HR to add value to an organization, it must have several key competencies. “Influence in leadership is all about understanding the business well enough so that what you recommend adds value to the organization,” says one HR vice president. This article shows how this is done through the example of SYSCO Corporation.

Management

Demand for certified human resources professionals in Internet-based job announcements

Aguinis, H., Michaelis, S. E., & Jones, N. M.
International Journal of Selection and Assessment, Vol 13, Issue 2,  Pages 160-171

We tested empirically whether potential employers require and/or prefer human resources (HR)professionals who hold an HR certification. We analyzed each of 1,873 HR job announcements
available over a one-week period on monster.com, hotjobs.yahoo.com, careerbuilder.com, and shrm.org. Results showed that only 9 (i.e., .48%) job announcements stated that there was a requirement and only 70 (i.e., 3.73%) job announcements stated that there was a preference for job applicants with any type of HR certification. In spite of the low overall demand for certified HR professionals, results indicated that the demand is slightly higher for jobs posted on shrm.org, certain job titles (e.g., HR Director, HR Generalist), HR specialty areas (e.g., employee relations, general HR), industries (e.g., manufacturing), and for jobs requiring more
years of HR job experience. Overall, results suggest that the field of HR needs to do a better job of gathering evidence about validity, utility, and lack of adverse impact regarding the use of
certification in selection and assessment decision making. Once this evidence is collected, employers may perceive HR certification as a more critical signal of a job applicant’s future contributions.

Management

Display rules and emotional labor: The moderating role of commitment.

Gosserand, Robin H., & Diefendorff, James M.
Journal of Applied Psychology 90(6), 1256-1264.

The present study examined whether commitment to emotional display rules is a necessary condition for emotional display rules to impact behavior at work. Results using structural equation modeling revealed that display rule commitment moderated the relationships of emotional display rule perceptions with surface acting, deep acting, and positive affective delivery at work, such that the relationships were strong and positive when commitment to display rules was high, and weak when commitment to display rules was low. These findings suggest that motivation plays a role in the emotional labor process in that individuals must be committed to display rules for display rules to impact behavior.

Health Management, Management

Following a Proven Path to Success

O’Connor, Edward J. and Fiol, C. Marlena
Physician Executive Vol. 31, Issue 3, p. 77–78

This article highlights methods to tackle changes encountered by people in their life. While there is no single right approach to tackling change, following a systematic, sequential process developed by others who have effectively traveled through similar territory increases one’s likelihood of success. People develop a sense of increased urgency, a change team starts to effectively work together, a vision is clarified and communicated and people begin to demonstrate behaviors that show buy-in. Under pressure for rapid results, however, leaders often focus on barriers and action steps before energizers are effectively addressed, leading to little progress, many meetings and fruitless, repetitive discussions of the same topics.

Management

Getting a Grip on Governance

Tyler, J. Larry and Biggs, Errol L.
Frontiers of Health Services Management Vol. 21, Issue 3, p. 37-42

Presents a commentary regarding the need for hospitals’ chief executive officer to be concern about governance. Failure of the community-based model of governance; Thoughts on the recommendations as to what a CEO should do to help the board govern successfully; Difficulty of the role of board member in the context of today’s healthcare and business environment

Management

How is drug testing implemented in this company?" The answer is in the eye of the beholder

Aguinis, H., & Henle, C.A.
Revue Sciences de Gestion (2005)

We collected surveys from employees in a large petroleum company in the United States. Results indicated that employees with (a) lower scores on belief in chance (a dimension of locus of control), (b) lower scores on authoritarianism, (c) more positive attitudes toward drug testing in general, and (d) knowledge of fewer individuals known fairly well who have failed a drug test
were more likely to report that their organization’s drug testing program includes positive characteristics. We discuss implications of these findings for theory and practice regarding the implementation of drug testing in organizations.

Health Management, Management

Identification in face-to-face, hybrid, and pure virtual teams: untangling the contradictions.

Fiol, C. Marlena and O’Connor, Edward J.
Organization Science Vol. 16, Issue 1, p. 19-32

Identification is a person’s sense of belonging with a social category. Identification in virtual organizational teams is thought to be especially desirable because it provides the glue that can promote group cohesion despite the relative lack of face-to-face interaction. Though research on virtual teams is exploding, it has not systematically identified the antecedents or moderators of the process by which identification develops, leaving a number of gaps and apparent contradictions. The purpose of this paper is to begin to untangle the contradictions and address some of the gaps by tracing the mechanisms and moderating processes through which identification develops in hybrid and pure virtual settings, and the ways that these processes differ from face-to-face settings.

Management

Effect size and power in assessing moderating effects of categorical variables using multiple regression: A 30-year review

Aguinis, Herman, Beaty, J. C., Boik, R. J., and Pierce, Charles A.
Journal of Applied Psychology Vol. 90, Issue 1, p. 94-107

The authors conducted a 30-year review (1969-1998) of the size of moderating effects of categorical variables as assessed using multiple regression. The median observed effect size of (f2) is only .002, but 72% of the moderator tests reviewed had power of .80 or greater to detect a targeted effect conventionally defined as small. Results suggest the need to minimize the influence of artifacts that produce a downward bias in the observed effect size and put into question the use of conventional definitions of moderating effect sizes. As long as an effect has a meaningful impact, the authors advise researchers to conduct a power analysis and plan future research designs based on smaller and more realistic targeted effect sizes.

Management

Cautionary note on reporting eta-squared values from multifactor ANOVA designs

Pierce, Charles A., Block, R. A., and Aguinis, Herman
Educational and Psychological Measurement Vol. 64 Issue 6, p. 916-924.

We provide a cautionary note on reporting accurate eta-squared values from multifactor analysis of variance (ANOVA) designs. We reinforce the distinction between classical and partial eta squared as measures of strength of association. We provide examples from articles published in premier psychology journals in which the authors erroneously reported partial eta-squared values as representing classical eta-squared values. Finally, we discuss broader impacts of inaccurately reported eta-squared values for theory development, meta-analytic reviews, and intervention programs.

Health Management, Management

The Power of Mind

Fiol, C. Marlene and O’connor, Edward J.
Journal of Management Inquiry Vol. 13 Issue 4, p. 342-352.

This essay invites you to entertain the possibility that our current ideas about the human mind and its supposed limitations may themselves be limited. What if organizational realities were more malleable than we believe? What if organizational members could alter their physical surroundings even just occasionally through focused mental attention? We review evidence from numerous fields suggesting that the human mind may be capable of affecting physical reality from a distance and into the past and the future. Although not all studies have provided universal support, the evidence for the impact of focused mental attention is sufficiently compelling and the potential implications sufficiently important that we believe it is time to explicitly examine the organizational implications of the power of the human mind.

Management

Examination of the roles of action-state orientation and goal orientation in the goal-setting and performance process

Diefendorff, James M.

Human Performance Vol. 17, Issue 4, Pages 375-395.

This investigation examined the roles of action-state orientation and goal orientation in predicting task-specific motivation and performance in an academic context. Results showed that action-state orientation predicted performance independent of goal orientation, cognitive ability, self-efficacy and self-set goals. Goal orientation primarily related to self-efficacy beliefs, which predicted goals and performance. Although action-state orientation and goal orientation were correlated, they had independent relationships with task-specific goal-setting and performance variables.

Management

Responding to sexual harassment complaints: Effects of a dissolved workplace romance on decision-making standards

Pierce, Charles A., Broberg, Brandee J., McClure, James R., and Aguinis, Herman
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes Vol. 95, Issue 1, Pages 66-82

We introduce and provide support for an ethical decision-making framework as an explanation for the social-cognitive process through which observers make decisions about a sexual harassment complaint that stems from a prior workplace romance. We conducted two experiments to examine effects of features of a dissolved hierarchical workplace romance and subsequent harassing behavior on raters’ responses to a sexual harassment complaint. In Experiment 1, results based on a sample of 217 employees indicate that their attributions of responsibility for the harassment mediated the link between their knowledge of features of the romance and three recommended personnel actions. In Experiment 2, results based on a sample of 258 members of the Society for Human Resource Management indicate that their degree of recognition of the accused’s social-sexual behavior as immoral mediated the link between their knowledge of features of the romance and harassment and their attributions of responsibility. Raters’ attributions of responsibility, in turn, predicted three recommended personnel actions. We discuss theoretical and practical implications from an ethical decision-making perspective.