The Influence of Predeployment Training on Coordination in Multinational Headquarters: The Moderating Role of Organizational Obstacles to Information Sharing

Coordination is critical to the success of multinational military operations and may be fostered by predeployment training. We argue that whether such training is related to a high degree of perceived coordination at the individual level is likely to depend on whether individuals experience a low degree of organizational obstacles to information sharing. We examined this using data from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Kosovo Force headquarters (survey: n = 131). We controlled for whether it was the participants’ first deployment, the participants’ background (military or civilian), the amount of time spent in the headquarters by participants, whether differences pertaining to culture and opinions were valued by the organization, the quality of supervisor/subordinate relationships, and the degree of national cultural obstacles to information sharing. The results showed no significant direct effects on coordination from 3 different training configurations: national training, multinational training, and a combination of national and multinational training. However, we found a negative direct effect from organizational obstacles to information sharing on coordination, and support for organizational obstacles to information sharing as negatively moderating the multinational predeployment training and coordination relationship. Qualitative interviews (n = 14) indicated that informal information sharing, and the problems exchanging information from tactical to operational levels could hinder coordination. Interventions to foster coordination could benefit from a focus on multinational training and lowering organizational obstacles to information sharing. Our findings contribute to more precisely pinpointing the types of training that are useful in multinational operations, as well as the factors upon which training transfer is contingent.     

利他动机对中小学教师知识共享的影响——组织认同和组织支持感的调节作用

为探讨利他动机、组织认同和组织支持感对知识共享的影响,选取北京市不同学区的20所中小学校的教师进行问卷调查,使用利他行为问卷、组织认同问卷、组织支持感问卷和知识共享问卷获得有效数据1342份。结果发现：（1）中小学教师的利他动机对其知识共享具有显著的正向预测作用;（2）组织认同在中小学教师利他动机与知识共享之间起到调节作用;（3）组织支持感对中小学教师利他动机与组织认同对知识共享的交互效应具有高阶调节作用。本研究检验了个体因素（利他动机）与组织因素（组织认同、组织支持感）变量对知识共享的共同作用,对提升中小学教师知识共享具有一定的指导作用。     

Exploring the linkages between formal ownership and psychological ownership for the organization: The mediating role of organizational justice

Extending previous research on formal ownership and psychological ownership in organizations, this study simultaneously examines the relationships between employee participation in three formal ownership programmes (i.e. profit sharing, participation in decision making, access to business information) and psychological ownership for the organization, while also exploring the mediating roles of distributive and procedural justice. Data were collected from 387 R&D engineers based at 20 high‐technology firms in Taiwan. A structural equation modelling analysis was conducted to test our hypotheses, and the results show that employee participation in profit sharing, decision making, and access to business information were all positively related to psychological ownership. Moreover, distributive justice fully mediated the relationship between participation in profit sharing and psychological ownership, while procedural justice mediated the relationship between participation in decision making, access to business information, and psychological ownership.     

MODERNIZATION OF THE CHINESE FAMILY BUSINESS

In order to study the modernization of the Chinese family business, the contrast between formal rationality and substantive rationality was used to characterize significant features of Western culture and Chinese culture respectively. A theoretical model of Chinese social behaviors as influenced by the substantive ethics of Confucianism was adopted to describe the organizational behaviors which were frequently observed in Chinese family business. Several empirical studies comparing organizational climates as perceived by employees working in foreign-invested business, private business with formal regulations, and family business were cited to support the argument that such Confucian virtues as loyalty to the organization, working hard, maintaining interpersonal harmony, etc., are most likely to be manifested in organizations where formal regulations of Western-style management were enforced.     

Self‐monitoring,status, and justice‐related information flow

We develop and test a multi‐level interactive model of the relationships among self‐monitoring, co‐workers' formal and informal status, and justice‐related information flow in a scenario‐based field study of 4,011 unique relationships collected from 84 respondents. We predict that individuals high in self‐monitoring, because they attend more carefully to social cues and have higher levels of expressive control, will be more likely than low self‐monitors to intend to seek, accept, and provide justice‐related information as a function of their co‐workers' formal status, the size of their co‐workers' networks, and the advantageousness of their co‐workers' position in the networks (betweenness centrality). This cross‐level interaction hypothesis receives strong support in terms of co‐workers' network size, limited support in terms of co‐workers' betweenness centrality, and no support in terms of co‐workers' formal status. We address the implications of these findings for the literature on self‐monitoring, social construction of organizational justice, and social networks, as well as the strengths and limitations of our approach.     

Communication Networks in the Diffusion of an Innovation in an Organization1

Research on decision-making processes and the diffusion of innovations in organizations has been focused on the influence of formal organizational structures. Since the successful implementation of most innovations requires the cooperation of employees, it is important to investigate how employees' knowledge, opinions, and individual decisions concerning an innovation are influenced by other employees. The present study investigates how information acquisition and adoption decisions of employees are influenced by the quantity and strength of their informal communication ties in the organization, and how strong this influence is in comparison with influence from formal communication sources. Results indicate that formal communication sources contributed more to the process of information diffusion, whereas informal communication sources (especially the employees' strong ties), were more influential on attitudes and adoption intentions.     

Gender differs: Modelling knowledge sharing from a perspective of social network ties

The present paper proposes a model of knowledge sharing, in which coworker congruence, outcome interdependence, perceived organizational support, and procedural justice influence knowledge sharing indirectly through the mediation of instrumental ties and expressive ties, and examined gender differences in causal connections within the model. In a sample of employees in Taiwan, it was shown that the influence of instrumental ties on knowledge sharing is stronger for females than for males; the influence of expressive ties on knowledge sharing is stronger for males than for females; the influence of coworker congruence on expressive ties is stronger for females than for males; the influence of outcome interdependence on instrumental ties is stronger for females than for males; and the influence of perceived organizational support on instrumental ties is stronger for males than for females.     

Affect networks: a structural analysis of the relationship between work ties and job-related affect

The relationship between organizational networks and employees' affect was examined in 2 organizations. In Study 1, social network analysis of work ties and job-related affect for 259 employees showed that affect converged within work interaction groups. Similarity of affect between employees depended on the presence of work ties and structural equivalence. Affect was also related to the size and density of employees' work networks. Study 2 used a 10-week diary study of 31 employees to examine a merger of 2 organizational divisions and found that negative changes in employees' affect were related to having fewer cross-divisional ties and to experiencing greater reductions in network density. The findings suggest that affect permeates through and is shaped by organizational networks.     

A multiplex view of leadership structure in management teams

In the hope of complementing the structural perspective in upper echelon research and advancing a fine-grained understanding of dyadic leadership influence in management teams, the current study combines two types of intrateam structures—leadership network and friendship network—to create a multidimensional conceptualization of leadership structure in management teams. Specifically, we propose that management teams with a denser singular leadership network (i.e., a network consisting of many leadership ties that are not coupled with friendship ties) should have lower management team cohesion, which subsequently renders worse business unit performance. To contrast, management teams with a denser multiplex network (i.e., a network consisting of many leadership ties that are coupled with friendship ties) should have higher management team cohesion, which subsequently renders better business unit performance. Guided by structural contingency perspective, we further propose that management team task interdependence will strengthen team cohesion's positive impact on business unit performance. To test the hypothesized model, we collected team-level social network data and multiple-wave survey data from 697 managers nested in 148 hotels (i.e., 148 management teams) owned by a large hospitality company. We also obtained objective performance data for each hotel (i.e., occupancy percentage rate and revenue per available room per day) as the criterion measure. The data supported our hypotheses. The theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed.     

Honesty–humility and a person–situation interaction at work

Person–situation interactions have attracted researchers' attention for decades. Likewise, the current work focuses on the interaction of honesty–humility and situational conditions in bringing about counterproductive work behaviour (CWB). As such, we introduce perceptions of organizational politics as a situational construct representing an opportunity for CWB. In a sample of N = 148 employees we found that particularly individuals low in honesty–humility were affected by situational circumstances. By contrast, those high in honesty–humility reported practically the same (lower) amount of CWB independent of the level of perceptions of organizational politics. In other words, employees low in honesty–humility were especially likely to condition their behaviour on environmental factors, a result that mirrors previous findings. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Testing Two Contrasting Structural Models of Innovativeness in a Contractual Network

This study examined contrasting models of the impact of formal and informal structural factors and the communication environment on organizational innovativeness. Specifically, three formal structural variables (decentralization, formalization, and slack resources), two informal structural variables (range and prominence), and two communication environment variables (communication quality and acceptance) are posited to be antecedents of organizational innovativeness. In the traditional model, formal structural impacts are posited to be shaped by informal structure. Conversely, the coexisting model argues that both formal and informal structural variables directly affect the communication environment, which, in turn, shapes perceptions of innovativeness. Data were gathered from self-report questionnaires and network analysis communication logs completed by organizational members (N = 79) of a geographically dispersed government health information agency, the Cancer Information Service (CIS). Tests of the models demonstrate that the coexisting model is clearly superior. These results suggest that the dual role of formal and informal structures needs to be more systematically specified as we focus on innovation in new organizational forms, such as the CIS.     

A LONGITUDINAL INVESTIGATION OF THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN JOB INFORMATION SOURCES, APPLICANT PERCEPTIONS OF FIT, AND WORK OUTCOMES

This longitudinal field study was designed to examine the relationships between job information sources, self-esteem, and perceptions of person-job (P-J) and person-organization (P-O) fit, as well as the relationships between perceptions of fit and work outcomes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational identification, intentions to quit, stress symptoms, and turnover). The results indicate that the number of formal job information sources and self-esteem were positively related to perceptions of P-J fit, and formal job information sources were positively related to perceptions of P-O fit. Perceptions of P-J fit were positively related to job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational identification, and negatively related to stress symptoms and intentions to quit. Perceptions of P-O fit were negatively related to intentions to quit and turnover. In addition, perceptions of fit mediated the relationships between job information sources and self-esteem with job satisfaction, intentions to quit, and turnover. These results highlight the job applicant's perspective of fit, and demonstrate the importance of both P-J and P-O fit perceptions.     

Change‐oriented organizational citizenship behaviour: An interactive product of openness to change values,work unit identification,and sense of power

Due to the increased frequency of organizational changes, predicting employees’ voluntary involvement in the development of organizational practices and individual work is of particular importance in organizational psychology. This study focused upon change‐oriented organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) as an expression of openness to change values, and also upon psychological factors that can moderate the value–behaviour relationship. We propose that personal values, group identification, and a sense of power interact in predicting change‐oriented OCB of employees. One hundred and eighty‐four employees rated their values, their identification with the work unit and their sense of power. In line with our predictions, the results showed that openness to change values and work unit identification interacted positively in predicting supervisor‐rated change‐oriented OCB in workers with a high sense of power, but not in workers with a low sense of power. This finding suggests that workers who have a high sense of power and are highly identified with the work unit tend to pursue their openness to change values in a way that contributes to the organization. The authors further conclude that an interactive approach, rather than one of direct effect, is advantageous when studying values as antecedents to change‐oriented OCB.     

Organizational Membership versus Informal Interaction: Contributions to Skills and Perceptions that Build Social Capital

Participation in formal organizations has been considered a marker of social capital, but informal interactions may also provide social-capital relevant benefits. The current studies (N = 252 undergraduates; 60 adult members of a service organization) assessed skills, outcomes, and social-structural perceptions that may be developed from organizational or informal participation. Results suggested that organizations serve as potential training grounds for diverse types of civic participation; individuals hone their leadership and public speaking skills within the structures provided by organized groups. On the other hand, informal interaction also contributed importantly to social capital formation by fostering negotiating skill, the sharing of opinions, and companionship, and by creating networks of mutual obligation.     

Supervisors’ work-related and nonwork information sharing: Integrating research on information sharing,information seeking,and trust using self-disclosure theory

Although significant scholarly attention has been devoted to understanding subordinates’ information seeking from supervisors, researchers have not paid adequate attention to information sharing by supervisors. Moreover, research on supervisors’ information sharing behavior has focused almost exclusively on work-related information sharing, disregarding supervisors’ sharing of information not related to work (e.g., that related to family). Drawing on self-disclosure theory, we argue that supervisors share both work-related and nonwork information with their subordinates and propose that these two forms of information sharing are conceptually distinct. Furthermore, to unravel the role of supervisors’ nonwork information sharing, we develop an interactive model to test how it may be associated with important employee outcomes. We conducted pilot studies using five samples and, through a sixth study, tested the hypothesized model using a four-wave data collection design. This study makes three major contributions to research and theory. First, it integrates information sharing and information seeking literatures. Second, it underlines the importance of supervisors’ nonwork information sharing in organizations by testing its direct and interactive effects. Third, it contributes to theory by presenting trust as a mechanism that links information disclosure in dyads. Results obtained using structural equation modeling generally supported the proposed model.     

How positive and negative contact experiences relate to identification and acculturation of persons with a migration background: Differentiating between majority,minority, and religious group identity

Badea, Jetten, Iyer, and Er-Rafiy proposed a model that specifies immigrants’ experienced rejection by majority and minority groups and social identification with these groups as predictors of their acculturation attitudes. The present research tested an extended version of this model by assessing (i) both positive and negative contact experiences with majority and minority groups, (ii) social identification with these groups and religious groups, and (iii) acculturation attitudes. We surveyed individuals with Greek (N = 186) and Turkish (N = 138) migration background living in Germany. The proposed model yielded a good fit with the empirical data and showed that positive and negative contact with majority and minority groups predicted minority members’ acculturation attitudes, mediated via identification with the majority, minority, and religious group. Our findings support the extended model and contribute to a broader understanding of contact–identification–acculturation links in the context of migration.     

Minority representation,tokenism, and well-being in army units

Racial and ethnic diversity is increasing in the US Army and women are moving into more combat roles. This puts minority soldiers at risk for being underrepresented in their work units. Tokenism theory predicts that when a work group has less than 15% representation in a social group, the numerically underrepresented minority (i.e., token) members are subject to three disadvantages: higher visibility, informal isolation, and role encapsulation. In the Army, where many companies contain small numbers of women and racial minorities, some soldiers may face additional stressors and constraints. We explored psychosocial, organizational, and health outcomes of all identifiable token women (N = 4,425) and Black soldiers (N = 5,040). Tokens were remarkably similar to non-tokens and majority soldiers on outcomes such as coping skills, adaptability, organizational trust, sleep, substance use, and pain. The intersection of token status in terms of race and gender was not related to any appreciable differences. One potential explanation is the shared Army culture that emphasizes group unity and the importance of the mission above individual characteristics and goals. The Army depends on cohesion, organizational identification, and commitment to the group in order to reduce stress and anxiety, and to maximize combat performance. For soldiers who have internalized this culture, it could be easier to see past individual differences such as gender and race and identify others in the unit as fellow soldiers primarily.     

Community types and mental health: a multilevel study of local environmental stress and coping

Research has found that neighborhood structural characteristics can influence residents' mental health. Few studies, however, have explored the proximal reasons behind such influences. This study investigates how different types of communities, in terms of environmental stressors (social and physical disorder and fear of crime) and social resources (informal ties and formal organizational participation), affect well-being, depression, and anxiety in adult residents. Data are from a survey of 412 residents nested in 50 street blocks. Block stressors and resources were cluster analyzed to identify six block types. After controlling for several individual- and block-level characteristics, results from multilevel models suggest that in communities facing relatively few stressors, higher levels of formal participation are associated with better mental health. Because high levels of formal participation were not found in communities with higher levels of stressors, the impact of participation in such contexts could not be examined. However, results suggest that in communities where stressors are more common, isolation from neighbors may have a protective effect on mental health.     

Investigating the Moderating Role of Cultural Practices on the Effect of Selection Fairness Perceptions

Utilizing a sample of applicants to positions in a global corporation, we examined whether cultural practices moderate the effect of selection fairness perceptions on organizational attractiveness and job choice. Positive relationships were anticipated between fairness perceptions and outcomes, and performance orientation and uncertainty avoidance cultural practices were hypothesized to moderate the effects of structural and information sharing perceptions, respectively. Structural fairness perceptions were positively associated with both outcomes, but information‐sharing perceptions were significantly related only to organizational attractiveness. National variability in the effect of selection fairness perceptions was observed only for the effect of structural perceptions on organizational attractiveness. Performance orientation moderated this effect such that the strongest relationship was seen among applicants from more performance‐oriented countries.     

Willingness to express emotion: The impact of relationship type,communal orientation,and their interaction

This research examines the effects of relationship type (close vs. business), a personality variable (dispositional communal orientation), and the interaction of these two variables on individuals’ willingness to express emotions to relationship partners. Results supported our predictions that (a) people are willing to express more emotion in relationships likely to be high in communal strength than in relationships likely to be low in communal strength, (b) individuals high in communal orientation are willing to express more emotion than those who are low in communal orientation, and (c) relationship type and communal orientation interact to influence willingness to express two emotions that reveal weakness and vulnerability (fear and anxiety). Specifically, communal orientation had little effect on willingness to express fear and anxiety in business relationships, whereas high relative to low communal orientation was associated with willingness to express more fear and anxiety within close relationships.