Shared Leadership and Innovation: The Role of Vertical Leadership and Employee Integrity

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between shared leadership, as a collective within-team leadership, and innovative behavior, as well as antecedents of shared leadership in terms of team composition and vertical transformational and empowering leadership.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Data were obtained from a field sample of 43 work teams, comprising 184 team members and their team leaders from two different companies. Team leaders rated the teams’ innovative behavior and their own leadership; team members provided information on their personality and their teams’ shared leadership.

Findings

Shared and vertical leadership, but not team composition, was positively associated with the teams’ level of innovative behavior. Vertical transformational and empowering leadership and team composition in terms of integrity were positively related to shared leadership.

Implications

Understanding how organizations can enhance their own innovation is crucial for the organizations’ competitiveness and survival. Furthermore, the increasing prevalence of teams, as work arrangements in organizations, raises the question of how to successfully manage teams. This study suggests that organizations should facilitate shared leadership which has a positive association with innovation.

Originality/Value

This is one of the first studies to provide evidence of the relationship between shared leadership and innovative behavior, an important organizational outcome. In addition, the study explores two important predictors of shared leadership, transformational and empowering leadership, and the team composition in respect to integrity. While researchers and practitioners agree that shared leadership is important, knowledge on its antecedents is still in its infancy.     

Transformational and Transactional Leadership and Followers’ Achievement Goals

Purpose

Achievement goals, or the standards of competence employees pursue in their work, have far-reaching consequences for employee and organizational functioning. In the current research, we investigated whether employees’ achievement goals can be predicted from their supervisor’s leadership style.

Design/Methodology/Approach

A multilevel study was conducted in which followers of 120 organizational leaders completed measures of their leader’s transformational leadership (focusing on individual needs and abilities, on intellectual development, and on a common team mission), transactional leadership (focusing on monitoring and achievement-related rewards), and their own mastery goals (aimed at learning, developing, and mastering job-relevant skills), and performance goals (aimed at doing better than others).

Findings

Group-level transformational leadership predicted followers’ mastery goals, whereas group-level transactional leadership predicted followers’ performance goals. Within-group differences in transformational leadership also predicted mastery goals.

Implications

These findings suggest that leadership style plays an important role in the achievement goals followers adopt. Organizations may promote transactional leadership in contexts requiring that employees outperform others. In contrast, in contexts requiring learning and development, organizations may promote transformational leadership.

Originality/Value

This research is the first to examine the relationships between leadership styles and specific follower goals, and the first to highlight the role of leadership as a social variable involved in employees’ adoption of achievement goals.     

How Participative Safety Matters More in Team Innovation as Team Size Increases

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to investigate if there is a moderating relation between team size and team innovation.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Data used in statistical analyses were obtained from 531 employees in 124 technology research teams.

Findings

The findings support the hypothesis, showing that not only team size, but also team size together with participative safety facilitates team innovation.

Implications

The findings show that not only large teams, but also large teams with participative safety are innovative. Team leaders thus need to ensure that collaborative rather than competitive environment prevails in their teams.

Originality/Value

This is one of the first studies to assess team innovation by patents received and to provide evidence of the moderating relation of participative safety between team size and team innovation.     

Exploring the Effects of Value Diversity on Team Effectiveness

Purpose

The goal of the present study was to explore the potential impact of within-team value diversity with respect to both team processes and task performance.

Design/Methodology/Approach

We explored value diversity within a comprehensive framework such that all components of basic human values were examined. A sample of 306 participants randomly assigned to 60 teams, performed a complex hands-on task, demanding high interdependence among team members, and completed different measures of values and team processes.

Findings

Results indicated that value diversity among team members had no significant impact on task performance. However, diversity with respect to several value dimensions had a significant unique effect on team process criteria. Results were consistent with respect to the nature of the impact of value diversity on team process outcomes. Specifically, the impact of team value diversity was such that less diversity was positively related to process outcomes (i.e., more similarity resulted in more team cohesion and efficacy and less conflict).

Implications

The results indicated that disparity among teammates in many of these values may have important implications on subsequent team-level phenomena. We suggest team leaders and facilitators of teambuilding efforts could consider adding to their agendas a session with team members to analyze and discuss the combined value profiles of their team.

Originality/Value

This is the first study to highlight the unique impact of many unexamined, specific components of team diversity with respect to values on team effectiveness criteria.     

Analysis of Self-Reported Motives for Task-Related Helping: Implications for an Integrated Theory of Helping

Purpose

In organizations where work is complex, dynamic and interdependent, maintaining an environment where employees offer help to one another is essential for organizational effectiveness. This research is aimed at understanding the antecedent motives underlying task-related interpersonal helping.

Design/Methodology/Approach

The research took an atypical approach by asking employees directly to explain in their own words why they would, or would not, help co-workers with work-related problems. Content analysis yielded five categories of motives for helping. The qualitative motive categories were able to explain variance in quantitative scales assessing respondents’ affect, attitudes, organizational perceptions, and demographics.

Findings

Employees who gave altruistic reasons for helping (i.e., helping was a personal value or a contribution to the team) reported performing more helping behaviors, expressed greater organizational commitment, and perceived more organizational justice than did employees who expected reciprocity for helping, or whose help was contingent.

Implications

No existing theory of helping explains the total collection of motives identified in this research. We encourage researchers to develop integrated theories capable of explaining the totality of motives for task-related helping. Our research identities several essential parameters of such integrated theories and provides guidance for carrying out the task of theory integration.

Originality/Value

This phenomenological research is the only empirical investigations into task-related helping based on respondents’ own reasons for helping. It also is one of the few to incorporate both qualitative and quantitative methodologies.     

Understanding the Development of Team Identification: A Qualitative Study in UN Peacebuilding Teams

Purpose

The goal of our study was to scrutinize the psychological processes that occur in individuals when developing identification with a highly diverse team.

Design/Methodology/Approach

A qualitative, theory-generating approach following the principles of grounded theory was chosen as research design. Data were obtained from 63 personal interviews with members of seven UN peacebuilding teams in Liberia and Haiti. These teams were particularly well suited for analyzing the dynamics of identification processes as they constitute extreme cases with respect to team members’ identity diversity.

Findings

Our analysis reveals four different processes that occur as individuals develop team identification (TI): enacting a salient identity, sensemaking about team experience, evaluating collective team outcomes, and converging identity.

Implications

We can show that team members engage in both individual- and collective-directed sensemaking processes during TI development, thereby using internal (i.e., other team members) and external points of reference (i.e., team-external actors) for ingroup/outgroup comparisons. Moreover, our study reveals different modes of identity convergence (i.e., active, reactive, and withdrawal) which are associated with different types of TI (i.e., deep-structured TI, situated TI, and disidentification).

Originality/Value

Although team members’ identification with their workgroup has long been considered important for effective team functioning, knowledge about its development has remained limited and largely without empirical footing from a real-world team context. Our study represents the first empirical attempt to inductively identify the processes that occur in individuals as they develop TI.

     

Team Creative Environment as a Mediator Between CWX and R&D Team Performance and Moderating Boundary Conditions

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to investigate how high-quality dyadic co-worker relationships (CWXs) favour or hinder team performance. Specifically, we examine the role played by CWX, team creative environment, job complexity and task interdependence to achieve higher levels of team performance.

Design/Methodology/Approach

We analyse data from 410 individuals belonging to 81 R&D teams in technology sciences to examine the quality of the dyadic relationships between team members under the same supervisor (co-workers) and team performance measured by the number of publications as their research output.

Findings

Higher levels of team average CWX relationships are positively related to the establishment of a favourable creative team environment, ending into higher levels of team performance. Specifically, the role played by team average CWX in such relationship is stronger when job complexity and task interdependence are also high.

Implications

Team’s output not only depends on the leader and his/her relationships with subordinates but also on quality relationships among team members. CWXs contribute to creative team environments, but they are essential where jobs are complex and tasks are highly dependent.

Originality/Value

This study provides evidence of the important role played by CWXs in determining a creative environment, irrespective of their leaders. Previous research has provided information about how leader’s role affects team outcomes, but the role of dyadic co-worker relationships in a team remains still relatively unknown. Considering job complexity and task interdependence variables, the study provides with a better understanding about how and when high-quality CWXs should be promoted to achieve higher team performance.

     

Reflection Toward Creativity: Team Reflexivity as a Linking Mechanism Between Team Goal Orientation and Team Creative Performance

Purpose

This study aims at testing the mediating role of team reflexivity in the relationships between team learning, performance-prove, and performance-avoid goal orientations and team creative performance and assessing the relative importance of the three types of team goal orientation in team reflexivity and creative performance.

Methodology

We conducted Study 1 on 68 student teams by using a two-wave time-lagged design. In Study 2, we carried out a cross-sectional field study on 108 intact work teams in diverse Korean companies.

Findings

Team learning goal orientation was significantly associated with team creative performance. While team learning and performance-prove goal orientations were equally influential in predicting team reflexivity, team performance-avoid goal orientation had no relationship with team reflexivity and creative performance. Team reflexivity mediated the relationships between team learning and performance-prove goal orientations and team creative performance.

Implications

By revealing that team learning and performance-prove goal orientations can contribute to team creative performance through the facilitation of team reflective process, this study provides practitioners with insight into critical antecedents and team process that are conducive to the creative performance of work teams.

Originality/Value

This is one of the first studies to explore a mediating mechanism between team goal orientation and creative performance. This study attends to the role of team reflexivity as a key team-regulatory process that underlies the relationship between team goal orientation and team performance. Furthermore, the use of multiple studies in different contexts strengthens the robustness of the study findings.

     

The Impact of Managerial Coaching Behavior on Employee Work-Related Reactions

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between perceived managerial coaching behavior and employee work-related outcomes.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Data were collected from 482 employees in a Korean public organization. The collected data were analyzed by structural equation modeling with a two-step approach.

Findings

The hypothesized conceptual model was adequately supported by the sample data. Further investigations suggested managerial coaching, which had a direct impact on employee satisfaction with work and role clarity and an indirect impact on satisfaction with work, career commitment, organization commitment, and job performance.

Implications

Findings provide empirical support to the hypothesized conceptual model of managerial coaching outcomes in organizations. Study findings offer evidence regarding prospective, but unexamined, benefits of managerial coaching. Such knowledge can be also used by practitioners for selecting and developing effective managers and leaders and understanding and managing employee attitudes and behaviors in organizations.

Originality/Value

This article is one of the first studies to provide evidence for the influence of managerial coaching behavior on employee role cognition, work attitudes, and performance. Since there is no commonly acknowledged theory or conceptual model for managerial coaching outcomes, this finding of the current hypothesized model can notably contribute to the research on managerial coaching. Furthermore, to date, no study of managerial coaching in Asian cultural contexts has been identified.     

The Influence of Change-Oriented Leadership and Psychological Safety on Team Learning in Healthcare Teams

Purpose

Researchers have identified team learning as an important predictor of team performance. In healthcare organizations, it is especially critical for care quality and hospital performance that teams engage in learning behaviors to reduce errors and improve service effectiveness. The main objective of this study is to examine the role of change-oriented leadership in the learning process and outcomes of healthcare teams.

Design/Methodology/Approach

The sample comprises a total of 698 healthcare professionals working in 107 teams at different public hospitals throughout Spain. Members of teams were invited to participate voluntarily by completing an anonymous individual questionnaire.

Findings

The results show a mediating effect of team learning on the relationship between change-oriented leadership and team performance and psychological safety and team performance.

Originality/Value

Our study contributes to the literature by investigating the role of change-oriented leadership in facilitating team learning behaviors. Moreover, this study advances our understanding of the mediators of the relationship between team leadership and outcomes by testing to assess whether specific change-oriented leader behaviors nurture psychological safety, team learning and, therefore, performance.

     

Individual Employees’ Responses to Group Incentives: The Moderating Role of Innovation

Purpose

This study examined the mediating role of perceived organizational support (POS) in the relationship between group-incentive participation and organizational commitment. The study also investigated the moderating role of innovation in the relationship between group-incentive participation and POS and the relationship between group-incentive participation and organizational commitment.

Design/Methodology/Approach

The proposed hypotheses were tested by hierarchical linear modeling by means of survey data that were collected in South Korea in 2008.

Findings

The results showed that the relationship between group-incentive participation and organizational commitment was fully mediated by POS. Cross-level analyses revealed that group-incentive participation had stronger relationships with POS and organizational commitment in more innovative companies than in less innovative companies.

Implications

These findings contribute to the literature by identifying the characteristics of organizations in which group-incentive participation is more effective. In particular, innovative companies could benefit from adopting group-incentive practices because these practices are more strongly related to POS and organizational commitment in more innovative companies.

Originality/Value

Whereas previous studies on group incentives have mainly focused on the effects of group incentives at the organizational level, this study bridged the gap between macro- and microapproaches through multilevel analyses. This study is unique in that it examined the vertical fit between group incentives and organizational characteristics while focusing on individual employees’ perceptions and attitudes.     

Employees’ Adaptability and Perceptions of Change-Related Uncertainty: Implications for Perceived Organizational Support,Job Satisfaction,and Performance

Purpose

The literature on organizational change has increasingly recognized that characteristics of change recipients influence their reactions to workplace change. Yet little is known about the influence of employees’ adaptability and change-related uncertainty on their interpretation of organizational actions. We examined these antecedents and the mediating role of perceived organizational support as explanations for employees’ job satisfaction and performance.

Design/Methodology/Approach

A survey was administered to material handling employees from two organizations. Employees completed measures of individual adaptability, uncertainty experienced regarding changes in the workplace, support received from the organization, and job satisfaction. Performance data were collected from the records of one organization.

Findings

Results from both samples support the role of perceived organizational support as a mediator of the relationship between employees’ adaptability and perceptions of change-related uncertainty and employees’ satisfaction and performance.

Implications

Change is a frequent occurrence in today’s workplace; thus, improving employee satisfaction and performance requires the consideration of change-related perceptions and individuals’ dispositions relevant to change. The present study offers insights regarding how organizations may help improve perceptions of organizational support by reducing perceived uncertainty as well as identifying employees who may need assistance to adapt to workplace changes.

Originality/Value

Despite practitioners’ expressed interest, there is scant research examining employees’ adaptability and change-related uncertainty. We provide the first evidence explaining how and why these variables impact important workplace outcomes and extend existing theory by identifying appraisals of the organization (and not the self) as a mechanism explaining stressor–strain relationships.     

Exploring the Effects of Job Autonomy on Engagement and Creativity: The Moderating Role of Performance Pressure and Learning Goal Orientation

Purpose

The 21st century work environment calls for team members to be more engaged in their work and exhibit more creativity in completing their job tasks. The purpose of this study was to examine whether team performance pressure and individual goal orientation would moderate the relationships between individual autonomy in teams and individual engagement and creativity.

Design/Methodology/Approach

A sample consisting of 209 team members and 45 team managers from 45 work teams in 14 companies completed survey measures. To test our hypotheses, we used multilevel modeling with random intercepts and slopes because the individual-level data were nested within the team-level data.

Findings

Hierarchical linear modeling showed that team-level performance pressure attenuated the positive relations between job autonomy and three dimensions of engagement. There were also 3-way interactions between job autonomy, psychological performance pressure, and learning goal orientation in predicting three dimensions of engagement and creativity.

Implications

This study highlights the importance of exploring the moderating effect of team-level task characteristics and individual differences on the relationships between job autonomy and individual engagement and creativity. Organizations need to carefully consider both individual learning goals and performance pressure when empowering team members with job autonomy.

Originality/Value

This is one of the first studies to explore the association between individual job autonomy in teams and individual outcomes in a contingency model. We first introduced team performance pressure as a moderator of job autonomy and examined the 3-way interaction effects of performance pressure, individual job autonomy, and learning goal orientation.

     

The Experience of Failed Humor: Implications for Interpersonal Affect Regulation

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to investigate failed interpersonal affect regulation through the lens of humor. We investigated individual differences that influenced people’s affective and cognitive responses to failed humor and their willingness to persist in the interpersonal regulation of positive affect after a failed attempt.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Using well-established autobiographical narrative methods and surveys, we collected data at two time points. All participants (n = 127) received identical surveys at time 1. At time 2, they were randomly assigned to complete a narrative about either successful or failed humor as well as a second survey.

Findings

Using moderated regression analyses and SEM, we found significant differences between our failed and successful humor conditions. Specifically, individual differences, including gender, affective perspective taking, and humor self-efficacy, were associated with negative reactions to failed humor and the willingness of individuals to persist in the interpersonal regulation of positive affect. Moreover, affective perspective taking moderated the effect of gender in both the failed and successful humor conditions.

Implications

Our results suggest that failed humor is no laughing matter. Understanding individuals’ willingness to continue in attempts to regulate the affect of others contributes to the comprehension of an understudied phenomenon that has implications for interpersonal behavior in organizations such as helping, group decision making, and intragroup conflict.

Originality/Value

Studies of interpersonal affect regulation often focus on people’s ability to successfully regulate others’ emotions. In contrast, this is the first quantitative study to explore factors that influence individual’s willingness to persist in interpersonal affect regulation after failure, and to investigate how individual differences influence the personal outcomes associated with failed attempts.     

The Role of Organizational Leaders in Sexual Orientation Equality at Organizational and Federal Levels

Purpose

This article expands the discourse of the impact of the passage of the Civil Rights Act (CRA) of 1964 to sexual orientation minorities (SOM).

Design/Methodology/Approach

We first discuss the challenges faced by SOM in the workplace. We then present a model adapted from Edelman’s “Handbook of employment discrimination research (pp. 337–352). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer (2005)” theory of endogeneity of law to discuss the impact that such leaders and their supportive organizational SOM policies can have on the passage of nationwide SOM legislation. Finally, we discuss how organizational leaders’ beliefs and actions can play a major role in affecting organizational SOM policies.

Findings

We argue that the presence of organizational protective policies can facilitate the passage of federal SOM legislation by establishing and legitimizing social norms. We also highlight how beliefs about religion, morality, controllability, and occupational stereotypes contribute to prejudice and lack of support for SOM-protective organizational policies.

Implications

We discuss the importance that organizational SOM policies have on larger societal legislative issues, and outline how specific individual-level beliefs can impact organizational-level support for SOM.

Originality/Value

We take a novel approach by focusing on what organizational leaders can do to enact SOM policies that may further influence protective laws. We also draw upon neo-institutional theory to show specifically how organizations can affect legislation; a topic often ignored in organizational psychology.     

Differences in the Valuing of Power Among Team Members: a Contingency Approach Toward Examining the Effects of Power Values Diversity and Relationship Conflict

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to investigate the conditional effects of power values diversity and relationship conflict.

Design/Methodology/Approach

We utilized a time-lagged survey design and multilevel modeling to investigate 60 teams working on a project task over the course of 4 months.

Findings

When participative safety climate was high, the presence of high power values diversity was particularly helpful for reducing relationship conflict. In turn, decreased relationship conflict tended to increase team performance. Additionally, when workload sharing was low, high relationship conflict was especially harmful to team performance.

Implications

Results support the consideration of team participative safety climate to better understand the conditions under which power values diversity is likely to lessen relationship conflict and subsequently increase team performance. Findings also highlight the importance of avoiding low workload sharing, in the presence of prominent relationship conflict, to increase team performance.

Originality/Value

By examining relationship conflict as a mediator and participative safety climate as a moderator of power values diversity’s effects, we make a novel contribution to extant literature by helping to elucidate both how and under what conditions differences in power values, among team members, can influence team performance. Relatedly, we answer the call for more research that adopts a contingency approach toward examining the effects of values diversity and relationship conflict. In doing so, we help to identify the conditions under which power values diversity and relationship conflict are likely to differentially influence important team outcomes.

     

Job Autonomy as a Predictor of Mental Well-Being: The Moderating Role of Quality-Competitive Environment

Purpose

This study examines the moderating role of quality-competitive environment on the relationships between job autonomy and employees?? mental well-being and organizational commitment. It also investigates the mediating role of organizational commitment on the relationship between job autonomy and mental well-being.

Design/Methodology/Approach

The proposed hypotheses were tested by hierarchical linear modeling using an archival dataset from the Workplace Employment Relations Survey, which was conducted in Great Britain in 2004 and 2005 (12,836 employees and 1,190 managers).

Findings

This study found that quality-competitive environment moderated the relationships between job autonomy and mental well-being and between job autonomy and organizational commitment. That is, job autonomy was more strongly related to mental well-being and organizational commitment in more quality-competitive organizations. The results also indicated that this moderation was partially mediated by organizational commitment.

Implications

Because job autonomy is related to employees?? mental well-being and organizational commitment, organizations need to provide their employees with job autonomy. More importantly, because these positive relationships are stronger in quality-competitive companies, organizations in a highly quality-competitive market in particular should provide their employees with more job autonomy.

Originality/Value

This is one of the first studies that investigated the vertical fit between job autonomy and organizational contexts while focusing on individual employees?? outcomes (attitudes and mental well-being). The results were obtained by data from a nationally representative sample, allowing us to generalize the results. Additionally, since the dataset was collected from multiple sources, self-report and common-method biases are minimized.     

First and Second Strings: Using Entity Analytics to Contrast Core and Supporting Teams

Purpose

This research demonstrates the importance of the concept of the core team (Humphrey et al. in Journal of Applied Psychology 94:48–61, 2009) in contrast to supporting or peripheral members within the context of larger nominal teams. It asks the question, “In a team-oriented organization, should we assume that all nominal team members are, in fact, relatively equal contributors?”

Design

Utilizing individual batter, fielder, and pitcher data from the National League from 2005 to 2014, we operationalize the concept of the core group, which is a subset of high-performing members.

Findings

After testing for aggregation, we found that for core team members, their collective versions of batting average, runs batted in (RBI), and pitching earned run average (ERA) significantly predicted team win-loss percentages with an R² of .62, p < .0001. The prediction of team attendance based on the performances of the core team was also significant with an R² of .40, p < .0001. The same three independent variables based solely on supporting players were neither aggregable nor significant. Similarly, results for the nominal teams composed of all players on the roster were also not aggregable.

Implications

These findings highlight the importance of identifying and managing core members (Fonti et al. Strategic Management Journal 37:1765–1786, 2016). Implications for team settings in management and business settings are discussed.

Originality

WABA provides a unique multi-level, visual analytical tool for testing the existence of entities for these baseball data. Its application shows very different data configurations for nominal, core, and support subteams and dissimilar patterns of relationships among the key performance variables for each type of team.

     

The Moderating Role of Gender in Relationships of Stressors and Personality with Counterproductive Work Behavior

Purpose

Gender differences in counterproductive work behavior (CWB: behavior that harms organizations or people) have been understudied. We explored gender mean differences, and the moderating effect of gender on the relationship of personality (agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, trait anger, and hostile attribution bias) and stressors (interpersonal conflict and organizational constraints) with three forms of CWB (directed toward organizations, directed toward persons, and relational aggression which are acts that damage relationships with other employees).

Design/methodology/approach

A survey was conducted of 915 employed individuals recruited from university classes. All worked at least 20 h per week (mean 26.3 h), and held a variety of jobs in many industries.

Findings

Men reported more CWB with correlations ranging from 0.12 to 0.18. Gender was found to moderate the relationship of job stressors and personality with CWB. The tendency for males to report engaging in more CWB was greater at high as opposed to low levels of interpersonal conflict, organizational constraints, trait anger and HAB and at low as opposed to high levels of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability.

Implications

These results suggest that gender differences in overall CWB are rather small, with men engaging in more than women only when they have certain personality characteristics or perceive high levels of job stressors. In other words men may be more reactive than women.

Originality/value

This study shows that gender serves a moderator role, and is the first to adapt the construct of relational aggression to the workplace.     

Observer Effects without Demand Characteristics: An Inductive Investigation of Video Monitoring and Performance

Purpose

The purpose of these two studies was to explore the relationship between video monitoring and quantity of performance in the absence of demand characteristics.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were gathered via two experiments involving business students working on a motor task. Participants were randomly assigned to the monitored and unmonitored conditions. Experiment 1 (n = 75) was inductive while Experiment 2 (n = 139) was partially inductive.

Findings

Experiment 1 showed that monitored participants’ performance was lower than that of unmonitored participants. Further, monitoring reduced outliers, increased interquartile variance, and normalized the distribution. Experiment 2 replicated the effect of monitoring on performance controlling for cognitive ability and emotions, demonstrated that negative emotions interacted with monitoring condition, and suggested that differences in performance were not due to cheating or variation in task-related strategies. We offer a grounded theory of video monitoring proposing that different implicit decision rules are activated when people are monitored as compared to when they are not monitored.

Implications

Future research needs to determine the extent to which our results extend to similar settings in the workplace and to other forms of observation. At this time, we believe organizations should carefully consider the consequences of electronic monitoring. Controlling expectations in the lab or workplace does not necessarily eliminate the independent effect of monitoring. Therefore, researchers must beware misinterpretation of effect sizes and overlooking the role of observation in their data.

Originality/value

These studies demonstrate that video monitoring can create observer effects in the absence of demand characteristics. Our inductive approach revealed the nature of the effects beyond mean differences and served as the basis for developing a testable theory of monitoring that goes beyond what was previously known.