Beyond family-friendly: The construct and measurement of singles-friendly work culture

Although research has examined work-family issues and organizational support for employees’ family responsibilities, few studies have explored the work-life issues of single employees without children. The current study examines single employees’ perceptions of how their organizations support their work-life balance in comparison to employees with families. A multi-dimensional scale is developed assessing five dimensions of singles-friendly culture: social inclusion, equal work opportunities, equal access to benefits, equal respect for nonwork life, and equal work expectations. Employees with families perceived more equity in most of these facets than did singles. Managerial and professional employees with higher incomes also perceived their organizations as more singles-friendly. Finally, social inclusion predicted organizational commitment for single employees, and this effect was mediated by perceived organizational support. In contrast, more equal work opportunities were related to lower turnover intentions among childfree singles.     

The empowering potential of intergroup leadership: How intergroup leadership predicts psychological empowerment through intergroup relational identification and resources

As work increasingly transcends organizational boundaries, employee psychological empowerment benefits from resources provided by others outside of the employee's own team, department, or organization. These intergroup collaborations, however, may be inhibited by social identity and social categorization processes, so that the empowerment potential of these relations remains largely untapped. In this study (N = 213), we demonstrate that intergroup leadership is linked to employee psychological empowerment via intergroup relational identification and access to resources. In this way, this study demonstrates the empowering potential of intergroup leadership and intergroup relational identification for employees who collaborate across group barriers. We finish this paper by discussing the main implications for both empowerment and intergroup leadership theory, suggesting fruitful avenues for future research and highlighting the practical value for those who are motivated to increase psychological empowerment among boundary-spanning employees.     

员工创新行为源于领导情感信任吗?风险倾向与组织行为授权的调节作用

领导情感信任会促进员工表现创新行为,但员工个体的风险倾向与组织行为授权可能对其具有调节作用。结果显示（1）领导情感信任能正向预测员工创新行为;（2）领导情感信任、组织行为授权与风险倾向对员工创新行为预测存在三维交互作用,相对于其他条件,组织行为授权和风险倾向均处于高水平条件下,领导情感信任与员工创新行为的正相关程度更为明显。探讨领导情感信任、组织行为授权、风险倾向与员工创新行为的关系可以为甄别影响员工创新行为的个体和环境因素提供理论指导,此外,也可为企业和直接领导如何增加员工创新行为提供借鉴。     

Empirical Support for the Critical Assumptions of Empowerment Theory

This exploratory case study provides empirical support for three critical assumptions of empowerment theory. Many empowerment theorists have argued that empowerment takes on multiple forms across people, is contextually embedded, and shifts over time (Rappaport, 1984; Zimmerman, 1990, 1995). To better understand the implications of these assumptions for empowerment theory and the research and intervention methods we employ, the empowerment experiences of 49 employees within a large human service delivery organization were explored. A method well suited to investigate empowerment's assumptions of multiplicity and dynamism—a constructivist approach to inquiry—was employed. Content analyses of interview and observational data revealed that the process of empowerment may be more complex than originally conceived. Not only did multiple meanings and desires for empowerment emerge across employees and between employees and leaders, but several shifting ecologies impacted the employees' lives, causing the employees' empowerment experiences to fluctuate. Empowerment emerged as a dynamic, highly individualistic, contextually layered process. Multiple forms, contexts, and dynamics that influenced employee empowerment are described. Implications of these findings for empowerment research and intervention are discussed.     

Defining the term new in new employee research

Researchers and managers use the term ‘new’ to describe organizational members who have recently joined an organization, but how long are arriving recruits considered ‘new employees’, and what factors drive this new‐to‐old transition? In this paper I hypothesize that co‐worker perceptions of an individual's ‘newness’ in the organization are a function of (1) the individual's relative position in the firm's tenure distribution and (2) the frequency of interaction between the rater and the individual. To evaluate these hypotheses I conducted a sociometric survey among four entrepreneurial organizations (N = 200), asking respondents to evaluate the newness of their co‐workers. The results support both hypotheses, but suggest that relative tenure (defined as a member's percentile rank in the firm's tenure distribution) is the strongest predictor of organizational newness perceptions. More specifically, ‘new employees’ are the 30% of the organization with the lowest tenure. This means that organizational growth and turnover have a major effect on how long arriving recruits are considered new employees, which in turn has implications for new employee research in areas like socialization, mentoring, training and career development.     

Trust in organization as a moderator of the relationship between self‐efficacy and workplace outcomes: A social cognitive theory‐based examination

Drawing on a social cognitive theory perspective, we contend that an employee's trust in oneself, or self‐efficacy, will interact with the individual's trust in the system, or trust in organization, to predict job attitudes and behaviours. Specifically, we expected that self‐efficacy would have stronger effects on job attitudes (job satisfaction and turnover intentions) and behaviours (task performance and organizational citizenship behaviours) to the degree to which employees perceive high levels of trust in organization. Using data collected from 300 employees and their respective supervisors at a manufacturing organization in Turkey across three waves, we found that self‐efficacy had more positive effects on job satisfaction, task performance, and citizenship behaviours when trust in organization was high. Interestingly, self‐efficacy had a positive effect on turnover intentions when trust in organization was low, indicating that high trust in organization buffered the effects of self‐efficacy on intentions to leave. The results suggest that the motivational value of trust in oneself is stronger to the degree to which employees also have high trust in the system, whereas low trust in system neutralizes the motivational benefits of self‐efficacy.

Practitioner points

• Practicing managers should not only invest in increasing self‐efficacy of their employees, but also invest in building trust to improve employees’ attitudes, behaviours, and performance. This is because when employee trust in organization is high, employee self‐efficacy has greater potential to have a positive influence over job satisfaction, task performance, and organizational citizenship behaviours.
• Self‐efficacy may actually increase an employee's desire to leave the organization when organizational conditions are unfavourable, such as in the case of low trust in the organization. Practicing managers should be aware that employees who have high levels of confidence may be at higher risk of turnover when they are unhappy with the organization.

     

Organizational identification and “currencies of exchange”: integrating social identity and social exchange perspectives

We integrate social exchange and social identity perspectives to propose and test the prediction that depending on their level of organizational identification, people may reciprocate the received organizational support using different “currencies of exchange”—reducing turnover intentions or, instead, engaging in extra‐role behavior. Specifically, the relationship of perceived organizational support (POS) with turnover intentions is proposed to be stronger with lower identification, whereas POS is proposed to be more closely related to extra‐role behavior with higher organizational identification. These predictions were supported in a cross‐sectional survey of N = 1,000 employees of a financial services firm. These results speak to the added value of integrating the social exchange perspective with its roots in applied psychology and the social identity perspective with its roots in social psychology in understanding the employee‐organization relationship.     

Organizational Conspiracy Beliefs: Implications for Leadership Styles and Employee Outcomes

Purpose

Belief in conspiracy theories about societal events is widespread among citizens. The extent to which conspiracy beliefs about managers and supervisors matter in the micro-level setting of organizations has not yet been examined, however. We investigated if leadership styles predict conspiracy beliefs among employees in the context of organizations. Furthermore, we examined if such organizational conspiracy beliefs have implications for organizational commitment and turnover intentions.

Design/Methodology/Approach

We conducted a survey among a random sample of the US working population (N = 193).

Findings

Despotic, laissez-faire, and participative leadership styles predicted organizational conspiracy beliefs, and the relations of despotic and laissez-faire leadership with conspiracy beliefs were mediated by feelings of job insecurity. Furthermore, organizational conspiracy beliefs predicted, via decreased organizational commitment, increased turnover intentions.

Implications

Organizational conspiracy beliefs matter for how employees perceive their leaders, how they feel about their organization, and whether or not they plan to quit their jobs. A practical implication, therefore, is that it would be a mistake for managers to dismiss organizational conspiracy beliefs as innocent rumors that are harmless to the organization.

Originality/Value

Three novel conclusions emerge from this study. First, organizational conspiracy beliefs occur frequently among employees. Second, participative leadership predicts decreased organizational conspiracy beliefs; despotic and laissez-faire leadership predict increased organizational conspiracy beliefs due to the contribution of these destructive leadership styles to an insecure work environment. Third, organizational conspiracy beliefs harm organizations by influencing employee commitment and, indirectly, turnover intentions.

     

组织创新文化、组织文化强度与员工创新行为：多层线性模型的分析

本研究通过对某大型电网公司156家供电局的10856名员工的问卷调查,检验了组织创新文化、组织文化强度（即员工价值观一致性）与员工创新行为的关系。多层线性分析（HLM）结果表明：（1）组织创新文化与员工创新行为有正向关联;（2）组织文化强度与员工创新行为有负向关联;但是（3）组织文化强度却可以增强创新文化与员工创新行为的正向关系。研究提出,引入组织文化的内容属性和强度属性的交互作用,可以更精确地理解组织文化与个体创新行为的关系。     

A trickle-down model of organizational justice: relating employees' and customers' perceptions of and reactions to fairness

This study developed and tested a trickle-down model of organizational justice that hypothesized that employees' perceptions of fairness should affect their attitudes toward the organization, subsequently influencing their behaviors toward customers. In turn, customers should interpret these behaviors as signals of fair treatment, causing them to react positively to both the employee and the organization. The model was tested on a sample of 187 instructors and their students. The results revealed that instructors who perceived high distributive and procedural justice reported higher organizational commitment. In turn, their students reported higher levels of instructor effort, prosocial behaviors, and fairness, as well as more positive reactions to the instructor. Overall, the results imply that fair treatment of employees has important organizational consequences because of customers' attitudes and future intentions toward key service employees.     

Employee and customer perceptions of service quality: A look at India

Customers (n = 128) and employees (n = 93) from a large service organization in India responded to a survey regarding their satisfaction with the organization and their satisfaction with key processes regarding their specific service area. As in the United States, there was agreement between Indian customer and employee ratings. However, there were also some major differences. The impact of these differences on strategic organizational initiatives is discussed.     

Employee and customer perceptions of service quality: A look at India

Customers (n = 128) and employees (n = 93) from a large service organization in India responded to a survey regarding their satisfaction with the organization and their satisfaction with key processes regarding their specific service area. As in the United States, there was agreement between Indian customer and employee ratings. However, there were also some major differences. The impact of these differences on strategic organizational initiatives is discussed.     

Better than ever? Employee reactions to ethical failures in organizations,and the ethical recovery paradox

This research examines organizational attempts to recover internally from ethical failures witnessed by employees. Drawing on research on service failure recovery, relationship repair, and behavioral ethics, we investigate how witnessing unethical acts in an organization impacts employees and their relationship with their organization. In two studies—one in the lab and one in the field—we examine the extent to which it is possible for organizations to recover fully from these ethical lapses. Results reveal an ethical recovery paradox, in which exemplary organizational efforts to recover internally from ethical failure may enhance employee perceptions of the organization to a more positive level than if no ethical failure had occurred.     

Information privacy in organizations: empowering creative and extrarole performance

This article examines the relationship of employee perceptions of information privacy in their work organizations and important psychological and behavioral outcomes. A model is presented in which information privacy predicts psychological empowerment, which in turn predicts discretionary behaviors on the job, including creative performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Results from 2 studies (Study 1: single organization, N=310; Study 2: multiple organizations, N=303) confirm that information privacy entails judgments of information gathering control, information handling control, and legitimacy. Moreover, a model linking information privacy to empowerment and empowerment to creative performance and OCBs was supported. Findings are discussed in light of organizational attempts to control employees through the gathering and handling of their personal information.     

Investigating Web‐Based Recruitment Sources: Employee testimonials vs word‐of‐mouse

Although the internet has dramatically changed recruitment practices, many web‐based recruitment sources have not yet been investigated. The present study examines the effects of web‐based employee testimonials and web‐based word‐of‐mouth (i.e., ‘word‐of‐mouse’) on organizational attraction. The source credibility framework is used to compare these company‐dependent and company‐independent recruitment sources. In a sample of potential applicants for a head nurse position, word‐of‐mouse was associated with higher organizational attractiveness than web‐based employee testimonials. However, potential applicants were more attracted when testimonials provided information about individual employees than about the organization. Conversely, word‐of‐mouse was associated with higher organizational attractiveness and more organizational pursuit behavior when it focused on the organization instead of on employees. Most of these effects were mediated by credibility perceptions.     

Leadership and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: OCB-Specific Meanings as Mediators

Purpose  

This study seeks to examine how perceived organizational instrumentality (the extent to which employees believe that OCB contributes to the functionality and effectiveness of their work unit or organization) and perceived individual instrumentality (the extent to which employees believe that OCB is important to their own interests) relate to employee engagement in OCB and how these perceptions mediate the effects of leadership on OCB.     

Linking Individual Value Orientations to Employee Attitudes: An Exploratory Analysis

This study tested the relationships of individualism, power distance, and mastery orientation to 2 employee attitudes (organizational trust and organizational commitment) that are associated with employees’ psychological benefits within the organization. Results from university employees (N = 706) showed that individualism negatively, whereas mastery positively, related to trust and commitment. Power distance positively related to trust only. The moderating role of mastery was also identified. These findings can help employment or organizational counselors to appreciate value‐related factors that facilitate employees in psychologically integrating into the organization and to explore new ways for employers to foster employees’ positive attitudes.     

Employee attitude surveys: examining the attitudes of noncompliant employees

Employees (N = 194) from a wide variety of organizations participated in this study aimed at describing the attitudes of individuals who refuse to respond to an employee survey request (noncompliants). Noncompliants, in comparison with those individuals who would comply with the survey request, possessed greater intentions to quit, less organizational commitment, and less satisfaction toward supervisors and their own jobs. Noncompliants also possessed more negative beliefs regarding how their organization handles employee survey data (e.g., does not act on survey data). No significant differences were found for work-related demographic variables, satisfaction with pay, and satisfaction with promotion opportunities. Implications for survey research are discussed along with methods to address nonresponse and noncmpliance.     

Be Fair,Your Employees Are Watching: A Relational Response Model of External Third‐Party Justice

There is growing theoretical recognition in the organizational justice literature that an organization's treatment of external parties (such as patients, community members, customers, and the general public) shapes its own employees’ attitudes and behavior toward it. However, the emerging third‐party justice literature has an inward focus, emphasizing perceptions of the treatment of other insiders (e.g., coworkers or team members). This inward focus overlooks meaningful “outward” employee concerns relating to how organizations treat external parties. We propose a relational response model to advance the third‐party justice literature asserting that the organization's fair treatment of external parties sends important relational signals to employees that shape their social exchange perceptions toward their employer. Supporting this proposition, in two multisource studies in separate healthcare organizations we found that patient‐directed justice had indirect effects on supervisory cooperative behavior ratings through organizational trust and organizational identification.     

Does serving the community also serve the company? Using organizational identification and social exchange theories to understand employee responses to a volunteerism programme

Little is known about how employees might respond to their company's socially responsible business practices. Hypotheses derived from organizational identification and social exchange theories were tested to explain why employees (N=162) may respond positively to their company's volunteerism programme, a programme through which employees could spend time volunteering during their paid work hours. Support was found for mediated effects suggesting that employees' attitude towards the volunteerism programme ultimately predicted outcomes (e.g., intentions to stay) through its effect on organizational identification. Results also showed that exchange ideology moderated the effects of volunteer‐programme attitudes on supervisor‐reported organizational citizenship behaviour measured 6 months later, suggesting that some employees reciprocate the benefits they receive from a volunteerism programme. The implications of these findings are discussed for theory and research, and for leveraging volunteerism programmes and other socially responsible business practices to benefit companies and their employees.