Construct validation of a measure of ingratiatory behaviour in organizational settings

To assess the construct validity of an instrument for Measuring Ingratiatory Behaviour in Organizational settings (MIBOS), 51 supervisors completed a 12-item version of the scale, indicating the frequency with which they used ingratiatory behavior at work. Their immediate superiors (targets of the ingratiation attempts) rated the subject on four hypothesized correlates of ingratiation tactics, liking for the subject, feeling comfortable in the subject’s company, subject’s perceived career success and subject’s perceived job performance. Each of the correlations between MIBOS and these superior ratings were significant, suggesting that the instrument possesses sufficient validity to justify its use in future research into ingratiation in organizations.     

A study of the antecedents and consequences of psychological ownership in organizational settings

Psychological ownership is a feeling of possession in the absence of any formal or legal claims of ownership. In this study, the authors aimed to extend previous empirical testing of psychological ownership in work settings to encompass both job-based and organization-based psychological ownership as well as related work attitudes and behavioral outcomes. Questionnaire data from 68 employees and their managers revealed that job-based psychological ownership and organization-based psychological ownership are distinct work attitudes that are distinguishable from job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Psychological ownership predicted job satisfaction and organizational commitment and mediated the relationship between autonomy and these work attitudes. There was no support for a relationship between psychological ownership and behavioral outcomes. The authors discuss the limitations of the study and the implications of psychological ownership.     

A study of antecedents of organizational commitment

Various theories of organizational behaviors suggest that there should be significant relationships between the work-related variables and commitment to an organization. This study shows that, for a sample of 203 Japanese industrial workers, four components (attachment, internalization, normative, and continuance) of organizational commitment are predicted by organizational climate, supervisory behavior, organizational tenure, and role clarity. Implications for future research are discussed.     

An empirical investigation of dispositional antecedents and performance-related outcomes of credit scores

Many organizations use credit scores as an employment screening tool, but little is known about the legitimacy of such practices. To address this important gap, the reported research conceptualized credit scores as a biographical measure of financial responsibility and investigated dispositional antecedents and performance-related outcomes. Using personality data collected from employees, objective credit scores obtained from the Fair Isaac Corporation, and performance data provided by supervisors, we found conscientiousness to be positively related and agreeableness to be negatively related to credit scores. Results also indicate significant relationships between credit scores and task performance and organizational citizenship behaviors. Credit scores did not, however, predict workplace deviance. Implications for organizations currently using or planning to use credit scores as part of the screening process are discussed.     

Climate quality and climate consensus as mediators of the relationship between organizational antecedents and outcomes

Research has shown that climate quality (average climate ratings) is related to organizational antecedents and outcomes, but researchers have yet to examine climate consensus (the variance of climate ratings). Similarly, studies have investigated typical behavior (members' average performance), but have neglected behavioral similarity (within-group variance). Data from 1,196 members in 180 organizations were used to test relationships of climate quality and consensus with organizational antecedents and outcomes. Climate quality and consensus both had significant correlations with organizational antecedents and outcomes, but climate consensus did not contribute a significant increment to the prediction of organizational outcomes. Finally, quality mediated many relationships between organizational antecedents and outcomes.     

Situational variables related to aggression in institutional settings

For decades, aggressive behavior among psychiatric inpatients has been identified as disruptive to the therapeutic environment and a workplace hazard. Most previous research has focused on individual patient risk factors with less attention paid to the situational, environmental, or therapeutic milieu factors that could influence violence rates. This review outlines the prominent areas discussed in situational factor research and presents recent theoretical models that integrate these factors. Based on the identified shortcomings in the available literature, suggestions for future research directions are offered.     

A comparison of situational and dispositional predictors of perceptions of organizational politics

The present study is an investigation of situational and dispositional characteristics that may predispose an employee to perceive his or her organization as political. Participants were 501 regular members, civilian members, and public servants of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Measures used for this research were the Formalization Scale (G. R. Oldham & J. R. Hackman, 1981), the Job Autonomy Scale (H. P. Sims, A. D. Szilagyi, & R. T. Keller, 1976), the Mach IV (A. Zook & G. J. Sipps, 1986), the Dominance subscale from the Manifest Needs Questionnaire (R. M. Steers & D. N. Braunstein, 1976), the Survey of Organizational Climate (J. C. Taylor & D. G. Bowers, 1972), the Perceptions of Organizational Politics Scale (G. R. Ferris & K. M. Kacmar, 1992), and the Work Locus of Control Scale (P. E. Spector, 1988). Results indicated that organizational climate, formalization, work locus of control (both internal and external measures), and Machiavellianism were significant predictors, accounting for 52% of the variance in participants' perceptions of organizational politics. Limitations of the present study and directions for future research are outlined.     

Situational factors in meaning

Summary Our hypothesis:The meaning of a word experienced by the speaker/ listener using this word depends, in part, on the cognition of the situation in which the sentence is uttered. In order to test this hypothesis drawings showing two persons each were selected; the persons had been rated on the Semantic Differential as being high (or low) on one of the dimensions of Activity, Potency, or Evaluation, and medium on the two other dimensions. In the next step, 36 Ss rated on the Semantic Differential the verb of a short utterance (e.g. ich bitte dich) shown as being spoken by one person of the drawing to the other person. The same words were rated in isolation.Result:The connotative meaning of an utterance (as assessed by the SD) is determined not less by the persons perceived in verbal communication than by what is being said. The theoretical implications of these results are discussed.

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Zusammenfassung Nach unserer Ausgangshypothese hängt die Bedeutung eines Wortes, das ein Sprecher/Hörer verwendet, mit davon ab, wie dieser Sprecher/ Hörer die Situation kognitiv erfaßt, in welcher das Wort geäußert wird. Zur Prüfung dieser Hypothese wurden Zeichungen ausgesucht, auf denen jeweils zwei Personen zu sehen waren. Diese Personen waren auf dem Semantischen Differential eingestuft worden und zeigten hohe (oder niedere) Werte auf einer der drei Dimensionen Aktivität, Potenz bzw. Valenz, und mittlere Werte auf den beiden anderen Dimensionen. Im nächsten Abschnitt des Versuchs stuften 36 Vpn. das Verb eines kurzen Satzes (z. B. ich bitte dich), der in der Zeichung als von einer Person zur anderen gesprochen dargestellt wurde, ebenfalls auf dem SD ein. Die gleichen Wörter wurden dann noch isoliert eingestuft.Ergebnis: Die konnotative Bedeutung einer Äußerung scheint mindestens so sehr davon determiniert zu werden, wie man Sprecher/Hörer auffaßt, als von einer dem Wort sozusagen inhärenten Bedeutung.

     

Teachers' self-efficacy and organizational citizenship behaviors

The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between teachers' instructional efficacy and their organizational citizenship behavior. Questionnaires were sent to a sample of 1,100 French Canadian high school teachers. A response rate of 44.36% was obtained (279 women and 208 men whose mean age was 40.4 yr.) Teachers' instructional efficacy was assessed with a French Canadian version of the Teacher Efficacy Scale and organizational citizenship behavior was assessed with a questionnaire constructed for the study. Analysis yielded positive and significant correlations (rs ranging from .19 and .34, p<.01) between teachers' personal teaching efficacy and organizational citizenship behaviors such as altruism, courtesy, conscientiousness, and civic virtue. General teaching efficacy was only related to sportsmanship (r=.15, p <.01). So the predictions were partially supported by the results.     

Assessing the impact of dispositional resistance to change on organizational attraction

In recent years there has been an increasing interest among researchers and practitioners to analyze what makes a firm attractive in the eyes of university students, and if individual differences such as personality traits have an impact on this general affect towards a particular organization. The main goal of the present research is to demonstrate that a recently conceptualized narrow trait of personality named dispositional resistance to change (RTC), that is, the inherent tendency of individuals to avoid and oppose changes (Oreg, 2003), can predict organizational attraction of university students to firms that are perceived as innovative or conservative. Three complementary studies were carried out using a total sample of 443 college students from Mexico. In addition to validating the hypotheses, our findings suggest that as the formation of the images of organizations in students' minds is done through social cognitions, simple stimuli such as physical artifacts, when used in an isolated manner, do not have a significant impact on organizational attraction.     

Sleeping problems and health behaviors as mediators between organizational justice and health.

The aim of this longitudinal cohort study was to investigate whether sleeping problems and health behaviors (smoking, alcohol consumption, and sedentary lifestyle) mediate the association between organizational justice and employee health. Health indicators were minor psychiatric morbidity, as assessed by the General Health Questionnaire (U. Werneke, D. P. Goldberg, I. Yalcin, & B. T. Ustun, 2000), and poor self-rated health status. The results of logistic regression analysis of data for 416 male and 3,357 female hospital employees working during the 1998-2000 period in 10 Finnish hospitals suggest that sleeping problems are one of the underlying factors causing the adverse health effects of low organizational justice at work. No support for a mediating role of health behaviors between low organizational justice and health problems was obtained.     

The costs of today’s jobs: Job characteristics and organizational supports as antecedents of negative spillover

This study examined job characteristics and organizational supports as antecedents of negative work-to-nonwork spillover for 1178 U.S. employees. Based on hierarchical regression analyses of 2002 National Study of the Changing Workforce data and O∗NET data, job demands (requirements to work at home beyond scheduled hours, job complexity, time and strain) had positive relationships, and job resources (autonomy and skill development) and organizational supports (flexible work arrangements and two work-life culture facets) had negative relationships to negative spillover, but not all relationships held when multiple predictors were examined. Organizational supports did not moderate relationships of job characteristics to negative spillover, and relative weights analysis indicated that job characteristics accounted for the majority of explained variance in negative spillover. The findings underscore the importance of job characteristics, and suggest that job characteristics and organizational supports both need to be considered when developing work-life policies intended to reduce employees’ negative work-to-nonwork spillover.     

Situational antecedents of children's anger experiences and subsequent responses to adult versus peer provokers

The purpose of this study was to examine children's reported experiences of anger and their means of expressing anger in their interactions with high versus equal status individuals. Parents and teachers represented high status while siblings and peers represented equal status. Sixth grade children were asked to cite situations in which they experience anger in interaction with peers versus adults and to indicate their typical responses to these situations. We identified 13 categories of situations in which anger was experienced and 11 categories of response to these situations. Anger was experienced in interaction with both high and equal status provokers but of the situations that were identified as producing experiences of anger, nine were reported as occurring differentially in interaction with adults versus peers of the responses to the experience of anger, seven responses were cited differentially in interaction with peers versus adults. The typical responses to adult provoked anger were generally more passive than those to peer provoked anger. Girls more than boys indicated experiencing anger due to adult's task demands but tended to express less overt anger in their interactions with adults than did boys. These findings are consistent with the view that high status of the provoker servers only to inhibit the expression of anger but does not lessen the anger experience itself.     

Situational judgment tests in high-stakes settings: issues and strategies with generating alternate forms

This study used principles underlying item generation theory to posit competing perspectives about which features of situational judgment tests might enhance or impede consistent measurement across repeat test administrations. This led to 3 alternate-form development approaches (random assignment, incident isomorphism, and item isomorphism). The effects of these approaches on alternate-form consistency, mean score changes, and criterion-related validity were examined in a high-stakes context (N = 3,361). Generally, results revealed that even small changes in the context of the situations presented resulted in significantly lower alternate-form consistency. Conversely, placing more constraints on the alternate-form development process proved beneficial. The contributions, implications, and limitations of these results for the development of situational judgment tests and high-stakes testing are discussed.     

Unwrapping the organizational entry process: disentangling multiple antecedents and their pathways to adjustment

This 4-wave longitudinal study of newcomers in 7 organizations examined preentry knowledge, proactive personality, and socialization influences as antecedents of both proximal (task mastery, role clarity, work group integration, and political knowledge) and distal (organizational commitment, work withdrawal, and turnover) indicators of newcomer adjustment. Results suggest that preentry knowledge, proactive personality, and socialization influences from the organization, supervisors, and coworkers are independently related to proximal adjustment outcomes, consistent with a theoretical framework highlighting distinct dimensions of organizational and work task adjustment. The proximal adjustment outcomes partially mediated most of the relationships between the antecedents of adjustment and organizational commitment, work withdrawal, and turnover.     

Effective behaviors to de-escalate organizational conflicts in the process of escalation

The goal of the present study was to determine what behaviors negotiators can use to help to quell an escalating conflict. In doing so, we formed a sample of professionals who took on the role of negotiator when we provoked an organizational conflict between a superior and subordinate that escalates due to the intervention of research confederates. Trained judges analyzed the negotiators' behaviors that most effectively mitigated the intensity of the conflict in which they were involved. The results demonstrate that the behaviors most effective at de-escalating an escalating conflict are problem-solving and accommodation, especially when said conflict has escalated considerably. Similarly, jointly employing problem-solving and direct fighting behaviors also seems to help de-escalate conflict. The results do not, however, consistently support using a forceful behavioral strategy to de-escalate a conflict in the early stages of escalation.