Employee-experienced High-performance Work Systems in Facilitating Employee Helping and Voice: The Role of Employees’ Proximal Perceptions and Trust in the Supervisor

Relative to previous research concerning the positive association between high-performance work systems (HPWS) and employees’ voice and helping, we examined a wider range of mediators reflecting employees’ ability, motivation, and opportunity to expand their citizenship-based role definitions. Trust in the supervisor was also investigated as a boundary condition on the relationships in question. Multisource data, collected in 4 waves, from 208 supervisor–employee dyads showed that employees’ efficacy, instrumentality, and autonomy perceptions concerning voice mediated the association between employee-experienced HPWS and expanded role definition for voice. Instrumentality mediated the relationship between employee-experienced HPWS and expanded role definition for helping. The positive links between employee-experienced HPWS and both supervisor-rated helping and voice were mediated by employees’ role definitions. Trust in the supervisor positively moderated the mediated effects.     

THE USE OF ROLEPLAYING JOB INTERVIEWS WITH JOB CORPS FEMALES

Observation of the schism between employers and disadvantaged females, leads to the preparation of counselees for job interviews and exploration of the world of work with them. By chance, roleplaying a job interview was used during a group guidance session with Job Corps females, and the comparative success encountered with the technique encouraged this investigation. As a technique, it was found to be flexible, adaptable, and timesaving. It was of benefit to the counselor in six areas, and students indicated that they found the technique of value as a means of preparation for a real job interview, acquainting them with the scope of their communications problems and reducing these shortcomings.