Moving the Pendulum Back to the Middle: Reflections on and Introduction to the Inductive Research Special Issue of Journal of Business and Psychology

This special issue of the Journal of Business and Psychology contains a diverse set of 13 papers that adopted an inductive approach. In addition to setting the stage for the special feature, the case for inductive research is broached. The papers in the special feature used a variety of approaches, both qualitative and quantitative, that shared the characteristic that they did not report tests of deductive theory-driven hypotheses. Rather these papers presented exploratory findings that were not limited by an explicit a priori theoretical framework. The special issue heeds calls that the field needs more inductive research to serve as the basis for theory. It is hoped that it will inspire editors of other journals to be more accepting of good inductive papers that report novel findings.     

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.     

Seeking Clarity in a Linguistic Fog: Moderators of the Workplace Aggression-Strain Relationship

This study used cross-sectional data from 579 nurses to examine main and interaction effects of workplace aggression and theoretical nuances on employee strain. Perceived intensity of aggression and intention attributions by the target, power of the perpetrator in relation to the target, and perceived visibility of aggression by the target all served to exacerbate various relationships of workplace aggression with depression, physical symptoms, job satisfaction, and accidental contagious disease exposure. Three-way interactions reveal that these moderators may have complex roles in workplace aggression–strain research. This research supports a model where workplace aggression and its distinct moderators jointly impact employee strain and provide clarity to questions left unanswered due to term fragmentation and measurement overlap that currently obscure how mechanisms underlying workplace aggression constructs impact employee strains.     

Employee Control and Occupational Stress

Occupational stress has been recognized as a major health issue for modern work organizations. Conditions of the workplace have been shown to lead to negative emotional reactions (e.g., anxiety), physical health problems in both the short term (e.g., headache or stomach distress) and the long term (cardiovascular disease), and counterproductive behavior at work. Perceptions of control play an important role in this process, being associated with all of these variables. Evidence is growing that enhanced control at work can be an important element in employees'health and well–being. These relationships can be understood in the context of the control–stress model.     

A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Job Stressors and Reactions Among Employees Holding Comparable Jobs in Two Countries

The present study examined occupational stress in a cross-cultural context with a sample of female clerical employees from an Eastern and a Western culture, namely, India and the United States. An open-ended methodology was used to study occupation-specific stress. Two other variables that researchers have studied in the job stress process, locus of control and social support, were also examined. Large differences were obtained in the perception of the source of stress, the coping mechanisms, and reactions to the stressor. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Replicating and Extending Past Personality/Job Satisfaction Meta-Analyses

A meta-analysis summarizing results of 187 studies reporting cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships between job satisfaction and personality is described. The Big Five factor of Neuroticism related most strongly and negatively to job satisfaction (?.25), with the other factors ranging from .16 (Conscientiousness) to ?.02 (Openness to Experience). Job satisfaction was positively related to internal locus of control (LOC), positive affectivity, and Type A (achievement striving). Results showed negative relationships with external LOC, trait anger, Machiavellianism, negative affectivity/trait anxiety, and Type A (global and impatience/irritability). Job satisfaction had a very weak, negative correlation with narcissism that was indistinguishable from zero. These relationships were similar, although the effect sizes were generally not as strong, when examined in a longitudinal context. The distinctiveness of Extraversion and positive affectivity, as well as that of global and composite measures of job satisfaction, are discussed.     

A longitudinal study of relations between job stressors and job strains while controlling for prior negative affectivity and strains

Interpretation of observed relations between job stressors and job strains in cross-sectional surveys is often ambiguous because of possible 3rd variables (both stable background factors, such as personality, and transitory occasion factors, such as mood). In this longitudinal study, negative affectivity (NA) and strains were assessed both in college and later on the job. Stressors were assessed only on the job. Evidence was found that some background factors affected measures of job stressors and job strains in that college measures were significantly related to subsequent measures on the job. Relations between job stressors and job strains, however, were in most cases not affected significantly when prior strains and NA were controlled for. Furthermore, the results suggested that NA measures are subject to occasion factors.     

Explaining the surprisingly weak relationship between organizational constraints and job performance

Organizational constraints are contextual factors that interfere with task performance. Study 1 was a meta-analysis of constraints-performance studies that found a smaller than expected relationship. Two additional studies were designed to understand why constraints fail to relate as expected to performance. Study 2 found support for the rater-bias hypothesis that raters take constraints into consideration when rating performance. Study 3 showed that constraints were both a challenge and a hindrance, and the two components tend to cancel one another. Two important conclusions that arise are that the constraints–performance relationship observed in field studies using raters is an underestimate of the true relationship, and constraints are not simply a hindrance, but can have a challenging effect that enhances motivation, as well.     

The word superiority effect: A comparison between restricted and unrestricted alternative set

Three experiments were conducted to investigate the word superiority effect (WSE) (Reicher, 1969). The first two experiments used mixed presentations of words and nonwords, and positional uncertainty of the critical letter. Experiment 1 used an unrestricted set of alternatives, while Experiment 2 used only two alternatives (R and L). Experiment 3 compared letter detection in nonwords with a restricted and unrestricted alternative set. WSE was found for both Experiments 1 and 2, at about the same level. Experiment 3 showed superior performance when alternatives were known in advance. It was concluded that context has an effect on letter recognition even with prior knowledge of alternatives if the critical position is not known in advance. Some incompatibilities between the present results and those of other investigators in the field are discussed.