A PROPOSAL FOR A COMMON DATA EXCHANGE FORMAT FOR REPERTORY GRID DATA

Repertory grid interviews provide information about the psychological space of people in matrix-structured form, providing a basis for the statistical analysis of results. Today there are many software packages available for the elicitation and analysis of repertory grids, most of them with unique features. But access to this wealth of options is restricted because, at present, repertory grid programs store data in different formats. As a result, anyone who has tried to exchange data between programs knows that this is not an easy task, as the exchange typically requires tedious and error-prone reentering of the data. To enable direct and error-free data exchange between repertory grid programs, we propose a common data format for repertory grid software based on the Extended Markup Language (XML). It is important to note that users do not have to learn XML to take advantage of this common data format. Data sets of current analysis programs can be translated into XML by utilities. As a basis for further discussion we have developed sample applications and utilities that are based on this new data format.     

An Examination of Employee Reactions to Perceived Corporate Citizenship1

There has been little research focus to date on individual level reactions to corporate citizenship. Our study attempted to understand better how corporate citizenship affects job behaviors and employee feelings by examining a hypothesized positive effect of perceived corporate citizenship (PCC) on 3 dependent variables: work‐role definitions, organizational citizenship behavior, and organizational identification. Additionally, the personal value of other‐regarding value orientation was hypothesized to interact with PCC. The findings supported 4 of 6 hypotheses. We consider theoretical and practical implications of how corporate citizenship impacts employees.     

The theory of resilience and relational load

Resilience is one of the most profound constructs across disciplines. Yet, the largely atheoretical nature of the research on resilience continues to make it elusive. A new theory of stress and resilience in close relationships—the theory of resilience and relational load (TRRL)—is advanced to fill this void in the literature. The theory bridges communicative, perceptual, and physiological aspects of stress within the context of social relationships to explain personal/relational risk, resilience, and thriving. The TRRL examines how relational partners' and family members' communal orientation and maintenance of their relationships on a daily basis influence their communication during stressful moments, as well as their appraisals of the stress. The theory also details how these communication patterns and appraisals influence personal and relational health and adaptation. Finally, the concept of relational load is set forth, which is the wear and tear that chronic stress and depletion of one's emotional, psychological, and relational resources through repeated, stress‐related conversations can have on relationships. Ultimately, people need to continually invest in their relationships to prevent relational load and foster resilience and possible thriving.     

Hidden in Plain Sight: The Active Ingredients of Executive Coaching

We propose that I/O psychologists who coach executives have overlooked psychotherapy outcome research as a source of information and ideas that can be used to improve our executive coaching practices. This research, based on thousands of studies and many meta-analyses, has converged on the conclusion that four "active ingredients" account for most of the variance in psychotherapy outcomes. We describe how this literature has identified four primary "active ingredients" that account for most of the variance in psychotherapy outcomes: 1) Client/extratherapeutic factors (40%), 2) The relationship or alliance (30%), 3) Placebo or hope (15%), and 4) Theory and technique (15%). Working on the assumption that psychotherapy and executive coaching are sufficiently similar to justify generalization from one domain to the other, we describe these four active ingredients at length and explore how they may be at work in the executive coaching process. We also suggest that I/O psychologists have training and experience that allows us to leverage some of these active ingredients in our executive coaching (e.g., understanding of client individual differences related to coaching outcomes). But we also have areas of weakness (e.g., building a strong working relationship with an individual client) that may need to be bolstered with additional training and development experiences.