Ethnic diversity and cohesion in interdependent youth sport contexts

Team sports are a group environment in which individuals from various backgrounds often come together in pursuit of a common goal. Building on the findings of recent research that examined the effects of ethnic diversity in professional and intercollegiate sport contexts, we examined the association between ethnic diversity and youth athletes' perceptions of cohesion in interdependent sport teams (e.g., soccer), and tested ethnic identity as a moderator of this relationship. Multilevel analysis of data from 272 youth athletes nested within 24 teams revealed that ethnic diversity negatively predicted both task and social dimensions of cohesion, but ethnic identity did not emerge as a moderating variable. These findings are divergent from recent work that examined similar relationships in intercollegiate contexts. This highlights the complexity, and the importance, of examining the effects of ethnic diversity on team functioning-oriented variables at different levels of sport competition. Although replication studies are necessary to understand the reliability of the current findings, our study provides insight into the effects of ethnic diversity in youth sport and emphasizes pertinent developmental processes (e.g., identity formation) that scholars should take into consideration in future research.     

Leaders' achievement goals and their integrative management of creative ideas voiced by subordinates or superiors

The purpose of this research was to examine the joint impact of leader achievement goals and hierarchical position of the voicer of creative ideas (subordinate vs. superior) on the extent to which leaders (intent to) integrate these voiced creative ideas with their own ideas (integrative idea management). In a scenario‐based survey (study 1; N = 189), in which we measured participants' achievement goals, we found that the relationship between leaders' performance goals and their intention to integrate voiced creative ideas is contingent on the hierarchical position of the idea voicer. Similarly, in an experimental study (study 2; N = 94), in which we experimentally induced achievement goals, we found that leaders display lower integrative intentions when ideas are voiced by a subordinate rather than a superior, but this was only true for leaders pursuing performance goals. Furthermore, the results of an additional, exploratory analysis suggest that the hierarchical position of the voicer of creative ideas had an indirect effect on integrative behavior through integrative intentions for performance goal leaders and no effect for mastery goal leaders. Together, these findings advance our understanding of how middle management leaders are influenced by their own achievement goals when managing the creative ideas voiced by subordinates and superiors.     

What good leaders actually do: micro-level leadership behaviour,leader evaluations,and team decision quality

We supplement broad definitions of leadership behaviour with the concept of micro-level leadership behaviour, leaders’ verbal and non-verbal visible conduct and interaction. For the context of team decision-making, we identify two potentially beneficial micro-level leadership behaviours, question asking and behavioural mimicry. Specifically, we propose that under conditions of informational complexity and unshared information, participative leadership is most appropriate for team decision-making, that its effects are mediated by inquiring and empathy, and that question asking and mimicry are the behavioural micro-level manifestations of inquiring and empathy. We thus hypothesize that the effect of participative leadership on team decision quality and leader evaluation is mediated by question asking and mimicry. We conduct a laboratory experiment with student teams working on a hidden profile decision-making task and measure question asking through behavioural coding and mimicry with motion sensors. Results show that the effect of participative leadership on decision quality is mediated by question asking, and that the effect of participative leadership on leader evaluation as transformational is mediated by leaders’ behavioural mimicry and question asking. Under control of these micro-level behaviours, team decision quality and leader evaluations were unrelated.     

Exploring emotions as social phenomena among Canadian varsity athletes

ObjectivesAthletes are constantly engaging with teammates, coaches, and opponents, and rather than treating emotions as manifested in the individual as is often the case, psychological analyses need to treat emotions as social and relational. The purpose of this research was to explore athletes' accounts of emotions as social phenomena in sport using qualitative inquiry methods.MethodFourteen Canadian varsity athletes (7 males, 7 females, age range: 18–26 years) from a variety of sports participated in two semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed using inductive coding, categorization, micro-analysis, and abduction (Mayan, 2009; Strauss & Corbin, 1998).ResultsAthletes reported individual and shared stressors that led to individual, group-based, and collective emotions, and they also reported emotional conflict when they simultaneously experienced individual and group-based or collective emotions. Emotional expressions were perceived to impact team functioning and performance, communicated team values, served affiliative functions among teammates, and prompted communal coping to deal with stressors as a team. Factors which appeared to influence athletes' emotions included athlete identity, teammate relationships, leaders and coaches, and social norms for emotion expression.ConclusionsOur study extends previous research by examining emotions as social phenomena among athletes from a variety of sports, and by elaborating on the role of athletes' social identity with regard to their emotional experiences in sport.     

Ethical leadership resources in southern Africa's Sesotho-speaking culture and in King Moshoeshoe I

The problem addressed in this paper is the need for fresh resources for enhanced ethical leadership in South Africa and elsewhere in Africa. To respond to that problem the paper uses two valuable but insufficiently known sources from the culture of the Sesotho-speaking people of southern Africa, now found in Lesotho and much of South Africa's Free State province. The first one is a set of concepts that pertain to sound human relationships. The second one is Basotho history in the persons of the founding monarch of the Basotho nation, King Moshoeshoe I (ca. 1786–1870) and to a lesser extent his remarkable mentor, Chief Mohlomi (ca. 1720–1815). A final section of this paper draws these sources together into a set of contentions about successful leadership in which ethical quality is seen as paramount.     

如何激发员工绿色行为?绿色变革型领导与绿色人力资源管理实践的作用

鉴于当今环境问题的严峻性, 如何激发绿色行为逐渐成为社会各界关注的一个话题。本研究从绿色变革型领导和绿色人力资源管理实践两大绿色管理利器入手, 探究两者能否共同激发员工绿色行为。基于以往文献, 本研究提出两组竞争性假设：基于线索一致理论, 认为绿色变革型领导与绿色人力资源管理实践正向交互影响员工绿色行为; 此外, 基于领导替代理论, 认为绿色变革型领导与绿色人力资源管理实践负向交互影响员工绿色行为。研究1a (N = 91)和研究1b (N = 220)采用实验法, 发现绿色变革型领导与绿色人力资源管理实践发挥协同作用, 正向交互预测员工绿色行为。研究2采用问卷法, 搜集了三时点上下级配对数据(N = 173), 不仅再次支持了研究1的发现, 还进一步揭示环保目标清晰度的中介作用。以上结果支持了线索一致性理论在绿色管理领域的适用性, 并启示企业在绿色管理过程中可以软硬兼施, 联合运用绿色变革型领导和绿色人力资源管理实践两大策略。     

High school student-athletes’ perceptions and experiences of leadership as a life skill

ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to gain student-athlete perceptions of: (1) the definition of leadership for high school student-athletes; (2) the process of leadership development in high school sport; and (3) the factors that have helped or hindered leadership transfer between high school sport and other life domains.DesignThis study was grounded in an interpretivist ontological perspective and used focus group interviews to gather insights of student-athletes’ leadership experiences.MethodPurposeful sampling identified 33 high-school student-athlete leaders who were members of student advisory councils for high school state athletic associations in the United States. The 15 females and 18 males participated in focus-group interviews. Reflexive thematic analysis of the interview data was then conducted.ResultsResults revealed that student-athlete leadership was viewed as a skill-set and a mindset, driven by individual agency. As an on-going developmental process, student-athletes gained awareness of leadership skills, increased self-expectations and self-confidence in their use and application of leadership skills, and developed a transformational leadership mindset, as they encountered and engaged with critical learning opportunities in high school sport and gained support from coaches and peers. Leadership application outside of sport was a multidimensional psychological process, including both conscious and implicit elements, and facilitated or constrained by environmental opportunities and social influences.ConclusionsHigh school sport offers a unique context where self-agentic youth leadership development in sport and life can occur through experiential learning opportunities. To this point, future research directions and recommendations for practitioners will be provided.     

How do employees react to leaders’ unethical behavior? The role of moral disengagement

Concerns over unethical leader behavior persist in today's workplace. Although some employees continue to support their leaders after learning of their unethical actions, others do not. In this paper, we integrate social cognitive theory with social information processing theory to propose that the support employees give to leaders who act unethically hinges on their propensity to morally disengage. Specifically, we develop a conditional indirect effects model, wherein moral disengagement propensity mitigates the negative impact of unethical leader behavior on leader-directed support via employees’ perceptions of value congruence with and trust in the leader. The sum result is an improved understanding of when and why employees offer support to versus withhold support from leaders who act in ethically questionable ways.     

The building blocks of shared leadership: The interactive effects of diversity types,team climate,and time

Despite the wealth of empirical studies and recent meta-analyses demonstrating the positive performance effects of shared leadership, knowledge regarding antecedents is limited. We draw upon a collective approach to leadership identity construction theory and team diversity in order to understand the member attributes that impact leadership sharing. We suggest that both informational/functional and social categorization diversity types are important dimensions when considering shared leadership antecedents. First, we suggest functional diversity will result in higher levels of shared leadership but will only be realized when teams elicit a cooperative climate. Second, we suggest that gender diversity, a salient social category, will have a negative impact on shared leadership, particularly in a low cooperative climate. We further hypothesize these effects will change over time as the positive effects of functional diversity strengthen and the negative effects of gender differences weaken. We test our hypotheses, including the impact on team performance, in a time-lagged sample of 267 undergraduate students in 73 teams competing in a complex business simulation and a constructive replication with 142 MBA students in 41 teams. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.