Social exchange from the supervisor’s perspective: Employee trustworthiness as a predictor of interpersonal and informational justice

Using social exchange theory, we argue that because supervisors tend to value employee trustworthiness, they will be more likely to adhere to interpersonal and informational justice rules with trustworthy employees. Given social exchange theory’s assumption that benefits are voluntary in nature, we propose that the benevolence and integrity facets of trustworthiness will be more likely to engender social exchange relationships than the ability facet. Specifically, we propose that employees seen as having high benevolence and integrity engender feelings of obligation and trust from their direct supervisors, increasing the likelihood that these supervisors will adhere to interpersonal and informational justice rules, which in turn influences employee perceptions of justice. We find partial support for our mediated model using a field sample.     

The Dimensionality of Contextual and Citizenship Performance in Military Recruits: Support for Nine Dimensions Using Self-, Peer,and Supervisor Ratings

Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Contextual Performance make up a domain that can be referred to as Contextual and Citizenship Performance (CCP). CCP is essential to assess and promote in military and civilian organizations because it defines the “good soldier” prototype. Unfortunately, extant research has led to confusion as to whether CCP consists of one, two, three, six, or nine dimensions. We shed new light on the composition of CCP by evaluating one-, two-, three-, six-, and nine-dimensional theoretical models using supervisor, self-, and peer ratings of military recruits undergoing basic training. We employed Relative Percentile Method ratings to improve distinctions among ratees when the level of CCP is high. Contrary to much recent literature, our results supported a nine-dimensional theoretical model in all three rating sources. Thus, conceptualizing, assessing and promoting the proverbial “good soldier” may require a more highly nuanced perspective of CCP than is generally acknowledged.     

Person–organization (culture) fit and employee commitment under conditions of organizational change: A longitudinal study

This longitudinal study examines how person–organization fit, operationalized as congruence between perceived and preferred organizational culture, relates to employees’ affective commitment and intention to stay with an organization during the early stages of a strategic organizational change. Employees in a large energy company completed surveys before (N = 687) and after (N = 627) the change. We measured perceptions and preferences with regard to four components of organizational culture (human relations, open systems, internal process, and rational goal) derived from the Competing Values Model (Quinn, 1988), as well as affective commitment to the organization and intention to stay. Using polynomial regression and response surface analyses, we found that both perceived culture and culture fit related positively with the criterion variables within and across time. The strongest evidence for relations involving fit was obtained for those components of culture specifically targeted for change. Implications for future research and the management of organizational change are discussed.     

The careless or the conscientious : Who profits most from goal progress?

Although research indicates that making progress on personal work goals predicts positive job attitudes, little is known about the role of conscientiousness in moderating this relationship. Congruence theories suggest that job attitudes will be more dependent on goal progress when employees are high in conscientiousness, whereas compensation theories suggest the opposite. We test these competing hypotheses in a three-wave, 4-month longitudinal panel study of 121 trainee teachers, who are at their early stages of career development. Conscientiousness moderated the relationships between progress on personal work goals and job attitudes according to the compensatory pattern, such that employees displayed stronger increases in job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment in response to goal progress when they were low rather than high in conscientiousness. Our results help to resolve conflicting findings about the relationship between goal progress and job attitudes and adjudicate competing hypotheses about the role of conscientiousness in moderating this relationship.     

The incremental validity of organizational commitment,organizational trust,and organizational identification

Organizational commitment (OC), organizational trust (OT), and organizational identification (OI) are three types of psychological attachment to an organization. Each of these three variables captures an organization-targeted attitude toward an employment relationship, but it is unclear whether they have incremental validity over each other. To address this question, this study examined the incremental validity of each variable in predicting job involvement, job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and non-self-report measures of task performance and citizenship behavior. It also examined whether perceived organizational support and psychological contract breach, two other organization-targeted attitudinal variables, were related to OC, OT, and OI when the latter were considered jointly. Meta-analytical evidence suggests that OC, OT, and OI have incremental validity over and above one another in their relationships with some, but not all, of the above correlates. This highlights the need for future research to distinguish these three types of psychological attachment to an organization.     

The Differential Effects of Negative Affectivity on Measures of Well-being versus Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment

This paper reports an empirical study of the self-reported psychological strain, ill-health, job satisfaction and organizational commitment of 2450 public sector employees located in Western Australia. The framework used to predict these variables is a demands, supports-constraints framework. The key theoretical issue explored is the differential roles of negative affectivity in predicting the outcomes from this framework. Four different pathways are explored which are taken from Moyle ( Journal of Organizational Behaviour , 16 (1995), 647-668). Multiple regression methods are used to control for negative affectivity and other effects such as curvilinear relationships. The results show that negative affectivity has a variety of effects on both health and job attitude variables but the effects are much larger for the health variables. The conclusion recommends that, in studies that rely on all self-report data, the various possible effects of personality variables such as negative affectivity should be explored in preference to ignoring them.     

Does the form of employment make a difference?—Commitment of traditional, temporary, and self-employed workers

Increasing change in the labor market has produced new forms of employment. A growing number of people have temporary jobs or are self-employed freelancers. The aim of our study is to address these changes by introducing commitment to the form of employment as a new focus in commitment. In addition, we compare organizational commitment under conditions of these forms of employment to traditional form of employment. The study is based on several samples representing conventional and new forms of employment (overall N = 494). The results indicate that commitment to the form of employment explains variance of organizational outcomes over and above organizational commitment. Generally, commitment to the form of employment reflects an important attitude to the work situation besides commitment to the organization or occupation. The results are discussed in the light of labor market trends.     

Regulatory foci and organizational commitment

We use regulatory focus theory to derive specific predictions regarding the differential relationships between regulatory focus and commitment. We estimated a structural equation model using a sample of 520 private and public sector employees and found in line with our hypotheses that (a) promotion focus related more strongly to affective commitment than prevention focus, (b) prevention focus related more strongly to continuance commitment than promotion focus, (c) promotion and prevention focus had equally strong effects on normative commitment. Implications of these findings for the three-component model of commitment, especially the ‘dual nature’ of normative commitment, as well as implications for human resources management and leadership are discussed.     

Can you get a better deal elsewhere? The effects of psychological contract replicability on organizational commitment over time

Previous research on psychological contracts has focused on whether or not employees feel their employers have fulfilled the promises made to them. Instead, here we examine how perceptions of the external labor market, particularly about whether present psychological contracts could be replicated elsewhere, influence employees’ attachment to their current employers. In a longitudinal study of a diverse employee sample, we found perceptions that psychological contracts could not be replicated elsewhere accounted for a substantial amount of the variance in affective commitment (.38) and normative commitment (.29) and a smaller, but significant, amount of the variance in continuance commitment (.04). We also found significant moderating effects of age, work experience, and career stage on these relationships. The article concludes with implications for psychological contract theory, organizational commitment theory, and management practice.