Entrepreneurial orientation: A psychological model of success among southern African small business owners

This study examines the relationship of the psychological construct Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) with business success in a sample of N?=?248 southern African business owners. We reintroduce the individual in EO research and show the importance of the person of the entrepreneur for business performance: Hierarchical regression analyses revealed significant relationships between EO components (personal initiative, achievement-, and risk-taking orientation) as well as overall EO and business performance. In addition, confirmatory factor analysis supported a single factor construct of EO that consists of learning, achievement, and autonomy orientation, competitive aggressiveness, innovative and risk-taking orientation, and of personal initiative.

In this study, we develop an individual-based psychological concept of Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) and investigate the relationship between business owners' EO and business performance in southern Africa. EO has primarily been discussed from a firm-level perspective (e.g., ; ). It characterized businesses in their early years and was found to be important for firm success. In contrast, we apply a psychological approach with EO as an interindividual difference variable. Thus, our focus is the business owner and the general relationship between individual EO and performance of southern African small business owners.     

Perceptions of the utility of personality assessment for personnel selection in the South African context: An exploratory study

This study explored South African industrial psychologists’ perceptions of the utility of personality assessment for personnel selection. Eleven industrial psychologists (2 male, 9 female) from the Johannesburg area, South Africa were the participants. They participated in semi-structured interviews exploring their understanding of the place of personality assessment in personnel selection within organisational settings in South Africa and the common practices employed. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Four dominant themes emerged from the data: person-environment fit; specific uses of personality tests; commonly used tests and validity and ethical concerns. Based on the findings, personality assessment use in South African industry settings appears multi-layered and consistently evolving.     

Conceptual and measurement issues of the complementarity dimension of the coach–athlete relationship across cultures

ObjectivesGrounded in the 3Cs model of the coach–athlete relationship, this multi-study outlined the development of two scales that measure coaches' dominant behaviors and athletes' submissive behaviors.Method & resultsIn study 1, a pool of items was generated based on relevant literatures and interviews. The item pool was then assessed by an expert panel including academics, athletes and coaches. In Study 2 and Study 3, construct and criterion validity, as wells as internal reliability of the refined items were tested with a sample of elite coaches and athletes. Analyses revealed that Coach Dominant Behavior Scale (CDB-S) and Athlete Submissive Behavior Scale (ASB-S) possessed sound psychometric properties. In Study 4, the measurement invariance of the 10-item ASB-S was assessed across gender and five countries: Britain, China, Greece, Spain, and Sweden. Results supported the full structural invariance of the ASB-S.ConclusionOverall, the items of both CDB-S and ASB-S were found to be psychometrically sound. The discussion highlights the contributions these findings make on both conceptual and measurement levels as well as the opportunities it opens up for research with practical relevance.     

Effects of positive interventions and orientations to happiness on subjective well-being

This study examined the effects of positive interventions and orientations to happiness on well-being. Participants were 218 self-selected adults randomly assigned to one of four positive interventions (pleasure, engagement, meaning or a combination), or daily events or no intervention control groups. Participants completed the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form and Orientations to Happiness Questionnaire. Analysis of variance results supported the hypothesis that well-being would significantly increase for participants in all intervention groups with those in the meaning, engagement, pleasure and combination groups showing larger increases than those in the control groups. Contrary to expectations, the control group also showed an increase in well-being. The prediction that participants’ dominant orientation to happiness would influence the success of the positive interventions in increasing well-being was supported at post-intervention but not at follow-up. Findings support the effectiveness of positive interventions in increasing well-being and underscore the importance of including individual difference factors such as Orientations to Happiness.     

Mood-congruent bias and attention shifts in the different episodes of bipolar disorder

An “affective” go/no-go task was used in the different episodes of bipolar patients (euthymic, depressed, and manic) to examine (1) the presence of a mood-congruent attentional bias; and (2) the patients' ability to inhibit and invert associations between stimuli and responses through blocks. A group of healthy individuals served as controls. Results revealed a mood-congruent attentional bias: patients in the manic episode processed positive information faster, whereas those in the depressive episode processed negative information faster. In contrast, neither euthymic patients nor healthy individuals showed any mood-congruent biases. Furthermore, there was a shift cost across blocks for healthy individuals, but not for the patients. This may reflect a general impairment at selecting relevant information (e.g., in terms of disability to inhibit and invert associations between stimuli and responses) in bipolar participants, regardless of their episode. This state/trait dissociation in an episodic and chronic disorder such as bipolar disorder is important for its appropriate characterisation.     

The Relative Strength of Job Attitudes and Job Embeddedness in Predicting Turnover in a U.S. Military Academy

This longitudinal study explored the relative strength of job satisfaction, components of organizational commitment, dimensions of job embeddedness and person–organization fit as predictors of voluntary turnover at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Using survey data from 643 first- and second-year cadets, we found that job satisfaction, affective commitment, on-the-job embeddedness, and person–organization fit were significantly negatively related to turnover. Based on relative weights analysis, we found the most powerful predictor of cadet turnover was person–organization fit, which has important implications for military leaders.     

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.     

Work values and the transition to work life: A longitudinal study

Research on career development has shown that work values play a key motivational role in job selection and career development. In the context of the current economic crisis, it is of particular relevance to examine the role of work values for employment in the transition from school to work. This longitudinal study examined the role of intrinsic (perceived importance of having a job that is interesting and matches one's own competences), rewards (having a good salary and high chance for promotion), and security (having a stable job) work values on subsequent employment status and person–job fit (how an individual's job matches one's own characteristics such as education and job preferences). Finnish participants reported their work values and background variables via questionnaire at ages 20 and 23 (Ns = 348 and 415 respectively). Intrinsic work values predicted a higher degree of person–job fit two years later. Rewards work values predicted lower chances of being unemployed; and security work values predicted higher chances of being unemployed later on. Family socio-economic status (SES) was not related to employment outcomes in this Finnish sample.     

Chronic motivational state interacts with task reward structure in dynamic decision-making

Research distinguishes between a habitual, model-free system motivated toward immediately rewarding actions, and a goal-directed, model-based system motivated toward actions that improve future state. We examined the balance of processing in these two systems during state-based decision-making. We tested a regulatory fit hypothesis (Maddox & Markman, 2010) that predicts that global trait motivation affects the balance of habitual- vs. goal-directed processing but only through its interaction with the task framing as gain-maximization or loss-minimization. We found support for the hypothesis that a match between an individual’s chronic motivational state and the task framing enhances goal-directed processing, and thus state-based decision-making. Specifically, chronic promotion-focused individuals under gain-maximization and chronic prevention-focused individuals under loss-minimization both showed enhanced state-based decision-making. Computational modeling indicates that individuals in a match between global chronic motivational state and local task reward structure engaged more goal-directed processing, whereas those in a mismatch engaged more habitual processing.