Fitness of Job Type and Management by Objectives: Mediating Effects of Perception of Effectiveness and Goal Commitment and Moderating Effects of Supervisor's Behavior

Abstract : This study investigated the influence of job type (line or staff) on perceptions of management‐by‐objectives (MBO) effectiveness, goal commitment, and goal‐attainment behavior, as well as mediating effects of perceptions of MBO effectiveness and goal commitment and moderating effects of supervisor behavior. Participants were 152 employees of a factory that manufactures drugs for a Japanese pharmaceutical company. The primary duties of line personnel involved production. The duties of staff personnel who supported production included supplying materials and production planning. Results indicated that line personnel perceived MBO as a more effective system for improving individual performance and showed higher goal commitment and more active behavior related to goals than staff personnel. Although perception of MBO effectiveness was related to goal commitment, it had no mediating effect. Goal commitment mediated between job type and goal‐attainment behavior. Supervisors’ goal‐setting behavior had different positive effects on goal commitment and goal‐attainment behavior for those in line and staff positions. MBO was a better fit for line positions than staff positions. However, supervisor behavior increased goal‐attainment behavior in staff positions. The results indicated that it is important for supervisors in a business organization to operate a management system flexibly.     

Une analyse du leadership laissez-faire dans les organisations : le rôle des orientations d’objectifs des employés

Supervisors’ laissez-faire leadership has been scarcely studied in the management literature. Moreover, the role of individual differences in employees’ reactions to laissez-faire leadership remains unknown. In the present study (n = 248), we examine the relationship between supervisors’ laissez-faire leadership and employees’ (affective) commitment to the supervisor and the organization, and their job satisfaction, and consider employees’ goal orientations (learning, performance, and avoidance) as moderating variables of these relationships. The results of multiple regression analyses indicate that laissez-faire leadership is negatively associated with employee commitment to the supervisor and the organization and job satisfaction. In addition, the relationship between laissez-faire leadership and commitment to the supervisor and to the organization was more negative when performance orientation was high. In contrast, the relationship between laissez-faire leadership and commitment to the supervisor and the organization and job satisfaction was less negative when avoidance orientation was high. Learning orientation exerted no moderating effect. These results reveal that the undermining effect of laissez-faire leadership varies across levels of employees’ performance and avoidance orientations. We discuss the implications of these results for future research.     

团队中帮助行为的多水平整合模型

团队中帮助行为包含团队成员个体帮助行为, 成员-成员的人际帮助, 以及团队帮助行为。既有研究聚焦于团队中个体帮助行为的积极作用, 忽视了施助者与受助者之间的二元关系影响、以团队为研究层级的帮助行为机理及团队中不同层级间的影响效应研究。研究提出团队中帮助行为的多水平整合理论模型框架, 认为未来研究应进一步探讨团队帮助行为的涌现溢出机制及团队中帮助行为可能存在的负面效应的内在心理机制。     

如何解决团队创新悖论?基于成员认知风格“组型”与“构型”视角的探究

如何提升团队创新绩效?这是近年来管理实践界与学术界共同关注的热门话题。鉴于创新是一项兼具“探索”与“利用”双元特征的活动, 懂得如何平衡二者之间的悖论关系就成为提升团队创新绩效的关键。基于成员认知风格的微观视角, 从“组型”与“构型”两方面探索了解决这一悖论关系的方法。具体而言：(1)成员认知风格组型与团队领导行为之间的互补效应有助于解决团队创新悖论; (2)在合理的“成员认知风格-工作角色要求”构型基础上, 营造良好的团队协作氛围, 有助于解决团队创新悖论。进一步地, 还基于阴阳哲学思想研究了解决团队创新悖论的内在机制。为论证相关理论命题, 将开展三个研究模块, 采用定量与定性相结合的研究方法对提出的研究模型进行检验。相关发现不仅有助于丰富从微观视角研究团队创新前因、悖论管理方法的理论成果, 还将为企业的创新管理实践提供建议。     

Empowering public service workers to face bystander conflict: Enhancing resources through a training intervention

Public service employees work in occupations that are accompanied with high psychosocial risks. Police, firefighters, and paramedics are increasingly being confronted with argumentative, conflicting bystanders that frustrate them in executing their task. We developed a resource‐enhancement intervention and tested its usefulness for securing employees’ effective functioning and well‐being in bystander conflict. In a simulation‐based pre‐test post‐test control group design, paramedics in the intervention condition received training about how to increase their resources in terms of conflict management efficacy, perspective taking, task support, and emotional support. For those in the control condition, no such training was provided. Comparing pre‐ and post‐test measures (n = 81) of the participants in the intervention and control groups, we found evidence that the intervention successfully increased employees’ resources over time. Moreover, we found considerable support for a positive link between these resources and employees’ affective well‐being and job dedication. Thus, our study suggests that a resource‐enhancing intervention can serve as an important means to protect public service employees against the deleterious effects of bystander conflict.

Practitioner points

• A resource‐enhancing intervention can protect public service employees against the deleterious effects of bystander conflict.
• Resources related to dealing with a hindering bystander, as well as resources facilitating the continuation of the primary task, are positively associated with employees’ affective well‐being, job dedication, and job performance.

     

Career calling and team member proactivity: The roles of living out a calling and mentoring

With the growing interest in the joint effects of individual and contextual factors in predicting team member proactivity, this paper examines why and when pursuing one's career calling can lead to team member proactivity. Drawing on the Work as a Calling Theory, we propose that “living out a calling” explains why employees' perceived career calling positively relates to team member proactivity and especially when the employee receives high levels of mentoring support. Our hypotheses are tested using a multisource and time-lagged study design with a sample of 296 dyads of Chinese employees and their direct supervisors. We found support for the mediating role of living out a calling (Time 2) in the positive relationship between perceiving a calling (Time 1) and team member proactivity (Time 3). Mentoring (Time 2) moderated the perceiving a calling and living out a calling link such that when employees received more mentoring, the relationship was positive, whereas under lower levels of mentoring, the relationship was negative. Similarly, the indirect relationship between perceiving a calling and team member proactivity through living out a calling was positive at higher levels of mentoring, but the relationship was negative at lower levels of mentoring.     

Modeling Lifelong Learning: Collaborative Teaching across Disciplinary Lines

Most courses in colleges and universities are taught by only one instructor. This is often necessitated by the financial exigencies of educational institutions, but is also due to an academic tradition in which the ideal is a single expert teaching in a single discipline. The rapidly changing realities of both the higher education and job markets, however, have called the traditional ideal into question. Interdisciplinary collaborative teaching is one way to adapt to the needs of twenty‐first‐century students, by modeling lifelong learning for students and inviting instructors to be more deliberately reflective about disciplinary assumptions, learning styles, and pedagogies.     

Generational Differences as a Determinant of Women's Perspectives on Commitment

Differences between 116 graduate and undergraduate women, representing 4 generations (i.e., Baby Boomers, Transitionals, Generation Xers, and Millennials), were studied to categorize earliest awareness and definitions of commitment in relationships. More than 63% of participants in each generation viewed relationship commitment in terms of constraints rather than attractions.     

Measuring Team Performance in Complex and Dynamic Military Environments: The SPOTLITE Method

The Scenario-based Performance Observation Tool for Learning In Team Environments (SPOTLITE) provides a systematic method for developing team performance measurement instruments comprised of behaviorally anchored rating scales that are tied to observable behaviors that tap critical knowledge and skills and can be assessed at specific intervals during a training scenario. We developed a measurement instrument for four-person teams of F-16 pilots training for air-to-air combat in a high-fidelity simulation environment and implemented it in a handheld computer to support fast and accurate data entry as a team executes a scenario. An experiment demonstrated the sensitivity, reliability, and validity of the instrument.