The Role of Psychological Climate in Neutralizing the Effects of Organizational Politics on Work Outcomes

The present study examined the moderating impact of psychological climate on the relationship between perceived organizational politics and both commitment and turnover intent. Data were gathered from 131 restaurant employees who completed surveys at work. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that a 6-factor conceptualization (supportive management, role clarity, contribution, recognition, self-expression, and challenge) provided the most adequate model representation of the psychological climate construct. Results indicate that politics perceptions interacted with each climate factor (with the exception of challenge) in predicting commitment. Conversely, politics perceptions interacted only with supportive management and self-expression to predict turnover intent. Implications for theoretical development and empirical research in this domain are provided.     

A Note on the Nonlinearity of the Age-Job-Satisfaction Relationship

Research assessing the relationship between age and job satisfaction has typically provided mixed results. Inherent problems including limited samples and a failure to control for tenure and affective disposition have potentially contributed to these conflicting results. Moreover, a significant concern has been researchers' focus on detecting linear effects alone. In the current study, we statistically controlled for gender, supervisor and position tenure, quadratic tenure terms, and affective disposition (NA and PA) based on previous research regarding the relationship between these variables and job satisfaction. Finally, we used hierarchical polynomial regression to assess the form of the age-satisfaction relationship. Results confirmed that a U shape best characterized the relationship between age and job satisfaction. Implications of these findings as well as directions for future research are discussed.     

What Is Too Much or Too Little? The Curvilinear Effects of Job Tension on Turnover Intent,Value Attainment,and Job Satisfaction

This study addressed 2 relatively unexplored issues in the current job stress literature. First, a significant body of research has substantiated a curvilinear relationship between job tension and performance without examining the potential impact of work stress on other important outcomes. Second, past research has failed to control for the influence of role stressors and other important variables that might alter the job-tension/work-outcomes relationship. We hypothesized that experienced job tension would predict turnover intent, value attainment, and job satisfaction, and that this relationship would be nonlinear. Data gathered from 270 hotel managers confirmed our hypotheses. Notably, tension predicted turnover intent (U shape), value attainment (inverted-U shape), and job satisfaction (inverted-U shape) in the expected manner, while explaining additional variance beyond that contributed by demographic factors, role stressors, and linear tension terms. Implications of these findings for theory and practice, as well as avenues for future research are provided.     

Positive Affectivity and Collective Efficacy as Moderators of the Relationship Between Perceived Politics and Job Satisfaction

This study explores the moderating potential of positive affectivity (PA) and perceived collective efficacy (PCE) on the relationship between 3 dimensions of politics perceptions and job satisfaction. We hypothesized that high levels of PA and PCE, in unison, would buffer the harmful effects of perceived politics on job satisfaction. Regression analyses for the 3 dimensions (i.e., general politics, go along to get along, and pay and promotion) yielded a significant finding for the PA × PCE × Go Along to Get Along 3-way interaction only. Consistent with our expectations, low PA-low PCE individuals were less satisfied with their jobs when levels of go-along-to-get-along politics increased. Contrary to our hypothesis, however, high PA-high PCE individuals reported a significant inverse relationship between perceived politics and job satisfaction. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are provided.     

The moderating effect of power distance on employee responses to psychological contract breach

Understanding how employees’ cultural values are related to their responses to promises broken by their organizations (i.e., psychological contract breach) is important given today’s global workplace. Although past research has found that psychological contract breach is positively associated with employee exit, voice and neglect and negatively associated with loyalty, we know little about the role that cultural values play in this process. We explore the role that power distance orientation—an employee’s acceptance of power differentials in society—plays in employee responses to breach. We argue that employees with high power distance orientations will be more likely to respond passively to breach (loyalty and neglect), whereas employees with low power distance orientations will be more likely to exhibit active responses to psychological contract breach (exit and voice). We tested our notions using a sample of 265 employees from different cultures across two points in time. Employees with high power distance orientations were less likely to respond to psychological contract breach with exit and voice than employees with low power distance orientations. However, power distance orientation did not significantly moderate the relationships between psychological contract breach and neglect or loyalty, respectively. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of our findings.     

A dynamic,self-regulatory model of affect and performance: Interactions between states,traits and task demands

State–trait consistency and valence principles were integrated within a dynamic self-regulatory framework to predict interactive effects of state affect, trait affect and task demands on performance. State affect and performance were measured repeatedly as individuals completed a complex and dynamic decision-making task. Task demands were manipulated at the within-person level. The beneficial effect of state positive affect was strongest for individuals with high trait positive affect; however this effect was only evident under high task demands. The detrimental effect of state negative affect was weakest for individuals with high trait negative affect, with this effect being constant across task demand levels. This study demonstrated that state–trait inconsistency can be bad for individuals with high trait positive affect and consistency can be good for individuals with high trait negative affect.