Carsten C. Schermuly

SRH University Berlin | SRH · Business Psychology

Purpose Today’s unpredictable and fast-changing work environment challenges researchers and organizations to rethink learning. In contrast to traditional learning designs, new learning frameworks such as agile learning are more learner centered, integrated into the workplace and socially shaped. The purpose of this study is to examine Working Out L...

Purpose Accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, in recent years, face-to-face coaching has largely shifted to online coaching. The authors examined both the side effects of and coaching success in face-to-face, blended and online coaching from both coaches' and clients' perspectives. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned examination. Design/...

With organizational practices such as working from home, agile project management, and shared leadership, the world of work is becoming increasingly dynamic and flexible. Simultaneously, the workforce in most industrialized nations is getting older. We hypothesized that both an explicit and implicit stereotype exists that associates modern work pra...

Since team colleagues and leaders are the first points of contact for organizational newcomers, they could play an important role in newcomers’ socialization success. On the basis of the social identity approach and signaling theory, we expect perceived subgroups in the team and leader–member exchange (LMX), respectively, to predict socialization o...

Motivating older employees both to prolong their working lives and to stay active even after retirement has become increasingly important due to rising old-age dependency ratios. Later life work—including both paid work and volunteering—has thus become an important topic for scholars and practitioners. We aim to extend research on later life work b...

In the business world, coaching has established itself as an important instrument of personnel development. At the same time, however, psychological disorders in the workplace are on the rise. Combined, these trends mean that more business coaches may encounter clients who contact the coach with a psychotherapeutic need. An initial explorative and...

Zusammenfassung Viele verschiedene Maßnahmen und Praktiken werden in Unternehmen mit New Work assoziiert. Um an dieser Stelle die Übersichtlichkeit zu verbessern, entwickeln wir eine Taxonomie, in der New Work-Praktiken (NWP) mit Blick auf ihre Wirkungsebene (Organisation vs. Person) und ihr Wirkungsziel (Effizienz vs. Innovation) durch Expert:inne...

This article tested a moderated mediation process to explain the relationship between agile project management and emotional exhaustion. By transferring traditional stress theories to the agile context, work-related stress was introduced as a mediator, and the moderating effects of social competence, perceived team support, and a culture for psycho...

Agile project management (APM) refers to a set of project management frameworks that are increasingly common in a range of industries. Even though the positive effects of APM for employees and organizations are widely assumed, no systematic account of affective, behavioural and cognitive outcomes appears in the academic literature. In this pre-regi...

The coaching market experienced a tremendous change within the last few years with a substantial increase in digital coaching. So far, little is known about possible effects of technostress on coaches’ health and coaching success. We conducted two studies on potential consequences of technostress in terms of coaches’ emotional exhaustion and coache...

Psychological empowerment – the experience of competence, meaning, self-determination and impact at work – has become very popular in organizational research. Meta-analytic results show many positive consequences of psychological empowerment and many different antecedents such as positive leadership, high performance practices, and work design char...

Psychological empowerment has become a popular construct in organizational research and practice. Leadership ranks high among the best predictors of employees’ psychological empowerment, yet little is known about which leadership styles prove more effective than others. This meta-analysis investigates the effects of four leadership styles on psycho...

Against the backdrop of a working world that becomes increasingly uncertain and complex, a change in university teaching becomes indispensable. Lecturers need to promote the students’ competencies to apply skills and abilities to challenging, changing problems. However, there are only a few systematic, didactic-methodological concepts for teaching...

Successful training transfer is necessary for employees to adapt to this fast-changing working world. In this study, we investigate whether transformational trainer behaviour can inspire training participants to change their self-concept during training and whether this is related to increased training transfer. Following the self-concept based the...

Current mega-trends and the Covid-19 pandemic are influencing the future of work. Workplace coaching is directly and indirectly affected by these changes in numerous ways, which is why we have conducted a Delphi study about the future of workplace coaching. We followed the standard procedures for this technique, using 16 structured interviews and i...

Because of its relevance for organizations and their employees, psychological empowerment (PE) has received a great deal of attention in research and practice. Supervisors play an important role in the promotion of subordinates’ PE. In the present article, and on the basis of social learning theory, we examine how the supervisor’s perceived and sel...

Computerization, environmental challenges, and the economic slowdown related to COVID-19 are expected to result in an increased number of job seekers in the near future. Although the quality of the job search process has been theoretically and empirically linked to job search success and employment quality, research on the determinants of job searc...

As a global pandemic, COVID-19 impacts work-related processes, placing strain upon many employees in project teams. Identifying process variables and potential organizational resources can play an important role in addressing employee mental health, both for the current pandemic and future crises. Based on an extension of the job demands–resources...

In times of market volatility and uncertainty, finding effective strategies to attract and retain individuals continues to be a challenge for organizations. Based on the psychological empowerment process (Spreitzer, 1996), this paper strives to examine if the application of agile project management could serve as such a strategy. Design/methodolog...

While demographic change is leading to an aging workforce in many parts of the world, more and more companies are implementing agile forms of collaboration. These enable better adaptation to change through constant, iterative learning but require a corresponding mindset from the employees. According to meta-analytical findings, willingness to learn...

Artificial intelligence (AI) has brought rapid innovations in recent years, transforming both business and society. This paper offers a new perspective on whether, and how, AI can be employed in coaching as a key HRD tool. We provide a definition of the concept of AI coaching and differentiate it from related concepts. We also challenge the assumpt...

Frequent experiences of flow – an enjoyable state of optimal challenge – at work are associated with many positive individual and organizational outcomes. In our research, we examine how leaders affect subordinates’ flow experiences through subordinates’ work-related self-concept. Specifically, on the basis of self-concept theory, we propose that t...

DOI 10.1007/s10551-018-3977-0 The evidence of culture’s impact on corruption and its consequences is still inconclusive despite several investigations: (1) Sometimes, theory is lacking and causes and consequences seem exchangeable. Based on psychological research on the distribution and use of power, we predicted that a steeper distribution of powe...

As coaching becomes an established learning and development tool, it expands to new work contexts and relevant populations. Exploring coaching outcomes in insolvent entrepreneurs is a new and promising field. Business failure is a devastating experience for entrepreneurs, associated with negative emotions and adverse psychological and physiological...

Fragestellung: Organisationen investieren viel Geld in Trainings, in der Hoffnung, damit ihre Mitarbeitenden weiterbilden zu können. Erfolgsfaktoren für Trainings stehen deshalb schon seit einem halben Jahrhundert auf der Forschungsagenda (vgl. Modell des Trainingstransfers; Baldwin & Ford, 1988). Die Rolle der Trainerin/des Trainers für den Traini...

Als Reaktion auf eine sich dynamisch verändernde Arbeits- und Wirtschaftswelt initiieren immer mehr Organisationen neue Formen der Zusammenarbeit. Diese werden in der Praxis unter dem Label New Work eingeführt. Den Begriff New Work hat der Philosoph Frithjof Bergmann mit einer gesellschafts- und kapitalismuskritischen Orientierung geprägt.n In dies...

Effective training transfer continues to be a challenge in human resource development (HRD). In this study, we examined the diversity of the training group as a predictor for training transfer because it has been shown to predict team performance in the work context. We compared objective and subjective diversity measures (diversity faultlines and...

Das Angebot an Diversitätstrainings ist groß. Uneinheitliche Bezeichnungen und negative Schlagzeilen können Personalentwickler/innen die Auswahl des richtigen Trainings erschweren. Dieser Beitrag soll Personalentwickler/innen im Auswahlprozess unterstützen. Dazu stellen wir zuerst eine Klassifikation der Ziele von Diversitätstrainings auf. Anschlie...

Arbeit wird zunehmend volatil, unsicher, komplex und mehrdeutig. Organisationen begegnen diesen Trends, indem sie im Zuge von New Work-Maßnahmen ihre Organisationstrukturen und Arbeitsprozesse demokratisieren. Häufig stehen dabei die Strukturen im Fokus der Organisationsentwicklung und nicht die Menschen, die darin arbeiten müssen. In diesem Artike...

A growing number of studies emphasize the working alliance between the client and the coach to be a key factor in coaching. Synthesizing 27 samples (N = 3563 coaching processes), this meta-analysis sheds light on the relationship between working alliance and a broad range of coaching outcomes for clients. The meta-analytic results indicate a modera...

Drei große Metaanalysen haben den empirischen Beleg dafür erbracht, dass Coaching wirksam ist (Jones et al. 2015; Sonesh et al. 2015; Theeboom et al. 2014; Kap. 8). Coaching zeigte sich als effektive Maßnahme nicht nur zur Unterstützung von individuellem Lernen und persönlicher Weiterentwicklung, sondern auch zur Leistungsverbesserung und Zielerrei...

Arbeitszufriedenheit und Arbeitsmotivation sind zentrale Konstrukte der Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie. Arbeitszufriedenheit liegt vor, wenn Menschen positive Kognitionen und Emotionen gegenüber ihrer Arbeit wahrnehmen. Während die Arbeitszufriedenheit einen retrospektiven Charakter besitzt, ist die Arbeitsmotivation stärker prospektiv ausge...

Coaching can have tremendous positive effects, but to date, there has been little attention to the possibility that coaching can also exhibit negative effects. To fill this void, this literature review introduces the concepts of negative effects of coaching for clients, coaches and organisations to a wide audience of coaching researchers and practi...

Online published in Journal of Business Ethics. The full-text view-only original version can be read under https://rdcu.be/4ES5 or can be ordered by the first author -- Here you can find the AAM word version. -- The evidence of culture's impact on corruption and its consequences is still inconclusive despite several investigations: (1) Sometimes, t...

Supplementary Material for The Impact of Culture on Corruption, Gross Domestic Product, and Human Development By Wolfgang Scholl & Carsten C. Schermuly To be published in Journal of Business Ethics S.1: Nonrecursive model with feedback from GDP to Low Corruption S.2: Reanalysis of the theoretical model with missing values replaced by culturally rel...

Prior research showed that coaches often experience negative effects in their work. The present study explores their antecedents and impact on coaches’ health and well-being. In a time-lagged design and an international sample, 275 coaches evaluated their last completed coaching process. Negative effects for coaches and their potential antecedents...

Nebenwirkungen von Coaching für Klienten und Coaches ist bisher wenig Beachtung geschenkt worden, dabei ist die Beschäftigung mit diesen wichtig für die Weiterentwicklung der Coachingprofession. Nebenwirkungen werden in diesem Kapitel nicht mit Misserfolg gleichgesetzt sondern als unerwünschte Effekte begriffen, die auch in erfolgreichen Coachings...

Executive training is an important part of leadership development, but little is known about interpersonal conflicts that can occur in leadership training. We conducted a qualitative (N = 85) and quantitative (N = 214) study to explore this new research field. With the help of these studies, we aim to identify typical interpersonal conflict types d...

Research on client dropout in business coaching is scarce even though dropouts can have consequences for clients, coaches, organizations, and the validity of coaching research. In this article, a conceptualization and definition of client dropout are developed and justified. Client dropout is defined as the early termination of coaching by a client...

The majority of coaches experience negative effects from coaching, but little is known of what determines their occurrence. This study investigates the relationship between negative effects for clients and for coaches from both clients’ and coaches’ perspectives. It also analyses the role of coaches’ neuroticism and the use of supervision in this r...

Viele Aufgaben werden in Organisationen von Gruppen bearbeitet. Dabei herrscht der Optimismus vor, dass Gruppen insbesondere komplexe Probleme effizienter als Einzelpersonen bearbeiten können. Doch immer wieder scheitern Gruppen und erreichen ihre Ziele nicht. Um diese Gruppenprozesse zu verstehen und ihnen präventiv begegnen zu können, ist die Sam...

Purpose The desired retirement age (DRA) becomes more important because some countries adapt their strict retirement regulations to it. A process is tested for how psychological empowerment influences the DRA mediated by psychological and physical strain and how the DRA is connected to the expected retirement age (ERA). The paper aims to discuss t...

Diversity faultlines can have a detrimental impact on team performance. To test whether this impact depends on leaders’ and members’ pro-diversity beliefs, we examined 41 leaders and 219 members of teams working for the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Findings indicated that the negative impact of diversity faultlines on team performance was we...

Zusammenfassung Die Forschung zu Nebenwirkungen von Coaching für Klienten schreitet voran. Es liegen mittlerweile Ergebnisse darüber vor, wie häufig Nebenwirkungen von Coaches und Klienten wahrgenommen werden und welche Ursachen für diese verantwortlich sind. In diesem Artikel wird zunächst der aktuelle Stand der Forschung zu Nebenwirkungen von Coa...

Viele Aufgaben werden in Organisationen von Gruppen bearbeitet. Dabei herrscht der Optimismus vor, dass Gruppen insbesondere komplexe Probleme effizienter als Einzelpersonen bearbeiten können. Doch immer wieder scheitern Gruppen und erreichen ihre Ziele nicht. Um diese Gruppenprozesse zu verstehen und ihnen präventiv begegnen zu können, ist die Sam...

Sound research demonstrates the substantial positive effects of business coaching, but little is known about potential side effects. This study sheds light on the characteristics of side effects of coaching from the coachees' perspective and investigates three possible predictors: relationship quality between coach and coachee, the coach's expertis...

We supplement broad definitions of leadership behavior with the concept of micro-level leadership behavior, leaders’ verbal and non-verbal visible conduct and interaction. For the context of team decision-making, we identify two potentially beneficial micro-level leadership behaviors, question asking and behavioral mimicry. Specifically, we propose...

Empowerment ist ein beliebter Begriff in Praxis und Wissenschaft. In der Organisationspsychologie wird zwischen dem strukturellen und dem psychologischen Empowermentansatz unterschieden. Vier arbeitsbezogene Kognitionen bestimmen das Erleben von psychologischem Empowerment: Bedeutsamkeits-, Kompetenz-, Selbstbestimmungs- und Einflusserleben. Die vi...

Coaching etabliert sich zunehmend als wirksames Personalentwicklungsinstrument. Hierfür ist es wichtig zu verstehen, was Coaching ist sowie die Anlässe zu kennen, zu denen Coaching eingesetzt wird und welche Bedeutung Coaching im Rahmen der Führungskräfteentwicklung einnimmt. In verschiedenen Forschungsarbeiten konnte gezeigt werden, dass Coaching...

Teams with strong faultlines often do not achieve their full potential because their functioning is impaired. We argue that strong diversity beliefs held by team leaders mitigate the negative impact of socio-demographic and experience-based faultlines on team functioning. In a heterogeneous multisource field sample of 217 employees nested in 44 tea...

Coaching hat sich als ein wirksames Personalentwicklungsinstrument etabliert. Verschiedene Studien wurden zu positiven Effekten von Coaching durchgeführt. Negative Effekte von Coaching wurden dagegen bisher kaum erforscht. Der Beitrag fasst die ersten Erkenntnisse zu diesem neuen Forschungsgebiet zusammen. Negative Effekte für Klienten werden in di...

http://www.iqp-germany.com/bacdi/ (password required - please contact me) BACDi: tool to test if an AC in a company is in line with scientific standards. Norm values for ACs from more than 60 companies available. Standardized certificate with feedback with regard to 67 items. For details see article Schoelmerich, F., Nachtwei, J., & Schermuly C.C....

Emotional exhaustion and depression pose a threat to employees' psychological health. Social relationships at work are important potential buffers against these threats, but the corresponding psychological processes are still unclear. We propose that the subjective experience of high-quality relationships with supervisors (i.e., Leader–Member Excha...

Empowerment ist ein beliebter Begriff in Praxis und Wissenschaft. In der Organisationspsychologie wird zwischen dem strukturellen und dem psychologischen Empowermentansatz unterschieden. Vier arbeitsbezogene Kognitionen bestimmen das Erleben von psychologischem Empowerment: Bedeutsamkeits-, Kompetenz-, Selbstbestimmungs- und Einflusserleben. Die vi...

Coaching etabliert sich zunehmend als wirksames Personalentwicklungsinstrument. Hierfür ist es wichtig zu verstehen, was Coaching ist sowie die Anlässe zu kennen, zu denen Coaching eingesetzt wird und welche Bedeutung Coaching im Rahmen der Führungskräfteentwicklung einnimmt. In verschiedenen Forschungsarbeiten konnte gezeigt werden, dass Coaching...

The complexity of providing medical care in a high-tech environment with a highly specialized, limited labour force makes hospitals more crisis-prone than other industries. An effective defence against crises is only possible if the organizational resilience and the capacity to handle crises become part of the hospitals' organizational culture. To...

Taking a social relations approach to team diversity, we propose that faultlines - hypothetical dividing lines that split a team into relatively homogeneous subgroups - impact the team members' propensity to exhibit social loafing behaviour. We further propose that this individual-level reaction to the faultline structure of the team can differ amo...

Dieser Beitrag befasst sich mit der Frage nach der Absicht von 55- bis 70-Jährigen, auch im Ruhestand einer Erwerbstätigkeit nachzugehen. Dafür wurden Personen in der angegebenen Altersspanne, die sich noch nicht im Ruhestand befanden, zu ihrer Absicht befragt, in ihrem zukünftigen Ruhestand auch weiterhin erwerbstätig zu sein. Als zentrale Einflus...

Nebenwirkungen von Coaching für Klienten und Coaches ist bisher wenig Beachtung geschenkt worden, dabei ist die Beschäftigung mit diesen wichtig für die Weiterentwicklung der Coachingprofession. Nebenwirkungen werden in diesem Kapitel nicht mit Misserfolg gleichgesetzt sondern als unerwünschte Effekte begriffen, die auch in erfolgreichen Coachings...

Objectives There exists only scarce knowledge regarding what negative effects can occur to business coaches as a result of their work. Negative effects, defined as all harmful or unwanted results for coaches directly caused by coaching that occur parallel to or following coaching, are theoretically inferred in this study. Additionally, negative eff...

Age discrimination is a common problem in organizations. In our pilot study, we want to explore the processes how the desired retirement age is influenced by age discrimination and see psychological empowerment as an important mediator for the relationship between these variables. Data stem from an online questionnaire completed by 130 employees fr...

Business-Coachings haben sich als eines der bedeutendsten Personalentwicklungsinstrumente etabliert. Der wissenschaftliche und praxisorientierte Blick auf das Thema Risiken und Nebenwirkungen von Coachings ist bislang aber kaum erfolgt. In diesem Artikel werden erste empirische Ergebnisse einer Berliner Forschungsgruppe zum Thema negative Effekte v...

Applying the framework of ecological rationality, the authors studied the adaptivity of group decision making. In detail, they investigated whether groups apply decision strategies conditional on their composition in terms of task-relevant features. The authors focused on the recognition heuristic, so the task-relevant features were the validity of...

Coaching hat sich in der Personalentwicklung etabliert. Der wissenschaftliche Blick auf die Wirksamkeit und Wirkfaktoren von Coaching ist aber bisher eingeschränkt. Während in verschiedenen anderen Bereichen (z. B. in der Psychotherapie oder Mentoringforschung) auch negative Effekte untersucht werden, findet dies in der Coachingforschung kaum statt...

Fallbeispiel Marianne Kopf arbeitet seit drei Jahren in einer großen Werbeagentur in Berlin. Nach dem Praktikum war sie zunächst als freie Mitarbeiterin für die Agentur tätig, beendete ihr Grafik-Design-Studium und wurde anschließend fest angestellt. Da sie bereits auf mehrere Jahre Erfahrung in der Agentur zurückblicken konnte, erhoffte sie sich,...

The Leadership Judgement Indicator (LJI) by Neubauer, Bergner, and Felfe (2012) is a German version of an instrument measuring the preference of leadership styles and decision quality in leadership situations. Addressing adults with leadership experience as well as leadership ambitions, it is suitable for use in personnel development, personnel con...

There is growing evidence that coaching is effective. However, little is known about the process variables critical for coaching success. This article investigates the role of the two interpersonal behaviour dimensions affiliation and dominance in the formation of a positive coaching relationship and in coaching success. The interaction of 33 coach...

This study investigates the process underlying the relationship between leadership and employees’ innovative workplace behavior. By combining findings from leader-member exchange (LMX) theory and from research on psychological empowerment, we propose that empowerment mediates the effects of LMX on innovative behavior. We tested the proposed process...

Das Taschenhandbuch „SchnellWissen Führung“ richtet sich an Führungskräfte, Personalverantwortliche, Mitarbeiter, Coaches und Trainer, die wissen wollen, was man in schwierigen Führungssituationen tun kann. Dazu stellt der Wirtschaftspsychologe Professor Dr. Carsten C. Schermuly auf 180 Seiten anhand konkreter Fälle 60 typische Probleme aus dem Füh...

In der Arbeitswelt muss immer mehr und schneller Wissen erworben, weitergegeben, genutzt und neu produziert werden. Das klappt oft nicht so recht, es gibt entsprechende Informationspathologien, die entweder auf unangemessene Vorstellungen von Wissen, auf mangelndes Problembewusstsein, auf Wunschdenken, auf Verständigungsprobleme und am häufigsten a...

In a globalized economy, human resources development activities are central to companies’ innovativeness and future success. We conducted a delphi study, combining qualitative and quantitative methods, to generate an empirically sound assessment of the likely future role of human resource development in German corporations. The first step consisted...

We examined the core hypothesis of affect control theory (ACT; Heise, 2007), namely, that human social interaction is guided by culture-constrained affective consistency. Our study is the first empirical test of this principle applied to nonverbal behavior. A group of 120 subjects in 60 dyads were videotaped during a problem-solving task. Their int...

Diversity faultline strength – the extent to which diversity attributes within a group converge in such a way that they split a group into homogeneous subgroups – can decrease group performance. Based on the categorization–elaboration model (CEM) of workgroup diversity, we assumed that task motivation can overcome the detrimental effects of faultli...

The Discussion Coding System (DCS) is a new instrument for coding face-to-face communication processes. The DCS was developed with several goals in mind: a well-grounded theoretical background, economical coding, the inclusion of nonverbal behavior into the coding, the ability to code different sized groups engaged in a variety of task types, and h...

Combining leadership research with findings from small group research and clinical psychology, we propose that three specific observable interaction behaviors of leaders are partially responsible for the positive effects of considerate leadership on team performance: Question asking, active listening, and behavioral mimicry, with the latter serving...

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the relationship between psychological empowerment, job satisfaction, and burnout among vice-principals (VPs) in primary schools. Design/methodology/approach – A total of 103 VPs at 103 different primary schools in Germany were surveyed with a questionnaire that assessed the four dimensions of psychological...

Faultlines—hypothetical dividing lines splitting a group into homogeneous subgroups based on the distribution of demographic attributes—are frequently assumed to be detrimental to group outcomes because they operationalize social categorizations. However, a literature review indicates that this is not always the case. We argue that diversity faultl...

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the relationship between psychological empowerment, job satisfaction, and burnout among vice-principals (VPs) in primary schools. Design/methodology/approach – A total of 103 VPs at 103 different primary schools in Germany were surveyed with a questionnaire that assessed the four dimensions of psychological...