Christian Vandenberghe

HEC Montréal | HEC Montreal · Department of Management

The link between affective organizational commitment and proactivity is not well understood and its underlying process and boundary conditions are under-investigated. To fill this gap, we conducted two studies to examine how and when affective organizational commitment contributes to proactive work behavior. Using multilevel, multisource survey dat...

Various theories have highlighted how employees evolve in their organization and how organizations influence this process, but only portray part of the complex relations among these interacting social entities. We thus propose a meta‐theory to unify these multiple theories, including symbolic interactionism, employee/organizational socialization th...

This article conceptualizes the bright and dark sides of self‐verification processes among dyads of coworkers from different social groups. We argue that these processes depend on coworkers' social dominance orientation (SDO), which determines whether they hold dominant, subordinate, or egalitarian social identities. The proposed typology identifie...

Plain Language Summary For decades, the leadership literature has emphasized the importance of leader–subordinate relationships, providing abundant evidence that high-quality relationships between leaders and subordinates lead to a host of positive outcomes. Yet, significant confusion persists about the configurations of high-quality leader-subordi...

Le dénigrement social en milieu de travail a fait l’objet de nombreux travaux dans les dernières années en raison de ses effets délétères sur la santé, les attitudes, et la performance des employés. La recherche a pourtant très peu abordé les effets que le dénigrement social peut exercer sur l’engagement organisationnel des employés. De plus, le dé...

Drawing from transformational leadership (TFL) theory and research on contextual leadership, we examined a conditional process model of leadership in nursing teams to predict patient loyalty. Using TFL's individualized consideration dimension as a salient facet of the construct in care services, we first posited that nurses' team affective commitme...

Introduction Burnout has been typically addressed as an outcome and indicator of employee malfunctioning due to its profound effects on the organization, its members, and its profitability. Our study assesses its potential as a predictor, delving into how different sources of motivation—autonomous and controlled—act as mediational mechanisms in the...

Adopting a longitudinal person-centered perspective, we examined the profiles of employee commitments to the organization, supervisor, occupation, work team, and family in a diversified sample of employees (N = 1459) surveyed three times at one-month intervals during the COVID-19 pandemic. In line with recent developments in research on commitment...

Cette étude visait à identifier les profils d’engagement affectif au travail (workplace affective commitment, WAC) observés auprès de nouveaux employés (N = 443). Nous avons estimé ces profils à partir des niveaux spécifiques d’engagement affectif au travail des nouveaux arrivants par rapport à huit cibles (c’est-à-dire l’organisation, le ou la sup...

The literature generally surmises that negative affective states of leaders are detrimental to leader effectiveness and work outcomes. Taking the opposite view, this study explores how the negative affective experiences of leaders related to COVID-19 may foster team commitment and employee performance. By integrating personality systems interaction...

Through two studies, we examine the importance of supervisor promotion of the organization (SPO) for employee commitment and retention. Study 1 ( N = 910) found SPO to be distinguishable from supervisor’s organizational embodiment, perceived supervisor support, perceived organizational support, and supervisor vision and to interact with perceived s...

The present study seeks to achieve a dynamic understanding of employees' job engagement trajectories, and of their time‐structured associations with leader–member exchange (LMX) and outcomes related to psychological adaptation (turnover intentions, emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction and life satisfaction). A sample of 285 employees was surveyed...

The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented disruptions in organizations and people’s lives by generating uncertainty, anxiety, and isolation for most employees around the globe. Such disruptive context may have prompted employees to reconsider their identification with their work role, defined as work centrality. As such reconsideration may ha...

The present research explores the role of lateral exchange relationships among peer leaders (i.e., leader–leader exchange relationships; PLLX) as drivers of ethical leadership. Across two studies involving male subordinates and leaders pertaining to 150 teams (Study 1) and 158 leader–follower dyads (Study 2) in the Republic of Korea Army, PLLX was...

Digitalized independent workers, known as gig workers, have been shown to work under high-pressure, with a lack of autonomy, a lack of feedback and perceived competence, and a high level of isolation. We conducted a literature review to investigate how gig workers cope with these sources of stress. We identified primary sources of psychological str...

The prevalence of teams in contemporary organizations and the trend toward diversity in a workforce composed of members from multiple countries have drawn the attention of researchers on the consequences of diversity in workplaces. While there are potential benefits to diversity, relationship conflicts among team members may also result and affect...

Résumé La recherche sur les impacts du leadership laissez-faire, une forme fréquente de leadership passif, demeure émergente. Dans cette étude, nous explorons la possibilité que la pratique du laissez-faire par les superviseurs engendre un sentiment de menace chez les employés quant à leur identité organisationnelle. En d’autres termes, l’absence d...

Building upon the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model (Demerouti et al., 2001) and the extensive research on employee turnover intention and well-being, we examined various demands and resources in relation to these outcomes. This study examined the differential relationship between job demands, and personal and job resources, and two organizational...

The role of leaders has been increasingly studied in connection to employee well-being. However, little attention has been given to the effect of passive forms of leadership such as laissez-faire leadership. Two studies examined the effects of laissez-faire leadership on positive and negative aspects of employee psychological well-being. Due to its...

Building on the health belief model (HBM), this research tests, over six months, how the exposure to COVID-related information in the media affects fear, which in turn conditions beliefs about the severity of the virus, susceptibility of getting the virus, and benefits of safety measures. These health beliefs ultimately lead to social distancing an...

The current research examines the consequences of supervisors' overtime hours on subordinates. Drawing upon the stressor‐emotion model of counterproductive behaviors, we argue that supervisors' overtime hours positively relate to abusive supervision behaviors through negative emotions, which in turn undermine leader–member exchange relationships. W...

Using two studies and four samples, we introduce new forms of assimilative and contrastive affective organizational commitment (AOC) from a social comparison perspective and examine their distinctiveness from traditional AOC. We further explore the interplay among assimilative and contrastive AOCs and the self‐concept in predicting specific perform...

In today’s global economy, self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) and host country nationals (HCNs) both represent critical human resources for organizations operating globally. Yet, because these two groups of employees have been studied separately, little is known about how SIEs’ and HCNs’ perceptions of, and attitudes towards the organization compare...

The aim of this article was to investigate the conditions under which the dimensions of work-related wellbeing (i.e., serenity, social harmony, and involvement) can be beneficial for employee proactive behavior (PB). Based on theories of activation and theorization about the influence of wellbeing on performance, we proposed that the contribution o...

Le recours aux équipes de travail est désormais une pratique prédominante dans les organisations. Dans un tel contexte, l’identification des facteurs permettant d’encourager l’engagement des employés envers les objectifs de leur équipe est un enjeu important. Il est dès lors important de déterminer comment ces facteurs contribuent indirectement à c...

This paper explores how proactive behavior and constructive deviance relate to affective organizational commitment and turnover intention through idea championing. Based on a two-wave study (N = 310), structural equation model analyses revealed that constructive deviance had an inhibitory effect and proactive behavior a facilitatory effect on idea...

Murphy (2021) argues that the field of Industrial-Organizational (I/O) Psychology needs to pay more attention to descriptive statistics (“Table 1”; e.g., M, SD, reliability, correlations) when reporting and interpreting results. We agree that authors need to present a clear and transparent description of their data and that descriptive statistics a...

Departing from a universal perspective on affective organizational commitment, the present article examines the situational and personal variables that act as potential moderators of the relationship between affective commitment and its antecedents and outcomes. Based on emerging evidence and theory, it is argued that the relationship between extri...

Résumé Le leadership laissez-faire des superviseurs est un sujet peu exploré dans la littérature de gestion. De plus, le rôle des différences individuelles entre les employés dans leur réaction face au leadership laissez-faire demeure méconnu. Dans cette étude (n = 248), nous analysons la relation entre le leadership laissez-faire des superviseurs...

Although the detrimental effects of laissez-faire leadership are well documented, research on the underlying mechanisms and the boundary conditions associated with these effects remains scarce. Using the identity orientation framework and social exchange theory, we propose that employees with stronger relational self-concepts are more likely to be...

Purpose Organizational change is usually stressful and destabilizing for employees, for whom coping with the induced stress is primordial to commit to the change. This paper aims to unravel how and when change recipients can enact different coping strategies and, ultimately, manifest different forms of commitment to change. Design/methodology/appr...

Purpose Given recent prominent ethical scandals (e.g. Tesla, Uber) and the increasing demand for ethical management, the importance of business ethics has recently surged. One area that needs further research regards how ethical leaders can foster followers’ organizational commitment. Drawing upon social exchange theory, the current research propos...

The relation between role overload and work performance remains insufficiently understood. Drawing upon conservation of resources theory, we expected role overload to negatively relate to performance through psychological strain and this relation to be buffered by leader–member exchange (LMX). Study 1 (N = 212) examined depression as a severe type...

Are psychologically healthy employees more proactive at work? Surprisingly, responses to this question are lacking as empirical research has overlooked the wellbeing–proactive performance relationship. Drawing insights from the conservation of resources theory and the motivational fit perspective, this study proposes that leader-member exchange and...

It has been theoretically proposed that employees’ perceptions of their supervisor social power in the organization entail a potential to influence their beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. However, no study has investigated such potential. This lack of research stems from the absence of a common understanding around the meaning of perceived supervi...

Sur la base du modèle général de l’engagement en contexte de travail de Meyer et Herscovitch (2001), Herscovitch et Meyer (2002) ont proposé un modèle d’engagement envers le changement comprenant les composantes affective, normative, et de continuité. La présente étude prolonge la recherche antérieure sur le modèle à trois composantes de l’engageme...

Résumé L’anxiété générée par la crise sanitaire de la COVID-19 est un phénomène nouveau dont les effets sont largement inconnus. Pour explorer cette question, nous avons mené une étude auprès de 650 employés de ministères au Québec pendant la première vague de la pandémie qui examine les effets de l’anxiété liée à la COVID-19 sur quatre indicateurs...

This article looks at the relationship between psychological contract breach and voluntary turnover among newcomers, using supervisor trustworthiness as a mediator and negative affectivity as a moderator. Relying on data from 243 newcomers, psychological contract breach was found to be negatively related to the three dimensions of supervisor trustw...

The proportion of workers putting long hours into work is on the increase, which paves the way for workaholism, a syndrome that combines long hours and obsessive thoughts about work and is known to harm employee health. This study explores the role of the context in the emergence of workaholism and job strain, a stance that has rarely been taken in...

Since the relationship between leaders and subordinates has important implications for organizations, exploring how high-quality leader–member exchange (LMX) relationships develop over time is a critical research objective. However, LMX research has essentially focused on leader-centric approaches to describe how leaders develop differential relati...

Le lien entre le bien-être psychologique (BEP) au travail et l’engagement organisationnel n’est plus à prouver. Cependant, la plupart des études ont appréhendé le BEP en utilisant des variables proches, mais différentes (p. ex., la satisfaction et ses affects positifs), ou en n’utilisant pas de mesure adaptée au contexte organisationnel et ont trai...

La performance proactive, soit la propension à adopter des comportements d’initiative et orientés vers le futur, est nécessaire à la performance des organisations. Le bien-être est associé avec certains éléments de la performance proactive, tels que la créativité, mais a été peu étudié. En outre, un modérateur entre les déterminants individuels et...

Characterized by feelings of apathy and self-deprecation, psychological disengagement at work (PDW) is associated with decreased levels of task performance amongst employees (Demerouti & Cropanzano, 2010). In parallel, empowering leadership (EL) is known to encourage psychological engagement in the workplace (Tuckey et al., 2012). The aim of this s...

Research on leader-member exchange (LMX) has demonstrated that, in addition to the value of LMX as an indicator of quality relationships with leaders, employees also evaluate how their relationship with the leader compares to other employees’ relationship with the leader. This finding led to the emergence of LMX social comparison (LMXSC). This stud...

A person-centered perspective makes it possible to identify the most common combinations, or profiles, of Affective (AC), Normative (NC), and Continuance (CC) commitment to any target. Extensive person-centered research has been conducted on employees' commitment to their organization. However, only a few cross-sectional studies have focused on emp...

In recent years, unethical conduct (e.g., Enron, Lehman Brothers, Oxfam, Volkswagen) has become an important issue in management; relatedly, there is growing interest regarding the nature and implications of ethical leadership. Drawing from social learning theory, we posited that ethical leadership would positively relate to team ethical voice and...

Research on the microfoundations of social evaluations requires microtranslation of concepts and measures used in macro-organizational research. The development of valid individual-level measures of organizational legitimacy, reputation, and status presents an essential step in the advancement of organizational theory toward a multilevel perspectiv...

Employees' affective commitment and well-being are intertwined, but the underlying mechanisms remain unknown, particularly among long-tenured employees. This study explored such mechanisms at both between- and within-individual levels. Drawing upon self-determination theory, we considered the changes in basic need satisfactions key mechanisms linki...

Les recherches récentes sur les stresseurs de rôle suggèrent que les stresseurs peuvent agir comme des contraintes, épuisant les ressources individuelles et diminuant la performance au travail ou comme des défis qui promeuvent le développement de soi et la croissance personnelle. Au sein de la trilogie des stresseurs de rôle, laquelle comprend l’am...

Le travail du savoir se caractérise par la nécessité de créer, distribuer et appliquer des connaissances innovantes en collaboration avec autrui (Davenport, 2005). Aucun instrument ne permettant d'évaluer directement et uniformément le travail du savoir, cette étude a pour but la validation du Questionnaire du Travail du Savoir (QTS) qui mesure à q...

Résumé La relation entre l’engagement affectif des employés envers leur superviseur et la recherche de feedback négatif est peu explorée dans la littérature. De plus, le rôle des caractéristiques propres au contexte de cette relation est méconnu. Dans cet article, nous examinons la relation entre engagement (affectif) envers le supérieur et recherc...

This paper introduces the construct of commitment to organizational career (COC). Conceptualized as a specific form of goal commitment, COC reflects an individual's commitment to the goal of pursuing a long and successful career in an organization. We developed a 5‐item measure of COC and examined its validity and reliability in four studies involv...

Theory and conventional wisdom suggest that progressive reduction of feedback-seeking behavior (FSB) during entry is indicative of work adjustment. We argue that a downside of this process is that newcomers’ social integration and acculturation may be weakened. This suggests declining levels of FSB may result in decreased organizational commitment...

Aim To elucidate how workgroup commitment and motivation jointly influence nurses’ proactive behaviour. Background The need to offer effective patient care has encouraged healthcare organizations to promote proactive behaviours among nurses. Longitudinal relationships among motivation, commitment, and nurses’ proactivity remain unexplored. Method...

Is workload good or bad for employee innovation? Workload and innovative work behavior are widely studied research topics. However, the relationship between them is not well understood. As a result, there is a lack of evidence-based knowledge that could inform managers and organizations on how to boost workplace innovation in demanding work context...

The present study examines a model linking perceived information sharing as a Human Resource Management practice to employee innovative work behavior, using survey data collected from 756 employees of a military organization. Work‐based learning, challenging tasks, and organizational commitment were used as factors that could account for the relati...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine a model linking directive and supportive leadership to group-level helping behaviors via group-level perceived organizational support (GPOS) and collective affective commitment (CAC). Design/methodology/approach Using data from 115 business units of an international retailer, the authors tested and c...

Purpose Relying on the theories of substitutes for leadership and psychological empowerment, this study aims to explore how perceptions of customer positive feedback can substitute for managers’ transformational leadership in driving frontline employees’ psychological empowerment and, in turn, task performance. Design/methodology/approach The auth...

This paper develops a theoretical model that highlights the mechanisms underlying the contagion of long working hours from supervisors to subordinates at different stages of their relationship. Drawing upon social learning theory, we suggest that subordinates mimic the supervisor’s working hours through vicarious learning. Focusing first on the rol...

An important role of leaders is to foster followers’ performance through goal setting processes, which involve reciprocal interactions between leaders and followers (Locke & Latham in American Psychologist, 57, 705–717, 2002). Drawing upon the theory of role-making processes and a resource allocation framework, this study examined (a) how leaders’...

Building on the broaden‐and‐build theory and research on the negativity bias, this study examines how trait affectivity, as a stable predisposition predicting the pattern of emotional responding, shapes newcomers' perceptions of supervisor support and experience of organizational commitment. Using latent growth modeling and data collected at four p...

Research on the micro-foundations of social evaluations requires a microtranslation of concepts and measures used in macro-organizational research. The development of valid individual-level measures of organizational legitimacy, reputation, and status presents an essential step in the advancement of organizational theory towards a multi-level persp...

This study examines the combined effect of organizational justice facets on store-level customer extra-role service behavior, and subsequently on customer satisfaction. Hypotheses were tested on a sample of 1,951 employees in 121 business units from four countries, and on 55,731 customers of an international retailer. The results of polynomial regr...

This study is aimed at investigating perceived task interdependence and team size as contingencies for team leaders’ transformational leadership influence on team identification. Data were obtained from a two-phase survey among 234 employees from ten multinational pharmaceutical subsidiaries in South Korea. Each dimension of transformational leader...

Résumé Cet article examine la relation entre la recherche de feedback positif et négatif et la performance au travail, évaluée par les supérieurs, en fonction des orientations vers les objectifs (apprentissage, performance, et évitement) des employés. Sur base d’une étude auprès de 197 employés de diverses industries, les résultats montrent que la...

Résumé Cet article rapporte les résultats d’une étude portant sur les effets de l’engagement au travail et de l’estime de soi organisationnelle sur la satisfaction envers la carrière. La satisfaction envers la carrière est mesurée à trois moments distincts : au même moment que les variables prédictives, et respectivement six mois et un an plus tard...

This study examines the relationships of servant leadership to organizational commitment, voice behaviors, and antisocial behaviors. Adopting a multifaceted approach to commitment, we hypothesized that servant leadership would be positively related to affective, normative, and perceived sacrifice commitment, but unrelated to few alternatives commit...

Do individuals with callings perform better than those without? Why or why not? There are not clear answers to these questions in the literature. Using a social exchange framework, we posit an intervening process between callings and job performance, focusing on the role of organizational commitment and ideological contract fulfillment – the degree...

Cet article examine les effets de l’engagement au travail sur la performance altruiste et l’épuisement émotionnel ainsi que l’effet modérateur des traits d’affectivité positive et négative. Les données ont été recueillies par questionnaires auprès de 279 employés travaillant dans des secteurs variés. Les résultats montrent que l’affectivité positiv...

This study sheds light on the relationships between workplace stressors and employee innovation by jointly considering mediating processes and boundary conditions. Using the challenge-hindrance model, we combine social exchange and conservation of resources theory to propose that challenge (i.e., role overload) and hindrance (i.e., role ambiguity a...

Cet article examine le rôle modérateur des orientations vers les objectifs (orientation apprentissage, performance et évitement) dans la relation entre l’envergure de poste (soit une variable composite mesurant la variété des tâches, l’autonomie, le feedback de la tâche et la signification du travail) et l’engagement organisationnel. À partir d’un...

The customer might not always be right, but he has more power then he has ever had in the past. If two decades ago, “word of mouth” meant calling friends to discuss a bad experience, Internet has given the power to the customer to express their dissatisfaction to a larger audience.

Cet article présente une étude examinant les relations entre l’ouverture à l’expérience, les dimensions de l’engagement organisationnel et l’intention de quitter, et explore le rôle modérateur potentiel des opportunités de carrière et de déve­loppement. L’engagement affectif médiatise un lien négatif entre l’ouverture aux expériences et l’intention...

Les gestionnaires peuvent utiliser différents mécanismes pour que se manifestent des comportements susceptibles de créer un engagement soutenu des employés dans leurs tâches et un lien solide avec l’entreprise.

This article aims to understand how trust in the supervisor contributes to the development of employees’ social capital using Conservation of Resources theory as a theoretical framework and networking ability as an indicator of social capital development. We hypothesize that the relationship between newcomers’ trust in the supervisor and networking...

Although a number of investigations have examined the direct effect of transformational leadership on organizational commitment, few studies to date have investigated the mechanisms that explain such relationship. In the present research, we propose that work-family conflict and work-family enrichment can mediate the relationship between transforma...

Past research has largely ignored the role of contextual factors in the relationships between supervisory mentoring and individual and organizational outcomes. In order to fill this void, we investigate how job scope and career and development opportunities, two critical contextual factors, moderate the supervisory mentoring-affective commitment-tu...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to contrast the foundations of (affective) organizational and career-oriented commitment. Using social exchange theory as a background, organizational commitment is proposed as a mediator between perceived organizational support (POS) and competence development activities and feedback-seeking behavior. Career-...