Cynthia Lee

• Ph.D.
• Professor at Northeastern University

Job-based psychological ownership arises when workers develop personal feelings of possession over various aspects of a job. Drawing on conservation of resources and regulatory focus theory, the current research adopts a resource-based perspective to suggest a double-edged effect on job performance, mediated by three forms of territoriality (markin...

Job insecurity is negatively associated with employees’ extra-role behavior. Studies of this negative impact often use a social exchange or stress–strain perspective to explain how job insecurity impairs employees’ extra-role behavior. This study offers an alternative account. Based on a conservation of resources perspective, the authors propose th...

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continues to create tremendous uncertainty in workplaces. Building on a social identity perspective, this study develops and tests a model of how and why COVID-19-associated uncertainty affects employee work outcomes. The model differentiates uncertainty as either internal (job insecurity) or externa...

Although extant work has found that employee depletion is associated with less voice behavior, an emerging line of research suggests that depletion may sometimes be associated with more voice behavior. We build on this emerging line of research by establishing when and why employee depletion is associated with more voice behavior on a daily basis....

One of the more important responsibilities for HRD professionals is to help employees fit into the organization. This fitting in, or adjustment, to the organization includes the skills to perform one's job, understanding the relationships of one's role to the broader organization, and feeling accepted by one's peers. Onboarding, or more broadly, or...

Despite increasing scholarly attention to workplace ostracism, victims receive little guidance regarding how to break its negative spiral over time. Drawing on a multi‐motive model of rejection‐related experiences and the cybernetic model of impression management, this study examines how and why ostracized employees might ameliorate workplace ostra...

This special issue introduces new directions for exploring the consequences of proactive behaviors. The authors summarize the new scopes of consequences, new social contexts, and new methods in this exploration. They also identify several limitations of the existing literature and call for more future research in this stream.

To gain endorsement from their managers, should employees be direct with explicit change suggestions, or should they be indirect with questions and hints? We draw on psychological threat and communication clarity theories to offer competing hypotheses with respect to the association between voice directness and managerial endorsement. We then furth...

Extending an extant dynamic componential perspective, we propose an integrative model of how and why workplace ostracism exhibited by supervisors relates to employees’ creativity through pragmatic (task resources) and engagement (creative process engagement) effects. Specifically, we predict that workplace ostracism negatively relates to creativity...

This article updates our understanding of the field of job insecurity (JI) by incorporating studies across the globe since 2003, analyzes what we know, and offers ideas on how to move forward. We begin by reviewing the conceptualization and operationalization of job insecurity. We then review empirical studies of the antecedents, consequences, and...

When and why do people engage in different forms of proactive behavior at work? We propose that, as a result of a process of trait activation, employees with different types of self-construal engage in distinct forms of proactive behavior if they work in environments consistent with their self-construals. In an experimental Study 1 (N = 61), we exa...

Despite the growing frequency of leadership transitions and their significant impact on team and organizational performance, little research has examined why and how teams develop an identification with a new leader or their subsequent receptiveness to the new leader's change initiatives. Drawing from the contrast and congruence effects and the the...

This study examines why and when employees might respond to job insecurity by engaging in workplace deviance and developing intentions to leave—2 activities that are costly for organizations. Drawing on social exchange theory and the theory of moral disengagement, we propose that job insecurity increases workplace deviance and intentions to leave b...

Leader succession often occurs during organizational change processes, but the implications of leader succession, in terms of reactions to the change, rarely have been investigated. Employee attitudes and behaviors during organizational change may be influenced jointly by a former leader who recently has transitioned out of the team and the new lea...

Abstract This study contributes to the empirical research on leadership of multicultural teams from the Positive Organizational Scholarship perspective (POS). Following the information/decision-making processes perspective on team cultural diversity, we examined the positive effect of leaders’ global identity, on multicultural team innovation. We...

Why and when do employees respond to workplace ostracism by withholding their engagement in citizenship behavior? Beyond perspectives proposed in past studies, we offer a new account based on a social identity perspective and propose that workplace ostracism decreases citizenship behavior by undermining employees’ identification with the organizati...

This article examined a curvilinear relationship between job insecurity and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Drawing from social exchange theory and research on personal control, we developed and tested an explanation for employees' reactions to job insecurity based on their conceptualization of their social exchange relationship with the...

Research on ostracism suggests that being socially excluded can trigger an individual’s desire to belong by using social influence tactics, such as impression management, to regain social acceptance and mitigate ostracism. However, we know little about the role of social influence or impression management tactics in regaining social acceptance and...

This study addresses organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) development by examining the role of perceptions of employer psychological contract fulfillment, and the self-regulatory processes by which OBSE evolves and produces its effects. Self-regulatory theory helps reveal why psychological contract fulfillment relates to OBSE, how OBSE mediates it...

This study examines when and why employees might respond to workplace ostracism by withholding proactivity. Drawing on the group engagement model, we propose that workplace ostracism decreases proactive behavior by undermining employees identification with the organization. We also theorize that others approval of contingent self-esteem and job mob...

The organizational inducement model proposed in this study seeks to examine the mediating role of perceived insider status (PIS) and the moderating role of vertical collectivism on the relationship between organizational inducements and employees’ organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Among a sample of Chinese employees, the authors find that...

This paper proposes that the social context moderates the effect of culture on creativity by drawing on the constructivist dynamic approach. We assess creativity by the level of fluency, originality, and elaboration on the usefulness and appropriateness of ideas in three contexts: working under a supervisor, in a group, and alone. We hypothesized t...

Reports an error in "Reducing job insecurity and increasing performance ratings: Does impression management matter" by Guo-hua Huang, Helen Hailin Zhao, Xiong-ying Niu, Susan J. Ashford and Cynthia Lee (Journal of Applied Psychology, 2013[Sep], Vol 98[5], 852-862). In the original article, the grant information in the author note was incorrect. The...

Reflecting world-wide interest in how creativity and innovation can be fostered in teams, the five papers in this symposium will address this topic from a wide range of differing perspectives. Presenters, who hail from five different countries, also provide an international perspective. In Paper 1, the authors present the results of two multi-level...

Job insecurity (threat of job loss) is widespread and becomes a permanent phenomenon for a lot of employees. Based on the response of 926 Finnish employees, this study investigated the direct lagged relationship between job insecurity, coping resources (job control, social support, and optimism), and employees’ work- (vigor at work and job satisfac...

abstract Drawing on the relational perspective and self-consistency theory, we theorize how relationships involving work-centric, off-work-centric, and/or personal components can affect an employee's organization-based self-esteem and job performance in Chinese organizational contexts. Matched data were collected from a multi-source sample that inc...

Prior research on job insecurity has demonstrated its detrimental effects on both employees and the organization, yet no research has detailed how people actively deal with it. Drawing from proactivity research, this article argues that job insecurity prompts a proactive use of impression management tactics in the workplace. The effectiveness of th...

The majority of studies on idiosyncratic employment arrangements ("i-deals") are based on social exchange theory. The authors suggest that self-enhancement theory, in addition to social exchange, can be used to explain the effects of i-deals. Using a multisource sample including 230 employees and 102 supervisors from 2 Chinese companies, the author...

The longitudinal study reported herein examines the buffering effects of individual and social resources (emotional intelligence and the leader-member exchange relationship) on the relationships between job insecurity and employee reactions (somatic complaints and organizational commitment) and the relationships between employee reactions over time...

To test a proposed model of the job insecurity (JI) process that treats cognitive JI and affective JI as separate constructs, this study investigates organizational-level employee involvement and communication practices that influence the level of cognitive JI; increasing levels of cognitive JI in turn can create an affective reaction (i.e., affect...

abstractThe study builds a cross‐level work process control‐based model of psychological ownership in a Chinese context. We operationalize individual‐level control as participative decision‐making and unit‐level control as the self‐managing team climate. We further theorize how the value orientation of employees to power differentials moderates the...

The modern labour market features job insecurity (JI) as an unavoidable stressor. This study considers the influence of personal coping strategies by combining the conservation of resources with spillover theory. Do coping strategies buffer the negative effects of JI on well-being (work engagement, marital satisfaction and emotional energy at work...

We argue that conscientiousness is a context-specific disposition and its relationship with contextual and innovative performance will be activated in certain organizational cultures. We hypothesized that the relationship between conscientiousness and contextual performance would be higher in outcome-oriented cultures and the relationship between c...

The paper reports on a longitudinal study examining how employer and employee psychological contract (PC) fulfilment influences employee turnover. The boundary conditional role of Chinese traditional values on the influence process is also examined. Results show that traditional employees are more likely to leave their employers when they fail to f...

We examined the antecedents and consequences of group potency in 71 multinational project teams in the Greater China region. We extended the theoretical basis of group potency by employing group identification theory. Results showed that group identification was one of the key factors in developing group potency. Further, fostering the acceptance o...

This study examines the antecedents and consequences of both timing and content of idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) for attracting and retaining valuable employees. A resource exchange frame theorizes the influence pattern of personal individualism value, social skill, and perceived insider status on i-deals timing. Individualism and social skill are...

This longitudinal study of newly hired Chinese college graduates (N = 143) investigates the effects of contract fulfillment, employee reports of company inducements (organizational support and job rewards), and supervisory reports of individual contributions (job performance and extra-role citizenship behavior) upon changes in the graduates' psycho...

Employees’ organization-based self-esteem (OBSE), defined as ‘the degree to which an individual believes him/herself to be capable, significant, and worthy as an organizational member’ (Pierce and Gardner, 2004: 593), can be increased by giving them tasks that fit their dispositions. The primary purpose of our study is to examine combinations, inst...

Bridging the task conflict, team creativity, and project team development literatures, we present a contingency model in which the relationship between task conflict and team creativity depends on the level of conflict and when it occurs in the life cycle of a project team. In a study of 71 information technology project teams in the greater China...

This study addresses organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) development by examining the role of perceptions of employer psychological contract fulfi ll-ment, and the self-regulatory processes by which OBSE evolves and produces its effects. Self-regulatory theory helps reveal why psychological contract fulfi ll-ment relates to OBSE, how OBSE mediate...

Researchers who work on job insecurity (JI) have largely ignored the differences between cognitive job insecurity and affective job insecurity. In this study, we argue that it is conceptually important to study affective JI and cognitive JI as distinct constructs. Based on the conceptualization of stress and affective event theory, we propose that...

Using four samples from the United States and China, we developed two theoretically based abridged job insecurity (JI) scales to address researcher concerns with the length of the original 57-item scale. These two scales contained all the components of the scale originally developed and validated by Ashford et al., 1989 . Our abridged scale has 37...

In a sample of employees and supervisors from 13 Chinese companies within Japanese-owned Panasonic company, this study investigated the relationship between managerial (n=92) assessments of organizational culture and their subordinates’ (n=176) psychological contract beliefs. Results indicate that cultural values emphasizing harmony, reinforcing gr...

The authors hypothesized that group members' perceptions of group cohesion would affect their tendency to allocate equally to other members in their group and to make egocentric self-allocations. They also posited that individuals' adherence to Chinese traditional values (or traditionality) would moderate these relationships. Two hundred sixty Hong...

abstract We classify survey scales or measures currently used in Chinese management research along two dimensions – the source of the scale and expectations about its cultural specificity. Based on these two dimensions, we differentiate four approaches to scale development: translation, adaptation, de-contextualization, and contextualization. We de...

Il y a plus d’une décennie, Ashford, Lee, and Bobko (1989) ont développé un outil de mesure standard permettant évaluer des niveaux individuels d’insécurité au travail. Les années suivantes, des chercheurs se sont demandé si la totalité des mesures composant cet instrument était nécessaire. Nous avons donc examiné l’utilité des différentes dimensio...

In this study, we examined the role of organizational level as a moderator of the relationships of procedural and distributive justice with seven employee attitudes and behaviors. Based on social identity and resource allocation theories, we suggested an allocational model of authority in organizations. We posited that lower rank encourages a more...

To examine the power of group confidence, the nomological network of group potency (generalized confidence) and group efficacy (task-specific confidence) is detailed. These constructs are embedded in a causal model including both antecedent and consequent variables. Results obtained within a collective cultural context suggest that group cohesion a...

Despite the critical role of the goal difficulty construct in predicting the effects of goals on task performance, the choice of goal difficulty measure(s) has not played a prominent role in goal setting research. The current laboratory study, using 92 college students, examines three operationalizations of the goal difficulty construct: assigned g...

This research provides strong support for the existence of dominant media norms within organizations and describes their influence on employees’ (a) perceptions of organizational norms, (b) reported media use, and (c) performance evaluations. Survey results demonstrate the presence of strong organizational norms for instant messaging (IM) and e-mai...

We tested the relationships between Chinese employees' goal orientation and their performance, as well as the moderating effects of temporal norms (future planning and scheduling) on this relationship. Results from employees across seven different organizations in China demonstrated that the mastery goal orientation was positively related to job pe...

This study examined the processes linking perceived leader-subordinate goal similarity to employee performance. Data were obtained from 143 subordinate-supervisor dyads in Chinese organizational settings. Results showed that: (i) perceived leader-subordinate goal similarity was related to leader-member exchange (LMX); (ii) LMX fully mediated the re...

This study examined the mediating influence of trust in organization (TIO) and organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) on the relationship between perceived organization support (POS) and its work outcomes. Data were obtained from employee–supervisor dyads from multiple organizations located in a major city in southern China. Structural equation mode...

In this article, the authors examine the moderating role of negative and positive affectivity on the relationship of bonus size with bonus satisfaction and distributive justice in a company that had installed an unpopular pay-at-risk (PAR) compensation system. Extending the met expectations hypothesis, the authors predict that those low in negative...

No abstract available.

This study investigates the contribution of organizational support and personal relations in accounting for Chinese workers' affective commitment to the organization for which they work and their organizational citizenship behavior. In a sample of 605 matched cases of employees and their immediate supervisors from a large, reformed state-owned firm...

This study examined the generalizability of psychological contract forms observed in the West (D. M. Rousseau, 2000) to China. Using 2 independent samples, results confirmed the generalizability of 3 psychological contract forms: transactional, relational, and balanced. This study also examined the nature of relationships of psychological contracts...

We compared goal orientations of United States (n = 104) and Hong Kong (n = 175) student samples. Our major finding was that our United States sample replicated Beaubien and Payne's (1999) meta-analysis, indicating that the correlation between learning and performance goal orientations is near zero. This suggests that United States students embrace...

Power distance was tested as a moderator of the relationship between justice concerns and employee outcomes in a sample of employees in the People’s Republic of China. Two hypotheses were developed based on the quality of authority-member relations prescribed by the relational model of authority in groups. In two-way interactions, higher power dist...

A sample of Hong Kong employees was used to test the hypotheses that power-distance orientation and gender moderate the relationships between justice perceptions and the evaluation of authorities (trust in supervisor) and the organization (contract fulfillment). Results indicated that 1) the relationship between procedural justice and contract fulf...

The present study examined the moderating effects of organization-based self-esteem on the relationship between two forms of organizational uncertainty perception and three outcome variables. The two forms of organizational uncertainty perception were job insecurity and anticipation of organizational changes, and the three outcomes were intrinsic m...

Type A behavior and optimism were examined as predictors of blood pressure and job performance in a hospital setting. Results indicate that the achievement striving dimension of Type A behavior was negatively related to blood pressure. The impatient/irritable dimension of Type A behavior was unrelated to either performance or blood pressure. The in...

We conducted a survey across a two-year period to examine the attitudinal effects of skill-based pay (SBP) plans in a consumer products company in the Northeast region of the United States. We examined the relationship between SBP plan characteristics and employees’ evaluation of (and reactions to) the pay system; fairness perceptions were consider...

Two studies were used to examine the moderating effect of gender on the justice-outcome relationships. Contrary to hypothesis, gender moderates the relationship between distributive justice and trust in supervisor in sample 1. It is possible that women are concentrating more on distributive issues rather than procedural justice issues in order to a...

We conducted a survey across a two-year period to examine the attitudinal effects of skill-based pay (SBP) plans in a consumer products company in the Northeast region of the United States. We examined the relationship between SBP plan characteristics and employees’ evaluation of (and reactions to) the pay system; fairness perceptions were consider...

This paper tested the ability of two work cues, job challenge and career commitment, to moderate the relationships of Type A behavior with outcomes in a sample of female nurses. It also tested the predictive ability of three dimensions of the Thurstone Temperament Schedule Activity Subscale (TTS) of Type A behavior. Among the findings, job challeng...

This study examines the mediating role of work-family conflict on antecedents and outcomes in a sample of dual career employees. We examine the antecedents and outcomes of work→family and family→work conflict. Our results show that family→work conflict mediated the relationships between career development and job security and work-based family supp...

This study begins by examining the dimensionality of the Type A behavior pattern using four frequently employed self-report measures. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses identified nine meaningful factors (dimensions) across the four scales. A measure of hostility was added since hostility has been found to be highly predictive of coronary...

Compared 5 ways of operationalizing self-efficacy that are commonly found in the literature and assessed the antecedents and consequences of self-efficacy on the basis of A. Bandura's (1986) conceptualization. Results indicate that measuring self-efficacy by using a task-specific, 1-item confidence rating showed the lowest convergent validity with...

Type A behavior dimensions and optimism were examined as predictors of health and performance. In addition, this research also explored the ways that Type As and optimists cope with stressful situations. The achievement striving dimension of the Type A behavior pattern and optimism were positively related to class performance, while the anger/hosti...

This research examines the relations of the cognitive factors of beliefs and fears proposed by Price (1982) with the revised Jenkins Activity Survey (JAS) factors of achievement striving and impatience-irritability as well as the outcome measures of job and class performance. Results provide support for Spence, Helmreich, and Pred (1987), and Spenc...

This research presents an analysis of a goal setting questionnaire developed by Locke and Latham (1984). The Locke and Latham measure attempts to assess the core goal attributes of ‘specificity’ and ‘difficulty’, as well as other attributes of the goal setting process (such as perceptions about ‘performance feedback’, ‘supervisor support’, ‘conflic...

ABI/INFORM Complete pg. 87

Research in goal setting has demonstrated moderating roles of job experience and task complexity in the relation of goals to performance. Goal setting appears to have its strongest effect on an individual's performance and task strategy quality for jobs having low task complexity. A field study (n = 347) was conducted to assess the moderating role...

In contrast to a large body of goal-setting research, recent findings suggest that challenging goals may not be beneficial when effective task strategies are not readily identifiable. In such settings goals may stimulate excessive strategy search, degrading overall performance. Two alternative aids to developing effective task strategies (restricti...

This research assessed the causes and consequences of job insecurity using a new theory-based measure incorporating recent conceptual arguments. We also compared the measure's reliability and construct validity to those of two existing global measures of job insecurity. Results indicated that personal, job, and organizational realities associated w...

The present study examined the mediating role of plans in the relation of job context (task complexity), interpersonal demands (goal assignment), and intrapersonal demands (Type A personality trait) to performance. To assess the relations among the variables, a field study (n=347) was conducted using respondents from 18 different companies across a...

This study investigated the relationship between Type A behavior and the research productivity of university faculty. The research also examined the roles played by various Type A subfactors (job involvement, competitiveness, and impatience) and by three hypothesized intervening variables (self-efficacy, performance goals, and working on multiple p...

Manipulated self-efficacy and task strategies in the training of 209 undergraduates under high strategy, low strategy, and control conditions. Ss underwent 5 trials and were administered a self-efficacy scale after each trial. Results show that ability, past performance, and self-efficacy were the major predictors of goal choice. Ability, self-effi...