Gerald R. Ferris

Gerald R. Ferris
Florida State University | FSU · Department of Management

Ph.D. in Business Administration, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1982

About

365
Publications
446,070
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36,988
Citations
Additional affiliations
August 2000 - present
Florida State University
Position
  • Francis Eppes Professor of Management, Professor of Psychology, and Professor of Sport Management

Publications

Publications (365)
Preprint
Full-text available
Political candidate personality and electoral success in a British General Election. Self-rated political skill and political efficacy prior to election campaign as predictors of candidate electoral performance.
Article
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Despite the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States (U.S.) and an increasing number of out gay and lesbian business leaders, we have little knowledge of the role played by leaders’ same-sex sexual orientation in the leadership process. To fill this important research void, we drew from a recent theoretical model on leaders’ sexual or...
Article
This two‐study research package investigates the interactive effects of perceptions of organizational politics, political skill, and political will on psychological need satisfaction, which has been shown to predict a number of different important organizational outcomes. Drawing primarily on social/political influence and self‐determination theori...
Article
Purpose Political skill has emerged as a concept of interest within the information systems literature to explain individual performance outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to adapt political skill to technology-mediated contexts. Specifically, the authors seek to understand political skill's role in shaping microtask workers' opportunity recogn...
Article
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to review the scholarship on political skill and political will so that the authors might inspire future work that assesses these constructs individually and in tandem. Design/methodology/approach The “political skill” and “political will” concepts were introduced about 40 years ago, but they only have been mea...
Article
Organizations long have been referred to as political arenas which leaders must navigate with skill and savvy. However, investigations of the role of leader political behavior on leader effectiveness largely have been avoided, perhaps due to historically negative connotations of organizational politics. Recently, a base of conceptual literature has...
Article
Full-text available
This study examined a restricted nonlinearity perspective of the relationship between perceptions of organizational politics (POPs) and work outcomes (i.e., job satisfaction and job performance), dependent upon the level of employee loyalty. Consistent with prior work, we conceptualized POPs as a demand that can have positive effects on job satisfa...
Chapter
Extending previous leadership research (Epitropaki & Martin, 2013), this study examined the moderating effects of Pakistani employees’ political skill (PS) and perceptions of organizational politics (POPs) on the relationship between leadership styles (transformational and transactional) and subordinate’s upward influence tactics (soft, hard, and r...
Chapter
Full-text available
Although the perceptions of politics (POPs) - job performance relationship has drawn considerable interest , and has been investigated in past research, there has been little focus on the intermediate linkages or mechanisms that reflect the explanatory power of this relationship. Therefore, in the present study, we investigated the underlying psych...
Article
The very nature of perceived injustice cuts to the heart of employees’ cognition, attitudes, and behaviors in the workplace. Yet, researchers and practitioners are woefully uninformed about what drives the subjectivity of unfairness perceptions. Using an integration of fairness heuristic and uncertainty management theories as a theoretical foundati...
Chapter
Full-text available
This chapter provides an overview of the empirical work on political skill that has been published to date. As such, we highlight the antecedents of political skill and its four dimensions, namely social astuteness, interpersonal influence, apparent sincerity, and networking ability. We then turn our attention to the wealth of studies examining the...
Article
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Research suggests that political skill affects how salespeople build and leverage social capital. However, there are important questions left unanswered in this relationship. First, although it is linked to specific structural characteristics of networks, it is unclear how political skill affects the overall quality of one's social network. Similar...
Article
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Integrating Social/Political Influence Theory with the Theory of Planned Behavior, we argue that personal resources (i.e., political skill, self‐efficacy) enable political candidates to form more ambitious campaign intentions, and thus perform better in elections. We tested this model with a sample of political candidates (N = 225) campaigning in a...
Article
Purpose Drawing upon cognitive control theory, we examine the effects of self-regulation failure (SRF) on the relationships between perceptions of organizational politics (POPs) and tension, exhaustion, satisfaction, work effort, perceived resource availability and performance/contribution. Design/methodology/approach We test hypotheses across thr...
Article
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Purpose – This research examines how perceived supervisor political support (SPS) moderates the relationship between perceived supervisor narcissistic rage (SNR) and relevant employee work outcomes. Design/methodology/approach – Across three studies (Study 1: 604 student-recruited working adults; Study 2: 156 practicing lawyers: Study 3: 161 munici...
Article
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Purpose Acts of interpersonal influence are observed throughout organizations, and most typically, in direct supervisor–subordinate relationships. However, researchers have focused less on subordinates bypassing the chain of command and targeting their supervisor's supervisor with influence attempts. We conceptualize a new term, “leapfrogging,” as...
Article
Research examining the influence of perceptions of organizational politics (POPs) is currently at a nexus—capable of recognizing its previous contributions but also with an eye toward the future. Scholars credit much of the maturation over the past 30 years to Ferris, Russ, and Fandt’s seminal model. Despite the ever-increasing number of publicatio...
Article
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Purpose Researchers have identified various recruiter and organization characteristics that individually influence staffing effectiveness. In extending contemporary research, the purpose of this paper is to address a straightforward question unexamined in previous research, namely, does recruiter political skill interact with organization reputatio...
Article
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to gain a better understanding of the effects of recruiter friendliness and both verifiable and non-verifiable job attributes in the recruitment process. Design/methodology/approach In total, 498 participants watched a videoed simulation of a recruitment interview and completed a questionnaire. Three-way analys...
Article
Full-text available
Building off and extending the meta‐theoretical framework of political skill, we examined the cognitive and behavioral mechanisms through which the intrapsychic effects of political skill inform its interpersonal effects, and how these interpersonal effects ultimately are transmitted into desirable outcomes. Specifically, we argue that politically...
Conference Paper
Politics are ubiquitous to organizations and play an essential role in the workplace. Both primary and meta-analytic studies confirm that perceptions of politics influence an array of workplace outcomes including costly counterproductive work behaviors. First, drawing on attribution theory, we argued that individuals who are high in negative affect...
Chapter
Full-text available
Introduced into the literature a decade ago, grit was originally defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals, and it has stimulated considerable research on positive effects primarily in the academic and military contexts, as well as attracted widespread media attention. Recently, research on grit started to spill over into the work con...
Article
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Despite its widespread media acclaim and recognition as a strategic imperative, the role of grit in organizational research remains unclear. This ambiguity resulted from inconsistent empirical findings, thus triggering a pessimistic outlook for the construct across disciplines. To address these issues, we suggest that such confusion and lack of con...
Article
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The current two-sample investigation explores the role of enactment as a boundary condition in the relationship between experienced incivility and workplace outcomes (i.e., job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behavior [OCB], and turnover intent). We integrate the tenets of the transactional model of stress and sensemaking theory to explain...
Article
Organizational politics has been an oft-studied phenomenon for nearly four decades. Prior reviews have described research in this stream as aligning with one of three categories: perceptions of organizational politics (POPs), political behavior, or political skill. We suggest that because these categories are at the construct level research on orga...
Article
Although much research has examined human resource management (HRM), managers’ roles in HRM seem to have been ancillary to this area of research. That is, HRM theory and research largely has advanced with a focus on policies, practices, systems, and their implementation and effectiveness, with less attention focused on the managers responsible for...
Article
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to test the interactive effects of grit (e.g. supervisor and employee) and politics perceptions on relevant work outcomes. Specifically, the authors hypothesized that supervisor and employee grit would each demonstrate neutralizing effects when examined jointly. Design/methodology/approach Three studies (N’s=...
Article
To date, few empirical studies have confirmed the long-accepted notion that politically skilled individuals discriminately and strategically employ or avoid particular political behaviors in the workplace. The purpose of this multi-study investigation is to evaluate political skill and political will as antecedents of configurational impression man...
Article
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how a cognitive process, transcendence, moderates the relationship between perceptions of organizational politics (POPs) and several work outcomes. Design/methodology/approach Participants across two studies (Study 1: 187 student-recruited working adults; Study 2: 158 information technology employe...
Article
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A positive approach to addressing mental health issues in workplaces advocates the examination of an untapped resource—psychological capital—as a potential positive construct in contemporary organizational behavior. The authors tested various antecedents and outcomes of psychological capital, and examined the role of this construct in psychological...
Article
Drawing upon cognitive control theory, we examined the effects of self- regulation failure on perceptions of politics – work outcome relationships in two studies. In Study 1, we hypothesized that self-regulation failure would moderate the relationship between perceptions of politics and the workplace outcomes of job satisfaction, job effort, job te...
Article
Human resource management (HRM) research has documented the importance of high performance work practices (HPWPs) to organizations, and recent efforts have argued for increasing attention to the role of line manager implementation of HPWPs. To date, research in this area has focused largely on the organizational or employee implications of HPWP imp...
Article
Full-text available
Although recruiting processes and outcomes in National Collegiate Athletic Association sports is an incredibly important facet of collegiate athletics, it is underdeveloped in several areas. Gaps in knowledge exist when it comes to better understanding actual recruits obtained, the role of reputation, and what factors may influence the school-choic...
Chapter
Large-scale organizational change, such as seen through mergers and acquisitions, CEO succession, and corporate entrepreneurship, sometimes is necessary in order to allow firms to be competitive. However, such change can be unsettling to existing employees, producing considerable uncertainty, conflict, politics, and stress, and thus, must be manage...
Article
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In recent years, personal initiative has been found to predict job performance. However, implicit in this direct initiative–performance relationship are more complex process dynamics that can be better understood when contextual antecedents, moderators, and mediators are considered. Drawing from perspectives of proactive behavior as a goal-directed...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate the moderating effect of perceived resource availability on the relationship between work passion and employee well-being (i.e., job satisfaction and job tension) and performance (i.e., job performance and citizenship behaviors) using self-determination theory. Design/Methodology/Approach Data we...
Article
Supervisor–subordinate work relationships are based on a series of potentially fluctuating resource allocation episodes. Building on this reality, we hypothesized in the present research that supervisor–subordinate work relationship quality will neutralize the negative attitudinal and behavioral strain effects associated with perceptions of others’...
Article
The focal article on subtle discrimination provided by Jones, Arena, Nittrouer, Alonso, and Lindsey (2017) examines questions about the difference between overt and subtle discrimination and the conditions under which discrimination might vary by subtlety, formality, and intentionality. The authors suggest that a dynamic perspective of subtle discr...
Article
The focal article on subtle discrimination provided by Jones, Arena, Nittrouer, Alonso, and Lindsey (2017) examines questions about the difference between overt and subtle discrimination and the conditions under which discrimination might vary by subtlety, formality, and intentionality. The authors suggest that a dynamic perspective of subtle discr...
Article
Reputation is a critical factor in the recruiting process. Organizational reputation also is a complex variable. Different dimensions of reputation may play very different roles in attracting recruits. In this study, a multidimensional (i.e., performance, character/integrity, support) reputation model is used to predict male basketball recruits’ un...
Article
The other articles in this special issue of Human Resource Management Review present meta-analyses of specific topic areas, or articles on methodological issues associated with meta-analyses, within the human resources management field. Ours is a bit different in that we do not present actual meta-analytic results, but instead conduct a thorough re...
Article
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The management of images projected to consumer audiences is a key task for sport service organisations; however, the number of “touch points” (interactions between employees and consumers) adds complexity to the process. In this article, the authors present a conceptual model of organisational impression congruence (OrgIC), proposing that organisat...
Article
This special issue of the Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies addresses the topic of “Social Influence and Politics in Organizational Research,” a topic which spans more than a century and represents one of the oldest areas of inquiry in the field. In this article, we first review the literature to extract what we seem to know about this...
Article
The purpose of this investigation is to examine how different dimensions of firm reputation interact to predict firm financial performance. Specifically, we draw on the tenets of stakeholder theory to argue that firm managers can optimize their financial performance by minding their financial and social reputations. If firm managers fail to establi...
Article
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Drawing from social/political influence, leader–member exchange (LMX), and social comparison theories, the present two-study investigation examines three levels of LMX differentiation (i.e., individual-level,meso-level, and group-level LMX differentiation) and further tests a model of the joint effects of political skill and LMX differentiation on...
Article
Full-text available
Social influence is one of the oldest and most researched constructs in organizational behavior. Most research has examined the “what” and “who” of social influence behavior, but it was not until recently that scholars began examining the “how,” or the operation, of social influence techniques and behaviors. Social effectiveness constructs, such as...
Article
Purpose – Many organizations hold the traditional view that due to the potential of higher job dissatisfaction and employee turnover rates, hiring overqualified job candidates is risky. The purpose of this paper is to take an alternative perspective, using Human Capital and Resource-based theories to propose that hiring overqualified job candidates...
Article
The study of the related concepts of power, politics, and influence in organizations has been a topic of interest for well over a century, with research expanding considerably in the last several decades. Power, politics, and influence are fundamental, and effectively ubiquitous, components of organizational life, serving to help explain how indivi...
Article
We argue in this paper that overqualified employees represent an underutilized human resource that has the potential to be leveraged in impactful ways to enhance both personal and organizational effectiveness. Our proposed framework suggests that if organizations provide opportunities for employees to engage in career development experiences (i.e.,...
Article
Using an experimental design across three studies and four samples, we investigated the effects of employment qualification level (i.e., underqualified, adequately qualified, or overqualified) on hiring recommendations, and how the relationship was influenced by person–job (P-J) fit and underemployment attributions. In Study 1, we tested and found...
Article
Charismatic rhetoric represents an important tool for leaders to articulate their respective visions. However, much of the research to date on this construct has yet to consider how the eight separate dimensions of charismatic rhetoric may be used in conjunction with one another to form distinctive profiles of charismatic leadership influence. Thus...
Article
Full-text available
Although the study of salesperson performance traditionally has focused on salespeople's activities and relationships with customers, scholars recently have proposed that salespeople's intraorganizational relationships and activities also play a vital role in driving sales performance. Using data from 286 salespeople in a unique social network anal...
Article
Full-text available
Strategic human resources management (SHRM) scholars recently have suggested that high-performance work practices (HPWP) implementation might serve as a critical mediator between HPWP and workplace outcomes. This study proposes and tests a model that positions line managers' perceptions regarding the extent to which they implement their organizatio...
Article
The sport and education literatures are replete with studies about what factors influence student-athletes' college choice decisions. Although numerous factors have been identified, how these criteria come to influence student-athlete decisions has not been fully addressed. Warranting attention is the recruitment process undertaken by schools, espe...
Article
Seeking to understand intern behavior and skill that influence internship experiences, we examine the effects of intern ingratiating behavior, political skill, and supervisor liking on internship job performance ratings. Specifically, we hypothesize that intern ingratiation leads to higher internship performance ratings from supervisors when couple...
Article
Politics in organizations are a fact of life, and have been regarded as such for decades by organizational scientists and practitioners alike. Unfortunately, far less is known about the skills or competencies needed in order to be successful—and even survive—in such political environments. Although many believe performance, effectiveness, and caree...
Conference Paper
By utilizing the premises of uncertainty management theory, the present paper examines the moderating effects of political skill and informational justice on the relationships between LMX differentiation and employee outcomes. In Study 1, data from 231 employees supported the hypotheses that political skill moderated the relationship between percei...
Article
Using an experimental design across three studies and four samples, we investigated the effects of employment qualification level (i.e., overqualified, qualified, or underqualified) on hiring recommendations and how the relationship was influenced by person-job (P-J) fit and overqualification attributions. The results demonstrated that overqualifie...
Article
Full-text available
We examine socioanalytic theory from a leadership perspective and extend this research to examine the mediating mechanisms through which leader getting ahead motive and social competence influence leader effectiveness outcomes. A first-stage moderated mediation model was tested and supported, positioning the Leader Motive to Get Ahead × Political S...
Article
The sport management field has witnessed tremendous growth just in the past couple of decades, with more programs in universities at the undergraduate, masters, and doctoral levels. Because there is keen competition for jobs at all levels, but particularly at the Ph.D. level in university faculty positions, and the lack of material published on how...
Article
Although employee race has been an actively investigated area of scientific inquiry for decades, a thorough and informed understanding of the role of race in the organizational sciences has eluded us for a number of reasons. The relationship of race and stress in organizations is a prime example of this neglect and deficiency in our knowledge base,...
Article
The implementation of effective human resource (HR) practices typically rests with line managers. This paper uses social context theory to propose that line manager HR implementation is influenced by organizational culture, climate, and political considerations. Subsequently, HR implementation is anticipated to drive employee outcomes. This model's...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose – Research has shown accountability can produce both positive and negative outcomes. Further, because of inherent environmental uncertainty, perceptions of organizational politics often interact with accountability to produce negative effects. However, using uncertainty management theory, the purpose of this paper is to argue that employees...
Chapter
Scholarship on reputation in and of organizations has been going on for decades, and it always has separated along level of analysis issues, whereby the separate literatures on individual, group/team/unit, and organization reputation fail to acknowledge each other. This sends the implicit message that reputation is a fundamentally different phenome...
Article
Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of subordinates' perceived supervisor political support (SPS) as a boundary condition capable of attenuating individuals' negative reactions to politics perceptions. Design/methodology/approach – Data for this three-sample investigation were obtained from employees of a package distrib...
Article
Although the passion that people demonstrate at work would appear to be a topic of considerable interest and importance to organizational scholars and practitioners, we know virtually nothing about it. In response, we introduce the work passion construct, discuss what we currently understand, and provide needed directions for future research. Copyr...
Chapter
We have witnessed renewed interest in the trait view approach to leadership in recent years, and this new work has focused on multi-stage models that more precisely articulate the intermediate linkages that occur between leader traits/characteristics and leadership effectiveness. Consistent with this renewed interest and activity, we propose that l...
Article
Historically, organizational politics and political leader behavior have been framed and characterized negatively, as self-serving and counter-productive. However, scholars have noted that political acts can achieve positive ends, and have called for further discussions of positive forms of political leadership. Continuing in this recent stream of...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose – Although individual difference variables are important in the prediction of leadership effectiveness, comparatively little empirical research has examined distal and proximal traits/characteristics that help managers lead effectively in organizations. The aim of this paper is to extend previous research by examining whether and how specif...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose – Research has shown accountability can produce both positive and negative outcomes. Further, because of inherent environmental uncertainty, perceptions of organizational politics often interact with accountability to produce negative effects. However, using uncertainty management theory, the purpose of this paper is to argue that employees...
Article
Full-text available
This study examined two potential mediators through which leaders transmit their position power into an effectiveness outcome. Drawing upon recent work integrating trait, situational, and behavioral theories of leadership effectiveness, we hypothesized and tested a model specifying that the interactive effects of leader position power and leader po...