Simon S. K. Lam

• The University of Hong Kong

We provide a meta-analytic examination of the regulatory strategies that employees adopt to cope with different types of stressors in the workplace and how these strategies are linked to work and personal outcomes. Drawing from regulatory focus theory, we introduce a new taxonomy of promotion- and prevention-focused coping that complements the trad...

While there has been considerable research on gender differences in core task performance, gender differences in organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and counterproductive work behavior (CWB) have been largely ignored. Gender-consistent roles of females as being supportive would lead to the prediction that females engage in more OCB and less C...

Purpose – Previous studies have often yielded mixed results in relation to the similar-to-me effect on extra-role behaviors. Based on social exchange theory, the purpose of this paper is to uncover the contribution of personality similarity to organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), a type of extra-role behaviors. Design/methodology/approach –...

Although researchers have often found positive relationships between organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and performance rating, very few studies have scrutinized the team contexts in which such relationships exist. This study examines how OCB influences job performance ratings within different team cultures, as measured by team collectivism...

Extant research confirms the importance of value cocreation through customer participation (CP), but relatively little is known about whether and how it creates an enjoyable experience for customers and service employees and the consequential outcomes of this positive affective experience. This study applies the concept of flow as an overarching fr...

The current study examines the relationship between external job mobility and salary for employees in different career stages. Based on career stage and career timetable theories, we predict that external job mobility would generate the greatest salary benefits for early-career employees whereas external job mobility would generate fewer salary ben...

Group efficacy has generally been found to have a positive effect on group performance. This study reveals a less favorable consequence of high group efficacy, its tendency to promote inferior group decisions under certain circumstances. Previous studies have found that members in a group generally exhibit bias towards utilizing shared information...

We develop a model in which cognitive and affective trust in the leader mediate the relationship between leader behavior and team psychological states that, in turn, drive team performance. The model is tested on a sample of 191 financial services teams in Hong Kong and the U.S. Servant leadership influenced team performance through affect-based tr...

This paper examined the form of the localization–performance relationship as moderated by environmental uncertainty. We postulated that the positive impact of staff localization on firm performance only continues to a certain point. Beyond this point, the costs of a high degree of staff localization outweigh the benefits. The negative effect of an...

This study examined the relationships among psychological contract breaches, organizational commitment, and innovation-related behaviors (generating, spreading, implementing innovative ideas at work) over a 6-month period. Results indicate that the effects of psychological contract breaches on employees are not static. Specifically, perceptions of...

Emergent perspectives in marketing highlight new opportunities for co-opting customers as a means to define and cocreate value through their participation. This study delineates and empirically tests hypotheses regarding the effects of customer participation (CP) on value creation and satisfaction for both customers and employees with different cul...

Emergent perspectives in marketing highlight new opportunities for co-opting customers as a means to define and cocreate value through their participation. This study delineates and empirically tests hypotheses regarding the effects of customer participation (CP) on value creation and satisfaction for both customers and employees with different cul...

This study examines how traditionality influences the relationships between job stressors and health. A sample of 496 Chinese employees provided longitudinal questionnaire data, and their health was assessed by collecting blood samples and monitoring blood pressure. The results indicated that the positive relationship between job control and health...

The authors investigated the relationship between transformational leadership behavior and group performance in 218 financial services teams that were branches of a bank in Hong Kong and the United States. Transformational leadership influenced team performance through the mediating effect of team potency. The effect of transformational leadership...

Group citizenship behaviour (GCB) is conceptualized as a distinct group-level phenomenon concerning the extent to which work groups engage in behaviours that support other work groups and the organization as a whole. These behaviours are different from task performance; they enhance and maintain the social and psychological environment in which tas...

How can overseas headquarters actively build the trust of their local senior managers? Building on the theory of active trust development, this study examines the roles of three strategies—localization, communication, and control—and their combinations in building the trust of local senior managers in international joint ventures (IJVs). On the bas...

Using data from 739 U.S. managers and professionals and 593 Hong Kong Chinese managers and professionals we examined the moderating effects of gender on the relationship between changing employers and compensation attainment. While there were no gender-based compensation differences early in the careers of these individuals (in 1991), large pay dif...

Across 48 experimental groups, those that scored higher on group self-esteem attributed perceived positive outcomes to internal factors and negative outcomes to external factors. Groups provided more elaborate rationalizations about perceived negative outcomes and less elaborate rationalizations about perceived positive outcomes. They also espoused...

We tested how promotion expectation and perceived self-similarity of a more successful comparison other predicted envy, and how envy, in turn, influenced social evaluations and job performance among candidates who were rejected for promotion. Promotion rejectees perceived the promotee from their work unit as being less likable than he or she was be...

Increased job complexity and autonomy have often been associated with improved performance in work groups. This study examines the mediating effect of group cohesiveness. The moderating effects of individualism/collectivism on the relationship between job characteristics (both complexity and autonomy) and cohesiveness are also tested. The sample co...

ABSTRACT This study tested hypotheses concerning how similarity of personality traits between promotion candidates and their peers and supervisors influence promotion decisions in different work unit cultures. Candidates working in units with higher mean levels of reported individualism were more likely to be chosen for promotion to the extent thei...

The relationship between perceived participative decision making and employee performance was examined in matched samples of employees-from the Hong Kong and U.S. branches of one organization. Self-efficacy in regard to participating in decisions and idiocentrism, moderated the relationship between perceived participative decision-making opportunit...

Group organizational citizenship behavior (GOCB) is conceptualized as a distinct group-level phenomenon concerning the extent to which the work group as a whole engages in OCB. Among a sample of 148 work groups (a total of 743 employees), it was found that individual OCB was consistent within groups and that the difference between OCB among groups...

This study examined the effects of performance appraisal feedback on job and organizational attitudes of tellers (N = 329) in a large international bank. Negative affectivity moderated the link between favorable appraisal feedback and job attitudes. Among the higher rated performers, attitudes were improved 1 month after being notified of favorable...

This study examined the influence of organizational justice perceptions on employee work outcome relationships as moderated by individual differences that are influenced by societal culture. Power distance, but not country or individualism, moderated the relationships between perceived justice and satisfaction, performance, and absenteeism. The eff...

In a field quasi experiment, customers were most satisfied with the service quality of the branch of a multinational bank where good organizational citizens had been trained as service quality leaders, and branch employees exhibited the highest conformance to the quality scheme of the bank. In a branch where service quality leaders were randomly se...

In 1990 Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Moorman, and Fetter developed a scale to measure the five dimensions of organizational citizenship behavior. Test-retest data over 15 weeks are reported for this scale for a sample of 82 female and 32 male Chinese tellers (ages 18 to 54 years) from a large international bank in Hong Kong. Stability was .83, and there w...

On the basis of previous studies of source credibility and opinion leadership, the authors hypothesized that opinion leaders would serve as effective agents to promote positive attitudes toward a service-quality initiative and increase service-quality effectiveness. The service effectiveness of tellers before and after a service-quality leadership...

The present study examined the relationship between promotion, perceived instrumentality of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) for promotion, and employees' OCB before and after promotion. A field quasi-experiment involving 293 tellers of a multinational bank was conducted. Both supervisors and employees provided OCB ratings 3 months before...

This study examined how cultural differences and efficacy perceptions influence the role of job control in coping with job demands. Perceiving higher control mitigated the effects of demands on psychological health symptoms and turnover intentions only among American bank tellers reporting high job self-efficacy. Among American tellers reporting lo...

This study compared a group decision support system (GDSS) with face-to-face (FTF) group discussion on characteristics of information exchange and decision quality. Participants given conflicting information tended to share more of their unique data and engaged in more critical argumentation when using the GDSS than when meeting FTF. Conversely, wh...

This study examined the interactive effects of worker control and individual characteristics on employee psychological and immunological health. Two questionnaire surveys were conducted among 496 employees in a state-owned enterprise in the People's Republic of China over two years. Blood samples were collected from 447 respondents to measure immun...

This study examined how cultural differences and efficacy perceptions influence the role of job control in coping with job demands. Perceiving higher control mitigated the effects of demands on psychological health symptoms and turnover intentions only among American bank tellers reporting high job self-efficacy. Among American tellers reporting lo...

The attitudinal and behavioral effects of being promoted and being rejected for promotion were examined in a quasi experiment conducted at an international bank in Hong Kong. Promoted tellers who had more internal locuses of control (LOC) maintained improved attitudes across 3- and 18-month posttest intervals. Attitudes returned to baseline levels...

A total of 431 independent supervisor and subordinate dyads from the United States, Australia, Japan, and Hong Kong evaluated the perceived job role boundary of the subordinates. Participants rated the degree to which they agreed that the behavior described in the organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) scale developed by P. M. Podsakoff, S. B. M...

This study investigated the effect of a process versus a results focus as well as a group versus individual-based approach to performance appraisals. Four experimental conditions were investigated, with dependent variables of appraisal satisfaction, perceived accuracy of the performance appraisal, expectations of performance improvement, and actual...

Lam discusses the test-retest reliability of the Organization Commitment Questionaire (OCQ). It seems that the reliability of the OCQ is moderate

Abstract The service quality measurement scale (SERVQUAL) has been widely used in research to measure quality of service. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the use of SERVQUAL for measuring patients' perceptions of health care quality in Hong Kong. The paper also examines the validity, reliability and predictive validity of SERVQUAL and analy...

The internal-consistency, test-retest reliability and classification stability of the Learning Style Inventory (LSI-1985) were examined for a nomvestern sample in Hong Kong. The results suggest that the inventory does not provide a reasonably stable measure of learning style when used with a nonwestern sample.

Summa?.-Implementation of organizational policies can be extremely diEficult because employees n~ay not comply with them. A survey of 110 salespersons was conducted in Hong Kong to investigare the role of influence tactics in influencing employees' wdingness to comply with policies for improvement of quality. Salespersons responded best to tactics...

This research examines whether structures of decision tasks moderate the effects of group decision support systems (GDSS) on patterns of group communication and decision quality of decision-making groups. It seeks to show that the effects of GDSS on decision-making processes and outcomes are task-structure-dependent, and the effects of GDSS cannot...

The SERVQUAL scale has been widely used by both academics and practising managers to measure service quality, but recent research has raised concerns about the reliability of SERVQUAL. Using the test-retest correlation method, this paper assesses short and long range stability of SERVQUAL. The results indicate that the SERVQUAL scale is not stable...

Examines organizational objectives when conducting quality planning and how different planning objectives are related to its perceived performance. The sample included 42 firms representing five different planning objective orientations. Four distinct cluster groups emerged. The four orientations were named as “strategic impact and communication”,...

The results of company-wide quality-improvement programmes are usually new company policies. Implementation of these quality-improvement policies can be extremely difficult, because employees may not comply with them. A survey among 41 middle managers and 143 front-line workers was conducted in Hong Kong to investigate how far influence tactics aff...

A survey was conducted to examine the usage of quality improvement tools among companies in Hong Kong. Results show that, although 82 of the respondents reported using four or more quality improvement tools, usage was confined to relatively simple tools. The standard seven quality control tools were popular, but most of the sophisticated quality im...

The results of a company-wide quality improvement programme are usually new company policies. Implementation of these quality improvement policies can be extremely difficult, because employees may not comply with them. A survey of 67 middle managers and 174 front-line workers was conducted in Hong Kong to investigate the role of social power in inf...

Reports on a survey of 67 middle managers and 174 front-line workers, conducted in Hong Kong, which aimed to investigate the perceived impact of total quality management (TQM) programmes on job satisfaction. Both middle managers and front-line workers considered that the TQM programme had led to a variety of changes that made their jobs more demand...

This research examines whether structures of decision tasks moderate the effects of group decision support systems (GDSS) on patterns of group communication and decision outcomes of decision making groups. This research also examines the relationship between patterns of group communication and decision outcomes. Although prior research has shown th...

Reports on the results of a survey of 220 front-line supervisors in Hong Kong using the job descriptive index (JDI) to investigate the perceived impact of total quality management (TQM) programmes on job satisfaction. Shows that the respondents were much less satisfied with the work dimension than with other JDI dimensions such as supervision and c...

A survey of 221 front-line supervisors was conducted, to investigate their perceptions of the impact of total quality management (TQM) programmes on their jobs and satisfaction. Two key findings emerged in the results. First, front-line supervisors perceived that the TQM programmes had led to a variety of changes that made their jobs more demanding...

A survey was conducted to examine the usage of quantitative techniques among companies in Hong Kong. Results show that, although 74% of the respondents reported using one or more techniques, usage was confined to relatively few and simple techniques. These techniques, however, were used in a rather wide spectrum of application. The lack of understa...