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Boxed In by Your Inbox: Implications of Daily Email Demands for Managers' Leadership Behaviors
Abstract
Over the past 30 years, the nature of communication at work has changed. Leaders in particular rely increasingly on email to communicate with their superiors and subordinates. However, researchers and practitioners alike suggest that people frequently report feeling overloaded by the email demands they experience at work. In the current study, we develop a self-regulatory framework that articulates how leaders’ day-to-day email demands relate to a perceived lack of goal progress, which has a negative impact on their subsequent enactment of routine (i.e., initiating structure) and exemplary (i.e., transformational) leadership behaviors. We further theorize how two cross-level moderators — centrality of email to one’s job and trait self-control — impact these relations. In an experience sampling study of 48 managers across 10 consecutive workdays, our results illustrate that email demands are associated with a lack of perceived goal progress, to which leaders respond by reducing their initiating structure and transformational behaviors. The relation of email demands with leader goal progress was strongest when email was perceived as less central to performing one’s job, and the relations of low goal progress with leadership behaviors were strongest for leaders low in trait self-control.
... The Leadership Quarterly 31 (2020) 101344 that use precise, specific variables complement more traditional studies of leadership by allowing scholars to measure and examine leadership processes in different ways. For example, Rosen et al. (2019) explored how daily email demands, instead of just general work demands, in the morning influenced leader behaviors during the day. Similarly, Stocker, Jacobshagen, Krings, Pfister, and Semmer (2014) examined how daily leader appreciation, instead of just general leader support, leads to enhanced follower outcomes for the day. ...
... Two of these studies show that daily job demands and characteristics affect leaders' daily use of transformational behavior. Daily email demands were found to reduce leaders' daily transformational behaviors via goal progress (Rosen et al., 2019), while situational factors like planning, problem-solving, and brainstorming were found to lead to increases in day-to-day use of transformational leader behaviors (Nielsen & Cleal, 2011). Both of these articles are great examples of articles measuring specific variables that would be difficult to capture without using ESM. ...
... Yeung and Shen (2019) found leader authentic pride to be associated with more structure initiating and consideration behaviors. Rosen et al. (2019) found that for leaders low in self-control, daily email demands led to decreases in leader structure initiating behaviors through a decrease in goal progress. Finally, Nielsen and Cleal (2010) showed that the more leaders engaged in daily planning, problem-solving, and evaluation of tasks, the more flow they experienced at work. ...
A recent trend in leadership research is to explore the daily causes and consequences of leadership behaviors. As this type of research has grown dramatically in the past several years, we seek to provide a systematic review of existing empirical research that has used a daily ESM study design to examine the leadership process. In this review, we reflect on the unique and important benefits a daily perspective on leadership provides for leadership research. We also provide a systematic review of the existing research on daily leadership, discuss the methodological and theoretical aspects of the studies identified in the review, and highlight the important findings of this research. Finally, we conclude by drawing upon the reviewed articles to provide recommendations for future scholarly work. Specifically, we give recommendations that will both broaden scholars' understanding of the daily leadership process as well as deepen understanding.
... Already before the COVID-19 crisis, leadership was communication-intensive, having seen an increase in the use of e-mail for work-related communication (Rosen et al., 2019). Work e-mail, in turn, has been coined "a source and symbol of stress" (Barley et al., 2011, p. 887) that likely limits leaders' chances both to be well and to lead well. ...
... At the same time, we meet calls for research that explicitly examines leaders' ICT use, considering the vital role that it likely plays in leader behaviour and thus follower outcomes . To obtain a reliable account of e-mail overload, exhaustion, and transformational leadership and to do justice to the fact that day-to-day variation in e-mail demands and leader behaviour has not been sufficiently considered in previous research (Rosen et al., 2019), we conducted a diary study. ...
... Our study contributes knowledge on the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on leaders. In doing so, we advance knowledge on contextual factors that shape leaders' well-being and on the toll day-specific e-mail demands exert on them (Rosen et al., 2019). Leaders' well-being plays a critical role for their leadership behaviour and thus for their followers and organisations (Barling & Cloutier, 2017). ...
The COVID-19 crisis brought numerous challenges to work life. One of the most notable may be the acceleration of digital transformation, accompanied by an intensification of e-mail usage and related demands such as high e-mail workload. While research quickly started to examine the implications of these changes for employees, another important group of stakeholders has been overlooked: leaders. We focus on leaders during the COVID-19 crisis and examine how COVID-19 related work intensification links to leaders’ e-mail overload appraisal and finally exhaustion and transformational leadership, a leader behavior especially needed in times of crisis. In a five-day diary study in September 2020, 84 leaders responded to daily surveys on 343 days. Results of multilevel analysis showed that perceived COVID-19 related work intensification was positively linked to worktime spent dealing with e-mail and appraised e-mail overload. E-mail overload appraisal was positively related to leaders’ exhaustion, but unrelated to their transformational behavior. Day-specific time spent dealing with e-mail, however, was negatively related to transformational leadership. E-mail overload appraisal mediated the relationship between COVID-19 related work intensification and exhaustion. Turning the focus on leaders during the COVID-19 crisis, our study has important implications for the design of work of leaders in times of crisis and beyond.
... Given that leadership behaviors and managerial practices are also usually mediated by ICTs (Leonardi, Neeley, & Gerber, 2012;Rosen et al., 2019), we recommend regarding a leader as a special kind of end user and call for more attention to leaders' ICT usage. Specifically, according to model of the antecedents of work design, ICT-related experience influences leaders' knowledge, ability, skills, motivations and perceived opportunities. ...
... Thus, apart from the outcomes that were identified in our framework, leaders' ICT use might also motivate them to adapt work design to the new digital environment, and/or to adapt ICTs to current work systems. In addition to the potential influence of leaders' usage on formal decision make of work design, ICT also mediates leader-member communications (Potosky & Lomax, 2014;Rosen et al., 2019), which may further influence followers' ICT use, work effectiveness, and well-being in a "top-down" manner. Such processes warrant further investigation. ...
... Our review identified the functions or purpose of ICT use were sometimes missing in measurements (e.g., Dettmers et al., 2016;Rosen et al., 2019;Yu et al., 2018). As an example, although Yu et al., (2018) defined excessive social media use at work as "the degree to which an individual feels that she or he spends too much time and energy on social media for information seeking, communicating, and socializing in the workplace", they measured social media use simply with use intensity (i.e., the amount of time spent on social media). ...
People design and use technology for work. In return, technology shapes work and people. As information communication technology (ICT) becomes ever more embedded in today’s increasingly digital organizations, the nature of our jobs, and employees’ work experiences, are strongly affected by ICT use. This cross-disciplinary review focuses on work design as a central explanatory vehicle for exploring how individual ICT usage influences employees’ effectiveness and well-being. We evaluated 83 empirical studies. Results show that ICT use affects employees through shaping three key work design aspects: job demands, job autonomy, and relational aspects. To reconcile previous mixed findings on the effects of ICT use on individual workers, we identify two categories of factors that moderate the effects of ICT use on work design: user-technology fit factors and social-technology fit factors. We consolidate the review findings into a comprehensive framework that delineates both the work design processes linking ICT use and employee outcomes and the moderating factors. The review fosters an intellectual conversation across different disciplines, including organizational behavior, management information systems, and computer-mediated communication. The findings and proposed framework help to guide future research and to design high quality work in the digital era.
... Especially influenced by COVID-19 from 2019 to the present, employees have reduced unnecessary face-to-face work, and the choice to communicate online has become a norm. Instant Messages are widely used to solve work-related issues [5,7,8], help employees share information quickly and extensively [9,10], and enhance the connection between employees [3,11]. ...
... A growing number of studies have focused on people who receive instant messages will be interrupted [23,24], thereby affecting the progress of their daily work goals [10]. Instant messages often contain unexpected requests, which leads individuals to allocate resources to tasks they did not plan to perform, time and attention were siphoned away, and erodes employees' control over their daily work [10,25,26]. ...
... A growing number of studies have focused on people who receive instant messages will be interrupted [23,24], thereby affecting the progress of their daily work goals [10]. Instant messages often contain unexpected requests, which leads individuals to allocate resources to tasks they did not plan to perform, time and attention were siphoned away, and erodes employees' control over their daily work [10,25,26]. However, instant message communication is a dual interactive process. ...
Instant Messaging is widely used in people’s daily life because of its convenience and timeliness. People have to deal with this communication almost every day. At present, most of the researches focuses on the instant messages of the receiver, but rarely explores the perspective of the sender. Based on the conservation of resources theory, we propose a model that initiates communication indirectly affects one’s own follow-up helping behavior. The results showed that (a) Instant Message sent has a positive correlation with perceived work goal progress; (b) Perceived work goal progress mediates the relationship of Instant Message and helping; (c) The mediating effect of perceived work goal progress on the relationship between Instant Message sent and helping will be moderated by the usefulness of reply. Our study builds a framework to explain how sent instant messages can increase helping via perceived goal progress, broaden the knowledge of Instant Messaging and helping. The practical implications are further discussed.
... Some people are more capable than others to manage their own life, emotions, language, diet, consumption, etc. This is a key individual difference that explains why some people are more capable than others to control impulses, maintain attention, and act positively, and put resources into long-term goals pursuit activities [13,30,31]. ...
... A core theme of IM research is its negative effect associated with work interruptions [41]. IM promotes the wide sharing of news, information, and updates "at any time" among employees of the organization [30,42]. For the recipient, checking, reading and responding to instant messages, and then refocusing their attention back to work requires a continuous cognitive effort [30]. ...
... IM promotes the wide sharing of news, information, and updates "at any time" among employees of the organization [30,42]. For the recipient, checking, reading and responding to instant messages, and then refocusing their attention back to work requires a continuous cognitive effort [30]. Previous studies [43] suggest that reading and replying to electronic information will distract attention, lead to work interruption and require employees to transfer resources from other activities. ...
Enabling people to send and receive short text-based messages in real-time, instant messaging (IM) is a communication technology that allows instantaneous information exchanges. The development of technology makes IM communication widely adopted in the workplace, which brings a series of changes for modern contemporary working life. Based on the conservation of resource theory (COR), this paper explores the mechanism of workplace IM communication on employees’ psychological withdrawal, and investigates the mediating role of work engagement in the relationship and the moderating role of self-control. Using the experience sampling method (ESM), a 10-consecutive workdays daily study was conducted among 66 employees. By data analysis of 632 observations using SPSS and HLM, results found that: (1) IM demands had a positive relation with emotion and cognitive engagement. (2) Emotion and cognitive engagement were negatively correlated with psychological withdrawal. (3) Emotion and cognitive engagement mediated the relations of IM demands and psychological withdrawal. (4) Self-control moderated the relationship between emotional engagement and psychological withdrawal.
... From an organization's standpoint, email has become the preeminent and preferred means of communication (Guerin, 2017;Rosen et al., 2019). It is an important communication mechanism that links an organization and its employees together and provides benefits such as increased knowledgesharing opportunities amongst employees (Miller-Merrell, 2012;Naslund, 2010), access to global talents and markets (Gibson & Gibbs, 2006), and flexibility in how, when, and where work tasks are completed (Boswell & Olson-Buchanan, 2007). ...
... For example, much of the previous research in this area has been theoretical, qualitative, or cross-sectional (e.g., Brown et al., 2014;Byron, 2008;Gimenez, 2006). Within the management literature, the limited research that exists focuses on leaders' responses to and outcomes of email as a job demand (e.g., Rosen et al., 2019). From a practical standpoint, many employees have been forced into work-from-home situations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, causing employers and employees alike to lean heavily on email as a means of communication (Brynjolfsson et al., 2020). ...
... Because our framework sought to assess the intra-individual effects of email use on the daily planning processes, we used an interval-contingent experience sampling methodology (ESM) to gather our data. Previous research on the effects of organizational communication using electronic media has implemented similar methodologies (e.g., Butts et al., 2015;Rosen et al., 2019). Participants were recruited from two organizations headquartered in the Southeastern United States. ...
Email represents a useful organizational tool that can facilitate rapid and flexible communication between organizations, managers, and employees regardless of their physical location (e.g., office, home, on vacation). However, despite the potential benefits of email, its usage is a double-edged sword that also has the potential to negatively affect its users. To advance knowledge and inform both researchers and practitioners of such negative outcomes, we integrate the job demands-resources model with spillover theory to investigate email as a potential job demand and explore how it may relate to employees’ job tension and work-family conflict. Using an interval-contingent experience sampling methodology with respondents from two separate organizations (n = 134) providing 704 observations across 6 days of surveys, we hypothesize that, as a job demand, email can have negative consequences on the job that can spill over into the home. Furthermore, we also examine an individual trait (i.e., trait self-regulation) as a potential boundary condition that moderates the extent to which experienced tension from email demands spills over into home life. Finally, theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.
... Almost 50 years since the first electronic message was sent, digital communication now pervades modern work activity. From collaborative platforms such as Slack, Teams, Yammer and Google docs, to the continued proliferation of email (Tschabistscher, 2019), knowledge workers are seemingly engaged in a relentless stream of digital activity -ostensibly designed to make their work more flexible, efficient and convenient (Rosen et al., 2018). The most ubiquitous form of work communication is email, with over 281 billion work email being sent per day in 2018, and 86% of professionals purporting this to be their favoured communication tool (Tschabistscher, 2019). ...
... On the one hand, work-email (particularly incoming work-email) has been found to deplete people's psychological resources -resulting in experiences of work overload, compulsive use, stress, and work-family imbalance (Barley et al., 2011;Charalampous et al., 2019;Mazmanian et al., 2005). From this perspective, incoming work-email can be seen as a stressor that people struggle to cope with when resources are required and directed elsewhere (Barley et al., 2011;Brumby et al., 2013;Czerwinski et al., 2000;Rosen et al., 2018;Speier et al., 2003). In contrast, from an energy-management perspective, research has shown that when resources at work are depleted, people can be reenergized after checking their email (Fritz et al., 2011;Kinnunen et al., 2015;. ...
... The extant research therefore suggests that incoming workemail will either be welcome (for those who conceive of workemail as having a replenishing effect on energy resources) or unwelcome (for those who conceive of work-email as having a depleting effect on energy resources), depending on the prior state of a worker's energy levels and individual differences in the extent to which a new, incoming stimulus (e.g., the workemail) is desirable. Whilst research into work-email activity has elucidated individual differences in strategies for dealing with work email, and how work-email differently affects different people (Huang & Lin, 2014;Rosen et al., 2018;Russell et al., 2017;Whittaker & Sidner, 1996), to date, individual differences have not been examined as a key mechanism in understanding whether incoming work-email boosts or depletes energy resources. A central aim of this paper is to extrapolate when, why and for whom work-email will have a resource building or depleting effect on people, so that managers and employees can be provided with guidance about the best ways to deal with this significant work demand. ...
Office-based work today involves dealing with email, despite being denigrated and lauded in almost equal measures. Using the Conservation of Resources theory we examine whether Extraversion (expressed through two facets) acts as a resource to explain the differential impact that work-email has on people’s energy resources (relating to fatigue and boredom). An experience-sampling study was undertaken, whereby 54 knowledge-workers completed records of their response (n = 589) to new work-email over the course of a typical working day. Results were analysed using hierarchical linear modelling (HLM). Participants who felt tired prior to dealing with email, reported that they felt more energized afterwards (but only if they were higher on Agentic extraversion). Work-email did not re-energize extraverts when they had been bored beforehand. By examining changes in energy resources, and by measuring different facets of Extraversion, we offer theoretical and methodological contributions to advancing understanding about the role of resources in dealing with work-email. Specifically, our results suggest that Extraversion may not constitutionally be a key resource within COR, because its value and contribution to resource building is contingent on context. Implications for practitioners concerned with how best to manage digital communications at work, are discussed.
... Importantly, prior research has operationalized leader effectiveness in a variety of ways, with between-person studies often focusing on overall perceptions of leader effectiveness over unspecified timeframes (e.g., Chun et al., 2018;Rego et al., 2019). However, the emerging body of actor-centric leadership research has taken a different approach (Kelemen et al., 2020), broadening leader effectiveness criteria to include daily leader behaviors (e.g., transformational leadership behavior: Rosen et al., 2019), cognition and cognitive processes (e.g., executive functioning: Johnson et al., 2014), creativity (Hoffman et al., 2011), as well as performance on problem-solving and planning tasks (Bakker & Xanthopoulou, 2013;Nielsen & Cleal, 2011;Puccio et al., 2018). Moreover, these leader effectiveness criteria are affected by attentional and emotional demands (e.g., Collins & Jackson, 2015;George, 2000;Heilman et al., 2010;Mumford et al., 2015;Rosen et al., 2019;Torrence & Connelly, 2019), both of which are central to our theory. ...
... However, the emerging body of actor-centric leadership research has taken a different approach (Kelemen et al., 2020), broadening leader effectiveness criteria to include daily leader behaviors (e.g., transformational leadership behavior: Rosen et al., 2019), cognition and cognitive processes (e.g., executive functioning: Johnson et al., 2014), creativity (Hoffman et al., 2011), as well as performance on problem-solving and planning tasks (Bakker & Xanthopoulou, 2013;Nielsen & Cleal, 2011;Puccio et al., 2018). Moreover, these leader effectiveness criteria are affected by attentional and emotional demands (e.g., Collins & Jackson, 2015;George, 2000;Heilman et al., 2010;Mumford et al., 2015;Rosen et al., 2019;Torrence & Connelly, 2019), both of which are central to our theory. Therefore, we operationalized leader effectiveness using measures that allow us to tap into these effectiveness criteria, as well as leaders' perceptions of their overall effectiveness. ...
... When these resources are drawn down (as reflected by lower levels of attentiveness and higher distress), it becomes increasingly difficult for leaders to engage in subsequent acts that require self-control, including routine leader behavior, as well as more exemplary transformational acts (e.g., motivating and inspiring subordinates; Collins & Jackson, 2015). Empirical findings lend support to this perspective, indicating that when attentional and emotional resources have been taxed, leaders find it difficult to enact behaviors linked to goal attainment and struggle to suppress inappropriate behaviors that limit their effectiveness (Collins & Jackson, 2015;Rosen et al., 2019;Sherf et al., 2019). This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. ...
Although providing negative performance feedback can enhance employee performance, leaders are sometimes reluctant to engage in this activity. Reflecting this, prior research has identified negative feedback provision as an aversive, yet potentially rewarding, managerial activity. However, little is known about how providing negative feedback impacts the effectiveness of leaders who do so. To shed light on this issue, we develop and test a theoretical model that identifies how leaders' proximal and distal reactions to providing negative feedback are contingent upon their levels of trait empathy. Supporting our theory, results from an experience sampling study indicate that leaders higher in trait empathy report feeling both less attentive and more distressed after providing subordinates with negative feedback, whereas leaders lower in trait empathy report feeling more attentive and less distressed. Attentiveness and distress, in turn, were associated with leaders' daily perceptions of their effectiveness; distress was also associated with leaders' daily enactment of transformational leadership behavior. Results of two subsequent studies focused on single episodes of negative feedback provision revealed that trait empathy amplifies the extent to which feedback recipients' negative emotional reactions impact additional leader effectiveness criteria (e.g., executive functioning and planning/problem-solving), further supporting the need to account for the crucial role of trait empathy in the feedback-provision process. Altogether, our research provides a novel perspective on the feedback-giving process by shifting the focus of theorizing from the recipient to the provider, while challenging current thinking about leader empathy by highlighting its potential downside for leadership. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
... For example , Fehr et al. (2017) reported that individuals with lower levels of trait selfcontrol were more likely to be influenced by the depleting effect of air pollution appraisals. Rosen et al. (2019) found that, as a result of the depleting effect of a lack of work goal progress, managers with lower levels of trait self-control were less likely to engage in transformational behavior. Junker et al. (2021) found that, as a result of daily rumination over negative events, employees with lower levels of trait self-control were less able to override the impulses that contributed to their work-family conflict. ...
... All Level 1 variables were group-mean centered, whereas the Level 2 variables were grand-mean centered (Hofmann & Gavin, 1998). To test the indirect and conditional indirect effects of trait self-control, we followed past research (Rosen et al., 2019;Simon et al., 2015) and utilized the Bayesian estimator that has several advantages over maximum likelihood when analyzing complex multilevel mediation models (Yuan & MacKinnon, 2009) and moderated mediation (Wang & Preacher, 2015). ...
... Ziguang Chen https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6578-8642 ENDNOTE 1 SD here refers to the standard deviation of the posterior distribution for the indirect and conditional indirect effects which is an estimate of uncertainty in Bayesian analysis, similar to standard error in non-Bayesian analyses (Rosen et al., 2019). ...
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. We then further identify the implications of these relationships for daily voice endorsement by managers. Integrating research on the strength model of self‐control and the resource distinction between promotive and prohibitive voice, we predict that, among employees with low levels of trait self‐control, higher levels of daily depletion will be associated with lower levels of daily voice impulse control. In turn, lower levels of daily voice impulse control will be associated with higher levels of daily prohibitive voice, but lower levels of daily voice endorsement. Results from a 10‐day daily study with 697 daily observations from 88 employees working for 50 managers (Study 1) and an experimental recall task with 136 full‐time employees (Study 2) supported our hypotheses. We discuss how our findings contribute to theories of voice and self‐control, review the methodological strengths and limitations of our studies, and expound on the practical implications of our results.
... According to within-person dynamic research, leaders may act differently at different times, with some behaviors being a reaction to the leader's own behaviors from an earlier time (McClean et al., 2019). Especially after engaging in behaviors that are excessively demanding, leaders tend to experience mental fatigue and breakdowns in self-regulation, which impedes them from effectively engaging in subsequent behaviors that place demands on them (e.g., Johnson et al., 2014;Lin et al., 2016;Rosen Simon, Gajendran, Johnson, Lee, & Lin, 2019). Considering such research findings and the effortful nature of servant leadership behaviors (e.g., suppressing leaders' own self-interests in place of their followers' interests, understanding others' needs, and investing considerable effort to help followers; Liden et al., 2008), an important question arises: Does engaging in servant leadership behaviors come at a cost to the leaders? ...
... Among various behaviors, laissez-faire behavior is the one that does not require leaders to actively invest effort into their leadership roles (Bass, 1985;. Second, although there are other behaviors (e.g., initiating structure; Rosen et al., 2019) that place fewer demands on the leader than servant leadership behavior, the mind-set switching that is required to enact other active leadership behaviors consumes self-control resources (Hamilton, Vohs, Sellier, & Meyvis, 2011) and, therefore, may not be an option for leaders who are already depleted. Laissez-faire, in contrast, involves passive behavior that places very little self-regulatory resource demands on leaders. ...
Leader behaviors are dynamic and vary over time, and leaders’ actions at a given time can have ramifications for their subsequent behavior. Taking such a dynamic perspective on leader behaviors, we examined daily servant leadership behavior and its downstream effects on the leaders themselves from a within-person self-regulation perspective. Results from two experience sampling studies consistently revealed that engaging in daily servant leadership behavior can come at a cost for the leaders. Specifically, for leaders who are low in perspective taking, engaging in servant leadership behavior was associated with increases in same-day depletion and next-day withdrawal from their leadership role (i.e., greater laissez-faire behavior). However, for leaders who frequently exercise perspective taking, engaging in daily servant leadership behavior was instead associated with decreases in depletion and subsequent laissez-faire behavior, suggesting that servant leadership behaviors are replenishing for these individuals. Experience in perspective taking is therefore a key individual difference that determines whether enacting servant leadership behavior is beneficial or detrimental for leaders. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of our findings and provide avenues for future leadership research.
... For example, leader extraversion is an established antecedent of transformational and consideration leadership behavior (Bono & Judge, 2004;Judge & Bono, 2000). However, recent research has shown that there are large proportions of within-individual variance in leader behaviors, suggesting that leader behaviors vary from day to day (Johnson, Venus, Lanaj, Mao, & Chang, 2012;Lanaj, Johnson, & Lee, 2016;Rosen et al., 2019). For example, leaders may engage in high levels of consideration behavior on one day, but low levels the next day. ...
... For example, it has been shown that family-work conflict and sleep deprivation are likely to tax leaders' self-regulation resources, preventing them from engaging in effective leadership behaviors (Barnes, Lucianetti, Bhave, & Christian, 2015;Courtright et al., 2016). It has also been shown that e-mail demands pull leaders' attention away from their goal pursuits, thus leading them to scale back their effective leadership behaviors (Rosen et al., 2019). These results suggest that the daily self-regulation of needs and goals are crucial in predicting daily leadership behaviors (Courtright et al., 2016;Lin, Ma, & Johnson, 2016;Venus, Johnson, Zhang, Wang, & Lanaj, 2019). ...
Challenges related to managing work and family demands have become more and more pressing, particularly for those with high work demands, such as those in managerial and leadership roles. While existing research has focused on how family demands may negatively affect employee functioning at work, less attention has focused on characterizing the process through which individuals can benefit from their family lives. Drawing from self-determination theory, we develop a family-to-work enrichment framework to illustrate how leaders' positive experiences and motivational gains from home may transfer to work. We conducted two experience sampling studies to examine our family-work enrichment framework. Our results show that daily positive family events are positively predictive of consideration and transformational leadership behaviors at work through family need satisfaction and prosocial motivation. Our results further demonstrate that positive family events are more beneficial for leaders who view their family role as important and central (Study 2). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
... As theory on self-control describes how acts of self-control (a) are dynamically influenced by motivational antecedents and (b) impact subsequent behavior due to changes in cognitive resources (Johnson et al., 2006;Kotabe & Hofmann, 2015), it is appropriate to test this model via ESM. Indeed, there is consensus within the literature that an ESM design is ideal for testing models based on self-control principles (e.g., Liu et al., 2017;Rosen et al., 2019;Yuan et al., 2018)-thus aligning theory and methodology (Klein & Kozlowski, 2000). ...
... Perceived productivity at work was measured by the item "Please rate how much work you got done today, compared to normal," with responses on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from "much less than average" to "much more than average." Similar measures have been used in past work (Rogelberg, Leach, Warr, & Burnfield, 2006), including experience sampling research (Koopman, Lanaj, & Scott, 2016;Rosen et al., 2019), and shown to be negatively related to demands and positively related to productive outcomes like job satisfaction, commitment, and transformational leadership behaviors. Furthermore, this item averaged across the eight study days was positively correlated to a baseline single-item measure of global job performance ("How would you rate your job performance over the last year?"), ...
Managers often do not get the recommended amount of sleep needed for proper functioning. Based on conservation of resources theory, we suggest that this is a result of sleep having both resource gains (improved affect) and losses (less time) that compete to determine managers' perceived productivity the next day. This trade-off may, in turn, determine the amount of investment in sleep the next night. In a diary study with hotel managers, we found support for sleep as resource loss. After nights with more sleep than usual, managers reported lower perceived productivity due to fewer hours spent at work. In fact, for every hour spent sleeping, managers reported working 31 min, 12 s less. Further, when perceived productivity is reduced managers withdraw and conserve their resources by getting more sleep the next night (12 min, 36 s longer for each scale point decrease in perceived productivity), consistent with loss spirals from conservation of resources theory. Exploratory analyses revealed that sleep has a curvilinear effect on affect, such that too little or too much sleep is not beneficial. Overall, our study demonstrates the often-ignored trade-offs of sleep in terms of affect and work time, which has downstream implications for managers' perceived productivity.
... Appendix A contains all measures used across the three studies. Due to differences in operationalizations of NA and CWB across studies, we evaluated their convergence with a study of 181 employees from the website Prolific (Appendix B), whom we asked to report their NA and CWB (see Rosen et al., 2019). The results show that the different measures were strongly correlated (all ps < .001), ...
Counterproductive work behavior (CWB) is a topic of considerable importance for organizational scholars and practitioners. Yet, despite a wide-ranging consensus that negative affect (NA) is a precursor to CWB, there is surprisingly little consensus as to whether CWB enactment will subsequently lead to lower or higher levels of NA. That is, scholars disagree as to whether CWB has a reparative (negative) or generative (positive) effect on subsequent NA. We submit that both perspectives have validity, and thus the question should not be whether CWB is associated with lower or higher subsequent levels of NA, but rather for whom. This article is dedicated to answering this question. Drawing from the behavioral concordance model, we position empathy as a moderator of this relationship, such that CWB will be reparative for those with lower levels of empathy and generative for those with higher levels of empathy. Findings across 3 experience-sampling studies support our hypotheses and highlight a number of interesting directions for future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
... In line with prior ESM research (e.g., Gabriel et al., 2018, p. 92;Rosen et al., 2016), we dropped nine participants who did not provide data on at least three days of the study, since at least "three data points per person are statistically needed to appropriately model within-person relationships." The final sample thus included 111 participants who provided 1147 days of data (average of 10.3 days per person)-which is in line with recommendations by multilevel scholars (e.g., Gabriel et al., 2019b;González-Romá & Hernández, 2017) and recent ESM studies (e.g., Rosen et al., 2019;Tang et al., 2020). Participants occupied various technical, managerial, administrative, and service positions in their organizations. ...
Work intrusions—unexpected interruptions by other people that interrupt ongoing work, bringing it to a temporary halt—are common in today’s workplaces. Prior research has focused on the task-based aspect of work intrusions and largely cast intrusions as events that harm employee well-being in general, and job satisfaction in particular. We suggest that apart from their task-based aspect, work intrusions also involve a social aspect—interaction with the interrupter—that can have beneficial effects for interrupted employees’ well-being. Using self-regulation theory, we hypothesize that while work intrusions’ self-regulatory demands of switching tasks, addressing the intrusion, and resuming the original task can deplete self-regulatory resources, interaction with the interrupter can simultaneously fulfill one’s need for belongingness. Self-regulatory resource depletion and belongingness are hypothesized to mediate the negative and positive effects of work intrusions onto job satisfaction respectively, with belongingness further buffering the negative effect of self-regulatory resource depletion on job satisfaction. Results of our 3-week experience sampling study with 111 participants supported these hypotheses at the within-individual level, even as we included stress as an alternate mediator. Overall, by extending our focus onto the social component of work intrusions, and modeling the mechanisms that transmit the dark- and the bright-side effects of work intrusions onto job satisfaction simultaneously, we provide a balanced view of this workplace phenomenon. In the process, we challenge the consensus that work intrusions harm job satisfaction by explaining why and when intrusions may also boost job satisfaction, thus extending the recent research on work intrusions’ positive effects.
... This is in line with previous studies that have shown that excessive job demands limit managers' possibility of adopting management practices and leadership behaviors that are required from them. For example, Rosen et al. (2019) investigated the effect of email demands on managers' leadership behaviors. They used 394 daily observations from 48 managers enrolled in a master of business administration course. ...
In various countries, national standards exist to reduce the financial burden of occupational health, create healthier workplaces, and promote well-being. In Quebec specifically, the Healthy Enterprise standard comprises different areas of intervention, including management practices relating to psychosocial risks. Managers play an important role in employees’ exposure to psychosocial constraints (low decision latitude, low social support, high job demands, or low rewards). However, little is known about what goes into their decision to adopt managerial practices that are conducive to their employees’ health (managerial quality). This prospective study was conducted in three organizations involved in a certification process to become a Healthy Enterprise. The surveyed participants included a sample of managers (N = 105). Using MPlus, we conducted path analyses to evaluate the mediating role line managers’ burnout plays between the psychosocial safety climate (PSC) and managerial quality. The results indicated that PSC at T1 (Time 1) was associated with burnout at T1. PSC at T1 was also indirectly associated with lower managerial quality at T2 (Time 2). Understanding the impact of line managers’ burnout on enacted managerial quality is important given their effect on followers’ health.
Keywords: Psychosocial safety climate; burnout; managerial quality; psychosocial risks; Healthy Enterprise Standard.
... If it is urgent, they can phone me." Pignata et al. (2015) Email continues to be the most ubiquitous medium for organizational communication (Barley et al., 2011;Ragan, 2020;Rosen et al., 2019;Taylor et al., 2008). A recent survey among US workers in administrative or management roles suggested that, on average, workers spend over 3 h per day on the exchange of work-related email (Adobe, 2019). ...
Email plays an essential role in organizational communication but can also serve as pertinent source of work interruption and an impediment to well-being. Scholars have proposed email batching, processing emails only at certain times of the day, as a strategy to mitigate the negative consequences of email at work. As empirical evidence is mixed and applications in natural organizational contexts are lacking, we used survey data collected during a quasi-experimental top-down intervention in a Dutch financial services organization to investigate for whom and under what circumstances email batching is effective for reducing email interruptions and ameliorating well-being. We found that participants in the intervention group encountered less email interruptions than participants in the control group. Moreover, email batching reduced emotional exhaustion captured right after the intervention ended, especially for workers dealing with high email volumes and workers believing that instantaneous response was not expected in their organization. The effects of email batching wore off after two weeks and no significant effects on work engagement were found. We conclude that email batching should not be regarded as panacea for enhancing well-being and should only encouraged if it fits with workers' job tasks and organizational expectations regarding email response times more generally.
... while the interaction with attachment anxiety was estimated at .758. Given a) the relatively close nature of these results to recommended power levels, b) the results from Study 2 align with those from Study 1, and c) recent work that has employed similar or smaller samples in ESM research (e.g., Lanaj et al., 2019;Liao et al., 2018;Rosen et al., 2019), we are comfortable that our results did not artificially emerge due to sample size. align with recent work linking promotion focus to leader behaviors; Johnson et al. (2017) found that promotion focus was not a significant predictor of certain positive leader behaviors, even as it was a significant predictor of transformational leadership in the aggregate. ...
While transformational leadership is foundational to individual, team, and organizational success, many managers struggle to consistently exhibit the behaviors captured in transformational leadership. Unfortunately, relatively little is known about what factors explain this day-to-day variation on transformational leadership. Drawing upon and extending attachment theory, we assert that one answer is found at home: managers need daily family support to ensure that they consistently display transformational leader behaviors at work. We thus develop a model suggesting that family-work enrichment (FWE) acts as a within-person prime of promotion focus, which in turn enables supervisors to engage in transformational behaviors on a daily basis. In so doing, we explore a pair of theoretically derived boundary conditions of this effect-supervisor attachment styles. The results from two experience-sampling studies support our model. Specifically, daily FWE was positively associated with transformational leadership through daily promotion focus, with the positive effects being weaker for those higher on attachment avoidance and stronger for those higher on attachment anxiety. This article thus expands our understanding of the link between positive family experiences and leader behaviors, suggesting that while the family is a daily source of positive inspiration for supervisors, these positive results are not universal across all supervisors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
... Because people with stronger emotional regulation skills can engage in both surface and deep acting (Grandey, 2003), they may experience less anxiety associated with voice directness. As another antecedent, scholars could investigate the impacts of different communication media (e.g., virtual versus face-to-face versus mediated) on the degree of voice directness (Butts, Becker, & Boswell, 2015;Rosen et al., 2018). For example, employees might be less direct when they express an idea through e-mail, because managers can retain a copy of the message, and thus employees could not later protect themselves by claiming that they never engaged in voice. ...
... In theorizing about leaders' receipt of venting, we build from the stress-appraisal theoretical framework (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) to posit that leaders who are the recipient of venting on a daily basis will be more likely to experience negative emotion. In particular, venting has the potential to distract leaders, causing them to divert finite personal resources (e.g., time, energy, attention) from on-going work tasks, thus limiting their ability to make progress on their own daily work goals (Johnson, Lin, & Lee, 2018;Rosen et al., 2019). ...
Venting—an emotion‐focused form of coping involving the discharge of negative feelings to others—is common in organizational settings. Venting may benefit the self via the release of negative emotion, or by acting as a catalyst for changes to problematic work situations. Nonetheless, venting might have unintended consequences via its influence on those who are the recipients of venting from others. In light of this idea, we provide a theoretical explanation for how leaders in particular are affected by venting receipt at work. Drawing from the transactional model of stress, we theorize that venting tends to be appraised as a threat, which triggers negative emotion that, in turn, potentiates deviant action tendencies (i.e., interpersonal mistreatment). Yet, our theory suggests that not all leaders necessarily experience venting in the same way. Specifically, leaders with higher need for cognition are less influenced by surface‐level cues associated with others’ emotional expressions and find challenging interpersonal situations to be less aversive, thereby attenuating the deleterious effects of receipt of venting. In an experience sampling study of 112 managers across 10 consecutive workdays, we find support for our theoretical model. Altogether, our findings provide insight into the costs incurred when leaders lend an ear to those who vent, which can result in negative downstream consequences.
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... Participants worked in a variety of industries including IT, healthcare, engineering, and finance. Thus, this study was based on a convenience sample and sample size was determined by the number of students enrolled in the executive program (see also Foulk, Lanaj, & Krishnam, 2019;Rosen et al., 2016Rosen et al., , 2019Tepper et al., 2018). Consistent with similar studies (Foulk et al., 2020), we instructed participants that they needed to complete at least eight (out of 10) days of the daily portion of the study to be included in the sample. ...
Due to its pervasive negative consequences, failing to understand the origins of paranoia can be costly for organizations. Prior research suggests that powerful employees are particularly likely to experience paranoia as others want to exploit the resources they control, implying that employees low in power should feel less paranoid. In contrast, we build on Conservation of Resources Theory and sociocultural perspectives of power to argue that the inherent vulnerability associated with being low power also evokes paranoia as a protection mechanism. Because paranoia causes employees to form malevolent attributions towards others, we predict that paranoia, in turn, leads to aggressive tendencies. Five studies (N = 2,341), including three experiments, a correlational study, and an experience sampling study, support our predictions. We further find that the effect of low power on paranoia is weaker when employees can rely on other valuable resources, including individual (socioeconomic status) and social (organizational support) resources.
... When participative planning and strategic performance measurement systems are in use, managers better understand which information in their environment is most relevant. This seems particularly important given the continually increasing volume of data presented to managers (Rosen et al. 2019). Additionally, as our term "behavioral model" implies, managers also learn through participative budgeting and strategic performance measurement systems what information they need to actively pursue if not readily available to them. ...
We use meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM) to examine how organizational planning leads to managerial performance. Specifically, we test a theoretically-driven model of how participative budgeting and strategic performance measurement systems can positively impact managerial job performance through role clarity. Our analyses of 60 studies (containing 99 effect sizes) from multidisciplinary literature indicate role clarity mediates the relationship between planning implementation processes and managerial job performance. Additionally, and contrary to previous research, path analysis suggests job-relevant information mediates the relationship between role clarity and managerial job performance. We explain how participation in planning may prompt managers who are clear about their roles to seek additional information in order to perform well. Finally, we identify a need in future research for a greater diversity of the operationalizations of the constructs, levels of analysis, and data collection methods.
... Considering the cross-level moderation hypotheses, for example, our supervisorlevel sample size is relatively small (n = 48). We note, however, that (a) the sample size is considerably larger at the individual team members' level (n = 220) and (b) the size of our supervisor-level sample is comparable with other recently published leadership research (e.g., Schaubroeck et al., 2017;Rosen et al., 2019). ...
Teams can benefit markedly when formal supervisors stimulate their individual members’ emergence as informal leaders. Combining insights from informal leadership research and social learning theory, we cast supervisors’ role modeling of initiating structure and consideration behaviors as seemingly straightforward means of achieving this—but we suggest that the success of such role modeling critically hinges on supervisors’ as well as members’ status in the team. Results from a study of 220 nurses across 48 teams showed, accordingly, that a supervisor’s initiating structure promoted individual members’ informal leader emergence by increasing members’ respective behavior. This indirect relationship only materialized, however, among relatively high‐status supervisors and relatively low‐status members. Moreover, although supervisors’ and members’ consideration were positively related (among relatively high‐status supervisors, and largely irrespective of a member’s status), such behavior did not influence members’ emergence as informal leaders. Together, these findings offer novel insights into how, when, and why formal supervisors may aid their team members’ attainment of informal leader roles. They shed new light on the complexity of formal–informal leadership linkages, with both supervisors’ and members’ standing in the team representing crucial, yet heretofore largely unexamined boundary conditions for formal supervisors’ respective influence.
... First, despite the proliferation of ICT in organizations, email remains the most common form of ICT use, and many employees consider communication via email to be a central part of their jobs (Rosen et al. 2019). Second, the fact that email is both text-based and asynchronous make it particularly likely to become a tool for aggression. ...
Due to the ubiquitous nature of email communication, the use of the medium as a tool for aggression (termed cyberaggression) creates unique challenges for organizations. However, little is known about cyberaggression’s relation to other forms of workplace mistreatment or the extent to which it predicts victims’ work-related behavior. Two studies presented here enhance understanding of the cyberaggression construct by examining its nomological network, potential outcomes, and mediating mechanisms. Study 1 examines cyberaggression’s relationships with verbal aggression, workplace incivility, relationship conflict, and abusive supervision. Results suggest that cyberaggression is strongly related but empirically distinct from these other forms of workplace mistreatment. Study 2 then employs a three-wave survey to (1) link cyberaggression to victims’ counterproductive work behavior (CWB) through the proposed mechanisms of rumination and negative emotion, and (2) examine cyberaggression’s incremental prediction of these outcomes beyond face-to-face aggression and cyber incivility. Results suggest that cyberaggression has an indirect effect on victims’ CWB targeted at the organization (CWB-O), through serial mediators of rumination and negative emotion, respectively, and an indirect effect on CWB targeted at individuals (CWB-I) through rumination only. After controlling for face-to-face aggression and cyber incivility, supervisor-enacted cyberaggression no longer predicted CWB-O or CWB-I, but coworker-enacted cyberaggression continued to predict CWB through rumination.
... Overall, our sample comprised 105 respondents that were occupied with various managerial, administrative and technical positions in own organizations. We removed four participants who contributed fewer than three complete daily data points (Rosen et al., 2019). Our final data thus included 944 matched daily data from 101 participants (average of 9.3 days per person). ...
Empirical evidence has accumulated showing that smartphone use at work has the double-edged sword impacts on work-related attitudes and behaviors, but little is known about how its effects transmit and spill over from the workplace to the family domain. Drawing upon compensatory ethics theory, we hypothesize positive associations of employees’ daily private smartphone use at work with their family role performance after work through feeling of guilt. Using an experience sampling methodology, we test our hypotheses in a sample of 101 employees who completed surveys across 10 consecutive workdays. Multilevel path analysis results showed that excessive smartphone use at work triggered experienced guilt, and had a positive indirect effect on family role performance via feeling of guilt. Furthermore, employees with high ability of emotion regulation can be better resolve own painful emotion by engaging in family role performance. Theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and propose future research directions are discussed.
... In the remote working environment, employees' daily experiences often unfold as a series of remote communication episodes [11]. These episodes are organized around work-related goals, mostly time-bound, and are subjectively experienced by employees [4]. In comparison with offline communication, remote communication comes with greater uncertainty and unpredictability because it can happen anytime and anywhere with spontaneity and relatively low cost in terms of time and effort. ...
Overwhelming remote communication episodes have become critical daily work demands for employees. On the basis of affective event theory, this study explores the effect of daily remote communication autonomy on positive affect and proactive work behaviors. We conducted a multilevel path analysis using a general survey, followed by experience sampling methodology, with a sample of 80 employees in China who completed surveys thrice daily over a two-week period. The results showed that daily remote communication autonomy increased positive affective reactions, which, in turn, enhanced proactive work behaviors on the same workday. Furthermore, positive day-level relationships leading to employee proactivity were only significant when the employees’ person-level general techno-workload was not high. The findings provide a new perspective for managing employees working under continuous techno-workload and demands for remote interactions.
... For example, an interruption can be self-initiated by the compulsive tendency of employees to continually check their mobile devices and monitor the communication flow within their teams or organizations in an attempt to be constantly accessible Wajcman & Rose, 2011). An interruption can also take the form of unpredictable intrusion from work domain members (e.g., supervisors or clients) into the home domain, over which employees may have little control (Bulger et al., 2007;Rosen et al., 2019). Third, employees may experience notable daily variance in mobile work Lanaj et al., 2014). ...
Drawing from the effort-recovery model and the work-home resources model, we investigate the linking mechanisms between daily mobile work and next-day psychological withdrawal behavior. Using a recovery lens, we propose that an employee’s mobile work negatively relates to state resilience via psychological detachment from work on a daily basis. In light of a work-to-home process, we suggest that the focal employee’s daily mobile work negatively relates to the spouse’s relationship satisfaction via spouse perception of the employee’s psychological detachment. In light of a home-to-work process, we also focus on state resilience as a mediator that translates diminished recovery and home outcomes into psychological withdrawal behavior. We tested our hypotheses using experience sampling data from 106 couples for 15 consecutive workdays. Results showed that the focal employee’s mobile work was negatively associated with state resilience through decreased psychological detachment. On days when the employee engaged in mobile work more frequently, the spouse perceived the employees’ psychological detachment as being weaker; moreover, the spouse experienced lower relationship satisfaction. Overall, the employee’s daily mobile work was positively and indirectly associated with next-day psychological withdrawal behavior via psychological detachment and state resilience. The spouse’s relationship satisfaction did not relate to the employee’s state resilience.
... Availability expectation also can explain the increased use of ICT during nonwork hours, which in turn impairs employee psychological well-being Fenner & Renn, 2010;Piszczek, 2017) Last, other new concepts include techno-overload (Ragu-Nathan et al., 2008), ICT workload, and learning expectations (Dayet al., 2010(Dayet al., , 2012, which involve increasing the amount of work to be done due to technologies both generally and in the context of increased learning requirements. The ICT workload concept is also captured with a narrow focus on email demands, which assess individuals' perceptions of too much email (email overload) and how important email is to their work (email centrality to work; Brown et al., 2014;Dabbish & Kraut, 2006;Rosen et al., 2019). ...
Several decades of research have addressed the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology. However, segmented research streams with myriad terminologies run the risk of construct proliferation and lack an integrated theoretical justification of the contributions of ICT concepts. Therefore, by identifying important trends and reflecting on key constructs, findings, and theories, our review seeks to determine whether a compelling case can be made for the uniqueness of ICT-related concepts in studying employee and performance in I-O psychology. Two major themes emerge from our review of the ICT literature: (a) a technology behavior perspective and (b) a technology experience perspective. The technology behavior perspective with three subcategories (the “where” of work design, the “when” of work extension, and the “what” of work inattention) explores how individual technology use can be informative for predicting employee well-being and performance. The technology experience perspective theme with two subcategories (the “how” of ICT appraisals and “why” of motives) emphasizes unique psychological (as opposed to behavioral) experiences arising from the technological work context. Based on this review, we outline key challenges of current ICT research perspectives and opportunities for further enhancing our understanding of technological implications for individual workers and organizations.
... However, vigilance taxes attentional resources, which are drawn down as one scans the environment for cues signaling opportunities (Helton et al., 2005;Ocasio, 2011). When an individual is unable to amass or retain resources due to use or distraction, adaptive capacity is reduced, making it difficult to successfully manage multiple competing demands and make progress on goal-directed activities (Rosen et al., 2019). Thus, in addition to being a source of anxiety, unpredictable challenge stressors also serve as distractions that interfere with one's ability to concentrate and focus on work tasks, reducing feelings of attentiveness (Parke et al., 2018). ...
Over the past two decades, accumulating evidence has indicated that individuals experience challenge and hindrance stressors in qualitatively different ways, with the former being linked to more positive outcomes than the latter. Indeed, challenge stressors are believed to have net positive effects even though they can also lead to a range of strains, eliciting beliefs that managers can enhance performance outcomes by increasing the frequency of challenge stressors experienced in the workplace. The current article questions this conventional wisdom by developing theory that explains how different patterns of challenge stressor exposure influence employee outcomes. Across 2 field studies, our results supported our theory, indicating that when challenge stressors vary across time periods, they have negative indirect effects on employee performance and well-being outcomes. In contrast, when employees experience a stable pattern of challenge stressors across time periods, they have positive indirect effects on employee performance and well-being outcomes. These results, which suggest that the benefits of challenge stressors may not outweigh their costs when challenge stressors fluctuate, have important implications for theory and practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
... In particular, a central tenet of the goal-prioritization literature is that individuals tend to prioritize goals that are most likely to "pay off," meaning resources like time and effort tend to be allocated toward goals with the highest perceived value and for which there is a non-zero perceived likelihood of success (e.g., Ballard et al., 2018;Beck et al., 2019;Schmidt & Dolis, 2009;Sun et al., 2014). Furthermore, resource scarcity can drive individuals to divert effort toward tasks that are deemed to be most pressing, and away from other tasks that are more perceived to be more discretionary (e.g., Beck & Schmidt, 2013;Rosen et al., 2019;Sherf et al., 2019). Along these lines, we expect that responding to feedback requests can be perceived to be less critical relative to other managerial tasks (e.g., establishing budgets, setting schedules). ...
Although people are generally motivated to perform well at work, there is often ambiguity regarding whether they are meeting their organization’s standards. As such, people often seek feedback from others. To date, feedback-seeking research has emphasized the feedback seeker, identifying traits and circumstances associated with feedback seeking, whereas far less is known about this process from the feedback source’s point of view. However, we expect that feedback sources will vary in their willingness to allocate effort toward delivering feedback. Specifically, integrating the cost-value framework of feedback with self-regulatory theories of goal prioritization, we predict that effort allocated toward a feedback episode is determined by the feedback source’s perceptions of the feedback seeker’s motives for seeking feedback. Across two complementary studies, we found perceived instrumental motives (i.e., a desire to improve one’s performance) to be positively related to the amount of effort put toward delivering feedback, and perceived image enhancement motives (i.e., a desire to impress the feedback source) to be negatively related to effort allocation. Importantly, Study 1 was a field study in which managers were asked to report on a recent episode in which a subordinate had sought their feedback, and Study 2 used an experimental design in which feedback-seeking motives were manipulated. Thus, the current research makes an important contribution to the literature by considering the often overlooked role that the feedback source plays in the feedback process. Moreover, triangulation of both field and experimental data enhances both the external and internal validity of our conclusions.
... Drivers of short-term fluctuations in leadership are transient affective and cognitive states linked to COR theory (Kelemen, Matthews and Breevaart, 2019;McClean et al., 2019;McCormick et al., 2018), such as demands (e.g. email load; Rosen et al., 2019) and the availability (or lack of) resources (e.g. emotional exhaustion; Whitman, Halbesleben and Holmes, 2014). ...
While authentic leadership is highly valued in today’s business world, managers do not necessarily have the resources to attain it. Building on conservation of resources theory, we propose a conceptual model to address how personal and contextual resources predict authentic leadership. Study 1 analyzes the day-to-day variability in managers’ positive psychological capacities as personal resources in relation to changes in authentic leadership. In addition, it tests ethical organizational climates as stable, contextual resources for authentic leadership. In Study 2, we replicate our results on the between-person level and extend the research model by exploring promotion focus as a link in the relationship between personal resources and authentic leadership. Evidence from an experience sampling study with 89 managers surveyed daily on 10 consecutive work days (Study 1) and a field survey of 130 managers at two points in time (Study 2) supports the hypothesized role of personal resources and promotion focus for authentic leadership. In both studies, only principled but not benevolent ethical organizational climates emerged as a contextual resource for authentic leadership. We discuss the implications for current management research and practice.
... The conceptualization of e-mail-related job demands to date has mainly focused on types and frequency of interruptions (e.g., Addas & Pinsonneault, 2018;Chen & Karahanna, 2018;Freitas, Maçada, Brinkhues, & Montesdioca, 2016) and e-mail use (e.g., Boswell & Olson-Buchanan, 2007;Derks, van Duin, Tims, & Bakker, 2015;Diaz et al., 2012;Fenner & Renn, 2010;Ferguson et al., 2016;Ragsdale & Hoover, 2016;Tennakoon, Da Silveira, & Taras, 2013). Even though this literature has established e-mail as a unique job demand (Brown, Duck, & Jimmieson, 2014;Ferguson et al., 2016;Reinke & Chamorro-Premuzic, 2014;Rosen, Simon, Gajendran, Johnson, Lee, & Lin, 2018), it has not separated actual work-related e-mail use during nonwork hours from work e-mail-related normative expectations and monitoring. We also show that our subjective measure of employee perceptions regarding OEEM is related to employee monitoring behavior and actual managerial expectations for employee availability. ...
This paper tests the relationship between organizational expectations to monitor work-related electronic communication during nonwork hours and the health and relationship satisfaction of employees and their significant others. We integrate resource-based theories with research on interruptions to position organizational expectations for e-mail monitoring (OEEM) during nonwork time as a psychological stressor that elicits anxiety due to employee attention allocation conflict. E-mail–triggered anxiety, in turn, negatively affects the health and relationship quality of employees and their significant others. We conducted three studies to test our propositions. Using the experience sampling method with 108 working U.S. adults, Study 1 established within-employee effects of OEEM on anxiety, employee health, and relationship conflict. Study 2 used a sample of 138 dyads of full-time employees and their significant others to replicate detrimental health and relationship effects of OEEM through anxiety. It also showed crossover effects of OEEM on partner health and relationship satisfaction. Finally, Study 3 employed a two-wave data collection method with an online sample of 162 U.S. working adults to provide additional support for the OEEM construct as a distinct and reliable job stressor and replicated findings from Studies 1 and 2. Taken together, our research extends the literature on work-related electronic communication at the interface of work and nonwork boundaries, deepening our understanding of the impact of OEEM on employees and their families’ health and well-being.
... Indeed, this aligns with the approach taken by Liao et al. (2018), who assessed all study constructs within a single workday. Further, although our Level 2 sample size is consistent with recent experience sampling research (e.g., Lanaj et al., 2019;Rosen et al., 2019), we may not have sufficient statistical power to derive a significant cross-level moderating effect for internalized moral identity. Therefore, we encourage future research to further explore the potential moderating effect of internalized moral identity with a larger sample. ...
Although extant research has shown that abusive supervision is a destructive and immoral form of leader behavior, theory provides conflicting perspectives on how supervisors respond to their own abusive behavior. We therefore draw upon and integrate moral cleansing theory and impression management and construction theory to explore whether and when supervisors engage in genuine reparations or impression management following episodes of abusive behavior. Results taken from a 3‐week, experience sampling study of supervisors suggest support for the impression management path; following episodes of abusive behavior, supervisors higher on symbolized moral identity become more concerned with their image, and thus engage in increased ingratiation, self‐promotion, and exemplification toward their subordinates. In contrast, we found no support for the genuine, moral cleansing path. This study thus extends knowledge regarding supervisors’ responses to their own abusive behavior, challenging the existing notion that such responses are genuine and focused on addressing the moral implications of the behavior.
The present research examined how the use of different email functions impact dynamics between team members. We first illustrate that it is not so uncommon for employees to find out that the Bcc option has been used in email communications at work. Building on this insight, we then demonstrate that senders using the Bcc option are evaluated by recipients as less moral and consequently as less fitting to be the team leader compared to senders who use the Cc option. Interestingly, this effect occurred regardless of whether or not the sender provided a commonly cited reason for Bcc use. Next, we show that deciding to forward an email reveals an equally negative effect on morality perceptions and rated leadership emergence as using the Bcc option. Finally, we illustrate that although participants perceived the act of rewriting an email message as more moral than Bcc usage, rewriting an email message nevertheless produced similar negative consequences for the sender as the use of the Bcc or the forward option on whether or not the sender is considered fit to be team leader. The present findings complement previous research by showing that secretly communicating information through email can negatively impact team dynamics.
Affective events theory (AET) suggests that when an employee enacts negative workplace events, such as ICT incivility, the employee is likely to experience a negative mood state, which in turn may have a detrimental effect on attitudes regarding work and family. Using a sample of 260 working individuals, we found that engaging in ICT incivility aggression negatively impacts mood, as evidenced by a negative relationship with positive affect and a positive relationship to psychological distress. Furthermore, in the work domain, the relationship between ICT incivility aggression and job satisfaction was mediated by positive mood, but not by psychological distress. In the family domain, the relationship between incivility and family satisfaction was mediated by psychological distress, but not by mood. These mixed mediation findings may suggest that particular moods are somewhat contextual and made more salient at work versus with family. Practical implications for organizations seeking to discourage ICT incivility aggression, as well as and directions for future research, are discussed.
Research on customer mistreatment towards frontline service employees in the hospitality industry has been steadily rising in recent years, but little is known about the mechanism underlying its detrimental impact on the non-work life of employees and why some of them could handle it effectively. By integrating conservation of resources theory with the stressor-detachment model, this daily diary study examined the effect of daily customer mistreatment on employees’ daily well-being at home (vigor and exhaustion) through daily psychological detachment. Employees’ recovery self-efficacy and the trait of resilience, which might mitigate the process were also examined. An experience sampling methodology was applied, and the survey data were gathered from 54 frontline restaurant employees conducted across 5 consecutive workdays. Results of hierarchical linear modeling supported all the hypotheses in this study. Our findings revealed a spillover effect of customer mistreatment and the importance of improving employees’ recovery in the hospitality context.
Sleep is linked to critical outcomes in the work context including job attitudes, job performance, and health. This study examines daily positive behaviors (i.e., task accomplishment) and positive experiences (i.e., job satisfaction) at work as well as outside of work (i.e., psychological detachment from work in the evening) as positive antecedents of sleep quality. Specifically, the study tested a moderated mediation model in which job satisfaction and psychological detachment from work interact with daily task accomplishment to predict sleep quality and in turn positive affect and self-efficacy the following morning. Based on daily survey data over five consecutive workdays, results from multilevel structural equation modeling indicate that daily task accomplishment alone was neither significantly related to sleep quality nor positive affect or self-efficacy the following morning. However, sleep quality was positively and significantly linked to positive states the following morning. Furthermore, both job satisfaction and detachment from work moderated the association between daily task accomplishment and sleep quality. Specifically, the conditional indirect effects from task accomplishment to positive affect and self-efficacy via sleep quality were significant and positive when both daily job satisfaction and detachment from work were high, and when job satisfaction was low and detachment was high. The results point to the role of the interaction between positive experiences for sleep and next morning outcomes.
Purpose
Based on identity theory, identity represents a set of meanings individuals hold for themselves based on their role in the society. Hence, they often engage in the process of verifying their role, seeking for the compatibility between these meanings and those perceived in a specific lived situation. If this compatibility is not perceived, this is likely to generate negative emotions. that could compromise their mental health. This paper examines the contribution of a weak verification of role identity in the explanation of managers ‘burnout. It aims at integrating identity theory into occupational stress research by analysing the proposition that a low level of verification of a salient role-identity will be associated with a high level of burnout. Hence, we consider identity salience as a moderating variable.
Design/methodology/approach
Cross-sectional data of 314 Canadian managers employed in 56 Quebec firms. Multilevel regression analyses were performed to analyse the data.
Findings
Low levels of verification of some standards of managers' role identity, mainly work demands and recognition which encompasses (monetary and non-monetary recognition, career prospects and job security) are significantly associated with managers' burnout. Furthermore, as predicted, results show that identity salience plays a moderating role on the relation between a weak verification of some standards of managers' role identity and burnout, mainly work demands, superior support and recognition.
Originality/value
This study proposes a relatively unexplored approach for the study of managers' burnout. It broadens the scope of research on workplace mental health issues, by the integration of the identity theory.
Agile working practices involve connecting with new technologies in order to operate more flexibly, efficiently and responsively. Electronic mail (or email) is one technology that particularly enables this, owing to its anywhere, anytime, anyplace functionality. However, there is a paradox in the way that workers use work-email, with research reporting as many benefits as drawbacks to this ubiquitous tool. In this chapter, it is suggested that individual differences in personality, resources and goal-preferences can explain why such a paradox has emerged, and guidance is given as to how to tailor agile working to allow individuals to more effectively use work-email.
Most professional employees aspire to leadership, and this suggests that a best possible leader self—a personalized representation of who an employee aspires to be at their best as a leader in the future—is likely a relevant and motivating self‐representation for employees at work. Integrating theory on best possible selves with control theory, we suggest that activating a best possible leader self can have beneficial effects for the way that any employee feels and behaves at work. Specifically, we propose that employees who reflect on their best possible leader self will enact more leader‐congruent behaviors and subsequently perceive themselves as more leaderlike due to the positive affect generated by such reflection. We found support for our theoretical expectations in an experimental experience sampling study that included both current and aspiring leaders. On days when employees reflected on their best possible leader self, they engaged in more helping and visioning via positive affect. Furthermore, employees perceived themselves as more leaderlike after performing these leader‐congruent behaviors, as captured by higher enacted leader identity and clout. We discuss theoretical and practical implications for research on leadership.
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The popularity of remote work and a norm of constant connectivity have made text-based computer-mediated communication (tCMC) such as email inevitable for many organizational tasks. This could be worsening communicators’ performance on their later work. Specifically, drawing on media synchronicity theory (Dennis & Valacich, 1999), we propose that using tCMC for convergence processes—resolving ambiguity and conflicting interpretations to form shared understandings—is more difficult than using face-to-face communication. We use conservation of resources (COR) theory to argue this greater communication difficulty could dampen motivation maintenance for subsequent tasks, which, in turn, is likely to hamper knowledge work tasks that require complex reasoning. Supporting this line of reasoning, four experimental studies show causal effects of using tCMC (relative to in-person interaction) for tasks dependent on convergence processes on motivation maintenance and later complex reasoning tasks. A fifth study using an experience sampling design shows day-to-day changes in tCMC use influence depletion and downstream motivation maintenance for individuals whose jobs require complex problem solving. Together, these five studies indicate using text-based communication media has lasting effects on communicators beyond the communication task itself. These studies raise new questions about the pervasive use of email and other forms of text-based communication in organizations for individuals’ motivation and effectiveness.
Over the past century, conscientiousness has become seen as the preeminent trait for predicting performance. This consensus is due in part to these employees’ ability to work with traditional, 20th century technology. Such pairings balance the systematic nature of conscientious employees with the technology’s need for user-input and direction to perform tasks—resulting in a complementary match. However, the 21st century has seen the incorporation of intelligent machines (e.g., artificial intelligence, robots, and algorithms) into employee jobs. Unlike traditional technology, these new machines are equipped with the capability to make decisions autonomously. Thus, their nature overlaps with the orderliness subdimension of conscientious employees—resulting in an non-complementary mismatch. This calls into question whether the consensus about conscientious employees’ effectiveness with 20th century technology applies to 21st century jobs. Integrating complementarity and role theory, we refine this consensus. Across three studies using distinct samples (an experience-sampling study, a field experiment, and an online experiment from working adults in Malaysia, Taiwan, and the United States), each focused on a different type of intelligent machine, we show not only that using intelligent machines has benefits and consequences, but importantly that conscientious (i.e., orderly) employees are less likely to benefit from working with them.
We present a Work‐habit Intervention Model (WhIM) to explain and predict how to change work‐habits to be more effective. Habit change has primarily been researched within the health domain. The WhIM contributes a unique theoretical perspective by: (i) suggesting that work‐habit change requires a two‐stage process of exposure to regular rationalized plans and a stated intention to use these plans; and, (ii) defining effective work‐habit change in terms of improvements to both goal attainment and well‐being over time. Self‐regulatory resources are included as potential moderators of habit change. This approach implies that work‐habits (unlike health‐habits) are seldom constitutionally ‘good’ or ‘bad’, which means that change requires a clear rationale in terms of improving goal attainment and well‐being. The WhIM was evaluated in a 12‐month wait‐list intervention study designed to improve work‐email habits for workers in a UK organization (N = 127 T1; N = 58 T3; N = 46 all data). Findings were that the two‐stage process changed work‐email habits for those with higher levels of self‐efficacy, which predicted well‐being in terms of reduced negative affect (via perceived goal attainment). We outline theoretical and practical implications and encourage future research to refine the WhIM across a range of other work contexts. Workers need to regularly engage with rationalized plans of action and state their intention to use these, in order to change work‐email habits. Organizations should consider training workers to enhance their self‐efficacy prior to implementing a work‐email habit change intervention. Providing regular feedback about the impact of work‐email habit change on well‐being and goal attainment is likely to make the change sustainable in the long‐term.
Successfully reattaching to work (i.e., mentally reconnecting) after a nonwork period can set the tone for the workday. This study examines anticipated task focus and activated positive affect as mechanisms linking leaders’ reattachment to work in the morning to leader experiences and behaviors throughout the workday. Based on daily-survey data from 416 leaders (2646 total morning/evening survey completions), we conducted multilevel structural equation modeling to test our hypotheses. Results indicate that day-level reattachment to work in the morning was associated with anticipated task focus and activated positive affect, which in turn were both associated with leader workplace vitality and transformational leadership behavior. Hypotheses regarding leader task accomplishment were not supported. Supplementary analyses indicated that reattachment was indirectly related to perceived task accomplishment through a two-stage mediation – i.e., via anticipated task focus in the morning and actual task focus throughout the workday. Findings point to the important role of reattachment to work in leader experiences and behaviors throughout the workday. Results also indicate the relevance of reattachment to work as an experience and potential strategy that helps leaders successfully move from nonwork to work domains creating positive outcomes for themselves and their followers throughout the workday.
Workplaces increasingly use response speed as a proxy for hard work, signaling to employees that the only way to succeed is to be “always on.” Drawing on boundary theory and egocentrism, we examine a problematic bias around expectations of response speed for work emails, namely that receivers overestimate senders’ response speed expectations to non-urgent emails sent outside normative work hours (e.g., on the weekend). We label this phenomenon the email urgency bias and document it across eight pre-registered experimental studies (N = 4,004). This bias led to discrepancies in perceived stress of receiving emails, and was associated with lower subjective well-being via greater experienced stress. A small adjustment on the sender’s side alleviated the email urgency bias (a brief note senders can add in their emails to clarify their response expectations). This paper demonstrates the importance of perspective differences in email exchanges and the need to explicitly communicate non-urgent expectations.
Air pollution has become a daunting challenge with the potential to endanger people’s lives across the globe. However, little is known about the psychological and vocational implications of air pollution. Drawing on feeling-as-information theory, we investigate the within-person relationships of ambient air pollution with vocational and general well-being outcomes (i.e., career choice anxiety and state optimism) through the mediating mechanism of mood state. We tested our hypotheses using an experience sampling method (ESM) with survey data from 67 undergraduate students in South Korea collected over 10 consecutive days. Results showed that daily ambient air pollution predicted higher career choice anxiety and lower state optimism via an increased negative mood. Furthermore, the indirect relation of air pollution with career choice anxiety was found to be stronger for individuals with lower family socioeconomic status. In a supplementary study, we interviewed 16 undergraduate students in South Korea to explain the ESM results in greater depth. Theoretical and practical implications, as well as study limitations, are discussed.
Despite their prevalence in daily teamwork, little is known about the influence of intrusions on teams. Therefore, the effect of intrusions on team interaction was investigated, focusing on relational communication. Three different theoretical perspectives regarding team interaction changes in response to a meeting intrusion are discussed. These perspectives were mapped onto fine-grained behavioral data from twelve teams ( N = 4,627 sense units) by means of lag sequential analysis. Teams’ use of relational communication changed in several ways in response to the intrusion. While these changes fit best with one perspective (task-focused), several results also align with other perspectives.
An intensification of digital working driven by Covid-19 has brought into sharp focus both the beneficial nature of digital workplace technologies and their potential dark side. Research has burgeoned in this area in recent years, but an integrated view across fields, technologies, dark side effects and outcomes is lacking. There are potential insights to be gained from compiling and comparing results and theoretical approaches. Following integrative review procedures, 194 studies were analysed to understand unintended negative consequences of a range of workplace technologies across disciplines and methodologies. The results demonstrate that considerable insight has been uncovered regarding certain dark side effects, stress in particular, in relation to e-mail and smartphones. However, a broader view of how they might manifest in relation to employees' holistic digital experience of work beyond certain information and communication technologies (ICTs) is lacking, including a clear picture of objective demands of the technology with which these effects are associated. Much remains to be understood across the full range of dark side effects in relation to the digital workplace including the associations between them and how they relate to cognitive and affective outcomes. The importance of both theoretical rigour and diversity is highlighted.
This paper investigates how employees' experience of workplace incivility may steer them away from idea championing, with a special focus on the mediating role of their desire to quit their jobs and the moderating role of their dispositional self-control. Data collected from employees who work in a large retail organization reveal that an important reason that exposure to rude workplace behaviors reduces employees' propensity to champion innovative ideas is that they make concrete plans to leave. This mediating effect is mitigated when employees are equipped with high levels of self-control though. For organizations, this study accordingly pinpoints desires to seek alternative employment as a critical factor by which irritations about resource-draining incivility may escalate into a reluctance to add to organizational effectiveness through dedicated championing efforts. It also indicates how this escalation can be avoided, namely, by ensuring employees have access to pertinent personal resources.
Practitioner points:
It may be necessary for highly Conscientious people to turn off their email interruption alerts at work, in order to avoid the strain that results from an activation-resistance mechanism afforded by the arrival of a new email.Deploying key resources means that volatile resources may be differentially spent, depending on one's natural tendencies and how these interact with the work task and context. This suggests that the relationship between demands and resources is not always direct and predictable.Practitioners may wish to appraise the strategies they use to deal with demands such as email at work, to identify if these strategies are assisting with task or well-being goal achievement, or whether they have become defunct through automation.
Scholars have paid an increasing amount of attention to organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB), with a particular emphasis on helping others at work. Additionally, recent empirical work has focused on how OCB is an intra-individual phenomenon, such that employees vary daily in the extent to which they help others. However, one limitation of this research has been an over-emphasis on well-being consequences associated with daily helping (e.g., changes in affect and mental depletion) and far less attention on behavioral outcomes. In the current study, we develop a self-regulatory framework that articulates how helping others at work is a depleting experience that can lead to a reduction in subsequent acts of helping others, and an increase in behaviors aimed at helping oneself (i.e., engaging in political acts). We further theorize how two individual differences—prevention focus and political skill—serve as cross-level moderators of these relations. In an experience sampling study of 91 full-time employees across 10 consecutive workdays, our results illustrate that helping is a depleting act that makes individuals more likely to engage in self-serving acts and less likely to help others. Moreover, the relation of helping acts with depletion is strengthened for employees who have higher levels of prevention focus. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
Self-regulation is the dynamic process by which people manage competing demands on their time and resources as they strive to achieve desired outcomes, while simultaneously preventing or avoiding undesired outcomes. In this article, we review the current state of knowledge regarding the process by which people manage these types of demands. We review studies in the organizational, cognitive, social psychology, and human factors literatures that have examined the process by which people (a) manage task demands when working on a single task or goal; (b) select which tasks or goals they work on, and the timing and order in which they work on them; and (c) make adjustments to the goals that they are pursuing. We review formal theories that have been developed to account for these phenomena and examine the prospects for an integrative account of self-regulation that can explain the broad range of empirical phenomena examined across different subdisciplines within psychology. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior Volume 4 is March 21, 2017. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
Incivility at work—low intensity deviant behaviors with an ambiguous intent to harm—has been on the rise, yielding negative consequences for employees’ well-being and companies’ bottom-lines. Although examinations of incivility have gained momentum in organizational research, theory and empirical tests involving dynamic, within-person processes associated with this negative interpersonal behavior are limited. Drawing from ego depletion theory, we test how experiencing incivility precipitates instigating incivility towards others at work via reduced self-control. Using an experience sampling design across two work weeks, we found that experiencing incivility earlier in the day reduced one’s levels of self-control (captured via a performance-based measure of self-control), which in turn resulted in increased instigated incivility later in the day. Moreover, organizational politics—a stable, environmental factor—strengthened the relation between experienced incivility and reduced self-control, whereas construal level—a stable, personal factor—weakened the relation between reduced self-control and instigated incivility. Combined, our results yield multiple theoretical, empirical, and practical implications for the study of incivility at work.
As advances in communication technologies have made organizations more easily connected to their workforce outside of normal work hours, there is increased concern that employees may experience heightened work-nonwork conflict when away from the office. The current study investigates the effects of electronic communication received during nonwork time using an experience sampling methodology to examine withinperson relationships among elements of electronic communication (affective tone, time required), emotional responses (anger, happiness), and work-to-nonwork conflict in a sample of 341 working adults surveyed over a seven-day period. Hierarchical linear modeling results suggested that both affective tone and time required were associated with anger, but only affective tone was associated with happiness. Further, anger was associated with work-to-nonwork conflict and mediated the effects of affective tone and time required on work-to-nonwork conflict. Results also revealed cross-level moderating effects of abusive supervision and communication sender together, as well as segmentation preference. Implications of these findings for future theorizing and research on electronic communication during nonwork time are discussed.
Exertion of self-control requires reliance on ego resources. Impaired performance typically results once those resources have been depleted by previous use. Yet the mechanism behind the depletion processes is little understood. Beliefs, motivation, and physiological changes have been implicated, yet the source behind these remains unknown. We propose that implicit may form the fundamental building blocks that these processes rely upon to operate. Implicit affective responses to energy may trigger management of ego resources after depletion. Findings suggest that inhibitory trait self-control may interact with the depletion effect, indicating the importance of taking individual differences in chronic availability of ego resources into account. After depletion, individuals high in trait self-control may be less motivated to conserve remaining resources than those low in self-control. This mechanism may also help explain the conservation of resources observed when expecting multiple tasks requiring self-control.
Although the general picture in the organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) literature is that OCB has positive consequences for employees and organizations, an emerging stream of work has begun to examine the potential negative consequences of OCB for actors. Drawing from the cognitive-affective processing system framework and conservation of resources theory, we present an integrative model that simultaneously examines the benefits and costs of daily OCB for actors. Utilizing an experience sampling methodology through which 82 employees were surveyed for 10 workdays, we find that daily OCB is associated with positive affect, but it also interferes with perceptions of work goal progress. Positive affect and work goal progress in turn mediate the effects of OCB on daily well-being. Moreover, employees' trait regulatory focus influences the strength of the daily relationships between OCB and its positive and negative outcomes. We conclude by discussing theoretical and practical implications of our multilevel model.
This paper introduces the Bayesian revolution that is sweeping across multiple disciplines but has yet to gain a foothold in organizational research. The foundations of Bayesian estimation and inference are first reviewed. Then, two empirical examples are provided to show how Bayesian methods can overcome limitations of frequentist methods: (a) a structural equation model of testosterone's effect on status in teams, where a Bayesian approach allows directly testing a traditional null hypothesis as a research hypothesis and allows estimating all possible residual covariances in a measurement model, neither of which are possible with frequentist methods; and (b) an ANOVA-style model from a true experiment of ego depletion's effects on performance, where Bayesian estimation with informative priors allows results from all previous research (via a meta-analysis and other previous studies) to be combined with estimates of study effects in a principled manner, yielding support for hypotheses that is not obtained with frequentist methods. Data are available from the first author, code for the program Mplus is provided, and tables illustrate how to present Bayesian results. In conclusion, the many benefits and few hindrances of Bayesian methods are discussed, where the major hindrance has been an easily solvable lack of familiarity by organizational researchers.
The goal of this study was to examine the effects of transformational leadership behaviors, within the context of Kerr and Jermier’s (1978) substitutes for leadership. Data were collected from 1539 employees across a wide variety of different industries, organizational settings, and job levels. Hierarchical moderated regression analysis procedures generally showed that few of the substitutes variables moderated the effects of the transformational leader behaviors on followers’ attitudes, role perceptions, and “in-role” and “citizenship” behaviors in a manner consistent with the predictions of Howell, Dorfman and Kerr (1986). However, the results did show that: (a) the transformational leader behaviors and substitutes for leadership each had unique effects on follower criterion variables; (b) the total amount of variance accounted for by the substitutes for leadership and the transformational leader behaviors was substantially greater than that reported in prior leadership research; and (c) several of the transformational behaviors were significantly related to several of the substitutes for leadership variables. Implications of these findings for our understanding of the effects of transformational leader behaviors and substitutes for leadership are then discussed.
Despite conceptual overlap between the transformational–transactional model of leadership and the Ohio State two-factor model (i.e., Consideration and Initiating Structure), no systematic research examines correspondence among these behaviors or estimates their relative validities across a common set of outcomes. The current studies a) examine the factor structure of five key dimensions of these two models (transformational, contingent reward, laissez faire, Initiating Structure, and Consideration) and b) estimate relative validities with respect to two organizational outcomes: employee job satisfaction and perceptions of leadership effectiveness. Although results of a meta-analysis show that transformational leadership is significantly related to both Consideration (ρ = .74) and Initiating Structure (ρ = .50), results of two primary studies provide support for the independence of these leadership dimensions. Moreover, dominance analyses (Budescu, 1993) reveal that Consideration and transformational leadership are the most important predictors of employee job satisfaction and ratings of leadership effectiveness, and each had incremental validity when controlling for the effects of the other. Overall, results suggest that dimensions from both models are important predictors of employee outcomes.
Despite advice to avoid doing so, email senders intentionally and unintentionally communicate emotion. Email characteristics make miscommunication likely, and I argue that receivers often misinterpret work emails as more emotionally negative or neutral than intended. Drawing on the computer-mediated and nonverbal communi- cation, emotion, and perception literature, I introduce a theoretical framework de- scribing what factors make miscommunication most likely, how emotional miscom- munication affects organizations, and how employees can improve the accuracy of emotional communication in emails. Employees are increasingly likely to use and prefer electronic mail (email) to communicate with coworkers, customers, and other col- leagues. The proliferation of email for business communication is likely due to some advan- tages, such as flexibility and asynchrony, it has
Applied psychological research has been increasingly taking advantage of within people designs to study the dynamic effects of work events and experiences on various outcomes such as attitudes, feelings, and behaviors. Experience Sampling is a methodology that has been shown to be valuable in conducting such research in the field. In this chapter, we discuss its basic features, provide a primer on its use, and outline the ways in which it can facilitate new perspectives on various issues of interest in applied psychology.
Two central constructs of applied psychology, motivation and cognitive ability, were integrated within an information-processing (IPR) framework. This framework simultaneously considers individual differences in cognitive abilities, self-regulatory processes of motivation, and IPR demands. Evidence for the framework is provided in the context of skill acquisition, in which IPR and ability demands change as a function of practice, training paradigm, and timing of goal setting (GS). Three field-based lab experiments were conducted with 1,010 US Air Force trainees. Exp 1 evaluated the basic ability–performance parameters of the air traffic controller task and GS effects early in practice. Exp 2 evaluated GS later in practice. Exp 3 investigated the simultaneous effects of training content, GS and ability–performance interactions. Results support the theoretical framework and have implications for notions of ability–motivation interactions and design of training and motivation programs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) model postulates that job demands and job resources constitute two processes: the health impairment process, leading to negative outcomes, and the motivational process, leading to positive outcomes. In the current research we extended the JD-R model by including both counterproductive work behaviour (CWB) as a behavioural stress-reaction and job-related affect as a mediator in both processes. In a sample of 818 public-sector employees we found support for a model where job demands (workload, role conflict, and interpersonal demands) were associated with abuse/hostility CWB, whereas job resources (decision authority, social support, and promotion prospects) were associated with work engagement. Furthermore, job-related negative affect mediated the relationship between job demands and abuse/hostility CWB, whereas job-related positive affect mediated the relationship between job resources and work engagement. We also found that the impact of job demands on negative affect was attenuated by job resources.
In order to perform work tasks successfully and interact effectively with coworkers, it is necessary for employees to exert self-control over their feelings, thoughts, and behaviors while at work. For example, self-control helps employees maintain focus on their current goals and assignments, block out distractions and irrelevant information, align their behaviors and displayed emotions with company norms, and suppress deviant and rude impulses. According to resource allocation theories of self-regulation, exercising self-control is not a resource neutral act––rather, it draws from a finite pool of attentional resources. When these resources are depleted, people tend to show diminished self-control on ensuring activities until they have had opportunities for rest or recovery activities. In this article we summarize our research that has examined work-related causes and consequences of self-control depletion. We also review individual differences that have been found to constrain depletion-based effects, thus verifying that people’s skill, motivation, and beliefs feature into self-control processes. Lastly, we highlight research which extends resource allocation theories of self-regulation by considering alternative mechanisms that produce similar patterns as self-control depletion effects, by exploring possible curvilinear effects of depletion, and by shifting attention to self-control recovery (rather than self-control depletion).
Work motivation is a topic of crucial importance to the success of organizations and societies and the well-being of individuals. We organize the work motivation literature over the last century using a meta-framework that clusters theories, findings, and advances in the field according to their primary focus on (a) motives, traits, and motivation orientations (content); (b) features of the job, work role, and broader environment (context); or (c) the mechanisms and processes involved in choice and striving (process). Our integrative review reveals major achievements in the field, including more precise mapping of the psychological inputs and operations involved in motivation and broadened conceptions of the work environment. Cross-cutting trends over the last century include the primacy of goals, the importance of goal striving processes, and a more nuanced conceptualization of work motivation as a dynamic, goal-directed, resource allocation process that unfolds over the related variables of time, experience, and place. Across the field, advances in methodology and measurement have improved the match between theory and research. Ten promising directions for future research are described and field experiments are suggested as a useful means of bridging the research–practice gap.
Based on self-regulation theories of stress processes, this study proposed a model to examine the within-person mediation relationship between morning commuting stressors and self-regulation at work via morning commuting strain. In addition, the study examined the moderating roles of daily task significance, daily family interference with work, and commuting means efficacy in this mediation model. Results from 45 bus commuters' daily diary data over a period of 15 workdays indicated that the amount of morning commuting stressors experienced by the bus commuters was positively related to their morning commuting strain, which, in turn, had a negative impact on self-regulation at work. At the within-person level, daily task significance buffered the negative indirect relationship between morning commuting stressors and self-regulation at work via morning commuting strain, whereas daily family interference with work in the morning exacerbated this negative indirect relationship. Further, at the between-person level, commuting means efficacy buffered this negative indirect relationship such that the negative indirect effect was weaker for workers with higher (vs. lower) commuting means efficacy. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
Employees help on a regular daily basis while at work, yet surprisingly little is known about how responding to help requests affects helpers. Although recent theory suggests that helping may come at a cost to the helper, the majority of the helping literature has focused on the benefits of helping. The current study addresses the complex nature of helping by simultaneously considering its costs and benefits for helpers. Using daily diary data across 3 consecutive work weeks, we examine the relationship between responding to help requests, perceived prosocial impact of helping, and helpers’ regulatory resources. We find that responding to help requests depletes regulatory resources at an increasing rate, yet perceived prosocial impact of helping can replenish resources. We also find that employees’ prosocial motivation moderates these within-person relationships, such that prosocial employees are depleted to a larger extent by responding to help requests, and replenished to a lesser extent by the perceived prosocial impact of helping. Understanding the complex relationship of helping with regulatory resources is important because such resources have downstream effects on helpers’ behavior in the workplace. We discuss the implications of our findings for both theory and practice.
The literature to date has predominantly focused on the benefits of ethical leader behaviors for recipients (e.g., employees and teams). Adopting an actor-centric perspective, in this study we examined whether exhibiting ethical leader behaviors may come at some cost to leaders. Drawing from ego depletion and moral licensing theories, we explored the potential challenges of ethical leader behavior for actors. Across 2 studies which employed multiwave designs that tracked behaviors over consecutive days, we found that leaders’ displays of ethical behavior were positively associated with increases in abusive behavior the following day. This association was mediated by increases in depletion and moral credits owing to their earlier displays of ethical behavior. These results suggest that attention is needed to balance the benefits of ethical leader behaviors for recipients against the challenges that such behaviors pose for actors, which include feelings of mental fatigue and psychological license and ultimately abusive interpersonal behaviors.
Studies that combine moderation and mediation are prevalent in basic and applied psychology research. Typically, these studies are framed in terms of moderated mediation or mediated moderation, both of which involve similar analytical approaches. Unfortunately, these approaches have important shortcomings that conceal the nature of the moderated and the mediated effects under investigation. This article presents a general analytical framework for combining moderation and mediation that integrates moderated regression analysis and path analysis. This framework clarifies how moderator variables influence the paths that constitute the direct, indirect, and total effects of mediated models. The authors empirically illustrate this framework and give step-by-step instructions for estimation and interpretation. They summarize the advantages of their framework over current approaches, explain how it subsumes moderated mediation and mediated moderation, and describe how it can accommodate additional moderator and mediator variables, curvilinear relationships, and structural equation models with latent variables.
Role integration is the new workplace reality for many employees. The prevalence of mobile technologies (e.g., laptops, smartphones, tablets) that are increasingly wearable and nearly always "on" makes it difficult to keep role boundaries separate and distinct. We draw upon boundary theory and construal level theory to hypothesize that role integration behaviors shift people from thinking concretely to thinking more abstractly about their work. The results of an archival study of Enron executives' emails, two experiments, and a multi-wave field study of knowledge workers provide evidence of positive associations between role integration behaviors, higher construal level, and more exploratory learning activities.
Although a large body of work has examined the benefits of transformational
leadership, this work has predominantly focused on recipients of such behaviors.
Recent research and theory, however, suggest that there are also benefits for those
performing behaviors reflective of transformational leadership. Across two experience sampling
studies, we investigate the effects of such behaviors on actors' daily affective
states. Drawing from affective events theory and self-determination theory we
hypothesize and find that engaging in behaviors reflective of transformational
leadership is associated with improvement in actors' daily affect, more so than
engaging in behaviors reflective of transactional, consideration, initiating structure, and
participative leadership. Behaviors reflective of transformational leadership improved
actors' affect in part by fulfilling their daily needs. Furthermore, extraversion and
neuroticism moderated these effects such that extraverts benefitted less whereas
neurotics benefitted more from these behaviors in terms of affective changes. We
consider the theoretical and practical implications of these findings and offer directions
for future research.
Interest in the problem of method biases has a long history in the behavioral sciences. Despite this, a comprehensive summary of the potential sources of method biases and how to control for them does not exist. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to examine the extent to which method biases influence behavioral research results, identify potential sources of method biases, discuss the cognitive processes through which method biases influence responses to measures, evaluate the many different procedural and statistical techniques that can be used to control method biases, and provide recommendations for how to select appropriate procedural and statistical remedies for different types of research settings.