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Showing commitment or incompetence? When and how newcomers' information seeking elevates (degrades) task-related outcomes
Abstract
To date, empirical research exploring the complex mechanisms of when and how information seeking from supervisor affects newcomers' task-related outcomes remains in its infancy. With a sample of 394 newcomers and their supervisors, drawing on the conservation of resources theory and professional image construction theory, we proposed and confirmed two paradoxical paths regarding perceptions of professional image construction – concern about impairing competence-image and confidence in improving commitment-image – that connect newcomers' information seeking from supervisor with their emotional exhaustion during socialization and ultimately can elevate and degrade their task-related outcomes, respectively. In addition, we found that supervisors' favorable feedback weakened the relationship between information seeking from supervisor and competence-image impairment concern, whereas it strengthened the linkage between information seeking and commitment-image improvement confidence. This study thus provides a more comprehensive picture for scholars and practitioners.
... Recent scholarship has connected COR Theory to supervisor-subordinate relations, leader-member exchange, career transitions, and shared resource pools in digital communities (Anzollito and Cooper, 2022;Cai et al., 2023;Chen and Cooper-Thomas, 2023;Liu et al., 2023;Sullivan and Ariss, 2022;Xing et al., 2021). Various studies also highlight that personal, social, and material resources influence early newcomer adjustment, work engagement, and retention (Bauer et al., 2021;Deng et al., 2023;Lan et al., 2020;Pai, 2023;Schuth et al., 2023;Wang et al., 2023). ...
... Based on research findings by (Dunning et al., 2003;Carlton & Peszynski, 2018) shows that incompetence within an organization refers to a lack of skills and knowledge. The findings of the study (Deng et al., 2023) show that incompetence is a lack of experience that will tarnish an employee's professional image in the organization. An incompetent organization may struggle to innovate, adapt to change, or meet the needs of its customers, putting the company at a competitive disadvantage. ...
Intraindividual change over time is the essence of the change phenomenon hypothesized to occur in the individual newcomer adaptation process. Many important adaptation questions cannot be answered without an adequate conceptualization and assessment of intraindividual change. Using a latent growth modeling approach to data collected from 146 doctoral program newcomers over 4 repeated measurements spaced at 1-month intervals, the authors explicitly modeled interindividual differences in intraindividual changes in newcomer proactivities (information seeking, relationship building) and proximal adaptation outcomes (task mastery, role clarity, social integration) during organizational entry. Results indicated that changes in proactivity may be related to newcomer characteristics and adaptation outcomes in interesting ways that have not been previously examined.
Whereas the majority of research to date has shown that having employees with empathic concern brings a number of beneficial outcomes to those on the receiving end, we shift this focus from the targets to a focus on how empathic concern influences the actors. Drawing from conservation of resources (COR) theory and the work-home resources model, we examined the detriments and benefits of empathic concern on the actors themselves by investigating how empathic concern drains and supplies actors' volatile personal resources. Using two experience sampling studies, our results revealed that empathic concern is associated with both resource loss and resource gain. Specifically, empathic concern requires actors to expend their volatile personal resources, leaving them emotionally exhausted and further prompting them to psychologically withdrawal from work. In addition, empathic concern also helps employees acquire new volatile personal resources, boosting their self-efficacy, and further promoting their engagement in organizational citizenship behaviors toward individuals. We also found that individuals with lower trait positive affect are less likely to obtain resource gain (self-efficacy) from empathic concern and more likely to result in resource loss (emotional exhaustion). Overall, our research answers the questions of why and when the negative and positive outcomes of empathic concern are likely to occur for the actors themselves. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
Drawing on conservation of resources theory, we contribute to the behavioral ethics literature by examining how and why organizational socialization processes can affect newcomers’ adoption of unethical behaviors. Specifically, we contend that quality peer coaching (i.e., providing newcomers with job-related guidance and social support) provides newcomers with enhanced self-resources that diminishes emotional exhaustion and thus indirectly reduces newcomer unethical conduct. Conversely, peer coach unethical conduct (i.e., violating ethical norms) increases newcomers’ emotional exhaustion, and thus indirectly increases newcomers’ own unethical acts. Our research also identifies newcomers’ goal orientations as important individual differences that moderate the proposed mediation effects. Newcomers with high mastery orientations respond to high emotional exhaustion by harnessing more resources and identifying new work strategies, thereby engaging in less unethical conduct. Conversely, newcomers with high performance orientations give into emotional exhaustion and engage in unethical conduct as a way of outperforming others while conserving resources. We tested our theoretical model using a sample of peer coaches and newcomers from the Real Estate industry, using objective reporting of peer coaches’ and newcomers’ unethical conduct over a nine-month period.
Over the past 30 years, conservation of resources (COR) theory has become one of the most widely cited theories in organizational psychology and organizational behavior. COR theory has been adopted across the many areas of the stress spectrum, from burnout to traumatic stress. Further attesting to the theory’s centrality, COR theory is largely the basis for the more work-specific leading theory of organizational stress, namely the job demands-resources model. One of the major advantages of COR theory is its ability to make a wide range of specific hypotheses that are much broader than those offered by theories that focus on a single central resource, such as control, or that speak about resources in general. In this article, we will revisit the principles and corollaries of COR theory that inform those more specific hypotheses and will review research in organizational behavior that has relied on the theory. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior Volume 5 is January 21, 2018. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between leader arrogance on subordinate outcomes of feedback seeking, morale, and burnout through its relationships with subordinate feedback environment perceptions. Additionally, perceived organizational support and subordinate feedback orientation are examined as moderators that influence the degree to which leader arrogance exerts its effects on these outcomes.
Design/Methodology/Approach
Survey data were obtained from 302 participants on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk website and analyzed using Hayes’ (2013) PROCESS in SPSS.
Findings
Subordinates with more arrogant supervisors reported less favorable feedback environment perceptions, and subsequently, lower levels of feedback seeking, morale, and higher levels of burnout. Perceived organizational support and feedback orientation were identified as significant moderators in these relationships. Subordinates were less vulnerable to the negative outcomes of leader arrogance when they experienced higher levels of perceived organizational support. Finally, subordinates with favorable feedback orientations exhibited lower levels of feedback seeking in the face of the unfavorable feedback environments associated with arrogant leaders.
Implications
Given these findings, leader arrogance should be of great concern to organizations, as subordinates exposed to arrogant leaders are likely to experience adverse outcomes. Supplementing perceptions of organizational support may help alleviate some of these effects. Additionally, subordinates with favorable feedback orientations may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of leader arrogance on outcomes of feedback seeking and morale.
Originality/Value
This study is the first to demonstrate the interpersonal implications of leader arrogance for subordinates, as well as explore mediators that play a role in these relationships.
Separate streams of organizational socialization research have recognized the importance of (a) newcomer proactivity and (b) manager support in facilitating newcomer adjustment. However, extant research has largely focused on the newcomers’ experience, leaving the perspectives of managers during socialization relatively unexplored—a theoretical gap that has implications both for newcomer adjustment and manager-newcomer interactions that may serve as a basis for future relationship development. Drawing from the “interlocked” employee behavior argument of Weick (1979), we propose that managers’ perception of newcomers’ proactive behaviors are associated with concordant manager behaviors, which, in turn, support newcomer adjustment. Further, we investigate a cognitive mechanism—managers’ evaluation of newcomers’ commitment to adjust—which we expect underlies the proposed relationship between newcomers’ proactive behaviors and managers’ supportive behaviors. Using a time-lagged, 4-phase data collection of a sample of new software engineers in India and their managers, we were able to test our hypothesized model as well as rule out alternative explanations via multilevel structural equation modeling. Results broadly supported our model even after controlling for manager-newcomer social exchange relationship, proactive personalities of both newcomers and managers, and potential effects of coworker information providing. The implications of our findings for theory and practice are discussed.
Retaining newcomers and enhancing their service performance are critical issues for the human resource management and hospitality management fields. However, newcomers have just begun to learn the organizational display rules and often encounter more emotional problems than veteran employees. Thus, how organizations help the newcomers to manage their emotions in order to deliver better service is an important issue. Based on the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model, this study explores the relationship between newcomers’ emotional labor and service performance, and examines whether human resource practices such as service training and mentoring functions can moderate this association. We collected data from hospitality newcomers and their supervisors from 34 hotels. A total of 244 valid paired questionnaires were collected during two different time phases. The results of hierarchical regression analysis show that newcomers’ deep acting positively relates to service performance and service training can enhance this relationship. In addition, mentoring functions also differentially moderate the relationships between the two emotional labor strategies and service performance.
Psychological research often yields null results on self-reported emotion as measured by the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988), even when using manipulations that might intuitively be expected to be emotionally impactful. Three studies reported here support the hypothesis that changes in self-reported negative emotion may be detected more sensitively when discrete emotions are measured rather than by either PANAS NA or a measure created by combining discrete emotions, and when participants were instructed to report how they felt during an emotion-eliciting event versus how they felt afterward. In Study 1, emotion was manipulated with disgusting photographs, in Study 2, with recall of social exclusion/inclusion, and in Study 3, with reminders of personal mortality. Discussion focuses on implications for detecting emotional changes in psychological research, and the inadvisability of interpreting null results on an insensitive measure as indicating that emotional changes did not occur. (PsycINFO Database Record
This study focuses on the conditions under which emotional exhaustion leads to employee unsafe behavior. In a sample of 592 construction workers nested in 33 groups, we found that both emotional exhaustion and unsafe behavior norms were positively related to unsafe behavior by employees. Unsafe behavior norms moderated the relationship between emotional exhaustion and unsafe behavior, such that high group unsafe behavior norms strengthened the emotional exhaustion-employee unsafe behavior link. Furthermore, results indicated a three-way interaction effect in which employees with high emotional exhaustion conducted the highest levels of unsafe behavior when both group unsafe behavior norms and personal control over work were high. This paper provides important implications on understanding the influence of group norms on employee unsafe behavior, as well as its magnifying effect with personal control on the emotional exhaustion-unsafe behavior link.
The construct of feeling trusted reflects the perception that another party is willing to accept vulnerability to one's actions. Although this construct has received far less attention than trusting, the consensus is that believing their supervisors trust them has benefits for employees' job performance. Our study challenges that consensus by arguing that feeling trusted can be exhausting for employees. Drawing on Stevan Hobfoll's conservation of resources theory, we develop a model in which feeling trusted fills an employee with pride-a benefit for exhaustion and performance-while also increasing perceived workload and concerns about reputation maintenance-burdens for exhaustion and performance. We test our model in a field study using a sample of public transit bus drivers in London, England. Our results suggest that feeling trusted is a double-edged sword for job performance, bringing with it both benefits and burdens. Given that recommendations for managers generally encourage placing trust in employees, these results have important practical implications.
The aim of this chapter is to provide a comprehensive review of research on newcomer proactive behavior. We start by outlining why proactive behavior is important for new employees today and situating this within the broader proactive behavior literature. Following this, the chapter has six main sections. First, we outline the range of proactive behaviors that newcomers use, under the three categories of changing the role or environment (e.g., changing work procedures), self-change (e.g., feedback seeking), and mutual development (e.g., networking). Second, we discuss the consequences of each proactive behavior by newcomers that has been studied in detail and third, we examine the antecedents of newcomer proactive behaviors. Fourth, we outline longitudinal patterns of change in newcomer proactive behavior. Fifth, we present ideas around the potential for proactive behavior to be maladaptive for organizations and also for newcomers themselves. This is followed with a sixth section on practical implications, comprising a review of the sparse research to date on interventions to increase newcomer proactive behavior. We finish with ideas for future research and concluding thoughts.
This meta-analysis examined how demand and resource correlates and behavioral and attitudinal correlates were related to each of the 3 dimensions of job burnout. Both the demand and resource correlates were more strongly related to emotional exhaustion than to either depersonalization or personal accomplishment. Consistent with the conservation of resources theory of stress, emotional exhaustion was more strongly related to the demand correlates than to the resource correlates, suggesting that workers might have been sensitive to the possibility of resource loss. The 3 burnout dimensions were differentially related to turnover intentions, organizational commitment, and control coping. Implications for research and the amelioration of burnout are discussed.
Proposed as a theory of motivation, the basic tenet of conservation of resources (COR) theory is that humans are motivated to protect their current resources and acquire new resources. Despite its recent popularity in the organizational behavior literature, several criticisms of the theory have emerged, primarily related to the central concept of resources. In this review, we address concerns regarding the conceptualization, conservation, acquisition, fluctuation, and measurement of resources. We highlight gaps in the COR literature that can be addressed by integrating research from other areas of psychology and management. In this manner, we hope to push the COR literature forward by resolving several concerns and providing suggestions for future research that might address other concerns.
Previous studies of newcomer socialization have underlined the importance of newcomers' information seeking for their adjustment to the organization, and the conflict literature has consistently reported negative effects of relationship conflict with coworkers. However, to date, no study has examined the consequences of relationship conflict on newcomers' information seeking. In this study, we examined newcomers' reactions when they have relationship conflict with their coworkers, and hence cannot obtain necessary information from them. Drawing upon belongingness theory, we propose a model that moves from breach of belongingness to its proximal and distal consequences, to newcomer information seeking, and then to task-related outcomes. In particular, we propose that 2 paths exist-1 coworker-centric and the other supervisor-centric-that may have simultaneous yet contrasting influence on newcomer adjustment. To test our model, we employ a 3-wave data collection research design with egocentric and Likert-type multisource surveys among a sample of new software engineers and their supervisors working in India. This study contributes to the field by linking the literatures on relationship conflict and newcomer information seeking and suggesting that despite conflict with coworkers, newcomers may succeed in organizations by building relationships with and obtaining information from supervisors. (PsycINFO Database Record
(c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).
Publisher Summary Individuals come to “know” their own attitudes, emotions, and other internal states partially by inferring them from observations of their own overt behavior and/ or the circumstances in which this behavior occurs. Thus, to the extent that internal cues are weak, ambiguous, or uninterpretable, the individual is functionally in the same position as an outside observer, an observer who must necessarily rely upon those same external cues to infer the individual's inner states. This chapter traces the conceptual antecedents and empirical consequences of these propositions, attempts to place the theory in a slightly enlarged frame of reference, and clarifies just what phenomena the theory can and cannot account for in the rapidly growing experimental literature of self-attribution phenomena. Several experiments and paradigms from the cognitive dissonance literature are amenable to self-perception interpretations. But precisely because such experiments are subject to alternative interpretations, they cannot be used as unequivocal evidence for self-perception theory. The reinterpretation of cognitive dissonance phenomena and other self-perception phenomena have been discussed. The chapter highlights some differences between self-perception and interpersonal perception and shift of paradigm in social psychology. It discusses some unsolved problems, such as the conceptual status of noncognitive response classes and the strategy of functional analysis.
Although individuals can derive substantial benefits from exchanging information and ideas, many individuals are reluctant to seek advice from others. We find that people are reticent to seek advice for fear of appearing incompetent. This fear, however, is misplaced. We demonstrate that individuals perceive those who seek advice as more competent than those who do not. This effect is moderated by task difficulty, advisor egocentrism, and advisor expertise. Individuals perceive those who seek advice as more competent when the task is difficult rather than when it is easy, when people seek advice from them personally rather than when they seek advice from others and when people seek advice from experts rather than from nonexperts or not at all.
This paper was accepted by Yuval Rottenstreich, judgment and decision making.
This study replicates, integrates, and extends prior research on the dispositional, contextual, and cognitive antecedents of feedback-seeking behavior. Regression analysis was used to
analyze data collected from a sample of salespeople (N = 310) from 2 Fortune 500 companies. The study hypotheses were supported with the following results. First, the individual disposition of learning goal orientation and the contextual factors of leader consideration and leader initiation of
structure influenced cognitions about the perceived cost and value of feedback seeking. Second, the strength of the
relationship of learning goal orientation with the cost and value perceptions was moderated by the leadership style of the supervisor.
Research on information seeking, feedback seeking, and newcomer proactive behavior reveals that employees use various criteria in deciding how to act. This article investigates an integrative framework for such criteria proposed by Cooper-Thomas and Wilson, comprising three domains (performance, ego, social) and two factors (cost, benefit). Three independent scenario-based studies were used to test their model. The results supported some propositions of the model, such as the primacy of performance concerns, yet failed to support other propositions, with benefits consistently predominating over costs. Factors that might underlie the contradictory results were systematically controlled for, namely the sample, hypothetical scenario, and initial asset position. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Women now constitute a significant portion of the workforce, making the effects of pregnancy on professional image (others' perceptions of competence and character at work) more salient. While opinions regarding how pregnant women should manage others' impressions and the consequences of doing so abound (Noveck, 2012) research to substantiate or disconfirm these opinions has lagged. In this paper, we present three studies that develop and test a model of social identity-based impression management (SIM) techniques used by pregnant workers. In Study 1 (n = 35), we utilized qualitative methods to identify the motives and strategies used by pregnant women to manage their professional images. In the second study, we collected two samples (n = 199 and n = 133) to develop and validate two scales based on the motives and strategies identified in Study 1. In Study 3 (n = 200), we employed a time-lagged design to examine how SIM motives and strategies affect important workplace outcomes: perceived discrimination, burnout, and returning to one's job after maternity leave. Our findings demonstrate both positive and negative outcomes of the motives and strategies women use to manage their images at work when pregnant.
Although information-seeking efforts during organizational entry are of critical importance to newcomers' successful organizational assimilation, the means by which new hires seek information has received scant research attention. Consequently, in this article we develop a theoretical model depicting factors that may affect newcomers' information-seeking behaviors, examine the means or tactics by which they seek information, and present a series of heuristically-oriented propositions concerning newcomers' use of these tactics.
This article shows that the joint effect of tie strength and image-impairment concern on negative word-of-mouth (NWOM) transmission is different for males and females and argues that this effect occurs because of differences in their relative concern for self versus others. For males, there was not a significant interaction between image-impairment concern and tie strength on NWOM transmission likelihood. In contrast, for females the effect of image-impairment concern on NWOM transmission likelihood was stronger for weak ties than for strong ties. The robustness of the findings were tested in two additional studies by directly manipulating relative concern for self versus others and by employing an indirect proxy: interdependent and independent self-construal. Self- versus other-focused thoughts mediated the joint effect on NWOM transmission.
This study examined how information seeking and proximal adjustment outcomes (role clarity and
social integration) mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and distal
adjustment outcome (affective organizational commitment) in work group context. The results
of hierarchical linear modeling involving 212 newcomers and their 53 immediate supervisors
revealed that information seeking mediated the relationship between transformational leadership
and proximal adjustment outcomes. These in turn were positively related to distal adjustment
outcome. Furthermore, work group structure was found to moderate the relationship between
transformational leadership and newcomer information seeking.
This study examines a motivational premise of burnout: in order to burn out, an employee must first be fired up. Based on the dualistic model of passion, we propose that the types of passion –harmonious or obsessive – that drive novice teachers differentially affect the three components of burnout. We further propose that job autonomy (i.e. decision latitude) differentially predict the two types of passion for work. These hypotheses are tested in two studies conducted in Canada in teachers with five years’ or less experience. Study 1, using a cross-sectional design, showed that job autonomy positively predicted harmonious passion but negatively predicted obsessive passion. Harmonious passion negatively predicted all three components of burnout, whereas obsessive passion positively predicted emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. A second, 12-month longitudinal study revealed unidirectional effects of job autonomy on the two types of passion. The results also showed unidirectional effects of harmonious passion on professional efficacy and obsessive passion on emotional exhaustion. Neither type of passion predicted cynicism over time. These findings suggest that a more nuanced understanding of passion is required to predict burnout at career start. Implications for theory and further research on burnout and passion for work are discussed.
Although some research suggests that perceptions of HRM practices are associated with lower levels of employee well-being, other research shows just the opposite. In the present study, we attempt to reconcile these discrepant findings by incorporating the role of HRM attributions. Our model posits that when employees perceive that their organisation's HRM practices are intended to improve their job performance, they experience higher levels of job involvement, which leads to lower levels of emotional exhaustion. Conversely, when employees believe that their organisation's HRM practices are intended to reduce organisational costs, they experience work overload, which translates into higher levels of emotional exhaustion. Parallel mediation analyses of survey data collected from employees of a construction and consultancy organisation at two time periods (n = 180) supported this theoretical model.
Prior literature suggests that it is becoming increasingly pervasive for social media users to experience social media fatigue. Although researchers have explored many possible antecedents of social media fatigue, the additive influences and mechanisms of service provider and user drivers are unclear. Drawing on the conversation of resources theory, the present paper identified information overload and system features overload in using social media, together with users’ privacy invasion and cyberbullying perception as critical antecedents of emotional exhaustion, which was further associated with social media fatigue. Data were collected from 2102 users of the social media, and we employed structural equation modeling (SEM) and Bootstrap to test the proposed theoretical model. The results show that both social-media-related factors (information overload and system features overload) and user-related factors (privacy invasion and cyberbullying) significantly influence emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, these social-media-related and user-related factors indirectly impact social media fatigue through emotional exhaustion. These findings enrich the social media fatigue literature by expanding the antecedence space of social media fatigue and by unveiling the underlying psychological mechanism of the fatigue process. Our research also benefits practitioners by providing implications regarding social media application design, which could play an important role in improving user experiences that facilitate retention.
Purpose
This study investigates why and when leader favorable feedback inhibits employees’ withdrawal behaviors. The authors propose that leader favorable feedback reduces employees’ withdrawal behaviors via employees’ gratitude toward the leader. The authors further posit that this mediation is contingent on leader-member exchange, arguing that as the quality of leader-member exchange increases, employees are more likely to feel grateful and are less likely to withdraw from work.
Design/methodology/approach
Two-wave, multisource field data collected from 662 employees were used to test our hypotheses.
Findings
Employees’ feelings of gratitude mediated the negative relationship between leader favorable feedback and employees’ withdrawal behavior. The negative effect of gratitude on withdrawal behavior was stronger under higher levels of leader-member exchange, as was the indirect effect of leader favorable feedback on withdrawal behavior via employees’ gratitude.
Originality/value
These results contribute to a social exchange-based understanding of gratitude as an emotional mechanism underlying the feedback and withdrawal relationship and provide important practical implications for managers.
This research tests whether the stressor-detachment model can explain the mechanism between workplace ostracism and employees’ unsafe behaviors. We used a self-report questionnaire to assess Chinese construction workers’ workplace ostracism, psychological detachment, emotional exhaustion, and unsafe behaviors. In total, 349 valid questionnaires were collected. We used cross-sectional structural equation modeling to assess our conceptual model. The results indicate that workplace ostracism has a significant effect on psychological detachment and emotional exhaustion and thus affects employees’ unsafe behaviors. In addition, workplace ostracism could influence employees’ unsafe behaviors through the sequential combination of psychological detachment and emotional exhaustion. Moreover, psychological detachment mediates the relationship between workplace ostracism and emotional exhaustion. Taken together, our findings extend the application of the stressor-detachment model by revealing how workplace ostracism influences employees’ unsafe behaviors.
How does one learn and build credibility simultaneously? Such is the challenge faced by an increasing number of professionals, who must quickly get to grips with new assignments while displaying sufficient knowledge to be regarded as experts. If they do not, they will be unable to exert influence over the situation. To address this puzzle, we draw on data from 21 months of participant observation during consulting assignments, and interviews with 79 management consultants. Building on Goffman’s notion of face, we identify ‘learning–credibility tension’ – a discrepancy between a newcomer position that requires professionals to learn, and a role-based image that requires credibility – as a salient and costly issue during organizational entry. Specifically, we find that consultants experience threats to their face during interactions with clients. They deal with these threats by performing individual tactics that help them reduce the anxiety associated with learning–credibility tension, and support their relationship with clients. Our study builds theory in socialization by revealing tactics that allow professionals to keep face while seeking the information they require to adjust to new settings. We also contribute to substantive debates on management consulting by relating insights from the sociology of professions to contemporary knowledge workers.
Drawing from conservation of resources theory, this study aims to create new knowledge on the antecedents of abusive supervision. Results across 2 independent field studies within a manufacturing context (Study 1) and a customer service context (Study 2) consistently demonstrated a 3-way interaction pattern, such that supervisors' experiences of emotional exhaustion, perceived subordinate performance, and self-monitoring were jointly associated with subordinates' abusive supervision perceptions. A supplementary scenario experiment further corroborated this pattern. Together, the present studies illustrate a contingency model of abusive supervision's origins, highlighting emotional exhaustion as an important risk factor that is particularly likely to trigger abusive behavior among supervisors with lower (rather than higher) self-monitoring who are faced with a relatively underperforming subordinate. As such, this research advances the abusive supervision literature by offering new insights into the complex resource conservation processes that may give rise to subordinates' abuse perceptions.
The article presents research on employment. The effects of underemployment, in which the worker has either accepted a job affording far less satisfaction and compensation than previous ones, or has stopped job seeking altogether, are considered. Underemployment is becoming a more prominent economic problem in the U.S. as the level of education and work experience in the population outstrips the number of jobs available for persons with those qualifications. The negative psychological effects of underemployment are found to be significant, and workers who regard themselves as underemployed hamper organizational effectiveness.
This article asserts that professional image construction is the key to establishing a favorable reputation among diverse constituents in the 21st century work force. Professional image refers to the perceptions from colleagues and clients of another's competence, character and composure. Impression management is a process in which people seek to shape the image others have of them through their verbal and/or behavioral projection of information about themselves. Social identity-based impression management strategies are aimed toward shaping the manner in which others view individuals in terms of their social identity group memberships. Construction involves deciding what kind of impression to generate, based upon how one wants others to view him or her as a member of his or her social identity group in a given context, and how to present oneself in order to generate the desired impression. Professional identification can influence the motivation of an individual to change the impressions that others have of him or her. Effectively crafting a professional image is likely to be critical for individuals who strongly identify with their work, given the critical role that image plays in determining self-consistency and career advancement.
This study explores the activation dimension of affect in organizations by focusing on both individual employees and their work climate. Drawing on affect research and demands-abilities fit perspective, I have developed a model predicting that climate-level activation would deplete employees' emotional resources and trait-level action would function as an inner resource helping employees buffer themselves from their work demands. The results of a cross-level study, conducted in a sample of 257 employees and their supervisors within 40 work units across 11 organizations, supported all but one of the hypotheses. Employees whose trait-level activation was lower than the activation level of their work climate experienced higher levels of emotional exhaustion and thus were more likely to disengage from their work in forms of increased surface acting with their coworkers and psychological withdrawal, and reduced affective commitment to and intention to remain in their organization.
This article aims to understand how trust in the supervisor contributes to the development of employees’ social capital using Conservation of Resources theory as a theoretical framework and networking ability as an indicator of social capital development. We hypothesize that the relationship between newcomers’ trust in the supervisor and networking ability will be mediated by feedback seeking from the supervisor and moderated by emotional exhaustion. Based on a three-wave time-lagged study of newcomers (N = 224), we found trust in the supervisor to be indirectly and positively related to networking ability through the mediating influence of feedback seeking from the supervisor. In addition, feedback seeking interacted with emotional exhaustion in predicting networking ability such that it was more positively related to it at high levels of emotional exhaustion. The indirect relationship of trust to networking ability as mediated by feedback seeking was also stronger at high levels of emotional exhaustion. We discuss this study’s implications for our understanding of supervisors’ role and newcomers’ experience during entry, as well as for social capital research.
Drawing on conservation of resources theory, this study examined the link between negative mentoring experiences (i.e., interpersonal problems) perceived by mentors and their work-family conflict (WFC) by focusing on the mediating role of emotional exhaustion and the moderating role of revenge. The results of a field survey of 187 mentors in China supported all of our hypotheses, indicating that interpersonal problems perceived by mentors were positively related to their WFC. This relationship was also found to be mediated by the mentors’ emotional exhaustion. In addition, revenge against protégés was found to moderate the main effect of interpersonal problems on emotional exhaustion and the indirect effect of interpersonal problems on WFC. Specifically, revenge exacerbated the positive relationship between interpersonal problems and emotional exhaustion. Further, emotional exhaustion mediated the indirect effect of interpersonal problems on WFC when the level of revenge was high, but not when it was low. The findings of this study provide insightful theoretical contributions and managerial implications that indicate new directions for research related to mentoring and work-family relationships.
Background:
The retention of young graduate nurses has become a major management challenge among hospitals in Western countries, which is amplified in a context of aging of populations and an increasing demand for services from patients. Moreover, as it has been reported that 50% of experienced nurses do not recommend a career in nursing, it is likely that retention problems occur not only at the level of the organization, but also at the level of the nursing profession. Although research has identified some predictors of nurse turnover, it is unclear which factors influence nurses' turnover from the organization and from the profession and how these factors interrelate with one another over time.
Objective:
The present study extends previous research on nurse turnover by looking at the combined effects of nurses' pre-entry expectations, perceived high-involvement work practices, and professional self-image, on intended and actual turnover from the organization and the profession.
Design and methods:
A prospective, longitudinal study of a sample of 160 graduated nurses affiliated with the Quebec Nurses' Association, Canada, was conducted. Participants were surveyed at three points in time, spread over a 3-year period. Graduated nurses' pre-entry expectations and professional self-image were surveyed at graduation (Time 1), while perceived high-involvement work practices, professional self-image, and intention to leave the organization and the profession were captured six months following nurses' entry into the labor market (Time 2). Finally, participants were surveyed with respect to organizational and professional turnover three years after the Time 2 survey (Time 3). Structural equations modeling was used to examine the structure of the measures and the relationships among the constructs.
Results:
Although pre-entry expectations had no effect, perceived high-involvement work practices were positively related to Time 2, professional self-image (controlling for pre-entry professional self-image). Moreover, high-involvement work practices exerted an indirect, negative effect on organizational and professional turnover through intention to leave the organization, and an indirect negative effect on intention to leave the profession through professional self-image. Nonetheless, professional self-image did not affect turnover.
Conclusions:
The current study indicates that hospitals and nurse directors can take advantage of developing high-involvement work practices as these practices foster a stronger professional self-image among nurses, thereby contributing to their sense of value as care providers, and indirectly reduce intended and actual turnover from the organization and the profession.
Learning is central to newcomer socialization, but research has rarely investigated the individual motivations that predict learning. Drawing from motivated action theory, this study examines newcomers’ learning goal orientation and communal goal strivings, and their effects on the different domains of learning through two separate routes of information‐seeking and relationship‐building proactive behaviours. In Study 1, we develop and validate a scale for communal goal strivings, demonstrating the empirical distinctiveness of the proposed construct from related constructs of prosocial motivation and need to belong. Study 2 involved a 2‐wave survey of 185 university student interns investigating newcomer learning. The results revealed that learning goal orientation predicted greater information seeking in the form of direct inquiry, which in turn predicted role, organization, and social learning. Communal goal strivings predicted the relationship‐building proactive behaviour of networking, and increased social and organization learning. These results underscore the value of goal strivings during socialization and provide a nuanced understanding of the relationships between goal strivings, proactive behaviours, and newcomer learning. Practical implications are discussed.
Practitioner points
Organizations keen to hire proactive employees can select job applicants high in both learning goal orientation and communal goal strivings.
Organizations should not treat newcomer learning as a single entity. Our results suggest that organizations can encourage specific newcomer proactive behaviours to meet targeted learning objectives in the socialization process.
To encourage newcomers’ proactivity and learning, greater attention should be accorded to the organizational environment, emphasizing the social aspects of the socialization process. This includes highlighting the importance of teams and workgroups.
This study examined the extent to which 3 dimensions of personal goals-commitment, attainability, and progress-were predictive of students' subjective well-being over 1 semester. At the beginning of a new term, 88 Ss provided a list of their personal goals. Goal attributes and subjective well-being were measured at 4 testing periods. Goal commitment was found to moderate the extent to which differences in goal attainability accounted for changes in subjective well-being. Progress in goal achievement mediated the effect of the Goal Commitment × Goal Attainability on Subjective Well-Being interaction. Results are discussed in terms of a need for addition and refinement of assumptions linking personal goals to subjective well-being.
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.
In this study, the effects of information seeking on newcomer socialization are assessed. The results suggest that by seeking information, organizational newcomers can facilitate the socialization process. The frequency with which 135 new staff accountants sought specific types of information during their first 6 months of employment was related to how well they had mastered their job, defined their role, learned about their organization's culture, and become socially integrated. In contrast to findings from research focusing on the organization's role in socialization, these findings suggest that newcomers are proactive information seekers who take an active role in adjusting to their new environment.
Conservation of resources (COR) theory was originally introduced as a framework for understanding and predicting the consequences of major and traumatic stress, but following the work of Hobfoll and Shirom (1993), COR theory has been adopted to understanding and predicting work-related stress and both the stress and resilience that occur within work settings and work culture. COR theory underscores the critical role of resource possession, lack, loss and gain and depicts personal, social and material resources co-travelling in resource caravans, rather than piecemeal. We briefly review the principles of COR theory and integrate it in the crossover model, which provides a key mechanism for multi-person exchange of emotions, experiences and resources. Understanding the impact of resource reservoirs, resource passageways and crossover provides a framework for research and intervention promoting resilience to employees as well as to organizations. It emphasizes that the creation and maintenance of resource caravan passageways promote resource gain climates through resource crossover processes. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Although the stress and socialization literatures have flourished over the past several decades, they have done so largely independently, and our understanding of the cost of stress to organizations in the form of newcomer turnover, lowered adjustment, and the health and well-being of newcomers is largely unknown. This review takes an explicitly newcomer-centric perspective toward the socialization process by examining newcomer experiences through the lens of popular models of work stress, including the job demands-resources model, the transactional theory of stress, and the challenge-hindrance stressor framework. In doing so, we identify individual and work-related factors that contribute to the experience of stress for newcomers and point to ways in which organizational and employee-driven inputs can assist in building and acquiring important resources needed to cope with the demands faced in a new work role. In addition, we offer a framework that incorporates individual experiences and behaviors as they relate to newcomer stress in the context of socialization. This framework delineates the newcomer stress appraisal process and describes the impact these appraisals have on the experience of stress or engagement for new employees as well as the behaviors that can be expected in reaction to those states. Through this process, our review highlights natural points for integration between stress and socialization research and identifies potential areas for future investigation that leverage understanding of work stress to expand socialization theory and practice.
The aim of this research is to investigate the relationship between coworker incivility, emotional exhaustion, and organizational outcomes measured by job satisfaction, job performance, and turnover intention. Working with a sample of 286 retail bank employees in South Korea, structural equation modeling is employed to test four hypotheses drawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory and affective events theory (AET). According to the analyses, while employee incivility positively affects emotional exhaustion, emotional exhaustion has a negative effect on job satisfaction and job performance. In addition, emotional exhaustion has a positive impact on turnover intention among organizational employees. These results imply that to better understand the relationship between coworker incivility and organizational outcomes, it is necessary to consider emotional exhaustion as an important mediating variable. The theoretical and practical implications of this study are discussed, together with its limitations and future research directions. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
This study examines the effectiveness of the feedforward interview for improving the job performance of employees relative to a traditional performance appraisal interview in a business equipment firm. Managers (n = 25) were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. Employees (n = 70) who engaged in a feedforward interview with their manager were observed by an anonymous peer to perform significantly better on the job four months later than employees (n = 75) who received the company's traditional performance appraisal interview. The finding that the feedforward intervention increased performance relative to the performance appraisal indicates that the effect is a relatively enduring one. The results suggest that the feedforward interview should prove useful for human resource managers who are searching for ways to increase the performance of their organization's human resources over and above the traditional performance appraisal. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.