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Coping with uncertainty: The interaction of psychological safety and authentic leadership in their effects on defensive decision making
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While numerous studies have delved into the ramifications of job insecurity for organizational outcomes, past endeavors have not adequately unveiled the mediating and moderating factors in the connection between job insecurity and safety behavior, especially from a positive psychology standpoint. Furthermore, the interaction between organizational leadership and job insecurity has been underexplored, despite the critical role of leaders during periods of job insecurity. Addressing these research gaps, we have devised a theoretical framework suggesting that meaningfulness of work might act as an intermediary in the link between job insecurity and safety behavior. We also hypothesize that ethical leadership might mitigate the adverse effects of job insecurity on the meaningfulness of work. Data were collected three separate times from 235 employees in the Republic of Korea. Our empirical evidence substantiates that meaningfulness of work indeed serves as a bridge between job insecurity and safety behavior. Additionally, the presence of ethical leadership moderates the interrelation between job insecurity and meaningfulness of work positively, attenuating the detrimental influence of job insecurity. These insights emphasize the fundamental roles of both meaningfulness of work (as a mediator) and ethical leadership (as a moderator) in defining the nexus between job insecurity and safety behavior.
Purpose
In the period of organizational change and transformation, the attitude of employees towards change has become a key factor in the success of organizational change. Based on the uncertainty management theory (UMT), the paper considers authentic leadership as an important antecedent of employee resistance to change and explores the mediating role of perceived uncertainty and the moderating role of uncertainty avoidance between authentic leadership and employee resistance to change.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper conducted a questionnaire survey study and a scenario experimental study. In study 1, the authors collected two stages of data from 256 employees in Central China, one month apart. In study 2, the authors designed a scenario experiment and invited 130 Chinese adults to participate.
Findings
The authors find that authentic leadership can effectively reduce employee resistance to change by reducing employee perceived uncertainty. In addition, for individuals with a higher (vs lower) degree of uncertainty avoidance, the direct impact of authentic leadership on perceived uncertainty and the indirect impact of authentic leadership on resistance to change through perceived uncertainty are both stronger (vs lower).
Originality/value
The presented results reveal the mechanism between authentic leadership and employee resistance to change from cognitive perspective and depict an important step toward understanding how authentic leadership and employee uncertainty avoidance interact and how they interact with employee resistance to change.
This year, we celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of ‘A Behavioral Theory of the Firm’ (BTF) (Cyert and March in A behavioral theory of the firm, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1963), which central ideas and concepts are fundamental to almost all theoretical and empirical work focusing on organizational decision-making. In particular, the four underlying relational concepts of BTF: (1) quasi resolution of conflict, (2) uncertainty avoidance, (3) problemistic search, and (4) organizational learning provide theoretical explanation for firms’ decision-making behavior. However, as literature has grown, focus of the studies and application of the concepts are becoming increasingly fragmented, leading to parallel and decoupled insights rather than cohesive and complementary explanations. We conduct a systematic literature review of 114 publications in top-ranked journals to provide a deeper understanding of the applications of BTF’s four relational concepts and their interrelation. Reviewing and synthesizing extant literature, we identify seven different organizational decision areas in which mainly two relational concepts, problemistic search and organizational learning, are applied to explain specific firm behaviors. The relational concept of quasi resolution of conflict and uncertainty avoidance seem underrepresented or almost neglected in the BTF-related research. Furthermore, we provide an integrative process framework connecting the four relational concepts and related research insights, and thereby, highlight opportunities for future research.
Whereas a plethora of research investigated subordinates who accept their leaders’ influence attempts (i.e., those who follow), we focus here on the reversed perspective, namely subordinates who decide not to follow their leaders’ requests. For example, a subordinate may intentionally lower their effort, regularly pass-off work tasks to colleagues, or take the leader for a fool. The purpose of the present study was to develop a conceptual account of this phenomenon. More specifically, we aimed to develop a classification of subordinate resistance as perceived by leaders that can guide future research on this multifaceted phenomenon. To achieve this goal, we conducted 40 semi-structured interviews with organizational leaders. We utilized topic modeling to map out five categories of subordinate resistance (i.e., entitlement, contact seeking/avoiding, effort minimization, emotionally fluctuating communication, and undermining team cohesion). In a second study (N = 1,229), we investigated the frequency with which leaders experienced each category of resistance, and explored leader-related antecedents (demographics, cognitive ability, personality) we well as situational antecedents (industry). We discuss a proposed nomological net of subordinate resistance, consequences that subordinates (and leaders) might face when engaging in (experiencing) subordinate resistance, and how the person–situation debate may contribute to understanding when subordinate resistance occurs.
As the global economy deteriorates because of the great shocks such as COVID-19 pandemic and wars among nations, the business environment is suffered from uncertainty and risk. To deal with it, several firms have attempted to maximize its efficiency via downsizing and restructuring to diminish costs. Thus, the degree of anxiety is increased among employees who worry about the loss of their job. The current research hypothesizes that job insecurity increases employees' knowledge hiding behavior by diminishing the degree of their psychological safety. In other words, psychological safety functions as the underlying process (i.e., mediator) in the job insecurity-knowledge hiding behavior link. Furthermore, this paper tries to examine the boundary condition of how to decrease the detrimental influence of job insecurity, focusing on the moderating effect of servant leadership. Utilizing a 3-wave time-lagged data from 365 Korean employees, we empirically demonstrated that employees who perceive job insecurity are less likely to perceive psychological safety, eventually increasing their knowledge hiding behavior. We also found that servant leadership functions as a positive moderator which buffers the negative impact of job insecurity on psychological safety. Theoretical and practical contributions are described.
Considering the importance of safety behavior, the current study investigates the relationship between CSR and safety behavior. To be specific, we delve into the underlying mechanism and its contingent factor of the association. This paper proposes that CSR promotes employee safety behavior through the mediation of psychological safety. In addition, authentic leadership may function as a positive moderator that amplifies the positive effect of CSR on psychological safety. Utilizing 3-wave time-lagged survey data from 213 South Korean workers, the current study empirically tests the hypotheses by establishing a moderated mediation model by utilizing structural equation modeling. The results demonstrate that CSR enhances employees' safety behavior by increasing their psychological safety and that authentic leadership positively moderates the relationship between CSR and psychological safety. This research's findings have meaningful theoretical and practical implications.
We provide a review of progress in the field of organizational justice, paying special attention to articles published in Personnel Psychology. We begin by describing the foundation of the literature, where work linked adherence to distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice rules to employee cognitions, emotions, behaviors, and well‐being. We then turn to the extensions that marked the next stage of the literature's evolution, including justice climate, third‐party perspectives, and justice enactment–where managerial motives, characteristics, and context are cast as predictors of justice rule adherence. Next, we move to suggestions for future research, including manager‐based outcomes of justice rule adherence, more explicit integrations with the social justice literature, and gaining a better understanding of the fairness of artificial intelligence systems. We close with the practical implications of the justice literature, many of which have been informed by advancements in the pages of Personnel Psychology. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
This study uses a relational work design perspective to explore substitutes for leadership behaviors that promote team meaningfulness and performance. We propose that team task interdependence, a structural feature facilitating interaction among team members, can be a substitute for the contributions of empowering leadership. Data were collected from 47 R&D and technology implementation teams across three organizations in a cross-sectional field study. The results revealed that high task interdependence attenuated the contributions of empowering leadership concerning team meaningfulness and, indirectly, to team performance. These findings highlight that the importance of leaders as generators of team meaningfulness is contingent on team relational work design.
Defensive decision making occurs when the decision‐maker does not choose the option that is in the best interest of an organization or client but instead chooses a less effective but lower risk alternative that protects him or her in case something goes wrong. Such decisions are widespread across occupations and sectors and cause substantive damage to organizations. In a first step, we developed a scale to measure defensive decision making and test its validity. The scale covers two distinct but related dimensions: avoidance and approach. In a subsequent, two‐wave study, we examined the antecedents of defensive decision making using conservation of resources theory as a theoretical lens. An environment characterized by higher psychological safety can reduce resource depletion and diminishes defensive decision making. In contrast, job insecurity can result in a threat to personal resources, which increases the likelihood that employees choose defensive decision s.
Practitioners points
People engage in defensive decision making as a means to protect their own resources from exhaustion.
Organizations can reduce the number of defensive decisions by enhancing situational resources such as psychological safety.
The short and preliminarily validated scale we developed can be used to make defensive decisions visible in organizations.
This book synthesizes the current state of research on organizational learning from performance feedback and develops a new perspective that deals with the influence of multiple goals. In keeping with the centrality of motives in Cyert & March’s influential model, this new perspective rests on a foundation of individual level behaviors that are responsive to mechanisms at the organizational and environmental level of analysis. A key aim is to lay out an agenda for a new wave of empirical research on the interconnections of decision-makers, organizations, and the environment that influence organizational responses to performance.
The present studies examine the joint influence of interpersonal fairness from peers and authorities on participants' organizational behaviors (citizenship) and attitudes (commitment). In three experimental studies, we find that mistreatment from peers, in the form of interpersonal unfairness, reduces the benefits that authorities gain from treating the same employee with high interpersonal fairness themselves. We also find that the negative effect of mistreatment from authorities can be offset by high interpersonal fairness from peers. These results come about because the interpersonal fairness shown not only by authorities but also by peers influences people's sense of standing as organization members. We discuss theoretical and practical implications, as well as limitations and suggestions, for future research.
Background:
Having psychologically safe teams can improve learning, creativity and performance within organisations. Within a healthcare context, psychological safety supports patient safety by enabling engagement in quality improvement and encouraging staff to speak up about errors. Despite the low levels of psychological safety in healthcare teams and the important role it plays in supporting patient safety, there is a dearth of research on interventions that can be used to improve psychological safety or its related constructs. This review synthesises the content, theoretical underpinnings and outcomes of interventions which have targeted psychological safety, speaking up, and voice behaviour within a healthcare setting. It aims to identify successful interventions and inform the development of more effective interventions.
Methods:
A key word search strategy was developed and used to search electronic databases (PsycINFO, ABI/Inform, Academic search complete and PubMed) and grey literature databases (OpenGrey, OCLC WorldCat, Espace). Covidence, an online specialised systematic review website, was used to screen records. Data extraction, quality appraisal and narrative synthesis were conducted on identified papers.
Results:
Fourteen interventions were reviewed. These interventions fell into five categories. Educational interventions used simulation, video presentations, case studies and workshops while interventions which did not include an educational component used holistic facilitation, forum play and action research meetings. Mixed results were found for the efficacy or effectiveness of these interventions. While some interventions showed improvement in outcomes related to psychological safety, speaking up and voice, this was not consistently demonstrated across interventions. Included interventions' ability to demonstrate improvements in these outcomes were limited by a lack of objective outcome measures and the ability of educational interventions alone to change deeply rooted speaking up behaviours.
Conclusion:
To improve our understanding of the efficacy or effectiveness of interventions targeting psychological safety, speaking up and voice behaviour, longitudinal and multifaceted interventions are needed. In order to understand whether these interventions are successful, more objective measures should be developed. It is recommended that future research involves end users in the design phase of interventions, target both group and organisational levels, ensure visible leader support and work across and within interdisciplinary teams.
Prospero registration number:
CRD42018100659.
The cross-sectional research design, especially when used with self-report surveys, is held in low esteem despite its widespread use. It is generally accepted that the longitudinal design offers considerable advantages and should be preferred due to its ability to shed light on causal connections. In this paper, I will argue that the ability of the longitudinal design to reflect causality has been overstated and that it offers limited advantages over the cross-sectional design in most cases in which it is used. The nature of causal inference from a philosophy of science perspective is used to illustrate how cross-sectional designs can provide evidence for relationships among variables and can be used to rule out many potential alternative explanations for those relationships. Strategies for optimizing the use of cross-sectional designs are noted, including the inclusion of control variables to rule out spurious relationships, the addition of alternative sources of data, and the incorporation of experimental methods. Best practice advice is offered for the use of both cross-sectional and longitudinal designs, as well as for authors writing and for reviewers evaluating papers that report results of cross-sectional studies.
We conceptualize organizational teams as dynamic systems evolving in response to their environments. We then review the past 10 years of team effectiveness research and summarize its implications by categorizing studies under three main overlapping and coevolving dimensions: compositional features, structural features, and mediating mechanisms. We highlight prominent work that focused on variables in each of these dimensions and discuss their key relationships with team outcomes. Furthermore, we review how contextual factor impact on team effectiveness. On the basis of this review, we advocate that future research seek to examine team relationships through a dynamic, multilevel perspective, while incorporating new and novel measurement techniques.We submit that the future of teams research may benefit from a conceptualization of them as dynamic networks and modeling them as small complex systems. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior Volume 6 is January 21, 2019. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
Defensive decision making occurs when a manager ranks an option as the best for the organization yet deliberately chooses a second-best option that protects him or herself against negative consequences. We study 950 managers in a public administration to analyze the frequency and causes of defensive decisions. We find that at each hierarchy level defensive decisions are widespread. On average, 2.5 out of the 10 most important decisions respondents made within the last 12 months were defensive. Overall, 80% of managers indicated that they made at least one defensive decision and 17% even stated that at least half of their decisions were defensive. We identify as a major cause a team’s approach to failure, that is, whether the reaction to failure is to seek someone to blame as opposed to identifying the underlying causes in order to learn how to prevent similar failures in the future. Given that managers are often confronted with an uncertain environment where a positive outcome cannot be ascertained, such an approach to failure can lead to a severe decline in the performance of the organization.
A significant body of research has described effective leader behaviors and connected these behaviors to positive employee outcomes. However, this research has yet to be systematically integrated with organizational justice research to describe how leader behaviors inform justice perceptions. Therefore, we conduct a meta‐analysis (k = 166, N = 46,034) to investigate how three types of leader behaviors (task, relational, and change) inform four dimensions of organizational justice (procedural, distributive, interpersonal, and informational) referenced to the leader and to the organization. Further, we examine the joint impact of leader behaviors and justice perceptions on social exchange quality (i.e., LMX), task performance, and job satisfaction. Our results suggest that leader behaviors differentially inform leader‐ and organization‐focused justice perceptions, and combined leader behaviors and justice perceptions offer more nuanced explanations for outcomes.
This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
This study explores how and when ethical leadership predicts three forms of team-level creativity, namely team creativity, average of member creativity, and dispersion of member creativity. The results, based on 230 members of 44 knowledge work teams from Chinese organizations, showed that ethical leadership was positively related to team creativity and average of member creativity but was negatively related to dispersion of member creativity. Consistent with the predictions of uncertainty reduction theory, psychological safety climate mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and the three forms of team-level creativity. Furthermore, supervisor support for creativity positively moderated the effect of ethical leadership on psychological safety climate and the indirect effects of ethical leadership on the three forms of team-level creativity through psychological safety climate. The analysis offers significant theoretical and practical implications on ethical leadership and creativity in organizations.
The relation between authentic leadership (AL) and conflict management is a topic that has not been extensively researched and merits further empirical examination. In this study, two hypotheses were tested: first, whether AL is positively correlated with active constructive conflict (ACC) behaviors, and second, whether the conflict management styles (CMSs) of the organization moderate the relationship between AL and ACC behaviors. Partial least square structural equation analysis was used to examine the responses of 65 leadership participants in a survey of management styles. The results supported the hypotheses. A statistically significant relationship was found between AL, as measured by the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire, and ACC behaviors, as measured by Thomas–Kilmann Instrument; CMSs, as measured by the Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory, moderated this relationship. The implications of these findings are discussed in detail.
Based on the job demands–resources model, this study considers how employees’ perceptions of organizational politics might reduce their engagement in organizational citizenship behavior. It also considers the moderating role of two contextual resources and one personal resource (i.e., supervisor transformational leadership, knowledge sharing with peers, and resilience) and argues that they buffer the negative relationship between perceptions of organizational politics and organizational citizenship behavior. Data from a Mexican-based manufacturing organization reveal that perceptions of organizational politics reduce organizational citizenship behavior, but the effect is weaker with higher levels of transformational leadership, knowledge sharing, and resilience. The buffering role of resilience is particularly strong when transformational leadership is low, thus suggesting a three-way interaction among perceptions of organizational politics, resilience, and transformational leadership. These findings indicate that organizations marked by strongly politicized internal environments can counter the resulting stress by developing adequate contextual and personal resources within their ranks.
This study compares three emerging forms of positive leadership that emphasize ethical and moral behavior (i.e., authentic leadership, ethical leadership, and servant leadership) with transformational leadership in their associations with a wide range of organizationally relevant measures. While scholars have noted conceptual overlap between transformational leadership and these newer leadership forms, there has been inadequate investigation of the empirical relationships with transformational leadership and the ability (or lack thereof) of these leadership forms to explain incremental variance beyond transformational leadership. In response, we conducted a series of meta-analyses to provide a comprehensive assessment of these emerging leadership forms’ relationships with variables evaluated in the extant literature. Second, we tested the relative performance of each of these leadership forms in explaining incremental variance, beyond transformational leadership, in nine outcomes. We also provide relative weights analyses to further evaluate the relative contributions of the emerging leadership forms versus transformational leadership. The high correlations between both authentic leadership and ethical leadership with transformational leadership coupled with their low amounts of incremental variance suggest that their utility is low unless they are being used to explore very specific outcomes. Servant leadership, however, showed more promise as a stand-alone leadership approach that is capable of helping leadership researchers and practitioners better explain a wide range of outcomes. Guidance regarding future research and the utility of these three ethical/moral values–based leadership forms is provided.
Creativity and Innovation in Organizational Teams stemmed from a conference held at the Kellogg School of Management in June 2003 covering creativity and innovation in groups and organizations. Each chapter of the book is written by an expert and covers original theory about creative processes in organizations. The organization of the text reflects a longstanding notion that creativity in the world of work is a joint outcome of three interdependent forces--individual thinking, group processes, and organizational environment.
Part I explores basic cognitive mechanisms that underlie creative thinking, and includes chapters that discuss cognitive foundations of creativity, a cognitive network model of creativity that explains how and why creative solutions form in the human mind, and imports a ground-breaking concept of "creativity templates" to the study of creative idea generation in negotiation context. The second part is devoted to understanding how groups and teams in organizational settings produce creative ideas and implement innovations. Finally, Part III contains three chapters that discuss the role of social, organizational context in which creative endeavors take place.
The book has a strong international mix of scholarship and includes clear business implications based on scientific research. It weds the disciplines of psychology, cognition, and business theory into one text.
Psychological safety describes people's perceptions of the consequences of taking interpersonal risks in a particular context such as a workplace. First explored by pioneering organizational scholars in the 1960s, psychological safety experienced a renaissance starting in the 1990s and continuing to the present. Organizational research has identified psychological safety as a critical factor in understanding phenomena such as voice, teamwork, team learning, and organizational learning. A growing body of conceptual and empirical work has focused on understanding the nature of psychological safety, identifying factors that contribute to it, and examining its implications for individuals, teams, and organizations. In this article, we review and integrate this literature and suggest directions for future research. We first briefly review the early history of psychological safety research and then examine contemporary research at the individual, group, and organizational levels of analysis. We assess what has been learned and discuss suggestions for future theoretical development and methodological approaches for organizational behavior research on this important interpersonal construct.
The study reported here uses learning theory to examine how performance feedback affects the probability of risky organizational changes that are consequential to an organization's performance. The theory predicts how decision makers interpret organizational performance by comparing it with historical and social aspiration levels. Empirical analysis of the consequences of performance short-falls on the probability of strategic change in the radio broadcasting industry shows clear sensitivity to social and historical aspiration levels. It also shows that changes seen or done by the station predict future change, suggesting that the recent experiences of organizations cause differences in capabilities and perceived opportunities, leading to differences in organizational inertia.
The issues of organizational wrongdoing damage organizational performance and limit the development of organizations. Although organizational members may know the wrongdoing and have the opportunity to blow the whistle, they would keep silent because of the interpersonal risks. However, leaders can play an important role in shaping employee whistleblowing. This study focuses on discovering the mechanisms of how authentic leaders influence employee whistleblowing with a sample from China. Results demonstrate that authentic leadership is positively related to internal whistleblowing. Team psychological safety partly mediates the relationship between authentic leadership and internal whistleblowing. Personal identification partly mediates the relationship between authentic leadership and internal whistleblowing. The study contributes to the extant theory by filling the gap between leadership and whistleblowing.
Purpose
Drawing on the literature on public service motivation, the authors investigate the relationship between public service motivation and defensive decision-making. Further, the authors explore risk propensity and risk perception as potential antecedents of defensive decision-making.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on survey data from 144 German public financial managers of municipalities and federal agencies, the authors find no significant direct relationship between public service motivation and defensive decision-making.
Findings
However, the authors can show that risk propensity fully mediates the relationship between public service motivation and defensive decision-making. The findings also indicate that beyond the public service motivation and individual risk propensity of public financial managers, their risk perception does influence their decision making.
Originality/value
The study makes three contributions to the literature. First, the authors contribute to the relatively small amount of research on the risk-taking behaviour of public managers by explaining the indirect impact of PSM on their risk-taking behaviour. Second, this paper furthers the understanding of the influence of risk perception and risk propensity on decision-making and enhances the models of Sitkin and Pablo (1992) and Sitkin and Weingart (1995). Third, the paper also contributes to the call for more international research on German public administrations.
Since its renaissance in the 1990s, psychological safety research has flourished—a boom motivated by recognition of the challenge of navigating uncertainty and change. Today, its theoretical and practical significance is amplified by the increasingly complex and interdependent nature of the work in organizations. Conceptual and empirical research on psychological safety—a state of reduced interpersonal risk—is thus timely, relevant, and extensive. In this article, we review contemporary psychological safety research by describing its various content areas, assessing what has been learned in recent years, and suggesting directions for future research. We identify four dominant themes relating to psychological safety: getting things done, learning behaviors, improving the work experience, and leadership. Overall, psychological safety plays important roles in enabling organizations to learn and perform in dynamic environments, becoming particularly relevant in a world altered by a global pandemic.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, Volume 10 is January 2023. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
In 1955, Herbert Simon introduced the notion of satisficing: an agent satisfices by searching for an alternative that meets an aspiration level but does not optimize. We survey more than 60 years of advances in understanding satisficing in economics, psychology, and management, identifying two research traditions that address two classes of situations: under risk, satisficing is typically inferior to optimization strategies and modeled according to the neoclassical framework; under uncertainty, satisficing strategies are often derived empirically and can be highly effective. We integrate the two research traditions and show the conditions under which satisficing can be rational. (JEL D11, D80, D90)
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to examine whether servant leadership (SL) buffers the negative relationship between perceived organizational politics (POP) and employee performance outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
Time-lagged multi source data were collected from 236 supervisor-subordinate dyads in a public sector university in Pakistan. SL, POP and several control variables were measured in subordinates at time 1, and supervisor ratings of organization citizenship behaviors and task performance were measured at time 2. The authors performed moderated multiple regression analysis to test the hypotheses underpinning the study.
Findings
Findings revealed that POP was negatively related to employee task performance and two types of organization citizenship behavior (individual and organizational). Findings also revealed that SL attenuated the negative effect of POP on employee task performance and the two types of organization citizenship behavior.
Practical implications
SL is particularly important in organizational cultures characterized by high politics; therefore, managers seeking to enhance task performance and citizenship behavior in employees should adopt this style of leadership if possible.
Originality/value
This is the first study conducted in the South Asian context that has examined whether, and how, SL buffers the negative effects of POP on employee task performance and organization citizenship behavior.
Managers spend considerable amounts of corporate money to hire consultants. The research proposes two potential benefits of consultants' advice: increasing decision accuracy and sharing responsibility with the advisor. In contrast to previous research, which has predominantly focused on factors influencing decisional accuracy, this paper evaluates the sharing of responsibility in the form of using an advisor as a scapegoat. We conduct an online experiment with 175 managers from German-speaking countries in an investment setting. We find that the presence of a potential scapegoat positively affects advice utilization in an economic boom but negatively affects such utilization in an economic crisis due to managers' varying risk perceptions. Managers' risk perceptions are the main drivers of scapegoating as a form of managerial blame avoiding decision-making. We contribute to management research and highlight managers’ opportunistic motives behind consulting (costly) advice.
This research draws on the substitutes for leadership theory and the organizational configuration perspective to examine if formalization and centralization moderate the effect of servant leadership on job satisfaction. The findings from a field study and an experimental study suggest that while formalization and centralization did not operate as a substitute or neutralizer independently, however as per the configuration perspective, they interact to moderate the relationship between servant leadership and job satisfaction in different configurations. The results indicate that servant leadership behaviors have more salient effects on followers’ satisfaction when they operate in organizations with lower levels of organizational structure. In addition, under specific structural configurations, formalization can act as a substitute for servant leadership, and centralization can act as a neutralizer on servant leadership. This research contributes to the literatures of servant leadership and the substitutes for leadership theory by enhancing our understanding of the impact of structural configurations.
Are choices for others riskier than choices people make for themselves? This question has been asked by economists, psychologists, and other researchers in the social sciences – which has generated a diversity of research accounts and results. For example, a number of studies have found strong instances of a risky shift in choices for others, while other studies have found no such effect or have found that choices for others instead generate a cautious shift. In a meta-analysis of 128 effects from 71 published and unpublished papers (totaling 14,443 observations), we found a significant though small effect size (d = 0.105) in favor of a risky shift when people choose for others. Moreover, we found considerable variance between studies (Q = 1106.25), suggesting that the net effect is susceptible to moderating factors or study characteristics, which we identify and discuss as well (viz. choice recipient, decision frame, decision reciprocity, theoretical perspective, study design). Thus, we document not only whether decisions for others are riskier, but when (and when such decisions are less risky). We further discuss what is distinctly unique about decision making for others – how such choices are not just different in degree from personal choices but different in kind.
Despite the renewed interest in the use of experimental designs in the fields of leadership and management over the past few decades, these designs are still relatively underutilized. Although there are several potential reasons for this, chief among them is misunderstanding the value of these designs. The purpose of this article is to review the role of laboratory, field, and quasi-experimental designs in management and leadership research. We first discuss the primary goals of experimental studies. Next, we examine the characteristics of experimental designs and how to distinguish laboratory, field, and quasi-experiments from one another and from non-experimental studies. Following these discussions, we provide examples of each type of experimental design and discuss their relative strengths and limitations. Finally, we discuss steps that researchers can take to increase the probability of having articles reporting experiments accepted by leadership and management journals.
In this paper, we explored the interplay of leader competence and leader self-serving
behavior on followers’ perceptions of psychological safety and its downstream implication on team performance. Using a time-lagged study of 166 leaders and 514 followers from six firms in central China, we found that leader self-serving behavior was an important contingent factor for how subordinates perceive their leader. Specifically, when competent leaders were perceived as being non-self-serving, team psychological safety as well as team performance were enhanced. In contrast, such positive influences were non-existent when leaders were seen as self-serving. Practical implications and important insights to future research were also discussed.
Research on psychological safety climate has primarily focused on its salutary effects on group risk-taking behaviors. We developed a group-level dual-pathway model in which psychological safety climate also exerts a simultaneous negative effect on risk-taking behaviors by diminishing group average work motivation. In a field survey, we found that psychological safety climate was positively related to group learning behavior and voice through a reduction in group average fear of failure but negatively related to them through a reduction in group average work motivation. This dual-pathway model and its mechanisms were conceptually replicated in a laboratory experiment with group creativity as a different risk-taking behavior. In this experiment, we examined the moderating effects of group individualism/collectivism and found that psychological safety climate increased the originality and flexibility dimensions of group creativity through a reduction in group average fear of failure only in groups with a collectivistic orientation and reduced the fluency dimension of and time spent on creativity through a reduction in group average work motivation only in individualistic groups.
Since the concept of psychological safety was introduced, empirical research on its antecedents, outcomes, and moderators at different levels of analysis has proliferated. Given a burgeoning body of empirical evidence, a systematic review of the psychological safety literature is warranted. As well as reviewing empirical work on psychological safety, the present article highlights gaps in the literature and provides direction for future work. In doing so, it highlights the need to advance our understanding of psychological safety through the integration of key theoretical perspectives to explain how psychological safety develops and influences work outcomes at different levels of analysis. Suggestions for future empirical research to advance our understanding of psychological safety are also provided.
This article reports meta-analyses intended to clarify and enhance our understanding of voice and its promotive and prohibitive forms. We find that undifferentiated constructive voice is associated with a wide range of antecedents that fit in Morrison's (2014) five categories: (a) dispositions, (b) job and organizational attitudes and perceptions, (c) emotions, beliefs, and schemas, (d) supervisor and leader behavior, and (e) contextual factors. However, relative weight analyses reveal a highly dominant variable within each category (personal initiative, felt responsibility, engagement, leader-member exchange and positive workplace climate). We also find that undifferentiated constructive voice has a moderate zero-order association with job performance that is non-significant when task performance and OCB are also considered. Finally, we explore how associations vary as a function of whether voice is promotive or prohibitive. First, there are significant differences in associations with over a third of the antecedents (core self-evaluations, felt responsibility, organizational commitment, detachment, psychological safety, ethical leadership, leader openness). Second, although promotive voice has a positive association with job performance, the opposite is true for prohibitive voice. We conclude with suggestions to enhance our understanding of voice, especially with respect to efforts needed to clarify and distinguish promotive and prohibitive voice. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
Although psychological safety research has flourished in recent years, and despite the empirical support for the important role of psychological safety in the workplace, several critical questions remain. In order to address these questions, we aggregate theoretical and empirical works, and draw on 136 independent samples representing over 22,000 individuals and nearly 5,000 groups, to conduct a comprehensive meta-analysis on the antecedents and outcomes of psychological safety. We not only present the nomological network of psychological safety, but also extend this research in four important ways. First, we compare effect sizes to determine the relative effectiveness of antecedents to psychological safety. Second, we examine the extent to which psychological safety influences both task performance and organizational citizenship behaviors over and beyond related concepts such as positive leader relations and work engagement. Third, we examine whether research design characteristics and national culture alter validities within the nomological network, thus promoting a more accurate and contextualized understanding of psychological safety. Finally, we test the homology assumption by comparing the effect sizes of the antecedents and outcomes of psychological safety across individual and group levels of analysis. We conclude with a discussion of the areas in need of future examination.
While authentic leadership (AL) has seen a dramatic increase in scholarly attention over the last decade, its contribution relative to more established leadership constructs merits investigation. We employ meta-analytic techniques to compare AL and transformational leadership theories using 100 independent samples and 25,452 individuals. The findings reveal that (1) the relationship between authentic and transformational leadership is large in magnitude, suggesting construct redundancy (ρ = .72); (2) neither AL nor transformational leadership add noticeable incremental validity beyond the other construct; (3) AL has a lower relative weight than transformational leadership for the outcomes of follower satisfaction, follower satisfaction with the leader, task performance, and leader effectiveness; and (4) AL demonstrates dominance over transformational leadership when predicting group or organization performance and organizational citizenship behaviors. We recommend future research examine AL at the component level and its relationships with related ethical constructs to potentially differentiate it from transformational leadership.
The present study demonstrates how three psychological antecedents (psychological safety, felt obligation for constructive change, and organization-based self-esteem) uniquely, differentially, and interactively predict supervisory reports of promotive and prohibitive "voice" behavior. Using a two-wave panel design, we collected data from a sample of 239 employees to examine the hypothesized relationships. Our results showed that felt obligation was most strongly related to subsequent promotive voice; psychological safety was most strongly related to subsequent prohibitive voice; and organization-based self-esteem was reciprocally related to promotive voice. Further, although felt obligation strengthened the positive effect of psychological safety on both forms of voice, organization-based self-esteem weakened this effect for promotive voice. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
This study began with the premise that people can use varying degrees of their selves. physically. cognitively. and emotionally. in work role performances. which has implications for both their work and experi ences. Two qualitative. theory-generating studies of summer camp counselors and members of an architecture firm were conducted to explore the conditions at work in which people personally engage. or express and employ their personal selves. and disengage. or withdraw and defend their personal selves. This article describes and illustrates three psychological conditions-meaningfulness. safety. and availabil ity-and their individual and contextual sources. These psychological conditions are linked to existing theoretical concepts. and directions for future research are described. People occupy roles at work; they are the occupants of the houses that roles provide. These events are relatively well understood; researchers have focused on "role sending" and "receiving" (Katz & Kahn. 1978). role sets (Merton. 1957). role taking and socialization (Van Maanen. 1976), and on how people and their roles shape each other (Graen. 1976). Researchers have given less attention to how people occupy roles to varying degrees-to how fully they are psychologically present during particular moments of role performances. People can use varying degrees of their selves. physically, cognitively, and emotionally. in the roles they perform. even as they main tain the integrity of the boundaries between who they are and the roles they occupy. Presumably, the more people draw on their selves to perform their roles within those boundaries. the more stirring are their performances and the more content they are with the fit of the costumes they don. The research reported here was designed to generate a theoretical frame work within which to understand these "self-in-role" processes and to sug gest directions for future research. My specific concern was the moments in which people bring themselves into or remove themselves from particular task behaviors, My guiding assumption was that people are constantly bring ing in and leaving out various depths of their selves during the course of The guidance and support of David Berg, Richard Hackman, and Seymour Sarason in the research described here are gratefully acknowledged. I also greatly appreciated the personal engagements of this journal's two anonymous reviewers in their roles, as well as the comments on an earlier draft of Tim Hall, Kathy Kram, and Vicky Parker.
Twenty-two decision groups in three manufacturing and three research and development organizations are studied to identify the characteristics of the environment that contribute to decision unit members experiencing uncertainty in decision making. Two dimensions of the environment are identified. The simple-complex dimension is defined as the number of factors taken into consideration in decision making. The static-dynamic dimension is viewed as the degree to which these factors in the decision unit's environment remain basically the same over time or are in a continual process of change. Results indicate that individuals in decision units with dynamic-complex environments experience the greatest amount of uncertainty in decision making. The data also indicate that the static-dynamic dimension of the environment is a more important contributor to uncertainty than the simple-complex dimension.
To advance research on how leaders influence followers and organizational performance, we proposed and tested a multilevel mediation model whereby authentic leaders influence follower fairness perceptions and create a fair climate, which in turn relates to subordinate well-being, turnover intention, and organizational commitment. Survey data from 187 employees, clustered under 37 leaders, were tested using a multilevel structural equation modeling approach. Results show that authentic leaders relate to follower outcomes in part through directly relating to subordinates’ perceptions of justice and justice climate. Implications include development of authentic leadership as an actionable strategy for bolstering followers’ well-being and performance.
Top-level planning decisions of an organization are examined in the framework of Cyert and March's A Behavioral Theory of the Firm. Six decisions are studied and analyzed in the Cyert-March framework, and some concepts from the behavioral theory of the firm are revised in the light of the results obtained. Major additional criteria suggested as of major importance in the framework of an extended Cyert and March approach are: the impact of multiple organizational levels on decisions; the bilateral bargaining between project proponents and those managers responsible for review of proposals; the influence of technology and general uncertainty in the environment upon criteria for project evaluation; the nature of an active stimulus for search induced by corporate strategy rather than the more passive, crisis-induced stimulus suggested by Cyert and March; the concept of a threshold-level system by which projects quickly are rated or evaluated on multiple attributes; and the Pollyanna-Neitzsche effect, by which ex post uncertainty absorption can be used by firm members to induce a positive-thinking approach to subsequent performance. Although some writers, for example, Ansoff (1965), have noted the empirical evidence presented by Cyert and March dealt primarily with operating decisions, this single field study offers evidence that a broadened Cyert and March approach is useful for understanding decisions that are partly in the broader field of corporate strategy.