Drawing from an interactionist approach and feedback research, we examine the role of developmental feedback and proactive personality on newcomer task performance and helping behavior. Data were ...collected from 2 high-tech joint-ventures within the information technology and manufacturing industries located in Shanghai, China. Results based on 151 newcomer-manager dyads showed that supervisor developmental feedback (SDF) positively related to newcomer helping behavior and that SDF and coworker developmental feedback interactively predicted newcomer task performance. We also found differential moderating effects of proactive personality: SDF more strongly related to helping behavior when proactive personality was lower; conversely, coworker developmental feedback more strongly related to helping behavior when proactive personality was higher.
Traditional Western-based theories of supervisor–subordinate relationships tend to focus on social exchanges in the work domain while omitting potential exchanges that occur in the private domain. ...However, there are many contexts, particularly in transitional economies lacking strong bureaucratic work structures (e.g., China, Brazil), where personal exchanges outside of the work domain serve as a critical, binding fabric in the workplace. One such example is the indigenous Chinese concept of guanxi, which captures the personal ties between supervisors and subordinates and operates as a protective mechanism for subordinates and a loyalty-inducing agent for supervisors. Using 281 supervisor–subordinate dyads from China, we explored an important antecedent and consequences of guanxi while controlling for the parallel process of the traditionally work-focused construct leader-member exchange (LMX). Results suggest that although both guanxi and LMX mediate the effects of proactive personality on affiliative OCB (i.e., interpersonal facilitation), guanxi is more strongly related to challenging OCB (i.e., taking charge) and LMX is more strongly related to task performance.
Using the group engagement model, we hypothesize that two differentiated leadership constructs – LMX differentiation at the group level and a new construct, LMX relational separation, at the ...individual-within-group level – interact with LMX to affect follower citizenship behaviors (OCB) and turnover intentions. Data from 223 followers and their leaders situated across 60 workgroups demonstrate that the effects of individual perceived LMX quality are contingent upon a group's overall variability in LMX (i.e., LMX differentiation) and employees' similarity in terms of LMX with their coworkers (i.e., LMX relational separation). Specifically, the effects of high quality LMX relationships on OCB and turnover intentions are weaker when group LMX differentiation or employees' LMX relational separation is higher, rather than lower. Our findings contribute to a growing stream of multilevel LMX research incorporating climate effects and offer an alternative view of differentiated leadership in groups. Key implications for theory and practice are discussed.
The study of first impressions, which consistently demonstrate meaningful and surprisingly durable impacts on attitudes, behaviors, and cognitions, is pervasive across psychological disciplines. In ...this integrative conceptual review, we focus on first impressions within the organizational psychology literature, which have been explored across an impressive variety of topical domains (e.g., selection, socialization, leader-subordinate relationships, job performance, and teams) though largely in fragmented ways. Our review attempts to resolve major differences in how researchers have approached first impression effects to build consensus on what first impression effects are, how they occur, and how long they take to develop. In synthesizing this seemingly disparate body of research, we develop an integrative framework of first impression effects comprising four fundamental elements-cues, motives, processes, and outcomes-that must be considered both individually and collectively to understand first impression effects in organizational settings in their entirety. Using this framework, we take stock of the existing literature and identify important through lines, including the focus on displayer- or perceiver-centric effects and whether first impression effects are presumed to be biased or valid. Our fundamental elements framework can be used to systematically catalog and reconcile prior work, as well as develop stronger, more theoretically cohesive studies in the future. We outline major implications for theory and practice on first impressions in the workplace.
To investigate research questions surrounding workplace deviance, scholars have primarily applied variable-centered approaches, such as overall deviance measures or those that separate interpersonal ...deviance and organizational deviance. These approaches, however, ignore that individuals might employ more complex combinations of deviance behaviors that do not fit neatly within the existing variable frameworks. The present study explores whether person-centered deviance classes emerge in a comprehensive database of the prior studies. We then investigated whether these classes showed differences in antecedents and correlates in an independent sample of working adults from multiple industries. In Study 1, a multilevel latent class analysis of 20 independent samples and 6,218 individuals revealed five classes of workplace deviance, thus providing preliminary support for a person-centered approach. In Study 2, a time-lagged sample of 553 individuals showed the emergence of five classes that largely reflected the patterns found in Study 1. Study 2 points to meaningful differences between classes of deviance behaviors and antecedents, including abusive supervision, Openness, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Emotional Stability, and psychological entitlement; classes are also uniquely associated with correlates such as organizational citizenship behaviors, turnover intentions, job performance, and job satisfaction. Altogether, this work is an important first step toward understanding workplace deviance with a person-centered lens. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).
The study of interaction effects is critical for creating, extending, and bounding theory in organizational research. Integrating and extending prior work, we present a taxonomy of two-way ...interaction effects that can guide organizational scholars toward clearer, more precise ways of developing theory, advancing hypotheses, and interpreting results. Specifically, we identify three primary interaction types, including strengthening, weakening, and reversing effects. In addition, we explore subcategories within these interaction types. Our review of articles published in leading management and applied psychology journals from 2009 to 2013 supports the generalizability of this framework. We offer specific recommendations for using this taxonomy to deliver more precise development, testing, and interpretation of interaction hypotheses.
Across two studies and five samples, we introduce the Chinese construct of moqi (a tacit understanding of another person’s expectations and intentions) as a key, but heretofore overlooked, aspect of ...supervisor–subordinate relationships. In Study 1, using qualitative and quantitative methods, we develop a subordinate-focused moqi scale and establish its discriminant and criterion-related validity. In Study 2, using three-wave data from three sources (subordinates, coworkers, and supervisors), we test an integrative, information-based model explicating (1) subordinates’ actions that are useful in acquiring the necessary information to develop moqi with their supervisor; (2) boundary conditions affecting subordinates’ sensitivity to information and, hence, their development of moqi with the supervisor; and (3) the informational process underlying subordinate moqi’s positive relationship with work effectiveness. Findings suggest that subordinates’ implicit and explicit feedback seeking positively predicted their subsequent perceptions of moqi with a supervisor and, moreover, that the relationship between implicit feedback seeking and subordinate moqi is enhanced by higher subordinate power distance orientation and face consciousness. Results also indicate that subordinate moqi influences task performance and reward recommendations for subordinates via the mediation of increased goal clarity, and the indirect effects is more pronounced for subordinates with higher power distance orientation. We offer an important discussion of moqi’s cultural nuances and make several suggestions for a robust future research agenda.
Scholars have long been intrigued by the relationship between intrateam conflict and team creativity, though findings to date have been mixed. Recent research suggests that traditional ...conceptualizations of intrateam conflict as a property that is shared uniformly by team members (e.g., averaging members' overall conflict perceptions), rather than a more nuanced phenomenon between individual members with unique network positions, have limited our understanding of its influences. These advances, however, have yet to be substantively applied to the intrateam conflict‐creativity literature. Accordingly, we integrate network views of conflict with creativity theory and group motivated processing models to explore how task and relationship conflicts involving critical members' (i.e., members central to a team's workflow network) influence team creative functioning beyond overall conflict perceptions. We theorize that critical member task conflict is positively associated with team creativity by way of team reflexivity, and this positive indirect effect is accentuated by team shared goals. Further, we posit that critical member relationship conflict is negatively associated with team creativity by way of reduced team cohesion, though this effect is mitigated by critical member emotional intelligence. Analyses of 70 new product development teams support most hypotheses while also highlighting interesting nuance and future research opportunities.
Nearly all employment interviews, even those considered highly structured, begin with a brief meet-and-greet conversation typically coalescing around non-job-related topics (i.e., rapport building). ...Although applicants and interviewers often view rapport building as an essential, value-adding component of the interview, it may contaminate interviewers' evaluations of answers to subsequently asked structured questions (Levashina, Hartwell, Morgeson, & Campion, 2014). Yet research has not determined the extent to which initial impressions developed during rapport building influence subsequent interviewer ratings through job-related interview content versus non-job-related content; whether these effects extend beyond more commonly examined image-related factors that can bias interviewers (i.e., self-presentation tactics); or how these effects are temporally bound when influencing interviewer ratings during the formal structured interview question-and-answer process. Addressing these questions, we integrate interview research with the extant social psychology literature to clarify rapport building's unique effects in the employment interview. In contrast to prior assumptions, findings based on 163 mock interviews suggest that a significant portion of initial impressions' influence overlaps with job-related interview content and, importantly, that these effects are distinct from other image-related constructs. Finally, initial impressions are found to more strongly relate to interviewer evaluations of applicant responses earlier rather than later in the structured interview.
Researchers consistently argue that organizations need to generate creative ideas to ensure long‐term success and survival. One possible solution for increasing creativity is to inject “fresh blood” ...into the organization by hiring new employees. However, past work suggests there may be a number of impediments that stifle newcomer creativity and, further, that encouraging newcomer creativity may compromise other adjustment outcomes. Accordingly, the present research examines how empowering leaders, in conjunction with contextual and relational factors (i.e., organizational support for creativity and newcomers' trust in leaders), facilitate newcomer creativity. Study 1 indicates that empowering leadership positively predicts newcomer creativity and that this relationship is contingent on the organizational context. Study 2 reveals that a more specific and proximal contextual socialization factor–newcomers' trust in leaders–is a more potent moderator than organizational support for creativity. Further, these predictors operate through creative process engagement to influence creativity. Finally, results indicate positive links between empowering leadership and role clarity, attachment, and task performance, suggesting that empowering leadership may serve as an important, albeit overlooked, socialization tactic.
