The employee flexibility desired in changing and uncertain business environments is amplified in small business settings. How can small business leaders facilitate the employee flexibility needed in ...this context? In the present study, we proposed that mastery goal-oriented leaders who are concerned with learning and competence development would create a work climate that promoted employee flexibility in their firms. We tested our hypotheses with multi-wave, multi-level data collected from leaders and employees in 141 small accounting firms in Norway. Findings revealed that leaders’ mastery goal orientation (MGO) was positively related to employee flexibility through a work climate that encouraged learning and development (a mastery climate). Yet, we also found that leaders’ MGO was negatively related to employee flexibility through a work climate that emphasized the expectations to be adaptive and flexible (an adaptability climate). Taken together, our study suggests that leaders’ mastery goal orientation may fuel employee flexibility when encouraging flexible-related behavior yet backfire when they signal that the same behavior is expected.
With data from 33 nations, we illustrate the differences between cultures that are tight (have many strong norms and a low tolerance of deviant behavior) versus loose (have weak social norms and a ...high tolerance of deviant behavior). Tightness-looseness is part of a complex, loosely integrated multilevel system that comprises distal ecological and historical threats (e.g., high population density, resource scarcity, a history of territorial conflict, and disease and environmental threats), broad versus narrow socialization in societal institutions (e.g., autocracy, media regulations), the strength of everyday recurring situations, and micro-level psychological affordances (e.g., prevention self-guides, high regulatory strength, need for structure). This research advances knowledge that can foster cross-cultural understanding in a world of increasing global interdependence and has implications for modeling cultural change.
Team psychological safety, as a shared perception, is persistently found to be important for team performance. However, team members may not necessarily agree on the level of safety within the team. ...What happens when team members have dispersed perceptions of team psychological safety? Through a survey-based study involving 1,149 members of 160 management teams, we found that, not only is the level of team psychological safety positively related to team performance, but also that sharedness among team members (team psychological safety climate strength) moderates this relationship. The more team members agree on the level of team psychological safety, the stronger the effect of team psychological safety on team performance. Further, having at least one member who perceives the team as psychologically safe may lift team performance in a team of low psychological safety. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of looking beyond average levels of team psychological safety for building high-performing teams.
Prejudiced attitudes and political nationalism vary widely around the world, but there has been little research on what predicts this variation. Here we examine the ecological and cultural factors ...underlying the worldwide distribution of prejudice. We suggest that cultures grow more prejudiced when they tighten cultural norms in response to destabilizing ecological threats. A set of seven archival analyses, surveys, and experiments (∑N = 3,986,402) find that nations, American states, and pre-industrial societies with tighter cultural norms show the most prejudice based on skin color, religion, nationality, and sexuality, and that tightness predicts why prejudice is often highest in areas of the world with histories of ecological threat. People's support for cultural tightness also mediates the link between perceived ecological threat and intentions to vote for nationalist politicians. Results replicate when controlling for economic development, inequality, conservatism, residential mobility, and shared cultural heritage. These findings offer a cultural evolutionary perspective on prejudice, with implications for immigration, intercultural conflict, and radicalization.
Because negotiation is an integral part of social life, negotiators with different social motives are likely to meet. When this happens, will they be able to handle their differences constructively? ...We examined the relations between dyads’ social motive composition (cooperative, individualistic, or mixed), negotiation behavior, and economic and relational outcomes. In a laboratory experiment, 108 simulated negotiations were audiotaped, transcribed and coded. For economic outcomes, mixed dyads achieved higher profits than cooperative and individualistic dyads did, and this effect was mediated mainly by the negotiators’ problem-solving strategies. For relational outcomes, mixed and cooperative dyads experienced higher relational capital than individualistic dyads did, and this effect was mediated mainly by relationship management strategies. A follow-up survey conducted seven months later revealed that relational capital persisted over time. Overall, the results indicate that mixed-dyad negotiations between individualists and cooperators may bring out the best in both types of negotiators, making these dyads more successful than homogenous dyads.
Contemporary teams often face complex problem-solving tasks. We theorized that two individual differences previously neglected in team research (cognitive motivation and maximizing) would be helpful ...for teams facing such situations. We tested this assertion on 81 teams participating in an escape-room simulation in which teams were locked into a pre-arranged room and had to solve various complex problems to escape the room as quickly as possible. The findings show that the average of the team members’ cognitive motivation had a positive direct relation to team performance, while maximizing had a positive indirect relation to team performance via cooperation.
The effect of leadership behavior on work performance is highly context sensitive. We address this notion by investigating leadership behavior in one important but understudied organizational ...context—namely, professional service firms (PSFs). We examine how partners’ leadership behavior in a PSF relates to employee self-leadership, creative climate, and work performance (N = 442). The results show that partners’ consideration leadership behavior is positively related to employees’ perceived work performance. Moreover, partners’ consideration and intellectual stimulation leadership behavior are especially important drivers of self-leadership and creative climate in a PSF, which in turn are positively related to employees’ work performance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Cultural intelligence (CQ), the capability by which expatriates, managers, and others involved in cross-cultural interactions function effectively in a globalized world, was introduced in 2002 and ...has garnered wide attention recently. In this paper, we present a detailed and up-to-date review of 142 empirical articles in the CQ research field. We first examine the concept of CQ, including its definition, structure, measurement, and validity. We then review the vast number of empirical studies that investigate the antecedents, development, direct and indirect effects, moderating effects, and aggregated effects of CQ, as well as qualitative studies. The analysis shows several issues that likely will be relevant to the research debate in the near future. These issues include investigations of (1) whether cultural intelligence is universal or culture-specific, (2) why objective measures that assess CQ are lacking, (3) to what extent a person can develop cultural intelligence, (4) to what extent there are dark sides to cultural intelligence, and (5) the role cultural intelligence plays as a predictor of individual and group performance. Addressing these questions may help us reveal the true potential of CQ in contemporary organizations and thus, affirm that the promise of CQ is more than just hype.
Most negotiations are ill-structured situations, and the ability to identify novel options is likely to be crucial for success. This study, therefore, examined how creativity impacts negotiation ...processes and outcomes, and how this effect is moderated by positive arousal. The negotiators' creative personality and their state of positive arousal were measured before they participated in a simulated negotiation, with the results demonstrating that the level of creativity in negotiation dyads was positively related to the negotiators' joint outcome. Negotiators in high creativity dyads searched for more information by asking questions about priorities and were less narrowly focused by providing fewer single-issue offers than negotiators in low creativity dyads. Positive arousal did not affect outcome directly, but moderated the effect of creativity on joint outcomes; the effect of creativity was strongest under high levels of positive arousal. The discussion section emphasizes that future research may find creativity to have even more of a positive effect when negotiations become more complex.
Team emergent states are properties that develop during team interactions and describe team members' attitudes and feelings (e.g., cohesion). However, these states' emergent nature has largely been ...neglected, as most studies do not examine the temporality of team phenomena. We review longitudinal studies on team emergent states and demonstrate that a majority of papers reveal their temporal dynamics but offer no universal patterns as to how such states emerge. The review reveals common variables related to temporal dynamics and highlights the importance of studying the development of team emergent states to enhance our knowledge of their causal directions, antecedents, and outcomes. We suggest that future research should clarify the concept of team emergent states, connect theories to research on temporal dynamics, adopt more qualitative approaches to answer “how” and “why” questions, and improve research designs to study meaningful forms of change. Lastly, we present practical implications for the HR field.
•We review the empirical literature on temporal dynamics of team emergent states.•About two thirds of 115 papers reveal how team emergent states may change.•We find no universal pattern across studies as to how team emergent states develop.•We show the importance of studying the emergent nature of team emergent states.•We suggest four areas for further research on the dynamics of team emergent states.
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