A multitude of studies in the management literature are focusing on within-person phenomena. The study of such phenomena offers great promise as within-person research facilitates the capacity to ...enhance temporal precision, show change over time, and reveal the kinds of novel insights that are not possible if relying solely on a traditional between-person perspective. Drawing on the features of within-person research that comprise its unique value proposition, we conduct a quantitative and narrative review of within-person studies to ascertain the degree to which these studies are maximizing the contribution and impact that they can make to the field of management. We pose three research questions that we present as a holistic framework for assessing the contributions of within-person research. To answer our questions, we synthesize across studies and analyze variability data, correlational data, and researchers’ hypothesizing to show (a) the degree to which hypotheses in within-person studies incorporate temporality; (b) the differential within-person fluctuation and variability that exists based on construct, theoretical, and measurement-related factors; and (c) the degree to which within-person relationships are different from equivalent between-person relationships. While our data and conclusions offer insight into the contributions being made by the within-person literature at large, we also propose that our framework can be used at the individual study level of analysis to help optimize the contributions made in future within-person research.
We report an experience-sampling study examining the spillover of workplace incivility on employees’ home lives. Specifically, we test a moderated mediation model whereby discrete emotions transmit ...the effects of workplace incivility to specific family behaviors at home. Fifty full-time employees from southeast Asia provided 363 observations over a 10-day period on workplace incivility and various emotional states. Daily reports of employees’ marital behaviors were provided by the spouses each evening. Results showed that state hostility mediated the link from workplace incivility to increased angry and withdrawn marital behaviors at home. Also, trait hostility served as a moderator such that the relationship between workplace incivility and hostile emotions was stronger for employees with high trait hostility.
•A within-individual test of the buffering model of social support is provided.•Emotional exhaustion mediates the daily workload–work-family conflict relation.•Daily support at work and at home are ...buffers in this work-family conflict process.•Supervisor support weakens the effect of workload on emotional exhaustion.•Spousal support weakens the effect of emotional exhaustion on work-family conflict.
Using experience-sampling methodology, the present study offers a within-individual test of the buffering model of social support in the daily work-family conflict process. Building on the conceptualization of social support as a volatile resource, we examine how daily fluctuations in social support at work and at home influence the process through which work interferes with family life. A total of 112 employees participated in the study and were asked to respond to daily surveys in the work and home domains. Results showed that social support at work and at home—as volatile resources—buffered the daily work-family conflict process within their respective domains. First, a supportive supervisor mitigated the within-individual effect of workload on emotional exhaustion. Second, a supportive spouse protected the strained employee from the effect of emotional exhaustion on work-family conflict, and spousal support also moderated the indirect effect from workload to work-family conflict through emotional exhaustion. The findings suggest that enacting a dual social support system can effectively reduce the adverse effects of excessive job demands on exhaustion and work-family conflict, but buffering effects are highly dependent on the timely availability of social support.
In this paper, we examine the interactive effects of positive affect and perspective-taking on workplace incivility and family incivility, through moral disengagement. We draw from broaden-and-build ...and moral disengagement theories to suggest a potential negative consequence of positive affect. Specifically, we argue that positive affect increases incivility toward coworkers and spouses through moral disengagement among employees with low, but not high perspective-taking. Data from two time-lagged field studies and one online experiment provide support for our hypotheses. These findings suggest that the beneficial effects of positive feelings are not universal, and the fostering of positive feelings at work might have unintended negative consequences, namely moral disengagement, and increased incivility at work and at home. Implications for theory and research are discussed.
In a series of studies, we examine the role of positive emotions in the charismatic leadership process. In Studies 1 and 2, ratings of charisma in a natural work setting were linked to leaders' ...positive emotional expressions. In Study 3, leaders' positive emotional expressions were linked to mood states of simulated followers. Results suggest that mood contagion may be one of the psychological mechanisms by which charismatic leaders influence followers. In Study 4, we used a trained actor and manipulated leaders' positive emotional expressions to isolate the effects of positive emotions from the potential effects of non-emotional aspects of effective leadership (e.g., vision, other inspirational influence processes). A positive link between leader emotions and follower mood was found. Results also indicate that both leaders' positive emotional expressions and follower mood influenced ratings of leader effectiveness and attraction to the leader.
The longitudinal, multisource, multimethod study presented herein examines the role of employees' work-family integration in the spillover of daily job satisfaction onto daily marital satisfaction ...and affective states experienced by employees at home. The spillover linkages are modeled at the within-individual level, and results support the main effects of daily job satisfaction on daily marital satisfaction and affect at home, as well as the moderating effect of work-family integration on the strength of the within-individual spillover effects on home affect. That is, employees with highly integrated work and family roles exhibited stronger intraindividual spillover effects on positive and negative affect at home.
Even workers who are generally happy at work can suffer short-term losses of enthusiasm and fulfilment. Short-term fluctuations matter because they can better explain work-related well-being (e.g. ...work engagement, flow, positive affect or passion), employees’ relations with other people at work (e.g. co-workers, clients), life outside work, and ultimately productivity. This article reviews what we know about short-term variations in employee well-being and highlights new theoretical assumptions and results from the seven articles in this special issue. The articles identify key psychological mechanisms involved in explaining within-person changes in well-being, including the ways in which people appraise events at work, the importance of humour, the sense of hope, and the balance between skills and challenges. Interventions that offer leadership training and cultivate signature strengths at work can also be effective in enhancing employee well-being. Boosting short-term well-being can make a big difference to employees and organizations.
Two main theoretical approaches have been put forward to explain individual differences in life satisfaction:
top-down
(i.e., personological) and
bottom-up
(i.e., situational). The authors examine ...the relative merit of these 2 approaches and the psychological processes underlying top-down models. Consistent with a top-down approach, meta-analytic findings indicate that Neuroticism, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness are related to both various domain satisfactions and life satisfaction; however, consistent with a bottom-up approach, domain satisfactions are strongly linked to life satisfaction but only weakly linked to each other. Path analyses based on meta-analytic estimates did not support a simple "direct-effects" top-down model but supported both (a) a temperament-based top-down model and (b) an integrative model that incorporates the direct influence of domain satisfactions on life satisfaction.
We report a field study examining within‐individual effects of workload on distress at work and daily well‐being. The study was conducted using experience‐sampling methodology to measure daily ...workload, affective distress, and blood pressure throughout and at the end of each of 10 workdays, and emotional burnout and daily strain (two indicators of low well‐being) during the evening in a sample of 64 full‐time employees who provided a total of 354 person‐day data points. We also measured employees’ job control and perceived organizational support with a separate survey. Results showed that workload was positively associated with affective distress and blood pressure, and with the indicators of low daily well‐being. Furthermore, affective distress mediated the relationship between workload and daily well‐being. More importantly, job control and organizational support had cross‐level moderating influences on the relationships of workload with affective distress and blood pressure such that these relationships were weaker for participants who reported having more control on their job, as well as for participants who reported receiving more organizational support.
Recent conceptual work draws meaningful distinctions between experiential and declarative well‐being (Shmotkin, ), but little has been done to apply such distinctions in organisational psychology. We ...use this framework to integrate self‐determination theory (Deci & Ryan, ) and flow theory (Csikszentmihalyi, ), leading to hypotheses proposing that flow experiences at work (experiential well‐being) lead to declarative well‐being outcomes through their influence on the satisfaction of basic psychological needs for competence and autonomy. Findings from a two‐week experience sampling study of full‐time employees offer support for our hypotheses. This study also shows support for the moderating effect of individual differences in personality on the relationships among flow experiences, need fulfillment, and declarative well‐being.
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