Self-determination theory (SDT) conceptualizes basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness as innate and essential for ongoing psychological growth, internalization, and ...well-being. We broadly review the literature on basic psychological need satisfaction at work with three more specific aims: to test SDT’s requirement that each basic psychological need should uniquely predict psychological growth, internalization, and well-being; to test whether use of an overall need satisfaction measure is appropriate; and to test whether the scale used to assess basic psychological needs influenced our results. To this end, we conducted a meta-analytic review of 99 studies with 119 distinct samples examining the antecedents and consequences of basic need satisfaction. We conclude with recommendations for addressing issues arising from our review and also identify points for future research, including the study of need frustration and culture, integrating the basic needs with other motivation theories, and a caution regarding the measures and methods used.
Work Stress and Employee Health Ganster, Daniel C.; Rosen, Christopher C.
Journal of management,
07/2013, Volume:
39, Issue:
5
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Research examining the relationship between work stress and well-being has flourished over the past 20 years. At the same time, research on physiological stress processes has also advanced ...significantly. One of the major advances in this literature has been the emergence of the Allostatic Load model as a central organizing theory for understanding the physiology of stress. In this article, the Allostatic Load model is used as an organizing framework for reviewing the vast literature that has considered health outcomes that are associated with exposure to psychosocial stressors at work. This review spans multiple disciplines and includes a critical discussion of management and applied psychology research, epidemiological studies, and recent developments in biology, neuroendocrinology, and physiology that provide insight into how workplace experiences affect well-being. The authors critically review the literature within an Allostatic Load framework, with a focus on primary (e.g., stress hormones, anxiety and tension) and secondary (e.g., resting blood pressure, cholesterol, body mass index) mediators, as well as tertiary disease end points (e.g., cardiovascular disease, depression, mortality). Recommendations are provided for how future research can offer deeper insight into primary Allostatic Load processes that explain the effects of workplace experiences on mental and physical well-being.
Incivility at work-low intensity deviant behaviors with an ambiguous intent to harm-has been on the rise, yielding negative consequences for employees' well-being and companies' bottom-lines. ...Although examinations of incivility have gained momentum in organizational research, theory and empirical tests involving dynamic, within-person processes associated with this negative interpersonal behavior are limited. Drawing from ego depletion theory, we test how experiencing incivility precipitates instigating incivility toward others at work via reduced self-control. Using an experience sampling design across 2 work weeks, we found that experiencing incivility earlier in the day reduced one's levels of self-control (captured via a performance-based measure of self-control), which in turn resulted in increased instigated incivility later in the day. Moreover, organizational politics-a stable, environmental factor-strengthened the relation between experienced incivility and reduced self-control, whereas construal level-a stable, personal factor-weakened the relation between reduced self-control and instigated incivility. Combined, our results yield multiple theoretical, empirical, and practical implications for the study of incivility at work.
The COVID-19 pandemic propelled many employees into remote work arrangements, and face-to-face meetings were quickly replaced with virtual meetings. This rapid uptick in the use of virtual meetings ...led to much popular press discussion of virtual meeting fatigue (i.e., "Zoom fatigue"), described as a feeling of being drained and lacking energy following a day of virtual meetings. In this study, we aimed to better understand how one salient feature of virtual meetings-the camera-impacts fatigue, which may affect outcomes during meetings (e.g., participant voice and engagement). We did so through the use of a 4-week within-person experience sampling field experiment where camera use was manipulated. Drawing from theory related to self-presentation, we propose and test a model where study condition (camera on versus off) was linked to daily feelings of fatigue; daily fatigue, in turn, was presumed to relate negatively to voice and engagement during virtual meetings. We further predict that gender and organizational tenure will moderate this relationship such that using a camera during virtual meetings will be more fatiguing for women and newer members of the organization. Results of 1,408 daily observations from 103 employees supported our proposed model, with supplemental analyses suggesting that fatigue affects same-day and next-day meeting performance. Given the anticipated prevalence of remote work even after the pandemic subsides, our study offers key insights for ongoing organizational best practices surrounding virtual meetings.
A widespread methodological concern in the organizational literature is the possibility that observed results are due to the influence of common-method variance or mono-method bias. This concern is ...based on a conception of method variance as being produced by the nature of the method itself, and therefore, variables assessed with the same method would share common-method variance that inflates observed correlations. In this paper, we argue for a more complex view of method variance that consists of multiple sources that affect each measured variable in a potentially unique way. Shared sources among measures (common-method variance) act to inflate correlations, whereas unshared sources (uncommon-method variance) act to attenuate correlations. Two empirical examples, one from a simulation study and the other from a single-source survey, are presented to illustrate the complex action of multiple sources of method variance. A five-step approach is suggested whereby a theory of the measure is generated for each measured variable that would inform strategies to control for method variance by assessing and modeling the actions of identified method variance sources.
The current study tested a model that links perceptions of organizational politics to job performance and "turnover intentions" (intentions to quit). Meta-analytic evidence supported significant, ...bivariate relationships between perceived politics and strain (.48), turnover intentions (.43), job satisfaction (-. 57), affective commitment (-.54), task performance (-.20), and organizational citizenship behaviors toward individuals (-.16) and organizations (-.20). Additionally, results demonstrated that work attitudes mediated the effects of perceived politics on employee turnover intentions and that both attitudes and strain mediated the effects of perceived politics on performance. Finally, exploratory analyses provided evidence that perceived politics represent a unique "hindrance Stressor."
Scholars have paid an increasing amount of attention to organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs), with a particular emphasis on helping others at work. In addition, recent empirical work has ...focused on how OCB is an intraindividual phenomenon, such that employees vary daily in the extent to which they help others. However, one limitation of this research has been an overemphasis on well‐being consequences associated with daily helping (e.g., changes in affect and mental depletion) and far less attention on behavioral outcomes. In this study, we develop a self‐regulatory framework that articulates how helping others at work is a depleting experience that can lead to a reduction in subsequent acts of helping others, and an increase in behaviors aimed at helping oneself (i.e., engaging in political acts). We further theorize how two individual differences—prevention focus and political skill—serve as cross‐level moderators of these relations. In an experience sampling study of 91 full‐time employees across 10 consecutive workdays, our results illustrate that helping is a depleting act that makes individuals more likely to engage in self‐serving acts and less likely to help others. Moreover, the relation of helping acts with depletion is strengthened for employees who have higher levels of prevention focus.
Researchers are often concerned with common method variance (CMV) in cases where it is believed to bias relationships of predictors with criteria. However, CMV may also bias relationships within sets ...of predictors; this is cause for concern, given the rising popularity of higher order multidimensional constructs. The authors examined the extent to which CMV inflates interrelationships among indicators of higher order constructs and the relationships of those constructs with criteria. To do so, they examined core self-evaluation, a higher order construct comprising self-esteem, generalized self-efficacy, emotional stability, and locus of control. Across 2 studies, the authors systematically applied statistical (Study 1) and procedural (Study 2) CMV remedies to core self-evaluation data collected from multiple samples. Results revealed that the nature of the higher order construct and its relationship with job satisfaction were altered when the CMV remedies were applied. Implications of these findings for higher order constructs are discussed.
Over the past two decades, accumulating evidence has indicated that individuals experience challenge and hindrance stressors in qualitatively different ways, with the former being linked to more ...positive outcomes than the latter. Indeed, challenge stressors are believed to have net positive effects even though they can also lead to a range of strains, eliciting beliefs that managers can enhance performance outcomes by increasing the frequency of challenge stressors experienced in the workplace. The current article questions this conventional wisdom by developing theory that explains how different patterns of challenge stressor exposure influence employee outcomes. Across 2 field studies, our results supported our theory, indicating that when challenge stressors vary across time periods, they have negative indirect effects on employee performance and well-being outcomes. In contrast, when employees experience a stable pattern of challenge stressors across time periods, they have positive indirect effects on employee performance and well-being outcomes. These results, which suggest that the benefits of challenge stressors may not outweigh their costs when challenge stressors fluctuate, have important implications for theory and practice.
Scholars are paying increasing attention to the “dark side” of citizenship behavior. One aspect of this dark side that has received relatively scant attention is “helping pressure”—an employee's ...perception that s/he is being encouraged to, or otherwise feels that s/he should, enact helping behavior at work. Drawing from theory associated with work stress, we examine affective and cognitive mechanisms that potentially explain why helping pressure, counterintuitively, may lead employees to engage in deviant behavior instead. Beyond examining these possible mechanisms, we also answer calls to identify a potential buffer to these effects. Drawing from self‐determination theory, we examine how an employee's intrinsic motivation for citizenship may lessen the deleterious consequences of helping pressure at work. In two studies (a within‐individual experience‐sampling study and a two‐wave between‐individual study), we find consistent evidence that helping pressure has a positive indirect relationship with deviant behavior through increased negative affect. Further, we find evidence that intrinsic motivation for citizenship weakens the positive relationship of helping pressure with negative affect, buffering the indirect effect on subsequent deviant behavior. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings for the study of helping pressure at work are discussed.
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