Subjects: Psychology >> Management Psychology submitted time 2023-08-21
Abstract： Personal initiative behavior contributes to organizational success and helps employees navigate workplace uncertainty, and is therefore an essential research topic. However, most studies have focused on the influence of personal initiative behavior on leaders rather than coworkers. Moreover, the findings regarding the interpersonal effects of such behavior on coworkers are inconsistent. To address these issues, we take a contingency perspective that shifts the focus from a binary “good or bad for coworkers” logic to an understanding of the interpersonal benefits and risks of personal initiative behavior. Drawing on research stereotype traits, in this study we examine the moderating effect of the trait of employee warmth trait and explore the differential emotional and behavioral responses of coworkers toward employees with high or low warmth traits. We apply the approach-avoidance systems theory and hypothesize that warm and initiative-taking employees generate relational energy, leading to active facilitation behavior, whereas initiative-taking but non-warm employees may experience interpersonal disliking and subsequent ostracism behavior from coworkers.
We conducted two studies to test our hypotheses. Study 1 involved a multi-source round-robin survey to test the proposed model. Each survey wave was separated by a three-week interval. At Time 1, team leaders assessed each team member’s personal initiative behavior and demographics. The team members then rated their own warmth trait and demographics. Three weeks later at Time 2, the team members evaluated relational energy and interpersonal disliking through a round-robin design. Finally, three weeks later at Time 3, they rated their active facilitation behavior and interpersonal ostracism behavior using a round-robin design. The dataset comprised 1,164 dyads of 305 members in 65 teams. In Study 2, to enhance causal inference, a scenario-based experiment with a 2 (personal initiative behavior: high vs. low) × 2 (employee warmth trait: high vs. low) factorial design was conducted. The participants (280 full-time workers) were recruited from an online survey platform (Credamo) and randomly assigned to one of four scenarios. They reported their demographics, read the scenario, and provided responses to manipulation checks and questions regarding relational energy, interpersonal disliking, active facilitation behavior, and interpersonal ostracism behavior.
In terms of data analysis, we considered the complex nested structure of the round-robin data in Study 1 and utilized a multilevel social relations modeling approach to test the research model. In Study 2, we used ANOVA and regression analyses to examine the causal relationships in our theoretical model. The empirical results supported our hypotheses, indicating that initiative-taking and warm employees were more likely to stimulate coworkers’ relational energy and increase their active facilitation behavior. Conversely, initiative-taking but non-warm employees were more likely to trigger interpersonal disliking among coworkers, subsequently leading to increased interpersonal ostracism behavior.
This study has several theoretical implications. First, unlike studies that focus on singular effects, we explored the dual nature of the effects of personal initiative behavior on coworkers, thus providing a deeper understanding and a more comprehensive perspective. Second, by building on the literature on stereotype traits, we identified the employee warmth trait as a critical boundary that distinguishes the interpersonal benefits and risks of personal initiative behavior toward coworkers, thus reconciling other contradictory findings. Finally, by drawing on approach-avoidance systems theory, we revealed that relational energy and interpersonal disliking explain how and why coworkers have differential behavioral responses toward the personal initiative behavior exhibited by employees with high or low warmth traits.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Upward social comparison is common in workplaces, and many studies have identified its downsides, such as negative emotions and dysfunctional behaviors. However, a few studies have revealed positive effects, such as learning from comparison targets. These conflicting results suggest that the mechanism underlying the effect of upward social comparison in workplaces remains unclear. Furthermore, most research is based on social comparison theory, whereas few studies have explored upward social comparison through a cognitive lens. To fill these research gaps, we drew on the cognitive appraisal theory of stress to investigate upward social comparison in the workplace and determine how and when it yields (mal) adaptive behavioral outcomes. We used a multi-wave, round-robin design to collect data. 270 employees from 65 teams agreed to participate. At Time 1, 270 employees were invited to assess their workplace upward social comparison, performance-prove goal orientation, social comparison orientation, learning goal orientation, and demographics. 251 employees provided valid responses (response rate = 93%). Two weeks after Time 1, 251 employees were invited to evaluate their challenge and threat appraisals, and 240 employees provided valid responses (response rate = 95.6%). Two weeks after Time 2, 240 employees were invited to report their learning behaviors towards their coworkers, and meanwhile, employees were invited their received social undermining from coworkers. 240 valid responses were received (response rate = 100%). Finally, 720 dyads from 240 employees from 60 teams were used to test our proposed model. Given that the dyads nested in employees and then employees nested within teams, we tested our hypothesis by multilevel social relations model. To test the conditional indirect effects, a Monte Carlo simulation with 20, 000 replications was used to generate the 95% Monte Carlo confidence intervals in R 3.5. The results showed that employees with low levels of performance-prove goal orientation tended to appraise upward social comparison as a challenge, which prompts learning from the comparison targets. However, employees with high levels of performance-prove goal orientation tended to appraise upward social comparison as a threat, motivating them to socially undermine the comparison targets. Our study provides theoretical and practical implications. We reveal the double-edged effects of workplace upward social comparison on subsequent learning behaviors and social undermining through a cognitive rather than emotional lens. Our findings demonstrate how and why workplace upward social comparison drives employees to develop two distinct behavioral responses, from a novel theoretical perspective—the cognitive appraisal theory of stress. Finally, the performance-prove goal orientation determines the effects of workplace upward social comparison. Furthermore, our findings offer important practical implications to managers and policymakers.
Subjects: Psychology >> Management Psychology submitted time 2022-10-25
Abstract： Upward social comparison is common in workplaces, and many studies have identified its downsides, such as negative emotions and dysfunctional behaviors. However, a few studies have revealed positive effects, such as learning from comparison targets. These conflicting results suggest that the mechanism underlying the effect of upward social comparison in workplaces remains unclear. Furthermore, most research is based on social comparison theory, whereas few studies have explored upward social comparison through a cognitive lens. To fill these research gaps, we drew on the cognitive appraisal theory of stress to investigate upward social comparison in the workplace and determine how and when it yields (mal)adaptive behavioral outcomes. We used a multi-wave, round-robin design to collect data. 270 employees from 65 teams agreed to participate. At Time 1, 270 employees were invited to assess their workplace upward social comparison, performance-prove goal orientation, social comparison orientation, learning goal orientation, and demographics. 251 employees provided valid responses (response rate = 93%). Two weeks after Time 1, 251 employees were invited to evaluate their challenge and threat appraisals, and 240 employees provided valid responses (response rate = 95.6%). Two weeks after Time 2, 240 employees were invited to report their learning behaviors towards their coworkers, and meanwhile, employees were invited their received social undermining from coworkers. 240 valid responses were received (response rate = 100%). Finally, 720 dyads from 240 employees from 60 teams were used to test our proposed model. Given that the dyads nested in employees and then employees nested within teams, we tested our hypothesis by multilevel social relations model. To test the conditional indirect effects, a Monte Carlo simulation with 20,000 replications was used to generate the 95% Monte Carlo confidence intervals in R 3.5. The results showed that employees with low levels of performance-proving goal orientation tended to appraise upward social comparison as a challenge, which prompts learning from the comparison targets. However, employees with high levels of performance-proving goal orientation tended to appraise upward social comparison as a threat, motivating them to socially undermine the comparison targets. Our study provides theoretical and practical implications. We reveal the double-edged effects of workplace upward social comparison on subsequent learning behaviors and social undermining through a cognitive rather than emotional lens. Our findings demonstrate how and why workplace upward social comparison drives employees to develop two distinct behavioral responses, from a novel theoretical perspective—the cognitive appraisal theory of stress. Finally, the performance-proving goal orientation determines the effects of workplace upward social comparison. Furthermore, our findings offer important practical implications to managers and policymakers.
Subjects: Psychology >> Management Psychology submitted time 2021-03-12
Abstract： Recent research has paid increasing attention to the consequences of empowering leadership. The majority of them has devoted considerable efforts in identifying the bright side of empowering leadership, arguing that it enables followers to develop their self-management capacity and can be effective in driving positive job-related outcomes. According to the double-edge-sword effect perspective, empowering leadership may have negative side, and this has attracted growing research interest, thus making the question of when empowering leadership hinders its proposed effect on followers a particularly important one. Leadership is widely understood as a relational process and its effectiveness depends not only on the behaviors of actors (i.e., leaders themselves) but also on the perceptions of receivers (i.e., their followers). Accordingly, this paper takes both leaders and followers into consideration with an expectation of providing a deeper insight into the influence of empowering leadership. Drawing on the theory of person-environment fit, we examine the impact of leaders’ empowering behaviors that are needed and received by followers on their job-related outcomes. Specifically, the misfit between empowering leadership needed and received by followers can be appraised as a stressor for them, as such a misfit represents the discrepancy between followers’ preferred states (i.e., needed) and actual states (i.e., received). Based on the transactional model of stress, we proposed that perceived misfit between empowering leadership needed and received (as a stressor) is likely to induce emotional exhaustion (as a strain) which will in turns have ramifications for followers’ job-related outcomes, including lower satisfaction toward leaders, less organizational citizenship behaviors, and poorer job performance. We also hypothesized that followers’ emotional exhaustion will be higher when they experience excessive empowerment compared with the situation when they face deficient empowerment. We tested our proposed model in two multi-wave, multi-source surveys. In Study 1, we invited 150 leader-follower dyads from 12 companies in China to participate in our study. In this study, data were collected in two waves to minimize common method bias. At wave 1, all followers were invited to assess their empowering leadership that they needed and received, emotional exhaustion, satisfaction toward their leaders, as well as demographics. Half a month later, at wave 2, all leaders were invited to provide their demographics and assess their follower’s organizational citizenship behavior and job performance. All the participants provided valid responses and the final sample thus includes 150 unique leader-follower dyads. In Study 2, we collected data from 253 followers and 50 leaders from 38 companies in China to replicate the results analyzed in Study 1 in terms of two-wave data collection. At wave 1, all followers were invited to assess their empowering leadership needed and received, psychological stress, psychological empowerment, and demographics. Half a month later, at wave 2, all the followers were invited to evaluate their emotional exhaustion and satisfaction towards leaders, their 50 leaders were invited to provide their demographics and assess their organizational citizenship behavior and job performance. 243 followers provided valid responses and thus the final sample includes 243 leader-follower dyads. Given that the data structure in these two studies were non-independent, we conducted multilevel polynomial regression and response surface modeling using the software of Mplus 8.2. We also employed the block variable approach to calculate the indirect effects. Besides, we tested the significance of the indirect effects with the Monte Carlo simulation procedure in RStudio. The results of data analyses showed that: (a) the misfit between needed and received empowering leadership was positively and significantly related to followers’ emotional exhaustion; (b) compared with deficient empowerment, followers’ emotional exhaustion was higher when they received excessive empowerment; and (c) followers’ emotional exhaustion mediated the misfit of needed and received empowering leadership on followers’ satisfaction with their leaders, organizational citizenship behavior, and job performance. Our study provides several theoretical and practical implications. First, we employed a relational perspective and took both leaders and followers into consideration to investigate the impacts of empowering leadership on followers’ job-related outcomes. This helps paint a more complete picture of the consequences of empowering leadership. Second, by drawing on the theory of person-environment fit together with the transactional model of stress, we investigated the effects of the needed and received empowering leadership on followers’ job-related outcomes and its underlying mechanisms. Third, the asymmetry effects of excessive versus deficient empowerment on followers’ emotional exhaustion revealed that in line with the “too much of a good thing” effect, empowering leadership is not a panacea. Overall, we shed valuable insights into the literature on empowerment by demonstrating that there is no optimal amount of empowerment. The consequences associated with a certain amount of empowerment differ among individuals. Our findings also offer important practical insights to leaders on how to leverage the benefits of empowering leadership.
Hits
YES
Hits
Downloads
Comment