Where you came from and where you are going: The role of performance trajectory in promotion decisions.

Despite the clear theoretical link between promotions and job performance, the few studies that have tested this relationship have instead found that the role of job performance level in determining promotions is much less than might be expected. In 4 studies, we propose and test a different way of thinking about the performance-promotion relationship. Prospect theory, spiraling theory, and sponsored and contest mobility were used to support the notion that change in performance is at least as important to the prediction of promotion decisions as is absolute level of performance. In Study 1, performance and promotion data were collected for 563 white-collar employees at each of 4 time points spread over 6 years. As hypothesized, change in job performance significantly predicted change in workers’ hierarchical level (i.e., promotion) beyond previous performance level. In Study 2, we found that upward trends are associated with ratings of future performance expectation and promotability through their effects on attributions of conscientiousness, proactive personality, and job dedication. In Study 3, we replicated the findings of Study 2 and found no evidence of a performance trend by performance level interaction. In Study 4, we showed that those with upward trends are preferred even to those with performance that is consistent and strong. Taken together, our results suggest that the reason for the modest performance-promotion relationships found in previous research may be that performance trends are seen by decision makers as containing at least as much promotion-relevant information as do performance averages or recent performance levels. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved

Analyzing matrices of meta-analytic correlations: current practices and recommendations

Researchers have become increasingly interested in conducting analyses on meta-analytic correlation matrices. Methodologists have provided guidance and recommended practices for the application of this technique. The purpose of this article is to review current practices regarding analyzing meta-analytic correlation matrices, to identify the gaps between current and best practices, and to offer a comprehensive set of recommendations regarding the planning, collection, analysis, and interpretation of studies that utilize meta-analytic correlation matrices. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

From Helping to Helpful: a Social Network Examination of Workplace Helpfulness at Multiple Levels

From Helping to Helpful: a Social Network Examination of Workplace Helpfulness at Multiple Level

From Helping to Helpful: a Social Network Examination of Workplace Helpfulness at Multiple Levels

Moving beyond the current emphasis on the frequency of helping, this study aims to emphasize the importance of help quality. Utilizing a social network design, this study incorporates both the help provider’s and recipient’s perspectives and develops a multilevel model to demonstrate the incremental validity of help quality over frequency in the prediction of key organizational outcomes (i.e., satisfaction and performance at both individual and team levels). We further identify servant leadership as a crucial predictor of help quality, more so than help frequency, at both levels. Data were collected from 416 nurses and 42 supervisors from a large hospital in Beijing, China. Results show that help quality significantly predicted the supervisor-rated performance of the help provider, the job satisfaction of the help recipient, and team satisfaction, after controlling for the effects of help frequency. Contrary to our expectations, help quality did not significantly predict team performance. Moreover, servant leadership was a stronger predictor of help quality than of help frequency at both individual and team levels. Our results suggest that organizations and managers should aim to cultivate employee helpfulness, instead of merely encouraging more helping behavior. Avenues for future research are discussed

Restricted Variance Interactions in Entrepreneurship Research: A Unique Basis for Context-as-Moderator Hypotheses

In this methodological brief, we demonstrate the usefulness of the restricted variance (RV) interaction to entrepreneurship research. RV reasoning can help scholars to specify precise roles for contextual moderators. This specificity allows for strengthening of arguments and for testing of one of the reasons for an interaction. In some cases, it points to otherwise unexpected interaction patterns. We illustrate the power of RV reasoning with a data set of 503 biotech firms to show how RV explains geographic differences in the relationship between number of alliances and initial public offering value. Finally, we show how these interactions can be tested given typical distributions

Restricted Variance Interactions in Entrepreneurship Research: A Unique Basis for Context-as-Moderator Hypotheses

In this methodological brief, we demonstrate the usefulness of the restricted variance (RV) interaction to entrepreneurship research. RV reasoning can help scholars to specify precise roles for contextual moderators. This specificity allows for strengthening of arguments and for testing of one of the reasons for an interaction. In some cases, it points to otherwise unexpected interaction patterns. We illustrate the power of RV reasoning with a data set of 503 biotech firms to show how RV explains geographic differences in the relationship between number of alliances and initial public offering value. Finally, we show how these interactions can be tested given typical distributions

From alpha to omega and beyond! A look at the past, present, and (possible) future of psychometric soundness in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

The psychometric soundness of measures has been a central concern of articles published in the Journal of Applied Psychology (JAP) since the inception of the journal. At the same time, it isn’t clear that investigators and reviewers prioritize psychometric soundness to a degree that would allow one to have sufficient confidence in conclusions regarding constructs. The purposes of the present article are to (a) examine current scale development and evaluation practices in JAP; (b) compare these practices to recommended practices, previous practices, and practices in other journals; and (c) use these comparisons to make recommendations for reviewers, editors, and investigators regarding the creation and evaluation of measures including Excel-based calculators for various indices. Finally, given that model complexity appears to have increased the need for short scales, we offer a user-friendly R Shiny app (https://orgscience.uncc.edu/about-us/resources) that identifies the subset of items that maximize a variety of psychometric criteria rather than merely maximizing alpha. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved