Different fits satisfy different needs: Linking person-environment fit to employee commitment and performance using self-determination theory

Ministry of Education, Singapore under its Academic Research Funding Tier

Willing and able: action-state orientation and the relation between procedural justice and employee cooperation

Existing justice theory explains why fair procedures motivate employees to adopt cooperative goals, but it fails to explain how employees strive towards these goals. We study self-regulatory abilities that underlie goal striving; abilities that should thus affect employees’ display of cooperative behavior in response to procedural justice. Building on action control theory, we argue that employees who display effective self-regulatory strategies (action oriented employees) display relatively strong cooperative behavioral responses to fair procedures. A multisource field study and a laboratory experiment support this prediction. A subsequent experiment addresses the process underlying this effect by explicitly showing that action orientation facilitates attainment of the cooperative goals that people adopt in response to fair procedures, thus facilitating the display of actual cooperative behavior. This goal striving approach better integrates research on the relationship between procedural justice and employee cooperation in the self-regulation and the work motivation literature. It also offers organizations a new perspective on making procedural justice effective in stimulating employee cooperation by suggesting factors that help employees reach their adopted goals

Emotional Labor Actors: A Latent Profile Analysis of Emotional Labor Strategies

Research on emotional labor focuses on how employees utilize 2 main regulation strategies—surface acting (i.e., faking one’s felt emotions) and deep acting (i.e., attempting to feel required emotions)—to adhere to emotional expectations of their jobs. To date, researchers largely have considered how each strategy functions to predict outcomes in isolation. However, this variable-centered perspective ignores the possibility that there are subpopulations of employees who may differ in their combined use of surface and deep acting. To address this issue, we conducted 2 studies that examined surface acting and deep acting from a person-centered perspective. Using latent profile analysis, we identified 5 emotional labor profiles—non-actors, low actors, surface actors, deep actors, and regulators—and found that these actor profiles were distinguished by several emotional labor antecedents (positive affectivity, negative affectivity, display rules, customer orientation, and emotion demands–abilities fit) and differentially predicted employee outcomes (emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction, and felt inauthenticity). Our results reveal new insights into the nature of emotion regulation in emotional labor contexts and how different employees may characteristically use distinct combinations of emotion regulation strategies to manage their emotional expressions at work

Leader Humility in Singapore

Singapore Management University, Human Capital Leadership Institute, BSI

Overt Attention and Context Factors: The Impact of Repeated Presentations, Image Type, and Individual Motivation

The present study investigated the dynamic of the attention focus during observation of different categories of complex scenes and simultaneous consideration of individuals' memory and motivational state. We repeatedly presented four types of complex visual scenes in a pseudo-randomized order and recorded eye movements. Subjects were divided into groups according to their motivational disposition in terms of action orientation and individual rating of scene interest

A new research agenda for managing socio-cultural integration

Post-acquisition socio-cultural integration has received increasing attention from both scholars and practitioners since the early 1990s. During the past decade, research has increasingly focused on emotions and identity in mergers and acquisitions. This chapter introduces the reader to the vibrant research field and its relevance. This section sets the scene for the book, which provides a deeper understanding of how emotions—both positive and negative—as well as values and identity enable a deeper socio-cultural integration after a merger or acquisition, and how leadership plays a crucial role in making it all happen. This chapter also highlights how the Nordic approach to post-acquisition socio-cultural integration refers to a large community of Nordic academics focusing on the softer social and human side of acquisition, often relying on a huge variety of qualitative methods, and to Nordic companies that are not afraid of adopting a more collaborative approach to post-acquisition integration

Can empathy lead to emotional exhaustion in teachers? The mediating role of emotional labor

Objectives: The present study was designed to examine the links between empathy, emotional labor (both surface and deep acting), and emotional exhaustion as well as determine if emotional labor mediates the relationship between empathy and emotional exhaustion in teachers. It was assumed that emotional labor can take two opposite directions (positive mood induction and negative mood induction). Thus, the additional aim of the study was to analyze the mediating role of mood regulation strategies in the relationship between empathy and emotional exhaustion. Materials and Methods: A sample of 168 teachers from Łódź and its surroundings completed a set of questionnaires: Emotional Labor Scale; Mood Regulation Scales, Maslach Burnout Inventory, and Empathic Sensitivity Scale. Results: The results provided mixed support for the hypotheses indicating that both types of emotional labor, negative mood induction and emotional exhaustion were positively intercorrelated. Moreover, deep acting was a significant mediator in the relationship between empathy and emotional exhaustion. The analyzed link was also mediated by negative mood induction, whereas positive mood induction did not emerge as a significant mediator. Conclusions: The study provided insight into the role of empathy and emotional labor in the development of teacher burnout. It also confirmed that deep acting and negative mood induction mediate the relationship between empathy and emotional exhaustion in teachers

Advances in understanding the links of emotions and context.

It is widely recognized that affect plays a central role in a variety of organizational behavior phenomena, including worker productivity, well-being, and interpersonal relationships (e.g., Elfenbein, 2007; Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996). As such, it is important to understand the factors that shape work affect. While a good deal of attention has been paid to the role of dispositional factors (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988), researchers are increasingly focusing on the importance of dynamic contextual factors in shaping employee affect (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996). Furthermore, it is becoming apparent that context can shape employee affect through both top-down conscious assessments of the work environment (and one’s relationship with it) as well as bottom-up unconscious processes. The primary objective of the proposed symposium is to examine theoretical and empirical advances aimed at understanding how the work context shapes employee emotional content and dynamics. Adopting a broad perspective on how affect is shaped by perceptions of the work environment, the first paper by Diefendorff, Gabriel, Greguras, Chandler and Moran examines the links of perceived person-environment fit with momentary affect using experience sampled responses. Lagged analyses suggest that affect is primarily an outcome of perceived fit with different aspects of the environment (i.e. organizational values, job demands, job supplies), though the perceived fit with one’s job demands was shaped by momentary affect. These results suggest that momentary work affect has a reciprocally-causal relationship with perceptions of the degree of fit with one’s work environment. The second study by Kim, Yoon, and Glomb, examined customers’ emotional reactions as a means of feedback to service employees, drawing on the social interaction model (Côté, 2005). Their findings suggest that customer displays of positive emotions mediate the relationship between employee displays of positive emotions and employee well-being outcomes, including positive mood, job satisfaction, and emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, customer personality (i.e., agreeableness) moderated some of these links, suggesting the presence of boundary conditions for the impact of employee emotional displays on customer affect. The third paper, by Boyatzis reviews novel findings pertaining to the neural bases of emotional contagion (Boyatzis, Jack, Cesaro, Passarelli, & Khawaja, 2010; Cattaneo & Rizzolatti, 2009). This theoretical work suggests that the combination of two main networks with mirror systems allow people to discern the: (a) context of an observed action or setting; (b) the action; and (c) the intention of the other living being. Contagion seems to spread to others through mimicry and imitation, as individuals in a dyad set off tipping points in each other’s system. The emotional contagion then becomes a form of social contagion, with interaction partners unconsciously sensing each other’s intentions and mimicking one another. The fourth study by Tee, Ashkanasy, and Paulsen proposes an ‘upward emotional contagion’ model, in which followers’ expressions of affect may transcend formal power and hierarchical differences, which has implications for leadership outcomes. Following emotional contagion theory (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994) and using evidence from four studies, they found that moods expressed by low-power individuals can be ‘caught’ by individuals with relatively more power and that highly neurotic leaders were more susceptible to negative upward emotional contagion. Furthermore, followers tended to express positive affect towards leaders they perceived as being representative of their groups (i.e. prototypical), and engaged in actions that showed that they were willing to forgo their own self-interests (i.e. self-sacrificial). The final study, by Petitta, and Di Cave proposes an expanded approach to emotional contagion (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994) by: (a) simultaneously considering contagion absorbed by and issued towards others, (b) contextualizing its measure in work settings, as in the Emotional Contagion at Work Scale (ECWS), (c) exploring the differential association of contagion with leaders, colleagues, and customers, and (d) studying the role of emotional dynamics in predicting group results. Their study, on a sample of rescue service operators, found support for the differential role played by the contagion received from and directed towards others in influencing group results. Furthermore, their findings suggest that the effects of different emotional contagion dimensions may depend on the person under consideration (i.e., leader, colleague, customer). The symposium will conclude with a discussion led by Dr. Stéphane Côté from the University of Toronto. Dr. Côté is an expert on emotions in the workplace and has published extensively in the leading journals of the field, including Journal of Applied Psychology, Academy of Management Review, Emotion, and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology