Why did that happen: understanding the impact of witnessing employee-customer directed helping behavior

The involvement of other customers in a retail store or service setting has always been a unique component of the service experience. Interestingly, a missing component of the literature is an understanding of how the service experience changes for the customer who witnesses an encounter between another customer and an employee of the retail store or service establishment, particularly with regards to positive service encounters that are witnessed. In this dissertation, understanding these customer bystanders, those customers who witness an external event in which they are not the primary actor, was an important step in understanding the true ramifications of a service encounter or a service strategy on customers. In order to better understand how witnessed external events influence customer bystanders, two studies were conducted. The first study used a critical incident technique survey to explore the types of employee-customer interactions customer bystanders witness. The results of study one indicated that employee customer-directed helping behavior was the major positive witnessed type of event and serves as the primary focal employee-customer interaction for this dissertation. The second study in this dissertation, a scenario-based experimental survey, examined the evaluative judgments, emotions, and behavioral intentions of customer bystanders when witnessing an employee engaged in helping another customer when this action has no direct impact on the customer bystander his or herself. The employee customer-directed helping behavior was evaluated through customer bystanders' perceived views of the effort given by an employee in helping the other customer. The findings from study two provide firms with insights into the potential pros and cons of employee helping behavior and the impact of the overall service environment on customer bystanders by showing that customer bystanders are influenced by witnessed perceived employee effort. Theoretically, the findings provide researchers with information about the psychological evaluations, emotional reactions, and behavioral intentions of customer bystanders to witnessing different employee effort levels with regards to helping other customers, and the findings extend understanding of the impact of the overall service or retail environment on evaluations by customers. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Who has conflicts with whom?: a social capital approach to conflict and creativity in teams

Extant team conflict research treats conflict as a shared perceptual team property whereby it is assumed that all of a team's members experience equivalent amounts of conflict. This traditional approach is silent concerning whether team members vary according to how much conflict each team member experiences with each of their team members. This customary treatment of team conflict as a shared perceptual property of the team has led to inconsistent findings in the empirical record concerning the predictive power of the team conflict construct for predicting a team's creativity. In an effort to provide conceptual and empirical clarity to this issue, the present dissertation utilized social capital theory and analysis to examine the relationship between team conflict and team creativity. With its explicit focus on dyadic interactions, social capital is argued to be a more appropriate lens than the conventional paradigm for understanding how and why conflicts between team members influence team members' ability to be creative. It is argued that a social capital approach provides a more rigorous and appropriate test of the theoretical and empirical justifications for the team conflict--team creativity relationship. The dissertation attempted to replicate and extend the findings of previous studies of team conflict and team creativity by utilizing measures of conflict derived using both sociometric and psychometric methods. Results from a lagged study of 132 teams engaged in a complex, 10-week business game simulation revealed that team conflict was predictive of team creativity using the traditional, yet less precise, psychometric method, but was not predictive of team creativity using the sociometric method. The study's inability to replicate previous research findings using the social capital approach calls into question the validity of traditional team conflict approaches for predicting team creativity. Further, the discrepant findings open a new line of inquiry addressing when and under what conditions the social capital approach to conflict predicts team creativity. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

Risk perceptions and venture creation decisions: establishing the boundary conditions of overconfidence and perceived environmental munificence

This dissertation leverages cognition theory to examine the relationship between risk perceptions and venture creation decisions and seeks to establish overconfidence and perceived environmental munificence as boundary conditions for that relationship. Risk perceptions of the new venture are negatively associated with venture creation decisions. As the threat of possible loss and uncertainty associated with the new venture increase, the likelihood for gains associated with deciding to create the new venture decrease. Overconfidence and perceived environmental munificence are expected to moderate the relationship between risk perceptions of the new venture and venture creation decisions. Overconfidence is a cognitive bias that mitigates the relationship between risk perceptions of the new venture and venture creation decisions because the overconfident, while aware of risks, tend to be less sensitive to the possibilities of loss affecting their new ventures based upon skewed perceptions. Additionally, greater amounts of perceived environmental munificence are expected to weaken the negative relationship between risk perceptions of the new venture and venture creation decisions. The effects of risks on the new venture decision are perceived as less likely in resource-rich environments. The relationship between perceived risks and venture creation decisions is, thus, likely to be influenced by the boundary conditions of overconfidence and perceived environmental munificence. The results provide support for the hypothesized relationship between risk perceptions and venture creation decisions. It also provides evidence that perceived environmental munificence moderates the relationship between risk perceptions and venture creation decisions. However, it does not provide support for the hypothesized boundary condition of overconfidence. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

The dark side of LMX: variances among out-group members in growth need and work outcomes

Given my interest in LMX relationships and impression management (IM) behaviors, this dissertation was focused on the out-group in LMX, regarding member job performance and attitudes (Study I), and the impact of IM on performance ratings (Study II). With the suspicion that there may be individual differences that separate those who do not belong in the out-group from those who may belong there, Study I was designed to address the question concerning how the differences among out-group members impact their job performance and attitudes. Specifically, this study investigated the effect of growth-need strength (GNS) on out-group member job performance and job related attitudes. By adopting theories of person-job fit, some of the causes of undesirable work outcomes among out-group members, such as low commitment, low satisfaction, and high turnover intentions, were examined. Results from Study I suggest that for out-group members with a high growth-need, a better relationship with the supervisors may bring higher growth satisfaction and decreased turnover intent, but also more stress. With evidence found in Study I that not all out-group members believed that they belonged in the out-group, Study II investigated whether these out-group members would try to change their out-group status by means of IM. Cognitive Dissonance Theory was used as the theoretical foundation for this study. Data for both studies were collected from a state-owned hospital in main land China. Findings from Study II indicate that out-group members with a higher growth-need would use impression management more frequently, and that impression management attempts can be effective in improving performance ratings, even for out-group members. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries

The personal cost of being in the in-group: the relationship between leader-member exchange quality and work-family conflict

Research examining the influence of leader-member exchange (LMX) on employee outcomes is plentiful. However, research exploring the potential negative consequences of engaging in LMX relationships has been limited. In order to obtain a better understanding of these complex relationships, this study predicts a curvilinear relationship between LMX and work-family conflict. Role overload and job engagement also are examined as mediators of the LMX and work-family conflict relationship. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to examine 72 dyads. The findings from this study indicate that a curvilinear relationship does not exist between LMX and work-family conflict. Additionally, role overload and job engagement did not mediate the relationship between LMX and work-family conflict. A discussion of the results along with the strengths, limitations, directions for future research and practical implications are also presented. (Published By University of Alabama Libraries