Capturing life as it is lived : studying work events using an expanded taxonomy

Organizational psychologists have long been interested in the daily dynamics within a workday (Basch & Fisher, 1998; Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996). To explain these dynamics, they proposed that concise situations at work, so-called work events, add variety to the work routine and thus cause daily variability in affective reactions and organizational behavior. The role of work events in organizational behavior was discussed in two theories. The first theory, affective event theory (Weiss & Beal, 2005; Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996), argued that work events get evaluated as positive or negative and that these affective events explain variability in emotions and organizational behavior. Affective events became particularly popular to explain daily changes in emotions and affective well-being at work (Basch & Fisher, 1998; Gross et al., 2011; Kuba & Scheibe, 2017; Ohly & Schmitt, 2015). The second theory, event system theory (Morgeson et al., 2015), proposed subjective event features that describe how strongly an event affects organizational behavior. Event strength dimensions now contribute to research in the broader field of organizational behavior and development (Beeler et al., 2017; Chen et al., 2021; Morgeson & Derue, 2006). Event affectivity and event strength dimensions were theoretically well embedded but measuring these dimensions simultaneously remained difficult. Personality psychologists, however, recently developed new taxonomies to describe general life situations using data-driven bottom-up approaches (Oreg et al., 2020; Parrigon et al., 2017; Rauthmann et al., 2014; Ziegler et al., 2019). Parrigon et al. (2017), for instance, applied the lexical approach (Allport & Odbert, 1936) and extracted adjectives from movie subtitles to describe situations. From these adjectives, they derived seven dimensions that capture the subjective experience of work events—Complexity, Adversity, Positive valence, Typicality, Importance, humOr, and Negative valence (short: CAPTION). In this dissertation, we introduced the newly developed CAPTION situation taxonomy as a measure for daily work event dimensions. Chapter 1 of this dissertation introduces the field of work event research and outlines the research objectives of this dissertation. After establishing the CAPTION taxonomy for work events, we showed that additional work event dimensions assessed in the CAPTION framework explain incremental validity in affective well-being outcomes beyond the traditional affective positive/negative event approach (e.g., Basch & Fisher, 1998; Ilies et al., 2011; Ohly & Schmitt, 2015). We then studied personality, objective event features, and the social context at work as potential antecedents of the subjective work event experiences. In Chapter 2, we adjusted the CAPTION framework for work events and showed that measuring work event dimensions next to event positivity and negativity adds to explaining affective well-being during and after work. We first theoretically aligned the affective dimensions rooting in the affective event theory (positivity, negativity) and the event strength dimensions proposed in the event system theory (disruption, criticality, novelty) with dimensions of the newly developed CAPTION situation framework. We then adopted the CAPTION taxonomy for work events and tested the seven-dimensional structure in work events at the person-, day-, and event-level. In Study 1, the seven-dimensional CAPTION framework explained incremental variability in affective reactions at the end of the workday beyond the traditional positive/negative event approach; in Study 2, the seven-dimensional CAPTION framework explained incremental validity in emotional reactions during the workday beyond the traditional positive/negative event approach. Based on these findings, we can encourage future research to apply the CAPTION framework to study work events and daily dynamics at work. Next, we were interested in potential antecedents of work event experiences. Researchers have argued that both, the person and the situation, independently contribute to behavioral reactions of people to a situation (Lewin, 1951). Drawing from this idea, we suggest that person features, as well as objective event features, also both contribute to subjective event experiences. In Chapter 3, we studied the role of personality in the experience of daily work events. We showed that personality traits, as well as personality strength, predict variability in subjective work event experiences. Building on traditional theories on personality traits (Allport, 1961; McCrae & Costa, 1991), we suggested that specific personality traits will explain variability in daily event experiences. We further drew from personality strength theory (Dalal et al., 2015) and tested whether personality strength (an additional trait that describes how variable a person is within their personality expression) additionally explains variability in daily event experiences. To that end, we introduced the item-response-based Trait-Variability-Tree-Model (TVTM; Lang et al., 2019) as a new statistical approach towards personality strength. Using the TVTM, we separated personality traits from personality strength in a one-shot personality survey. Trait neuroticism increased variability in work event experiences while trait conscientiousness decreased variability in daily event experiences. Personality strength explained variability in work event experiences beyond these traits so that strong personalities showed less variability in event experiences. These findings expand earlier theories on personality traits. First, personality traits explain variability in situation experiences and support personality strength theory. Second, personality strength decreases variability in situation experiences. In Chapter 4, we studied whether objective event features of work events and the higher-level work context explain work event experiences. The objective features of work events can be described as who did what, where, when, and why? (Johns, 2006). The social component (who?) has been suggested as the most relevant objective feature of situations (Reis et al., 2000). To test this idea, we compared employees’ social work events with their non-social work events and found that social events were experienced as more positive, more humorous, less adverse, and more complex than non-social events. Further, the social interaction partner was important for how work events were experienced. Especially events with leaders differed from other social events as they were more cognitively challenging (more important, more complex) and less humorous than other social work events. Event system theory suggests that higher-level events or contexts affect lower-level events (Morgeson et al., 2015). When the COVID-19 pandemic started, employees were strongly encouraged to work from home and to keep social distance. These regulations changed the social work context for employees towards a more isolated work environment. Transition theories (Bliese et al., 2017; Schlossberg, 1981) suggest that employees adjust to changes in their larger environment and then may change their experiences. Building on these transition theories, we suggested that employees will adjust to their new social work context and experience social versus non-social work events differently. To test this idea, we compared the experiences of social and non-social work events of a group of employees before the COVID-19 pandemic with work events of a group of employees during the pandemic. Indeed, non-social work events during the pandemic were experienced as less adverse, less negative, and more important than before the pandemic. In line with transition theories, these findings suggest that participants adjusted to an altered social context. The findings further support event system theory in that higher-level transition events affect event experiences at a lower level. Chapter 5 closes this dissertation by summarizing the results from the three empirical chapters and connecting their findings with the research objectives of the dissertation. This final chapter elaborates on the theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of this dissertation and discusses strengths, limitations, and future research direction resulting from this dissertation. The chapter closes with the main conclusions derived from this doctoral thesis

Linking personality trait variance in self-managed teams to team innovation

Researchers have suggested that some personality traits are associated with better team functioning when team members are homogeneous, whereas other personality traits improve team functioning when team members are heterogeneous. This article extends these ideas to team innovation and examines (a) how team variance in extraversion, agreeableness, openness, and conscientiousness relates to innovation in teams; and (b) how these relationships dynamically evolve over time. Our study included 704 surveys completed by 243 team members in 32 teams, at three time points. Results revealed that teams with less variance in extraversion showed higher levels of team innovation. For agreeableness and openness, we did not find main effects of team heterogeneity on team innovation. For teams with low heterogeneity in agreeableness, however, team innovation decreased over time. Team variance in conscientiousness was negatively associated with team innovation. Our findings provide support that team personality plays a role for innovation

Experimental and theoretical investigations of some useful langasite cuts for high-temperature SAW applications

International audiencePassive high-temperature sensors are a most promising area of use for SAW devices. Langasite (La3Ga5SiO14; LGS) has been identified as promising piezoelectric material to meet high-temperature SAW challenges. Because it is necessary to know the material behavior for an accurate device design, the frequency-temperature behavior of Rayleigh SAW (R-SAW) and shear-horizontal SAW (SH-SAW) LGS cuts is investigated on delay line and resonator test structures up to 700°C by RF characterization. In the range of the 434-MHz ISM band, the (0°,22°,90°) SH-SAW cut shows thermal behavior similar to the (0°,138.5°,26.7°) R-SAW cut. Associated with the (0°,22°,31°) cut, in which SAWs present mixed types of polarization, the (0°,22°,90°) SH-SAW orientation might allow differential measurements on a single substrate. In the temperature range of 400 to 500°C, delay line test devices using the SH-SAW cut show a considerable drop of signal. Theoretical analysis indicates that this newly described behavior might be a result of anisotropy effects in this cut, occurring in case of any slight misorientation of electrode alignment