Interracial Public-Police Contact: Relationships with Police Officers’ Racial and Work-Related Attitudes and Behavior

In a sample of Flemish police officers (N = 172), we examined whether interracial public-police contact is associated with police officers’ racial and workrelated attitudes and self-reported behavior. Complementing previous studies, it was revealed that interracial contact (both positive and negative) is related to prejudiced behavior toward immigrants via the mediating role of racial attitudes. Moreover, intergroup contact was also shown to be related to police officers’ organizational citizenship behavior toward colleagues and superiors via their perceptions of organizational fairness. In the discussion section we elaborate on the severe impact of negative contact as well as the applied consequences of our findings within police organizations

How Supervisors Influence Performance: A Multilevel Study of Coaching and Group Management in Technology-Mediated Services

This multilevel study examines the role of supervisors in improving employee performance through the use of coaching and group management practices. It examines the individual and synergistic effects of these management practices. The research subjects are call center agents in highly standardized jobs, and the organizational context is one in which calls, or task assignments, are randomly distributed via automated technology, providing a quasi-experimental approach in a real-world context. Results show that the amount of coaching that an employee received each month predicted objective performance improvements over time. Moreover, workers exhibited higher performance where their supervisor emphasized group assignments and group incentives and where technology was more automated. Finally, the positive relationship between coaching and performance was stronger where supervisors made greater use of group incentives, where technology was less automated, and where technological changes were less frequent. Implications and potential limitations of the present study are discussed

Team knowledge exchange: How and when does transformational leadership have an effect?

In this study, we examined how and when transformational leadership affected team knowledge exchange. Taking a goal pursuit perspective, we hypothesized two parallel mediating mechanisms—team knowledge goal generation and team knowledge goal striving—linking transformational leadership to team knowledge exchange. In addition, we investigated whether team-level team-member exchange served as a boundary condition that qualified the effects of transformational leadership on team knowledge goal generation and striving. We tested our hypotheses using time-lagged data from 118 work teams of a large Chinese manufacturing firm. Our findings provided support for the proposed parallel mediating mechanisms (i.e., team knowledge goal generation and team knowledge goal striving) that linked transformational leadership to team knowledge exchange. In addition, we found that team-level team-member exchange could strengthen the positive effect of transformational leadership on team knowledge exchange via team knowledge goal generation. By taking the novel lens of team goal pursuit, this study contributes to the literature on leadership and teams by shedding light on how transformational leadership triggers the goal pursuit process of team knowledge exchange

An empirical investigation of Network-Oriented Behaviors in Business-to-Business Markets

This study is concerned with the extent to which network-oriented behaviors directly and/or indirectly affect firm performance. It argues that a firm's interaction behaviors in relation to an embedded network structure are key mechanisms that facilitate the development of important organizational capabilities in dealing with business partners. Such network-oriented behaviors, which are aimed at affecting the position of a company in the network, are consequently important drivers of firm performance, rather than the network structure alone. We develop a conceptual model that captures network-oriented behaviors as a driving force of firm performance in relation to three other key organizational behaviors, i.e., customer-oriented, competitor-oriented and relationship-oriented behaviors. We test the hypothesized model using a dataset of 354 responses collected via an on-line questionnaire from UK managers, whose organizations operate in business-to-business markets in either the manufacturing or services sectors. This study provides four key findings. First, a firm's networkoriented behaviors positively affect the development of customer-oriented and competitor-oriented behaviors. Secondly, they also foster relationship coordination with its important business partners within the network. Thirdly, the effective management of the firm's portfolio of relationships is found to mediate the positive impact of network-oriented behaviors on firm profitability. Lastly, closeness to end-users amplifies the positive effect of network-oriented behaviors on relationship portfolio effectiveness

From customer-oriented strategy to perceived organizational financial performance: the role of human resource management and customer-linking capability

Drawing on the organizational capabilities literature, we developed and tested a model of how supportive human resource management (HRM) improved firms’ financial performance perceived by marketing managers through fostering the implementation of a customer-oriented strategy. Customer-linking capability, which is the capability in managing close customer relationships, indicated the implementation of the customer-oriented strategy. Data collected from two emerging economies–China and Hungary–established that supportive HRM partially mediated the relationship between customer-oriented strategy and customer-linking capability. Customer-linking capability further explained how supportive HRM contributed to perceived financial performance. This study explicates the implication of customer-oriented strategy for HRM and reveals the importance of HRM in strategy implementation. It also sheds some light on the “black-box” between HRM and performance. While making important contributions to the field of strategy, HRM and marketing, this study also offers useful practical implications

Exploring the topology of the plausible: Fs/QCA counterfactual analysis and the plausible fit of unobserved organizational configurations

The main aim of this contribution is to expand the dominant rationale of organizational design research by including solutions and possibilities not observed in reality. We believe that the counterfactual approach to configurations responds to an open call in organization theory and strategy to move the modelling of fit towards a more robust and theory-based specification. With this new approach we propose to rediscover the roots of organization design as a distinct normative discipline that ‘should stand approximately in relation to the basic social sciences as engineering stands with respect to physical sciences or medicine to the biological’. At a more general level, our view implies an expansion of the dominant meaning of the concept of ‘relevance’ in management research. While we agree with Gulati (2007: 780) that we as scholars should probe ‘more deeply into the problems and other issues that managers care about’, we also believe that relevance does not necessarily mean that researchers have to use an ex-post rationality by studying only empirically frequent phenomena. In contrast, we think that any management esearcher should bring with her or himself a fragment of the spirit of the great Greek philosopher Anaximander (c. 610–c. 546 BC), who foresaw the concept of the infinite universe without the support of any empirical observation and against the predominant wisdom of the time. Not by chance, Karl Popper (1998) onsidered Anaximander’s intuitions among the most vivid demonstrations of the power of human thought and logic

Breaking psychological contracts with the burden of workload: a weekly study of job resources as moderators

This intra-individual study examined relationships over time of job demands and resources with employee perceptions of psychological contract breach and violation, or the emotional impact of breach. Based on Conservation of Resources Theory, we expected job demands to increase the susceptibility of experiencing contract breach and violation over time, and we expected this relationship to be moderated by available job resources. In particular, autonomy and social support were expected to buffer relationships of job demands with breach, while development was expected to intensify relationships between job demands and breach. For violation, we expected job resources to intensify the relationships between job demands and breach, in line with the betrayal hypothesis. Analyses on weekly diary data showed that weekly job demands were related to higher contract breach perceptions in the following week when autonomy and social support were low and when development was high. Moreover, weekly job demands were related to higher violation in the next week, especially when social support was high. The study shows that job demands may be related to higher odds of experiencing a breach and higher violation, and job resources may play opposite roles in moderating the relationships of job demands with breach and violation

Work-Unit Absenteeism: Effects of Satisfaction, Commitment, Labor Market Conditions, and Time

Prior research is limited in explaining absenteeism at the unit level and over time. We developed and tested a model of unit-level absenteeism using five waves of data collected over six years from 115 work units in a large state agency. Unit-level job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and local unemployment were modeled as time-varying predictors of absenteeism. Shared satisfaction and commitment interacted in predicting absenteeism but were not related to the rate of change in absenteeism over time. Unit-level satisfaction and commitment were more strongly related to absenteeism when units were located in areas with plentiful job alternatives

Interrelationships between negative mood and clinical constructs: a motivational systems approach

A series of three experiments was designed to test predictions from a motivational systems approach to understanding the role of clinical constructs in anxiety-based problems. Negative mood, inflated responsibility, and intolerance of uncertainty (IU) were separately manipulated within analog samples to examine their effect on the other two factors. In the first experiment (n = 59) the negative mood group scored significantly higher in terms of inflated responsibility than the positive mood group. In the second experiment (n = 63) the high responsibility group scored significantly higher in terms of both negative mood and IU than the low responsibility group. In the third experiment (n = 61) the high IU group scored significantly higher in terms of negative mood than the low IU group. Tests of indirect effects revealed an indirect effect of IU on inflated responsibility through negative mood and an indirect effect of negative mood on IU through inflated responsibility, suggesting all three constructs are causally interrelated. The findings are consistent with contemporary transdiagnostic views of clinical constructs, and support a view of anxiety that is underpinned by a coordinated and interdependent motivational system evolved to manage threat

Breaking rules for the right reasons? An investigation of pro‐social rule breaking

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/89492/1/job730.pd