Distributed Leadership and Employee Cynicism: Trade unions as joint change agents

The themes of change management and workplace partnership continue to attract significant academic interest – albeit within discreet literatures. Drawing on longitudinal, qualitative data in a heavy engineering organization this article details how a collaborative partnership between management and trade unions, encompassing a distributed’ leadership format, was configured to enhance organizational capacity for change in the context of significant employee cynicism. Bridging human resource management/organizational behaviour and industrial relations perspectives the works makes a theoretical contribution to our understanding of the factors underpinning the successful implementation of workplace partnership and the utilisation of distributed leadership configurations. More generally the work informs leadership theory through its scrutiny of distributed leadership in situations of high conflict

The role of individual differences in the perceived job relatedness of a cognitive ability test and a multimedia situational judgment test

Abstract Although there is a growing number of publications concerning applicant reactions to different selection instruments, the relationships between individual differences and applicant reactions have largely remained unexplored. The aim of the present study was to examine the effects of several testing-related and general individual differences (anxiety, self-evaluations, and personality) on the most commonly studied dimension of applicant reactions, namely the perceived job relatedness of selection instruments. Participants were 153 psychology students, who completed a cognitive ability test and a multimedia SJT as part of their educational program. Our results indicated that computer anxiety negatively affected perceived job relatedness and core self-evaluations, subjective well-being, agreeableness, emotional stability, and openness to experience positively affected perceived job relatedness. Openness to experience was the most consistent predictor of perceived job relatedness. The results of our study suggest that certain individuals may be more predisposed to react positively to selection instruments. Therefore, we concluded that the nature of the applicant pool should be carefully considered when designing interventions to improve applicant reactions

The advantages of partialling perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns: Critical issues and recommendations

According to the two-factor theory of perfectionism (Stoeber & Otto, 2006), perfectionism comprises two superordinate dimensions—perfectionistic strivings (PS) and perfectionistic concerns (PC)—that show different, and often opposite, relations with psychological adjustment and maladjustment, particularly when their overlap is partialled out. Recently, Hill (2014) raised concerns about the interpretation of the relations that PS show after partialling. The present article aims to alleviate these concerns. First, we address the concern that partialling changes the conceptual meaning of PS. Second, we explain how the relations of residual PS (i.e., PS with PC partialled out) differ from those of PS, and how to interpret these differences. In this, we also discuss suppressor effects and how mutual suppression affects the relations of both PS and PC with outcomes. Furthermore, we provide recommendations of how to report and interpret findings of analyses partialling out the effects of PS and PC. We conclude that, if properly understood and reported, there is nothing to be concerned about when partialling PS and PC. On the contrary, partialling is essential if we want to understand the shared, unique, combined, and interactive relations of the different dimensions of perfectionism

A Literature Review of Social and Economic Leader-Member Exchange

Leader–member exchange (LMX) research has increasingly relied upon the social exchange theory (SET) as a theoretical foundation, but the dominating way of measuring LMX has not followed this theoretical development (Gottfredson et al., 2020). With the aim of developing a measure that more coherently reflects SET, Kuvaas et al. (2012) conceptualized LMX as two qualitatively different relationships, labeled economic LMX and social LMX. Since the most applied LMX measures are under scrutiny for not being sufficiently grounded in theory (Gottfredson et al., 2020), it may be especially important to expose alternative measures. Therefore, we provide a comprehensive review of the research to date applying a two-dimensional approach to LMX, while also adding to interpretation and suggestions for how we can progress the field even further.publishedVersio

How can indigenous research contribute to universal knowledge?: an illustration with research on interpersonal harmony

The indigenous perspective can provide a more complete, in‐depth, and accurate account of psychological phenomena for a given culture, but a major issue is that indigenous research tends to be ignored by researchers from other cultures. Chinese researchers who conduct research on indigenous issues may find it hard to publish in major English‐language journals. This paper explores how Chinese indigenous research is able to contribute to universal knowledge. Chinese are characterized by a relational and collectivistic orientation, whereas theories in the West tend to have a self‐focus, primarily due to its individualistic culture. However, most psychological research conducted in the Chinese context is guided by Western theories, which likely results in incomplete understanding of Chinese behavior. A relational perspective can augment Western theories and facilitate the contribution of Chinese indigenous research to new theory development. To illustrate this possibility, this article summarizes current indigenous research on two harmony motives, and shows how such research can contribute to a compelling refinement and extension of social exchange theory

Examining conscientiousness as a key resource in resisting email interruptions : implications for volatile resources and goal achievement

Within the context of the conservation of resources model, when a resource is deployed, it is depleted - albeit temporarily. However, when a 'key', stable resource, such as Conscientiousness, is activated (e.g., using a self-control strategy, such as resisting an email interruption), we predicted that (1) another, more volatile resource (affective well-being) would be impacted and that (2) this strategy would be deployed as a trade-off, allowing one to satisfy task goals, at the expense of well-being goals. We conducted an experience‐sampling field study with 52 email-users dealing with their normal email as it interrupted them over the course of a half‐day period. This amounted to a total of 376 email reported across the sample. Results were analysed using random coefficient hierarchical linear modelling and included cross-level interactions for Conscientiousness with strategy and well-being. Our first prediction was supported - deploying the stable, key resource of Conscientiousness depletes the volatile, fluctuating resource of affective well-being. However, our second prediction was not fully realized. Although resisting or avoiding an email interruption was perceived to hinder well-being goal achievement by Conscientious people, it had neither a positive nor negative impact on task goal achievement. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. Practitioner points: It may be necessary for highly Conscientious people to turn off their email interruption alerts at work, in order to avoid the strain that results from an activation-resistance mechanism afforded by the arrival of a new email. Deploying key resources means that volatile resources may be differentially spent, depending on one's natural tendencies and how these interact with the work task and context. This suggests that the relationship between demands and resources is not always direct and predictable. Practitioners may wish to appraise the strategies they use to deal with demands such as email at work, to identify if these strategies are assisting with task or well-being goal achievement, or whether they have become defunct through automation

The embodied nurse: Interdisciplinary knowledge exchange between compassionate nursing and recent developments in embodied leadership studies

Aims: To report a potential knowledge exchange between nursing studies and the results obtained from a study conducted into the attributes of embodied leadership. Background: Leadership theories have been applied to evaluate, improve, and train nursing practitioners in several previous studies. However, leadership research has entered a new phase where the focus is to produce sustainable leaders through authenticity and compassion, the same two characteristics identified as being of most success in emergent nursing practice. There are few studies that have indicated a knowledge exchange between the latest developments in leadership studies and nursing. Design: An exploratory and qualitative study. Methods: Between February 2012 - July 2012, a focused sample of 14 medical care professionals was interviewed across a chain of hospitals. The aim was to evaluate embodied leadership characteristics and understand the factors that contribute to the manifestation of these characteristics. The transcribed interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. Findings: Several factors that contribute to the characteristics of embodied leadership have been identified in the interviews and in subsequent literature searches on the characteristics and contributing factors found to be associated with nursing research. These could prompt a knowledge exchange. Conclusion: The results suggest common ground between nursing and contemporary leadership research in the exposition of behaviours; namely, being non-judgmental, listening actively, reflective practice and embracing uncertainty. Several implications can therefore be expected through the exchange of knowledge resulting from collaboration between researchers in the two disciplines

Big data in an HR context: Exploring organizational change readiness, employee attitudes and behaviors

YesThis research highlights a contextual application for big data within a HR case study setting. This is achieved through the development of a normative conceptual model that seeks to envelop employee behaviors and attitudes in the context of organizational change readiness. This empirical application considers a data sample from a large public sector organization and through applying Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) identifies salary, job promotion, organizational loyalty and organizational identity influences on employee job satisfaction (suggesting and mediating employee readiness for organizational change). However in considering this specific context, the authors highlight how, where and why such a normative approach to employee factors may be limited and thus, proposes through a framework which brings together big data principles, implementation approaches and management commitment requirements can be applied and harnessed more effectively in order to assess employee attitudes and behaviors as part of wider HR predictive analytics (HRPA) approaches. The researchers conclude with a discussion on these research elements and a set of practical, conceptual and management implications of the findings along with recommendations for future research in the area

Measuring affective well-being at work using short-form scales : implications for affective structures and participant instructions

Measuring affective well-being in organizational studies has become increasingly widespread, given its association with key work-performance and other markers of organizational functioning. As such, researchers and policy-makers need to be confident that well-being measures are valid, reliable and robust. To reduce the burden on participants in applied settings, short-form measures of affective well-being are proving popular. However, these scales are seldom validated as standalone, comprehensive measures in their own right. In this article, we used a short-form measure of affective well-being with 10 items: the Daniels five-factor measure of affective well-being (D-FAW). In Study 1, across six applied sample groups (N = 2624), we found that the factor structure of the short-form D-FAW is robust when issued as a standalone measure, and that it should be scored differently depending on the participant instruction used. When participant instructions focus on now or today, then affect is best represented by five discrete emotion factors. When participant instructions focus on the past week, then affect is best represented by two or three mood-based factors. In Study 2 (N = 39), we found good construct convergent validity of short-form D-FAW with another widely used scale (PANAS). Implications for the measurement and structure of affect are discussed