‘I like the “buzz”, but I also suffer from it’: Mitigating interaction and distraction in collective workplacesWijngaarden, Yosha
doi: 10.1177/00187267221121277pmid: N/A
Collective workplaces – such as coworking spaces, open workplan offices, maker spaces, or fab labs – are founded on one central premise: working alongside others leads to interactions, collaborations and access to ‘buzzing’ knowledge. Yet, at the same time, users of these places go there to do their (often freelance) work, requiring a productive, and therefore usually quiet, work environment. Drawing on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork in the Netherlands, this research explores how users of collective workplaces navigate the coworking paradox: the need for quiet workplaces and the desire for social interaction. It shows how interactions emerge through rituals and especially routines, and describes the spatio-temporal conditions under which these interactions may lead to successful forms of social exchange and community formation.
Professional responsibility in the borderlands: Facing irreconcilable accountability regimes in veterinary workPas, Berber R; Introna, Lucas D; Wolters, Rinske; Vosselman, Ed
doi: 10.1177/00187267221120161pmid: N/A
(Dutch) veterinarians have increasingly been confronted with conflicting accountability regimes, related to data-driven, networked accountability systems, to decrease the use of antibiotics in veterinary practices. Based on our longitudinal ethnography (2012–2020), we propose a conceptual model that illustrates how professionals intra-actively become positioned in different accountability regimes, yet which is continually diffracted by the recalling of their responsibilities to proximal and distant others. By taking an agential realist approach, we contribute to recent critical perspectives on accountability by showing how veterinary professionals become positioned as specific accountable subjects and yet how such positioning simultaneously produces the ‘borderlands’ – a space of indeterminacy in which the accounting practices of the professional are continuously weighed in light of incommensurable responsibilities. Based on our results, we show how conflicting accountability regimes are—as often argued—not to be ‘fixed’ through commensuration, nor are they dysfunctional. Rather, they create the very condition of indeterminacy, opening up the possibility for professional responsibility. We offer suggestions for how to further investigate this appreciation of the borderlands, for example, by focusing on how the account holder can draw from other responsibilities to counter a dominant accountability regime, and how governing authorities can become positioned as responsible for keeping professionals in the borderlands.
How and when leader mindfulness influences team member interpersonal behavior: Evidence from a quasi-field experiment and a field surveyNi, Dan; Zheng, Xiaoming; Liang, Lindie H
doi: 10.1177/00187267221128571pmid: N/A
Although studies have verified the beneficial effects of individual mindfulness in the workplace, the knowledge of how leader mindfulness crosses over to team members’ interpersonal behavior via affective-related mechanisms as well as when leader mindfulness is ineffective remains limited. Based on motivated empathy theory and the mindfulness literature, this research develops a model in which leader mindfulness enhances leader empathic concern, thereby improving team members’ empathic concern and, in turn, increasing their interpersonal organizational citizenship behavior and decreasing their interpersonal counterproductive work behavior. When workplace hindrance stressors within a team are lower (vs higher), the effect of leader mindfulness on leader empathic concern becomes ineffective. We tested this model using two studies: (1) a quasi-field experiment in which 72 front-line leaders were assigned to either a mindfulness intervention condition or a waitlist control condition and (2) a three-wave, time-lagged survey using a sample of 84 leaders and 697 members. Both studies provide consistent support for our hypotheses.
CEO performance management behaviors’ influence on TMT flourishing, job attitudes, and firm performanceChristensen-Salem, Amanda; Kinicki, Angelo; Perrmann-Graham, Jaclyn; Walumbwa, Fred O
doi: 10.1177/00187267221119767pmid: N/A
Does a chief executive officer’s (CEO’s) ability to manage and motivate their direct reports impact firm financial performance? Good or bad, CEO leadership research is increasingly romanticized, leading to investigations of CEO traits as visionary and transformational behaviors at the expense of understanding whether the mundane, everyday management of a top management team (TMT) is important for firm performance. In this article, we developed and tested a model linking CEO performance management behaviors and firm performance through two mediating mechanisms. We hypothesized and found a positive relationship between CEO performance management behaviors and TMT flourishing. TMT flourishing related to TMT overall job attitudes and subsequently firm performance. Additionally, performance management behaviors were related to TMT overall job attitudes via TMT flourishing and performance management behaviors related to firm performance via TMT flourishing and job attitudes. Our analyses were based on a unique sample of 105 CEOs and 519 TMT members (60% response rate for CEOs and 90% response rate for TMT members). These findings provide important research directions for CEO research, performance management, upper echelons, and positive psychology research, highlighting the importance of CEO managerially oriented behaviors to create more optimally functioning environments for the TMT and organization.
Unpacking work–family conflict in the marital dyad: Interaction of employee fit and partner fitHong, Yeong-Hyun; Mills, Maura J; Suh, Yongwon; Ford, Michael T
doi: 10.1177/00187267221117800pmid: N/A
Can workers optimize their work and family lives when their involvement across both domains fits with their values, regardless of what their partners value? The current study suggests that it is not so simple; rather, we must take both employees’ and their partners’ perspectives into account in order to optimally understand the work–family interface. Herein we examine the relationships between employee fit (degree to which an employee’s role value aligns with his/her role involvement) and partner fit (degree to which a partner’s role value aligns with the employee’s role involvement) with work-to-family conflict, family-to-work conflict, life satisfaction, and turnover intentions. Using data from 179 dyads of South Korean employees and their matched spouses/partners, we put forth a fit assessment to determine degree of discrepancy within dyads, and test a model regarding how such fit is associated with outcomes. Results suggest that partner fit moderates the effects of employee fit on work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict, such that when partner fit rose, the negative effect of employee fit on conflict was strengthened. Thus, employees’ experiences of work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict were lowest when their role involvement was aligned with both their role value and their partner’s role value. Further, partner fit moderated the indirect (via work-to-family conflict, family-to-work conflict) effects of employee fit on life satisfaction (partially mediated), such that the effects were stronger when partner fit was high. Interestingly, partner fit also moderated the indirect effects of employee fit on turnover intentions (fully mediated) via work-to-family conflict, but not via family-to-work conflict. Implications and future research directions are discussed, including how this work advances relational considerations in work–family research both conceptually and empirically.