Journal of Applied Psychology

Ma, Anyi; Rosette, Ashleigh Shelby; Koval, Christy Zhou

doi: 10.1037/apl0000550pmid: 35298212

Contradictory findings about whether agentic women are penalized or rewarded persist in gender and leadership research. To account for these divergent effects, we distinguish between agentic traits that people believe female leaders ought to possess (i.e., agency prescriptions) and ought not possess (i.e., agency proscriptions). We draw on expectancy violation theory to suggest that an agentic advantage is elicited when women are perceived to violate agency prescriptions (e.g., competence), whereas an agentic disadvantage is elicited when they are perceived to violate agency proscriptions (e.g., dominance). We first developed and validated a new, six-factor measure of agency in Studies 1 and 2, CADDIS (i.e., Competent agency, Ambitious agency, Dominant agency, Diligent agency, Independent agency, and Self-assured agency). We theorized that these agency factors represented distinct agency prescriptions and proscriptions for men and women. In Studies 3–5, we found that this six-factor conceptualization of agency not only reconciles existing tensions within the gender and leadership literature, but also leads to a different understanding of past conclusions—an agentic advantage occurs when women are perceived to possess competent agency, diligent agency, and independent agency, and an agentic disadvantage occurs when women are perceived to possess dominant agency.

Lyubykh, Zhanna; Turner, Nick; Hershcovis, M. Sandy; Deng, Connie

doi: 10.1037/apl0000557pmid: 35298213

Given the high human and economic costs of workplace safety, researchers and practitioners have paid increasing attention to how leadership behaviors relate to workplace safety. Previous research has demonstrated that leadership behaviors are important for workplace safety. In this meta-analysis, we extend our understanding of the leadership–workplace safety relationship by (a) examining the associations between a broader range of five leadership categories—change-oriented, relational-oriented, task-oriented, passive, and destructive—and seven workplace safety variables; (b) investigating the relative importance of these leadership categories in explaining variance in these workplace safety variables; and (c) testing contextual and methodological contingencies of the leadership–workplace safety relationship. Using effect sizes from 194 samples (N = 104,364), we find that although leadership behaviors are associated with workplace safety, the leadership categories vary considerably in their relative importance. Task-oriented leadership followed by relational-oriented leadership emerge as the most important contributors to workplace safety. Change-oriented leadership (which includes transformational leadership) does not emerge as the largest contributor for any of the seven tested safety variables, despite it being the most frequently examined leadership model in the workplace safety literature. Effectiveness of leadership behaviors in relation to workplace safety varies by national culture power distance, industry risk, workforce age, as well as by contextualized forms of leadership (i.e., safety-specific vs. generalized). Finally, there is meta-analytic evidence for publication bias and common-method variance.

Kim, Kyoung Yong; Eisenberger, Robert; Takeuchi, Riki; Baik, Kibok

doi: 10.1037/apl0000567pmid: 35266777

Although the importance of perceived organizational support on organizational outcomes has been highlighted in the literature, research is lacking concerning how organization-wide perceptions of support by employees (organizational-level perceived support [OPS]) may contribute to organizational performance. To address this critical deficiency in the literature, we extend organizational support theory to the organizational level and examine the influence of OPS on organizational profitability. We conducted two studies with samples of 224 and 96 organizations, respectively, in South Korea and found that workforce performance (Study 1) and workforce voluntary turnover rate (Studies 1 and 2) mediate the relationship between OPS and organizational profitability. Furthermore, we found that organizational financial slack resources moderate the effect of OPS on workforce performance. Specifically, the positive effect of OPS on workforce performance, and consequently on organizational profitability, was stronger when financial slack resources were lower. Financial slack resources, however, do not moderate the relationship between OPS and voluntary turnover rate. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

Kraimer, Maria L.; Shaffer, Margaret A.; Bolino, Mark C.; Charlier, Steven D.; Wurtz, Olivier

doi: 10.1037/apl0001009pmid: 35343728

We integrate research on global work demands (Shaffer et al., 2012) with transactional stress theory to examine both the harmful and beneficial effects of three global work demands—international travel, cognitive flexibility, and nonwork disruption—for employees engaged in global work. We propose that global work demands have indirect, and conditional, effects on burnout and work-to-family conflict (WFC), as well as thriving and work–family enrichment, through employees’ appraisals that their global work is both hindering and challenging, respectively. We tested the hypotheses with a matched sample of 229 global employees and their spouses. We found that cognitive flexibility demands are related to harmful and beneficial outcomes: It increases WFC through hindrance appraisals of the global work, but also increases thriving through challenge appraisals. In comparison, international travel demands have only beneficial outcomes, such that it positively related to employee thriving through challenge appraisals, but only among employees working in jobs that have fewer nonwork disruption demands. Finally, nonwork disruption demands had only harmful effects in that it positively related to burnout and WFC through hindrance appraisals. Exploratory analyses also revealed that nonwork disruption demands negatively related to employee thriving, through challenge appraisals, when employees experienced lower levels of cognitive flexibility demands. These findings contribute to our understanding of how employees may react to their global work demands and to the transactional theory of stress by providing a more nuanced understanding of when and why job demands contribute to appraisals that work is hindering and/or challenging.

Dennerlein, Tobias; Kirkman, Bradley L.

doi: 10.1037/apl0001013pmid: 35286112

The majority of theory and research on empowering leadership to date has focused on how empowering leader behaviors influence employees, portraying those behaviors as almost exclusively beneficial. We depart from this predominant consensus to focus on the potential detriments of empowering leadership for employees. Drawing from the social cognitive theory of morality, we propose that empowering leadership can unintentionally increase employees’ unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB), and that it does so by increasing their levels of moral disengagement. Specifically, we propose that hindrance stressors create a reversing effect, such that empowering leadership increases (vs. decreases) moral disengagement when hindrance stressors are higher (vs. lower). Ultimately, we argue for a positive or negative indirect effect of empowering leadership on UPB through moral disengagement. We find support for our predictions in both a time-lagged field study (Study 1) and a scenario-based experiment using an anagram cheating task (Study 2). We thus highlight the impact that empowering leadership can have on unethical behavior, providing answers to both why and when the dark side of empowering leadership behavior occurs.

Vergauwe, Jasmine; Hofmans, Joeri; Wille, Bart

doi: 10.1037/apl0001012pmid: 35298211

Multisource leadership ratings rely on the assumption that—in addition to the leader’s self-evaluation—different rater groups (i.e., subordinates, peers, and superiors) bring in unique perspectives and thus provide a more well-rounded analysis of the leader’s behavior. However, the way in which multisource data are typically treated in research offers little information about the precise levels of overlap and uniqueness that are encapsulated in these different perspectives. Drawing on the Trait–Reputation–Identity (TRI) model, we propose a model that conceptualizes these shared and unique perspectives in terms of latent factors reflecting, respectively, (a) the consensus about the leader (i.e., the leadership Arena), (b) the impressions conveyed to others that are distinct from self-perceptions (i.e., the leader’s Reputation), and (c) the unique self-perceptions of the leader (i.e., the leader’s Identity). This Leadership Arena–Reputation–Identity (LARI) model is formalized by means of bifactor modeling, which allows to statistically decompose the variance captured by multisource ratings. The LARI model was tested against five alternative models in two large multisource samples (N1 leaders = 537, N1 observers = 7,337; N2 leaders = 1,255, N2 observers = 15,777), each using different leadership instruments. In both samples, the LARI bifactor model outperformed the alternative models. A subsequent variance decomposition showed that each rater source indeed provides unique information about the target’s behavior, although in varying degree. Across all leadership dimensions in both samples, superiors consistently provided the largest share of unique information among the three observer groups. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Park, Hyunsun; Tangirala, Subrahmaniam; Hussain, Insiya; Ekkirala, Srinivas

doi: 10.1037/apl0001008pmid: 35254850

Recent voice research has noted that providing adequate job rewards for speaking up can sustainably motivate voice from employees. We examine why managers who seek out voice at work might not always properly reward the behavior. Drawing on theories of dispositional attribution, we propose that, in general, managers tend to reward voice because it signals to them that employees possess a valued underlying trait: proactivity, which is characterized by change-orientation and foresight. However, we argue that when managers engage in more voice solicitation—that is, explicitly ask for voice and take a listening posture toward it—their tendency to infer proactivity from employees’ voice weakens. Thus, we make a case that voice solicitation, a managerial behavior intended to set facilitating conditions for speaking up at work, inadvertently weakens the (indirect) relationship between employee voice and job rewards. We establish support for our theory in a set of two studies with complementary designs. Study 1 was a preregistered between-subjects experiment that used a realistic vignette design with an online panel of 592 working adults based in the United States. Study 2 was a multisource field survey with a sample of 385 employees and their managers working at the Indian branch of a global technology company in the oil and gas industry. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our results.

Li, Yixuan; Shao, Yiduo; Wang, Mo; Fang, Yanran; Gong, Yaping; Li, Chang

doi: 10.1037/apl0001014pmid: 35324221

As the diversity field evolves, scholars are shifting the attention from mitigating “problems” associated with diversity to searching for ways to leverage the potential value in diversity. We advance this field by studying how an inclusive climate benefits organizational innovation, an important foundation for sustained competitive advantage. Adopting a synergy perspective, we examine the internal (i.e., workplace demographic diversity in terms of age, gender, and region) and external contingencies (i.e., environmental scanning and environmental uncertainty) for an inclusive climate to foster incremental and radical innovation through the mechanism of knowledge management capacity. We tested our research model with a three-wave data collection from multiple sources (i.e., employees, human resource managers, and executives) in 102 organizations. We found that workplace age and regional diversity (but not gender diversity) strengthened the positive effect of inclusive climate on knowledge management capacity, and subsequently incremental and radical innovation. The facilitating effect of environmental scanning was only significant for organizations that experienced higher environmental uncertainty. Our research highlights the importance of considering the synergistic potential of internal human resources and external environments for organizations to capitalize on their inclusive climate for knowledge management and innovation.

Dezső, Cristian L.; Li, Yixuan; Ross, David Gaddis

doi: 10.1037/apl0000988pmid: 35084900

We study the implications of having a female chief executive officer (CEO) for the compensation levels of other top managers of a firm. Extant theoretical perspectives, such as social identity theory, gendered notions of firm status, and loss of diversity benefits, among others, make competing predictions about the effect of having a female, as opposed to a male, CEO: (a) that only female top managers may earn more, (b) that both female and male top managers may earn less, and (c) that only female top managers may earn less. Using over 20 years of data on the top management teams (TMTs) of the largest 1,500 U.S. firms, we find that women (but not men) in top management earn significantly less with a female CEO than what they would have earned with a male CEO in a given year within a particular firm. We theorize that these results are consistent with the argument that a female top manager confers diversity benefits on her firm, which become redundant when there is a female CEO. Thus, the focal female top manager is paid less with a female CEO than what she would have earned with a male CEO. Our post-hoc test related to the effect of the percentage of female members on the TMT provides further empirical evidence for the diversity benefits perspective. This study contributes to research on TMTs, gender, and compensation and should inspire further work investigating the psychological mechanisms through which CEO gender influences TMT compensation.

MacGowan, Rebecca L.; Gabriel, Allison S.; da Motta Veiga, Serge P.; Chawla, Nitya

doi: 10.1037/apl0000967pmid: 35084899

On a weekly basis, job seekers need to exert effort to successfully navigate their search. Yet, despite the notion that job seeking is likely depleting, there has been little research and discussion to date surrounding whether taking time to recover from job seeking can be restorative and helpful for job seekers. Applying theory from the effort-recovery model (Meijman & Mulder, 1998) and the stressor-detachment model (Sonnentag & Fritz, 2015) to the job search context, we highlight the self-regulatory and job search-related benefits associated with psychologically detaching from the job search each week. Specifically, we theorize that weekly psychological detachment from the job search (at t) helps job seekers feel recovered (at t) and, in turn, more vigorous (at t + 1), prompting subsequent job search effort (at t + 1); further, weekly job search effort is expected to engender an increase in subsequent interviews (at t + 2). We also explore the cross-level moderating effect of implicit theories of depletion, considering whether the beneficial impact of weekly psychological detachment is contingent on how depleting job seekers perceive the search process to be. We tested our model with two weekly experience sampling studies of over 200 new labor market entrants. Across both studies, we found considerable support for our model, suggesting that taking time to psychologically detach from the job search can help job seekers maintain their well-being and obtain job search success.