Should negative affectivity remain an unmeasured variable in the study of job stress?

Measuring emotional contagion as a multidimensional construct: the development and initial validation of the contagion of affective phenomena scales

We offer an alternative conceptualization of the construct of susceptibility to emotional contagion and four related studies where two separate measures were developed and initially validated. The Contagion of Affective Phenomena Scale-General (CAPS-G) is a 5-item scale that measures the general susceptibility to the contagion of affect, and the Contagion of Affective Phenomena Scale - Emotion (CAPS-E) assesses six distinct emotions. Study 1 generated items with experts. Study 2 explored and confirmed construct validity and the factorial structure of both measures using exploratory structural equation modeling. Study 3 established test-retest reliability, concurrent validity, and discriminant validity. Study 4 found predictive validity with a sample of competitive swimmers. In four separate samples, a 21-item and 6-factor first-order structure of CAPS-E provided the best model fit. We provide initial evidence that supports the use of CAPS-E and CAPS-G as reliable and valid measures of the susceptibility to contagion of affective phenomena.

The impact of negative and positive affectivity on the relationship between work-related psychological factors and work engagement in Japanese workers: a comparison of psychological distress

BACKGROUND

A previous study has shown that Japanese individuals generally exhibit behavior that suppresses the expression of positive emotions, which are strongly affected by affectivity traits. In the present study, to clarify the relationship between affectivity traits and work engagement (WE) or work-related psychosocial factors among Japanese workers, we compared it to the association between psychological distress and these same factors.

METHODS

A total of 1,000 full-time Japanese regular workers responded to an online survey that measured demographic variables, negative and positive affectivity, job demands and resources, WE, and psychological distress. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted separately, which used WE and psychological distress as dependent variables.

RESULTS

The proportion of variance explained by negative and positive affectivity was lower for WE than for psychological distress. However, the proportion of variance defined by job demands and resources was higher for WE than for psychological distress. The proportion of variance explained by all variables for negative and positive affectivity and job demands and resources, and their interactions was approximately equal for WE and psychological distress.

CONCLUSION

These results emphasize when researchers aim to evaluate the change of psychosocial factors in the workplace, such as improving the workplace environment among Japanese workers, it might be beneficial to measure positive indicators in addition to negative indicators. Furthermore, enriching job resources would be effective in improving WE and alleviating psychological distress.

The influence of high-quality workplace relational systems and mindfulness on employee work engagement at the time of crises

Workplace relational systems move the organizational processes therefore, the influence on employee work behavior is inevitable. Drawing on the relational systems and broaden & build theory, this study aimed to examine the impact of high-quality workplace relational systems and trait of mindfulness on employee work engagement. This study also posits that psychological capital mediates this relationship and negative affectivity plays a moderating role. Data was collected from 331 employees associated with the public and private sectors. PLS-SEM, Higher Component Modeling technique employed to analyze the data. Results showed a positive association between high-quality workplace relational systems and mindfulness with employee work engagement. Data also support the mediating role of psychological capital. This study contributes to understanding the internal mechanism of how workplace relational systems and mindfulness affect work engagement through mediating effect of psychological capital. The findings of this study showed that high-quality workplace relational systems and mindfulness are workplace factors that induce employees' work engagement. The present study advances the knowledge on the flourishment of the work environment. The findings of this study also contribute to further focusing research on the relational work environment in its response to employee behavioral dimension.

Workplace mobbing, group cohesion and intraindividual variables in nurses from a rural hospital in Northern Greece: A correlation study

BACKGROUND

High levels of mobbing are reported in Greek nurses, but the intraindividual and perceived group emotional correlates are little investigated.

OBJECTIVE

To determine the relationship between workplace mobbing (specifically in the nursing sector of a public rural hospital in Greece) and emotional correlates.

METHODS

Questionnaires measuring emotional aspects such as Negative Act Questionnaire - Revised (NAQ-R) for measuring perceived exposure to bullying and victimization at work, Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), Overall Job Satisfaction Scale (OJS), Job Affect Scale (JAS: positive and negative subscales), Perceived Cohesion Scale (PCS), Ethical Climate Questionnaire (ECQ), and Short General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) were administered. For the analysis of the data, descriptive and parametric tests were performed through the Pearson correlations and regression for the relationship between variables.

RESULTS

High mobbing levels were reported (M = 45.93) compared to already established cutoff scores. Statistically significant positive correlations were found for NAQ-R and MBI (Exhaustion subscale) (r = .569, p < .001), NAQ-R and JAS-negative affect (r = .610, p < .001), NAQ-R and GHQ-12 (r = .280, p = .002), and NAQ-R andeducational level (r = .196, p = .033). Statistically significant negative correlations were found for NAQ-R and ECQ (r = -.323, p < .001), NAQ-R and JAS-positive affect (r = -.556, p < .001), and NAQ-R and PCS (r = -.586, p < .001). Only burnout,negative affect, and perceived group cohesion predicted mobbing measured by NAQ- R.

CONCLUSION

As mobbing and its consequences are related to specific emotional variables, these perceived individual and group indices, could be targeted in future prevention initiatives.

Strategic leadership in SMEs: the mediating role of dynamic capabilities

Purpose

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a vital role throughout the global economy, spurring innovation and job creation. This study investigates the effect of strategic leadership practices on SME performance.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted a quantitative survey of leaders from 290 SMEs to examine their strategic leadership and how it affects SME performance. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to test the dependent relationships in this paper.

Findings

The results suggest that the strategic leadership effect on firm performance is fully mediated by employee empowerment dynamic capability (EEDC) as well as resilient dynamic capability (RDC).

Originality/value

Strategic leadership is traditionally analyzed in large organizations. The authors evaluate the role of strategic leadership in SMEs which is an underexplored context for leadership studies. In this process, the authors also analyze the mediating role of EEDC and RDC.

A Network Approach to Assessing the Relationship between Discrimination and Daily Emotion Dynamics

Discrimination-health research has been critiqued for neglecting the endogeneity of reports of discrimination to negative affect and the multidimensionality of mental health. To address these challenges, we model discrimination’s relationship to multiple psychological variables without directional constraints. Using time-dense data to identify associational network structures allows for joint testing of the social stress hypothesis, prominent in discrimination-health literature, and the negativity bias hypothesis, an endogeneity critique rooted in social psychology. Our results show discrimination predicts negative emotions from day-to-day but not vice versa, indicating that racial discrimination is a risk factor and not symptom of negative emotion. Furthermore, we identify sadness, guilt, hostility, and fear as a locus of interrelated emotions sensitive to racism-related stressors that emerges over time. Thus, we find support for what race scholars have argued for 120+ years in a model without a priori directional restrictions and then build on this work by empirically identifying cascading mental health consequences of discrimination.

Are Biasing Factors Idiosyncratic to Measures? A Comparison of Interpersonal Conflict, Organizational Constraints, and Workload

Widespread concern has been raised about the possibility of potential biasing factors influencing the measurement of organizational variables and distorting inferences and conclusions reached about them. Recent research calls for a measure-centric approach in which every measure is independently evaluated to assess what factor(s) may uniquely bias it. This paper examines three popular stressor measures from this perspective. Across three studies, we examine factors that may bias three popular measures of job stressors: The Interpersonal Conflict at Work Scale (ICAWS), the Organizational Constraints Scale (OCS), and the Quantitative Workload Inventory (QWI). The first study used a two-wave design to survey 276 MTurk workers to assess the three stressor scales, four strains, and five measures of potential bias sources: hostile attribution bias, negative affectivity, mood, neutral objects satisfaction, and social desirability. The second study used an experimental design with 439 MTurk workers who were randomly assigned to a positive, negative, or no mood induction condition to assess effects on means of the three stressor measures and their correlations with strains. The third study surveyed 161 employee-supervisor dyads to explore the convergence of results involving the three stressor measures across sources. Based on several forms of evidence we conclude that potential biasing factors affect the three stressor measures differently, supporting the merits of a measure centric approach, even among measures in the same domain.

The Stressful Personality: A Meta-Analytical Review of the Relation Between Personality and Stress

The current study presented the first meta-analytic review on the associations between the Big Five personality traits and stress measured under different conceptualizations (stressor exposure, psychological and physiological stress responses) using a total of 1,575 effect sizes drawn from 298 samples. Overall, neuroticism was found to be positively related to stress, whereas extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness were negatively linked to stress. When stress assessed under different conceptualizations was tested, only neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness were related to stressor exposure. All of the Big Five personality traits were significantly associated with psychological stress perception, whereas the five personality traits showed weak to null associations with physiological stress response. Further moderation analyses suggested that the associations between personality traits and stress under different conceptualizations were also contingent upon different characteristics of stress, sample, study design, and measures. The results supported the important role of personality traits in individual differences in stress.

Minority Stress and Loneliness in a Global Sample of Sexual Minority Adults: The Roles of Social Anxiety, Social Inhibition, and Community Involvement

Research suggests that loneliness among sexual minority adults is associated with marginalization, but it is unclear which processes may underlie this relationship. This cross-sectional study examined five possibilities: stigma preoccupation, internalized homonegativity, sexual orientation concealment, social anxiety, and social inhibition. The study also examined the possible protective role of LGBTQ community involvement. Respondents were 7856 sexual minority adults aged 18-88 years from 85 countries who completed an online survey. Results of structural equation modeling indicated that marginalization was positively associated with both social and emotional loneliness, and that part of this relationship was indirect via proximal minority stress factors (especially stigma preoccupation) and, in turn, social anxiety and social inhibition. Moreover, while LGBTQ community involvement was associated with greater marginalization, it was also associated with lower levels of proximal stress and both forms of loneliness. Among those who were more involved in the LGBTQ community, the associations between marginalization and proximal stress were somewhat weaker, as were those between stigma preoccupation and social anxiety, and between social inhibition and social loneliness. In contrast, the associations between concealment and social anxiety were somewhat stronger. Model fit and patterns of association were similar after controlling for the possible confounding effect of dispositional negative affectivity, but several coefficients were lower. Findings underscore the continuing need to counter marginalization of sexual minorities, both outside and within the LGBTQ community, and suggest possible avenues for alleviating loneliness at the individual level, such as cognitive-behavioral interventions targeting stigma preoccupation and social anxiety.

Psychometric properties of the Psychological Capital Questionnaire (KKaPsy)

BACKGROUND

The aim of the study was to prepare and design a Polish version of the Psychological Capital Questionnaire. The psychometric tool allows synthetic assessment of four personal resources known to play a significant role in effective functioning, viz. self-efficacy, hope, optimism and resilience.

PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE

The psychometric properties of the questionnaire were developed in two studies, the first one involving 308 people (166 women and 142 men) and the second involving 206 people (111 women and 95 men).

RESULTS

Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed that the tool has a four-component structure with an overall score. It is characterized by satisfactory internal consistency (α = .73-.86), stability (rtt = .85-.92) and construct validity.

CONCLUSIONS

The Psychological Capital Questionnaire is a reliable and valid tool that can be used in research and in practice.

Is veterinary work more than satisfying? A critical review of the literature

Despite the rise of positive psychology in recent times, research continues to emphasise the risks and negative outcomes associated with veterinary work. Understanding these challenges and risks is imperative in helping those affected and preventing or limiting exposure for future veterinarians. However, it is vital that positive factors associated with their well-being are concomitantly addressed. Drawing on an organisational psychology perspective and associated theories, this review critically analyses the literature on veterinary well-being, job satisfaction and the role of positive emotions at work. This perspective prompts a call to researchers to investigate the positive aspects of veterinary work and offers many suggestions for future research and associated implications. Drawing on an extensive evidence base of research pertaining to positive emotions and well-being in veterinarians, the development, implementation and validation of workplace interventions should follow. The veterinary profession is a highly rewarding one and a focus on pleasure in veterinary work and ways to encourage this, will only help veterinarians flourish and help to promote the profession in the way it deserves.

Can I Be Me With You at Work? Examining Relational Authenticity and Discretionary Behaviors in the Workplace

Management scholars have long been interested in the topic of authenticity in the workplace, evidenced by the history of scholarship on authentic leadership and the many new authenticity constructs that have emerged. In this article, we take a narrower view of authenticity and focus on relational authenticity in the workplace, which we define as being genuine in workplace relationships. Adapting a validated relational authenticity scale to the organizational context, we explore the ways in which feeling authentic in workplace relationships has ramifications for discretionary behaviors. Specifically, we build on belongingness theory to posit that relational authenticity will result in an increase in engagement in both altruistic and sportsmanship behaviors. We also explore the moderating effect of proactive personality on these relationships. Results from our two-sample study ( N = 352; 500) indicate that relational authenticity is positively associated with engagement in both altruistic and sportsmanship behaviors.

Group Positive Affect and Beyond: An Integrative Review and Future Research Agenda

Group positive affect is defined as homogeneous positive affect among group members that emerges when working together. Considering that previous research has shown a significant relationship between group positive affect and a wide variety of group outcomes (e.g., behaviors, wellbeing, and performance), it is crucial to boost our knowledge about this construct in the work context. The main purpose is to review empirical research, to synthesize the findings and to provide research agenda about group positive affect, in order to better understand this construct. Through the PsycNET and Proquest Central databases, an integrative review was conducted to identify articles about group positive affect published between January 1990 and March 2019. A total of 44 articles were included and analyzed. Finding suggests that scholars have been more interested in understanding the outcomes of group positive affect and how to improve the productivity of groups than in knowing what the antecedents are. A summary conclusion is that group positive affect is related to leadership, job demands, job resources, diversity/similarity, group processes, and contextual factors, all of which influence the development of several outcomes and different types of wellbeing at the individual and group levels. However, with specific combinations of other conditions (e.g., group trust, negative affect, and interaction), high levels of group positive affect could cause harmful results. Conclusions shed light on group positive affect research and practice and might help Human Resources professionals to initiate empirically-based strategies related to recruitment, group design and leadership training.

The scale of Work-Related Affective Feelings (WORAF)

Interest in the field of emotions in the workplace continues to grow. However, a narrow range of measurements exists for the examination of affective states in organizational settings, all of which were developed based on the discrete-emotions approach. The main objective of the current study was to develop and validate a new instrument to assess four work-related (WR) affective feelings (WORAF): WR feelings of happiness, WR feelings of anxiety, WR feelings of anger, and WR feelings of dejection. Three independent samples of Polish employees in different occupations were included in the study (n = 297, n = 3019, n = 284). The results provide significant evidence for the validity of the proposed WORAF scale, although further investigations are needed.

The Impact of Stress on Life, Working, and Management Styles: How to Make an Organization Healthier?

This article provides guidelines for optimizing organizational management styles and achieving a balance between life and work. Contributing to sustainable human development will contribute to the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development. The main purpose of the paper is to determine the relations between the preferences of management styles, working styles and lifestyles, and exposure to stress in the managerial population in order to achieve harmonization. A correlation study was conducted on a sample of 618 subjects using the Blanchard test of situational leadership, the Four-Dimensional Symptom Questionnaire for determining the stress levels, the modified Allport–Vernon–Lindsay Scale of Values, and Julie Hay’s Working Styles Questionnaire. The paper provides insight into the contribution of management styles to the balance of private and professional areas of life, as well as to stress reduction in managers.

Enhancing Employee Creativity for A Sustainable Competitive Advantage through Perceived Human Resource Management Practices and Trust in Management

This study explores the black box of the relationship between perceived human resource management (HRM) practices and employees’ creativity. Building on the literatures on social exchange and creativity, this study advances a moderated mediation framework of the link between perceived HRM practices and employees’ creativity. We develop the argument that the positive relationship between perceived HRM practices and employees’ creativity is mediated by trust in management and that the mediated relationship is stronger for permanent employees than for temporary employees. Our study finds strong support for the moderated mediation model in a survey study of 285 employees in 14 research institutes funded by the Korean government. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

Organizational Citizenship Behavior in Schools and Its Relationship to School Climate

Within effective organizations employees often go beyond formal job responsibilities, performing nonmandatory tasks with no expectation of recognition or compensation. Therefore, it is important to learn more about how organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) can be cultivated. In this study a new measure of OCB, which is useful in exploring how this construct functions in K–12 schools, was developed. Data were collected in two separate samples and confirmed that this new measure was reasonably valid and reliable. Further testing explored whether the two-factor structure found in other organizational contexts held in public school settings. A significant relationship was found between OCB and school climate. Implications of these findings and directions for further research are discussed.

Emotional Intelligence Buffers the Effects of Negative Emotions on Job Burnout in Nursing

The study was designed to examine whether trait emotional intelligence would moderate the impact of negative emotions at work on job burnout. A total of 188 female nurses participated in this study and completed measures of trait affectivity, emotional intelligence, anger and sadness at work, and burnout. The results revealed significant and positive relationships between both types of negative emotions and burnout above and beyond demographics and the nurses' trait affectivity. Importantly, the study demonstrated that trait emotional intelligence buffers the effects of negative emotions on burnout. Specifically, anger- and sadness-related emotions predicted greater burnout among nurses with low trait emotional intelligence but not among nurses with high trait emotional intelligence. These results suggest that emotional intelligence training could be implemented to prevent the adverse effect of negative emotions felt at work on job burnout.

Exploring predictors and consequences of embitterment in the workplace

Research on the feeling of embitterment at work is still in its infancy. The present study investigated the predictors and consequences of the feeling of embitterment at work. It was hypothesised that organisational injustice as well as over-controlling supervision would predict embitterment at work and that embitterment would be associated with work-related rumination. Three hundred and thirty-seven employees completed an online survey. Regression analysis revealed that procedural injustice and over-controlling supervision were significant predictors of embitterment and that embitterment contributed significantly to the prediction of increased affective rumination and reduction in detachment. Mediation analysis indicated that embitterment at work was a significant mechanism through which organisational injustice and over-controlling supervision exerted their effect on affective rumination, which is indicative of insufficient recovery from work. Findings suggest that breaches in organisational justice can generate feelings of embitterment at work, which in turn can interfere with employees' ability to adequately recover from work. Practitioner Summary: The purpose of this study was to investigate predictors and consequences of embitterment in the workplace using an online questionnaire. Findings suggest that perceived unfairness, because of structural and organisational aspects, predicts feelings of embitterment and that feeling embittered at work can prevent employees from adequately recovering from work.

Microaggressions

The microaggression concept has recently galvanized public discussion and spread to numerous college campuses and businesses. I argue that the microaggression research program (MRP) rests on five core premises, namely, that microaggressions (1) are operationalized with sufficient clarity and consensus to afford rigorous scientific investigation; (2) are interpreted negatively by most or all minority group members; (3) reflect implicitly prejudicial and implicitly aggressive motives; (4) can be validly assessed using only respondents’ subjective reports; and (5) exert an adverse impact on recipients’ mental health. A review of the literature reveals negligible support for all five suppositions. More broadly, the MRP has been marked by an absence of connectivity to key domains of psychological science, including psychometrics, social cognition, cognitive-behavioral therapy, behavior genetics, and personality, health, and industrial-organizational psychology. Although the MRP has been fruitful in drawing the field’s attention to subtle forms of prejudice, it is far too underdeveloped on the conceptual and methodological fronts to warrant real-world application. I conclude with 18 suggestions for advancing the scientific status of the MRP, recommend abandonment of the term “microaggression,” and call for a moratorium on microaggression training programs and publicly distributed microaggression lists pending research to address the MRP’s scientific limitations.

Work Role Ambiguity, Job Satisfaction, and Job Performance: Meta-Analyses and Review

Formal meta-analytic methods were used to examine studies of two primary correlates of work role ambiguity, (a) job satisfaction (global and intrinsic) and (b) job performance (self- and independently evaluated). 88 studies were examined, 39 of which were included in the meta-analyses. Results suggest role ambiguity is significantly and negatively related to both satisfaction and performance but very weakly to the latter. Also, true variance in correlations exists across studies, suggesting that the effects of role ambiguity vary depending upon other variables. Results are consistent with previous research and suggest that role ambiguity is a valid construct in organizational research and is usually associated with lower job satisfaction. The primary sources used in the meta-analysis are included.

Dispositional Antecedents and Consequences of Emotional Labor at Work

We examined individual difference variables as antecedents of perceived emotional labor, as well as affective and behavioral consequences. Full time employees who had at least five years of work experience completed two separate surveys. Respondents were asked to indicate negative affectivity and political skill, and perceived emotional labor at time one. Job-induced tension and political behavior were gathered two months later. Results indicated that negative affectivity and political skill were significantly related to employee perceived emotional labor, which further influenced employees' use of political behaviors and job-induced tension. Implications of the current study and directions for future research are discussed.

Workplace Ostracism and Its Negative Outcomes

Abstract. Workplace ostracism, conceived as to being ignored or excluded by others, has attracted the attention of researchers in recent years. One essential topic in this area is how to reduce or even eliminate the negative consequences of workplace ostracism. Based on conservation of resources (COR) theory, the current study assesses the relationship between workplace ostracism and its negative outcomes, as well as the moderating role played by psychological capital, using data collected from 256 employees in three companies in the northern part of China. The study yields two important findings: (1) workplace ostracism is positively related to intention to leave and (2) psychological capital moderates the effect of workplace ostracism on affective commitment and intention to leave. This paper concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for organizations and employees, along with recommendations for future research.

A Laboratory Study of Satisfaction Effects on Mood State, Withdrawal Intentions, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

154 undergraduates role-played a restaurant server experiencing positive, neutral, or negative Job or Life Satisfaction. Positive Satisfaction resulted in ratings of more positive reported mood state, lower expected absenteeism and turnover intentions, and greater expected Organizational Citizenship Behavior than did Neutral Satisfaction and Negative Satisfaction. Life Satisfaction was associated with reported mood states and intentions similarly to Job Satisfaction, except Negative Job Satisfaction was more negatively influential on expectations of quitting than Negative Life Satisfaction. Both Job and Life Satisfaction may be antecedents to affect and its consequences in work settings.

Influence of Perceived Institutional and Faculty Support on College Students' Attitudes and Behavioral Intentions

Influence of perceived organizational support within a college student population is examined. Generalizing from research conducted in 1986 by Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchison, and Sowa, perceived organizational support is defined as individuals' perception that a relevant organization values their contribution and cares about their well-being. The current research indicates that students differentiate between support received from faculty and support from the institution at large. Both forms of support are associated with affective commitment to the institution and positive daily mood, whereas only perceived support from the institution is positively associated with the likelihood of performing behaviors potentially beneficial to the institution. This research supports a social exchange interpretation of the student-institutional relationship, with benefits accruing to both parties if perceived support is high.

Hardiness and Support at Work as Predictors of Work Stress and Job Satisfaction

Purpose.

To test a theoretically and empirically based model linking potential protective resources (hardiness, coworker and supervisor support) to the outcomes of work stress and job satisfaction and replicating the relationship of work stress to job satisfaction while accounting for the potential influence of negative affectivity.

Design.

A cross-sectional research design using survey data collected from two convenience samples.

Setting.

Two worksites: (1) a high-tech company and (2) a government agency.

Subjects.

High-tech employees (N = 310; response rate, 73.8%) and government agency employees (N = 745; response rate, 49.7%).

Measures.

The Dispositional Resilience Scale measured hardiness and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule measured negative affectivity. Coworker and supervisor support were measured using the Coworker Support Scale and the Supervisor Support Scale, respectively. The Perceived Work Stress Scale measured work stress, and a single item from the Job Satisfaction Scale assessed overall job satisfaction.

Results.

A multiple-group path analysis examined the proposed model. Similar patterns of association were found for both samples and suggested a more parsimonious model without the path from negative affectivity to job satisfaction. The model supports the protective nature of hardiness and support at work with regard to work stress and job satisfaction.

Conclusion.

Explanations of relationships depicted in the model, practical implications for reducing work stress and enhancing job satisfaction, limitations and future directions are discussed.

Grouptask Satisfaction

This article reviews evidence for considering job satisfaction at the group level of analysis. Group-level job satisfaction is functionally independent of individual-level job satisfaction. This construct is labeled group task satisfaction and is defined as the group’s shared attitude toward its task and the associated work environment. The authors propose that group task satisfaction develops out of within-group homogeneity in individual job satisfaction, which in turn is a product of the shared work conditions, social influence processes, attraction-selection-attrition effects, and emotional contagion effects associated with work groups. They predict that through group interaction, the within-group homogeneity in job satisfaction will come to be perceived as a characteristic of the group. Once identified as a group characteristic, group task satisfaction will be subject to processes such as polarization and prototyping, with the result that group task satisfaction should function independently of the mean level of job satisfaction within the group. The authors predict that group task satisfaction will be related to the mean level of individual job satisfaction within the group, the quality of the group’s processes, and the performance of the group, thus serving as an important indicator of team viability.

Personality Dispositions and Job Satisfaction

Interactional explanations of job satisfaction are generally accepted, but the relative weight attached to dispositional and situational aspects is a matter of debate. Relationships of two negative affectivity, two positive affectivity, and one bipolar affective measure, as well as a sense of coherence scale, to intrinsic, extrinsic, total and global job satisfaction were investigated. Three samples of, respectively, 118 student nurses, 88 professional, managerial and administrative employees of the property investments division of an insurance company, and 117 artisans in a public utility participated. Correlations between intrinsic and extrinsic scores were unacceptably high (0.64–0.72). There was some support for the view that dispositions and job satisfaction are related: weakly for negative affectivity, somewhat stronger for positive affectivity, still stronger for the bipolar measure, and strongest for the sense of coherence. As in similar studies, the significant correlations were only moderate, ranging from 0.21 to 0.47. It was, however, argued that personality (and also situational) variables are likely to be, at best, modest predictors of job satisfaction, in view of the number and complexity of co-producers and the product.

Adopting High-Involvement Human Resource Practices

Results from a survey of 107 organizations suggested that the organizational process of bench-marking mediates the effects of munificence on high-involvement human resource (HR) practices. The weak relationship between munificence and HR practices observed in past studies might be explained by the failure to account for this organizational process. Implications for HR managers and practitioners interested in the role that benchmarking plays in organizations are highlighted.

Group Task Satisfaction

Group task satisfaction has been conceptualized as the group-level counterpart to individual job satisfaction and represents the group’s shared attitude toward its task and work environment. This study investigated whether group task satisfaction would explain incremental variance in organizational citizenship behaviors, group performance, and absenteeism norms, after the variance explained by aggregated individual job satisfaction and group affective tone was taken into account. Survey data were collected from 66 work groups and 51 supervisors. Measures of group task satisfaction explained unique variance in ratings of citizenship behavior and absenteeism norms but did not explain unique variance in ratings of group performance. Our findings support the validity and utility of group task satisfaction and illustrate the importance of assessing group-level constructs directly.

Method Variance in Organizational Research

It has become widely accepted that correlations between variables measured with the same method, usually self-report surveys, are inflated due to the action of common method variance (CMV), despite a number of sources that suggest the problem is overstated. The author argues that the popular position suggesting CMV automatically affects variables measured with the same method is a distortion and oversimplification of the true state of affairs, reaching the status of urban legend. Empirical evidence is discussed casting doubt that the method itself produces systematic variance in observations that inflates correlations to any significant degree. It is suggested that the term common method variance be abandoned in favor of a focus on measurement bias that is the product of the interplay of constructs and methods by which they are assessed. A complex approach to dealing with potential biases involves their identification and control to rule them out as explanations for observed relationships using a variety of design strategies.

Common Methods Bias: Does Common Methods Variance Really Bias Results?

Methods variance and its effects are at the center of a debate in organizational science. Most of the debate, however, is focused on the prevalence of common methods variance and ignores common methods bias, or the divergence between observed and true relationships among constructs. This article assesses the level of common methods bias in all multitrait-multimethod correlation matrices published over a 12-year period in a set of six social science journals using a combination of structural equation modeling and meta-analysis. The results indicate that only 46% of the variation in measures is attributable to the constructs, that 32% of the observed variation in measures is attributable to common methods variance, and that common methods variance results in a 26% bias in the observed relationships among constructs. This level of bias is cause for concern but does not invalidate many research findings.

Importance of Personality and Job-Specific Affect for Predicting Job Attitudes and Withdrawal Behavior

This study explores the relative importance of trait-based personality constructs and a state-based job-specific affect construct for predicting job attitudes and withdrawal behaviors of incumbent customer service call center representatives (N = 150). Results based on three traditional indices of importance (i.e., squared correlation coefficients, squared standardized regression coefficients, and the product measure) yielded conclusions that were often inconsistent or ambiguous. In contrast, results based on two newer statistics (i.e., dominance and epsilon) were readily interpretable and virtually identical to one another. Overall, emotional stability and job-specific affect emerged as important predictors of various withdrawal criteria, relative to other personality variables.

The Effects of Temporal Separation on the Relations between Self-Reported Work Stressors and Strains

The assumption that a longitudinal design reduces the size of the relationships between work stressors and strains was tested. A comparison of cross-sectional and longitudinal correlations suggested that temporal separation of stressors and strains reduced correlations between role ambiguity and primarily attitudinal strains. Cross-sectional correlations between role conflict and strains, as well as correlations involving health-related strains, were practically unaffected by switching to a longitudinal design. A theory-driven approach to the adoption of temporal separation of stressor and strain measures in organizational stress research is outlined.

Employee self-concepts, voluntary learning behavior, and perceived employability

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the antecedents of employees’ perceived employability based on both self-concept and human capital theory. The study tested the relationship between employees’ self-concepts and perceived employability by using organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) and role-breadth self-efficacy. This study also examined the interactive relationship between self-concepts and voluntary leaning behavior, which can be viewed as a means of enhancing human capital.

Design/methodology/approach

– Data were collected from 301 employees of an organization in Korea.

Findings

– The results demonstrated that OBSE and its interaction with voluntary learning behavior were positively correlated with perceived employability.

Research limitations/implications

– The data were cross-sectional. Causal inferences should be made with caution.

Originality/value

– Unlike previous literature that has relied primarily on human capital theory, this study draws on self-concept theory to show that employee self-concept can be an antecedent of perceived employability. Furthermore, this study argues that employees’ perceived employability may be more fully understood through the lenses of both self-concept and human capital theories.