The Hidden Costs of Pro-Customer Rule Breaking: How It Fuels Employee Expediency

Purpose This study aims to explore how employees’ ingratiation leads to managers’ exploitative leadership through their feeling of psychological entitlement. The study also ascertains whether this indirect relationship is contingent on managers’ moral identity. Design/methodology/approach The data were collected from 523 employees through survey design. Employees rated their colleagues for their ingratiating behavior along with rating their managers for their moral identity, psychological entitlement and exploitative leadership. Findings Employees’ ingratiation was found to relate to psychological entitlement. Additionally, psychological entitlement mediated the relationship between ingratiation and manager exploitative leadership. This indirect relationship was moderated by the moral identity of managers. Moral identity was also found to moderate the relationship between ingratiation and psychological entitlement. Finally, the study found psychological entitlement to be related to exploitative leadership. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to explore the previously unexplored direct relationships between ingratiation and psychological entitlement and psychological entitlement and exploitative leadership. The study is also the first to explicate the mediating role of psychological entitlement and the moderating role of moral identity relating ingratiation to exploitative leadership.

Drawing on conservation of resources theory, this study examined the moderating role of ethical leader behavior in the effects of daily perceived job insecurity on work outcomes the next day (i.e., work engagement and customer-directed helping) through occupational regret the next morning among frontline service employees working in adverse work situations (i.e., the coronavirus disease pandemic). Using experience sampling method, data were collected from 135 frontline service employees across five consecutive workdays. The results showed that daily perceived job insecurity had a negative indirect effect on work engagement and customer-directed helping the next day through (increased) occupational regret the next day in the morning. In addition, ethical leader behavior moderated the negative indirect effect of daily perceived job insecurity on next-day work engagement and customer-directed helping through next-morning occupational regret. Specifically, these negative effects were especially stronger among employees who had observed low levels of ethical leader behavior the previous day. The theoretical implications of the present findings for researchers and their practical implications for managers are discussed.

The thesis addresses two specific objectives: First, given the scarcity of humor research in Australian work contexts, the thesis explores the nature of humor events in Australia, how Australian employees perceive such humor and what they expect from their immediate managers with regards to humor. Second, the thesis presents a study that tests hypothesized relationships between employees’ perception of managers’ humor and employees’ emotions, Psychological Capital (PsyCap), Subjective Well-Being (SWB) and Turnover Intentions (TI) to understand the consequences managers’ use of humor has for employees. The argument of this thesis is that when employees perceive their managers’ humor as positive (negative), they experience momentary positive (negative) emotions which increase (decrease) employees’ PsyCap and SWB and lowers (increases) TI over time. To address the first objective, a sample of 433 employees in organizations across Australia provided survey data pertaining to (1) frequency of humor behavior at work; (2) employees’ perception of the acceptability, engagement and enjoyment of humor at work; (3) participants in humor at work, their intentions for humor creation, channels of humor delivery and the functions achieved; and (4) employees’ expectations of their managers’ humor. To address the second objective, an Experience Sampling Method (ESM) was used to enable the assessment of hypothesized causal relationships. Ten short surveys with a sample of 2498 employees employed across Australia were administered daily for 10 consecutive work days, with pre and post measures, to gather data on (1) employees’ emotional changes in response to their immediate managers’ humor and how they perceived the humor as to its positive or negative impact; (2) changes in their PsyCap, SWB and TI; and (3) the hypothesized moderator variables of Leader-Member Exchange (LMX), employees’ Locus of Control (LOC), Affect Intensity (AI), job stress and employees’ perception of their managers’ humor style. The research provides evidence that humor is prevalent in Australian workplaces and that survey participants’ accept, engage in, and enjoy humor at work. Findings also support the hypotheses relating to participants’ perception of their managers’ humor and experienced emotions and the moderating effects of LMX on the manager humor-employee emotions relationship. Interestingly, frequent experiences of participants’ positive emotions were not associated with increases in their PsyCap and SWB but frequent experiences of participants’ negative emotions reduced their psychological resources. As predicted, participants’ high SWB resulted in low TI. Surprisingly however, participants’ high PsyCap did not result in their low TI.

An examination of goal processes and goal cognitions in relation to momentary mood changes

Reduced positive future thinking has been associated with suicidal ideation and behavior in adults, and appears to be exacerbated by negative affect. Yet, this has received little attention in youth. Prior research has also focused on longer-term future thinking, e.g., months and years, and relied on lab-based assessments. Using the experience sampling method (ESM), we investigated whether short-term future thinking in daily life was associated with suicidal ideation in youth and explored the role of affect in the future thinking–suicidal ideation relationship. A community sample of N = 722 adolescent twins and their non-twin siblings completed ESM as part of the TwinssCan study (n = 55 with, and n = 667 without, past-week suicidal ideation). Participants completed self-report questionnaires, including on past-week suicidal ideation as part of the SCL-90. Subsequently, daily future thinking was assessed each morning for six days with ESM. To investigate the relationship between daily positive future thinking and past-week suicidal ideation, we estimated a mixed-effects linear regression model with a random intercept for participant, including age and sex as covariates. The relationship between daily positive future thinking, past-week suicidal ideation, and average positive and negative affect from the previous day was investigated by estimating two separate mixed-effects linear regression models (one for negative affect, one for positive affect), with a random intercept for participant, and random slopes for average positive and negative affect. Our results showed that participants reporting higher past-week suicidal ideation also reported significantly less daily positive future thinking during the ESM period, and this association remained significant when controlling for previous-day average positive and negative affect. Higher average positive affect from the previous day was significantly associated with higher positive future thinking. Although average negative affect from the previous day was associated with lower positive future thinking, this association was not statistically significant. Our findings indicate that short-term future thinking relates to suicidal ideation among a non-clinical sample of adolescents. Future research should investigate the directionality of the future thinking–suicidal ideation relationship, in order to investigate whether impaired future thinking may be an early warning signal for escalating suicidal ideation in youth.

This study examines the impact of returnee executives on top management teams' (TMTs') unethical management behavior (e.g., excess perquisite consumption). Synthesizing insights from upper echelons theory and the psychological entitlement literature, this study proposes that returnee executives cause TMTs to generate a high degree of psychological entitlement, which subsequently leads to a high degree of excess perquisite consumption in their firms. In addition, this study proposes that returnee chief executive officers, product diversification, and regional institutional development moderate the aforementioned relationships by influencing managerial discretion. This study provides empirical evidence for the above view using a dataset that was constructed based on 1960 listed Chinese manufacturing companies from 2010 to 2019. From a psychological entitlement perspective, this study confirms, for the first time, that the introduction of returnee executives may have unintended negative consequences, for example, in promoting the excess perquisite consumption activities of TMTs.

Empirical studies showed mixed results of the effect of need for cognitive closure (NFC) on employees’ work performance. Some scholars propose that to detach the ability to achieve closure from the concept of NFC may be a better approach to clarify this relationship. Based on lay epistemic theory, we firstly distinguish between individuals’ ability to achieve closure (AAC) and motivation for cognitive closure (MFC), and then propose work procrastination as a mechanism to explore NFC’s impact on work performance. By using experience sampling method, study1 collected data from 33 employees in 5 consecutive workdays in real organizational scenario. Results revealed that, AAC is a trait-like construct which is different from the state-like MFC. AAC is negatively related to MFC and has more predictive power in explaining individual behavior. In study 2, We proposed and tested a mediated moderation model in which the interactive effect of MFC and AAC on work performance is mediated by employees’ work procrastination. Our results show how and why AAC and MFC interact to impact employees’ work performance. Implications for theory and practice are discussed, including the paradoxical role of NFC for cognitive experience and working behavior in this information explosion era.

ABSTRACTThe recently booming gig economy, in which gig workers provide on‐demand and short‐term services to customers in exchange for monetary rewards via online gig platforms, creates opportunities for workers to receive instantaneous customer feedback, particularly negative feedback. Considering the emerging controversy concerning gig workers' well‐being, the present research strives to understand how and when negative customer feedback influences gig workers' subsequent work and well‐being outcomes. Grounded in conservation of resources (COR) theory, this research hypothesizes that negative customer feedback hinders psychological detachment, contingent on gig workers' perception of their job security and their customer feedback handling time. In turn, impaired psychological detachment is related to lower job performance and job‐related well‐being for gig workers on the following day. Findings from a study using an experience sampling method (ESM) that included 147 gig workers across five consecutive workdays (Study 1) and a recall study that included 273 gig workers (Study 2) provide general support for the hypothesized model. The theoretical and practical implications of this research are also discussed.

This study explores the relationship between initial daily negative mood, online game usage and subsequent positive mood; and examine the moderating roles of hedonistic motivation on the perspective of mood regulation theory. To gather data over five consecutive workdays, this study used the experience sampling method. We then obtained 800 valid daily data from 160 participants. The results of multilevel path analysis show that: (i) initial daily negative mood increases the usage of online games and further enhances subsequent positive mood; (ii) students with higher hedonic motivation will show a stronger positive correlation between initial daily negative mood and online game usage; (iii) students with higher hedonic motivation will show a stronger positive correlation between online game usage and subsequent positive mood. Theoretical and practical implications are also investigated in this study.

BackgroundThe engagement of preschool teachers in their work is pivotal for maintaining teaching quality, ensuring teacher well-being, and fostering children’s development. Despite its significance, there is limited knowledge regarding the daily fluctuations in work engagement and the underlying factors influencing it. This study, guided by the Job Demands-Resources model and Affect Event Theory, utilized an experience sampling methodology to investigate the impact of challenge and hindrance stressors on daily work engagement, as well as the mediating role of affect and the moderating effect of mindfulness.MethodsUtilizing an experience sampling method, this study collected data from 220 preschool teachers in Shanghai over five consecutive workdays, conducting surveys once daily. Data analysis was performed using multilevel linear models.ResultsThe results from multilevel regression indicated that: (1) daily challenge stressors were positively related to work engagement, (2) daily hindrance stressors were negatively related to work engagement, (3) daily positive affect mediated the relationship between challenge stressors and work engagement, (4) daily negative affect mediated the relationship between hindrance stressors and work engagement, and (5) daily mindfulness played a crucial moderating role by alleviating the adverse effects of hindrance stressors on daily negative affect.ConclusionsThis study provides valuable insights into the daily experiences of preschool teachers and the factors that influence their work engagement. Understanding the impact of stressors, affect, and mindfulness on work engagement can inform the development of interventions and strategies to improve teacher well-being and work engagement.

This study examines how the laudable behavior of employee volunteering can lead to deviant workplace behavior. We draw on the moral licensing and organizational justice literatures to propose that the relationship between employee volunteering and workplace deviance is serially mediated by moral license (moral credits and moral credentials) and psychological entitlement. Results from 2 multiwave survey studies of full-time employees from a variety of organizations and industries confirm that moral credits and psychological entitlement serially mediate this relationship, although the proposed mediating role of moral credentials was not supported. Organizational justice moderates the impact of psychological entitlement on workplace deviance; the indirect relationship between employee volunteering and workplace deviance weakens when perceptions of organizational justice are high. This study demonstrates a potential dark side to employee volunteering and also contributes to the moral licensing and behavioral ethics literatures. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Fear of crime is a dynamic psychosocial phenomenon, and sophisticated methodologies are necessary in order to explore its multidimensionality and complexity. The experience sampling method (ESM) that is used by Solymosi and colleagues (2015) is a promising methodological way forward in fear of crime research. While acknowledging the advantages of ESM, in this commentary we discuss a potential disadvantage of the method, namely the possibility that ESM can increase the psychological proximity of crime. Drawing upon construal‐level theory of psychological distance, we argue that ESM might sensitize people to think about crime through the lens of personal risk, with a knock‐on effect on the construal of crime.

Micro-break activities, as a series of energy management strategies for sustaining personal resources, have been widely considered facilitators of health and well-being due to their role in resource recovery. Surprisingly, the role of the recovery level in the well-being implications of micro-break activities remains largely untested. Based on the effort-recovery model, we explicitly tested the idea that the recovery level mediates between micro-break activities and workplace well-being, moderated by supervisor support for recovery. To examine our predictions, we adopted the experience sampling method (ESM) and accordingly collected daily surveys from 115 full-time employees for five consecutive workdays. The multilevel path analysis results revealed that micro-break activities were associated with increased recovery levels, which, in turn, were related to higher workplace well-being. Supervisor support for recovery strengthened the effect of micro-break activities on the recovery level as well as the indirect effect of micro-break activities on workplace well-being via the recovery level. Our findings advance prior work by explicitly testing the mediating role of the recovery level between micro-breaks and workplace well-being and identifying supervisor support for recovery as a critical condition of this relationship.

Assessing the relationship between family mealtime communication and adolescent emotional well-being using the experience sampling method

Moment- and memory-based leisure experiences appear to differ. Furthermore, prior research indicates that retrospective affective reports do not converge with their immediate counterparts, with the latter assumed to be more accurate. The experience sampling method (ESM) allows researchers to capture immediate experiences; however, it is more resource intensive than a retrospective cross-sectional survey. Therefore, the purpose of this research note is to examine whether immediate affective reports significantly differ from retrospective affective reports in leisure contexts over a 3-week period. Forty-one Japanese undergraduate students participated in our 4-weekend ESM study, and their immediate affective reports in leisure contexts and corresponding retrospective reports were compared. Results of dependent t-tests indicated that participants’ retrospective reports did not differ from the immediate reports. This suggests that retrospective measures of emotions within a certain leisure context might be as reliable as ESM-based immediate measures.