ABSTRACT Grounded in the stressor-emotion model, this study reports an empirical examination of the relationships between exploitative leadership on employees’ cognition and work behavior, incorporating the mediating role of organizational frustration and the moderating effect of stressor appraisals. Since ambiguity surrounds these processes, this perspective offers clarity on the negative chain reactions triggered by supervisors’ exploitative leadership of employees. Data were collected from 298 full-time front-line employees and their direct supervisors. The findings reveal: (1) exploitative leadership positively affects employees’ organizational frustration; (2) organizational frustration mediates the relationship between exploitative leadership and both contextual performance and silence behavior; (3) hindrance stressors amplify the positive relationship between exploitative leadership and organizational frustration; and (4) challenge stressors mitigate the positive relationship between exploitative leadership and organizational frustration. These findings extend the understanding of exploitative leadership by distinguishing employees’ active and passive behavioral responses and revealing organizational frustration as an important mediating process. By including stressor appraisals as a boundary condition, we clarify when exploitative leadership worsens or attenuates frustration and associating employee behaviors

ABSTRACT Substantial research has examined work-related correlates of the Big Five, but few studies have investigated these traits in combination. This research addressed this issue by focusing on profiles, examining (a) the types of personality profiles found in a large working sample and their similarity to previous profiles found in samples outside of organizational contexts; (b) the relationship between personality profiles and job performance, including incremental validity in predicting job performance beyond personality traits; and (c) other characteristics associated with these personality profiles relevant to organizational settings. To examine these issues, we used an archival dataset (N = 4,103) from a concurrent criterion-related validation study conducted in a Fortune 100 company involving measures of personality, job performance, proactive personality, learning goal orientation, and creativity. Results from latent profile and regression analyses indicated (a) the presence of four personality profiles with some overlap with profiles found in other contexts, (b) limited evidence of incremental validity for personality profiles beyond personality traits, and (c) some relationships between profiles and proactive personality, learning goal orientation, and creativity. These findings suggest that additional research on personality profiles at work may be worthwhile, but these profiles may have limited value in terms of criterion-related validity.

ABSTRACT This research seeks to better understand how perceptions of abusive supervision develop. Recent theoretical and empirical work highlights limited research on how these perceptions form. We apply a broad social-psychological perspective to explain how subordinate characteristics, supervisor characteristics, and context contribute to perceptions of abuse. Drawing on conditional reasoning theory, we argue that the implicit motive to aggress of both supervisors and subordinates is central to predicting perceptions of abuse. Context, specifically group justice climate, may also limit such perceptions. We develop and test this theory using a multilevel, group-based framework to better explain how supervisor motive to aggress, subordinate motive to aggress, and group justice climate contribute to variance in perceptions of abuse. We test our theory using two samples. The first, with 274 employed students, examined how the motive to aggress shapes individual perceptions of abuse. The second included 245 employees nested in workgroups under 70 supervisors, allowing us to test the full multilevel model. In Study 2, 31% of the within-group variance in abuse perceptions was attributed to subordinates’ motive to aggress relative to the null model. In contrast, supervisors’ motive to aggress explained 43% of the between-group variance in abusive supervision perceptions, and group justice climate explained approximately 7% of the variance beyond subordinate motive to aggress relative to the null model. These substantial effect sizes underscore the importance of motive to aggress in understanding abusive supervision.

ABSTRACT Whereas previous studies have identified the adverse effects of technology-assisted supplemental work on employees, coworkers’ role in this form of work remains largely unexplored. Based on the conservation of resources theory and social learning theory, we propose that a coworker’s off-the-job responsiveness can influence an employee’s off-the-job responsiveness, thereby affecting the employee’s on-the-job vigor and thus their creativity. In Study 1, we collected data from 235 employee – coworker dyads over 10 workdays and found that (a) coworkers’ off-the-job responsiveness (and on-the-job vigor) was positively related to employees’ off-the-job responsiveness (and on-the-job vigor), while (b) employees’ off-the-job responsiveness was negatively related to their own on-the-job vigor, which in turn was positively related to their creativity. Moreover, compared with introverts, extraverts were more likely to experience these relationships. In Study 2, we used experimental vignettes to replicate some of the proposed relationships and crossover effects. Overall, this research contributes to the organizational science literature by demonstrating that coworkers’ off-the-job responsiveness and on-the-job vigor can be contagious and can shape employee creativity, especially for extraverts.

ABSTRACT Organizations have implemented flexible work arrangements (FWAs) as an intervention to improve employees’ task motivation, organizational attitudes, and proactive behaviors. The present study investigates the distinct effects of two prevailing dimensions of FWAs (flextime and flexplace) on employee creativity with varying levels of proactivity (radical versus incremental creativity). Drawing on job characteristics theory, we identify employees’ sense of responsibility as the mediator and their FWA-targeted attributions as the moderating contingency. These hypotheses were tested using data collected from 170 leader-member dyads. Our analysis revealed that flextime is significantly related to radical and incremental creativity through the sense of responsibility, whereas flexplace shows no significant effects. In addition, the indirect effect of flextime on employee creativity through the sense of responsibility is greater for radical creativity than for incremental creativity. The results also demonstrated that the indirect effects of FWAs on the two creativity types are positive and significant when constructive FWA attribution is high and when exploitative attribution is low. The current analysis clarifies and offers meaningful insights into the differential functions, intervening mechanisms, and conditions for the effects of distinct FWA dimensions on employee creativity in the workplace.

ABSTRACT When administering measures, researchers are often concerned about the psychological burden of measure length (i.e., the number of items) on participants and its potential effect on test scores and resulting psychometric properties. The present work experimentally examined this issue in two studies using two independent samples of undergraduate students and a between-subjects design whereby participants of each sample were randomly assigned to complete either a short or long measure. Study 1 (N = 398) examined the effect of measure length on careless responding on a non-cognitive measure and the resulting psychometric properties (i.e., internal consistency and construct validity). Study 2 (N = 426) examined the effect of measure length on performance scores on a cognitive measure and the same resulting psychometric properties. Measure length had no effect on performance on the cognitive measure, and for the non-cognitive measure had an inconsistent effect on careless responding. Pertaining to psychometric properties, measure length had no meaningful effect on the internal consistency of both measures. The effect on construct validity depended on the criterion, but on average, was small to negligible. Overall, the results provide little evidence to support researchers’ concerns about the potential adverse psychological effects associated with using longer measures.

ABSTRACT An implicit trait policy (ITP) on intercultural competence reflects a worker’s self-beliefs regarding effectiveness of behavior in intercultural work situations. An ITP thus integrates the worker’s competence on selection of effective behavior like intensifying intercultural contacts and rejection of ineffective behavior like discrimination. The present study researches to which extent selection and rejection relate to different origins by mapping worker data from a public employment service (N = 3,310) onto the present study’s ITP framework of intercultural competence. Results show that a worker’s competence to avoid ineffective behavior is unrelated to the worker’s ability to endorse effective behavior, with both competences showing relations to (partly) different origins. These results also trend further toward two actual behavioral outcomes. Both processes of effective selection and rejection of behavior are relevant for the worker’s intensity of intercultural contacts. However, only rejection remains relevant for avoiding the display of discriminatory behavior in the future. Indeed, an organizational development intervention to promote intercultural contacts needs a different approach than preventing discrimination, as both outcomes are related to different origins. The key to a successful intervention therefore resides in addressing the appropriate ITP origins in order to evoke selection or rejection of the targeted behavior.

ABSTRACT Teams are driven by their strategic core – members who encounter more team problems, are more exposed to team tasks, and are more central to team workflow. Although research indicates that committing more financial resources to the strategic core is connected with team success, doing so imposes greater pay dispersion and research is inconclusive regarding its effects. This may be because team pay dispersion is applied too broadly – mistakenly considering all team members as coequals – and due to unexamined mechanisms that might clarify the connection between pay dispersion and team performance. Using a team-centered view of equity theory, we elucidate the effects of team pay inequity by focusing on pay inequity in the strategic core and by testing its indirect association with team performance via the theorized mechanisms of collective effort and team coordination. We tested our hypotheses in a sample of professional basketball teams and find a negative connection between pay inequity and team performance, but only when the inequity exists within the strategic core (as opposed to the entire team) and only via the mechanism of team coordination (not collective effort). These findings clarify the effects of pay inequity in teams and underscore the importance of the strategic core.

ABSTRACT Past-behavior questions are valid predictors of job performance in face-to-face (FTF) interviews. However, their criterion validity in asynchronous video interviews (AVIs) is under-researched. Our experiment investigated the effect of interview medium (FTF versus AVI) on participants’ responses to past-behavior questions, interview performance, and the criterion validity of past-behavior questions. Participants (n = 229) completed a standardized work sample as a measure of work sample performance followed by a mock interview in an AVI or FTF setting, in which one past-behavior question targeted that work sample. Participants’ responses and interview performance were similar across interview media, but they described more values and opinions in AVIs. Participants’ overall interview performance in AVIs and FTF settings were valid predictors of work sample performance, as was their performance at the past-behavior question targeting the work sample. These findings suggest that AVIs are a valid method to assess applicants that is comparable to FTF interviews.

ABSTRACT The multiple-choice test format is arguably the primary method in assessments of knowledge and other cognitively loaded constructs associated with subgroup differences. Although widely accepted item writing guidelines exist, seemingly no empirical studies have examined the extent to which violations of these guidelines result in differential test scores particularly as a function of race/ethnicity – despite assertions to that effect. This gap is addressed by (a) examining the extent to which poor item writing practices affect test scores, and (b) whether said effect is moderated by test taker race/ethnicity, using a correlational study with operational police selection data (N = 60,936), and an experimental study with undergraduate students (N = 612). Although the effects were generally small, test takers consistently performed worse on “bad”/poor quality-item exams. However, although generally in the expected direction, the results failed to support a statistically significant case that bad items’ deleterious effect varied by race/ethnicity. Nevertheless, because the results likely represent a lower bound of the potential impact of item quality due to an imperative methodological design decision that precluded the inclusion of common egregious rule violations (e.g., direct clue errors, double negations), they highlight the importance of adherence to scientific and professionally recognized item writing guidelines.