Coworker Influence Research Articles

Compete or Cooperate? Goal Orientations and Coworker Popularity in the Knowledge-Sharing Dilemma.

Focusing on two goal orientations (the learning and performance prove-goal orientation), this study proposed a different mechanism for dealing with the knowledge-sharing dilemma. We analyzed data from 257 employee-coworker dyads, finding that the learning goal orientation positively affected knowledge sharing, while the performance prove-goal orientation negatively affected knowledge sharing. In addition, highlighting the importance of coworker influence, our analysis showed that coworker popularity served as social cue to boost the main effects of knowledge sharing. Specifically, the positive relationship between the learning goal orientation and knowledge sharing and the negative relationship between the performance prove-goal orientation and knowledge sharing were stronger when coworker popularity was higher. These findings contribute to articulating theoretical directions at the individual level for addressing the dilemma associated with knowledge sharing. Furthermore, they offer practical implications by emphasizing the ongoing importance of considering the influence of coworkers, who serve as crucial exchange partners during task execution.

Eating Patterns among Emergency Medical Service Providers in the United States: A Qualitative Interview Study.

Emergency medical service (EMS) providers experience demanding work conditions in addition to shift work, which increases risk for nutrition related chronic disease such as metabolic syndrome, diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease. The high stress, emergent, and unpredictable nature of EMS may interfere with healthy eating patterns on and off shift, however little is known about how these conditions impact dietary patterns among EMS providers. This study aimed to understand factors impacting dietary patterns through semi-structured interviews with 40 EMS providers throughout the United States. Interviews were conducted virtually via Zoom video conference. Inductive coding was used to identify themes throughout the interviews. Salient factors mentioned in the interviews included hunger, fatigue, stress, coworker influence, ambulance posting, geographical location, agency policy, and culture. Factors were grouped into 4 domains: physiological factors, psychosocial factors, physical environment, and organizational environment, represented by an adapted version of the social ecological model of health behaviors to include factors influencing eating patterns specific to EMS, which may contribute to overall health. Various barriers to healthy eating exist within EMS, and future studies should explore interventions at each level of our proposed model to improve conditions and reduce nutrition related disease risk in this essential population.

Pay, Promotion, Work, Supervision, and Coworker as Dimensions of Academicians Job Satisfaction at Public Research Universities in Klang Valley, Malaysia

Recognizing and evaluating effective and principal factors that have been affected by academicians' feelings and satisfaction are imperative. This cross-sectional study aims to examine coworker's influence, pay, promotion, supervision, and work on academicians' job satisfaction at university. Job Descriptive Index (JDI) measured these factors, which comprised 72 items and proposed by Brodke et al. (2009) amongst 440 academicians who worked in public research universities in Klang Valley, Malaysia. Descriptive Statistics analyzed the achieved data. This study has illustrated that most academicians revealed a high level of satisfaction toward their pay, coworker, promotion, supervision, and work; their universities support them regarding the main factors of work and organizational structure. Based on these consequences, the universities and any other academic institutes have to the consciousness of these five main factors to improve and enhance academicians job satisfaction, leading to high outcomes and performance at the workplace.

Behavioral safety compliance in an interdependent mining environment: supervisor communication, procedural justice and the mediating role of coworker communication

Objectives. Although a focus on safety communication between managers and employees has been prevalent, research around coworker influence in this communication has been fragmented in the literature. Methods. To examine these issues, researchers gathered survey data from 1955 mine employees from surface stone, sand and gravel (SSG) and industrial mineral operations across the USA between 2016 and 2018, and studied the effects of relationships between justice perceptions, supervisor communication and coworker communication on behavioral safety compliance. Results. Using structural equation modeling, coworker communication partially mediated the direct effects of supervisor communication and justice perceptions on behavioral safety compliance – where the indirect effects were greater for justice perceptions. Conclusion. The results demonstrate the value in formal and informal communication paths to facilitate employee safety compliance; and that enhanced perceptions of job fairness and adaptability enhances coworker communication, further improving compliance in an interdependent environment.

Signaling and social influence: the impact of corporate volunteer programs

PurposeThis study aims to provide insight on how work–life initiatives impact employees. Using corporate volunteer programs as an example, the authors examine the role of coworker social influence in shaping the reactions of both employee participants and non-participants of the program. The paper further identifies several factors that may moderate these relationships.Design/methodology/approachThe authors surveyed employees before and after the implementation of a new corporate work–life initiative. 99 employees provided data pre and post. OLS regression and hierarchical linear modeling were used to test hypothesized relationships.FindingsEven in the context of low participation, work–life initiatives engendered positive organization-related perceptions among employees. These positive outcomes were due in part to coworkers' sharing of their volunteer experiences and were most prominent for employees in positions that afforded flexibility, and employees who reported close ties with coworkers.Practical implicationsThe study deepens our understanding of employee reactions to work–life programs and underlines the importance of these programs even when employee participation is low. The role of coworker influence as a determinant of employee reactions suggests there may be value in purposefully fostering participants' sharing of volunteer experiences in the workplace.Originality/valueThis study takes a unique approach to examining the role of coworker influence in shaping employee reactions to corporate initiatives.

Predicting the Safety Climate in Construction Sites of Saudi Arabia: A Bootstrapped Multiple Ordinal Logistic Regression Modeling Approach

Construction site accidents can be reduced through proactive steps using prediction models developed based on factors that influence the safety climate. In this study, a prediction model of the safety climate observed by construction site personnel in Saudi Arabia was developed, identifying a set of significant safety climate predictors. The model was built with data collected from 401 active construction site personnel using a bootstrapped multiple ordinal logistic regression model. The model revealed five significant predictors: supervision, guidance, and inspection; social security and health insurance; management’s commitment to safety; management’s safety justice; and coworker influence. The model can correctly predict 67% of the safety evaluations. The identified predictors present proof of the importance of safety support, commitment, and interaction in construction sites and their influence on the perceived evaluations of the safety climate by personnel. Moreover, the prediction model can help construction industry decision makers, safety policy designers, government agencies, and stakeholders to estimate the safety climate and assess the current situation. Furthermore, the model can help form a better understanding and determine areas of improvement, which can translate into higher safety performance levels.

Coworker influence on annuitization decisions: Evidence from defined benefit plans

We investigate the role of coworker influence on an individual's annuitization decision. Using rich data on payout options and decisions in defined benefit plans, we find that past payout choices of coworkers significantly affect an employee's decision to annuitize at retirement and that the coworkers’ payout choices have a larger economic effect on annuitization than recent stock market returns. We also find that coworker effects are greater for employees who have a similar level of benefit amounts, those who share geographic proximity (same ZIP code), and those who retire at a norm (modal) retirement age of their workplace. Robustness tests show that estimated coworker effects are unlikely to be driven by unobserved common environments or similar preferences.

How coworkers attribute, react to, and shape job crafting

Job crafting, or proactive changes that individuals make in their job design, can influence and be influenced by coworkers. Although considerable research has emerged on this topic, overall, the way job crafting is responded to by coworkers has received little theoretical attention. The goal of this article is to develop a model that allows for a better understanding of job crafting in interdependent contexts. Drawing on attribution and social information theories, we propose that when job crafting has a negative or positive impact on coworkers, coworkers will make an attribution about the crafter’s prosocial motive. This attribution in turn influences whether coworkers respond in an antagonistic or a supportive way toward job crafters. Ultimately, coworkers’ reactions shape the experienced affective work outcomes of job crafters. We also theorize the factors that moderate coworkers’ reactions to job crafting behaviors and the job crafter’s susceptibility to coworker influence.

Coworker influence on employee performance: a conservation of resources perspective

PurposeDrawing on the conservation of resources theory, the purpose of this paper is to test a model of the influence of coworker-resources (coworker-support and coworker-exchange) on employee performance with psychological flourishing as mediator and employee race as moderator.Design/methodology/approachUsing a sample of 321 employees from a mid-western US organization, the authors conducted a field study and used regression analysis to test the hypotheses. The authors ran the basic mediation as well as moderated-mediation models with non-parametric bootstrapping procedures.FindingsCoworker-support and coworker-exchange were positively associated with psychological flourishing, which, in turn, was positively associated with employee performance. The authors found support for psychological flourishing as a mediator of coworker influence–employee performance relationships. The authors also found evidence supporting race as a boundary condition that moderated coworker influence–performance relationships, which were stronger for minorities as opposed to whites.Practical implicationsTo ensure employee well-being and superior employee performance, especially for racial minorities, managers must create work environments replete with coworker-support and healthy coworker-exchange.Originality/valueThe study undertakes a simultaneous examination of two different forms of coworker influences on employee performance and clarifies the role of underlying psychological mechanisms that pave the way for coworker influence on performance. The findings provide clarity regarding the employee–coworker relationship research; in addition, they establish race as an important boundary condition when considering coworker influences and employee performance.

Whitewater guide safety motivation and co-worker influence

Adventure tourism is defined by its purposeful pursuit of risk. The guide plays a critical and paradoxical role: that of both producer of risk (what route to climb, what path to take down a rapid) and simultaneously the protector against that risk. This paper examined the role that co-workers play in helping the guide understand and balance these safety priorities. This proposition-guided qualitative study of whitewater rafting guides examined how the guide team influenced the individual guide's safety motivation. Social influence was found to create performance expectations and foster social identity with the group. This social identity was found to influence self-concept and internalization of group safety values. Trust emerged as a powerful mechanism enabling safety performance and serving as proof of guide competence. Implications of these findings are discussed with regards to adventure tourism management. Management implicationsThese findings on guide team and co-worker influence on safety motivation have direct management implications. Organizations would do well to foster group safety culture, as co-worker influence creates powerful performance expectations in what is largely an unsupervised, dynamic, high risk work environment. Co-workers also enable individual guide internalizing of safety values, important for safety motivation and providing safe, high quality experiences for paying clients.

The moderation effect of workplace experience on innovation motivation: a study of STEM faculty in Singapore

ABSTRACTWhile the topic on drivers of innovation has been intensely studied, most of the literature tends to examine motivators at a point in time with the assumption that they are stable. However, shifts in social and environmental contexts may change motivators of behaviour. In light of the discrepancy, this study uses the person–environment fit theory and examines innovation-stimulating work climate from the perspective of workplace experience. With a sample of 276 faculty members in two major universities in Singapore, we test the moderating effect of workplace experience on three motivators – peer influence, performance evaluation and resource access, and found that with increased workplace experience, the effectiveness of these environmental motivators diminished. Resource access and co-worker influence become less salient with the exception of evaluation, which remains important. The implications for university administration and academic training programs are discussed.

Is Fraud Contagious? Coworker Influence on Misconduct by Financial Advisors

ABSTRACTUsing a novel data set of U.S. financial advisors that includes individuals' employment histories and misconduct records, we show that coworkers influence an individual's propensity to commit financial misconduct. We identify coworkers' effect on misconduct using changes in coworkers caused by mergers of financial advisory firms. The tests include merger‐firm fixed effects to exploit the variation in changes to coworkers across branches of the same firm. The probability of an advisor committing misconduct increases if his new coworkers, encountered in the merger, have a history of misconduct. This effect is stronger between demographically similar coworkers.

Factors associated with healthy and unhealthy workplace eating behaviours in individuals with overweight/obesity with and without binge eating disorder.

SummaryObjectiveMost Americans spend an average of 8 hours per day in the workplace. Current understanding of eating behaviours in the workplace and their association with overweight, obesity and binge eating disorder (BED) is limited. Workplace eating behaviours and weight‐related self‐efficacy were examined in a sample of 98 individuals with overweight or obesity, with or without BED.DesignParticipants completed the Weight Efficacy Lifestyle Questionnaire, Work and Social Adjustment Scale, Worker's Perception of Environmental Factors, and a Workplace Questionnaire.ResultsEating unplanned food occurred on average 2.43 times per week (SD = 3.37), and eating unplanned food even when meals were brought from home occurred on average 1.28 times per week (SD = 1.84). Individuals with BED purchased lunch even when they brought food from home significantly more frequently than did individuals without BED. Those with BED also reported significantly poorer work and social adjustment related to binge eating as compared with those without BED. The most significant barriers to healthy eating in the workplace were coworker influence, eating more food in general and more junk food in response to stress, eating unplanned food at work and time constraints.ConclusionsThese factors may be important to target in weight‐loss treatment to increase individuals' weight loss success. As individuals with BED may be the most vulnerable to eating unplanned foods, clinicians may want to focus on this potential barrier in BED treatment.

Coworker Influence on Annuitization Decisions: Evidence from Defined Benefit Plans

Coworker Influence on Annuitization Decisions: Evidence from Defined Benefit Plans

Is Fraud Contagious? Co-Worker Influence on Misconduct by Financial Advisors

We show that co-workers influence an individual's propensity to commit financial misconduct. We use a novel dataset of U.S. financial advisors, which includes individuals' employment histories and records of misconduct. We identify how co-workers affect misconduct using changes in co-workers caused by mergers of financial advisory firms; the tests include merger-firm fixed effects to exploit the variation in changes to co-workers across different branches of the same firm. The probability an advisor commits misconduct increases if his new co-workers, encountered in the merger, have a history of misconduct. Further, this effect is stronger between demographically similar co-workers.

Social Interaction at Work: Co-Worker Influence on Stock Investments

Stock market investment decisions of individuals are positively correlated with that of co-workers. Sorting of unobservably similar individuals to the same workplaces is unlikely to explain our results, as evidenced by the investment behavior of individuals that move between plants. Purchases made under stronger co-worker purchase activity are not associated with higher returns. Moreover, social interaction appears to drive the purchase of within-industry stocks; an investment mistake. Overall, our results suggest a strong influence of co-workers on investment choices, but not an influence that improves the quality of investment decisions.

Initial Validation of the Mental Health Provider Stigma Inventory

Objective:To conduct an initial validation of the mental health provider stigma inventory (MHPSI). The MHPSI assesses stigma within the service provider–client relationship on three domains—namely, attitudes, behaviors, and coworker influence.Methods:Initial validation of the MHPSI was conducted with a sample of 212 mental health employees and graduate student counseling interns. Scale conceptualization and development, content validation, and construct validation measures are discussed.Results:Preliminary psychometrics indicated good model fit for a three-factor multidimensional scale. Reliabilities were strong (coefficient αs ranged from .83 to .93) and the global stratified α was .95. Evidence of construct validity supported the hypotheses about the accuracy of underlying constructs. Conclusions: The MHPSI appears to be a reliable and valid measure of mental health provider stigma. As social workers comprise the front lines of mental health service provision, the MHPSI may be a valuable tool for guiding agency trainings and social work education.

A Social Information Processing Perspective of Coworker Influence on a Focal Employee

Acritical omission in the coworker influence literature is how a coworker influences a closely related (focal) employee’s job performance behaviors and whether this influence is contingent on that coworker’s own behaviors. By integrating social information processing and social cognitive theories with social exchange and role theories, we hypothesize that there are, at least, three distinct types of coworker dyadic influence. Accordingly, we developed and tested a moderated mediation model to explicate such influence. Two multisource, field-design studies conducted in Hong Kong support the modeled relationships in that employee role ambiguity partially mediated the relationships between coworker–employee exchange and two types of employee job performance behaviors—task performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Furthermore, coworker OCB fostered employee job performance behavior both directly and interactively, acting as a moderator to weaken the relationships between employee role ambiguity and the two types of job performance behaviors.

Do peers make the place? Conceptual synthesis and meta-analysis of coworker effects on perceptions, attitudes, OCBs, and performance.

The authors propose that broad aspects of lateral relationships, conceptualized as coworker support and coworker antagonism, are linked to important individual employee outcomes (role perceptions, work attitudes, withdrawal, and effectiveness) in a framework that synthesizes several theoretical predictions. From meta-analytic tests based on 161 independent samples and 77,954 employees, the authors find support for most of the proposed linkages. Alternative explanations are ruled out, as results hold when controlling for leader influences and mediation processes. The authors also observe differential strengths of coworker influence based on its valence, content, and severity, and on the social intensity of the task environment. The authors conclude with a call for more comprehensive, complex theory and investigation of coworker influences as part of the social environment at work.

A Description of Factors Affecting Hazardous Waste Workers' Use of Respiratory Protective Equipment

This article describes the first phase of a study that was designed to gain an understanding of hazardous waste workers' attitudes and beliefs about the use of respiratory protective equipment. Exploratory, open-ended interviews were conducted among 28 respirator users at a US Department of Energy facility. Subjects were asked to describe their knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about their risks to hazards at their worksites and to discuss their use of respiratory protective equipment. A detailed content analysis of the interviews resulted in the generation of a taxonomy of issues and concerns which fell into three general categories: 1) Knowledge, Beliefs, and Attitudes, 2) Physical and Psychological Effects, and 3) External Influences. Knowledge, Beliefs, and Attitudes included Training, Fit Testing, Medical Clearance, Work Exposures, Respirator Use, and Vulnerability to Disease. Physical and Psychological Effects included Somatic/Health Effects, Personal Comfort, Visual Effects, Fatigue, Communication, and Anxiety. External Influences included Structural Environment, Quality and Availability of Equipment, Other PPEs, Co-Worker Influence, Supervisor Influence, and Organizational Culture. The findings from this study have important implications to training and education programs. Effective respiratory protection programs depend on a knowledge of the factors that affect workers' use of equipment. This study suggests that efforts to assure equipment comfort and fit, to assist workers who see and hear less well as a result of their equipment, and to develop strategies to allay worker anxiety when wearing equipment should all be components of a program. An organizational culture that supports and abets the appropriate use of equipment is also a critical element in a successful program.