Organizational Psychology Literature Research Articles

Knowledge and skills that facilitate the personal support dimension of citizenship.

Efforts to identify the individual attributes that predict organizational citizenship have focused largely on dispositional factors. This focus reflects an unstated assumption that anyone can engage in successful citizenship, but only some choose to do so. The authors contend that, although this may be true of some dimensions of citizenship, it is not true of others. Based on a review of research from industrial and organizational psychology, management, education, clinical psychology, conflict resolution, and other literatures, the authors offer a set of 15 propositions linking knowledge and skill variables to the 4 personal support dimensions of citizenship performance.

Personal and organizational determinants of well‐being at work

The traditional perspective in the occupational and organizational psychology literature aimed at understanding well-being, has focused almost exclusively on the "disease" pole. Recently, however, new concepts focusing on health are emerging in the so-called "positive psychology" literature. The purpose of this paper is to test multiple possible linkages (or profiles) between certain personal, organizational, and cultural variables that affect both burnout and vigor. Burnout (disease) and vigor (health) are assumed to represent two extreme poles of the well-being phenomenon. An innovative statistical treatment borrowed from data mining methodology was used to explore the conceptual model that was utilized. A self-administered questionnaire from a sample of 1,022 physicians working in Swedish public hospitals was used. Standardized job/work demands with multiple items were employed in conjunction with the Uppsala Burnout scale, which was dichotomized into high (burnout) and low (vigor) score. A combination of ANOVAs and "classification and regression tree analyses" was utilized to test the relationships and identify profiles. Results show an architecture that predicts 59 percent of the explained variance and also reveals four "tree branches" with distinct profiles. Two configurations indicate the determinants of high-burnout risk, while two others indicate the configurations for enhanced health or vigor. In addition to their innovative-added value, the results can also be most instrumental for individual doctors and hospitals in gaining a better understanding of the aetiology of burnout/vigor and in designing effective preventative measures for reducing risk factors for burnout, and enhancing well-being (vigor).

The Influence of Coworker Justice Perceptions on Worksite Accommodations and the Return to Work of Persons with Disabilities

This literature review explores research on coworker justice perceptions regarding workplace accommodation necessary in the employment of persons with disabilities. A review of rehabilitation counseling and organizational psychology literature yielded meaningful research acknowledging the importance of coworker's attitudes pertaining to accommodations of employees with disabilities. Research findings suggest that the behaviors of workplace employees are influenced by their feelings of fairness. In the organizational literature the term justice is equivalent to fairness. Research indicates that disability characteristics, organizational factors and coworker perceptions regarding the procedural fairness of accommodations may impact the successful implementation of accommodations for persons with disabilities and are/actors which deserve further exploration and study.

Emotionale Konflikte in Familienunternehmen

Abstract Emotional conflicts have been identified as particularly damaging influences in family firms. Drawing on the organizational behavior and psychology literature, the article distuingishes different avenues of the escalation of conflict in family firms. Furthermore, conflicting influences (paradoxes) are considered and „hotspots“ of emotional conflict in family firms are highlighted. Based on the varying philosophies in family firms of the separation of family and business, practical implications of emotional conflicts in family firms are discussed. The paper concludes with areas for future research.

IT Service Climate: An Extension to IT Service Quality Research

IT departments are service providers to business users, and service quality has been proposed as one measure of IT effectiveness. Previous research has adapted the SERVQUAL scale from service marketing literature, using it to gauge business users' expected and perceived levels of IT service quality. In this research, we investigate the other side of the IT-user relationship and look inside the IT function to identify variables that could affect IT service quality. Building on research into climate from the organizational psychology literature, we propose a new construct, IT Service Climate, and a theoretical model that links IT Service Climate with antecedents and service quality. A series of propositions are derived from the model to guide future empirical research, and other potential applications of the climate construct in IT research are discussed. By focusing on the IT department's impact on service quality, we hope to assist managers to pinpoint the causes of service shortfalls.

COMMUNITY READINESS AS A MULTIDIMENSIONAL CONSTRUCT.

Both the organizational studies literature and the community psychology literature discuss the importance of readiness when implementing change. Although each area emphasizes different characteristics, several common themes are present within the literature. The current study integrates and applies organizational and community psychology literature in evaluating community readiness in the context of a school-community-university collaborative prevention model. Results demonstrate (a) that there is substantial agreement between members of community prevention teams on the level of readiness of a community; (b) that readiness is a cohesive, but multidimensional, construct related to hypothesized community and individual characteristics; and (c) that there is small to moderate agreement between members of prevention teams and their "agency directors." These results support the notion that clear "theories of change" need to be formulated before deciding how to assess community readiness, as assessments will vary due to several factors: the type of respondent, the level in which analyses are conducted, and the specific community domain (i.e., school, workplace collaboration, collaboration experience) investigated.

Workplace harassment from the victim's perspective: A theoretical model and meta-analysis.

Although workplace harassment affects the lives of many employees, until recently it has been relatively ignored in the organizational psychology literature. First, the authors introduced an attribution- and reciprocity-based model that explains the link between harassment and its potential causes and consequences. The authors then conducted a meta-analysis to examine the potential antecedents and consequences of workplace harassment. As shown by the meta-analysis, both environmental and individual difference factors potentially contributed to harassment and harassment was negatively related to the well-being of both individual employees and their employing organizations. Furthermore, harassment contributed to the variance in many outcomes, even after controlling for 2 of the most commonly studied occupational stressors, role ambiguity and role conflict.

Organizational failure: a critique of recent research and a proposed integrative framework

There is a long‐running debate in the business literature on the causes of organizational failure. On the one hand, classical industrial organization (IO) and organization ecology (OE) scholars have typically assumed a deterministic role of the environment and argued that managers are constrained by exogenous industrial and environmental constraints leaving them with little real strategic choice, and hence managers’ role should be ignored. On the other hand, the organization studies (OS) and organizational psychology (OP) literature takes a more voluntaristic perspective and argues that managers are the principal decision makers of the firm and, consequently, their actions and perceptions are the fundamental cause of organizational failure. This paper addresses the major deficiencies observed in the diverse body of literature covering this field, suggests an integrative framework and identifies the specific theoretical and methodological challenges ahead for researchers seeking to advance knowledge in the field of organizational failure.

Schools as Organizational Models: Implications for Examining School Effectiveness

In the present study, 4 recurrent models of organizations found in the management and organizational psychology literatures were used to describe schools. Each model is distinguished by its emphases on specific organizational processes, which in turn imply what constitutes desired output and usually serves as a basis for determining organizational effectiveness. Survey responses relating to school processes and outputs were obtained from fifth-grade students (N = 9,431) and school staff (N = 3,291) in 117 elementary schools. To derive school-aggregated progress in student achievement, I obtained school archival data on student performance on standardized achievement tests for the current time period and 1 year earlier. The open systems and human relations models provided the best-fit statistics and explained the most variance in achievement progress, followed by the rational goal model. Model-to-data fit statistics were similar when percentages of students enrolled in the free and reduced-price meals system were considered. Research implications regarding what constitutes effective schools, in addition to practical implications regarding how school staff might organize and manage their schools, are discussed.

Multilevel Analysis of Cohesion's Relation to Stress, Well-Being, Identification, Disintegration, and Perceived Combat Readiness

Using hierarchical linear modeling, the relation of cohesion to well-being, identification, disintegration, and perceived individual and group combat readiness was examined simultaneously at the individual, soldier level and at the group, company level. Enlisted soldiers (N = 7,892) who were members of 104 combat arms companies responded to questionnaire items (75% response rate) concerning their military experiences. Variance in the study outcomes was explained for the most part by individual soldier reports of cohesion rather than soldier reports of cohesion when grouped by company. In addition, cohesion's moderating effect on the relations of stress to study outcomes was observed at the individual, soldier level. Results were consistent with the notion that soldiers' experience of supportive unit leadership and cooperative peer relations, both individually and as a group, build their identification with the unit, lessen the likelihood of their leaving the unit and the Army, and enhance their perceptions of combat readiness. Results and future directions for research are discussed in relation to findings in military and organizational psychology literatures.

Personality and work motivation

A total of 92 job applicants completed the Eysenck Personality Profiler (EPP) which measures the three primary (superfactor) traits (as well as 21 second-order factors), and the Work Values Questionnaire, which requires subjects to rate how important various work factors were to them when considering applying for a job. These work factors were then categorised into the traditional Herzberg classification of Hygiene and Motivation factors, each with a satisfactory internal reliability. Correlational and regressional analyses showed that extraverts stressed the importance of motivation factors to them, while neurotics rated hygiene factors as more important to them in choosing a particular job. Psychoticism was marginally related to the hygiene factor, as was test-taking style. In view of the fact that personality factors appeared to account for between 20 and 30% of the variance in work performance, it is surprising that they have been neglected, until recently, in the organisational psychology literature.

Multilevel modeling in industrial and personnel psychology

Many of the topics of interest in the social and behavior sciences are often hierarchical or multilevel in nature. These multiple levels (e.g., individual versus group) create problems for researchers related to the choice of measurement and analysis. Recent innovations in statistical analysis have made it possible to account for the hierarchical nature of observations. Therefore, in this article we begin with a review of multilevel analysis techniques and discuss advances that have been made in the social sciences using multilevel models. Next, we summarize contemporary research specific to the organizational psychology literature that uses multilevel analysis. Possible applications for industrial and personnel psychology are then discussed. Guidelines for determining if multilevel analysis is appropriate for a given applied research project are provided. We conclude with a summary and call for increased use of multilevel analysis in industrial and personnel psychology.

Delegating to software agents

There is currently a great deal of interest in the development of intelligent agents. While there is little agreement on exactly what constitutes an intelligent agent, many definitions embody a user-interface model that differs from the traditional one where users perform tasks with the help of computer-based “tools”. In contrast, the “delegation” model associated with agents is based on entrusting tasks to an autonomous, sometimes anthropomorphized system, whose performance is monitored and evaluated. This change in user-interface model is a dramatic one since delegation can be a difficult and often-avoided behavior in humans. Agent-interface designs need to overcome well-established drawbacks in delegation. For this purpose, designers should find the management sciences and organizational psychology literatures to be as relevant as that of traditional human factors. This paper describes issues regarding task delegation as they pertain to the design of intelligent-agent–user interfaces.

Application of the CPA code of ethics in planning field research: An organizational case.

AbstractCanadian psychologists have a new code of ethics. Demonstrations of the code's use have thus far have concentrated on its application in traditional areas. The present paper demonstrates its use in planning field research by delineating the ethical implications of a research example drawn from the organizational psychology literature. Specifically, I argue that the Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists provides a useful method for planning ethically sound field research. It is further shown that the decision - making process advocated by the CPA code of ethics is an effective means of identifying issues that would otherwise be neglected. Implications of the code for Canadian Industrial and Organizational psychologists are briefly discussed.In 1986, the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) adopted its own code of ethics. The new code replaces previous adaptations of the ethical code from the American Psychological Association (APA) (Sinclair, Poizner, Gilmour - Barrett & Randall, 1987). The development of a Canadian code was, in part, spurred on by a growing interest among Canadian psychologists in developing a Canadian ethical code that would address uniquely Canadian issues and concerns (Sinclair, et al., 1987).The CPA code of ethics is still in its infancy; thus, many avenues remain to be explored. According to Sinclair and her colleagues (1987), the CPA code should be conceived of as, ... an umbrella document that can be used as a guide to the development of more specific standards for particular areas of practice in Canadian psychology... . This paper is intended to encourage progress in these areas. Specifically, I will demonstrate how the CPA code can be applied to issues in field research by using an ethical dilemma drawn from the organizational literature. To emphasize the uniqueness of the Canadian ethical code, the example chosen is one that has already been considered from the perspective of the APA code of ethics. I hope that this example will benefit both those individuals engaging in field research more generally, as well as those working closely with organizations, such as industrial/organizational (I/O) and social psychologists.Given that my own background is in I/O psychology, the present article will adopt an organizational psychology flavour. This, however, should not be taken as indicating that the dilemma is purely organizational in nature, nor one that is typical of I/O psychology. Rather, it is simply one of the many dilemmas I/O psychologists could face, and is one shared with many other field researchers.There are many possible scenarios that are unique to Applied Psychology, and the CPA code by no means answers all the questions. The code does, however, provide a solid foundation for further developments. The generic nature of the decision - making process advocated by the CPA code lends itself to most situations faced by psychologists, regardless of contextual factors.Other psychologists have demonstrated the application of the CPA code in contexts such as clinical and counselling psychology (see Eberlein, 1988; Weinberger, 1988; CPA Companion Manual, 1988; Tymchuk, 1986), and have described value conflicts occurring in field research (O'Neill, 1990). Many discussions of the new Code have been tied to issues for which dilemmas were unavoidably at hand; hence, use of the code was reactive in nature - the psychologist has a situation at hand that must be dealt with immediately.In the present paper, I shall explore how the CPA code can be used in a research setting in a proactive manner. Using the code proactively means that psychologists are using the code to delineate possible consequences to actions they have yet to execute. The decision - making process encourages researchers, first to identify potential consequences to various alternatives, and then to offer possible solutions for any ethical impasse. …

Antecedents of intergroup conflict in multifunctional product development teams: a conceptual model

Multifunctional teams are an increasingly popular way of organizing product development. While a considerable body of research has addressed process-related challenges facing teams in general, there is a relative lack of clarity on the specific challenges confronting multifunctional product development teams. This paper therefore elaborates on the challenge of intergroup conflict in multifunctional product development teams, proposing a model that explains how functional diversity within such teams can lead to task and emotional intergroup conflict. The model is developed through a synthesis of organizational behavior and social psychology literature, and illustrative examples are drawn from interviews with members of five teams in three manufacturing firms.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

The role of negative affectivity in understanding relations between self-reports of stressors and strains: a comment on the applied psychology literature.

On the basis of a brief review of the health, organizational, and personality psychology literatures supportive of the expectation that observed relations between self-reports of stressors and strains are influenced by the mood-dispositional dimension negative affectivity (NA), reanalyses of four data sets were conducted. The results of these reanalyses, contrary to the assertions of several authors in the applied psychology literature, offered further support for the hypothesized "nuisance" properties of NA in studies involving relations between self-reports of stressors and strain. A discussion of how NA and other mood-dispositional dimensions may be of interest to investigators concerned with relations between self-reports of any condition of employment and any affective state of workers is presented.

The Role of Psychology in the An alysis of Poverty: Some Suggestions

The aim of this article is to draw together research findings in social and organisational psychology literature to illustrate that psychology has a role in helping eliminate poverty. Following an analysis of poverty similar to that of Mehryar (1984) which asserts that the cause and solution of poverty both are politico-economic, it is argued that certain psychological findings (relating to perceptions of poverty and the nature of institutional decision-making systems) may well aid such a struggle.

Role conflict and role ambiguity: A critical assessment of construct validity.

This article appraises the construct validity of role conflict and role ambiguity in organizationa l psychology research by tracing the process of validation from initial theory introduction to the present. Although the theoretical bases for the constructs were relatively well explicated, some conceptual shortcomings have carried over into empirical work. There are problems with the content validity of measures, a lack of convergent and discriminant evidence, and inattention to the full nomological network of hypothesized relationships. Recommendations for future role-conflict and role-ambiguity research are offered. Since their incorporation into the organizational psychology literature in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the role-theory constructs of role conflict and role ambiguity have assumed a prominent position in empirical work. In recent years they have been the focus of three major literature reviews (Fisher & Gitelson, 1983; S. E. Jackson & Schuler, 1985; Van Sell, Brief, & Schuler, 1981), two of which used a meta-analytic approach (Hunter, Schmidt, & Jackson, 1982; Schmidt & Hunter, 1977; Schmidt, Hunter, Pearlman, & Shane, 1979). Although documenting significant correlations between these two role constructs and a variety of other work-related variables, all three reviews lamented, to a greater or lesser degree, inconsistencies in reported study findings. Extrapolating from the three reviews, a primary explanation offered for inconsistent results seems to be that research on role conflict and role ambiguity has suffered from a deficient theoretical framework, leading to a lack of coherent research direction, conceptual omissions, failure to consider important moderator variables, and inadequate linkages to other, related theoretical frameworks. This concern for deficient theory, however, tends to deemphasize the importance of measurement in evaluating the explanatory viability of such hypothetical abstractions as role conflict and role ambiguity. The role-conflict and role-ambiguity literature has been overwhelmingly dominated by studies using the self-report measures introduced by Rizzo, House, and Lirtzman (1970). A small stream of studies (Breaugh, 1980; House, Schuler, & Levanoni, 1983; Schuler, Aldag, & Brief, 1977; Tracy & Johnson, 1981) has been directed toward the psychometric qualities of these instruments, with a generally positive appraisal to date that the scales are well suited and appropriate to research in organizations. Indeed, all three of the major reviews

Strategies for Studying Client Satisfaction

One way of measuring public agency effectiveness is through the criterion of client satisfaction. The use of satisfaction as an outcome variable has a long history in the organizational psychology literature and a shorter history in the development of subjective social indicators of the quality of life. In general, satisfaction levels in all areas—job, life, government agencies—are higher than anticipated by researchers and the lay public, do not yield much variation among social classes, job categories, or agency experiences, and tend to be more favorable when own experience is assessed rather than when others' experiences are assessed. Several strategies are suggested by which researchers have tried or might try to improve satisfaction studies. These include forsaking subjective outcome measures for objective outcome measures, trying to develop a “better” measure of satisfaction, using facet‐specific measures of satisfaction rather than global, general measures, using other words with similar meanings (e.g., happiness, contentment), and exploring the cognitive meaning of satisfaction for respondents. The last strategy is endorsed as a relatively untried but potentially fruitful approach.