Self-regulation Perspective Research Articles

When and How Will Calling Enhance Creative Performance? The Role of Job Crafting and Inclusive Lea

Research on creative performance has drawn much attention, especially its motivational antecedents. However, few studies have examined when and how calling, an integration of various motivational aspects, uniquely contributes to creativity performance in non-Western contexts. Based on the self-regulatory perspective, we investigate the underlying behavioural mechanism between calling and creative performance using a sample of 274 dyad data among Chinese employees and their supervisors. We also examine inclusive leadership, representing the ancient Chinese Taoism ideology, as a boundary condition. Results indicated that calling (employee-rated at time 1) related positively to creative performance (supervisor-rated at time 2) and individuals’ job crafting behaviour (employee-rated at time 1). Job crafting provided an explanatory mechanism between calling and creativity performance. Inclusive leadership (employee-reported at time 1) showed a moderated effect on the mediation model. Findings of this study have both theoretical and practical implications.

Consequences of Psychological Detachment from Home: Self-Regulation Perspective on Working from Home

The COVID-19 pandemic forced organizations to shift to remote working. From the employees’ perspective, working from home comes with its own set of challenges. Because the boundary between work and home gets even more blurred, staying focused on the job while being at home takes a great amount of effort. Can psychological detachment from home help employees in adapting to work-from-home arrangements? Focusing on this question, we draw on the self-regulation theory to examine how and when psychological detachment from home influences daily work engagement. We conducted an experience sampling study across two work weeks with employees working from home in India during the reopening phase after the nationwide lockdown in 2020. Our findings indicate that psychological detachment from home helped employees by reducing next-morning work-related anxiety, but it also increased next-morning exhaustion. Work-related anxiety and exhaustion in turn mediated the effects of psychological detachment from home on daily work engagement. Moreover, the indirect effects of detachment from home on work engagement via exhaustion were significant only for employees with low trait self-control. Overall, our study yields theoretical and practical implications for work-from-home practices.

Alternative Work Arrangements: Understanding the Experience of the Modern Worker

In recent years, technological advancements have fundamentally changed how, when, and where individuals work. An increasing number of modern workers have jobs outside of the 9-to-5 traditional work arrangement and instead seek work through alternative work arrangements, such as gig work or multiple jobholding. This trend has accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic and will likely continue due to the benefits inherent in these alternative work arrangements such as increased income and flexibility. This symposium focuses on both the benefits and challenges of alternative work arrangements. Throughout this proposed symposium, we elaborate on the experiences of workers with alternative work arrangements face. More specifically, the papers in the symposium focus on the work identities and relational strategies of the modern worker, the status inconsistencies between the types of work they perform, the freedom they receive from the alternative work arrangements, and whether or not they disclose their alternative forms of work and how their alternative work arrangements impact important work outcomes. Thus, each paper offers insights into what the future of work will look like and what organizations and managers should consider to successfully retain talent and cooperate with new types of workers. With this symposium, we see the potential to bridge the perspectives of organizations and individual workers so that both parties can benefit from these new types of work arrangements. A Comparison of the Relational Challenges of Organizational Workers Versus Gig Workers. Presenter: Elizabeth Nguyen Trinh; U. of Michigan, Ross School of Business Presenter: Brittany Lambert; Indiana U. - Kelley School of Business Presenter: Brianna Barker Caza; U. of North Carolina at Greensboro Presenter: Susan J. Ashford; U. of Michigan Is Multiple Jobholding Depleting or Enriching? Presenter: Sherry E. Moss; Wake Forest U. Presenter: Brianna Barker Caza; U. of North Carolina at Greensboro Presenter: Arran Caza; U. of North Carolina, Greensboro The Effects of Psychological Reactance on Side-hustlers’ Daily Hostility and Initiative Presenter: Hudson Sessions; Southern Methodist U. Presenter: Michael Baer; Arizona State U. Presenter: Jennifer Nahrgang; U. of Iowa A Self-Regulation Perspective on How Adult Content Creators Achieve Multiple Job Coherence Presenter: Emily D. Campion; U. of Iowa Presenter: Kathleen Keeler; Ohio State U. Do You Want to Know a Secret? Disclosure and Concealment of Multiple Job Holding Presenter: Sujin Jeong; U. of Iowa Presenter: Jennifer Nahrgang; U. of Iowa

The hidden performance costs of professional isolation? A latent change score model of professional isolation during the early stage of COVID-19 pandemic.

Although past research has found that professional isolation can affect discernible work‐related outcomes (e.g. job performance and turnover) and important job attitudes, researchers have not examined its impact on those less discernible but still costly work behaviours. Drawing on self‐regulation theories, this study examined the effect of professional isolation on employees' cyberloafing and time theft through self‐control capacity impairment. With longitudinal data collected from 343 U.S. employees across five consecutive weeks at the early stage of the pandemic (i.e. from mid‐March to late April 2020), our results of latent change score modelling analyses found that professional isolation change was positively related with changes in cyberloafing and time theft via change in self‐control capacity impairment. The results increase our understanding of the hidden performance cost of professional isolation. This research also shifts the research focus from a static, between‐person perspective to dynamic, within‐person changes in professional isolation and related outcomes. The findings shed light on the self‐regulation perspective in understanding the harmful consequences of professional isolation. Implications for future research are discussed along with practical implications for organisations.

Maintaining job crafting over time: joint effect of autonomy and career support from family and friends

PurposeThe study focuses on intraindividual trajectory of job crafting change over time. Integrating the self-regulation and demands-resources perspectives, this study examines how career support from family and friends interacts with job autonomy to influence the change pattern of job crafting.Design/methodology/approachFour waves of self-report survey data were collected in a semester from 324 university professors and instructors in China. Latent growth curve modeling was used to examine intraindividual change of job crafting and conducted latent interaction analysis to test the joint effect of autonomy and career support from family and friends on job crafting change.FindingsThere was a general declining trend in job crafting over the course of a semester. Career support from family and friends moderated the association between job autonomy and job crafting maintenance. Specifically, when career support was low, job autonomy was negatively associated with job crafting maintenance.Research limitations/implicationsThe study showed that job crafting maintenance over time is distinct from the typical between-person conceptualization. Further, job crafting maintenance was predicted from a self-regulatory perspective. However, the unique context of college faculty from China may limit generalization of the findings.Practical implicationsManagers should recognize the challenges in maintaining job crafting over time. In addition to providing autonomy at work, organizations may benefit from establishing channels for employees to receive career support from non-work domains.Originality/valueThe authors adopt a self-regulation perspective to understand intraindividual change in job crafting over time and situate the current investigation in the cyclical nature of university faculty’s job.

Advancing health-related abilities and behaviors via health apps: a large-scale survey from self-regulation perspective

PurposeMotivated by the need for research on the relationship between health app usage and health-related outcomes in the form of health status and life satisfaction, this study builds on self-regulation theory to construct a research model for elucidating how health app quality affects health information literacy, health app usage and physical activity.Design/methodology/approachTo empirically validate the proposed research model, a large-scale questionnaire survey on health app usage was administered on a sample of 6,948 respondents recruited from a university in China. Structural equation modeling was employed for data analysis.FindingsEmpirical findings demonstrate that health app quality positively affects self-regulation with respect to health app usage, health information literacy and physical activity. Taken together, these self-regulated behaviors drive health-related outcomes for health status and life satisfaction.Originality/valueThis study advances extant literature on health app usage through the application of self-regulation theory to investigate the effects of technological interventions in healthcare. Findings offer practical implications for how health apps can be leveraged to realize positive health-related outcomes.

A self-regulatory perspective on the link between customer mistreatment and employees’ displaced workplace deviance: the buffering role of mindfulness

PurposeDrawing from self-regulation theories, this study aims to present a model linking customer mistreatment to hotel employees’ displaced workplace deviance via self-regulatory depletion, with disposition-based mindfulness as a first‐stage moderator.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a multisource, multiwave investigation with 245 focal–coworker dyads at 14 full-service hotels in southern China. Descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis and regression analysis were performed.FindingsThe results demonstrated the mediating role of self-regulatory depletion in provoking hotel employees’ displaced deviant reactions to customer mistreatment. Additionally, employees with high trait mindfulness are less vulnerable to self-regulatory depletion and, thus, less likely to exhibit displaced workplace deviance.Practical implicationsThis study enables hospitality administrators to understand that organizations and their employees, whether directly mistreated by customers, are potential victims of such negative events. Hospitality organizations should enhance mindfulness-based interventions and provide more humane care for employees to maintain their self-regulatory abilities, thereby reducing displaced workplace deviance.Originality/valueFirst, in contrast to studies focusing primarily on internal factors that trigger employees’ deviant responses, the research suggests that mistreatment by external customers is a potentially meaningful yet largely unexamined antecedent of workplace deviance. Second, this study moves beyond “self-gain” explanations, suggesting that employees display deviance not because of a malicious intent to harm the organization or its members but because they are incapable of controlling their undesirable behaviors. Third, the research highlights how mindfulness mitigates customer mistreatment and displaced workplace deviance relationships.

Work stress, ego depletion, gender and abusive supervision: A self-Regulatory perspective

Drawing upon the self-regulatory perspective, we investigate the antecedents of abusive supervision. We study supervisor’s work stress as a predictor of abusive supervisory behavior and investigate supervisor ego depletion as an intervening mechanism. Furthermore, we study the role of gender in explaining ego depletion and abusive supervision. We employed a multilevel research design to study supervisor work stress and ego depletion at group level and perception of abusive supervision at individual level. Data are collected from 59 supervisors and 295 subordinates working in the banking sector. We find that supervisor work stress is positively associated with subordinates’ perception of abusive supervision, and supervisor ego depletion plays a mediating role. We find that these relationships are more pronounced for females than males. We contribute by identifying supervisors’ work stress as an antecedent of abusive supervision and extend ego depletion theory by studying supervisor’s ego depletion as an underlying mechanism.

How Did You Sleep Tonight? The Relevance of Sleep Quality and Sleep-Wake Rhythm for Procrastination at Work.

Recent studies have highlighted the relevance of sleep for procrastination at work. Procrastination at work is defined as the irrational delay of the initiation or completion of work-related activities. In line with recent studies, we offer a self-regulation perspective on procrastination. We argue that procrastination is an outcome of depleted self-regulatory resources and that the restoration of self-regulatory resources during high-quality sleep at night would prevent procrastination.AimsIn an attempt to further develop this line of research, the current study aimed to achieve a broader understanding of the relevance of sleep and circadian rhythm for procrastination. Therefore, we explored the effect of sleep quality on procrastination for different chronotypes. We also considered the shift to daylight saving time as a phenomenon that aggravates circadian misalignment and thereby later chronotypes' dependence on high-quality sleep. Specifically, we hypothesized that compared to employees with an earlier chronotype (morning types), employees with a later chronotype (evening types) are more dependent on good sleep at night to prevent procrastination the next day. This effect would be especially pronounced after the shift to daylight saving time.MethodsFor this repeated-measures study, participants were 101 full-time employees. They completed a general questionnaire and day-specific questionnaires on the Monday before and the Monday following the shift to daylight saving time.ResultsThe multilevel analyses showed that employees procrastinated less on days following nights during which they slept better and that later chronotypes experienced more procrastination than earlier chronotypes. Our findings also supported the hypothesis that the relationship between sleep quality and procrastination is stronger for later chronotypes compared to earlier chronotypes on the Monday following the shift to daylight saving time. In other words, the lower the sleep quality of later chronotypes during the previous night, the more they procrastinated on the Monday following the shift to daylight saving time.DiscussionOur findings further corroborate the existing findings on the relevance of sleep and chronotype for well-being and performance at work.

Individual and class-level factors for students' management of homework environment: The self-regulation perspective.

The present study investigated the predictive effects of clusters of variables on homework environment management based on the data from 3018 students in Grade 8. These clusters included: background variables, homework characteristics, adult support and monitoring, homework purposes, goal orientations, and contextual control. At the individual level, management of homework environment was significantly related to at least one variable from each of the six clusters. Specifically, it was associated negatively with time spent watching TV, and positively with prior achievement, homework interest, homework quality, family help, teacher feedback, academic purpose, self-regulatory purpose, mastery-approach, and help seeking. Additionally, males managed homework environment less frequently than females. Finally, management of homework environment was positively related to homework quality at the class level.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-021-02596-5.

Perceived social undermining keeps entrepreneurs up at night and disengaged the next day: The mediating role of sleep quality and the buffering role of trait resilience

Entrepreneurs work in an uncertain, novel, and high-stakes environment. This environment can lead to disagreements and conflicts over how to develop, grow, and run a business venture, thus triggering destructive social interactions. This research sheds light on the role of destructive interpersonal relationships by examining daily perceived social undermining from work partners and how and when this perceived undermining affects entrepreneurs' work engagement. Building on a resource-based self-regulation perspective, we develop a theoretical model of the self-regulation impairment process whereby an entrepreneur's perceived social undermining disrupts sleep quality at night, which dampens work engagement the next day. We further theorize trait resilience as a self-regulation capacity that buffers this impairment process. We test the model in a study based on daily surveys over 10 workdays from 77 entrepreneurs. The results largely support our hypotheses and further indicate that trait resilience is more crucial for less experienced entrepreneurs. Our study contributes to research on how entrepreneurs' interpersonal relationships—particularly destructive ones—affect entrepreneurial well-being.

Unbalanced, Unfair, Unhappy, or Unable? Theoretical Integration of Multiple Processes Underlying the Leader Mistreatment-Employee CWB Relationship with Meta-Analytic Methods.

Although a litany of theoretical accounts exists to explain why mistreated employees engage in counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs), little is known about whether these mechanisms are complementary or mutually exclusive, or the effect of context on their explanatory strength. To address these gaps, this meta-analytic investigation tests four theoretically-derived mechanisms simultaneously to explain the robust relationship between leader mistreatment and employee CWB: (1) a social exchange perspective, which argues that mistreated employees engage in negative reciprocal behaviors to counterbalance experienced mistreatment; (2) a justice perspective, whereby mistreated employees experience moral outrage and engage in retributive behaviors against the organization and its members; (3) a stressor-emotion perspective, which suggests that mistreated employees engage in CWBs to cope with their negative affect; and (4) a self-regulatory perspective, which proposes that mistreated employees are simply unable to inhibit undesirable behaviors. Moreover, we also examine whether the above model holds across cultures that vary on power distance. Our meta-analytic structural equation model demonstrated that all but the justice mechanism significantly mediated the relationship between leader mistreatment and employee CWBs, with negative affect emerging as the strongest explanatory mechanism in both high and low power distance cultures. Given these surprising results, as the stressor-emotion perspective is less frequently invoked in the literature, this paper highlights not only the importance of investigating multiple mechanisms together when examining the leader mistreatment-employee CWB relationship, but also the need to develop more nuanced theorizing about these mechanisms, particularly for negative affect.

Work and affective outcomes of social media use at work: a daily-survey study

Despite the wide use of social media in the workplace, only limited research has addressed how social media use at work would influence employees’ work and affective outcomes. Building upon the self-regulatory perspective, the current study proposes that social media use at work will induce interruptions and procrastination, which in turn will reduce employees’ work engagement; individuals then will show the feeling of guilt because of decreased work engagement. This study examines the proposed theoretical model with an experience sample methodology (ESM), moving beyond predominant between-person designs in the social media use literature. 155 full-time employees were recruited and asked to report their daily experiences for ten consecutive workdays, finally resulting in 1165 data points at the within-person level. Results showed that daily social media use at work exerted a negative indirect effect on work engagement via procrastination, and it also had a positive indirect effect on guilt via interruption and procrastination. This study helps to elucidate the underlying mechanisms between social media use at work and employee outcomes, as well as enriching the literature by examining guilt as the psychological cost of using social media in the workplace.

Who accepts nudges? nudge acceptability from a self-regulation perspective

Public acceptability of nudging is receiving increasingly more attention, but studies remain limited to evaluations of aspects of the nudge itself or (inferred intentions) of the nudger. Yet, it is important to investigate which individuals are likely to accept nudges, as those who are supposed to benefit from the implementation should not oppose it. The main objective of this study was to integrate research on self-regulation and nudging, and to examine acceptability of nudges as a function of self-regulation capacity and motivation. Participants (N = 301) filled in questionnaires about several components of self-regulation capacity (self-control, proactive coping competence, self-efficacy, perceived control and perceived difficulty) and motivation (autonomous motivation and controlled motivation). To evaluate nudge acceptability, we used three vignettes describing three types of nudges (default, portion size, and rearrangement) that stimulated either a pro-self behavior (healthy eating) or pro-social behavior (sustainable eating) and asked participants to rate the nudges on (aspects of) acceptability. Results revealed that there were substantial differences in acceptability between the three types of nudges, such that the default nudge was seen as less acceptable and the rearrangement nudge as most acceptable. The behavior that was stimulated did not affect acceptability, even though the nudges that targeted healthy eating were seen as more pro-self than the nudges targeting sustainable eating. From all self-regulation components, autonomous motivation was the only measure that was consistently associated with nudge acceptability across the three nudges. For self-regulatory capacity, only some elements were occasionally related to acceptability for some nudges. The current study thus shows that people are more inclined to accept nudges that target behaviors that they are autonomously motivated for, while people do not meaningfully base their judgments of acceptability on self-regulatory capacity.

Divided When Crisis Comes: How Perceived Self-Partner Disagreements over COVID-19 Prevention Measures Relate to Employee Work Outcomes at Home.

As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, our societies went into a lockdown model and many organizations required or permitted their employees to work from home. As a result, employees need to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic while they work from home, providing an opportunity to examine how COVID-19 prevention experiences influence those who are working from home. Based on the interpersonal self-regulation perspective, we propose that employees who perceive having more disagreements with their partners over COVID-19 prevention measures are more likely to experience a reduction in their identification with the partner which is subsequently associated with their negative work outcomes through emotional exhaustion. Results from a two-wave survey study with a sample of 282 employees who worked from home during the COVID-19 pandemic supported our predictions: perceived self-partner disagreements over COVID-19 prevention measures related to a reduction in identification with the partner, which was subsequently associated with exhausted regulatory resources and undermined work outcomes. Furthermore, these negative effects were particularly salient for individuals who were not married. Theoretical and practical implications for family-to-work interference and working from home in times of crisis are discussed.

Motivation From a Self-Regulated Learning Perspective: Application to School Psychology

Self-regulation of learning involves developing metacognitive awareness (planning, monitoring, and evaluating) of (a) cognition—motivational beliefs, (b) behaviors—persistence, effort, engagement, and (c) affect—enjoyment, interest, and other emotions. Metacognitive awareness creates opportunities to exert metacognitive control as needed, which may involve sustaining or manipulating motivational cognition, behavior, and affect. By adopting a self-regulation perspective, this paper discusses the ways motivation develops within and across academic tasks and situations, as well as the ways learners can be supported to take control of their motivation in those contexts. Applying self-regulation principles in the practice of School Psychology means to consider the role of situation, context, and learners’ socio-historical experiences while empowering learners to focus attention on things they can control.

Leader Perfectionism—Friend or Foe of Employee Creativity? Locus of Control as a Key Contingency

This research aims to explain whether leader perfectionism toward employees fosters or hinders employee creativity. From a self-regulation perspective, we theorize that depending on employees’ locu...

Why and When Supervisor Developmental Feedback Impact Innovative Behavior: Perspective of Self-Regulation Theory

In this study, we examined how supervisor developmental feedback influences employees’ innovative behavior. A multi-time survey method was used in this study to collect data from 310 employees in Chinese enterprises. The research results show that supervisor developmental feedback has positive effects on employee innovative behavior via the mediating effect of self-goal-setting. We further found that uncertainty avoidance strengthens the positive relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and the self-goal-setting of employees. Our study offers a new account based on self-regulation perspective for understanding feedback.

Crowns Too Heavy: How Top Managers’ Empowerment Leads to Middle Managers’ Abusive Supervision

A plethora of studies have shown the benefits of empowering leadership on organizational effectiveness, including positive implications to the person being empowered. As an extension, our study joins in this discussion by demonstrating and theorizing an unexpected effect of top managers’ empowering leadership upon middle managers’ abusive supervision toward frontline employees. Integrating the consent-based theory of power and a self-regulatory perspective, we propose that middle managers will perceive a strong performance pressure in facing top managers’ empowering leadership, which then activates their abusive supervision toward their own followers. Results from one scenario manipulation and a multilevel field study provided consistent support for our predictions and further showed that these effects were more pronounced when the middle manager supervised a team with performance deficiency. Implications of our study for the leadership research are discussed, accordingly.

Cognitive Biases and Strategic Decision-Making: A Self-Regulation Perspective

Entrepreneurs are prone to various cognitive biases which distort their learning and information processing. These biases vary considerably among entrepreneurs and impact information processing during strategic decision-making. While research has examined the outcomes of cognitive biases, there is a lack of knowledge on how cognitive biases impact entrepreneurial decision-making processes. To address this gap, we analyze how cognitive biases impact information processing during decision-making processes. Furthermore, we discuss how entrepreneurs can self-regulate the effects of overconfidence and attribution bias in more detail. We discern functions of cognitive biases across different entrepreneurial situations and suggest that entrepreneurs with high self-regulation are able to adapt to specific situations by monitoring and controlling their cognition and affect.