U-shaped Curvilinear Relationship Research Articles

COVID-19 Fear, Compliance, and Counterproductive Behavior: A Curvilinear Relationship

Drawing from the emergent literature on functional view of fear, we develop a research model explaining a U-shaped curvilinear relationship of fear of contracting COVID-19 on employees’ workplace compliance, in turn influencing their counterproductive work behavior (CWB). We theorize for the moderating role of consistency in COVID-19 fear over time on the effect of virus-contraction fear on compliance. A diary study of 181 full-time working professionals (total daily matched morning-evening observations = 1,340) during the initial stage of COVID-19 spread in February 2020 was conducted in a metropolitan city-state when it transitioned to a proactive stance to contain the virus spread. The results provided evidence of impact of COVID-19 fear on compliance in a U-shaped curvilinear pattern affecting employees’ CWB. The effect of COVID-19 fear on compliance was contingent on consistency in COVID-19 fear over time such that COVID-19 fear reduced compliance when such fear is experienced sporadically. Our findings illuminate duality embedded in (dis) functional responses to fear in a crisis. We provide timely recommendations to managers and organizations to harness the benefits of negative emotions such as fear in a crisis in curtailing deviant behaviors at work.

The Perceiving Side of Novelty: Its Role in Product Evaluation

The literature on perceived novelty and product evaluation has diverged into two disparate streams of research. The first stream builds on the theories of curiosity and argues that perceived novelty of a new product increases its product evaluation because it induces curiosity and provides evaluators (e.g., customers) with positive experiences in learning new features of the product and resolving their curiosity. In contrast, the second stream adopts the theories of expectation violations and argues that perceived novelty decreases product evaluation because it violates evaluators’ anticipation of products and necessitates burdensome efforts to make sense of the new product. The main goal of our research is to resolve the theoretical inconsistency by offering an integrative model of new product evaluation that proposes an inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship between perceived novelty and product evaluation. Based on this model, we further examine whether a producer’s reputation plays a moderating role in this curvilinear relationship. Utilizing content analysis and big data approaches with a large sample of 49,860 reviews of 146 movies in the movie industry, we found that a movie’s perceived novelty benefited its product evaluation but only when that novelty was moderate; at higher levels of perceived novelty, the product evaluation decreased. In addition, we compared the curves of high vs. low reputation producers and found that perceived novelty penalized product evaluation of new movies created by high reputation producers.

Why and When Do Good Soldiers Behave Unethically? Introducing Conservation of Resources Theory to Explain the Curvilinear Effects of Organizational Citizenship Behavior.

Previous research about organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and counterproductive work behavior (CWB) has produced contradictory results. Drawing from the conservation of resources (COR) theory, the present study tries to explain the contradictory findings by examining the curvilinear relationship between OCB and CWB. Using data collected at three time points from 426 employees and 110 supervisors in Chinese companies, data analysis shows that OCB has an inverted U-shaped relationship with CWB. The results also demonstrate that citizenship fatigue mediates the relationship between OCB and CWB, perceived organizational support (POS) moderates the relationship between OCB and citizenship fatigue. In addition, POS moderates the mediating effect of citizenship fatigue in the inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship between OCB and CWB. This mediating effect is stronger under conditions of low POS than high POS. The findings present a complementary explanation of the conflicting relationships between OCB and CWB.

Uncovering the relationship between customer anger and frontline employees’ recovery performance in the service encounter

PurposeRegarding the interpersonal influence of customer anger on frontline employees (FLEs) in service encounters, existing findings remain mixed. Building on emotion as a social information model and appraisal theory, this study aims to focus on two dimensions of customer anger – intensity and relevance with FLEs and examined their divergent effects on FLEs’ immediate recovery performance.Design/methodology/approachThis study conducted a questionnaire survey of 366 Chinese FLEs in the hospitality and tourism industries. Hierarchical regressions and bootstrap analysis for nonlinear mediated relationships were used to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe results suggested a U-shaped curvilinear relationship between the intensity of customer anger and FLEs’ recovery performance and a positive linear relationship between relevance with FLEs of customer anger and FLEs’ recovery performance. Moreover, the mediating effects of FLEs’ emotional anger and cognitive perceived threat were confirmed.Practical implicationsService managers should improve FLEs’ awareness of unconscious emotional contagion and encourage them to shoulder responsibility actively even if customer anger is not related to them. In addition, complaining customers can learn how to strategically express anger to get good remedies.Originality/valueThis paper examines the divergent effects of two dimensions of customer anger on FLEs, advancing the understanding of customer anger in the service interaction. It is also the first to suggest the U-shaped nonlinear effect of customer anger intensity on employees’ service outcomes and its underlying mechanisms, reconciling mixed findings.

The CSR–CFP relationship in the presence of institutional voids and the moderating role of family ownership

In weak institutional contexts characterized by institutional voids, firms often struggle to demonstrate their ethical conduct. They are seen as raising the costs of influencing stakeholders and correspondingly the level of investment needed in stakeholder influence capacity in order to achieve corporate financial performance (CFP). We hypothesize and find support for a U-shaped curvilinear relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement level and CFP in the context of India—a country characterized by relatively weak institutions. We also investigate whether family firms can help overcome the drawbacks of weak institutional contexts and thus influence the relationship between CSR and CFP. We adopt a large sample, panel data approach to test our theoretical model. We observe a U-shaped relationship, consistent with earlier findings in developed countries. However, we find that this significant U-shaped relationship is observed only in the case of family firms in our sample.

The power of balance: interplay effects of exploitative leadership style, work–family balance and family-friendly workplace practices on innovation implementation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the inverted U-shaped relationship that exists between exploitative leadership styles and innovation implementation. In addition, drawing on the social cognitive theory, the paper explores the effect of the three-way interaction between exploitative leadership style (ELS), work–family balance (WFB) and family-friendly workplace practices (FFWPs) on innovation implementation.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative study of 440 employees from 38 medium and large companies based in Italy and Croatia was conducted, using an online survey. The proposed hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression analysis.FindingsThe results show that there is an inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship between ELS and innovation implementation. Furthermore, the findings support the existence of the three-way interaction suggesting that the combination of high-level WFB and high-level FFWPs strengthens the relationship between ELS² and innovation implementation.Originality/valueThis is the first contribution that examines a curvilinear relationship between ELS and innovation implementation. Additionally, it contributes to the work–family literature by providing the first empirical examination of the joint impact of WFB and FFWPs in enhancing innovation implementation. Our results suggest that individuals who perceive a high level of WFB and who work in an organization with family-friendly practices are more accepting of an exploitative leader, and that the positive feelings from the family domain encourage the implementation of innovation. These results may change the attitudes of managers, encouraging them to consider WFB and FFWPs as important for the implementation of innovation.

Curvilinear relationship between experienced incivility and nontask behavior in Korean companies

PurposeMost existing studies treat the relationship between experienced incivility and behavioral responses as linear. However, the current study examines the curvilinear relationships between experienced incivility and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and instigated incivility using conservation of resources (COR) theory and by referring to related studies that have identified typical positive and negative employee nontask behaviors. Furthermore, this study identifies turnover intention as a moderator of these curvilinear relationships.Design/methodology/approachAll samples were obtained from respondents working for Korean companies listed on the Korean Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (KOSDAQ); 228 samples were used for the analysis. A quadratic regression function was established to analyze the curved relationships according to hierarchical stages.FindingsOur analysis determined that a U-shaped curvilinear relationship exists between experienced incivility and OCB, and an inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship exists between experienced and instigated incivility. However, the moderating effect of turnover intention is significant only in the relationship between experienced and instigated incivility.Originality/valueThis study exhibits three points of originality—first, by simultaneously considering two dependent variables as responses to experienced incivility and examining their response patterns; second, by using a curvilinear relationship model to investigate the relationship between experienced incivility and its dependent variables; and finally, by finding a moderator to the curved relationship.

Understanding the Internal and External Communicative Drivers of Organizational Innovativeness

Organizational and communication studies have established that communication plays a critical role in organizational innovation, because internal and external communication allows individuals, groups, and organizations to recombine existing knowledge into new ideas. In light of this, this research re-directs our attention to the specific communicative antecedents of an organization’s overall propensity for innovation. Survey data from 293 nonprofit organizations showed that interorganizational partnership diversity, knowledge sharing via the use of information communication technologies (ICTs), and entrepreneurial orientation affect organizational innovativeness, with differential effects on administrative innovativeness and technological innovativeness. Specifically, interorganizational partnership diversity promoted administrative innovativeness but had an inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship with technological innovativeness. Effective ICT-mediated knowledge sharing improved technological innovativeness only. The combination of interorganizational partnership diversity and EO (i.e., proactiveness) increased administrative innovativeness. However, interorganizational partnership diversity and effective knowledge sharing indirectly influenced technological innovativeness via proactiveness. This study advances research on organizational innovation, ICTs, and interorganizational networks.

From entrepreneurial orientation to sustainability orientation: The role of cognitive proximity in companies in tourist destinations

This study straddles the entrepreneurship and sustainability literatures by analysing the existence of a U-shaped curvilinear relationship between a company's entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and sustainability orientation (SO) and the effect of cognitive proximity (CP) on this relationship in cultural tourist destinations (CTDs). The empirical analysis was carried out on a sample of 238 companies belonging to World Heritage Cities in Peru. The results show a U-shaped curvilinear relationship between EO and SO. Thus, only when companies in CTDs have consolidated their strategic commitment to economic interests do they tend to enhance their strategic commitment to social and environmental matters. Additionally, the curvilinear shape of the relationship is attenuated, approaching a linear relationship for elevated levels of CP. This is because CP can make it easier for tourism companies to detect and take advantage of entrepreneurial opportunities to configure superior service experiences linked to sustainability. Companies located in CTDs in developing countries should strengthen their proactivity, innovativeness and risk-taking so as to bolster their SO. These companies should also develop networks with agents that share their values, goals and language to boost the connection between their strategic commitments to entrepreneurship and sustainability. • Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has a curvilinear relationship (U-shape) with sustainability orientation (SO). • This curvilinear relationship is moderated (attenuated) by cognitive proximity. • Companies in tourist destinations might strengthen their SO by developing higher levels of EO. • Managers will be able to control the effects of EO on SO with the help of cognitive proximity. • EO and sustainability are studied in cultural tourism destinations in a developing economy.

Who Is Willing to Engage in Social Gatherings During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Lockdown? A Curvilinear Relationship Between Age and Heuristic Processing.

BackgroundThe Chinese government implemented a lockdown to contain the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic during the Chinese Lunar New Year when people have the tradition to visit families and friends. Previous research suggested that heuristic processing increased risky behavioral willingness (e.g., desire to have social gatherings despite the pandemic) and that people’s tendency to use heuristic processing varied across different adulthood stages. This study thus investigated the relationships among age, heuristic processing of COVID-19-related information, and the willingness to have social gatherings during the lockdown.MethodsA sample of 1,651 participants was recruited from an online crowdsourcing platform between January 31 and February 04 in 2020, with a mean age of 30.69, 47.9% being women. Participants completed an online questionnaire about heuristic processing of COVID-19-related information, willingness to engage in social gatherings during the lockdown, age, and other demographic information.ResultsAge was found to have a U-shaped curvilinear relationship with heuristic processing, and heuristic processing was positively correlated with the willingness to have social gatherings. Further analyses showed that heuristic processing curvilinearly mediated the relationship between age and the willingness to have social gatherings.ConclusionCompared with young adults, emerging and older adults are more likely to engage in heuristic processing, which in turn, increases the willingness to have social gatherings. Heuristic processing serves as an underlying mechanism to explain the relationship between age and risky behavioral willingness.

Going the Extra Mile: Perceived Self-Efficacy, Family-Work Enrichment, Promotion Focus, and Organisational Citizenship Behaviour

Drawing on control theory, this paper moves closer to understanding the individual antecedents of employee citizenship behaviours. It explores the combined effect of three antecedents – job self-efficacy, family-work enrichment, and promotion focus – on service delivery organisational citizenship behaviour. Moderated Hierarchical Regression Modelling is performed on a sample of 198 call centre employees. The findings show a U-shaped curvilinear relationship between job self-efficacy and service delivery organisational citizenship behaviour for those employees who experience family-work enrichment. The results also confirm the three-way interaction of job self-efficacy, family- -work enrichment, and promotion focus as joint predictors of citizenship behaviour. Theoretical implications are outlined along with practical steps for employers motivated to encourage citizenship behaviours in their teams, departments and sectors.

The Curvilinear Relationship Between Career Calling and Work Fatigue: A Moderated Mediating Model.

Drawing on the job demands-resources (JD-R) model and event system theory (EST), this study constructed a moderated mediating model to investigate the direct effect of career calling on work fatigue, the mediating effect of role overload, and the moderating effect of COVID-19 event disruption in the above relationships. We administered an online questionnaire to 488 Chinese police officers who participated in frontline work to prevent and control the COVID-19 pandemic. The results showed a U-shaped curvilinear relationship of career calling with physical fatigue, mental fatigue, emotional fatigue, and role overload. Moreover, role overload partially mediated these curvilinear relationships. In addition, COVID-19 event disruption positively moderated the direct curvilinear effect of career calling on role overload, physical fatigue, and emotional fatigue, as well as the first stage of the mediating effect in the relationship between career calling and physical, mental, and emotional fatigue through role overload. Furthermore, the direct U-shaped curvilinear effects and the indirect effects were more significant when COVID-19 event disruption was high.

Influence of customer participation from the employee perspective

PurposeTo reduce costs, many banks have increased customer involvement during the creation and delivery of their products and services. Based on a job demands-resources (JD-R) model, this study tests an inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship between perceived customer participation and employee work engagement. Customer orientation (CO) and service employee perceived fit with customers (PCF) moderate this relationship, which eventually affect both the internal and external benefits of service-employee work engagement.Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected survey data from 518 service employees in the South Korean banking and insurance industries and analyzed the data using structural equation modeling (SEM).FindingsThe results indicate that perceived customer participation (PCP) has a significant inverted U-shape effect on work engagement. Results also suggest that CO and PCF have positive relationships with work engagement. In addition, they moderate the inverted U-shaped relationship between service employee PCP and work engagement, while work engagement positively affects organizational citizenship, job satisfaction and commitment.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors empirically identify a curvilinear effect of PCP on work engagement. In doing so, the authors introduce and operationalize the new construct: PCF and suggest PCF and CO as unique job resources for service employees. The authors also examine these constructs as predictors based on a motivational process and as moderators based on a strain (energetic) process.Practical implicationsFrom a managerial perspective, examining the curvilinear relationships of customer participation and work engagement suggests that front-line employees’ (FLEs’) PCP does not necessarily enhance the economic benefits of productivity gains by using customers as substitutes for portions of employee labor. Another finding with managerial relevance indicates that service employees, who have more CO and PCF, showed more tolerant attitudes toward unnecessary and excessive levels of customer participation and regarded it as a job resource.Originality/valueThis study explains that researchers must consider the positive and negative sides of customer participation simultaneously because frontline employee PCP can be changed depending on the level of participation provided by customers. This study also shows that CO can be assumed as a personal resource and PCF as an environmental resource in the work engagement process.

How We Can Enhance Spectator Attendance for the Sustainable Development of Sport in the Era of Uncertainty: A Re-Examination of Competitive Balance

This study seeks to find factors that determine the mobilization of spectators in games of the Korean professional baseball league for sustainable development. In particular, it re-examines the uncertainty-of-outcome hypothesis by looking at the effect of competitive balance (CB) on seat occupancy in stadiums. Data for 2160 games over three years (2015–2017) from the archives of the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) were analyzed. The results show that the CB of the home team, with the entire teams, affects seat occupancy rate (SOR). It is also shown that there exists an inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship between CB and SOR. However, the winning percentage of the home team in the entire league had a significant impact on the SOR. This implies that the overall athletic performance of the home team in the league competing with all other teams is much more important than the home team’s competitive balance in the season played before the game, for attracting fans to the stadium.

Evoking Agriculture Entrepreneurship: How Younger and Older Farmers Differ

This study examined the agriculture entrepreneurial intentions (AEIs) of current farmers (n = 1183) in Taiwan and distinguished differences between ≤45- and >45-year-old farmers by applying the theory of planned behaviour with the extension of personality traits. The results determined that the entrepreneurial commitment and communication aspects of entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) considerably affected the conviction dimension of AEI, whereas entrepreneurial commitment, communication ESE, entrepreneurial attitude, planning ESE, and neuroticism notably influenced the preparation dimension of AEI. Furthermore, the effects of neuroticism on entrepreneurial conviction were weaker in younger farmers than in older farmers, and the effects of entrepreneurial commitment, entrepreneurial attitude, neuroticism, and planning ESE on entrepreneurial preparation in younger farmers were different from those in older farmers. Moreover, length of agricultural engagement exhibited an inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship with AEIs. The present study contributes to the understanding of how younger farmers’ AEIs can be shaped and how they may cope with the differences they may have compared with older family members.

The nonlinear effect of effectuation and causation on new venture performance: The moderating effect of environmental uncertainty

Prior researches suggest that there are either positive or negative effect of E&C on new venture performance (NVP). To reconcile the conflicting view, this study proposes the nonlinear relationships between E&C and NVP, and the moderating effect of environmental uncertainty on them. An examination of 407 new ventures data in an emerging economics reveals that while there is a J-shaped curvilinear relationship between effectuation and NVP, there is an inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship between causation and NVP. Empirical studies also reveal that environmental uncertainty positively moderates the J-shaped curvilinear effect of effectuation on NVP. This study contributes to the literature of E&C-performance linkage in nonlinear perspective and offers a more nuanced view of the relationship between E&C and NVP in environmental uncertainty.

Social integration and confidence in the police: a cross-national multi-level analysis

ABSTRACT Building on the insight of Durkheim, the current study examines the hypothesis that cross-national proxies for social integration explain variation in confidence in the police across different countries. Combining six sources of data from 84 nations with a total sample size of 122,330 respondents, the current research uses hierarchical generalised linear modelling (HGLM) logistic regression analyses to investigate the potential mechanism of social integration in shaping confidence in the police. Results show that three proxies of social integration (i.e. homicide rates, group grievance, and suicide rates) are negatively and significantly associated with confidence in the police. Additionally, results replicated the U-shaped convex curvilinear relationship between democracy and police confidence. Durkheim’s notion of social integration can offer a theoretical framework to account for the effects of country-level variables on confidence in the police across cultural boundaries.

Gender difference in the association between alcohol consumption and depressive symptoms among the elderly in rural areas

To determine gender difference in the nature of the association between alcohol consumption and depressive symptoms in the elderly aged 60 and above in a rural community sample. A cross-sectional face-to-face survey conducted for community residents 60 years of age and older (n = 1,819). Alcohol consumption problems were measured by self-report of the Korean version of Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT-K) scale. Depressive symptom was measured using the Korean Beck Depression Inventory (K-BDI) scale. Potential explanatory variables included MCS, PCS, and health-related behavior, socio-economics status, and democratic variables. Two gender-specific multivariate regression models were applied for the analysis. A U-shaped relationship between alcohol consumption and depressive symptoms was found, and the relationship did not differ by gender. Non-problem drinkers and hazardous and harmful drinkers were related to an increased risk of depressive symptoms for both men and women. Several correlates for the association were found. No gender difference was found in a U-shaped curvilinear relationship between alcohol consumption and depression found among the elderly aged 60 and above in rural communities in South Korea. The findings of this study suggest the need for further investigation of subgroup differences in the association by using samples of various age groups in rural and urban areas, and samples drawn from different cultural contexts than the studies conducted in Western countries.

How does overconfidence affect information security investment and information security performance?

ABSTRACT Although organizational information security investment has attracted a great deal of attention from academia and industry, there is a lack of studies on the decision maker's overconfidence. This paper examines the relationship between overconfidence of executives, information security investment and information security performance. The study shows that overconfidence is negatively associated with information security investment and an inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship existed between information security investment and information security performance. Furthermore, to illustrate the robustness of our results, the suppressing effect and the serial mediating role between overconfidence, information security investment and information security performance are tested finally.

The curvilinear relationship between job satisfaction and employee voice: Speaking up for the organization and the self

Integrating the self-serving effect of voice with the literature that emphasizes the prosocial motive of voice behavior, this study investigates the possibility of a U-shaped curvilinear relationship between job satisfaction and voice behavior. The findings show that different voice beliefs (employees’ prosocial and self-protective voice beliefs) moderate the U-shaped curvilinear relationship with distinct patterns. Specifically, for employees with a stronger prosocial voice belief the relationship between job satisfaction and voice is more positive at high levels of job satisfaction and less negative at low levels of job satisfaction. Self-protective voice belief attenuates the relationship between job satisfaction and voice at both high and low levels of job satisfaction, resulting in a less U-shaped relationship for employees with a stronger self-protective voice belief. These findings support our arguments about the coexistence of multiple motives of voice and their relative strength across different levels of job satisfaction.