Integrating relative deprivation (Crosby, 1984) and social comparison (Buunk & Gibbons, 2007) theories, this paper extends perceived overqualification to the dyad level with perceived relative qualification, and proposes that the two may lead to employees’ knowledge hiding from relevant peers through a complex interpersonal process. Across two studies, with 940 dyadic‐level observations (Study 1) and

Most professional employees aspire to leadership, and this suggests that a best possible leader self—a personalized representation of who an employee aspires to be at their best as a leader in the future—is likely a relevant and motivating self‐representation for employees at work. Integrating theory on best possible selves with control theory, we suggest that activating a best possible leader self

Unethical pro‐organizational behavior (UPB) is often visible to co‐workers; however, reactions to UPB are rarely considered in empirical research in spite of their importance to the social dynamics in the workplace. Drawing upon appraisal theory of emotion and the behavioral ethics literature, we predict that observing UPB would lead third parties to experience admiration due to the pro‐organizational

Despite evidence that affect shapes perceptions of workplace relationships, the role of affect in the reciprocal exchange process of leader–member exchange (LMX) theory is often overlooked. We argue that this is likely due to a continued focus on global assessments of LMX quality, rather than examination of the reciprocal, interlocked actions and reactions that take place daily between members of the

We conducted a meta‐analysis to examine the relations of individual differences in reflective (or rational) and intuitive thinking styles with workplace task performance. We meta‐analyzed 113 effect sizes from 71 independent samples (N = 11,713). Results indicate that reflective thinking style has a positive and non‐zero meta‐analytic relation with task performance (ρ = .213). This positive relation

Impression management (IM)—the strategies through which employees create, maintain, or alter a desired image towards others—is a ubiquitous part of organizational life. To date, scholars studying this interpersonal phenomenon have largely focused on Jones and Pittman's (1982) taxonomy of IM strategies, examining consequences associated with the tactics of ingratiation, self‐promotion, exemplification

Building on the notion of cumulative advantage, we undertake a nuanced examination of how collaborating with a star affects attributions of credit and blame to nonstars in collaborative endeavors. Situating our inquiry in the US hedge fund industry, we hypothesize two‐way interactions predicting that collaboration with a star comanager will weaken both the positive effect of comanaged fund success

Higher levels of learning adaptability at work are expected to help performance when individuals encounter an unfamiliar environment, such as during organizational entry. However, little is known about how and when newcomer learning adaptability drives innovative behaviors. Drawing on and extending individual adaptability theory, we propose that two mediating mechanisms, positive framing and task mastery

Are there career benefits to leaders and followers agreeing about the quality of their leader–member exchange (LMX) relationship? Is LMX disagreement always detrimental for a follower's career? Can the examination of LMX agreement as a substantive variable help us cast new light on some of the inconclusive findings of past research on LMX and career outcomes? These questions motivate our research.

We examine the role of accrued recruitment source diagnosticity (i.e., cumulative information from recruitment sources) and show its importance in enhancing diversity in recruitment and selection. First, based on social network and homophily theories, we propose that racial minority candidates will be less likely to use diagnostic recruitment sources, and this lack of use contributes to less organizational

In this research, we propose a novel goal‐failure perspective based on cognitive theories of rumination to examine how leaders react to their own abusive supervision in distinct ways. Findings from two multi‐wave, multisource field studies conducted with organizational leaders and an online experiment support hypotheses that leaders ruminate on their abusive behavior and this rumination triggers reconciliation

We study employee taking charge behavior in a team context and investigate how it influences social consequences in work teams. Drawing on the person perception perspective and the warmth–competence framework, we develop a theoretical model outlining how coworkers view and react to those team members who take charge more at work. We conducted two studies to test our model. Using a three‐wave, multisource

Although extant research has shown that abusive supervision is a destructive and immoral form of leader behavior, theory provides conflicting perspectives on how supervisors respond to their own abusive behavior. We therefore draw upon and integrate moral cleansing theory and impression management and construction theory to explore whether and when supervisors engage in genuine reparations or impression

Turnover is not only the ending of an employment relationship, it is also the potential beginning of a new reality for those who remain in the organization. The impact of voluntary and involuntary turnover events on organizational “stayers” represents an unfortunate gap in extant turnover theory. Conceptualizing turnover as a beginning rather than an ending suggests the possibility that turnover events

Utilizing research on organizational slack and the stereotype content model, the antecedents and consequences of high‐performance work system (HPWS) utilization are assessed in a sample of 108 small and medium‐sized enterprises in South Korea. The paper advances theory to demonstrate that organizational slack drives HPWS adoption, but only when the chief executive officer (CEO) views employees as worth

Organizations grapple with how to position and manage star employees within and across workgroups. One critical question not yet well understood is how to optimize the influence of stars on non‐stars and specifically whether to concentrate together or spread out stars across workgroups. Furthermore, we lack knowledge of who is more likely to benefit from stars. To that end, we develop a theoretical

Weighing in at 514 pages, The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Identity represents a formidable set of backward‐ and forward‐looking reflections on the state of a literature that has become a mainstay of organizational scholarship. As someone who finds himself in the occasional position of needing to recommend to others a “starting point” for engaging the topic of organizational identity (heretofore

Despite academic and practical advice regarding the virtues of daily routines for effective work performance, such routines are vulnerable to disruption from any number of sources. To understand whether and how routine disruptions affect employees at work, we draw on cognitive energetics theory (CET) and explore the potential negative consequences of morning routine disruptions on employees’ energy

Venting—an emotion‐focused form of coping involving the discharge of negative feelings to others—is common in organizational settings. Venting may benefit the self via the release of negative emotion, or by acting as a catalyst for changes to problematic work situations. Nonetheless, venting might have unintended consequences via its influence on those who are the recipients of venting from others

In this research, we challenge the belief that positive signals of morality always increase job candidates’ appeal to interviewers. In four experiments with both experienced and novice interviewers, we find that signals of the candidates’ morality interact with the nature of the industry such that candidates who send signals of morality are less likely to be selected for jobs in a morally tainted industry

Prior work suggests that follower and leader risk orientation is positively associated with follower creativity. We suggest that this view is oversimplified and propose that follower creativity can be stimulated when leader and follower have diverging risk orientations. We, therefore, apply a configurational approach to creativity, evaluating varying combinations of leader and follower risk orientation

Drawing on social hierarchy theory, we develop a contingency model of leader–member exchange (LMX) differentiation in which LMX differentiation is positively and negatively related to group cooperation and group social undermining, respectively, when it is based on the group members’ performance, but the relations are reversed (i.e., negative and positive, respectively) when it stems from a leader's

Working in organizations can result in health problems for employees, who may develop health conditions such as hypertension, cardiac problems, and obesity. To promote healthy behavior among employees, some companies use tailored online health platforms, which are customizable and accessible. Although these programs are available to all employees, they differ in terms of their participation, and we

Research has largely shown a positive linear relationship between proactive personality and job performance at the individual level. However, it remains unknown whether the same relationship holds at the team level. In this research, we propose and test a curvilinear relationship between team mean level of proactive personality and team performance. We also examine team potency and team cohesion as

Crafting a personal brand has become an important factor for career success. Despite the growing literature on topics associated with personal brands, the conceptualization and measurement of personal brand equity (PBE) have received little attention. By drawing upon and integrating the marketing and careers literatures on branding, we reconceptualized the definition of PBE and delineated its dimensions

Vocational interest theories imply a person–occupation cross‐level interaction effect (e.g., artistic interests predict job performance better in artistic occupations), which has rarely if ever been tested as such. Using a large military sample, we find person–occupation interest congruence effects are supported: (a) on core technical job performance for six of eight interest dimensions, and (b) on

The present study offers new theoretical insights into the dynamics of shared leadership. Integrating arguments from shared leadership and team development theory, we examine how shared leadership changes over the course of a project team's life cycle and how this pattern of change relates to team performance. Guided by shared leadership theory and project team literature, we also explore team‐level

Previous research demonstrates that depersonalization is harmful for employee outcomes. In addition, research is beginning to examine employees’ family context along with their experiences both at work and at home. We advance these literatures using shared reality theory as a foundation for investigating couples’ dyadic agreement surrounding employee depersonalization and its implications. Using polynomial

This study examines the connections among supervisors’ time urgency, their leadership behavior, and subordinate outcomes. Integrating cognitive perspectives on time urgency with contemporary thinking on the psychological experience of status, we reason that supervisors’ time‐urgent personality relates positively with their autocratic leadership behavior, and we cast supervisors’ self‐perceived status

A burgeoning body of research has examined the influence of stable attributes of individuals, teams, and organizations on employee creativity. Events, however, permeate the increasingly dynamic and uncertain business context. To extend the creativity literature, we draw on event system theory to examine whether, when, and how workplace events impact employee creativity. Our findings based on two time‐lagged

In the hope of complementing the structural perspective in upper echelon research and advancing a fine‐grained understanding of dyadic leadership influence in management teams, the current study combines two types of intrateam structures—leadership network and friendship network—to create a multidimensional conceptualization of leadership structure in management teams. Specifically, we propose that

Recent research challenges the importance of situation descriptions for situational judgment test (SJT) performance. This study contributes to resolving the ongoing debate on whether SJTs are situational measures, by incorporating findings on person × situation interactions into SJT research. Specifically, across three studies (NTotal = 1,239), we first tested whether situation construal (i.e., the

We integrate exercise physiology tenets with self‐regulation theory to explain how physical activity diminishes the effects of supervisor interpersonal injustice. We posit that individuals can help prevent self‐regulation depletion from interpersonal injustice when they engage in physical activity. In Study 1, we manipulated physical activity and interpersonal injustice in a laboratory setting, and

Theory on the impact of ethical leadership has traditionally been based on a deontological approach to morality. Underlying this perspective is the assumption that all leader behaviors that encourage “normatively appropriate conduct” will influence followers in a similar fashion. Put differently, the current consensus seems to suggest that actions that focus on preventing unethical behavior—attending

Reducing unethical employee behavior is a complex challenge for organizations given that such behavior is often highly contagious. Yet, although many employees imitate the unethical behavior of their coworkers, some adhere to ethical standards in spite of their coworkers’ unethical behavior. Drawing on social cognitive theory, we propose an expanded model of unethical social influence that sheds

The authors develop and evaluate an online networking intervention, Building Relationships and Improving Opportunities (BRIO), built in conjunction with the networking literature and social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986, 1999). A field experiment using 491 unemployed job seekers shows that the intervention increases networking intensity, networking self‐efficacy, and proximal networking benefits

The emotion regulation literature has focused primarily on comparing the methods of surface acting and deep acting, yet scholars have also noted the importance of naturally felt emotions as a means for achieving a desired emotional display. The literature has also mainly examined positive displays, yet there are many situations that call for the display of negative emotions. To advance theory and research

Ethics has emerged as one of the most critical issues facing organizations. Given its importance, an extensive literature has evolved to understand the causes and consequences of (un)ethical decision making and behaviors in organizations. To date, much of this research has relied on research methods (e.g., experiments) that emphasize internal validity and control over external validity and generalizability

Psychometric meta‐analysis assumes that moderators are unrelated to study artifacts (e.g., criterion reliability), and that study artifacts are independent of true validities. Meeting these assumptions is important for researchers seeking to accurately partition the variance in effect sizes due to study artifacts from the variance due to meaningful moderators. Despite the critical role of these assumptions

Previous studies have concluded that cognitive ability tests are not predictively biased against Hispanic American job applicants because test scores generally overpredict, rather than underpredict, their job performance. However, we highlight two important shortcomings of these past studies and use meta‐analytic and computation modeling techniques to address these two shortcomings. In Study 1, an

We integrate the theory of gender role congruity with extant research on servant leadership to propose and test a moderated process model in which we hypothesize that servant leadership's effects on outcomes are stronger when implemented by women, and when it takes place within teams high in feminine gender role composition. Specifically, we theorize that servant leadership's communal emphases on stakeholders

Research on the effects of mood in organizations tends to focus on the valence dimension of mood (positive vs. negative), overlooking the activation dimension (activated vs. deactivated). We suggest that activation level prompts unethical behavior. Based on the affective infusion model (AIM; Forgas, 1995), we predict that positive activated and negative activated moods facilitate unethical behavior

Studies linking proactive personality to creativity have primarily taken a future‐oriented perspective, describing a process where individuals assess future opportunities and risks of creative endeavors. Complementing this approach, we draw on an attribution theory perspective to delineate how proactive personality relates to employee creativity through the serial mediating effects of job reflective

Concerns over unethical leader behavior persist in today's workplace. Although some employees continue to support their leaders after learning of their unethical actions, others do not. In this paper, we integrate social cognitive theory with social information processing theory to propose that the support employees give to leaders who act unethically hinges on their propensity to morally disengage

Although “powerlessness” is a pervasive experience for employees, prior social power research has predominantly focused on consequences of “powerfulness.” This has led to contradictory predictions for how experienced powerlessness influences employees’ social perceptions and behaviors. To resolve this theoretical tension, we build on Social Distance Theory (Magee & Smith) to develop a theoretical model

In this constructive replication, we revisit a provocative study by Leslie, Manchester, and Dahm (2017). They found that gender and being designated a high‐potential employee interacted in accounting for pay and that this resulted in a reversal in the commonly observed gender pay gap favoring men. Our primary aim was to examine important boundary conditions associated with their work by (a) conducting

Pregnancy reflects a common experience for women in today's workforce, yet recent data suggest that some women scale back or leave the workforce following childbirth. Considering these effects on women's careers, researchers have sought to understand the underlying dynamics of these decisions. Here, we explore a paradoxical reason for weakened postpartum career attitudes: help that women receive during

In this research, we examine how high‐quality contact can facilitate employees’ coworker support and explain why the benefits of high‐quality contact are contingent upon age. First, we employ a social mindfulness lens to decipher the motivational mechanisms of high‐quality contact with coworkers on providing coworker support via coworker‐oriented perspective taking and empathic concern. Second, we

The purpose of this research is to provide a richer lens on the ethical organizational environment by examining the relationship between ethical leadership and unit‐level unethical behavior through ethical organizational climate (EOC), with collective moral identity as a boundary condition. In testing our theoretical model, we first develop and validate a measure of EOC to address concerns with existing

Emerging research suggests that bottom‐line mentalities (BLMs) (i.e., a sole focus on bottom‐line outcomes to the exclusion of other considerations) can have dysfunctional consequences within the workplace. However, research has yet to consider how and why BLMs may result in both beneficial and dysfunctional organizational outcomes. In the present research, we examine employees’ perceptions of top

We conducted two experimental studies with between‐subjects and within‐subjects designs to investigate the item response process for personality measures administered in high‐ versus low‐stakes situations. Apart from assessing measurement validity of the item response process, we examined predictive validity; that is, whether or not different response models entail differential selection outcomes.

Scholars are paying increasing attention to the “dark side” of citizenship behavior. One aspect of this dark side that has received relatively scant attention is “helping pressure”—an employee's perception that s/he is being encouraged to, or otherwise feels that s/he should, enact helping behavior at work. Drawing from theory associated with work stress, we examine affective and cognitive mechanisms

Previous research on union participation has been disjointed, with no clear consensus on the definition and nature of participation. Additionally, few studies have examined how participation changes over time, with those that have finding mixed results regarding its stability. We propose that these mixed and inconsistent findings are due largely to past research focusing on overall levels of participation

Organizations often communicate seemingly paradoxical strategic imperatives to their employees that reflect a focus on promotion (take risks) and prevention (be prudent), as outlined by regulatory focus theory. When consistently emphasized and reinforced in an organization, these strategic inclinations can emerge as divergent climates for promotion and prevention that cloud the organization's perceived

Cross‐unit ties–relationships that facilitate discretionary information sharing between individuals from different business units–offer a range of organizational benefits. Scholars argue that organizations can promote cross‐unit ties by: (a) formally bringing together individuals from different business units into structural links (e.g., cross‐unit strategic committees) to encourage the formation of

Organizations frequently screen or select job applicants based on their work experience. Despite this, surprisingly little is known about the criterion‐related validity of prehire experience, which reflects the amount, duration, or type of experience workers have acquired before they enter a new organization. To address this critical gap in the literature, we used meta‐analysis to synthesize data from

Building off and extending the metatheoretical framework of political skill, we examined the cognitive and behavioral mechanisms through which the intrapsychic effects of political skill inform its interpersonal effects, and how these interpersonal effects ultimately are transmitted into desirable outcomes. Specifically, we argue that politically skilled leaders demonstrate better situational appraisals

Drawing on the componential model of creativity (Amabile), we examined how shared leadership and a formally appointed leader's transformational leadership jointly cultivate team creativity in two studies. We conducted an experiment with a sample of 109 undergraduate students (32 teams) enrolled in a business plan competition (Study 1) and a field survey based on multisource, time‐lagged data collected

Team tenure is a key component of models of team effectiveness. However, the nature of the relationship between team tenure and team performance is unclear due to underdeveloped theory on the nature of team tenure, various unintegrated theoretical conceptualizations of team tenure, and mixed empirical findings. Further, there is a lack of theory as to the intervening team processes and emergent states

Job search represents a dynamic process through which job seekers must consistently engage in effective self‐regulation. Although scholars have increasingly begun to theorize and conceptualize the job search in this manner, little is known about what fosters effective self‐regulation week‐to‐week. In light of this theoretical gap, we integrate self‐regulation theory with the feedback literature to