Business Commons^™

Personality Dynamics Turn Positive And Negative Mood Into Creativity, Ronald Bledow, Jana Kuhnel, Julius Kuhl

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Introduction: Research on the link between affect and creativity rests on the assumption that creativity unfolds as a stimulus-driven response to affective states. We challenge this assumption and examine whether personality dynamics moderate the relationship of positive and negative mood with creativity.Theoretical Model: According to our model, personality dynamics that generate and maintain positive affect and down-regulate negative affect energize creativity. Based on this model, we expect high creativity in response to negative mood if people engage in self-motivation and achieve a reduction in negative mood. We further derive that individual differences in action versus state orientation moderate the within-person …

Overcoming Procrastination: Time Pressure And Positive Affect As Compensatory Routes To Action, Jana Kuhnel, Ronald Bledow, Angela Kuonath

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The current work seeks to identify factors that support action initiation from the theoretical lens of self-regulation. Specifically, we focus on factors that reduce procrastination, the delay of the initiation or completion of activities. We draw from action control theory and propose that positive affect operates as a personal and time pressure as a situational factor that unblock routes to action. High positive affect makes people less prone to procrastination because positive affect reduces behavioral inhibition and facilitates the enactment of intentions. By contrast, when positive affect is low, people depend on time pressure as an action facilitating stimulus. We …

Why Employees Accept Lower Pay At Mission-Oriented Companies, Insiya Hussain, Marko Pitesa, Stefan Thau, Michael Schaerer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Today’s companies are likely to tout how their work benefits human welfare or “makes the world a better place.” Recent research suggests that this may come with a potential financial drawback for workers, as it can inhibit them from negotiating for higher pay. Over five studies, job candidates consistently reported that they worried asking for higher pay from these companies would be seen as greedy or inappropriate. This suggests they are aware of a common bias, known as motivation purity bias, where managers believe employees interested in material rewards of work (such as pay) are less motivated than those motivated …

Pay Suppression In Social Impact Contexts: How Framing Work Around The Greater Good Inhibits Job Candidate Compensation Demands, Insiya Hussain, Marko Pitesa, Stefan Thau, Michael Schaerer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Past research suggests that when organizations communicate the benefits of their work for human welfare—that is, use a social impact framing for work—job candidates are willing to accept lower wages because they expect the work to be personally meaningful. We argue that this explanation overlooks a less socially desirable mechanism by which social impact framing leads to lower compensation demands: the perception among job candidates that requesting higher pay will breach organizational expectations to value work for its intrinsic (rather than extrinsic) rewards, or constitute a motivational norm violation. We find evidence for our theory across five studies: a qualitative …

Work Effort: A Conceptual And Meta-Analytic Review, Chad H. Van Iddekinge, John D. Arnold, Herman Aquinis, Jonas W. B. Lang, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Work effort has been a key concept in management theories and research for more than a century. Maintaining and increasing employee effort also is a persistent concern to managers. The goal of the present conceptual and meta-analytic review was to increase clarity and consensus regarding what effort is and how to measure it. First, we reviewed conceptualizations of effort and provided an integrated definition that views effort as a direct outcome of motivation that captures (a) what employees work on, (b) how hard they work, and (c) how long they persist in that work. Second, we identified four main ways …

Breaking The Chains: The Inverted-U-Shaped Relationship Between Action-State Orientation And Creativity Under Low Job Autonomy, Ronald Bledow, Jana Kühnel, Mengzi Jin, Julius Kuhl

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

When the social fabric of organizations limits individual autonomy, new ideas are needed that satisfy a person’s will as well as the constraints imposed by the social context. To explain when people achieve this synthesis and display creativity under low job autonomy, we examine the influence of their action-state orientation. The theory of action versus state orientation contrasts two responses people display when faced by a situation that conflicts with their will. An actionoriented response entails that people readily disengage from processing the situation and initiate goal-striving, while a state-oriented response entails that people remain focused on the situation. We …

An Initial Examination Of State And Longitudinal Effects Of Loving-Kindness Practice On Affective And Motivational States At Work, Theodore Charles Masters-Waage, Jochen Reb, William Tov

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Objectives: Drawing on practices and concepts from Buddhist ethics, we developed a loving-kindness training. We investigated the state and longitudinal effects of this training on employees’ affective and motivational states at work in two studies. Methods: Study 1 tested this training program in a randomized controlled trial, comparing the effects of loving-kindness practice on employee affect and motivation with an active (mindfulness) and a passive (waitlist) control condition. Analyses focused on both longitudinal effects (increases in affect and motivation over the training period) and state effects (effects of practice on daily affect and motivation). Study 2 conducted a 1-week study …

A Dynamic Account Of Self-Efficacy In Entrepreneurship, Michael M. Gielnik, Ronald Bledow, Miriam S. Stark

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We present a dynamic account of self-efficacy in entrepreneurship that integrates social–cognitive and control theory. According to our dynamic account, variability in self-efficacy energizes action because it involves self-motivation and discrepancy perception as competing motivational processes. We argue that variability and the average level in self-efficacy nascent entrepreneurs display over time support the enactment of entrepreneurial intentions and predict business ownership. The proposed positive effect of variability further implies an inverted u-shaped relationship between self-efficacy at a single point in time and business ownership. To test these hypotheses, we repeatedly assessed entrepreneurial self-efficacy of nascent African entrepreneurs during a 12-week …

Individual Differences And Their Measurement: A Review Of 100 Years Of Research, Paul R. Sackett, Filip Lievens, Chad H. Van Iddekinge, Nathan R. Kuncel

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This article reviews 100 years of research on individual differences and their measurement, with a focus on research published in the Journal of Applied Psychology. We focus on 3 major individual differences domains: (a) knowledge, skill, and ability, including both the cognitive and physical domains; (b) personality, including integrity, emotional intelligence, stable motivational attributes (e.g., achievement motivation, core self-evaluations), and creativity; and (c) vocational interests. For each domain, we describe the evolution of the domain across the years and highlight major theoretical, empirical, and methodological developments, including relationships between individual differences and variables such as job performance, job satisfaction, and …

The Dark Side Of Authority: Antecedents, Mechanisms, And Outcomes Of Organizational Corruption, Ruth V. Aguilera, Abhijeet K. Vadera

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Corruption poisons corporations in America and around the world, and has devastating consequences for the entire social fabric. In this article, we focus on organizational corruption, described as the abuse of authority for personal benefit, and draw on Weber's three ideal-types of legitimate authority to develop a theoretical model to better understand the antecedents of different types of organizational corruption. Specifically, we examine the types of business misconduct that organizational leaders are likely to engage in, contingent on their legitimate authority, motives, and justifications. We conclude by suggesting managerial implications of our theoretical model and propose directions for future research. …

The Effects Of Entrepreneurial Growth Orientation On Organizational Change And Firm Growth, Wee Liang Tan, Thomas Menkhoff, Yue Wah Chay

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Managing growth in an enterprise as it grows beyond the startup phase is a challenge for many entrepreneurs. One key element that can help or hinder growth is the entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial growth has been linked to micro variables (motivations and psychological attributes of the entrepreneur) and macro variables. However, few studies have examined the role of the growth aspirations of the entrepreneur on the necessary elements of organization change related to growth.

This paper reports a study employing a typology of entrepreneurs based on their growth aspirations using an established dichotomous scale devised by Smith to differentiate between what he …