Human Resources Management Commons^™

Humanitarian Aid Worker Retention: Is General Motivation Theory Enough?, Gabriella Lee

Senior Honors Theses

In the socially impactful realm of humanitarian business, job dissatisfaction has led to high turnover and low retention, causing many organizations to struggle and sometimes fail. To increase motivation and satisfaction, the differences between general motivation theories and common humanitarian motivations should be analyzed. These analyses can then be applied to increase retention. While most general motivation theories like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs point to internal or personal needs being met, humanitarian employees are mainly motivated altruistically. Therefore, this research will demonstrate that altruistic motivations have a greater role in humanitarian retention than traditional motivation theories. Existing human resource policies …

Designing Pareto-Optimal Selection Systems For Multiple Minority Subgroups And Multiple Criteria, Wilfried De Corte, Paul R. Sackett, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Currently used Pareto-optimal (PO) approaches for balancing diversity and validity goals in selection can deal only with one minority group and one criterion. These are key limitations because the workplace and society at large are getting increasingly diverse and because selection system designers often have interest in multiple criteria. Therefore, the article extends existing methods for designing PO selection systems to situations involving multiple criteria and multiple minority groups (i.e., multiobjective PO selection systems). We first present a hybrid multiobjective PO approach for computing selection systems that are PO with respect to (a) a set of quality objectives (i.e., criteria) …

A New Hope? Restoring Self-Compassion In Response To Abusive Supervision, James P. Burton, Brittany C. Buis, Larissa K. Barber

Faculty Peer-Reviewed Publications

Given the persistent financial and psychological costs of abusive supervision in organizations, a greater understanding of the mechanisms that employees can use to cope with abuse is warranted. In the present study, abusive supervision is expected to be negatively related to a key employee coping mechanism – self-compassion – and this hindered mechanism would lead to higher levels of anxiety and lower levels of hope. However, a written meditation targeting self-compassion could break the link between abuse and employee anxiety or hope. The hypotheses and the written self-compassion meditation were tested across two studies incorporating both a highly controlled laboratory …

Formal Versus Informal Supervisor Socio-Emotional Support Behaviours And Employee Trust: The Role Of Cultural Power Distance, Jaee Cho, S. Arzu Wasti, Krishna Savani, Hwee Hoon Tan, Michael W. Morris

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This research investigates how formal versus informal supervisor support behaviours shape employees' affect- and cognition-based trust across cultures of varying power distance. Using data from in-depth interviews, Study 1 found that trust-enhancing supervisor behaviours were more formal, status conscious and imposing in India (a high power distance culture) than in the Netherlands (a low power distance culture); unlike in India, supervisors acted more like friends or equals with their subordinates in the Netherlands. Using vignettes, Study 2 found that, compared to informal support behaviours, formal support behaviours increased both affect- and cognition-based trust among Indian participants, but among US participants, …

Formal Versus Informal Supervisor Socio-Emotional Support Behaviors And Employee Trust: The Role Of Cultural Power Distance, Jaee Cho, S. Arzu Wasti, Krishna Savani, Hwee Hoon Tan, Michael W. Morris

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This research investigates how formal versus informal supervisor support behaviours shape employees' affect- and cognition-based trust across cultures of varying power distance. Using data from in-depth interviews, Study 1 found that trust-enhancing supervisor behaviours were more formal, status conscious and imposing in India (a high power distance culture) than in the Netherlands (a low power distance culture); unlike in India, supervisors acted more like friends or equals with their subordinates in the Netherlands. Using vignettes, Study 2 found that, compared to informal support behaviours, formal support behaviours increased both affect- and cognition-based trust among Indian participants, but among US participants, …

3 Groundless Myths That Get In The Way Of Workforce Inclusivity, Kenneth T. Goh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In a commentary, SMU Associate Professor of Strategy & Entrepreneurship (Education) Kenneth Goh discussed and debunked three groundless myths that get in the way of workforce inclusivity. He also called for companies to seek expert advice from relevant agencies and explore partnerships with institutions of higher learning, such as SMU, to pursue inclusivity in a sustainable manner. He added that SMU provides its students opportunities to work with companies and examine the feasibility of their inclusivity initiatives as part of their coursework.

Effects Of A Mindfulness-Based Leadership Training On Leadership Behaviors And Effectiveness, Nina Tan, Eva Katharina Peters, Jochen Reb

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Objectives: Organizations increasingly integrate mindfulness elements into their leadership development. However, there is limited evidence supporting the efficacy of mindfulness-based leadership training (MBLT) due to a scarcity of intervention studies. Theoretically, little is known about mediating mechanisms through which MBLT might affect leadership effectiveness. Thus, this research examined whether MBLT can improve leadership effectiveness and whether leadership behaviors mediated this effect.MethodsWe conducted a quasi-experimental study conducted in a real-world setting with an active control condition. Sixty leaders from various industries participated in either a 2-day intensive MBLT workshop followed by three individual coaching sessions over 3 months, or a presentation …

Addressing Secondary Traumatic Stress, Burnout, Resilience And Turnover In The Child Welfare Workforce: Results From A 6-Month, Cluster-Randomized Control Trial Of Resilience Alliance, Rebecca Orsi-Hunt, Courtney L. Harrison, Kayla E. Rockwell, Anita P. Barbee

QIC-WD Journal Articles

Introduction: US child welfare agencies have historically struggled with workforce retention and turnover. As part of the Quality Improvement Center for Workforce Development in Child Welfare, we tested an adaptation of the Resilience Alliance (RA) model in a large, Midwestern state to address workplace stress, burnout and actual workforce turnover. RA is a 24-week, facilitated program designed to mitigate the impact of secondary traumatic stress among child welfare professionals, and to therefore increase job satisfaction, resilience and optimism and to decrease turnover, stress reactivity and burnout.

Methods: Supervisory units of caseworkers and supervisors were randomized to the RA treatment …

Mindfully Outraged: Mindfulness Increases Deontic Retribution For Third-Party Injustice, Adam A. Kay, Theodore Charles Masters-Waage, Jochen Reb, Pavlos A. Vlachos

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Mindfulness is known to temper negative reactions by both victims and perpetrators of injustice. Accordingly, critics claim that mindfulness numbs people to injustice, raising concerns about its moral implications. Exam-ining how mindful observers respond to third-party injustice, we integrate mindfulness with deontic justice theory to propose that mindfulness does not numb but rather enlivens people to injustice committed by others against others. Results from three studies show that mindfulness heightens moral outrage in witnesses of injustice, particularly when the injustice is only moderate. Although these findings did not replicate with a mindfulness induction, post-hoc analysis in a fourth study reveals …

Engaging Students Through Conversational Chatbots And Digital Content: A Climate Action Perspective, Thomas Menkhoff, Benjamin Gan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this case study, we report experiences developing a conversational chatbot as a pre-class and post-class engagement tool for undergraduate students enrolled in sustainability-related courses aimed at educating them about the severity of climate change and the importance of climate action by offsetting one’s carbon footprint (e.g, by planting trees or mangroves in SEA). The intitiative supports the university’s sustainability efforts in general and our new sustainability major in particular aimed at helping students to achieve sustainability-related learning outcomes with reference to climate change and climate action (SDG 13), one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United …

Following The "Iron Lady" And Finding A University: A Phenomenological Study Of Organizational Identity, Erin Pearson

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Higher education culture is steeped in institutional identity and ties to history. But what happens when that history is challenged, and an institution must change its name? While a merger was not initially intended for Kearney State College, merging into the University of Nebraska system was the only way to reflect the change and growth that emulated the type of institution it had become. By interviewing sixteen participants that lived the experience of the merge, a concise and collective history of the events that led to the creation of the University of Nebraska at Kearney was obtained and studied. Through …

Developing An Ecological Model Of Turnover Intent: Associations Among Child Welfare Caseworkers’ Characteristics, Lived Experience, Professional Attitudes, Agency Culture, And Proclivity To Leave, Dana M. Hollinshead, Rebecca Orsi

QIC-WD Journal Articles

Almost a quarter of the child welfare workforce leaves their job each year, and despite clarion calls over the decades, our insights into dynamics underlying turnover remain limited. Using survey data from 276 caseworkers in a Midwestern state, this analysis explores an array of personality, stress, attitudinal, and perception measures and their association with three measures of turnover intent: thinking about quitting, intending to search, and intent to leave. Findings indicate that controlling for demographic factors, burnout, and confidence in decision support from agency leadership had consistent and strong associations with all three outcomes (positive for burnout; negative for decision …

Employer Branding In The Healthcare Sector: The Role Of Instrumental And Symbolic Image Attributes Among Potential Applicants And Doctors, Jiaxin Luo, Aristides I. Ferreira, Filip Lievens, Beatriz R. Trigo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study draws from the instrumental-symbolic framework to analyze the employer image of public hospitals among final-year students and employed doctors. We examine the relative importance of perceived instrumental and symbolic employer image attributes in public hospitals in China among two groups of individuals (211 final-year students and 200 currently employed doctors). Both instrumental and symbolic attributes are significantly related to hospitals' attractiveness as an employer. Symbolic trait inferences explain incremental variance in employer attraction beyond instrumental attributes. Although both attributes explain similar portions of the variance in the two groups, the attributes that emerge as significantly related to hospitals' …

Consulting Staff On Change Management Initiatives Takes A Lot Of Valuable Time And Effort - Why Not Just Let The Decision Makers Get On With The Task?, Gerard Glynn, Kevin Byrne, Edward Sweeney

Conference proceedings

Purpose: The disciplines of organisation development (OD), organisational behaviour (OB) and supply chain management (SCM) share much in terms of the ongoing occurrence of change and how it is facilitated and managed. This paper utilises scenario foresight planning as an instrument of change management through the lens of OD, OB, and SCM. It gives particular emphasis on how the involvement and engagement of the people dimension [human supply chain continuum], contributes to the achievement of satisfactory outcomes. It seeks to outline progression in terms of both research into the fields and business process improvement. Design/Methodology/approach: The authors commenced an assessment …

The Potential And Peculiarities Of Perma: A Meta-Analysis Of Two Well-Being Measures With Working Samples, William P. Jimenez, Xiaoxiao Hu, Rebecca Garden, Asiye Zeytonli

Psychology Faculty Publications

In the first meta-analysis of the PERMA well-being framework (i.e., positive emotions, engagement, positive relationships, meaning, accomplishment), we cumulated 692 effect sizes (k = 33 independent samples, N = 10,050 workers). Average reliability did not meet the conventional ɑ = .70 threshold for engagement measured with the PERMA-Profiler or the Workplace PERMA Profiler or for negative emotions measured with the former. Overall, PERMA dimensions were strongly intercorrelated, and model comparisons suggested multidimensionality. We also summarized PERMA’s relationships with some conceptual antecedents (conscientiousness, loneliness); correlates (happiness, negative emotions); and outcomes (physical health, depressive symptoms, overall …

Impacts Of Covid-19 And The Policy Responses On The Aviation Industry., Islam Ahmed

Publications and Research

The objective of this paper is to explain the causal relationship between the impact of COVID-19 on the aviation sector and the policies initiated by the aviation authority such as the International Air Transport Authority (IATA), International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA). COVID-19 affected every sector of the business world, and obviously, the aviation sector was not out of its effects. According to the Director General and CEO Alexandre de Juniac, “The aviation industry is in crisis. Our business connects people. But owing to efforts to control the …

What Does It Look Like For Mental Healthcare Organizations To Be Healthy Places To Work? An Action Research Study, Stephanie L. Fox

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Mental healthcare organizations have a reputation for being unhealthy places to work. The irony of this reputation is keenly felt by its workforce who report unsustainable workloads, high levels of stress, and lack of support or engagement from higher-level leadership. As a mental healthcare provider now in a position of leadership, who has worked across all levels of care within the sector, it was of interest to me to explore how a mental health organization can become a healthier and more sustainable place to work. I approached this study with the assumption that if an organization was healthy and intentional …

Fear And Trembling While Working In A Pandemic: An Exploratory Meta-Analysis Of Workers’ Covid-19 Distress, William P. Jimenez, Ian M. Katz, Elissa A. Liguori

Psychology Faculty Publications

The global COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the lives of workers and taken its toll on health and well-being. In line with recent calls for more inductive and abductive occupational health science research, we exploratorily meta-analyzed workers’ COVID-19 distress, defined as psychological and psychosomatic strain contextualized to experiencing the virus and pandemic broadly. We identified many existing COVID-19 distress measures (e.g., Fear of COVID-19 Scale by Ahorsu et al., 2020; Coronavirus Anxiety Scale by Lee, 2020a) and correlates, including demographic variables (viz., gender, marital status, whether worker has children), positive well-being (e.g., quality of life, perceived social support, resilience), negative well-being …

What You See Is What You Get? Measuring Companies' Projected Employer Image Attributes Via Companies' Employment Webpages, Christian P. Theurer, Philipp Schapers, Andranik Tumasjan, Isabell M. Welpe, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Information on a company's employment webpage sends signals about the employer image the company intends to project to applicants. Nonetheless, we know little about the content of recruitment signals sent via company employment webpages. This study develops a method to measure companies' projected employer image attributes based on their employment webpages. Specifically, we analyze companies' projected employer image attributes by applying computer-aided text analysis (CATA) to the employment webpages of 461 Fortune 500 companies (i.e., more than 11,100 individual pages). Our results show that projected employer image attributes remain relatively stable over time. Moreover, we find relatively low levels of …

Employer Image Within And Across Industries: Moving Beyond Assessing Points-Of-Relevance To Identifying Points-Of-Difference, Greet Van Hoye, Filip Lievens, Bert Weijters, Saartje Cromheecke

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study draws from brand positioning research to introduce the notions of points-of-relevance and points-of-difference to employer image research. Similar to prior research, this means that we start by investigating the relevant image attributes (points-of-relevance) that potential applicants use for judging organizations' attractiveness as an employer. However, we go beyond past research by examining whether the same points-of-relevance are used within and across industries. Next, we further extend current research by identifying which of the relevant image attributes also serve as points-of-difference for distinguishing between organizations and industries. The sample consisted of 24 organizations from 6 industries (total N = …

Values Assessment For Personnel Selection: Comparing Job Applicants To Non-Applicants, Jeromy Anglim, Karlyn Molloy, Patrick D. Dunlop, Simon L. Albrecht, Filip Lievens, Marty Andrew

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Some scholars suggest that organizations could improve their hiring decisions by measuring the personal values of job applicants, arguing that values provide insights into applicants’ cultural fit, retention prospects, and performance outcomes. However, others have expressed concerns about response distortion and faking. The current study provides the first large-scale investigation of the effect of the job applicant context on the psychometric structure and scale means of a self-reported values measure. Participants comprised 7,884 job applicants (41% male; age M = 43.32, SD = 10.76) and a country-, age-, and gender-matched comparison sample of 1,806 non-applicants (41% male; age M = …

A Look At Contributing Factors That Affect Female Underrepresentation In Management, In The United States, Nushine W. Hosseini

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines contributing factors that affect female underrepresentation in management, in the United States (U.S.), within the U.S. workforce. The primary variables of interest are intrinsic motivation, work life balance and organizational climate support, which have typically not been reviewed in depth, in prior research.

Using a framework of varied theoretical approaches, this research studies the relationship between the above-mentioned constructs and gender effect, as related to interest in career advancement opportunities and female leadership underrepresentation within organizations.

The results of this study further validate existing research and highlights the importance of establishing programs, geared towards shifting mindsets and …

Is Generational Diversity Good For Engagement? Generational Diversity's Moderation Of The Relationship Between An Employee's Perception Of Leadership Effectiveness And Their Own Engagement, Matthew J. Baumann

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation manuscript is rooted in the notion that an employee’s perception of their immediate supervisor’s leadership effectiveness, and the associated social exchange, are significant contributors to their engagement. Engagement, when consistently elevated, results in positive organizational outcomes. While perceived leadership effectiveness and engagement present a relatively intuitive connection, other less clearly defined factors might moderate this relationship. These factors include a myriad of supervisor and employee traits and behaviors, many of which represent levels and dimensions of diversity. Diversity, when misunderstood and subsequently over or underestimated, can result in unforeseen impact to organizational outcomes. One critical diversity construct is …

Hiring People With Disabilities From An Employer’S Perspective And Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Claude B. Kershner Iv

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

When employers hire people with disabilities, collective behavioral change occurs within organizations. Specifically, attitudes towards people with disabilities improve through professional interventions and encourage organizational citizenship behavior. Previous studies have demonstrated the economic and client-focused impact of hiring people with disabilities — resulting in a tested model of competitive integrated employment. This study indicates that — when organizations employ best practices when integrating people with disabilities into the workplace — there is a performance-based behavioral change in non-disabled employees.

This study uses intergroup contact theory and social exchange theory to develop a model and a corresponding survey instrument that measures …

The Relationship Between Perceived Organizational Support, Perceived Career Mobility, Job Satisfaction, And Organizational Commitment On Job Performance, And Turnover Intentions, Everod A. Davis

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research was intended to develop and test a model that examines the influence of perceived organizational support, perceived career mobility, job satisfaction, and affective organizational commitment on contextual job performance and turnover intentions. To do so, the study integrates three major theories to help explain the hypothesized relationships. For example, drawing on the concept of organizational equilibrium (March & Simon, 1958), which provides the foundational literature on turnover intentions, we use social exchange theory (Blau, 1964; Homans, 1961; Thibaut & Kelley, 1959) to explain the influence of perceived organizational support. Theories of human capital and economic opportunity are used …

Gender, Bottom-Line Mentality, And Workplace Mistreatment: The Roles Of Gender Norm Violation And Team Gender Composition, Kenneth Tai, Kiyoung Lee, Eugene Kim, Tiffany D. Johnson, Wei Wang, Michelle K. Duffy, Seongsu Kim

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Although gender has been identified as an important antecedent in workplace mistreatment research, empirical research has shown mixed results. Drawing on role congruity theory, we propose an interactive effect of gender and bottom-line mentality on being the target of mistreatment. Across two field studies, our results showed that whereas women experienced more mistreatment when they had higher levels of bottom-line mentality, men experienced more mistreatment when they had lower levels of bottom-line mentality. In another field study, using round-robin survey data, we found that team gender composition influenced the degree to which the adoption of a bottom-line mentality by female …

The Effect Of Formal Time Allocations On Learning Trajectories And Performance, Kenneth T. Goh, Colin M. Fisher, S. Amy Sommer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Organizational teams face important challenges with non-obvious solutions. For a solution to emerge, trial-and-error experimentation may be necessary with multiple iterations. We develop and test a theory for how the allocation of time for action and transition phases in teams affect group learning trajectories and performance. We argue that allocating more time for transition phases induces steeper learning trajectories that engender a positive group atmosphere, which in turn improves team outcomes by improving coordination quality. We tested our hypotheses in a laboratory experiment with 62 groups (186 individuals) performing a creative design task over multiple iterations. Results of latent growth …

How Employees Learn To Speak Up From Their Leaders: Gender Congruity Effects In The Development Of Voice Self-Efficacy, Thomas Taiyi Yan, Subrahmaniam Tangirala, Abhijeet K. Vadera, Srinivas Ekkirala

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Voice-or the expression of ideas, concerns, or opinions on work issues by employees-can help organizations thrive. However, we highlight that men and women differ in their voice self-efficacy, or the personal confidence in formulating and articulating work-related viewpoints. Such differences, we argue, can impede women's voice from emerging at work. Drawing on social cognitive theory (SCT), we propose that women tend to develop greater voice self-efficacy and thereby speak up more when they have the opportunity to observe female rather than male leaders speak up. Hence, we point to the potential absence of women leaders who can role model speaking …

Linking Authentic Leadership With Employee Initiative Behavior And Task Performance: The Mediating Role Of Emotional Sharing And Communication Satisfaction, Jeong Sik Kim, Jong Gyu Park, Hyun Jung Park

Publications and Research

Our study aims to explore the process through which authentic leadership leads to employees’ initiative behavior and task performance. In particular, we focused on the mediating roles of emotional sharing and communication satisfaction. Based on data collected from 242 employee-supervisor dyads, we found that authentic leadership was significantly related to emotional sharing, which was sequentially significantly related to communication satisfaction. Communication satisfaction was significantly associated with initiative behavior and task performance. In addition, emotional sharing and communication satisfaction played significant mediating roles not only in the relationship between authentic leadership and initiative behavior, but also in the relationship between authentic …

Mindfulness Attenuates Both Emotional And Behavioral Reactions Following Psychological Contract Breach: A Two-Stage Moderated Mediation Model, Samah Shaffakat, Lilian Otaye-Ebede, Jochen Reb, Rajesh Chandwani, Pisitta Vongswasdi

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Breach of the psychological contract between organization and employee often evokes employee hostility, which in turn can instigate deviant behaviors. We examine whether employee mindfulness attenuates these reactions to psychological contract breach. Specifically, we develop and test a two-stage moderated mediation model in which employee mindfulness moderates the mediational path from psychological contract breach via hostility to deviance by attenuating both emotional and behavioral reactions. Findings across four studies (with 872 employee participants) both measuring and manipulating breach and mindfulness demonstrate substantial support for the proposed model. Further analyses including alternative moderators, mediators, and dependent variables provide evidence for discriminatory …