Industrial and Organizational Psychology Commons^™

Seeking Quality Mentors: Exploring Program Design Characteristics To Increase An Individual’S Likelihood To Participate As A Mentor, Kristen Voetmann

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

Previous mentoring research has focused on informal mentoring relationships, but as formal mentoring programs proliferate throughout organizations as a means to train and retain high-quality employees, there is a need for more empirical research investigating the specific elements of formal mentoring programs that positively impact their success. The purpose of the current study, therefore, is to explore the causal relationship between formal mentoring program design characteristics and the likelihood that a qualified individual will choose to participate as a mentor. This relationship is examined through the hypothesized mediator of potential mentors’ perceptions of organizational support. Participants were recruited through Amazon’s …

Validation Of The Transformative Work In Society Index: Christianity, Work, And Economics Integration, John R. Terrill

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

In recent years, concern for faith-work integration has evolved from a special interest to a sustained movement within workplace and ecclesiastical communities. This study’s purpose is to validate the Transformative Work in Society Index (TWSI) exploring Christian faith, work, and economics integration within the larger nomological net of workplace spirituality, organizational outcomes, and faith maturity measures. The TWSI incorporates the full affective, behavioral, and cognitive dimensions of what it means to be agentic human beings at work. A total of 405 participants who self-identified as Christians took part in this study (40.2% female; mean age = 46 years; mean as …

Predicting Employee Performance Using Text Data From Resumes, Joshua D. Weaver

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

Text analytics using term frequency was proposed as an extension of biodata for predicting job performance and addressing criticisms of biodata and predictor methods—that they do not identify the constructs they are measuring or their predictive elements. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software was used to analyze and sort text into validated categories. Prolific Academic was used to recruit full-time workers who provided a copy of their resume and were assessed on impression management (IM), cognitive ability, and job performance. Predictive analyses used resumes with 100+ words (n = 667), whereas correlational analyses used the full sample (N …

Approaching Stressful Situations With Purpose: Strategies For Emotional Regulation In Sensitive People, Amy D. Nagley

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to evaluate strategies for emotional self-regulation (EMSR) in highly sensitive people (HSPs) under pressure. Specifically, a model of EMSR was evaluated through a moderated-mediation design with two manipulations across two experiments. A total of 445 individuals participated in the current study (52% female), all of which were US citizens. Results suggested that the relationship between sense of purpose (SoP) and EMSR was moderated by focus on potential (FoP). Specifically, SoP significantly impacted FoP, b = .89, t = 5.23, p < .01, FoP significantly impacted EMSR, b = 1.11, t = 5.88, p < .01, and the Sobel test suggested a significant indirect effect, z = 3.91, p < .01.

The hypothesis that …

The Psychometric Evaluation Of A Personality Selection Tool, James R. Longabaugh

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

Personality is one of the primary ways that people are distinguished from one another on the basis of their unique tendencies and behavioral patterns. Decades of empirical research have yielded five primary personality traits which have consistently emerged, becoming known as the Five Factor Model (FFM). In particular, the FFM has been widely used in the employee selection realm. However, there have been mixed reviews as to how well the FFM of personality accomplishes that objective, with some research drawing into question the strength of the relationship between personality and job performance.

The purpose of the current investigation is to …

Am I A Good Leader? How Variations In Introversion/Extraversion Impact Leaders’ Core Self-Evaluations, Marisa N. Bossen

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

Leaders across the introversion/extraversion (I/E) spectrum may comparatively view themselves at a disadvantage when it comes to developing effective developmental relationships with their direct reports. This study investigated how a leader’s I/E typology, the number of direct reports (NoDR), and learning goal orientation (LGO) were related to their core self-evaluation (CSE) rating of their talent development role, through the lens of implicit leadership theory. An online survey was administered to 146 U.S. leaders (50% female) with an average age of 40 (SD = 11.5) who self-reported they had at least one direct report. The first hypothesis, that leaders would …

The Development Of Job-Based Psychological Ownership, Robert B. Bullock

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

Psychological ownership has come to light as an important state with strong implications on employee attitudes and behaviors. However, relatively little attention has been paid towards the process by which employees come to develop feelings of psychological ownership towards their work, particularly regarding the role played by individual traits in this process. Ownership theorists claim that personality and disposition should matter (Mayhew, Ashkanasy, Bramble, & Gardner, 2007; Pierce & Jussila, 2011), yet these claims remain largely untested.

The purpose of the current investigation is to address these gaps by exploring how employee disposition and job design contribute to the development …

Men And Women In Engineering: Professional Identity And Factors Influencing Workforce Retention, Caitlin Hawkinson Wasilewski

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

The purpose of this investigation was to gain insight into professional identity and retention in the field of engineering, for both men and women, in an effort to mitigate the shortage of engineers in the United States. Although past efforts have predominantly focused on improving women’s retention since they represent a significant minority of this population, retention should be addressed in men as well, as both typically leave engineering within 10 years of entering the workforce (Frehill, 2012).

Professional identity and retention were evaluated with a mixed methods approach using archival data from a previous investigation on degreed engineers. Professional …

Generational Differences In The Interaction Between Valuing Leisure And Having Work-Life Balance On Altruistic And Conscientious Behaviors, Sandeep Kaur Chahil

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

This study examined generational differences in the interaction between valuing leisure and having work-life balance to predict the extra-role behaviors of altruism and conscientiousness. I predicted that Millennial’s (b. 1981-2000) higher value of leisure and desire to have work-life balance would negatively influence their willingness to engage in organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Specifically, I hypothesized that a) Millennials would report valuing leisure more yet have less work-life balance compared to Baby Boomers (b. 1946-1965) and Gen Xers (b. 1966-1980); b) Baby Boomers would report higher levels of altruistic and conscientious behaviors and c) Millennials who showed a negative interaction of …

Managing Work And Life: The Impact Of Framing, Hilary G. Roche

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

The frame of mind with which one approaches work-life challenges can impact the decisions made, the roles a person invests in, and satisfaction with one’s decisions. The purpose of this study was threefold: 1) to review and compare the three traditional work-life frames of conflict, enrichment, and balance; 2) to introduce a new frame for work-life management, proactive reflection or “proflection,” and; 3) to test whether approaching work-life management with a particular frame differentially affects an individual’s work-life satisfaction when presented with a scenario with multiple role demands. It was hypothesized that enrichment, balance, and proflection frames will lead to …

Obtaining Sponsorship In Organizations By Developing Trust Through Outside Of Work Socialization, Katie Kirkpatrick-Husk

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

Sponsorship, defined as a relationship that produces objective career benefits for the person being sponsored, has recently grown in popularity in the media. This study sought to examine antecedents to sponsorship by testing the hypothesis that socializing outside of work with another individual leads to increased affect-based trust, which in turn positively affects the willingness to sponsor him or her. A dual-experimental design was employed to test this proposal in which the independent variable was manipulated in one experiment, and the mediator was manipulated in the second.

The study included 492 participants from the United States, 35% were female, and …