Organizational Behavior and Theory Commons^™

The Many Faces Of Class Ceiling: Its Manifestations At Different Career Stages And Ways To Overcome It, Jia Hui Lim

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Even with comparable education and level of competence, workers with lower socioeconomic status (SES) origins are disadvantaged in terms of earnings and occupational attainment. This class gap, or the “class ceiling,” is as large as the gender gap, but poorly understood. In my dissertation, I designed a series of related projects to explain and potentially mitigate the class ceiling problem. Across three projects, I mainly focused on where the problem starts—labor market and newcomer adjustment in organizations. I find that, beyond discrimination and bias that has been the focus of past work, many challenges stem from workers’ own psychology and …

Pressure To Be Creative: How Employees Respond To Organizational Creativity Pressure, Hye Jung Eun

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Creativity and innovation are vital for organizational growth and success, driving many organizations to increase pressure for employee creativity. Yet, researchers have neglected investigating how employees respond to creativity pressure at the workplace. This dissertation introduces and develops a new scale for the concept of organizational creativity pressure – the pressure on employees to continually develop novel and useful ideas and solutions. The scale is further validated through extensive assessment of content and construct validity, empirically differentiating the construct from similar others such as performance pressure and support for creativity.

Drawing on the transactional theory of stress (Lazarus & Folkman, …

Inspire But Don't Interfere: Managerial Influence As A Double-Edged Sword For Innovation, Fabiola Gerpott, Ronald Bledow, Jana Kuehnel

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Managers play a pivotal role in the innovation process; yet, the mechanisms through which managers enhance or undermine innovation are not well understood. Drawing upon self-concordance theory, we argue that managers can augment employees' self-concordance—defined as the congruence of goals and actions with inner values and preferences—through transformational behavior and thereby contribute to innovation. However, transformational behavior is closely coupled to another form of influence, namely, process management, the attempt to directly manage innovation-related activities. This form of managerial influence reduces employees' self-concordance and thereby undermines innovation. We test our conceptual model in a sample of 188 innovation projects using …

Myth Busted: Why Increased Diversity Doesn't Always Improve Performance, Richard Holden

Perspectives@SMU

Greater diversity doesn't necessarily equal better performance, and organisations still have to be mindful of how diversity is managed in order to improve performance, writes UNSW Business School's Richard Holden

Hidden Framings And Hidden Asymmetries In The Measurement Of Personality: A Combined Lens-Model And Frame-Of-Reference Perspective, Julian Schulze, Stephen G. West, Jan-Philipp Freudenstein, Philipp Schaepers, Patrick Mussel, Michael Eid, Stefan Krumm

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Objective: The symmetry principle and the frame-of-reference perspective have each made contributions to improving the measurement of personality. Although each perspective is valuable in its own right, we argue that even greater improvement can be achieved through the combination of both. Therefore, the goal of the current article was to show the value of a combined lens-model and frame-of-reference perspective. Method We conducted a literature review to summarize relevant research findings that shed light on the interplay of both perspectives and developed an integrative model. Results: Based on the literature review and on theoretical grounds, we argue that a basic …

Assessing Personality Dynamics In Personnel Selection, Joanna Sosnowska, Joeri Hofmans, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Recently, there have been repeated calls in the literature for an integrative approach to personality, in which both between- and within-person fluctuations are simultaneously considered. Although the integrative approach to personality offers a compelling extension of the traditional trait approach, one of the major challenges is its applicability in applied settings. In the present chapter, we address this challenge for the domain of personnel selection, showing that an integrative approach to personality assessment in selection settings is possible through careful consideration of available theories and selection methods. By explaining and delineating how existing concepts can be used and how existing …

A Self-Regulation Model Of Leader Authenticity Based On Mindful Self-Regulated Attention And Political Skill, Erik Dietl, Jochen Reb

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Despite much research on leader authenticity, its antecedents remain poorly understood. We develop a self-regulatory model of leader authenticity. The model explains how both mindful self-regulated attention and political skill, as well as their interaction, are important for leaders to be authentic, and ultimately effective. Mindful self-regulated attention – a core dimension of mindfulness defined as sustained attention centered on the present moment – helps leaders stay connected to their core self amid the busyness of their (work) lives, allowing leaders to feel authentic. And, particularly in combination with political skill – a social effectiveness construct –, it helps leaders …

Are Native Plants Green? Assessing Environmental Performances Of Locally-Owned Facilities, Narae Lee, Jiao Luo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We study the impact of corporate ownership and community conditions on firm environmental pollution. While the existing literature often thinks of environmental pollution as a unitary construct, we emphasize the distinction between toxic emissions, which have immediate but locally bounded impact, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions which have gradual but global impact, producing climate change. Using a facility-level panel of all manufacturing facilities in the US from 2010-2018, and leveraging within-facility changes in ownership status, we show that locally owned firms have lower levels of toxic emissions, but they are also less likely to report GHG emissions, and have higher …

Introduction To The Special Issue On “Grassroots And Inclusive Innovations: Conceptualizing Synergies And Complementarities”, Wee Liang Tan, Partha Gangopadhyay, Oscar Hauptman

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This special issue was initiated in 2016 by the three co-editors with a “Call for Papers” (Gangopadhyay et al., 2016). After significant delays starting with co-editors’ health and other personal issues, and ending with the COVID-19 Pandemic, the task of finalizing the special issue is reaching conclusion and it is time to take stock of the intellectual content. The objective of this introduction is to enable the audience to make easier sense when perusing the papers selected in a broader context, guided by conceptual framing.

Transaction Cost Theory: Past Progress, Current Challenges, And Suggestions For The Future, Ilya Cuypers, Jean-Francois Hennart, Brian S. Silverman, Gokhan Ertug

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Transaction cost theory (TCT) has been fruitfully applied to a wide range of organizational phenomena, as reflected in a vast and evolving body of research. However, in part due to the theory’s broad success, important advances in some fields do not diffuse to other fields. In this essay, we lay out a path toward a pluralistic view of TCT that incorporates insights from multiple fields, primarily strategy and international business. In so doing, we critically assess the assumptions, key constructs, and evolving theoretical logic of TCT. We then propose an agenda for future research, highlighting opportunities for scholars to (1) …

Mind Your Language: The Effects Of Linguistic Ostracism On Interpersonal Work Behaviors, John Fiset, Devasheesh P. Bhave

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Business and demographic trends are conflating to bring language issues at work to the forefront. Although language has an inherent capacity for creating interpersonal bonds, it can also serve as a means of exclusion. The construct of linguistic ostracism encapsulates this phenomenon. Drawing on ethnolinguistic identity theory, we identify how linguistic ostracism influences two interpersonal work behaviors: interpersonal citizenship and interpersonal deviance. We conduct a set of studies that uses multisource data, data across time, and data from three countries. Our results reveal that linguistic ostracism was associated with the enactment of lower interpersonal citizenship behaviors and higher interpersonal deviance …

Transparency And Control In Email Communication: The More The Supervisor Is Put In Cc The Less Trust Is Felt, Tessa Haesevoets, David De Cremer, Leander De Schutter, Jack Mcguire, Yu Yang, Xie Jian, Alain Van Hiel

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The issue of trust has increasingly attracted attention in the business ethics literature. Our aim is to contribute further to this literature by examining how the use of the carbon copy (cc) function in email communication influences felt trust. We develop the argument that the use of cc enhances transparency—representing an important characteristic of workplace ethics—and hence promotes trust. We further argue that a downside of the cc option may be that it can also be experienced as a control mechanism, which may therefore negatively affect trust. The results of our first study showed that the use of cc indeed …

Enabling Singapore's Youths To Adapt In An Era Of Climate Change, Thomas Menkhoff, Mark Chong, Benjamin Gan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Nudging them towards more eco-friendly behavioural habits is arguably a feasible approach to build greater climate resilience.

Covid-19 And The Workplace: Implications, Issues, And Insights For Future Research And Action, Kevin M. Kniffin, Jayanth Narayanan, Frederik Anseel, John Antonakis, Susan P. Ashford, Arnold B. Bakker, Peter Bamberger, Hari Bapuji, Devasheesh P. Bhave, Virginia K. Choi, Stefanie J. Creary, Evangelia Demerouti, Francis J. Flynn, Michele J. Gelfand, Lindred L. Greer, Gary Johns, Selin Kesebir, Peter G. Klein, Sun Young Lee, Hakan Ozcelik, Jennifer Louise Petriglieri, Nancy P. Rothbard, Cort W. Rudolph, Jason D. Shaw, Nina Sirola

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

COVID-19’s impacts on workers and workplaces across the globe have been dramatic. We present a broad review of prior research rooted in work and organizational psychology, and related fields, for making sense of the implications for employees, teams, and work organizations. Our review and preview of relevant literatures focuses on: (i) emerging changes in work practices (e.g., working from home, virtual teams) and (ii) economic and social psychological impacts (e.g, unemployment, mental well-being). In addition, we examine the potential moderating factors of age, race and ethnicity, gender, family status, personality, andcultural differences to generate disparate effects. Illustrating the benefits of …

Getting Undergraduates Ready For China’S Belt And Road Initiative (Bri) Through An Overseas Experiential Learning Project, China And The World: Ancient And Modern Silk Road, Andrew Chin, Thomas Menkhoff, Hans-Dieter Evers, Hoong Hui Daniel Gn, Kevin Koh, Chester Wey Lee, Patrick Loh, Linda Low, Sebastian Tan, Teng Seng Teo, Natalie Yap

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this paper, we explain how an experiential learning course and study tour to Gansu Province (People’s Republic of China) enabled undergraduates at the Singapore Management University (SMU) to acquire 21st-century competencies and higher-order thinking skills by analyzing and evaluating specific aspects of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and China–Singapore (Chongqing) Connectivity Initiative — New International Land–Sea Trade Corridor (CCI-ILSTC) with emphasis on developing viable Go-To-Market (GTM) strategies aimed at selling Gansu produce in four Southeast Asian markets. We share how the course was designed to support the attainment of key learning goals and discuss how we turned pedagogical …

Situational Judgment Tests: From Low-Fidelity Simulations To Alternative Measures Of Personality And The Person-Situation Interplay, Filip Lievens, Philipp Schäpers, Christoph N. Herde

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In employment and education settings, Situational Judgment Tests (SJTs) have made strong inroads. So far, however, they are still underutilized in personality research. The objective of this chapter is to outline how SJTs might be adapted to measure personality traits, shed light onto the person-situation interplay, and stimulate research on it. We start by discussing the traditional simulation-based view on SJTs, including information on their development and research results. Next, we show how more recent versions have started to assess people’s knowledge of relevant behavior related to personality traits. Finally, we specify various strategies as to how SJTs might be …

Prompt-Specificity In Scenario-Based Assessments: Associations With Personality Versus Knowledge And Effects On Predictive Validity, Thomas Rockstuhl, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Many scenario-based assessments (e.g., interviews, assessment center exercises, work samples, simulations, and situational judgment tests) use prompts (i.e., cues provided to respondents to increase the likelihood that the information received from them is clear, sufficient, and job-related). However, a dilemma for practitioners and researchers is how general or specific one should prompt people's answers. We posit that such differences in prompt-specificity (i.e., extent to which prompts cue performance criteria) have important implications for the predictive validity of scenario-based assessment scores. Drawing on the interplay of situation construal and situational strength theory, we propose that prompt-specificity leads to differential relationships between …

The Role Of Employee Proactive Behaviors In Influencing Supervisors’ Trust In Employees, Ngai Meng Ho

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

In organizations, proactive employees make things happen. They anticipate, initiate, and drive meaningful changes for a better future. Such proactive behaviors can be manifested in different forms. Initiating work improvements and voicing for changes are examples of the different proactive behaviors commonly demonstrated by employees.

Empirical studies have associated proactive behaviors at work with a range of positive workplace outcomes. However, only limited research has examined how proactive behaviors might be related to one particularly important outcome, trust, i.e., whether an employee’s proactive behaviors will influence the supervisor’s trust toward the employee. Accordingly, in this present research, I conducted two …

Kin Ties And The Performance Of New Firms: A Structural Approach, Gokhan Ertug, Reddi Kotha, Peter Hedstrom

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Kin ties are all but ubiquitous in new firms. However, their effects on performance are not straightforward, because they may provide new firms with advantages (enhanced coordination and cooperation) as well as disadvantages (reduced diversity, nepotism concerns, and the possible spillover of personal conflict). As kin ties may have both positive and negative implications for performance, a contingency approach to the performance of new firms is valuable. We develop such an approach by relating different structural configurations of kin ties – whether they are between founders, between founders and employees, and between employees – to the performance of new firms. …

What's On Job Seekers' Social Media Sites? A Content Analysis And Effects Of Structure On Recruiter Judgments And Predictive Validity, Liwen Zhang, Chad H. Van Iddekinge, John D. Arnold, Philip L. Roth, Filip Lievens, Stephen E. Lanivich, Samantha L. Jordan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Many organizational representatives review social media (SM) information (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) when recruiting and assessing job applicants. Despite this, very little empirical data exist concerning the SM information available to organizations or whether assessments of such information are a valid predictor of work outcomes. This multi-study investigation examines several critical issues in this emerging area. In Study 1, we conducted a content analysis of job seekers’ Facebook sites (n = 266) and found that these sites often provide demographic variables that U.S. employment laws typically prohibit organizations from using when making personnel decisions (e.g., age, ethnicity, religion), as well as …

Covid-19, Coronavirus, Wuhan Virus, Or China Virus? Understanding How To “Do No Harm" When Naming An Infectious Disease, Theodore C. Masters-Waage, Nilotpal Jha, Jochen Reb

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

When labeling an infectious disease, officially sanctioned scientific names, e.g., “H1N1 virus,” are recommended over place-specific names, e.g., “Spanish flu.” This is due to concerns from policymakers and the WHO that the latter might lead to unintended stigmatization. However, with little empirical support for such negative consequences, authorities might be focusing on limited resources on an overstated issue. This paper empirically investigates the impact of naming against the current backdrop of the 2019-2020 pandemic.

Motivation Purity Bias: Expression Of Extrinsic Motivation Undermines Perceived Intrinsic Motivation And Engenders Bias In Selection Decisions, Rellie Derfler-Rozin, Marko Pitesa

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Organizational selection decisions often involve an exchange of information between candidates and decision makers as to why candidates are motivated to work in the given position. Drawing on popular management myths as our overarching framework, we theorize that candidates’ expressions of extrinsic motivation lead decision makers to infer that the candidate is less intrinsically motivated, leading to bias against such candidates. We term this effect motivation purity bias, and argue that it emerges despite ample evidence, which we review, showing that penalizing expressed extrinsic motivation is not only unfair to candidates but also counterproductive from the standpoint of maximizing future …

Predicting Counterproductive Work Behavior: Do Implicit Motives Have Incremental Validity Beyond Explicit Traits?, J. Malte Runge, Jonas W. B. Lang, Ingo Zettler, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study extends research on the link between personality and Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWB) by investigating whether the implicit Affiliation, Achievement, and Power motives contribute to the prediction of CWB beyond basic personality traits. Employees high in Affiliation, Achievement, and Power motives may disengage from CWB because it is not rewarding and thwarts goal attainment. In Study 1 (N = 263), we found that Affiliation predicted self-rated CWB beyond traits. In Study 2 (N = 121), we found that Affiliation and Power predicted supervisor-rated CWB. Our findings thus suggest to also consider implicit motives as personality determinants of CWB.

What Has Changed? The Impact Of Covid Pandemic On The Technology And Innovation Management Research Agenda, Gerard George, Karim R. Lakhani, Phanish Puranam

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Whereas the pandemic has tested the agility and resilience of organizations, it forces a deeper look at the assumptions underlying theoretical frameworks that guide managerial decisions and organizational practices. In this commentary, we explore the impact of the Covid‐19 pandemic on technology and innovation management research. We identify key assumptions, and then discuss how new areas of investigation emerge based on the changed reality.

Employees’ Ritual Sense In Organization: A Scale Development Study And Effects Of Ritual Sense On Employee Outcomes, Jun Liang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

The present research is focused on the topic of organizational rituals. On the basis of reviewing existing studies of organizational rituals, the present investigation (1) developed the scale of employees’ ritual sense and (2) empirically tested the effects of ritual sense in impacting employees’ workplace consequences. Two independent studies were conducted to develop the scale of employees’ ritual sense and to investigate how and when ritual sense is associated with employees’ workplace outcomes. Specifically, using data collected from 418 employees in China, Study 1 develops and validates an individual level measure of employee’s ritual sense. Collecting another sample of 453 …

Personnel Selection: A Longstanding Story Of Impact At The Individual, Firm, And Societal Level, Filip Lievens, Paul R. Sackett, Charlene Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper discusses how and why the field of personnel selection has made a long-lasting mark in work and organizational psychology. We start by outlining the importance and relevance of the well-established analytical framework (criterion-related validity, incremental validity, utility) for examining the impact of selection at the individual (job performance) level. We also document the substantive criterion-related validities of most common selection procedures on the basis of cumulative meta-analytic research. Next, we review more recent research that investigated the impact of selection at the more macro organizational (firm performance) level. We show that the positive relationship between selection and performance …

Outcomes Of An Expert Survey: Are Singapore’S Manufacturing Small And Medium Enterprises Ready To Embrace Industry 4.0, Gopalakrishnan Surianarayanan, Thomas Menkhoff

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Industry 4.0 encompasses adopting opportunities from end-to-end digitalisation with connected computers and increasingly autonomous automation systems equipped with intelligent machine learning algorithms that control the robotics without much input from humans. Smart manufacturing technologies (a part of the smart industry, an extension of Industry 4.0 initiatives and implementation) involve automating various processes. It aims to connect various units in real-time while enhancing profitability by reducing costs, increasing labour productivity, and improving overall efficiency. The impetus for our paper is the assumption that the adoption of smart manufacturing technologies such as advanced robotics, cyber-physical systems, or the Internet of Things (IoT) …

I Don't Want To Go Back: Examining The Return To Physical Workspaces During Covid-19, Zihan Liu, Drake Van Egdom, Rhona Flin, Christiane Spitzmueller, Omolola Adepoju, Ramanan Krishnamoorti

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Objective: We study employee perspectives on return to physical workspaces to ultimately inform employers' and policy makers' decision making around the return to work during COVID-19. Methods: We tested the three-component conceptual model using survey data collected in the United States in May 2020 from samples of energy workers (N = 333). Results: Women, non-Caucasians, and employees living in multi-generational households were less willing to return. Concerns about childcare were negatively related to willingness to return, whereas organizational strategies for mitigating COVID-19 transmission at work were positively related to willingness to return. COVID-19 infections in an employees' network were also …

When And Why Narcissists Exhibit Greater Hindsight Bias And Less Perceived Learning, Satoris S. Howes, Edgar E. Kausel, Alexander T. Jackson, Jochen Reb

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The present research sought to examine the impact of narcissism, prediction accuracy, and should counterfactual thinking—which includes thoughts such as “I should have done something different”—on hindsight bias (the tendency to exaggerate in hindsight what one knew in foresight) and perceived learning. To test these effects, we conducted four studies (total n = 727). First, in Study 1 we examined a moderated mediation model, in which should counterfactual thinking mediates the relation between narcissism and hindsight bias, and this mediation is moderated by prediction accuracy such that the relationship is negative when predictions are accurate and positive when predictions are …

How The Use Of Cc, Bcc, Forward, And Rewrite In Email Communication Impacts Team Dynamics, Tessa Haesevaets, David De Cremer, Jack Mcguire

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The present research examined how the use of different email functions impact dynamics between team members. We first illustrate that it is not so uncommon for employees to find out that the Bcc option has been used in email communications at work. Building on this insight, we then demonstrate that senders using the Bcc option are evaluated by recipients as less moral and consequently as less fitting to be the team leader compared to senders who use the Cc option. Interestingly, this effect occurred regardless of whether or not the sender provided a commonly cited reason for Bcc use. Next, …