Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

An Examination Of Job Resources And Self-Determination In Employees' Job Involvement, Hernan Morales

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As employees and organizations continually strive to do more with less, the employer must remain an active partner in understanding the nature of their employee’s job involvement for its competitive advantage. The main objective of this research is to evaluate the influence of several work characteristics and motivational forces on job involvement. The study used a quantitative methodology. The sample of the current study was composed of 214 subjects. The reliability and factor structure of the scales used were evaluated and validated. The main results showed that intrinsic and prosocial motivations significantly influenced individual job involvement. Moreover, the results show …

The Role Of Sociocultural Factors On The Relationship Between (Un)Employment And Well-Being Of Latinx Emerging Adults During Covid-19, Chantal Nichole Martinez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and resulting recession have brought significant challenges for organizations and revealed deep-seated inequalities for employees of color. LatinX individuals, in particular, have experienced high rates of unemployment compared to their White and Black American counterparts and returned to work at a slower rate (BLS, 2020; 2021). As a result, organizational psychologists have been called to action to help understand the economic and psychological impacts of the recession on worker outcomes (e.g., unemployment, mental well-being). The objective of this collected papers dissertation is to a) take a culturally humble and strength-based approach to examine how the emerging …

A Mixed Methods Approach To Exploring Nurses’ Covid-19 Experiences And Identifying Effective Coping Strategies For Common Nurse Job Strains, Natalie Armenteros

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Given the substantial range of stressors exacerbated by COVID-19 and their detrimental effects on healthcare workers, researchers have called for a more thorough investigation into how COVID-19 has impacted the health and well-being of healthcare workers. With nurses working on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a sense of urgency to empirically gather information on these experiences, particularly for those working in epicenters of the outbreak. The primary goal of this collected papers dissertation is to help inform organizational policies and practices in the healthcare industry related to nurses’ health and well-being. As such, this dissertation utilized a …

Social Class And Workplace Norms: How African American And White Women And Men From Working-Class Backgrounds Learn Workplace Norms As They Experience Career Mobility, Anna Kallschmidt

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Professional workplace norms in the U.S., such as wearing a suit to an interview or offering a firm handshake as a greeting (Sharma & Sharma, 2012), are behaviors considered ideal among members of a specific occupation (Cohn et al., 2017). This project investigated how people from working-class backgrounds in the U.S. learned, adopted, and conformed to workplace norms as they moved from a lower-status to a higher-status position within their career. Guided by Intersectionality Theory, Cultural Mismatch Theory, and the Stereotype Content Model, these studies examined how workplace norms shifted as employees changed social class and interacted with employees’ racial …

Examining The Relationship Between Ideological Misfit And Employee Attitudes And Behaviors, Danilo R. Le Sante

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research in Organizational Psychology has just begun to unravel how political ideology manifests in the workplace (Bermiss & McDonald, 2018; Gupta & Wowak, 2017; Johnson & Roberto, 2018). Thanks to these recent contributions, new questions have emerged regarding the consequences associated with organizations taking polarizing political stances. For example, how do employees experience and express political ideology at work? Do employees attribute a political ideology to their industry and/or organization? What are the consequences of person-organization or person-industry ideological misfit? What can be done from an organization’s perspective to mitigate the negative outcomes associated with ideological misfit?

Using a mixed …

Peer2peer Support And Information Sharing Among After-School Staff: Promoting Emotional Well-Being Via Effectiveness And Connectedness, Rachel R. Ouellette

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study launches a program of research applying a social-ecological approach to understanding and promoting work-related well-being for after-school providers serving diverse youth in resource-restricted and urban communities. We build on evidence indicating capacity to meet job demands and resources (e.g., social support) as two prominent predictors of work-related well-being in schools; combined with previous research highlighting effective relationships with youth and fellow colleagues as critical work experiences for after-school staff. The current study examines effectiveness building close and positive adult-youth relationships and connectedness with colleagues as potential predictors of work-related well-being, including increased work engagement and decreased stress and …

How Does Stakeholder Engagement And Social Capital Influence Project Performance Outcomes?, Jesus J. Arias

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Institutions achieve organizational objectives through the legitimization of projects, project organizational culture, and its project actors. These objectives can either mitigate against risk and/or create advantage or opportunities for the organization. This paper reveals how relationships between project actors such as project team members, project managers and project sponsors, influence project performance outcomes. Stakeholder engagement and social capital between project actors are crucial contributors to project performance outcomes as well as completing projects on time, on budget, and within scope. Research also indicates that organizations continue to fail to achieve project outcomes when not taking into consideration the importance of …

Political Misfit At Work: Examining The Effects Of Political Affiliation Dissimilarity In Selection And Work Processes, Alexander Snihur

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Over the last two decades, political affiliation membership has become an increasingly divisive social identity in the United States. Many organizational researchers have pushed for more investigation into understanding the effects of this salient yet understudied identity in the workplace. The purpose of this dissertation was to answer this call to action and examine the influence of political affiliation (Republican or Democrat) (dis)similarity on two discrete parts of the work process. Study one assessed how political affiliation (dis)similarity between a rater and a fictitious job applicant affected perceptions of applicant hireability through the potential mediators of applicant liking and applicant …

Addressing The Training Needs Of Supervisors Of Employees With Developmental Disabilities: Development Of A Leadership Training Framework, Laura Heron

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Individuals with developmental disabilities (DD) represent a significantly underutilized talent pool and often miss out on the many benefits of meaningful work. To improve the employment outlook for this population, there is an urgent need for research that investigates ways to eradicate existing barriers limiting opportunities for full-time employment. To address gaps in both research and practice, the overarching purpose of the present collected papers dissertation was to provide evidence-based research that informs the development of supportive workplace practices to improve employment outcomes specifically for people with DD.

Study One involved the identification of skill and knowledge gaps of supervisors …

A Holistic Approach To Employee Functioning: Assessing The Impact Of A Virtual-Reality Mindfulness Intervention At Work, Arieana H. Thompson

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the collected papers was to advance the field of Industrial/ Organizational Psychology by examining the impact of a workplace virtual reality (VR) mindfulness intervention on holistic employee functioning. The workplace VR mindfulness intervention conducted in this dissertation integrated the components of: a.) being attractive to employees, b.) short in duration, and c.) likely to effectively improve all three dimensions of holistic employee functioning (employee wellbeing, employee performance, and employee attitudes). Thus, this collection of papers aimed to shed light on how employee functioning may be effectively improved through mindfulness VR. The three collected papers detail the results …

Applicant Reactions To Organizations That Allow Religious Expression: The Role Of Interviewer And Organizational Characteristics, David A. Beane

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the 21st century we desire to express who we are across all domains – including the workplace. This is due, in part, to the fact that we spend more time at work than we ever have. Part of this awakening has included expressing our religion. However, while people desire to express their religion they simultaneously do not want to be impinged upon by other’s religious expression - as numerous legal cases demonstrate (Malone, Hartman, & Payne, 1998). This contrast is the basis for an ever-burgeoning conflict in the workplace for which HR managers have no legal or philosophical framework …

Understanding The Individual And Organizational Attributes Of Servant Leadership In Local Governments, Pallavi Awasthi

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Servant leaders are driven by a natural feeling to serve first which manifests into a conscious desire to lead. The servant leadership style emphasizes internalizing ethical behavior, along with empathy and service orientation in creating value for the community which is critical in public administration. While the servant leadership concept has gained much interest among business management scholars, it has received little attention in public administration. This dissertation aims to fill this wide gap in public administrative leadership scholarship by investigating the role of servant leadership in public administration.

Specifically, the dissertation seeks to understand individual (servant identity and moral …

The Effects Of Individual Differences On Employment Incentives, Andrew J. Laginess

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation sought to examine the interaction between employment incentives and various individual differences. The main objectives were to create a taxonomy of incentives, explore how personal characteristics influence individuals’ attraction to different types of incentives, and shed light on how individual differences affect preferences for incentive systems that are tied to performance versus those that are independent of performance. Four studies were conducted to achieve those objectives, utilizing expert ratings and data from over 800 undergraduate students. A preliminary categorization system with 14 types of incentives was developed, which served as a framework for the subsequent exploration of incentive–individual …

The Impact Of Stress On Episodic Memory In The Workplace, Jennifer Houston

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was threefold: to identify the relationship between experience of stress and episodic memory encoding and retrieval, to examine the interpersonal factors of personality and psychopathology that impact how individuals cope with or mitigate workplace stress, and to pinpoint how interpersonal differences and memory processes impact the workplace outcomes of job satisfaction and motivation. The results suggest that the relationship between work stressors and memory processes does exist, that personality and psychopathology play a significant role in the relationship between stress and memory, and that the experience of negative memories moderates the relationship between work stress …

Affective States And Work Attitudes Linking Abusive Supervision To Employee Performance And The Impact Of Ethical Climate On Abusive Supervision And Work Attitudes, Armando Falcon

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Prior research indicates that abusive supervision (AS, Tepper, 2000) is associated with employee job performance. On the other hand, ethical organizational climate (EOC; Victor & Cullen, 1988) has yet to be investigated in the context of AS. The objective of the present study is to evaluate, within a general sample of US employees, (1) the relative strength of specific indirect effects of AS on performance via positive (PA) and negative (NA) affect, and via work-related attitudes (Leader-member exchange, LMX; Interactional justice, IJ; Perceived organizational support, POS; Affective organizational commitment, AOC), and (2) the relationship between EOC, AS, and the same …

The Development And Validation Of The M.A.W.W.: A Measure To Assess Men's Allyhood Toward Women In The Workplace, Edward J. Sullivan

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the workplace, women can experience stereotyping and marginalization as a result of their gender (Eagly & Carli, 2007; Gipson, Pfaff, Mendelsohn, Catenacci, & Burke, 2017). Having allies, or people who are supportive of or who advocate for an oppressed group can help members of marginalized communities to achieve personal and social success (Drury, 2014; Evans & Washington, 1991). The Men’s Allyhood toward Women in the Workplace (M.A.W.W.) measure seeks to evaluate men’s supportiveness of women in the workplace, enabling researchers and practitioners to understand and improve the climate for women at work. The M.A.W.W. was first developed with the …

Social Dominance Orientation And Emotion Regulation: A Parallel Multiple Mediator Model Of Instigated Incivility Moderated By Workgroup Civility Climate, Fabiana Brunetta

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While most of the existing research on the topic of workplace incivility has focused upon its consequences on employee and organizational well-being, researchers are recognizing the need for research on predictors, mediators, and moderators of uncivil workplace behavior. The current study contributes to this new wave of workplace incivility research by emphasizing the links among variables not previously explored in incivility research. This nonexperimental correlational study (N = 1027) developed and tested a parallel multiple mediator model of instigated incivility. The model examined the mediation of the emotion regulation strategies – cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression – on the …

Impact Of Person-Environment Fit Upon Strain And Well-Being For Emergency Responders, April D. Schantz

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation used a person-environment fit theoretical framework to examine the influence of person-job misfit as an organizational stressor on strain and well-being outcomes for emergency responders. Independent variables consisted of job attributes such as skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy and job-based feedback. These job characteristics are often used in work redesign efforts as they are amendable to organizational change initiatives. Dependent variables included strain outcomes relevant to those working in emergency services: physical symptoms, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress. Also, to include a positive aspect of emergency services work, the well-being outcome of compassion satisfaction was examined. …

Perceptions Of Leadership And Climate In The Stressor-Strain Process: Influences On Employee Appraisals And Reactions, José F. Rodríguez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper attempts to place the role of transformational leadership within the stressor-strain process by investigating the potential indirect effects of the perceptions of transformational leadership on counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs) through its influence on perceptions of the communication climate and trust. Leaders perceived as being transformational will offer an ameliorating effect on employee appraisals of stressors (i.e., conflict). Non-task organizational conflict is a stressor that captures employees’ perceptions of conflict with co-workers attributable to organizational factors (e.g., unclear or contradictory policies). Previous studies have found this type of stressor to be associated with negative health and workplace outcomes. Counterproductive …

The Always On Employee: The Antecedents And Consequences Of Work-Related Email Use After Hours, Archana Manapragada

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present dissertation examines the antecedents and consequences of employees’ work-related email (WRE) use after work hours in a sample of administrative assistants and office workers. Several individual, job, and workplace factors were examined as predictors of WRE use after hours. The individual-level factors examined were telepressure (i.e., the urge to respond to digital messages) and conscientiousness. Perceptions of the usefulness of keeping up with WRE for job performance and the degree to which employees felt the use of WRE was relevant to their job were examined as job-related factors. Workplace factors revolved around organizational norms, which may form by …

Foreign Policy Evaluation And The Utility Of Intervention, Graham Slater

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation identifies and explains the factors contributing to the presence and severity of U.S. foreign-policy blunders, or gross errors in strategic judgment resulting in significant harm to the national interest, since the Second World War. It hypothesizes that the grand strategy of preponderance and the overestimation of military power to transform the politics of other states have precipitated U.S. foreign-policy blunders since 1945. Examining the Vietnam War and Iraq War as case studies, it focuses on underlying conditions in the American national identity and the problematic foreign policy decision-making (FPDM) that corresponds to this bifurcated hypothesis, termed the overestimation/preponderance …

Mapping Integrity In The Domain Of Trait Personality, Andrew J. Laginess

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis was conducted to empirically examine and compare the different conceptualizations of the integrity test construct identified in previous research. The conceptualizations assert that integrity tests measure a major trait (i.e., Conscientiousness or Honesty-Humility), a combination of major traits, or a combination of minor traits (personality facets). The general fit and predictive validity (of counterproductive work behavior, or CWB) of each conceptualization was tested.

Psychology undergraduates (N = 436) participated via online surveys containing two personality scales, two integrity tests, and a CWB scale. The results most support the conceptualizations of integrity as either solely the broad trait …

Multilevel Modeling Issues And The Measurement Of Stress Is Multilevel Data, Tyler Stout

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Multilevel datasets are commonly used and increasingly popular in research in the organizational and other social sciences. These models are complex and have many elements beyond those found in more traditional linear models. However, research on how multilevel models perform is lacking.

The current paper examined the impact of common factors (average cluster size, cluster size distribution, average number of clusters, strength of the intraclass correlation coefficient, and effect sizes of individual and cluster level variables, and their interaction) in multilevel datasets. Monte Carlo data simulation was used across 6,144 factor-combination conditions. The results of study factors on observed intraclass …

Conceptualizing Learning Agility And Investigating Its Nomological Network, Josh Allen

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of two studies examining the utility and distinctiveness of learning agility in the workplace. The first study examines the nomological networks of two proprietary measures of learning agility in sample of 832 individuals. The learning agility simulation is designed to be an objective measure of learning agility ability. The learning agility indicator is a self-report measure designed to measure the preference towards learning agile behaviors. The results of study one indicate two different nomological networks for the learning agility simulation and the learning agility indicator. Specifically, the learning agility simulation was related to cognitive personality variables (i.e., …

Examining The Impact Of Resilience On Work Stress And Strains In Nurses, Julie J. Lanz

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

To address commonly cited organizational and personal outcomes in the nursing industry, it is important to identify factors that may mitigate the relationship between workplace stressors and strains such as turnover intentions, job satisfaction, burnout, and injuries. The purpose of the current study is to explore the role of trait resilience on the emotion-centered model of job stress in a sample of U.S. nurses. The study uses a multiwave design to examine the mitigating role of trait resilience on work strains in nurses. In a sample of 185 nurses and 97 multiwave pairs, resilience was found to be significantly related …

Workplace Discrimination Climate And Team Effectiveness: The Mediating Role Of Collective Value Congruence, Team Cohesion, And Collective Affective Commitment, Anya T. Edun

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explored the relationship between workplace discrimination climate on team effectiveness through three serial mediators: collective value congruence, team cohesion, and collective affective commitment. As more individuals of marginalized groups diversify the workforce and as more organizations move toward team-based work (Cannon-Bowers & Bowers, 2010), it is imperative to understand how employees perceive their organization’s discriminatory climate as well as its effect on teams. An archival dataset consisting of 6,824 respondents was used, resulting in 332 work teams with five or more members in each. The data were collected as part of an employee climate survey administered in 2011 …

Workplace Aggression: A Reconceptualization Of The Construct & An Exploration Of Strain Based Outcomes, Jason K. Steinert

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The examination of Workplace Aggression as a global construct conceptualization has gained considerable attention over the past few years as organizations work to better understand and address the occurrence and consequences of this challenging construct. The purpose of this dissertation is to build on previous efforts to validate the appropriateness and usefulness of a global conceptualization of the workplace aggression construct.

This dissertation has been broken up into two parts: Part 1 utilized a Confirmatory Factor Analysis approach in order to assess the existence of workplace aggression as a global construct; Part 2 utilized a series of correlational analyses to …

Work Creativity As A Dimension Of Job Performance, Angela C. Reaves

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

To stay competitive, many employers are looking for creative and innovative employees to add value to their organization. However, current models of job performance overlook creative performance as an important criterion to measure in the workplace. The purpose of this dissertation is to conduct two separate but related studies on creative performance that aim to provide support that creative performance should be included in models of job performance, and ultimately included in performance evaluations in organizations. Study 1 is a meta-analysis on the relationship between creative performance and task performance, and the relationship between creative performance and organizational citizenship behavior …

Don't Get Mad, Get Even: How Employees Abused By Their Supervisor Retaliate Against The Organization And Undermine Their Spouses, Krzysztof Duniewicz

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My study investigated the effects of abusive supervision on work and family outcomes including supervisor-directed and organization-directed deviance and spousal undermining. Using a moderated-mediation model, the relationship of abusive supervision on outcome variables was proposed to be mediated by moral courage and moderated by leader-member exchange (a-path) and work and family role quality (b-path). Two separate studies were conducted using a sample (N=200) recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and through relatives of students at a large US public southeastern university (N=150 dyads). Results confirm the effects of abusive supervision on work and family outcomes while analyses of contextual and conditional …

Assessing Organizational Image: Triangulation Across Different Applicant Perceptions, Website, And Facebook Features, Alejandra Matamala

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the role of corporate websites and company Facebook profiles in shaping perceptions of organizational image in the recruitment context.

A primary purpose of this research was to determine whether or not perceptions of organizational image vary across different web-based recruitment methods, specifically examining corporate websites and social networking (SNW) sites, such as company Facebook profiles. A secondary goal was to determine how these perceptions of image are shaped by the objective components of websites and Facebook profiles. Finally, this study sought to determine the most influential components of websites and Facebook profiles, in terms of impacting image, …