Industrial and Organizational Psychology Commons^™

The Relationship Between Authentic Leadership And Resilience, Moderated By Coping Skills, Alice E. Stark

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

Organizations with leaders high in authentic leadership behaviors tend to experience more positive outcomes both on an organizational level as well as on an individual level. One potential explanation for the positive outcomes is that authentic leadership enhances leader resilience in a positively linear fashion. However, other literature suggests that authenticity is not always beneficial for the leader and that, at high levels, it can even be detrimental as leaders become more transparent and convicted about their values and goals independent of the situation. One underlying reason for conflicting theories may be the coping skills that leaders use in combination …

Fighting Dirty In An Era Of Corporate Dominance: Exploring Personality As A Moderator Of The Impact Of Dangerous Organizational Misconduct On Whistleblowing Intentions, Keith Andrew Price

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

As instances of corporate wrongdoing continue to rise globally, the opportunity and need for individual whistleblowers to act as a check on corporate power are also rising. Whistleblowing efforts represent a unique challenge to the power asymmetry that exists between an individual employee and the organization. Due to the serious, pervasive harm to employees and consumers that can stem from organizational misconduct, efforts to identify indicators of whistleblowing likelihood can potentially provide a significant means of prevention. This study used a vignette method to present two different levels of harm occurrence, by manipulating the timing of the consequences of a …

Developing Adaptive Performance: The Power Of Experiences And A Strategic Network Of Support, Joseph D. Landers Jr.

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

In today’s dynamic work environment, the ability to adapt is becoming less of a luxury and more of a necessity. In order to contribute to the growing body of research surrounding adaptive performance, this study will seek to examine the power of a leader’s breadth and depth of experience on his or her adaptive performance. It is predicted that the more breadth and depth of experience that a leader has, the higher the leader’s adaptive performance will be. Additionally, in assessing the power of a leader’s breadth and depth of experience on adaptive performance, it is also predicted that the …

Developmental Experiences Impacting Leadership Differentiation In Emerging Adults, Gabrielle E. Metzler

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

Several decades of research have indicated a strong relationship between developmental experiences and the lessons that shape one’s leadership. Furthermore, researchers have suggested that effective leadership often involves a complex combination of various components or character qualities. Differentiated leadership involves knowing and expressing one’s convictions while also listening to and deeply understanding the perspectives of others around them. Research is limited on which experiences shape differentiated leadership or a shared capacity of conviction and connection. As a critical phase of development, emerging adulthood (the phase of life from ages 18 through 25) may be a particularly important time to develop …

Building And Sustaining Hope In The Face Of Failure: Understanding The Role Of Strategic Social Support, Kira K. Wenzel Phd

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

The research on hope has focused on how individuals build and maintain hopeful emotions through their own successful attempts of achieving their goals using personal agency and pathways. Success in meeting the goal leads to higher levels of hope within an individual and an increased belief that they can achieve more difficult tasks, while failure leads to a decrease in levels of hope (Helland & Winston, 2005; Snyder, Rand, & Sigmon, 2002; Snyder, Shorey, Cheavens, Pulvers, Adams, & Wiklund, 2002; Snyder, Irving, & Anderson, 1991). The purpose of this study was to explore the moderating relationship of strategic social support …

Employee Engagement Around The World: Predictors, Cultural Differences, And Business Outcomes, Amanda Munsterteiger

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

Employee engagement, the level of connection and enthusiasm an employee has with their organization, is a widely studied variable both empirically and practically within organizations. Despite the variable’s popularity, across the world employee engagement is moderately low. This may partially be due to the fact that a large majority of the research on employee engagement includes only Western samples, therefore limiting the external validity of the findings. The current study aimed to extend the cross cultural employee engagement literature by using a robust sample that is composed of client-facing consultants at a tech company across 22 countries (N = 5,579). …

Ignatian Spirituality In Vocational Career Development: An Experimental Study Of Emerging Adults, Scott Campanario

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

Traditional undergraduate students fall in an age range known as emerging adulthood, a development stage of life characterized by freedom and exploration in pursuit of understanding one’s identity. This is an important developmental process because a failure to discern this identity and what one finds meaningful can be associated with numerous harmful outcomes such as depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. Conversely, coming to a better understanding of one’s identity is also associated with the number of positive outcomes such as hope, life satisfaction, and career planning. Therefore, institutions of higher education have both an opportunity and an obligation to consider …

Narrative Leadership: Exploring The Concept Of Time In Leader Storytelling, Helen H. Chung Dr.

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

This dissertation explores leader storytelling and the use of temporality in leader enactment. Although narrative leadership is broadly described in previous theory as leading with storytelling, a formal theory of narrative leadership has not yet been developed. Recently, researchers have identified the narrator’s ability to locate a story within a meaningful time continuum of past, present, and future as potentially important. Using a grounded theory approach, the question that guided the research was: How does the use of time in narrative impact the enactment of leadership during a strategic change?

With the goal of developing a theory that emerges from …

Vulnerability In Leadership: The Power Of The Courage To Descend, Stephanie O. Lopez

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

As authenticity and trust continue to be recognized as key pillars of effective leadership in today’s world (Avolio et al., 2004; Mayer et al., 1995; Peus et al., 2012), organizations need leaders who are willing to be vulnerable with those they lead. The purpose of current study was to explore the relationship between courage, other-centered calling, vulnerability, and leadership differentiation. The sample for the current study included 296 self-identified leaders who report being responsible for the work and development of others. Leaders were primarily Caucasian (83.7%), male (55.9%), and from a church/ministry setting (41.2%). The study occurred over a year …

College For The Sake Of What? Promoting The Development Of Wholly Educated Students, Michael P. Yoder

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

There is increasing pressure on institutions of higher education to accurately measure student success. What was once thought of as a way to develop students holistically via a liberal arts degree, higher education is now often regarded as a means to an end: a well-paying job. Lost in the drive for quantifiable data is the holistic development of individuals who are capable of interacting with and influencing the world around them. Thus, higher education struggles to respond to market pressures while maintaining a focus on wholly developing individuals. In this research study, it is proposed that student “success” should include …

Developing Conviction In Women Leaders: The Role Of Unique Work And Life Experiences, Mckendree J. Hickory

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

The past 20 years has seen a proliferation of studies identifying the barriers women often face in leadership. Two potent obstacles women face are gender bias and stereotype threat, which manifest in both management selection and performance ratings. One option some women use to combat negative stereotypes is to adapt themselves to their environments, an approach that may lead to a decrease in self-regulation, goal clarity, and authenticity. Demonstrating conviction is a powerful strategy used by leaders to maintain a consistent sense of direction and connection to what is most important to them, even under the most pressing situations. This …

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 …

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 …

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 …