Networking behaviors and career outcomes: differences for men and women?

Engaging in networking behaviors, by attempting to develop and maintain relationships with others who have the potential to provide work or career assistance, is considered to be an important career management strategy. This study explores the relationship between networking behavior and career outcomes (i.e., number of promotions, total compensation, perceived career success) in a sample of managerial and professional employees. Furthermore, we investigate whether networking behavior is as beneficial for women as it is for men. Results indicated that some types of networking behavior were related to both objective and perceived career outcomes. In addition, gender differences do impact the utility of networking behavior as a career‐enhancing strategy. Explanations of our results and implications for engaging in networking behavior are discussed. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Transformational leadership,psychological empowerment,and the moderating role of mechanistic–organic contexts

The current study examines the empowering effects of transformational leaders and the extent to which these effects differ across mechanistic–organic organizational contexts. Psychological empowerment is hypothesized to provide a comprehensive motivational mechanism explaining the relationships between transformational leadership and employee job‐related behaviors. In addition, the relationships between transformational leadership, employee psychological empowerment, and job‐related behaviors are hypothesized to be stronger in organizations with more organic as opposed to mechanistic structures. Results based on a cross‐organizational sample of employees and their immediate supervisors provide support for the hypothesized relationships. Psychological empowerment mediated relationships between transformational leadership and employee task performance and organizational citizenship behaviors. The mediating role of psychological empowerment was then found to be conditional upon mechanistic–organic contexts. More specifically, organic structures enhanced, whereas mechanistic structures constrained, the empowering influence of transformational leaders. In highly mechanistic contexts, the indirect effects were no longer statistically significant. Implications for theory, research, and organizational management are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Capitalizing on proactivity for informal mentoring received during early career: The moderating role of core self‐evaluations

This paper examines the role of proactive personality in the receipt of informal mentoring received (i.e., psychosocial and career‐related mentoring) among a sample of 174 early career employees in China. The regression results indicated that networking behavior mediated the relationship between proactive personality and career‐related mentoring, whereas voice behavior mediated the relationship between proactive personality and psychosocial mentoring. Furthermore, core self‐evaluations moderated the aforementioned two indirect relationships such that they were stronger at higher levels of core self‐evaluations. Our analyses also showed that the moderating effects occurred at the first stage of the indirect relationships. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Political will,political skill,and political behavior

The current study used Mintzberg's (1983) conceptualization of political will and political skill to evaluate the predictors and consequences of political behavior at work. As elements of political will, we hypothesized that need for achievement and intrinsic motivation would predict the use of political behavior at work. Furthermore, we argued that political skill would moderate the relationship between political behavior and emotional labor. Data gathered from employees (N = 193) representing a wide array of organizations substantiated the proposed relationships. Specifically, need for achievement and intrinsic motivation were positively associated with political behavior. In turn, those opting to employ political behavior at work experienced a higher degree of emotional labor, but this relationship was found to operate differently at low and high levels of political skill. Specifically, emotional labor was a consequence of political behavior for those low in political skill, but emotional labor reactions from political behavior were neutralized for individuals high in political skill. Implications of these results, strengths and limitations, and directions for future research are discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Age grading: The implicit organizational timetable

The age distribution within an organization forms an implicit career timetable, and there is evidence that people use their perceptions of this timetable to determine whether their careers are on or off schedule. Questionnaire data were collected from managers (N = 488, 47 per cent) within a large electric utility. The results indicate that managers who see themselves as ‘behind time’ in their careers have more negative attitudes towards work than other managers, even when their perceptions of being ‘behind time’ are inaccurate. However, although these managers continue to have the most negative attitudes, differences between the on and off schedule managers are smaller when their position on the actual career timetable is controlled. Thus, work attitudes are influenced by both individual and demographic factors. Finally, the longer managers remain in the same job, the more likely they are to define themselves as ‘behind time’. This supports other research suggesting that lateral moves within organizations may be an important device for managing the normal -limitations of upward movement in managerial careers.     

The impact of impression‐management tactics on supervisor ratings of organizational citizenship behavior

Previous research indicates that the use of impression management is related to supervisor ratings of employee likeability and job performance. It has been argued, though, that employees might also use impression management so that their superiors will see them as ‘good soldiers’ who engage in high levels of organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). This study investigates the ways in which three types of impression management—namely, job‐focused, self‐focused, and supervisor‐focused tactics of impression management—influence supervisor ratings of OCB. Using a sample of 122 supervisor‐subordinate dyads, the findings indicate that supervisor‐focused tactics of impression management are positively related to OCB ratings, while job‐focused tactics are negatively related to such evaluations. Additionally, citizenship behaviors are positively related to supervisor liking of the employee and overall ratings of job performance. Finally, the results suggest that OCB ratings mediate the relationship between supervisor‐focused tactics of impression management and supervisor evaluations of employee likeability. Some implications of this study and directions for future research are also addressed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Pulling up roots in the 1990s: Who's willing to relocate?

The purpose of this study was to develop a profile of employees in Fortune 500 companies who are willing to relocate. The profile was developed on a demographically diverse random sample of 827 employees from 20 Fortune 500 corporations, all of whom had moved at least once for their current employer. Employees who were most willing to relocate were younger, their incomes were lower, their career ambitions higher, and their spouses more willing than those who were less willing to relocate. These employees could be found in sales/marketing and production functions. Their attitudes toward moving were also favorable. The single most important predictor of willingness to relocate was spouse willingness to relocate. This result suggests strongly that in the 1990s, corporations are going to have to address the concerns of spouses, if married employees are going to remain mobile. The study also cautions corporations about the shortsightedness of thinking of spouse and dual career issues as ’women's issues‘ and assuming that females and minorities are unwilling to relocate.     

Predictors of success in the era of the boundaryless career

The present study examines three classes of career competencies proposed as important predictors of success in the boundaryless career. Three criteria of career success were examined: perceived career satisfaction, perceived internal marketability, and perceived external marketability. Using data from 458 alumni from a large southeastern university, predictions were tested using partial correlations and dominance analysis. The results found support for the importance of ‘knowing why,’ ‘knowing whom,’ and ‘knowing how’ as suggested by previous theoretical work. The findings are discussed in reference to future research and theorizing on the boundaryless career. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Assessing the construct validity and utility of two new influence tactics

Progress in developing theories of interpersonal influence depends on the identification of meaningful and measurable constructs for classifying influence behavior. We assessed the construct validity and relative effectiveness of two new influence tactics with a field survey study, an incident study, and a laboratory experiment. The confirmatory factor analysis of data from the survey study indicated that collaboration and apprising were distinct from nine proactive tactics identified in earlier research. Additional evidence for construct validity was provided by a comparison of tactics in terms of expected differences in influence outcomes, frequency of use, and differential use with subordinates and peers. Managers who understand the differences among the tactics will be more effective in influencing people in organizations. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The stress of managerial and professional women: is the price too high?

‘Live as domestic a life as possible. Have your child with you all the time. Lie down an hour after each meal. Have but two hours intellectual life a day. And never touch pen, brush or pencil as long as you live’. Dr S. Weir Mitchell, 1855 When Dr Mitchell, purportedly the greatest North American nerve specialist of his time, gave the above advice to his patient Charlotte Perkins Gilman, he almost certainly believed he was helping her get over a severe nervous condition. Fortunately, she did not take his advice. Instead she devoted herself to the study of economics and regained her health. The perspectives offered to working women by many a modern day Dr Mitchell appear to have changed somewhat in subtlety, but little in kind. For example, the August 18, 1986 cover of Fortune magazine featured a beaming mother and cherubic child illustrating the lead article, entitled ‘Why women are bailing out’. The article goes on to tell why four of the ‘best’ women MBAs had quit the workforce. One stated ‘I had to hire and fire people … I just don't want the hassle’ (of corporate life). Another having passed up a promotion at a Houston bank, ‘quit to have her first child’ and after her second had no plans to go back to work. A third complained: ‘I just couldn't do it. I watched other women sliding as they tried to juggle both career and family, making themselves crazy in the process’. And the fourth left a big accounting firm because the ‘hours were bad, and is now happier as a “part time teacher”’. While the Fortune article mentioned several reasons for women's leaving the corporate world ranging from competing family demands to discrimination, the underlying messages were clearly that mothers have to choose between children and career and that the business world is too cold, uncaring and tough for women, in a word no place for a lady. A chorus of such articles have appeared in the popular media warning against the dangers of career commitment for women, which are said to include everything from burnout, infertility, alcoholism, heart attacks to terminal spinsterhood (Faludi, 1991). More serious treatments emanating from academia have often reached similar conclusions. These dire pronouncements are especially influential to young women contemplating a professional or managerial career, but indeed those already in such careers may also wonder if they have made a bad choice. To answer such questions, this paper will explore some aspects of the relationship between career and emotional health and well-being for a group of highly successful career women.     

Occupational embeddedness and job performance

While researchers have recently focused their attention on organizational embeddedness, occupational embeddedness has received little theoretical and empirical attention. Using multisource data on 162 employees in multiple jobs and organizations, we found that occupational embeddedness is positively related to both task performance and creativity and is negatively related to counterproductive work behavior, even after controlling for the effects of organizational embeddedness. In addition, we found that trait affect moderated the relationships of occupational embeddedness to job performance. Occupational embeddedness was more strongly related to counterproductive work behavior when trait negative affect was high, while occupational embeddedness was more strongly related to both citizenship behavior and creativity when trait positive affect was high. Results also indicated that the various components of occupational embeddedness had different effects on job outcomes. Fit had a strong positive effect on core task performance, links had a positive effect on creativity, and sacrifice had a small positive effect on citizenship behavior. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for future research and management practice. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The case for the ability‐based model of emotional intelligence in organizational behavior

In this second counterpoint article, we refute the claims of Landy, Locke, and Conte, and make the more specific case for our perspective, which is that ability‐based models of emotional intelligence have value to add in the domain of organizational psychology. In this article, we address remaining issues, such as general concerns about the tenor and tone of the debates on this topic, a tendency for detractors to collapse across emotional intelligence models when reviewing the evidence and making judgments, and subsequent penchant to thereby discount all models, including the ability‐based one, as lacking validity. We specifically refute the following three claims from our critics with the most recent empirically based evidence: (1) emotional intelligence is dominated by opportunistic ‘academics‐turned‐consultants’ who have amassed much fame and fortune based on a concept that is shabby science at best; (2) the measurement of emotional intelligence is grounded in unstable, psychometrically flawed instruments, which have not demonstrated appropriate discriminant and predictive validity to warrant/justify their use; and (3) there is weak empirical evidence that emotional intelligence is related to anything of importance in organizations. We thus end with an overview of the empirical evidence supporting the role of emotional intelligence in organizational and social behavior. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A longitudinal study of the relationship between career management and organizational commitment among graduates in the first ten years at work

This paper reports the findings of a two‐wave longitudinal study investigating relationships between organizational and individual career management activities and organizational commitment in the early years of graduate careers. Several hypotheses are tested and receive mixed support. High organizational commitment predicts the practice of career management activities by graduates to further their career within the organization while low commitment is closely associated with behaviour aimed at furthering the career outside the organization. Graduates who manage their own careers also receive more career management help from their employer. This suggests that there may be the potential for employers to create a ‘virtuous circle’ of career management in which individual and organizational activities complement each other. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Externalization of employment in a service environment: the role of organizational and customer identification

This study investigates the impact of employment externalization (in the form of limited‐term vs. permanent employment status) on customer‐oriented service behavior, and how identification processes may help to resolve the ‘paradox of externalization’ (i.e., organizations relying more on potentially disenfranchised employees to maintain strong connections with their customers). Survey data were obtained from 369 sales, service, and technical support personnel from the Canadian subsidiary of a large international service organization in the high technology sector. Organizational and customer identification fully mediate the relationship between employment status and customer‐oriented service behavior. Additionally, the perceived external image of the organization and the visibility of one's affiliation with the organization moderate the relationships between employment status and organizational and customer identification. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Is career management related to employee development and performance?

The career management process involves career exploration, development of career goals, and use of career strategies to obtain career goals. The relationship between different aspects of the career management process and employee development behavior and performance was examined in this study. Employees provided information concerning their personal characteristics, career management strategies, their manager's support for career development, and willingness to participate in development activities. Managers provided ratings of each employee's job performance and developmental behavior. Position, manager's support for development, environmental exploration, and distance from career goal explained significant variance in employees' willingness to participate in development activities and developmental behavior. Career management was not significantly related to performance ratings. Research and practical implications of the study findings are discussed.     

Language and power: an empirical analysis of linguistic strategies used in superior–subordinate communication

Importing the anthropological, sociolinguistic theory of ‘politeness’ into the domain of organizational studies, this article presents results of a laboratory study that illustrates how power is communicated through specific linguistic gestures differentially used by superiors and subordinates throughout daily interchange. The approach taken illustrates how language is amenable to quantitative, as opposed to sheerly qualitative analysis. Contributions of politeness theory to the study of organizational communication, of influence tactics, the distortion of communication in hierarchical relations, and the presumed egalitarianism associated with programmes of workplace participation, are discussed. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Facilitating and inhibiting effects of job control and social support on stress outcomes and role behavior: a contingency model

High levels of job control and social support are often related to effective job performance and coping with work stressors. However, support may have more positive effects on role behavior when job control is low. In addition, despite theoretical expectations, simple demands–control and demands–support interactions are infrequently found to predict health and psychological strain outcomes. The ‘demands–control–support’ model (Johnson and Hall, 1988) of stress coping integrates these ‘stress buffering’ and ‘decision latitude’ models and observes more consistent findings. This model posits that social support buffers the adverse effects of high demand, low control jobs. However, explicit tests of the interaction of these variables suggest that control can have positive or negative effects on strain, depending on the level of social support. In this study, supervisor consideration was positively related to subordinate job performance, extra-role behavior, and in-role prosocial behavior (conscientiousness) among subordinates perceiving low job control. The relationship between consideration and performance and extra-role behavior was negative among high control subordinates. The demands×control×support interaction predicted health symptoms, organizational commitment, supervisor satisfaction, and absence due to illness, but the interaction plots do not support the prevailing perspective that support buffers the effects of ‘high strain’ (i.e. low control, high demand) jobs. Patterns were similar for different demands and different social support loci (i.e. supervisor, co-workers). An alternative theoretical process of the demands–control–support interaction is proffered, and implications for organizational intervention are discussed. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Role stress—a methodological trap?

This study explores the notion that many existing studies which show moderate relationships between role variables and stress symptoms are doing so because of the operational similarity of independent and dependent variables. It was predicted that the removal of such an artefact by clearly separating the two sets of variables would result in a nil relationship. Matched ‘cases’ and ‘controls’ were compared in two different organizations. The independent judgments of occupational health specialists were used to measure stress on a number of agreed dimensions, and role measurements were taken by the researchers in three different ways. On all comparisons made there was a strong trend suggesting no role/stress associations. The implications of the results for role stress studies are discussed.     

Constellations and careers: toward understanding the effects of multiple developmental relationships

This paper examines the effects of individuals' primary and multiple developmental relationships in a longitudinal study of the careers of lawyers. By juxtaposing the effects of the primary developmental relationship with those of individuals' sets or ‘constellations’ of developmental relationships, the present study lends insight into if and when these two perspectives on mentoring yield different results regarding the effects of mentoring on protégé career outcomes. The findings from the present study show that while the quality of one's primary developer affects short‐term career outcomes such as work satisfaction and intentions to remain with one's firm, it is the composition and quality of an individual's entire constellation of developmental relationships that account for long‐run protégé career outcomes such as organizational retention and promotion. Further, results from the present study provide evidence that the constellation perspective explains greater variance with respect to protégé career outcomes than does the primary or more traditional perspective on mentoring. Implications for research on mentoring, developmental relationships, and careers are discussed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.