The effects of managerial and employee attributions for corporate social responsibility initiatives

Although corporate social responsibility (CSR) can affect employees, we know little about how it affects them. Employees' interpretation of CSR is important because of the paradoxical nature of CSR. When firms operate in ways that seem counter to their nature (i.e., pursuit of social good rather than profit), the causal attributions of affected employees are crucial to understanding their work‐related behavior, as is the role of contextual factors such as leadership processes in shaping these attributions. Drawing from attribution and social learning theories, we develop a multilevel social influence theory of how CSR affects employees. We integrate managers as second observers in the baseline actor (i.e., firm)—observer (i.e., employee) dyad, whereas most attribution theory research has focused on single actor–observer dyads. Multisource field data collected from 427 employees and 45 managers were analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling. Managers' genuine (self‐serving) CSR attributions are positively related to employees' genuine (self‐serving) CSR attributions; and the strength of the relationship between managers' and employees' genuine CSR attributions depends on managers' organizational tenure. Employees' genuine CSR attributions also are positively related to employee advocacy, whereas—interestingly—employees' self‐serving CSR attributions do not appear to harm employee advocacy. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Managers' practice of managing diversity revealed: A practice‐theoretical account

Despite the centrality of managing diversity effectively in contemporary organizations, existing literature gives disparate and incomplete accounts of how managers actually manage diversity in practice. The prevailing managerial literature focuses on what diversity activities should be involved in managing diversity but does not identify how managers actually undertake these activities in practice. The growing interpretive/critical literature focuses on how people's understandings define managing diversity, but is silent on how managers translate their understandings into specific diversity activities in practice. We applied a practice perspective in conjunction with phenomenography as a methodological approach to investigate how managers actually manage diversity in practice in the empirical context of professional services firms. The results show that managers' practice of managing diversity is constituted by four understandings of managing diversity that distinguish and organize diversity activities into four different and progressively more comprehensive ways of managing diversity. This practice‐theoretical account transcends the existing literature's partial accounts in significant ways by offering a new and considerably broader and more precise conceptualization of managers' practice of managing diversity, including which ways of managing diversity may be more effective than others. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The antecedents and consequences of underemployment among expatriates

While most previous research has studied underemployment among laid‐off workers or new college graduates in domestic settings, this study investigates underemployment among managers in overseas assignments. Using data from 268 expatriates from six Fortune 500 multinational firms, the results here suggest that several important job‐ and organizational‐level factors may contribute to underemployment among expatriates: hierarchical job level, assignment tenure, the extent to which expatriates have specific projects to complete, the degree of free choice in the decision to go overseas, the amount of on‐site mentoring, and the strategic importance of the overseas site. In contrast to previous research, then, the present study suggests that many expatriates are overqualified, as well as underqualified, for their overseas assignments. Moreover, this underemployment is negatively related to expatriates' job attitudes, general mental health, and self‐reported job performance. In addition, mediated regression analyses revealed that underemployment is an important intervening link between antecedent and outcome variables. The implications of the results for future theory development, empirical research, and management practice on underemployment are discussed as well. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Putting first things first: Outcome and process focus in knowledge work teams

This paper presents a new perspective on the management of outcomes and processes in a knowledge team's work. Knowledge teams frequently face complex, open‐ended tasks for which the a priori specification of goals and work processes is not possible. Such teams must define these work elements themselves; emphasizing one over the other can lead a team to become either outcome‐or process‐focused, with implications for the level at which they identify their activities and the flexibility with which they conduct work. A survey study of student teams and a field study of organizational teams test the effects of outcome versus process focus on performance. Consistent with prior findings, the first study demonstrates that outcome focus is positively related to performance on complex, open‐ended tasks and that team members' level of action identification mediates the effects of outcome and process focus on performance. Action research conducted as part of the second study demonstrates the importance of early events in a team's life cycle and the challenge for managers who hope to influence their teams to have a greater degree of focus on outcomes over process. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Extending and testing a five factor model of ethical and unethical bargaining tactics: introducing the SINS scale

Using a questionnaire derived from previous research, MBA students in a semester‐long negotiation course rated 30 deceptive negotiation tactics on a 7‐point appropriate–inappropriate scale. Factor analysis of these ratings yielded five primary factors (replicating previous findings) representing a lay model of unethical tactics in negotiation contexts. The emergent factors are: I, traditional competitive bargaining; II, attacking an opponent's network; III, misrepresentation/lying; IV, misuse of information; and V, false promises. The five factors may be reliably measured using a 16‐item questionnaire, introduced here, called the ‘Self‐reported Inappropriate Negotiation Strategies Scale’, (or SINS scale). Analyses of scale ratings by participant demographics yielded some interesting results including: a tendency for women to be more averse to questionable tactics than men; a greater willingness for self‐rated ‘competitive’ individuals to endorse such tactics; and differences in willingness to endorse tactics according to variables such as undergraduate major, years of work experience, and nationality. Willingness to endorse less ethical tactics did not directly relate to actual negotiation performance. Directions for future research, and further uses of the SINS scale, are discussed. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

From manager's emotional intelligence to objective store performance: Through store cohesiveness and sales‐directed employee behavior

The relationships among manager's emotional intelligence, store cohesiveness, sales‐directed employee behavior, and objective store performance were investigated. Non‐managerial sales employees of a large retail electronics chain in South Korea (N = 1611) rated the emotional intelligence of their own store managers as well as the group cohesiveness within their stores. Store managers (N = 253) separately rated the sales‐directed behavior of their employees. Objective sales data were collected one month later for each store. No direct relationship between manager emotional intelligence and objective store performance was found. Instead, the results supported the hypothesized four‐variable, three‐path mediation model: store manager's emotional intelligence was related to store cohesiveness, which in turn was related to the sales‐directed behavior of the frontline employees, which ultimately predicted the objective performance of the stores. Manager emotional intelligence and store cohesiveness are seen as intangible organizing resources or socio‐psychological capital for non‐managerial store employees. Implications for future research and more effective management of retail firms are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Tired of innovations? Learned helplessness and fatigue in the context of continuous streams of innovation implementation

The business environment faced by contemporary organizations is highly uncertain and constantly changing. Thus, organizations have adopted and implemented a continuous stream of innovations to achieve sustainable growth and survival. Considering the demand for additional resources to implement innovations, the present study explores organizational conditions that may lead to innovation‐targeted burnout and fatigue among employees, which impede their active participation in a subsequent innovation. To this end, we propose a theoretical framework that elucidates the effects of previous innovations on the subsequent implementation behavior of employees. We identify two dimensions of the cognitive appraisal of previous innovations (i.e., intensity and failure) that shape employees' beliefs regarding innovations, such as innovation‐targeted helplessness, which ultimately results in innovation fatigue. Data collected from 84 managers and 397 employees of Chinese and Korean organizations prove the significant role of employee perceptions of previous innovations in shaping the innovation‐targeted helplessness and fatigue of employees, which ultimately affect employee behavior toward a subsequent innovation. The present conceptual and empirical analyses suggest that given continuous streams of innovation implementation, managers should carefully consider employee's perceptions of previous innovations (i.e., intensity and failure) for successful implementation of a subsequent innovation. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Employee judgments of and behaviors toward corporate social responsibility: A multi‐study investigation of direct,cascading, and moderating effects

Do employee judgments of their organization's corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs relate to CSR‐specific performance and in‐role job performance? Can middle managers influence the formation of such judgments and what factors might moderate such cascading influences? To answer these yet unaddressed questions, we conduct three studies. Study 1 takes an organizational justice perspective and tests our baseline model. Results show that employees' CSR judgments trigger their affective commitment and performance on extra‐role CSR‐specific behaviors; however, extra‐role CSR‐specific performance is unrelated to in‐role job performance. Study 2 replicates Study 1's findings while, in addition, applies a social information processing approach and offers novel insights by demonstrating the cascading effects of managers' CSR judgments on employee CSR judgments. Investments made in CSR programs in order to improve employee judgments and behaviors may be unsuccessful if employees' CSR judgments are based on social information that remains unchanged. In addition to replicating the findings from studies 1 and 2, study 3 draws from middle management involvement and leadership theories to show that leadership styles and managers' involvement in implementing deliberate strategy can strengthen or weaken these cascading effects. This highlights the important role of middle managers as “linking pins” in the CSR strategy implementation process. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Firm reputation and applicant pool characteristics

Scholars have suggested that a firm's reputation can provide it with a competitive advantage by attracting more, and possibly higher‐caliber, applicants. No research has actually investigated this relationship, however, in large part because researchers have not assessed applicant pool characteristics but instead have measured applicants' intentions. Therefore, we conducted two studies to investigate whether organizational reputation influenced the number and the quality of applicants actually seeking positions with firms. Company reputation was operationalized using two different published reputation measures, and applicant quality data were obtained from career services offices at business schools at two universities. Results from both studies supported the previously untested belief that firms with better reputations attract more applicants. Furthermore, some evidence suggested that firms with better reputations could select higher‐quality applicants. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Transition to self‐directed work teams: implications of transition time and self‐monitoring for managers' use of influence tactics

In the face of heightened competitive pressures, elevated quality expectations, and calls for worker empowerment, more and more organizations have turned to self‐directed work teams (SDWTs). A review of the literature devoted to SDWTs suggests that managers often struggle with the transition to SDWTs because of the required shift in control to SDWT members. To promote the development of work teams, managers must modify their use of influence tactics in direct response to the control shift. In this study, we explore changes in managers' usage of influence tactics during the transition to SDWTs within a large aluminum manufacturing plant. Analyses of longitudinal data show that despite the new team environment, managers' use of influence tactics was focused at the individual level. We also found that transition time accounts for variance in managers' choices of influence tactics. Finally, an exploratory analysis suggests that high as opposed to low self‐monitoring managers may be more prone to increase their usage of soft influence tactics and decrease their usage of hard influence tactics over the course of the transition; the influence behavior of low self‐monitoring managers remained unchanged. Implications for future research are discussed. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effects of quality improvement practices on team effectiveness: a mediational model

Researchers have been challenged to specify the processes that quality improvement (QI) practices could be expected to generate and to explain how they might contribute to organizational effectiveness. This research article meets that challenge through a study of 97 teams in the health care field. The authors developed a ‘Quality Improvement Practices Index’ and showed that QI practices could be differentiated from traditional team‐level variables, and that such practices affect both directly and indirectly (through team‐level variables) team effectiveness. Two models were tested using structural equation modelling. It was found that the perceptions of the impact of QI practices on team effectiveness varied depending on who was assessing the team's performance—members of the team or managers who were external to the team but responsible for the team's performance. The authors discuss the implications of these results both for researchers and practitioners. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Perceptions of observed and model values of male and female managers

To provide evidence of the relationship between expectations for the values that should be exhibited for effective performance by female and male managers and their actual values, data were used that had been collected as part of a leadership program conducted for managers of business organizations in the United States. From a pool of approximately 700 managers, samples were drawn of 130 male and 130 female managers. As part of leadership program, the managers had completed 26-item SYMLOG value questionnaires, rating themselves and the values they judged to be effective for a manager. Prior to their participation in the program, sets of ratings were made by the coworkers of each manager, rating the actual values of the manager and the coworkers' ideal profile for the manager. The questionnaire covers three dimensions of values: dominant versus submissive, friendly versus unfriendly, and accepting the task-orientation of established authority versus opposing it. Comparisons were made of self and coworkers' ratings on the observed (self/actual) and model (effective/ideal) values of female and male managers with ‘matched’ samples that include only female and male managers with similar ratings of actual values, as judged by their coworkers, by removing the ratings of ‘outliers’. The only significant difference in gender ratings that remains is that female managers rate themselves as more positive. There are more differences between observed and model ratings. Managers and their coworkers believe that model managers should be more dominant and friendly than they are rated to be. However the managers also believe that they should be more task-oriented while their coworkers believe that they should be less task-oriented. The majority of the female managers dropped from the matched sample because no matching male could be found were more dominant and positive and less task-oriented, thus closer to the stereotype role for females. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The interactive relationship of competitive climate and trait competitiveness with workplace attitudes,stress, and performance

There has been a considerable debate about the individual and organizational benefits of competition. Adopting a person–environment fit perspective, this research examined the influence of competition as an interaction between trait competitiveness and competitive climate. Using a sample of information technology workers, competitive climate was considered as both an individual level variable and a workgroup variable. Results show that the effect of competitive climate depended on trait competitiveness and the level at which climate was assessed for four of the outcomes assessed: job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job dedication, and supervisor‐rated task performance. In general, the effect of competitive climate was more negative for individuals lower in trait competitiveness. Competitive psychological climate was associated with greater stress regardless of the level of trait competitiveness but was not directly related to self‐rated task performance. Findings suggest that managers should be cautious in encouraging competitive climate. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Employee responses to employment‐relationship practices: The role of psychological empowerment and traditionality

In studying the effect of employment‐relationship practices on employees, research has largely ignored individual differences, both cross‐culturally and within cultures. In this study, the authors examine the moderating effect of middle managers' traditionality, a within‐culture value orientation regarding submission to authority and endorsement of hierarchical role relationships, on their responses to an organization's employee–organization relationship practices. Based on social learning and social exchange theories, the authors expect the more traditional middle managers to respond less positively in terms of their performance and commitment to high levels of expected contributions and the associated psychological empowerment but respond more positively to high levels of offered inducements. Using a sample of 535 middle managers from 40 companies in China, the authors find support for all hypotheses except the moderating effect of traditionality on the relationship between offered inducements and performance. Additional analysis reveals that less‐traditional managers responded to economic rewards (but not developmental rewards) with higher job performance. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications for research and the practice of employment relationships. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The social construction of fairness: social influence and sense making in organizations

This paper explores how the social relationships employees have with peers and managers are associated with perceptions of organizational justice. These relationships are theoretically modelled as the conduits for social comparison, social cues, and social identification, which are sources of sense making about fairness ‘in the eyes of the beholder.’ It is argued that perceptions of procedural and interactional justice are affected by this type of social information processing because: (1) uncertainty exists about organizational procedures; (2) norms of interpersonal treatment vary between organizational cultures; and (3) interpersonal relationships symbolize membership in the organization. A structural equations model of data from workers in a telecommunications company showed that an employee's perceptions of both procedural and interactional fairness were significantly associated with the interactional fairness perceptions of a peer. In addition, employees' social capital, conceived as the number of relationships with managers, was positively associated with perceptions of interactional fairness. In the structural model, both procedural and interactional justice were themselves significant predictors of satisfaction with managerial maintenance of the employment relationship. The discussion highlights the key role which the fairness of interpersonal treatment appears to play in the formation of justice judgements. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effect of distal learning,outcome, and proximal goals on a moderately complex task

The effects of learning versus outcome distal goals in conjunction with proximal goals were investigated in a laboratory setting using a class‐scheduling task. The participants (n = 96) needed to acquire knowledge in order to perform the task correctly. A ‘do your best’ outcome goal led to higher performance than the assignment of a specific, difficult outcome goal. However, the assignment of a specific, difficult learning goal led to higher performance than urging people to ‘do their best.’ Goal commitment was higher in the learning goal than in the outcome goal condition. The correlation between task‐relevant strategies discovered and performance was positive and significant. The number of task‐relevant strategies implemented by participants assigned a distal learning goal in conjunction with proximal goals was higher than in any other goal condition. Setting a distal outcome or learning goal that included proximal outcome goals, however, did not lead to higher performance than the setting of a distal outcome or learning goal alone. Self‐efficacy correlated significantly with performance, and this effect was mediated through strategy development. Furthermore, the discovery of task‐relevant strategies affected self‐efficacy through an increase in performance. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Retrospective future proofing of a copper mine: Quantification of errors and omissions in ‘As-built’ documentation

The electrical instrumentation control systems (EICS) ‘As-built’ documentations of a copper mine were found to possess a significant errors and omissions, which hindered the asset owner’s ability to undertake effective and efficient operations and maintenance. A Systems Information Model (SIM) was used to retrospectively create a connected system to ensure all physical equipment and the associated connections that were constructed are modelled in an object-orientated database. In creating the SIM, the existing errors and omissions in the ‘As-built’ documentation were quantified, and cost savings that could be achieved for a future planned copper mine, with a similar design, were identified. The limitations of using conventional computer-aided-design (CAD) to design and document EICS are discussed. It is recommended that retrospectively creating a SIM can provide owners and operators with significant productivity benefits as well as ensure the asset’s integrity. The case study presented provides asset owners and operators with the empirical evidence to challenge conventional thinking surrounding the design, engineering and documentation of EICS using CAD and alternatively consider the use of SIM.     

Social networks and the cognitive motivation to realize network opportunities: a study of managers' information gathering behaviors

Information gathering is central to a variety of organizational behavior theories, but researchers have suggested that our understanding of the actual information gathering behaviors of managers is underdeveloped. Social network characteristics are theorized to be a key determinant of information gathering behaviors, but social network research has been criticized for: (1) not measuring the intervening mechanisms by which network characteristics are theorized to have their effects and (2) not considering how actors' motivation affects what network benefits are realized. This article addresses these concerns through an empirical study of the actual information gathering behaviors of managers. It posits that individual differences in a personality variable called need for cognition capture differences in actors' cognitive motivation to realize the potential information benefits that exist in their social networks. Results show that network characteristics do affect information benefits, but these effects are stronger for managers motivated to take advantage of them. These findings both support social capital theory and suggest the important role that personality can play in augmenting social network analyses. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An extension of Lee and Mitchell's unfolding model of voluntary turnover

Lee and Mitchell ( 1994 ) proposed a decision process‐based voluntary turnover model, which identifies the psychological processes involved in the decision to quit a job. The current study tests and extends the Lee and Mitchell's ( 1994 ) unfolding model of voluntary turnover using a sample of voluntary ‘quitters’ and ‘stayers’. Survey and interview results from 84 practicing accountants suggest that the Lee and Mitchell's ( 1994 ) model does an excellent job of capturing employee decision process‐data in an accounting environment. Additional extension hypotheses pertaining to economic consequences and gender differences are also proposed and subsequently supported. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.