A transactional stress theory of global work demands: A challenge, hindrance, or both?

We integrate research on global work demands (Shaffer et al., 2012) with transactional stress theory to examine both the harmful and beneficial effects of three global work demands-international travel, cognitive flexibility, and nonwork disruption-for employees engaged in global work. We propose that global work demands have indirect, and conditional, effects on burnout and work-to-family conflict (WFC), as well as thriving and work-family enrichment, through employees' appraisals that their global work is both hindering and challenging, respectively. We tested the hypotheses with a matched sample of 229 global employees and their spouses. We found that cognitive flexibility demands are related to harmful and beneficial outcomes: It increases WFC through hindrance appraisals of the global work, but also increases thriving through challenge appraisals. In comparison, international travel demands have only beneficial outcomes, such that it positively related to employee thriving through challenge appraisals, but only among employees working in jobs that have fewer nonwork disruption demands. Finally, nonwork disruption demands had only harmful effects in that it positively related to burnout and WFC through hindrance appraisals. Exploratory analyses also revealed that nonwork disruption demands negatively related to employee thriving, through challenge appraisals, when employees experienced lower levels of cognitive flexibility demands. These findings contribute to our understanding of how employees may react to their global work demands and to the transactional theory of stress by providing a more nuanced understanding of when and why job demands contribute to appraisals that work is hindering and/or challenging. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The costs of mindfulness at work: The moderating role of mindfulness in surface acting, self-control depletion, and performance outcomes.

By and large, research in organizational behavior and psychology has emphasized that mindfulness should have positive implications for employee well-being and performance, largely through benefits to self-control. Although some have noted that mindfulness could also have a "dark side," researchers have yet to examine the potential costs of being mindful at work. Building on prior studies that have found that mindfulness leads to lower levels of surface acting, we investigate the possibility that when mindful employees engage in surface acting, it may contribute to greater self-control depletion, which in turn, results in undesirable performance outcomes. Using six field studies, we collected data at multiple points in time from both employees and their supervisors to test our theoretical model. In two Study 1 samples, we found that mindfulness moderated the relationship between surface acting and self-control depletion, such that this relationship was stronger for more mindful individuals. In four Study 2 samples, we replicated our Study 1 results and found that the mediated relationship between surface acting and five dimensions of employee performance via self-control depletion is moderated by mindfulness at the first stage, such that this mediated relationship is stronger for more mindful individuals. We discuss the implications of this work for future investigations of mindfulness, self-control, emotional labor, and performance outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Can good followers create unethical leaders? How follower citizenship leads to leader moral licensing and unethical behavior.

Whereas the study of leadership has generally focused on how leaders influence the behavior of their followers, this article focuses on how and when the behaviors of followers can influence leaders' behavior. Specifically, we use moral licensing theory to examine the possibility that positive follower behavior could lead to unethical behavior by leaders. Across a pilot study, 2 experiments, and 1 field study, our findings suggest that when their followers perform organizational citizenship behaviors, leaders are more likely to grant themselves moral credit to behave unethically. Moreover, we find that leaders are especially likely to gain moral credit as a result of followers' good deeds when leader narcissism is high or when they identify with their followers. Together, these studies provide evidence that good behavior on the part of followers may psychologically free leaders to engage in subsequent unethical behavior, thereby contributing to our understanding of how followers can influence leader behavior and how vicarious moral licensing operates in organizational contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

No obligation? How gender influences the relationship between perceived organizational support and organizational citizenship behavior.

Previous research indicates that perceived organizational support (POS) elicits felt obligation on the part of employees who, in turn, reciprocate by helping the organization through the performance of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). However, because gender roles dictate that women should be more helpful than men, women may feel more obligated to engage in OCB even when they experience relatively low levels of POS, whereas men may perform OCB only when they experience relatively high levels of POS. In this article, we use social role theory to predict that the relationship between POS and 3 types of OCB will be stronger for men than for women. Our results, using 4 samples of employee-supervisor dyads, support this prediction. Further, in 2 of those samples, we also investigate the possibility that gender moderates the positive POS-felt obligation relationship and the indirect effect of POS on OCB via felt obligation. Taken together, we find evidence of first-stage moderated-mediation. Specifically, the relationship between POS and felt obligation is moderated by gender, such that this relationship is stronger for men than for women (who feel more obligation, even at relatively low levels of POS). Felt obligation mediated the POS-OCB relationship, but only for men. Our findings suggest that men are more likely than women to need POS to feel obligated to make reciprocal organizational exchanges. Implications and future research directions are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Good actors but bad apples: Deviant consequences of daily impression management at work.

Impression management (IM) refers to behaviors employees use to create and maintain desired images in the workplace. Prior studies have shown that the successful use of IM relates to a number of important outcomes for employees (e.g., higher performance evaluations), but this work has tended to compare IM usage between individuals, ignoring the fact that employees likely adjust their use of IM depending on the situations they face at work on a given day. In this paper, we argue that managing impressions on a daily basis can be draining, thereby leaving employees susceptible to the temptation to engage in subsequent harmful behaviors at work. To better understand the nature and within-person consequences of IM, we examine the daily use of two supervisor-focused IM tactics-ingratiation and self-promotion-among 75 professionals in China over the course of two work weeks. Our results indicate that there is significant within-person variance in employees' use of ingratiation and self-promotion aimed at supervisors. Moreover, our findings suggest that the use of ingratiation, but not self-promotion, depletes employees' self-control resources. In the case of ingratiation, this depletion is positively associated with employee deviance, and the indirect effect is stronger among employees with low political skill. Overall, this research contributes to our understanding of the dynamic, within-person nature of IM, the consequences of IM for employees, and the dark side of IM for organizations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Negative beliefs about accepting coworker help: Implications for employee attitudes, job performance, and reputation.

For more than 30 years, researchers have investigated interpersonal helping in organizations, with much of this work focusing on understanding why employees help their colleagues. Although this is important, it is also critical that employees are willing to accept assistance that is offered by peers. Indeed, helping behavior should only enhance individual and organizational effectiveness if employees are actually willing to accept offers of assistance. Unfortunately, employees may sometimes have reservations about accepting help from their peers. In four studies, we examine the negative beliefs that employees have about accepting help from coworkers. In Study 1, we use inductive research to qualitatively understand why employees accept or decline coworker help. In Study 2, we develop a preliminary, second-order reflective measure of negative beliefs about accepting coworker help that is indicated by the five specific (first-order) reservations about accepting help identified in Study 1-diminished image, reciprocity obligation, self-reliance, coworker mistrust, and coworker incompetence. In Study 3, we refine our scale and demonstrate its convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity. Finally, in Study 4, we investigate the consequences of negative beliefs about accepting coworker help. We find that those who hold more negative beliefs are less likely to receive help from peers (and supervisors), report more negative job attitudes, and have lower levels of in-role performance, citizenship behavior, and creativity. Furthermore, employees with more negative beliefs about accepting help from coworkers are seen less favorably by their supervisors. Implications and future research directions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Saying goodbye: The nature, causes, and consequences of employee resignation styles.

Although much is known about why employees decide to resign from their jobs, scant research has examined what occurs after employees decide to leave their jobs but before they exit their organizations. As such, employee resignations are not well understood. This is unfortunate, because the manner in which employees resign from their jobs may have important implications for both individuals and organizations. In this paper, we use social exchange theory to argue that exchange-based correlates of employee turnover influence the manner in which employees resign, and that resignation styles affect managers' emotional reactions to employee resignation. We test our hypotheses in 4 studies. In Study 1, we inductively identify a taxonomy of resignation styles among full-time MBA students who have recently resigned from a job. In Study 2, we qualitatively examine the extent to which this taxonomy of resignation styles is represented in the accounts of supervisors of recently resigned employees. In Study 3, using a sample of recently resigned professionals, we demonstrate that employees' exchange relationships with their organizations and their supervisors influence their resignation styles. Finally, in Study 4, we provide evidence that resignation styles affect supervisors' emotional reactions in a sample of managers. Directions for future research on resignation and practical implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

"Well, I'm tired of tryin'!" Organizational citizenship behavior and citizenship fatigue.

This study seeks to identify workplace conditions that influence the degree to which employees feel worn out, tired, or on edge attributed to engaging in organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and also how this phenomenon, which we refer to as citizenship fatigue, is associated with future occurrences of OCB. Using data collected from 273 employees and their peers at multiple points in time, we found that the relationship between OCB and citizenship fatigue depends on levels of perceived organizational support, quality of team-member exchange relationships, and pressure to engage in OCB. Specifically, the relationship between OCB and citizenship fatigue is significantly stronger and positive when perceived organizational support is low, and it is significantly stronger and negative when the quality of team-member exchange is high and pressure to engage in OCB is low. Our results also indicate that citizenship fatigue is negatively related to subsequent acts of OCB. Finally, supplemental analyses reveal that the relationship between OCB and citizenship fatigue may vary as a function of the specific facet of OCB. We conclude with a discussion of the key theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

Too many motives? The interactive effects of multiple motives on organizational citizenship behavior.

Prior research indicates that employees engage in organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) because of prosocial values, organizational concern, and impression management motives. Building upon and extending prior research, we investigate all 3 OCB motives by developing a categorization scheme to differentiate their distinctiveness and by building a contextualized argument regarding their interactive effects on OCB in a more collectivistic culture. In a sample of 379 Chinese employee-supervisor dyads from Taiwan, we found that the relationship between prosocial values motives and OCBs directed at individuals was strengthened by organizational concern motives; likewise, the relationship between organizational concern and OCBs directed at the organization was strengthened by prosocial values motives. However, in contrast to prior research (Grant & Mayer, 2009), the relationship between prosocial values motives and OCBs directed at individuals was weakened by impression management motives. A 3-way interaction between all 3 motives further suggests that, in Asian cultures, impression management motives may undermine the positive effects of prosocial values and organizational concern motives on OCBs directed at individuals but not OCBs directed at the organization.

Too engaged? A conservation of resources view of the relationship between work engagement and work interference with family.

In a number of studies, researchers interested in positive organizational behavior have sought to better understand the favorable aspects of work engagement-a pervasive state of emotional attachment and motivation toward work. In this study, however, we investigate a potentially negative outcome of engagement. Drawing upon conservation of resources theory, we hypothesize that engagement will be associated with higher work interference with family due to the resources engaged employees may expend when they engage in extrarole work behavior such as organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). We further propose that conscientiousness, as a personal resource, serves to buffer the relationship between OCB and work interference with family. Examining multisource data, collected at multiple points in time, from 3 diverse samples (total N = 844), we find that state engagement is associated with higher levels of work interference with family and that this relationship is mediated by the performance of OCBs. The findings also indicate that engaged employees who are highly conscientious experience lower levels of work interference with family than engaged employees who are less conscientious. The implications of our study and directions for future research are also discussed.

The personal costs of citizenship behavior: the relationship between individual initiative and role overload, job stress, and work-family conflict.

By and large, prior research has focused on the positive aspects of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). D. W. Organ and K. Ryan (1995), though, suggest that individuals who engage in high levels of OCB may become overloaded. This research explores the relationship between a specific type of OCB--namely, individual initiative--and role overload, job stress, and work-family conflict. Results from a sample of 98 couples indicate that higher levels of individual initiative (as assessed by the spouse or significant other) are associated with higher levels of employee role overload, job stress, and work-family conflict. The findings also suggest that the relationship between individual initiative and work-family conflict is moderated by gender, such that the relationship is stronger among women than among men. Some implications of this work and directions for future research are discussed as well.