Knowledge that Transforms

Scholars have identified that interviewers prefer applicants who are both emotionally restrained and exuberant. To reconcile these inconsistent results, we investigated how the magnitude of applicants' expressed enthusiasm influences interviewer perceptions of job suitability. In two experimental studies with recruiters in China, we show that expressing intense as opposed to mild enthusiasm reduces applicants' chances to be perceived as suitable for the job (Study 1). We further demonstrate that expressions of intense enthusiasm do not always undermine their perceived job suitability but can also lead to a positive interview outcome. We find that the negative consequences of intense enthusiasm are explained by interviewer perceptions of decreased appropriateness, whereas the positive consequences are driven by interviewer perceptions of the applicant's attraction to the organization (PAAO; Study 2). We also report how interviewer trait information processing motivation (IPM) influences the way applicants expressing intense enthusiasm are evaluated. Only interviewers with low trait IPM interpret applicants' intense enthusiasm as less appropriate. We propose to incorporate the social signaling character of emotions in future theorizing and research on nonverbal communication in job interviews.

The article focuses on decisions to exercise and hold company stock at the maturity of a broad‐based employee stock options plan. It investigates why some participants choose an uncertain and risky future reward when an immediate and certain increase in wealth could be secured at exercise. It draws on and expands the “mixed gambles” perspective in behavioral agency theory, utilizing a combination of stock price data and employee survey data from British companies with tax‐approved stock option plans. It is found that the decision to take a gamble is influenced (negatively) by the extent of stock price lows (relative to prices at exercise) in the year prior to exercise, and by the risk preferences of the option holder. The findings contribute to further development of the “mixed gambles” perspective as an explanation of stock option behavior, showing that individual characteristics as well as some stock price movements affect behavior.

Employee “water cooler conversations” with coworkers, as well as interpersonal interactions outside of one's employing organization, are key sources of information about the labor market. Although the value of network ties for job search is well recognized, research to date has tended to focus on how network ties relate to job search outcomes, providing little insight into what types of network ties offer information that shape job seeker perceptions and behaviors throughout the job search process. Drawing from Steel's (2002) evolutionary search model and social network research, we assert that different types of network ties—those that are weak versus strong and those internal versus external to the organization—offer different types of labor market information, which impacts employees' labor market perceptions, propensity to search for employment, and job search effectiveness. Using a time‐separated research design in a sample of healthcare workers, we find weak external ties are associated with more optimistic perceptions of the labor market, increased marketability, and early‐stage job search, and strong external ties are associated with greater marketability and propensity to engage in an early‐stage job search. Strong internal ties (SITs) have dual, opposing influences on employee job search: SITs are associated with less early‐stage job search, but they are also associated with increased concrete prospects when employees are more actively seeking alternative employment. Taken together, this study provides more nuanced insights into how network ties influence employee job search processes, clarifying ambiguities in this literature.

Although substantial research has been devoted to describing the challenges people with disabilities face in the workplace, much less attention has been focused on the processes that can bring about change. This article explores a proactive process, representative‐negotiated idiosyncratic work arrangements ( i‐ deals), that can create the conditions for long‐term employment for people with disabilities. Specifically, we explored the factors associated with the development and success of representative‐negotiated i‐ deals for people with disabilities. Using focus groups and interviews with employers and job developers, we identified nine factors and two prevailing conditions that explain the contexts in which representative‐negotiated i ‐deals will be successful. In doing so, we identified the negotiation stage during which these factors and prevailing conditions influence the i‐ deals negotiation process. Representative‐negotiated i‐ deals offer insights into how employees with disabilities can find more meaningful work. Together, these findings underscore how the representative i ‐deals negotiation process is only viable if the facilitating factors are present and supported, while the absence of these factors can hinder and lead to failure.

Leadership coaching—a relational process by which a professional coach works with a leader to support their development—is a common component of learning and development portfolios in organizations. Despite broad agreement about the importance of the coaching relationship, relational processes remain undertheorized, failing to account for the growth and intertwining of coach‐leader self‐concepts as they engage in a generative and co‐creative coaching process. To address these shortcomings, we reconceptualize the relational process within coaching as one of relational self‐expansion and theorize that the communication channel and communication quality impact relational self‐expansion which, in turn, influences coaching effectiveness. Our hypotheses are tested in a field experiment featuring random assignment to experimental conditions (communication channels) in which a coaching intervention was deployed in five organizations. Using structural equation modeling, we demonstrated that communication quality and relational self‐expansion during the coaching process positively predicted coaching effectiveness. Contrary to expectations, communication quality did not differ by channel (phone, videoconference, face‐to‐face) nor did it predict relational self‐expansion.

This study explores how the motivational framing of a network training program may positively or (inadvertently) adversely impact participants' discomfort with strategic networking and motivation to network. We examine the impact of a “me‐focused” framing (i.e., on the personal career benefits that individuals can accrue through strategic networking) and a “we‐focused” framing (i.e., on the benefits to the team/organization of individuals' strategic networking) compared to a control group in two field‐based quasi‐experiments. In both studies, we found no difference between the two training frames in their effect on the two training outcomes when looking at participants' reactions, on average. However, in the second study, we find that individual differences in the way participants relate to others (i.e., the extent to which they endorse an individual or a collective self‐concept) change the impact of the framing on their discomfort with and motivation to network. The findings highlight the importance of considering the match or mismatch between training framing and self‐concept. In the we‐focused condition, a match was related to decreased networking discomfort, while a mismatch was related to increased discomfort and decreased motivation. In the me‐focused condition, a mismatch was counter‐intuitively related to decreased discomfort. These findings suggest that considering participants' reactions to training (i.e., change in discomfort and motivation), on average, may mask important differences in their response to network‐based training and that tailoring network training to participants' self‐concepts may be an important consideration for human resource management professionals.

Prior research suggests that the organizational context supports the emergence of employee ambidexterity; however, the interplay between formal and informal context has been largely unexplored. We analyze this interplay with a multilevel, multisource data set of 2446 individual employees nested in 77 organizations. We find that a promotion climate—unlike a prevention climate—contributes to employee ambidexterity. In addition, formalization positively moderates the effects of both promotion and prevention climate on employee ambidexterity, while centralization weakens the positive effect of promotion climate. Our results advance a contingency perspective that brings together formal and informal contextual drivers of employee ambidexterity and shows that even though an informal climate signals the preferred manner of goal pursuit, a formal structure affects the impact of such signals by delineating opportunity corridors of admissible behaviors.

Despite the great emphasis organizations and human resource management (HRM) research place on turnover issues, one turnover phenomenon has received only limited attention so far: joint leader–member turnover. This research examines supervisor‐initiated turnover (SIT) (i.e., employees' decision to quit their employer to follow a former supervisor to a new organization) and develops a comprehensive model of the SIT decision process, grounded on conservation of resources (COR) theory, that delineates the resource evaluation, conservation and investment deliberations of employees. We take a relational perspective and particularly focus on the leader–member relationship as an important antecedent of SIT and thereby respond to the call for more critical investigations of leader–member exchange (LMX) and corresponding HRM implications. Our three studies (survey, scenario experiment, and dyadic interview study) demonstrate that LMX positively affects SIT intentions (SITI) and that supervisor commitment represents an important mediating mechanism of the LMX–SITI relationship. Our interview study with 46 leader–member dyads identifies relational factors that promote or hinder SIT beyond the leader–member relationship. We discuss the theoretical contributions and practical implications for HRM.

Drawing from team‐level job demands‐resources theory, we hypothesize that team workload demands moderate the positive link between team boundary work (i.e., boundary spanning and boundary buffering) and team effectiveness (i.e., team innovation and team performance), such that boundary work is more beneficial for team effectiveness when teams face higher team workload demands. Furthermore, we predict that this interaction occurs through increased team vigor, where team vigor is defined as an affective emergent state characterized by positive valences and high activation levels experienced by team members. We largely find support for our model across two field studies: a cross‐sectional survey using three independent data sources (89 automotive research and development teams, including 724 team members, 89 team leaders and 18 managers) and a time‐lagged survey using two independent data sources (139 teams working in a Chinese utility company, including 640 team members and 139 team leaders). Our article contributes to team research by broadening our understanding of when and how team boundary work is associated with greater team effectiveness.

Are employees more likely to identify with their organization and engage in helping behaviors on its behalf if the coworkers who make up their social networks identify and help the organization? We draw on social information processing theory, social learning theory, and research on diffusion of innovation to develop a model that predicts how relational (advice ties) and structural (structural equivalence) factors predict organizational identification and organizational citizenship. We argue that OI is neither a matter of individual perceptions generated in isolation, nor a simple function of the number of ties that an employee has, but that it is instead an outcome of relations and interactions with coworkers, as reflected in the social structure of the employing organization. We tested our model by conducting a social network study of employees in a construction company. Our findings show that (1) employees tend to have similar levels of OI to the OI of their advice ties; (2) employees who are structurally equivalent tend to demonstrate similar levels of OCB; (3) similarity in OI mediates the relationship between advice ties and similarity in OCB; and (4) advice ties with high and moderate levels of OI are most strongly associated with similarity in OCB. In a supplementary analysis we show that the social influence model that we tested offers a better explanation for the role that the social context plays in shaping OI than does a “more ties, more OI” model. We discuss implications for theory and practice.