Knowledge that Transforms

Given the importance of experiencing fulfilling and productive workdays, scholars have focused on ways to boost employees' daily engagement and performance, suggesting this may be accomplished by increasing meaningfulness of their work tasks. However, an alternative approach may be needed in multifaceted work contexts where employees need to complete sets of varied tasks each day, including tasks that lack meaningfulness. To address this issue, we integrate the workday design perspective with research on residual engagement to examine implications of strategically sequencing tasks in terms of their meaningfulness. We theorize that because of a process we refer to as engagement cascade, performing the day's most highly meaningful tasks earlier and in a concentrated manner will tend to produce higher levels of daily engagement relative to sequences in which the most highly meaningful tasks occur later or are disbursed. We use agent-based modeling to formalize the engagement cascade process and generate specific predictions regarding how daily engagement is impacted by different task meaningfulness sequences. Findings from an intensive longitudinal design study with National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Russian Space Agency crew members (Study 1), an experience sampling field experiment with full-time employees (Study 2), and two controlled laboratory experiments with undergraduates (Study 3 and Supplement to Study 3) provide support for our hypotheses. Specifically, the decreasing task meaningfulness sequence engendered higher levels of daily engagement and, in turn, daily performance, relative to the increasing, inverted U-shaped, and U-shaped sequences. (PsycInfo Database Record

This introductory article to the special issue "Social Impact Research" examines the extent to which research published in the Journal of Applied Psychology has addressed pressing social issues related to work and employment.Using BERTopic modeling on 5,865 empirical articles published from the journal's inception in 1917 through June 2024, we identified 99 topics organized into 25 higher order themes, five of which directly reflect social impact: workplace stress, health, and well-being; workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion; organizational justice, ethics, and legal issues; work and employment transitions across the lifespan; and social justice and labor opinions.Trend analyses from 1980 to 2024 revealed growth in health and well-being research, relatively stable publication of diversity, equity, and inclusion scholarship, an inverted-U trajectory for justice and legal topics, and the disappearance of labor-related research.We then introduce the 19 special issue articles (appearing in the October and November 2026 issues) which address employment barriers facing marginalized and economically disadvantaged workers, medical benefits and leave policies, gender and women's employment, and macrolevel societal disruptions, each offering actionable implications related to work that can benefit the greater good.We conclude by proposing a future social impact research agenda that suggests industrial-organizational (I-O) psychologists conduct research that addresses key issues such as economic insecurity, immigrant and refugee workers, generative artificial intelligence, climate change, and political instability.

Prevailing theories of teamwork propose that a team's cognitive, affective, and motivational states (i.e., emergent states) and its members' interdependent actions (i.e., team processes) are inherently dynamic. Nevertheless, much of the existing literature overlooks critical components of theories on system dynamics (e.g., inertia, coevolution, feedback) and has largely failed to consider how time operates, ultimately leading to a predominantly static view of teams. To extend our understanding of team dynamism, we synthesized over 3,000 correlation coefficients from longitudinal studies, representing more than 11,000 teams on average. Using cross-lagged, meta-analytic structural equation models, we found that (a) emergent states and team processes exhibit inertia over time, although this varies by construct (affect exhibits the least inertia, while conflict exhibits the most); (b) some constructs (team affect and team cognition) tend to coevolve with team processes over time, whereas others (team motivation and team conflict) are consistently predicted by earlier team processes; (c) team performance exhibits consistent feedback loops, predicting subsequent emergent states and processes, which, in turn, predict later performance; and (d) the length of time between observations moderates these dynamics. Drawing on these results, we outline several key theoretical considerations for understanding team dynamics, highlight important methodological considerations for conducting longitudinal causally identified teams research, and offer recommendations for advancing beyond the current static perspective to a more dynamic understanding of teams. (PsycInfo Database Record

= 321, 1,780 observations), we assessed to what extent these profiles replicated in an independent sample and extended the investigation by including work-related antecedents and next-day work outcomes. Results indicated that daily recovery activities cluster together into identifiable profiles that largely replicated across samples. The identified profiles exhibited unique relationships with recovery experiences, well-being, and work outcomes. Our findings add to the recovery literature by illustrating the merits of considering profiles of recovery activities and their characteristics rather than studying recovery activities in isolation. (PsycInfo Database Record

Traditionally, situational judgment tests (SJTs) include text-based situations and ask candidates to pick the best and worst response option.Over the years, various new SJT paradigms have been developed to increase validity, reduce incidental cognitive load, and/or lower costs.Examples are multimedia SJTs, constructed response SJTs, and single-response SJTs.First, this study investigates how the traditional SJT paradigm performs in terms of criterion-related validity by updating prior meta-analyses.Second, this study provides initial, meta-analytic evidence on the criterion-related validity and cognitive load of several new SJT paradigms.On the basis of 457 independent samples from 302 studies (total N = 244,257), results showed that SJTs were not only predictive of job performance but also of academic performance, organizational citizenship behavior, and counterproductive work behavior.SJT validity was higher in operational (i.e., applicant) settings than in nonoperational settings and could also be expanded to new content (e.g., emotion and cross-cultural management).In terms of comparing traditional and new SJT paradigms, multimedia SJTs had validity equal to text-based ones but lower cognitive load.Importantly, the multiple-choice modality did not significantly outperform written constructed response modalities in terms of validity, and the cognitive loading of webcamconstructed responses was even lower than that of other response modalities.The implications of these findings are among others discussed in the context of the cost effectiveness of SJTs vis-à-vis other selection procedures.

= 100,000) stratified by industry, gender, age, and employment status. We compared the out-of-sample predictive performance of models capturing main effects (linear mixed-effects models) with models capable of modeling complex interactions (boosting algorithms). The inclusion of interaction effects did not improve predictive accuracy beyond models based solely on main effects. These findings challenge the validity of buffer and boost effects as global mechanisms across jobs and organizations, as interactions among job characteristics did not meaningfully contribute to predicting either burnout or work engagement. Instead, job characteristics appear to exert only additive effects. (PsycInfo Database Record

Paid sick and family leave policies provide employees the right to request paid time-off for personal illness or family demands.Yet, they can be underutilized, and their effects show mixed results.Research has underaddressed the disconnect between formal and informal work-family support, clarifying the role of supervisors as contextual resources supporting paid leave.Integrating research on job demands-resources theory, family supportive supervisory behaviors, and work-family policies, we evaluated training designed to increase supervisors' leave supportive supervisor behaviors (LSSB), defined as supervisor behaviors perceived as encouraging employees to access, use, and value paid leave as a resource for managing nonwork time-off demands.We conducted a 6-month field study at two U.S. universities, with random assignment to training (N = 293 managers, 630 employees), and wait-list control conditions (N = 252 managers, 293 employees).The intervention included voluntary online training, behavior self-monitoring, and a webinar.Compared to the control organization, employees in the trained organization reported higher LSSB, greater family leave use, higher job satisfaction, and stronger organizational commitment.Results showed that the intervention was more beneficial for women (higher commitment), employees with childcare demands (higher job satisfaction, improved general health, higher sick leave use), and sandwiched (both child and older adult/ elder) caregivers (higher job satisfaction).Post hoc longitudinal analyses identified that the intervention increased supervisors' role modeling behaviors, which predicted higher employee job satisfaction and LSSB.We provide future implications on the criticality of pairing supervisor training with paid leave to strengthen supervisor support as a contextual resource to improve policy use, health, and work outcomes.

Relational demography research focuses on how status differences among dissimilar team members influence their interactions. Team diversity research focuses on the performance of diverse teams. We integrate these two bodies of work to change the way in which team diversity is conceptualized by explicitly considering the relative status of members of diverse teams as well as the attributes of the status hierarchy within those teams. Team members' social identity management strategies-their ways of dealing with status differences-affect the likelihood that team processes engender information elaboration, thus affecting team performance. We elucidate why status has an impact on team processes (a) due to the implications of the strategies team members use to gain and maintain status and (b) as a consequence of the proportion of lower and higher status members in the team. In conjunction with explicating our model, we discuss the efficacy of moderators of the relationship between team diversity and performance as well as implications for research on faultlines. (PsycInfo Database Record

Women continue to be underrepresented in numerous occupations and in the highest echelons of many organizations.This may be due, in part, to disadvantages they face in referral-based hiring and promotion processes, as women are less inclined to ask for referrals and less likely to be referred than men for maledominated jobs.We integrate insights from the goal-setting and creativity literatures to propose an intervention to boost referrals of women: requesting a greater target number of referrals (e.g., at least four instead of at least two referrals).This strategy sets a motivating goal to provide more referrals, which should mechanically increase the number of women referred.In addition, requesting more referrals in maledominated contexts may lead to prototype divergence, which should increase the rate at which women are referred as people generate additional recommendations.Across two primary studies (a field experiment and an online experiment) and four supplemental studies (another field experiment and three online experiments; all preregistered, total N = 12,615), requesting double the number of referrals increased the number of women referred by 17%-88%.We found evidence that setting more ambitious referral goals mediated the effect of asking for more referrals on the number of women referred, supporting a goals-based account.However, we found inconsistent support for prototype divergence as a mechanism across our studies.Our work establishes a theoretically motivated intervention organizations can use to bolster women's representation in recruitment pipelines in male-dominated settings, and our full-cycle approach establishes its generalizability across contexts.

Leadership transitions are a fact of organizational life, yet the impact of successors' leadership behavior on organizational outcomes is little understood. Building on change readiness, uncertainty management, and romance of leadership theory and research, we propose a novel theory describing the distinctive effects of successors' versus incumbents' leadership behavior in driving change in collective engagement and organizational performance. We theorize that when employees perceive a great need for organizational change, successors' vision communication and coaching are more likely than incumbents' to yield improvements in collective engagement and organizational performance. But when employees perceive little need for change, successors' vision communication and coaching are more likely than incumbents' to yield declines. To test our model, we conducted a longitudinal, quasi-experimental study of principal succession in a sample of 113 U.S. elementary schools. As predicted, when employees perceived a great need for change, successors' coaching sparked gains in collective engagement and organizational performance. When employees perceived little need for change, successors' coaching backfired, spurring declines in collective engagement and organizational performance. As predicted, the effects of incumbents' coaching were muted. Finally, contrary to our predictions, neither successors' nor incumbents' vision communication drove change in collective engagement and performance. Our theory and findings illuminate the distinctive risks and benefits of successors' leadership behavior in driving change in collective engagement and organizational performance. For good and for bad, successors' coaching changes their organizations in ways that incumbents' leadership does not. (PsycInfo Database Record