Knowledge that Transforms

The after-action review (AAR; also known as the after-event review or debriefing) is an approach to training based on a review of trainees' performance on recently completed tasks or performance events. Used by the military for decades, nonmilitary organizations' use of AARs has increased dramatically in recent years. Despite the prevalence of AARs, empirical research investigating their effectiveness has been limited. This study sought to investigate the comparative effectiveness of objective AARs (reviews based on an objective recording and playback of trainees' recent performance) and subjective AARs (reviews based on a subjective, memory-based recall of trainees' recent performance). One hundred eighty-eight individuals, participating in 47 4-person teams, were assigned to 1 of 3 AAR conditions and practiced and tested on a cognitively complex performance task. Although there were no significant differences between objective and subjective AAR teams across the 5 training outcomes, AAR teams had higher levels of team performance, team efficacy, openness of communication, and cohesion than did non-AAR teams but no differences in their levels of team declarative knowledge. Our results suggest that AARs are effective at enhancing training outcomes. Furthermore, AARs may not be dependent on objective reviews and therefore may be a viable training intervention when objective reviews are not feasible or possible.

Drawing on fairness heuristic theory (Lind, 2001, 2002), it was predicted that how employees cope with an unfair event-whether they are more or less forgiving, and whether they are more or less vengeful-will depend jointly on (a) their perceptions of overall organizational justice and (b) the degree to which they focus on their own interests or on the interests of others. Data were collected in a 2-part field survey of 153 employees who reported their responses to a recent unfair event. Hierarchical regression analyses (controlling possible 3rd variable explanations) revealed the 2 predicted 2-way interactions. Perceptions of overall organizational justice (a) facilitated forgiveness among those with strong other-orientation, and (b) suppressed revenge among those with strong self-concern. Together, the data suggest that perceiving one's organization as a fair entity can shape proximal responses to unfair events, simultaneously facilitating constructive responses in some employees, and suppressing destructive responses in other employees. Theoretically, the findings are consistent with the idea that overall justice fulfills psychological needs that are differentially relevant to employees as a function of their chronic attention to others or to themselves, which in turn enables them to cope with unfair events more beneficially. The data have implications for the study of workplace forgiveness and revenge, as well as more broadly for the literatures on organizational justice and workplace mistreatment.

The notion that strain can result as employees' resources are threatened or lost is well established. However, the transition from resource threats to resource losses is an important but understudied aspect of employee strain. We argue that the threat-to-loss transition triggers accelerated resource loss and a shift in how employees utilize their remaining resources unless employees engage in recovery experiences during the transition. Using a discontinuous change framework, we examine employee furloughs-the placement of employees on leave with no salary of any kind-in terms of the transition from resource threat to loss: Resources may be threatened when the furlough is announced and lost when the furlough occurs. Using 4 data collections with 180 state government employees, we found mean levels of emotional exhaustion increased and mean levels of self-reported performance decreased following the furlough. The discontinuous changes in exhaustion and performance were significantly impacted by employees' recovery experiences during the furlough. We discuss the implications of these findings for other threat-to-loss and recovery research as well as for organizations implementing furloughs.

This article provides an answer to the question of why agents make self-serving decisions under moral hazard and how their self-serving decisions can be kept in check through institutional arrangements. Our theoretical model predicts that the agents' power and the manner in which they are held accountable jointly determine their propensity to make self-serving decisions. We test our theory in the context of financial investment decisions made under moral hazard using others' funds. Across 3 studies, using different decision-making tasks, different manipulations of power and accountability, and different samples, we show that agents' power makes them more likely to behave in a self-serving manner under moral hazard, but only when the appropriate accountability mechanisms are not in place. Specifically, we distinguish between outcome and procedural accountability and show that holding agents accountable for their decision-making procedure reduces the level of self-serving decisions under moral hazard and also curbs the negative consequences of power. Implications for decisions under moral hazard, the psychology of power, and the accountability literature are discussed.

We propose and test a new theory explaining glass-ceiling bias against nonnative speakers as driven by perceptions that nonnative speakers have weak political skill. Although nonnative accent is a complex signal, its effects on assessments of the speakers' political skill are something that speakers can actively mitigate; this makes it an important bias to understand. In Study 1, White and Asian nonnative speakers using the same scripted responses as native speakers were found to be significantly less likely to be recommended for a middle-management position, and this bias was fully mediated by assessments of their political skill. The alternative explanations of race, communication skill, and collaborative skill were nonsignificant. In Study 2, entrepreneurial start-up pitches from national high-technology, new-venture funding competitions were shown to experienced executive MBA students. Nonnative speakers were found to have a significantly lower likelihood of receiving new-venture funding, and this was fully mediated by the coders' assessments of their political skill. The entrepreneurs' race, communication skill, and collaborative skill had no effect. We discuss the value of empirically testing various posited reasons for glass-ceiling biases, how the importance and ambiguity of political skill for executive success serve as an ostensibly meritocratic cover for nonnative speaker bias, and other theoretical and practical implications of this work.

Despite the increased attention paid to biases attributable to common method variance (CMV) over the past 50 years, researchers have only recently begun to systematically examine the effect of specific sources of CMV in previously published empirical studies. Our study contributes to this research by examining the extent to which common rater, item, and measurement context characteristics bias the relationships between organizational citizenship behaviors and performance evaluations using a mixed-effects analytic technique. Results from 173 correlations reported in 81 empirical studies (N = 31,146) indicate that even after controlling for study-level factors, common rater and anchor point number similarity substantially biased the focal correlations. Indeed, these sources of CMV (a) led to estimates that were between 60% and 96% larger when comparing measures obtained from a common rater, versus different raters; (b) led to 39% larger estimates when a common source rated the scales using the same number, versus a different number, of anchor points; and (c) when taken together with other study-level predictors, accounted for over half of the between-study variance in the focal correlations. We discuss the implications for researchers and practitioners and provide recommendations for future research.

The personality trait of conscientiousness has seen considerable attention from applied psychologists due to its efficacy for predicting job performance across performance dimensions and occupations. However, recent theoretical and empirical developments have questioned the assumption that more conscientiousness always results in better job performance, suggesting a curvilinear link between the 2. Despite these developments, the results of studies directly testing the idea have been mixed. Here, we propose this link has been obscured by another pervasive assumption known as the dominance model of measurement: that higher scores on traditional personality measures always indicate higher levels of conscientiousness. Recent research suggests dominance models show inferior fit to personality test scores as compared to ideal point models that allow for curvilinear relationships between traits and scores. Using data from 2 different samples of job incumbents, we show the rank-order changes that result from using an ideal point model expose a curvilinear link between conscientiousness and job performance 100% of the time, whereas results using dominance models show mixed results, similar to the current state of the literature. Finally, with an independent cross-validation sample, we show that selection based on predicted performance using ideal point scores results in more favorable objective hiring outcomes. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

According to balance theory (Heider, 1958), when 2 coworkers develop different levels of leader-member exchange (LMX) relationships with their supervisor, a triadic relational imbalance will arise among the 3 parties that may result in hostile sentiments and poor social interactions between them. This study examines the consequences and psychological processes of (dis)similar levels of LMX on the interpersonal interactions between coworkers. Using data from 2 independent studies, the results of social relations analyses show that (a) actual (dis)similarity in LMX between Coworkers A and B increases Coworker A's feelings of contempt for Coworker B and decreases Coworker A's perception of help received from Coworker B (Study 1); (b) Coworker A is more likely to experience contempt for Coworker B when Coworker A perceives that he/she has a higher or lower level of LMX compared to Coworker B than when Coworker A perceives that his/her level of LMX is similar to Coworker B's (Study 2); and (c) these relationships only hold true for employees with a high social comparison orientation (SCO) in both Studies 1 and 2. Particularly, in Study 1, we also show that contempt is a crucial mediator that transmits the interactive effect of LMX (dis)similarity and SCO on perceptions of help received from coworkers. Furthermore, an average level of perceived help from coworkers is positively related to the sales performance of individual employees.

This study proposes a dynamic reparatory model of voluntary work behavior. We test the hypothesis that when people are made aware of their high level of negative behavior at work (i.e., counterproductive work behavior) and are informed that their behavior is counternormative and undesirable, the knowledge that they violated social norms induces guilt. This guilt, in turn, results in compensatory behavior that is positive in nature (i.e., organizational citizenship behavior). We report results from a field experiment involving normative feedback about employees' counterproductive work behavior to support this model. The findings indicate that undesirable behaviors in the workplace can be redressed by making employees aware of the negative consequences of these behaviors.

Although work is a core part of life, the direction of influence from personality to work has typically been conceived as only unidirectional. The present study aims to contribute to the literature by considering reciprocal relations between personality and occupational characteristics, drawing on current perspectives from personality psychology (i.e., the social investment principle) and using a well-established framework to conceptualize career development (i.e., Holland's RIASEC theory). For this purpose, a longitudinal cohort of college alumni (N = 266) was tracked across a substantial and significant period in their professional career. Big Five personality traits and RIASEC occupational characteristics were assessed at the career start and 15 years later when their careers had unfolded. A combination of observed and latent variable analyses were used to disentangle the longitudinal and reciprocal relations between traits and occupational characteristics. Our results indicate that personality shapes and is shaped by our vocational experiences, suggesting that work can be a source of identity. The implications for theory and research on personality in the industrial and organizational literature are discussed alongside a number of practical implications for organizational and counseling settings.