Knowledge that Transforms

Both scholars and the popular press have expressed concern regarding the potential prevalence of individuals with psychopathic tendencies in corporate leadership positions and the negative effects they may have on both individual workers and their organizations as a whole. However, research to date has been inconclusive as to whether such individuals are more likely to emerge as leaders or whether they are (in)effective leaders. To clarify the state of the literature, we conducted a meta-analysis on the association between psychopathic personality characteristics and leadership emergence, leadership effectiveness, and transformational leadership. Our results, based on data from 92 independent samples, showed a weak positive correlation for psychopathic tendencies and leadership emergence, a weak negative association for psychopathic tendencies and leadership effectiveness, and a moderate negative correlation for psychopathic tendencies and transformational leadership. Subgroup analyses on methodological factors did not indicate any differences from the main results. However, moderator analyses showed a gender difference in these associations such that psychopathic tendencies in men were weakly positively correlated with leadership emergence and effectiveness and negatively correlated with transformational leadership, while psychopathic tendencies in women were negatively associated with effectiveness and transformational leadership, and largely unassociated with emergence. In addition, small but consistent curvilinear associations were found for all leadership criteria. Overall, these results suggest that concern over psychopathic tendencies in organizational leaders may be overblown, but that gender can function to obscure real effects. (PsycINFO Database Record

Job engagement denotes the extent to which an employee invests the full self in performing the job. Extant research has investigated the positive outcomes of job engagement, paying little attention to its potential costs to the organizations. Integrating the extended self theory and the literature on psychological ownership as our overarching theoretical framework, we develop and test the double-edged effects of job engagement on workplace outcomes through the mediating role of job-based psychological ownership. Analyses of two survey studies with multisource multiphase data support that job engagement can lead to positive workplace outcomes including in-role performance and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) through job-based psychological ownership. At the same time, job engagement is also positively related to negative workplace outcomes including territorial behavior, knowledge hiding, and pro-job unethical behavior through the same mechanism of job-based psychological ownership. These indirect effects of job engagement on negative work outcomes are amplified by employees' avoidance motivation. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Drawing from theories of attribution and perception, we posit that employees who are victims of rudeness are themselves (inappropriately) evaluated by leaders as being interpersonally deviant. We further theorize that employees who are themselves rude to others at work are evaluated negatively, but not when they have high-quality relationships with leaders or are seen as high performers. We tested our predictions across 4 studies. Our first study included 372 leader-follower pairs. Our second study extended to dyadic interactions among employees by using an employee roster method, resulting in paired data from 149 employees (2,184 dyads) across 5 restaurant locations. Our third and fourth studies utilized a policy-capturing design in which individuals provided performance evaluations for fictitious employees. We find that victims of rudeness are viewed by leaders as deviant, and that leaders are less likely to perceive rude employees as deviant when these perpetrators are seen as having high levels of leader-member exchange (LMX) or performance. (PsycINFO Database Record

Forced-choice (FC) is a popular format for developing personality measures, where individuals must choose 1 or multiple statements from several options. Although FC measures have been proposed to reduce score inflation in high-stakes assessments, inconsistent results have been found in empirical studies regarding their effectiveness. In this study, we conducted a meta-analysis of studies comparing FC personality measure scores between low-stakes and (both simulated and actual) high-stakes situations. Results suggest that the overall score inflation effect size for FC personality measures is 0.06. In selection scenarios, score inflation for FC scales is much lower than the meta-analytic effect size for single-statement personality measures across most personality facets. The score inflation effect size was also found to vary across FC scale characteristics and study design factors. Specifically, FC scales were consistently found to be more faking-resistant when constructed with statements balanced in social desirability and with responses scored via a normative approach. FC scales constructed with the PICK format were also found to be faking-resistant, while more applicant-incumbent studies are needed to examine the fakability of MOLE FC scales. Evidence at the overall level supports the use of multidimensional scales and extremity balance of statements, but results are not consistent across personality facets, or when large samples are excluded. Personality facets of high relevance to the target job were found to exhibit larger inflation than facets of low relevance to the target job. Practical guidance on constructing and using FC personality measures for personnel selection purposes is provided. (PsycINFO Database Record

Although calls for pay transparency in the workplace are growing, it remains unclear which factors determine when and why employees exchange pay information. We use a social comparison theory lens to identify the pay transparency dilemma, wherein pay information exchange can create benefits by reducing uncertainty and verifying equitable pay, but simultaneously risks straining interpersonal relationships and damaging reputations. To examine individual differences in employee sensitivity to the risks and benefits presented in this dilemma, our research develops a measure of pay information exchange preferences with two facets: information sharing preferences and information seeking preferences. Across eight samples, we present evidence that supports the content, construct, and criterion validity of these measures. Overall, these findings support the idea that social comparison processes play a key role in shaping employee pay information exchange preferences and behaviors. This new instrument has the potential to catalyze future theoretical development and research to aid practitioners in making evidence-based decisions about pay communication policies. (PsycINFO Database Record

This integrative conceptual review is based on a critical need in the area of performance management (PM), where there remain important unanswered questions about the effectiveness of PM that affect both research and practice. In response, we create a theoretically grounded, comprehensive, and integrative model for understanding and measuring PM effectiveness, comprising multiple categories of evaluative criteria and the underlying mechanisms that link them. We then review more than 30 years (1984-2018) of empirical PM research vis-à-vis this model, leading to conclusions about what the literature has studied and what we do and do not know about PM effectiveness as a result. The final section of this article further elucidates the key "value chains" or mediational paths that explain how and why PM can add value to organizations, framed around three pressing questions with both theoretical and practical importance (How do individual-level outcomes of PM emerge to become unit-level outcomes? How essential are positive reactions to the overall effectiveness of PM? and What is the value of a performance rating?). This discussion culminates in specific propositions for future research and implications for practice. (PsycINFO Database Record

Organizational culture is an important predictor of organizational effectiveness, but it is also part of an organizational system that consists of highly interdependent elements such as strategy, structure, leadership, and high performance work practices (HPWPs). As such, accounting for the effect of culture's system correlates is important to specify more precisely organizational culture's predictive value for organizational outcomes. To date, however, efforts to connect culture with its system correlates have proceeded independently without integration. This trend is problematic because it raises questions about the strength of culture's association with its system correlates, and it casts uncertainty about organizational culture's predictive validity for organizational outcomes relative to other elements of an organization's system. We addressed these issues by conducting a meta-analysis based on 148 independent samples (N = 26,196 organizations and 556,945 informants). Results generally supported hypothesized predictions linking culture with strategy, structure, leadership, and HPWPs. Meta-analytic regressions and relative weight analyses further revealed that culture dimensions explained unique variance in effectiveness criteria after controlling for the effects of leadership and HPWPs but varied across effectiveness criteria in terms of relative importance. We discuss theoretical and practical implications and highlight several avenues for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record

Employees often self-initiate changes to their jobs, a process referred to as job crafting, yet we know little about why and how they initiate such changes. In this paper, we introduce and test an extended framework for job crafting, incorporating individuals' needs and regulatory focus. Our theoretical model posits that individual needs provide employees with the motivation to engage in distinct job-crafting strategies-task, relationship, skill, and cognitive crafting-and that work-related regulatory focus will be associated with promotion- or prevention-oriented forms of these strategies. Across three independent studies and using distinct research designs (Study 1: N = 421 employees; Study 2: N = 144, using experience sampling data; Study 3: N = 388, using a lagged study design), our findings suggest that distinct job-crafting strategies, and their promotion- and prevention-oriented forms, can be meaningfully distinguished and that individual needs (for autonomy, competence, and relatedness) at work differentially shape job-crafting strategies. We also find that promotion- and prevention-oriented forms of job-crafting vary in their relationship with innovative work performance, and we find partial support for work-related regulatory focus strengthening the indirect effect of individual needs on innovative work performance via corresponding forms of job crafting. Our findings suggest that both individual needs and work-related regulatory focus are related to why and how employees will choose to craft their jobs, as well as to the consequences job crafting will have in organizations. (PsycINFO Database Record

Despite remarkably high levels of education and income, Asian Americans remain underrepresented at the top of the organizational hierarchy. Existing work suggests that a mismatch between the prototypical characteristics of business leaders (e.g., dominance) and stereotypes associated with Asian Americans (e.g., submissiveness) lowers the likelihood that Asian Americans will emerge as leaders. We predict that this reluctance to appoint Asian Americans will be attenuated when organizations experience performance decline because decision makers believe Asian Americans are inclined to sacrifice their self-interest to improve the welfare of others. We found support for these predictions using a multimethod approach. In an archival study of 4,951 CEOs across five decades, we find that Asian Americans were appointed almost two-and-a-half times more often during decline than nondecline (Study 1). Then, in three studies, we show that this pattern occurs because evaluators (a) prefer self-sacrificing leaders more when organizations are experiencing decline than success (Study 2); (b) expect Asian Americans leaders to behave in self-sacrificing ways in general (Study 3); and, consequently, (c) perceive that Asian Americans are better equipped to be leaders during decline than success (Study 4). We consider these findings in tandem with a set of exploratory analyses. This includes our finding that organizations experience decline only 12% of the time, suggesting that evaluators deem Asian Americans to be suitable leaders in circumstances that occur infrequently and are short-lived. (PsycINFO Database Record

There has long been interest in how leaders influence the unethical behavior of those who they lead. However, research in this area has tended to focus on leaders' direct influence over subordinate behavior, such as through role modeling or eliciting positive social exchange. We extend this research by examining how ethical leaders affect how employees construe morally problematic decisions, ultimately influencing their behavior. Across four studies, diverse in methods (lab and field) and national context (the United States and China), we find that ethical leadership decreases employees' propensity to morally disengage, with ultimate effects on employees' unethical decisions and deviant behavior. Further, employee moral identity moderates this mediated effect. However, the form of this moderation is not consistent. In Studies 2 and 4, we find that ethical leaders have the largest positive influence over individuals with a weak moral identity (providing a "saving grace"), whereas in Study 3, we find that ethical leaders have the largest positive influence over individuals with a strong moral identity (catalyzing a "virtuous synergy"). We use these findings to speculate about when ethical leaders might function as a "saving grace" versus a "virtuous synergy." Together, our results suggest that employee misconduct stems from a complex interaction between employees, their leaders, and the context in which this relationship takes place, specifically via leaders' influence over employees' moral cognition. (PsycINFO Database Record