Knowledge that Transforms

In this research we develop a framework to examine the drivers of customers' desire for control over the sales relationship, and consequences of fit between perceived and desired control. Data collected in a lagged field study of 144 retailer manager (customer)-salesperson dyads were modeled using hierarchical linear modeling and response surface modeling techniques. Results from our analysis reveal that salesperson expertise drives retailers' desire for control in these relationships. In addition, while incongruence in perceived-desired control was negatively associated with both satisfaction and objective sales, retailer satisfaction was higher when both desired and perceived control were high. Further, as desired and perceived control over the sales relationship both increase, product sales initially decrease, and then increase, exhibiting a "U-shaped" effect. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed. These include adaptive sales training to identify misalignment between desired and perceived control, optimization of cocreation strategies, incorporation of interorganizational relational constructs, exploration of triadic social network configurations, examination of unmet expectations, and the implications of assimilation-contrast theory.

Organizations worldwide are currently experiencing shifts in the age composition of their workforces. The workforce is aging and becoming increasingly age-diverse, suggesting that organizational researchers and practitioners need to better understand how age differences may manifest in the workplace and the implications for human resource practice. Integrating socioemotional selectivity theory with the performance feedback literature and using a time-lagged design, the current study examined age differences in moderating the relationships between the characteristics of performance feedback and employee reactions to the feedback event. The results suggest that older workers had higher levels of feedback orientation on social awareness, but lower levels of feedback orientation on utility than younger workers. Furthermore, the positive associations between favorability of feedback and feedback delivery and feedback reactions were stronger for older workers than for younger workers, whereas the positive association between feedback quality and feedback reactions was stronger for younger workers than for older workers. Finally, the current study revealed that age-related differences in employee feedback orientation could explain the different patterns of relationships between feedback characteristics and feedback reactions across older and younger workers. These findings have both theoretical and practical implications for building theory about workplace aging and improving ways that performance feedback is managed across employees from diverse age groups.

In this research, we apply a team self-regulatory perspective to build and test theory focusing on the relationships between team efficacy and 2 key team performance criteria: a performance behavior (i.e., team effort) and a performance outcome (i.e., objective team sales). We theorize that rather than having a linear association, the performance benefits of team efficacy reach a point of inflection, reflective of too much of a good thing. Further, in an effort to establish a boundary condition of the inverted-U shaped relationship we predict, we also test the moderating role played by team goal monitoring in the nonmonotonic relationship between team efficacy and team performance. The results from a lagged field test, in which we collect multisource data from 153 technology sales teams, reveal a significant curvilinear association that is moderated by team goal monitoring behavior. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Although one of the most well-established research findings in industrial-organizational psychology is that general mental ability (GMA) is a strong and generalizable predictor of job performance, this meta-analytically derived conclusion is based largely on measures of task or overall performance. The primary purpose of this study is to address a void in the research literature by conducting a meta-analysis to determine the direction and magnitude of the correlation of GMA with 2 dimensions of nontask performance: counterproductive work behaviors (CWB) and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB). Overall, the results show that the true-score correlation between GMA and CWB is essentially 0 (-.02, k = 35), although rating source of CWB moderates this relationship. The true-score correlation between GMA and OCB is positive but modest in magnitude (.23, k = 43). The 2nd purpose of this study is to conduct meta-analytic relative weight analyses to determine the relative importance of GMA and the five-factor model (FFM) of personality traits in predicting nontask and task performance criteria. Results indicate that, collectively, the FFM traits are substantially more important for CWB than GMA, that the FFM traits are roughly equal in importance to GMA for OCB, and that GMA is substantially more important for task and overall job performance than the FFM traits. Implications of these findings for the development of optimal selection systems and the development of comprehensive theories of job performance are discussed along with study limitation and future research directions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

Options under escalation situations can be presented as a general class (e.g., investing in electronic products) or be partitioned into disjunctive suboptions within that class (e.g., investing in MP3 players, portable TV game consoles, and other electronic products). Drawing from the theoretical bases of partition priming and mental accounting, this research found support from 4 experiments that (a) a decision maker's commitment to a failing course of action is exaggerated when the escalation options are partitioned into multiple suboptions, whereas such commitment is reduced when the alternative options are portioned into suboptions, and (b) these partitioning effects are mediated by the subjective utility, including subjective values and probability, of the escalation option.

Sexual harassment has received a substantial amount of empirical attention over the past few decades, and this research has consistently shown that experiencing these behaviors has a detrimental effect on employees' well-being, job attitudes, and behaviors at work. However, these findings, and the conclusions that are drawn from them, make the implicit assumption that the empirical models used to examine sexual harassment are properly specified. This article presents evidence that properly specified aggregate construct models are more consistent with theoretical structures and definitions of sexual harassment and can result in different conclusions about the nomological network of harassment. Results from 3 large samples, 2 military and 1 from a civilian population, are used to illustrate the differences between aggregate construct and reflective indicator models of sexual harassment. These analyses suggested that the factor structure and the nomological network of sexual harassment differ when modeling harassment as an aggregate construct. The implications of these results for the continued study of sexual harassment are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

Training reactions are the most common criteria used for training evaluation, and reaction measures often include opportunities for trainees to provide qualitative responses. Despite being widely used, qualitative training reactions are poorly understood. Recent trends suggest commenting is ubiquitous (e.g., tweets, texting, Facebook posts) and points to a currently untapped resource for understanding training reactions. In order to enhance the interpretation and use of this rich data source, this study explored commenting behavior and investigated 3 broad questions: who comments, under what conditions, and how do trainees comment? We explore both individual difference and contextual influences on commenting and characteristics of comments in 3 studies. Using multilevel modeling, we identified significant class-level variance in commenting in each of the 3 samples of trainees. Because commenting has only been considered at the individual level, our findings provide an important contribution to the literature. The shared experience of being in the same class appears to influence commenting in addition to individual differences, such as interest in the topic (Studies 1 and 2), satisfaction (Studies 2 and 3), and entity beliefs (Study 3). Furthermore, we demonstrated that item wording may have an impact on commenting (Study 3) and should be considered as a potential lever for training professionals to influence commenting behavior from trainees. Training professionals, particularly those who regularly administer training evaluation surveys, should be aware of nonresponse to open-ended items and how that may impact the information they collect, use, and present within their organizations.

Drawing upon the notion of managerial discretion from upper echelons theory, we theorize which external contingencies moderate the relationship between collective organizational citizenship behavior (COCB) and unit performance. Focusing on business unit (BU) management teams, we hypothesize that COCB of BU management teams enhances BU performance and that this impact depends on environmental uncertainty and BU management-team decision latitude, 2 determinants of managerial discretion. In particular, the positive effect of COCB is stronger when environmental uncertainty or the BU management-team decision latitude is greater. Time-lagged data from 109 BUs of a telecommunications company support the hypotheses. Additional exploratory analysis shows that the positive moderating effect of environmental uncertainty is further amplified at higher levels of BU management-team decision latitude. Overall, this study extends the internally focused view in the micro OCB literature by introducing external contingencies for the COCB-unit-performance relationship.

Range restriction is a common problem in personnel selection and other contexts in applied psychology. For many years researchers have used corrections that assume range restriction was direct, even when it was known that range restriction was indirect. Hunter, Schmidt, and Le (2006) proposed a new correction for cases of indirect range restriction that greatly increases its potential usefulness due to its reduced information requirements compared to alternatives. The current study examines the applicability of Hunter et al.'s correction to settings where its assumed structural model is violated by including the measures that are to be involved in corrections in the original selection composite. We conclude that Hunter et al.'s correction should generally be preferred when compared to its common alternative, Thorndike's Case II correction for direct range restriction. However, this is due to the likely violation of one of the other assumptions of the Hunter et al. correction in most applied settings. Correction mechanisms and practical implications are discussed.

Previous research on within-person variability in performance has largely examined short-term fluctuations and long-term changes in performance separately. The present study proposes a model-based on the cognitive-affective personality system meta--theory (Mischel & Shoda, 1995)--that integrates short-term and long-term performance variability within the 1 framework. Key propositions of the model include that short-term performance fluctuations are contingent on variability in situational cues and that situational cue-performance contingencies change over time. To test the propositions, performance data for 393 professional male tennis players were analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling. The results showed that 2 types of situational cues--resource allocation cues and task complexity--interact in complex ways to account for short-term performance variability. Moreover, as predicted, the contingency of performance on the situational cues changed over time, highlighting the importance of an integrated approach to short-term and long-term performance variability. The implications of these findings are discussed for studies of performance at work and practical applications that managers can employ to increase work performance. Furthermore, parallels are drawn with previous studies from the broader literature on dynamic job performance.