Social Psychology of Organizations

Survey research finds that mothers suffer a substantial wage penalty, although the causal mechanism producing it remains elusive. The authors employed a laboratory experiment to evaluate the hypothesis that status-based discrimination plays an important role and an audit study of actual employers to assess its real-world implications. In both studies, participants evaluated application materials for a pair of same-gender equally qualified job candidates who differed on parental status. The laboratory experiment found that mothers were penalized on a host of measures, including perceived competence and recommended starting salary. Men were not penalized for, and sometimes benefited from, being a parent. The audit study showed that actual employers discriminate against mothers, but not against fathers.

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Getting a Job : Is There a Motherhood Penalty?

Psychological safety describes people’s perceptions of the consequences of taking interpersonal risks in a particular context such as a workplace. First explored by pioneering organizational scholars in the 1960s, psychological safety experienced a renaissance starting in the 1990s and continuing to the present. Organizational research has identified psychological safety as a critical factor in understanding phenomena such as voice, teamwork, team learning, and organizational learning. A growing body of conceptual and empirical work has focused on understanding the nature of psychological safety, identifying factors that contribute to it, and examining its implications for individuals, teams, and organizations. In this article, we review and integrate this literature and suggest directions for future research. We first briefly review the early history of psychological safety research and then examine contemporary research at the individual, group, and organizational levels of analysis. We assess what has ...

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Amy_Edmondson/publication/275070993_Psychological_Safety_The_History_Renaissance_and_Future_of_an_Interpersonal_Construct/links/55b7f06f08ae092e96587280.pdf

Psychological Safety: The History, Renaissance, and Future of an Interpersonal Construct

Within organizations, employees continually confront situations that put them face to face with the decision of whether to speak up (i.e., voice) or remain silent when they have potentially useful information or ideas. In recent years, there has been a rapidly growing body of conceptual and empirical research focused on better understanding the motives underlying voice, individual, and situational factors that increase employee voice behavior, and the implications of voice and silence for employees, work groups, and organizations. Yet this literature has notable gaps and unresolved issues, and it is not entirely clear where future scholarship should be directed. This article, therefore, is an attempt to review and integrate the existing literature on employee voice and also to provide some direction for future research.

Employee Voice Behavior: Integration and Directions for Future Research

This article uses meta-analysis to develop a model integrating research on relationships between employee perceptions of general and work–family-specific supervisor and organizational support and work–family conflict. Drawing on 115 samples from 85 studies comprising 72,507 employees, we compared the relative influence of 4 types of workplace social support to work–family conflict: perceived organizational support (POS); supervisor support; perceived organizational work–family support, also known as family-supportive organizational perceptions (FSOP); and supervisor work–family support. Results show work–family-specific constructs of supervisor support and organization support are more strongly related to work–family conflict than general supervisor support and organization support, respectively. We then test a mediation model assessing the effects of all measures at once and show positive perceptions of general and work–family-specific supervisor indirectly relate to work–family conflict via organizational work–family support. These results demonstrate that work–family-specific support plays a central role in individuals’ work–family conflict experiences.

/pdf/workplace-social-support-and-work-family-conflict-a-meta-22f14yo3kk.pdf

Workplace social support and work-family conflict: A meta-analysis clarifying the influence of general and work-family-specific supervisor and organizational support

Whereas both management scholars and practitioners emphasize the importance of employee input for improving workplace practices, research suggests that many employees are hesitant to express their opinions or voice their views because doing so might lead to retaliation. Consequently, they remain silent rather than speak up about workplace happenings, actions or ideas of others, needed changes, and other job-related issues. Drawing on various literatures, we developed and tested a conceptual scheme for examining the influence of self-monitoring on the relationships between two individual (locus of control and self-esteem) and two contextual (top-management openness and trust in supervisor) factors and speaking up. Data from 118 telecommunications employees and their coworkers provided supporting evidence. As predicted, low self-monitors, in comparison to high self-monitors, spoke up more often as internal locus of control, self-esteem, top-management openness, and trust in supervisor increased. The theoretical and practical implications of our results are discussed.

Breaking the Silence: The Moderating Effects of Self‐Monitoring in Predicting Speaking Up in the Workplace*

Little is known about the effectiveness of family-friendly policies (FFPs) in reducing interrole conflicts involving work and family. The present study examined the influence of FFPs, work-family culture, and family characteristics on salient job outcomes, and multiple dimensions of work-family conflict (WFC) and family-work conflict (FWC). Results from a survey of 564 workers, indicate that FFPs exert minimal effects on felt conflict, and that a positive work-family culture and family support may be more instrumental in helping employees balance work and home roles. Findings also suggest that sources of conflict varied among workers, as did the mechanisms used to address WFC and FWC. This study underscores the importance of examining WFC as a multi-dimensional phenomenon affecting employees in a variety of family structures, as well as considering the impact of FFPs in conjunction with work-family culture. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Balancing work and family: a field study of multi-dimensional, multi-role work-family conflict

Spending time: The impact of hours worked on work-family conflict

A laboratory experiment contrasting disabled and non-disabled job applicants assessed the impact of disability type, physical attractiveness, and proximity of the job opening to the decision maker. Physically disabled applicants were rated higher than either non-disabled or mentally disabled applicants. However, some evidence was found of a bias against disabled applicants, particularly the mentally disabled, when the position involved was in close proximity to the decision maker.

Impact of applicant disability on selection: The role of disability type, physical attractiveness, and proximity.

In this investigation we report results of a study designed to test the effect of crosscultural values on multisource feedback (MSF). With the participation of a sample of 501 managers from Venezuela and Colombia, two collectivistic and high power distance countries, results of the study indicate that cultural values distort the evaluations involved in MSF systems. Specifically, unlike reports of studies conducted in individualistic and low power distance environments, we found that (a) peers are the least discrepant source of information, (b) subordinates tend to provide the highest evaluations across feedback sources, and (c) there is an excessive emphasis on people-oriented behaviors. Results are discussed in light of the conflict between our findings and those in existing literature. The practical implications of MSF in multi-cultural workplaces are addressed.

Sonya F. Premeaux

Papers

Breaking the Silence: The Moderating Effects of Self‐Monitoring in Predicting Speaking Up in the Workplace*

Balancing work and family: a field study of multi-dimensional, multi-role work-family conflict

Spending time: The impact of hours worked on work-family conflict

Impact of applicant disability on selection: The role of disability type, physical attractiveness, and proximity.

Do Cross-Cultural Values Affect Multisource Feedback Dynamics? The Case of High Power Distance and Collectivism in Two Latin American Countries