Showing papers in "Human Relations in 2023"

Too sleepy to be innovative? Ethical leadership and employee service innovation behavior: A dual-path model moderated by sleep quality

Abstract: This research explores the association of ethical leadership with employee service innovation behavior through a moderated mediation model. Theorizing on uncertainty reduction theory, we explore psychological ownership and creative self-efficacy as the underlying psychological mechanisms in the association between ethical leadership and employee service innovation behavior while considering the moderating role of sleep quality. We tested our theoretical model in two studies involving hospitality sector employees in the United States. Study 1 employed a three-wave (two-week period) time-lagged design (N = 237), and Study 2 used a two-wave (four-week period) survey design (N = 313). The findings suggest that workers’ psychological ownership and creative self-efficacy mediate the association between ethical leadership and employee service innovation behavior. In addition, sleep quality functions as an important boundary condition of the association between creative self-efficacy and service innovation behavior. Our research has important implications for understanding the impact of ethical leadership on important employee outcomes while considering the boundary condition role of employee sleep quality. The limitations of the study and future research directions are discussed.

Editorial: Crafting review and essay articles for Human Relations

Abstract: Human Relations has long welcomed different types of reviews – systematic reviews, meta-analyses, conceptual reviews, narrative reviews, historical reviews – and critical essays that are original, innovative, of high-quality and contribute to theory building in the social sciences. The main purpose of this essay is to sketch out our current broad expectations for reviews and essays as a guide for authors and reviewers. As Editors of the journal, we do not wish to be overly prescriptive. After all, reviews may be integrative and focus on synthesis and integration to generate new concepts, frameworks and perspectives, or they may be more problematizing and contribute by identifying problematics, tensions and contradictions in a literature. Furthermore, consonant with its heritage, Human Relations invites scholarship from all research traditions across the social sciences that focus on social relations at work. It is a pluralistic, heterodox journal that will continue to publish a range of reviews and critical essays so long as authors have clear objectives and contribute meaningfully to the field. This will generally involve writing reviews and essays that seek to maximize what we see and are sufficiently complex to deal adequately with the richness and variety of the literatures and ideas considered.

Mirroring and switching authoritative personae: A ventriloquial analysis of shareholder engagement on carbon emissions

Abstract: We examine how the authority of investors to speak about climate change with corporations is established. Leveraging the ‘communication as constitutive of organisations’ (CCO) perspective, we analyse who speaks on behalf of whom (or what) in shareholder engagement on corporate carbon emissions. Based on access to private dialogues between an engager acting on behalf of a pool of investors with 20 utility corporations, we identify how three authoritative personae—that of diplomat, advocate, and coach—convey climate change concerns. We find that the mirroring of these authoritative personae by corporations may lead to deliberation, evasion, or rejection of the suggested courses of action. We theorise how relational authority is communicatively constituted in shareholder engagement through a process of mirroring and switching between authoritative personae. Our framework contributes to the study of CCO and relational authority by highlighting how meta-figures are used by external actors in an attempt to author appropriate corporate actions. We discuss the implications of our framework for the role of shareholder engagement in current attempts at greening financial capitalism.

Mitigating anxiety: The role of strategic leadership groups during radical organisational change

Abstract: This article examines the role of strategic leadership groups in radical organisational change. Previous research has focused on how ‘heroic’ individual leaders guide change. In contrast, we argue that strategic leadership groups are indispensable to understanding and supporting radical organisational change. Building on a longitudinal study in a global European company, our research identifies four phases of ‘negotiated order’ that shape group and organisational responses to change. Our findings reveal that strategic leadership groups help manage emotions and understand the shifting authority relations that inevitably arise during periods of change. Drawing upon the psychoanalytic concept of ‘projective identification’, we develop a theoretical framework for understanding the tensions of change. The model shows how emotional coalitions that develop in strategic leadership groups afford a source of political and psychological containment against the anxieties of radical organisational change. These formations offer transitional spaces for change, providing opportunities for progress. The advantage of this new perspective on radical change is that it helps to move the organisation beyond periods of ambivalence and conflict, with positive implications for leadership practice.

Understanding the negotiation and performance effects of idiosyncratic deals: Test of a moderated mediation model

Abstract: Despite the prevalence of idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) as an adaptive strategy for the effective management of an increasingly diverse workforce, the drivers of these customized work arrangements and why they enhance mutuality in the employment relationship are not well understood. Drawing on an integration of social cognitive theory and resource-based perspective, we address these interrelated questions by proposing and examining a moderated mediation model of antecedents and outcomes of task and career i-deals. Multi-source and multi-wave data obtained from supervisors and employees in service and manufacturing organizations were used to test our hypothesized relationships. Results of multilevel path analysis reveal that both employee approach motive and supervisor political skill relate to i-deals. Furthermore, high-commitment HR system moderates the relationship between supervisor political skill (but not employee approach motive) and i-deals such that this relationship is stronger when high-commitment HR system is high but not low. Additionally, i-deals relate to service creativity but indirectly through personal skill development suggesting a potential human capital (relative to the predominantly motivational) explanation of the performance implications of i-deals. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding and enhancing the effectiveness of negotiating and implementing i-deals.

Welcome to parenthood!? An examination of the far-reaching effects of perceived adoption stigma in the workplace

Abstract: While there may be no difference in terms of the love, care, and bond shared between parent and child, relationships created through adoption are often viewed less favorably in our society compared with those that possess a biological tie. Integrating minority stress and family systems theories, we seek to better understand working adoptive parents’ experiences and how the perceived stigma of being an adoptive parent negatively impacts a variety of work and family outcomes. Using a sample of 501 couples that adopted a child, we find that work–family conflict mediates the relationship between perceived adoption stigma and primary effects (i.e. job satisfaction and depression) as well as spillover effects (i.e. family satisfaction and parent–child bonding) for the job incumbent. Further, we find that the employee’s perceived adoption stigma also has crossover effects to their spouse, negatively impacting the spouse’s depression, family satisfaction, and parent–child bonding. Implications for theory and practice, limitations, and future research are discussed.

EXPRESS: Where the past meets the present: Upward mobility, environmental stimuli, and CEOs’ investment in CSR

Abstract: Does the experience of upwardly mobility make top executives more or less likely to invest in socially conscious initiatives at the firm level? Despite early theorizing, much remains unknown about how top executives’ experiences with upward mobility impact their decisions related to corporate social responsibility (CSR). In this study, we focus on CEOs from lower social class origins, who have arguably achieved extreme upward mobility, and examine the effects of their background on the likelihood of helping others. Drawing on upper echelons and social class literature, we theorize that top executives’ past—where they come from (i.e., social class origins) and what they have experienced on their climb to the top—influence CSR decisions. We argue that CEOs from lower social class origins develop simultaneous, but at times competing, habitus that influence them to invest more in community-centric but less in employee-centric CSR than their counterparts from middle and upper class backgrounds. Drawing on trait activation theory, we also predict the moderating influence of the immediate environmental context, namely local levels of poverty and prosperity. Overall, our results support our hypotheses and provide a complex picture of how upward mobility, and its attendant tensions, can affect executive values and CSR.

Webs of oppression: An intersectional analysis of inequalities facing women activists in Palestine

Abstract: How can we understand the multiple, intersecting webs of oppression that Palestinian women activists face in their everyday organizing? With a long tradition of counter-hegemonic organizing, the Palestinian context presents opportunities and challenges for women pursuing activist causes in the public domain. Adopting an intersectionality framework, we uncover how gender, class and settler-colonized domination interact, engendering dynamics of oppression differentiated by activists’ social positions. Activists’ stories captured at interview reveal they were not victims across all categories of difference, experiencing forms of relative privilege, characterized as safeguarded, secured and sheltered. We connect relative privilege to the patchwork nature of Palestinian institutions, whereby women’s agency intermingles with a patchwork of historically constituted structures and conditions. Our fine-grained study contributes to literature on feminist and activist organizing and to theorizations of intersectionality by identifying forms of relative oppression and privilege as women actively resist hegemonic gendered structures in Palestine.

EXPRESS: Relative Status and Dyadic Help Seeking and Giving: The Roles of Past Helping History and Power Distance Value

Abstract: Employees may not always seek and give help when needed in the dyadic context due to status disparity. Drawing on the cost and benefit framework in social exchange, we examine the effects of relative status on help seeking and giving willingness and behaviors among dyads. We argue that low-status individuals tend to provide more help but seek less help from their high-status counterparts. We further consider two moderators that can help restore the balance in cross-status helping relationships: employees’ past helping history and low power distance value. Additionally, we investigate the mediating roles of perceived entitlement and perceived obligation in the relationships between relative status and help seeking and giving, respectively. We tested our hypotheses in three studies using both dyadic field studies and experiments with employee participants. Our findings consistently demonstrate that low-status employees had a disadvantage in dyadic help-seeking and help-giving relationships. We also find that past helping history mitigated the effects of relative status in predicting help giving, whereas low power distance value attenuated the effects of relative status in predicting help seeking. Finally, we find support for the mediated effects of perceived entitlement and obligation in the hypothesized relationships.

Employee reactions to planned organizational culture change: A configurational perspective

Abstract: Can organizational culture be intentionally changed? And if so, what are the pathways to success versus failure? We address these questions by employing a configurational perspective, which allows us to examine the impact of multiple combinations of employee perceptions and traits on planned organizational culture change. Although employees have long been the focus of culture change research, the complex interactions of factors affecting their reactions have been largely ignored. With such a focus, the study empirically identifies pathways to successful versus failed organizational culture change, drawing rare empirical evidence from 59 interviews and secondary data from one of the longest surviving examples of industrial democracy, John Lewis Partnership, which underwent change geared away from a ‘civil-service’ towards a high-performance culture. Applying a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), we identify multiple equifinal combinations of employee perceptions and traits (e.g., perceived organizational support, empowerment, and tenure) associated with successful or failed organizational culture change. Interestingly, we find more pathways leading to positive (i.e., ‘comparing’, ‘acquitting’, and ‘tolerating’) versus negative (i.e., ‘disillusioning’ and ‘dissociating’) reactions to culture change. We leverage these findings to show that employee reactions are more complex than currently considered, illustrating the value of a configurational perspective in such efforts.

Responding to institutional plurality: Micro-politics in the rollout of a global corporate social responsibility norm in an multi-national enterprise

Abstract: How can we make sense of the range of organizational dynamics that emerge when managers of multi-national enterprises (MNEs) seek to serve their interests as they perceive multiple demands in relation to corporate social responsibility (CSR)? In this article, I conceptualize this situation as a case of CSR institutional plurality. Drawing from the literature on MNE micro-politics, which I connect to the CSR literature, I analyze qualitative data gathered from five subsidiaries of a UK MNE to which their HQ transferred CSR reporting: a global norm with a typical explicit CSR mode. My analysis reveals that subsidiary managers responded to CSR institutional plurality by developing aligned or contested versions of the global CSR norm, that were then promoted through the deployment of discursive and symbolic tactics. I develop a grounded model that improves understanding of three power capabilities of subsidiary actors, that is, their socialization to explicit CSR norms, the exercise of employee voice and their political capital that can be deployed to support or curb the advancement of the managerial tactics. In doing so, I reveal the complex pathways through which lower-status subsidiary actors can take part in the reconfiguration of a global CSR norm.

Financially insecure and less ethical: Understanding why and when financial insecurity inhibits ethical leadership

Abstract: With the recent COVID-19 pandemic, among other crises (e.g., Russia–Ukraine conflicts and recession projections) threatening organizations’ financial conditions across the globe, supervisors may not only encounter challenges such as job cuts that test their ethical leadership, but also experience financial insecurity themselves. However, our knowledge of why and when supervisors’ ethical leadership behaviors may be affected in such a situation remains quite limited. In this research, we draw on uncertainty management theory (UMT) to examine the potential influence of financial insecurity on ethical leadership. Specifically, we suggest that financial insecurity triggers anxiety in supervisors, which inhibits their demonstration of ethical leadership. We also propose organizational pay fairness as a boundary condition for this process, such that supervisors who perceive their pay as fair are less susceptible to the anxiety resulting from financial insecurity than those who perceive their pay as unfair. Results from two multi-source, multi-wave studies supported our hypothesized model. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

A woman’s got to be what a woman’s got to be? How managerial assessment centers perpetuate gender inequality

Abstract: Why do women receive equal or better performance ratings than men in managerial assessment centers even when they are structured in ways that systematically disadvantage them? This study provides the first attempt to understand this managerial assessment center gender paradox using in-depth interviews with managerial assessment center evaluators for a large semi-military governmental organization. The study revealed that the managerial assessment center was a gendered environment in which organizational practices, language used, and the underlying logic establish and reinforce men as assertive or protectors and women as weak and in need of protection. In accordance with the managerial assessment center gender paradox, women were successful at the managerial assessment center despite systemic bias against them. Interpretive analysis revealed that women candidates generate discomfort that evaluators alleviate by increased attention to the extent to which they conform to gender ideology. We coin the term ‘benevolence effect’ to describe evaluators’ tendency to over-valuate and advance women candidates who conform to traditional stereotypes of white femininity. The benevolence effect paradoxically contributes to the preservation and perpetuation of the sexual binary and the idealization of the abstract manager as male-bodied in the organization, even as it contributes to the promotion of women.

Creating inclusivity through boundary work? Zooming in on low-wage service sector work

Abstract: Workers in the low-wage service sector represent a sociodemographically heterogeneous and particularly vulnerable group in terms of job security, job quality and health implications. However, organizational inclusion research has largely neglected this group. In contrast, this article builds on a qualitative study of a Dutch aircraft cleaning company in order to assess the ‘inclusivity of inclusion approaches’ for less privileged groups of employees. By reconstructing how managers and cleaners draw/rework boundaries, we identify certain configurations of inclusion and exclusion that can unfold more or less ‘inclusive’ consequences for historically disadvantaged group members, and more or less exclusionary repercussions for particularly privileged and/or majority group members. We stress the need to say goodbye to a linear narrative of organizations becoming ‘inclusive as such’. Furthermore, we argue that the presence of decent working and employment conditions and the absence of steep differences in those conditions between groups represent the ‘silent foundation’ of creating inclusivity. Consequently, we ask: does inclusion research reach its ‘natural limits’ by tiptoeing around the topic of equality?

Why does unpaid labour vary among digital labour platforms? Exploring socio-technical platform regimes of worker autonomy

Abstract: Digital platforms provide many workers with vital income and offer the promise of flexible work, and yet also contribute to experiences of precariousness and exploitation, particularly with regard to pressures to undertake unpaid work. This article explores why unpaid labour is necessary and what drives its extent and form among diverse types of digital platforms. We theorize two ideal types of ‘open’ and ‘closed’ socio-technical platform regimes of worker autonomy, building on sociological insights about socio-technical systems, management control over worker autonomy and labour market segmentation by skill. In principle, ‘open’ (‘closed’) platform regimes grant relatively high (low) worker autonomy in terms of access to the platform, paid work and control over work tasks. Analysing five case studies, illustrative of ‘open’ and ‘closed’ regimes, we investigate unpaid labour in low-skill locational (i.e. food delivery) platforms and medium/high-skill online (i.e. freelancing) platforms. In brief, digital freelancers exhibit a lower extent of unpaid labour within relatively ‘open’ regimes, owing to greater autonomy over access to, and control over, platform work in a sector requiring medium/high skills. Conversely, ‘closed’ regimes mitigate unpaid labour for food-delivery platforms by providing market shelter for workers, who are easily replaced in an overcrowded sector requiring few skills.

“Commit professional suicide or take up my pilgrim’s staff again?”: A cultural examination of how female managers resolve shock events in developing regions

Abstract: How do key cultural aspects of individualism/collectivism and gender egalitarianism shape the decision making of female managers from developing regions when handling major work–family conflicts (WFC)? We address this question by drawing on a qualitative study of 50 female managers from developing countries in Asia, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa who work in one particular male-dominated industry. We examine the major WFC incidents experienced by our study participants through the theoretical lens of work–life shock events outlined by Crawford et al. We contribute to the episodic approach to WFC research by shedding light on important aspects of the sociocultural role of extended families and the collectivistic values prevalent in developing regions, as well as on pervasive (low) gender egalitarian norms. The accounts of our female managers reveal how major events are perceived and how women use multifaceted methods to handle them, allowing us to propose a decision-making framework and associated cues with three broad types of decision making: (1) self-directed—choosing work; (2) consultative—choosing work; and (3) consultative—choosing family. Alongside this, we offer revealing insights into how the abovementioned cultural aspects help to shape the logic of consequences (through which people assess the impact of alternative actions) and the logic of appropriateness (through which people act according to their identity), thereby influencing WFC decision making during major episodes of conflict.

Gaslighting and dispelling: Experiences of non-governmental organization workers in navigating gendered corruption

Abstract: How does corruption adopt gendered guises and how do women combat it in practice? Theorizing from the basis of a 30-month ethnography within a women’s non-governmental organization (NGO), the article proposes gaslighting as a way of interpreting gendered corruption, owing to its elusive but pernicious nature. Gaslighting is posited as the deployment of tactics to make women doubt their sanity and as a means of securing personal advantage. Gaslighting triggers embodied forms of struggle, and the article offers the notion of dispelling as denoting the persistent, patient and reiterative counter-practice of NGO practitioners to assert democratic norms of liberty and equality. The article provides rich empirical insight both into how corruption is enacted through the citing of patriarchal norms and how such norms are contested through the bodies of practitioners. These insights are important at a time when governments globally claim gender equality while undermining it in practice.

Understanding social responsibility and relational pressures in nonprofit organisations

Abstract: Relational pressures across multiple levels push organisations to behave socially responsibly or sometimes irresponsibly. But how do relational pressures across multiple levels influence social responsibility of small nonprofit organisations working with marginalised groups? Nonprofit organisations are increasing in importance owing to their role in development and representation of marginalised groups’ interests, yet their social responsibility is little understood. Using the lens of standpoint theory, we explore social responsibility of small disability arts organisations in the nonprofit sector in Australia drawing on 53 interviews involving actors at multiple levels, supplemented by site visits and observations. We find small nonprofit organisations’ social responsibility in a state of flux, influenced by differing priorities, expectations, and demands from various actors across levels. We provide insights into organisational social responsibility dynamics, identifying three major tensions that small arts organisations face – formality versus informality, agency versus representation, and access versus excellence – in seeking to be socially responsible. Our findings have relevance for organisations in the wider nonprofit sector, underscoring the need to explore their social responsibility from a relational perspective. Further, the resultant tensions from relational pressures, as identified in our study, provide important implications for organisational social responsibility advancing theoretical and practical knowledge in this emerging field.

‘I disdain the company of flatterers!’: How and when observed ingratiation predicts employees’ ostracism toward their ingratiating colleagues

Abstract: Ingratiation is an impression management tactic used by those who seek to obtain the favor of others. Previous studies mainly examine the role of ingratiation from the initiator’s perspective, ignoring observers’ reactions when they are confronted with their peers’ ingratiating behaviors. Drawing on social comparison theory, this study employs a third-party framework to explain the pathways between observed ingratiation and ostracism and analyzes data from a time-lagged survey and two scenario-based experiments in the Chinese context. Observed ingratiation triggers third-party employees’ ostracism of flatterers by arousing a sense of future status threats. Moreover, when observers’ goals are competitive with those of ingratiators, the adverse effects of observed ingratiation are exacerbated, whereas their leader–member exchange social comparison (LMXSC) buffers its unfavorable effects. These findings advance ingratiation studies by extending the research perspective from that of initiator–target dyads to third-party employees and unveiling a vital mediator (future status threats) and two essential opposite moderators (competitive goals and LMXSC) in the internal mechanism underlying the observed ingratiation–ostracism link. Further, although ingratiation may induce benefits for ingratiators, managers must recognize that it can be destructive for third-party employees.

Talking about disappointments: Identification work through multiple discourses at a prestigious university

Abstract: Disappointment is common in many organizations. Yet little is known about how individuals’ talk about their workplace disappointment shapes their identification with organizations. We conducted an analysis of 104 academics in a prestigious British university to make two contributions to our understanding of the discursive constitution of organizational identification (OID). First, we show how individuals used different types of disappointment-talk to narrate and respond to identification dilemmas in distinct ways. Our findings extend existing research by showing that discourses of emotion do not simply delimit agency but also enable individuals to resist and reject organizational discourses that attempt to anchor them to specific identity positions. Second, we identify a novel way in which individuals can configure the multiple discourses that can be in tension and generate disappointment – unravelling. Here, individuals draw upon one among the multiple discourses in conflict (in our case, prestige) to ‘unravel’ the knotting between the various discourses that constituted their OID dilemmas. We also consider the implications of our study for academic labour in universities.

Relational interdependencies and the intra-EU mobility of African European Citizens

Abstract: How can we better understand the puzzle of low-skilled migrants who have acquired citizenship in a European Union country, often with generous social security provision, choosing to relocate to the United Kingdom? Drawing on Elias’s figurational theory as a lens, we explore how relational interdependencies foster the mobility of low-skilled African European Citizens from European Union states to the United Kingdom. We found that African European Citizens rely on ‘piblings networks’, loose affiliations of putative relatives, to compensate for deficits in their situated social capital, facilitating relocation. The temporary stability afforded by impermanent bonds and transient associations, in constant flux in migrant communities, does not preclude integration but paradoxically promotes it by enabling an ease of connection and disconnection. Our study elucidates how these relational networks offer African European Citizens opportunities to achieve labour market integration, exercise self-efficacy, and realize desired futures; anchoring individuals in existing communities even when they are perpetually transforming.

Female board membership and stakeholder strategy: Consistency under complexity and uncertainty

Abstract: How does female board membership affect firm stakeholder strategy? With the large increase in pressure to add more women to boards, it is especially important to understand how they influence firm strategy. Moreover, despite the growing importance of firm stakeholder strategy, key stakeholders continue to criticize firms for failing to keep their commitments. Here, we expect that owing to their long-term nature, consistency is particularly important for stakeholder investments, and that owing to their greater interest in stakeholder issues and their effect on board monitoring, female board members can be a key driver of stakeholder strategy consistency. Specifically, we develop and test hypotheses that increasing architectural complexity and uncertainty make stakeholder investments more difficult or costly, leading to a reduction in such investments. However, female board membership increases firm stakeholder consistency and counteracts these negative effects. Using a sample of 1755 S&P 1500 firms for the period 2000–2013, we provide robust support for our hypotheses.

Doing inclusion as counter-conduct: Navigating the paradoxes of organizing for refugee and migrant inclusion

Abstract: Are organizational projects for refugee and migrant inclusion always trapped with the logic of exclusion and inequality that they seek to dismantle? Existing literature on critical diversity and inclusion studies has demonstrated how the “doing” of inclusion in organizations tends to come with paradoxical effects: well-intended efforts to include migrants and refugees construct them as vulnerable, non-autonomous subjects who need help, within a hierarchical order that is taken for granted. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this article explores how three civil society organizations (CSOs) navigate these paradoxical effects and the unduly constraining power relations involved through practices that we theorize as counter-conduct against the pastoral government of a national refugee and migrant integration regime. The analysis identifies three practices of counter-conduct through which organizations “do inclusion differently”: contesting constraining categorizations, problematizing hierarchical power relations, and questioning the assimilationist goals and principles of the integration regime. We argue that through continuous critique and renegotiation of the ways in which boundaries of inclusion/exclusion are drawn within the integration regime, organizations work toward conditions in which power relations remain fluid and allow for strategies to alter them.

Investigating the making of organizational social responsibility as a polyphony of voices: A ventriloquial analysis of practitioners’ interactions

Abstract: Though studies increasingly suggest nurturing a polyphonic and conflict-centered understanding of organizational social responsibility—referred to as CSR here—little is known about which voices make a difference (how and with what effect) when practitioners discuss CSR matters. Similarly, more work is needed on what and how tensions emerge in CSR planning, and how conflicts are addressed. By analyzing conversations with a ventriloquial framework, this research shows that CSR unfolds as different elements of a situation voice themselves as concerns. As the voices of these elements support seemingly incompatible actions, visibility, coherence, and performance tensions surface in interactions. Given that doing CSR consists in responding to concerns and conflicts originating from them, the needs practitioners experience may prompt them to (re)negotiate alternatives for action, balance diverging requests, and/or silence pressing issues to benefit other interests. This study enriches the understanding of CSR as polyphony by unveiling the centrality of voice inclusion–exclusion dynamics in how practitioners try to respond to the (ethical) value of the many conflict- and uncertainty-causing courses of action that manifest in interactions. It also provides insights on the nature of voice mobilization processes, which boost the ventriloquial perspective on organizing. Ultimately, by identifying the making of CSR as unfolding in interplays of voice invitation, mitigation, and shelving, it enhances CSR research by inviting scholars to spotlight more the variability and poly-dimensionality of doing CSR.

The double-edged sword of negative supervisor gossip: When and why negative supervisor gossip promotes versus inhibits feedback seeking behavior among gossip targets

Abstract: How does being the target of negative supervisor gossip influence the functioning of targeted employees? We draw on feedback intervention theory to examine the beneficial and detrimental effects of negative supervisor gossip on targets’ feedback seeking behavior (FSB). Results from an online scenario study ( N = 731) and a multi-wave field study ( N = 249) showed that being the target of negative supervisor gossip led to high task reflexivity, which promoted FSB, but also led to high negative affect, which inhibited FSB. Furthermore, targets’ implicit theory of ability moderated the indirect relationships between negative supervisor gossip and FSB. Specifically, negative supervisor gossip stimulated task reflexivity and FSB especially when targets had a strong incremental theory. In contrast, negative supervisor gossip increased negative affect and stifled FSB especially when targets had a strong entity theory. Our findings indicate that negative supervisor gossip is a double-edged sword for targets’ engagement in FSB, thus providing a balanced view of its effects. We provide guidance for supervisors to better deliver and for employees to better receive different forms of feedback.

Ideas endorsed, credit claimed: Managerial credit claiming weakens the benefits of voice endorsement on future voice behavior through respect and work group identification

Abstract: Does endorsement of employees’ constructive voice always result in more voice behavior in the future? Although it is often assumed that endorsement is a critical predictor of future voice behavior, we argue that this effect is contingent on whether managers claim credit for their employees’ voice. Drawing from the group engagement model, we first predict that endorsement will be positively associated with voicing employees’ perceived respect within the group, while managers’ credit-claiming behaviors will be negatively associated with such respect. We then further predict that credit-claiming behaviors serve as a boundary condition to the positive association between endorsement and respect, such that when levels of credit claiming by managers are higher, the positive association between endorsement and respect will be weakened. Higher levels of respect, in turn, are associated with higher levels of work group identification and then higher levels of future voice behavior. Results from a multi-wave survey field study in China and a scenario experiment in the United States offer support for our model. Our findings suggest an important but neglected form of managerial response to voice – credit claiming – and highlight its detrimental effect on motivating future voice behavior despite voice endorsement.