Prior research on the relations between the five-factor model (FFM) of personality traits and job performance has suggested mixed findings: Some studies pointed to linear relations, while other studies revealed nonlinear relations. This study addresses these gaps using machine learning (ML) methods that can model complex relations between the FFM traits and job performance in a more generalizable way, particularly interpretable ML techniques that can more effectively reveal the nature (linear, curvilinear, interactive) and strength (feature/relative importance) of the personality-job performance relations. Overall, the results based on a sample of 1,190 employees suggest that nonlinear ML methods perform slightly yet consistently better than linear regression methods in modeling the relation of job performance with FFM facets, but not with factors. On the factor level, conscientiousness exhibits a noticeable curvilinear relation with job performance, and it also interacts with other FFM factors to predict job performance. Conscientiousness displays the strongest feature importance across job types, followed by agreeableness. On the facet level, most FFM facets show limited evidence for curvilinear and interactive (with other facets) relations with job performance. While several conscientiousness facets (order, deliberation, self-discipline) display the strongest feature importance in predicting job performance, some agreeableness (straightforwardness, altruism) and extraversion (positive emotionality) facets also emerge as important features for different sales job types (corporate vs. individual sales). We discuss the implications of these findings for research and practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
Integrating insights from team hierarchy literature and shared leadership research, we propose and test a model that illuminates the positive and negative team processes through which shared leadership relates to team creativity. We use a social network lens to examine both shared leadership level (indexed by team density of informal leadership ties) and shared leadership concentration (indexed by team centralization of such ties). With a sample of 136 work teams and three waves of surveys, we found that shared leadership concentration weakens the positive effect of shared leadership level on team creativity. We explicated the positive and negative mediating roles played by team information elaboration and team status conflict, respectively. Our findings show that shared leadership concentration serves as an enabler or inhibitor on which mediating mechanism is at play, such that when shared leadership concentration is higher, there is a negative indirect effect of shared leadership level on team creativity via team status conflict. By contrast, when shared leadership concentration is lower, shared leadership level has a positive indirect effect on team creativity via team information elaboration. Our work provides nuanced insights into how to maximize the potential benefits of shared leadership in enhancing team creativity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).
This article reports the results of a 33-wave longitudinal study of relations between job insecurity and physical and mental health based on monthly data collected between April 2020 and December 2022 among n = 1,666 employees in Germany. We integrate dynamic theorizing from the transactional stress model and domain-specific theorizing based on stressor creation and perception to frame hypotheses regarding dynamic and reciprocal relations between job insecurity and health over time. We find that lower physical health predicted subsequent increases in job insecurity and higher physical health predicted subsequent decreases in job insecurity. However, job insecurity did not have a significant influence on physical health. Furthermore, higher job insecurity predicted subsequent decreases in mental health, and higher mental health predicted subsequent decreases in job insecurity. This pattern of findings suggests a dynamic and reciprocal within-person process wherein positive deviations from one's average trajectory of job insecurity are associated with subsequently lower levels of mental health and vice versa. We additionally find evidence for linear trends in these within-person processes themselves, suggesting that the strength of the within-person influence of job insecurity on mental health becomes more strongly negative over time (i.e., a negative amplifying cycle). This research provides practical insights into job insecurity as a health threat and shows how concerns about job loss following deteriorations in physical and mental health serve to further threaten well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).
Star employees are pivotal to organizational success and significantly influence their peers. Previous studies on this topic often explore the attributes of stars and nonstars in isolation. Using social comparison theory, our study posits that as employees' performance approaches that of star employees, nonstar employees become more likely to compare themselves with stars, thereby increasing their sense of psychological entitlement. The increase in entitlement is likely to promote workplace deviance and decrease workplace well-being. We further propose that team interdependence amplifies the relationship between the star-nonstar performance gap and psychological entitlement. When team interdependence is high, the influence of the star-nonstar performance gap on nonstars' psychological entitlement and the mediating effects of psychological entitlement become more significant. We conducted four studies including two field surveys and two experiments to test our hypotheses. The results indicated that employees who exhibit small performance gaps are more adversely affected by stars than other employees, thus offering a more nuanced understanding of star employees' influence within organizations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).
Following through on commitments builds trust. However, blind adherence to a prior course of action can undermine key organizational objectives. How can this challenge be resolved? Four primary experiments and five supplemental experiments (collective N = 7,759, all preregistered) reveal an effective communication strategy: precommitment (i.e., a public pledge to change course conditional on a concrete future state of the world). In the presence (vs. absence) of precommitment, observers deemed decision makers who de-escalated commitment as more trustworthy. This effect held across the roles of the decision makers (entrepreneurs vs. established leaders), the relationship with the decision makers (follower vs. third-party observer), contexts (consumer products vs. infrastructure projects), and measures (perceived integrity vs. incentivized behavior). These benefits for integrity were attenuated when the precommitment was to a vague future action or was not conditional on a concrete future state of the world. Finally, results revealed that precommitment can yield a negative externality: undermining perceived confidence and motivation among followers at a project's inception. Altogether, our work provides a nuanced perspective on a communication strategy decision makers can use to align short-term personal incentives (i.e., reputation management) and long-term organizational incentives (i.e., value maximization). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).
Today, adult children depend financially on their parents more than ever before. This poses challenges for the financial well-being of parents, particularly in the context of retirement planning. Our research investigates the crossover of financial anxiety from adult children to their parents and its impact on parents' retirement intentions. Drawing on crossover theory and the resource-based view of retirement, we examine the mechanisms underlying this stress crossover. Across three studies (Studies 1a, 1b, and 2) conducted in developed economies, we found that adult children's financial anxiety was associated with their parents' delayed retirement intentions through an increase in their parents' own financial anxiety. Study 3, conducted in a developing economy, further established that financial stress crossover occurred primarily through an increase in social undermining and financial expenditure, although these mechanisms do not translate into delayed retirement intentions. Our work contributes to the stress-crossover literature by testing different mechanisms of stress crossover and highlighting how children's financial anxiety might "trickle-up" to affect their parents' stress and important life decisions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).