Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology最新文献

Customer mistreatment is a prevalent phenomenon in service industries. However, limited studies have focused on leaders' reactions to witnessed customer mistreatment. Drawing upon literature on customer mistreatment, trait activation theory and empathy, we present a comprehensive theoretical framework to explore when and how service managers react to witnessed customer mistreatment. We propose that witnessed customer mistreatment is highly relevant to leaders' trait empathy and they jointly influence leaders' cognitive processes, specifically their interdependent self-construal, and emotional responses, specifically distress. These reactions, in turn, shape leaders' positive and negative interpersonal behaviours. Across two experiments and a multi-level, multi-source and multi-wave field study, we found that leaders with trait empathy were more likely to construe the self interdependently and experience distress after witnessing customer mistreatment. An interdependent self-construal then led to more servant leadership behaviour and less incivility, whereas distress resulted in more incivility. In summary, our findings suggest that service managers with trait empathy may both alleviate and exacerbate the detrimental effects of customer mistreatment. Implications for mitigating customer mistreatment from the perspective of service managers are discussed.

Research on the relation of employees' demographic characteristics with organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) has yielded inconsistent findings, possibly due to examining demographics in isolation. Drawing on expectancy–instrumentality–valence theory and adopting an intersectional lens, we propose that employees' demographics (age and managerial status) interact to predict OCB. We hypothesized that older employees in a managerial position but also younger employees in a non-managerial position are more likely to engage in OCB than individuals with other demographic combinations. This hypothesis is based on the notion that older employees in a managerial position tend to feel more responsible for their team because they genuinely care, whereas younger employees in a non-managerial position tend to act more responsibly because they are motivated to progress in their professional careers. Study 1 (N = 444) confirmed that younger non-managers exhibit more OCB than older non-managers. Study 2 (N = 471), pre-registered, showed that older managers enact more OCB than their younger or non-manager counterparts, through increased construal of power as responsibility. Further analyses including gender as an additional demographic characteristic revealed a less consistent role of gender in these relationships. This research underscores the importance of using an intersectional lens to better understand the role of employee demographics in OCB.

This weekly diary study advances research on strategic renewal by extending its scope into the home domain and integrating the Work–Home Resources (W-HR) model. Drawing on 6 weeks of multilevel data from 147 matched dual-earner couples in the United States, we examine how employees' strategic renewal at home fosters strategic renewal at work through the mediating effects of weekly flow at home and self-efficacy. We also test the moderating roles of family and organizational climates for creativity. Our findings revealed that proactive home-based renewal behaviours initiate gain spirals of personal resources, enhancing work outcomes and partner perceptions of work–family balance. This study contributes to theory by conceptualizing strategic renewal as a cross-domain behaviour and identifying flow and self-efficacy as dynamic mediators, while highlighting the amplifying effects of contextual climates in both domains.

This study aims to examine to what extent the employability of followers and their managers is equally supported by organizational learning climates. Studies often assume that managers and their followers benefit equally from these climates. However, this assumption overlooks the distinct roles and positions that managers hold in comparison with their followers. Managers typically have more freedom to engage in learning activities, make decisions about their professional development and leverage organizational resources to support their growth. Consequently, they may have better positions to reap the benefits of learning climates than followers, whose roles may be constrained by organizational hierarchies. Using an actor–partner interdependence model, in a dyadic study among 205 manager-follower dyads, we investigated how three specific learning climates—appreciation, facilitation and error avoidance—relate to managers' and followers' employability. Our findings revealed that managers' employability benefits from all three climates. Contrastingly, followers' employability is enhanced only by a facilitating learning climate. These results suggest that learning climates primarily enhance managers' career potential, while followers depend more on direct facilitation to improve their employability.

Although PO fit has its origins in the work stress literature, existing research has failed to explain the stress-protective qualities of PO fit. In this research note, we aim to clarify the negative relationship between PO fit and exhaustion and cynicism, two key symptoms of burnout, using a three-wave panel lagged design (N = 193). Specifically, we argue that PO fit fosters a work environment that cultivates organizational trust, which, in turn, helps reduce symptoms of burnout. In addition, we suggest that job crafting towards interests and strengths makes PO fit more effective in containing burnout symptoms. Our results provide evidence for the mediating role of organizational trust in the relationship between PO fit and both exhaustion and cynicism symptoms of burnout. In addition, we find evidence that job crafting based on interests (but not strengths) influences the effectiveness of PO fit in reducing exhaustion (but not cynicism).

Workplace coaching can enhance the performance and well-being of coachees. To identify key psychological mechanisms that contribute to the effectiveness and most proximal outcomes of coaching, we adopt a behavioural process perspective. This study investigates verbal dynamics in workplace coaching sessions with small business owners and their partners, so-called copreneurs. Using personality systems interaction theory, we examine which verbal statements and working alliance-indicative statements and patterns elicit goal-oriented self-regulation statements from coachees—an in-session indicator of active engagement with goal achievement. We included 20 heterosexual copreneurial couples, with one to three sessions analysed per couple, yielding a total of 29 videotaped coaching sessions. Using lag sequential analysis (N = 28,603 behaviours), we showed that working alliance verbalizations did not elicit coachees' self-regulation statements. Instead, coaches' provision of support and open questions elicited female coachees' self-regulation but not male coachees' self-regulation. Furthermore, we support the active coachee notion by emphasizing the facilitative effect of coachees' verbal engagement, such as self-disclosure and problem-focused or informative statements, on self-regulation statements. These findings contribute to our theoretical understanding of the verbal mechanisms that determine the effectiveness of coaching and key factors for practice, including gender differences and the importance of an active coachee.

To date, empirical studies of customer incivility have primarily focused on exploring the negative reactions of victims. We shift the predominant focus from victims to observers (coworkers of the victims) and establish a link between customer incivility and observers' service performance. According to attribution theory, we propose that customer incivility could exert differential effects on observers' service performance, which depend on observers' blame attribution. Specifically, when observers make employee-directed blame attribution, customer incivility is more likely to trigger observers' self-reflection, which in turn increases their service performance. Conversely, when observers make customer-directed blame attribution, customer incivility is more likely to evoke observers' moral anger, which in turn decreases their service performance. The scenario experimental design (Study 1) and time-lagged survey design (Study 2) provide support for our hypotheses. By developing a dialectical framework that integrates opposing attributional pathways, this study advances the customer incivility literature and provides insightful implications to service managers.

Emotion regulation at work is important; however, effective emotion regulation is difficult, necessitating timely intervention. We developed an ecological momentary emotion regulation intervention that incorporated two cognitive reappraisal strategies. Using a randomized controlled trial design, we assessed the impact of the cognitive reappraisal intervention on employees' workplace affective experiences and, in turn, counterproductive work behaviour (CWB) and overall job performance. Participants in the between-person intervention and control groups (N = 88 and N = 88, respectively) completed two cognitive reappraisal or control activities daily for three workweeks and reported on their daily work outcomes. Results revealed that the cognitive reappraisal intervention significantly mitigated negative affect and enhanced positive affect, which in turn reduced CWB and improved overall job performance, respectively. Furthermore, a follow-up 1 month after the end of the intervention revealed no “fade out” of the intervention effect. Finally, among the two cognitive reappraisal strategies tested, results revealed that reappraising the situation was more effective than reappraising the emotion. Substantively, the study provides valuable evidence linking reappraisal-based emotion regulation interventions to sustained improvements in job performance. Methodologically, the study provides a causal yet in situ demonstration of the effectiveness of workplace ecological momentary interventions.

Although leaders in organizations may set stretch goals (i.e., extremely difficult goals that seem unattainable given employees' current capabilities) to motivate employee development, the extreme difficulty of such goals may also demotivate them. Understanding when stretch goals may foster rather than hinder employee development is critical. By exploring the contingent role of leader goal support, this research delves into the motivational and demotivational effects of stretch goals. The results of an experimental study and a multi-wave field study suggest that employees are more likely to appraise stretch goals as challenges when leader goal support is higher, and more likely to appraise stretch goals as hindrances when leader goal support is lower. Challenge and hindrance appraisals, subsequently, lead to proactive skill development and withdrawal behaviour, respectively. That stretch goals were more directly related to hindrance than challenge appraisals in both studies should caution leaders in organizations against using stretch goals often. When stretch goals are used, they should be complemented with high leader goal support.