Journal of Organizational Behavior最新文献

Challenge and hindrance appraisals are important to understand the effect of job demands. To date, challenge and hindrance appraisals have been studied in tandem. However, it is unknown whether, how, and when the two appraisals jointly affect employee performance. Integrating effort justification theory and goal orientation theory, the current manuscript seeks to investigate the three-way interaction effects of challenge appraisal, hindrance appraisal, and both performance-prove goal orientation and learning goal orientation on task performance via job meaningfulness and activated positive emotions. In a diary study among 96 employees over 10 consecutive workdays (N_Occasion = 960, N_Employee = 96), we found that at the daily level, hindrance appraisal strengthens (a) the effects of challenge appraisal of job demands on job meaningfulness and activated positive emotions and (b) the indirect effects of challenge appraisal on task performance via job meaningfulness and activated positive emotions. Furthermore, the strengthening effects of hindrance appraisal are more pronounced as individual trait performance-prove goal orientation increases, but they do not vary as individual trait learning goal orientation decreases. These research findings shed light on effort justification in explaining the interaction effects of challenge and hindrance appraisals and the role of goal orientation in the process.

Changing workplace dynamics have led employers to increasingly adopt electronic monitoring technologies so supervisors can observe and ensure employee compliance and productivity—outcomes the monitoring literature has long supported. Yet, employee productivity depends on strong leader–member social exchange, and the relational consequences of electronic monitoring for supervisor and employee are not well understood. To help resolve this tension within the monitoring literature and add understanding in regard to the effects of electronic monitoring on employee productivity, we use social exchange theory to examine the implications of electronic monitoring for the supervisor–employee exchange relationship. We theorize that electronic monitoring facilitates (rather than inhibits) production deviance and inhibits (rather than facilitates) task performance by undermining the exchange of social benefits and, consequently, eroding leader–member social exchange. Yet, we also hypothesize that supervisors who give performance monitoring data back to employees in a developmental way (i.e., developmental feedback) compensate for the loss of certain social benefits, and, thereby, buffer the negative relational consequences of electronic monitoring. Across an experimental online study and a field study, we find converging support for our predictions and rule out alternative explanations. This research provides timely insights into how to effectively use electronic monitoring without promoting unintended consequences.

Despite organizations encouraging employees to improve their job performance to enhance organizational performance, the understanding of the consequences of high performance from the perspective of social comparison remains limited. Drawing on social comparison theory, we develop a framework explaining how upward performance social comparison leads to political behaviors through anxiety. Furthermore, we examine the amplifying effect of social comparison orientation (SCO) on the relationship between upward performance social comparison and anxiety. We introduce the downward leader–member exchange social comparison (downward leader–member exchange social comparison [LMXSC]) to buffer the magnifying effect of SCO. We test the three-way interaction among upward performance social comparison, SCO, and downward LMXSC using the data collected from a three-wave survey (Study 1) and a scenario-based experiment (Study 2), and our hypotheses are supported. Our results reveal an interesting dilemma. Employees' high performance is naturally beneficial for organizations, but those with high SCO and fewer advantages in leader–member exchange social comparison may feel more anxious and engage in political behaviors in response to upward performance social comparison. Our research has practical implications, such as monitoring social comparisons and political behaviors in the workplace and helping employees reduce anxiety.

Does receiving knowledge necessarily catalyze the recipient's creativity? Drawing upon the literature on knowledge management, we propose a dyadic-level contingency model in which the type of received knowledge (i.e., explicit vs. tacit) from the partner and the recipient's psychological closeness to the partner jointly determine the recipient's knowledge elaboration and consequent creativity as catalyzed by the partner's knowledge (i.e., catalytic creativity). Results based on three samples from various settings show that receiving tacit knowledge from a partner leads a recipient to elaborate the received knowledge, and this relationship is stronger when the recipient's psychological closeness to the partner is higher. This dyadic-level knowledge elaboration in turn boosts the recipient's catalytic creativity. In contrast, receiving explicit knowledge from a partner generally has a much weaker effect on the recipient's elaboration of the knowledge, regardless of whether the recipient's psychological closeness to the partner is high or low. We extend research on dyadic-level creativity by illustrating (a) the differential effects of explicit versus tacit knowledge receiving and (b) the recipient's knowledge elaboration as a mechanism and dyadic psychological closeness as a boundary condition for such differential effects.

Leaders who desire to leave the current organization are sometimes forced to stay. The leadership behaviors of these leaders are underexplored in the current literature. Building on proximal withdrawal states theory, this study examines two pathways through which leaders' reluctant staying mindset (i.e., desire but are unable to quit) relates to their subordinates' task performance and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB). One pathway proposes increased laissez-faire leadership behaviors due to leaders' lower intrinsic motivation; the second pathway proposes increased delegation behaviors due to leaders' higher extrinsic motivation. Using three-wave data collected from 100 leaders and 313 subordinates, we found that leaders' reluctant staying was indirectly and negatively associated with subordinates' task performance and OCB through leaders' lower perceptions of task significance and higher laissez-faire leadership behaviors. At the same time, leaders' reluctant staying increased their bottom-line mentality and delegation behaviors, but the indirect effects on subordinates' performance outcomes were not significant. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory, practices, and future research regarding how to manage leaders who stay reluctantly in the organization.