Research in Organizational Behavior最新文献

Decades of research have shown that people’s mindsets beliefs—their beliefs about the fixedness or malleability of talent, ability, and intelligence—can powerfully influence their motivation, engagement, and performance. This article explores the role of mindsets in organizational contexts. We start by describing the evolution of mindset theory and research and review why mindsets matter for people’s workplace outcomes. We discuss some of the most common growth mindset misconceptions—termed “false growth mindset”—that emerged as the fixed and growth mindset became popularized and (mis)applied in educational settings. We review literature on the situations that move people between their fixed and growth mindsets. Finally, we review new research on organizational mindsets and how organizations’ mindset culture—communicated through its norms, policies, practices, and leadership messages—influences people’s motivation and behavior in the workplace. We outline open theoretical and methodological questions as well as promising future directions for a forward-looking research agenda on mindsets at work. We suggest that extending mindset research—at the personal and organizational levels—to workplace contexts may shed new light on classic organizational behavior questions such as how to create more positive, innovative, and ethical organizational cultures; how to increase employee engagement; and how to reduce group-based disparities and inequalities in organizations.

Research on guilt proneness in the workplace has flourished over the past decade. Here we attempt to refine the construct, outlining its positive psychological mechanisms and clarifying how it relates to desired employee outcomes. We present a theoretical framework that explains how guilt-prone employees react and attempt to resolve, conflicting normative expectations, generating specific predictions about the relationship between guilt proneness and various forms of conformity and deviance. Specifically, we posit that guilt proneness relates positively to constructive conformity (e.g., high motivation and job performance) and negatively to destructive deviance (e.g., counterproductive work behavior) when employees perceive alignment between moral and organizational norms. If misalignment exists, and employees believe they can reconcile this misalignment, guilt proneness spurs constructive deviance in the form of dissent, voicing, and whistleblowing. When realignment appears unlikely, higher guilt-prone employees will choose to leave the organization rather than support its objectionable acts (i.e., avoiding destructive conformity). Overall, we offer a new perspective on the function of guilt proneness at work—conceptualizing guilt proneness as a source of motivation to adhere to organizational norms and to change these norms to align with moral ideals.

In recent years, research from various disciplines, including social psychology, sociology, economics, gender studies, and organizational behavior, has illuminated the importance of considering the various ways in which multiple social categories intersect to shape outcomes for women in the workplace. However, these findings are scattered across disciplines, making it difficult for organizational scholars to leverage this knowledge in the advancement of gender research. The purpose of this review is to assemble these findings to capture how gender and race, when considered in tandem, can generate new understandings about women of different racial groups and their experiences in the workplace. We first provide a review of both historic and contemporary interpretations of the intersectionality concept. Next, using an intersectional framework, we review key findings on the distinct stereotypes ascribed to Black, Asian, and White women, and compare and contrast the differential impact of these stereotypes on hiring and leadership for these subgroups of women. Building from these stereotypes, we further review research that explores the different job roles that Black, Asian, and White women occupy, specifically focusing on the impact of occupational segregation, organizational support, and the motherhood penalty. Finally, we examine how the frequency, emotional toll, and legal implications of sexual harassment can vary for women of differing races. Through this review, we bring attention to the pitfalls of studying women as a monolithic category and call for organizational scholars to consider the role of intersectionality in shaping workplace outcomes.

What causes leaders to punish subordinates unjustly? And why might leaders keep punishing subordinates unjustly, even when this increases workplace misconduct? In the current paper we address these questions by suggesting that power and status cause leaders to punish unjustly. We review evidence on the effects of power and status on punishment, review how unjust punishments foster misconduct, and highlight how this creates a self-perpetuating feedback loop—leaders are more likely to punish in an unjust manner when subordinates engage in misconduct, but subordinates’ misconduct is partly caused by unjust punishments. We also discuss how leader-subordinate distrust may be at the heart of this phenomenon and how organizations may counteract unjust punishments. We draw attention to research areas that have received little attention and draw up an agenda for future research. Taken together, we integrate the literatures on power, status, punishment and trust, review evidence on when unjust punishments become perpetuating, challenge research suggesting that leaders are cautious when punishing, and guide future research on the topic of punishment in organizations.

Moral Utility Theory provides an integrative framework for understanding the motivational basis of ethical decision making by modeling it as a process of subjective expected utility (SEU) maximization. The SEUs of ethical and unethical behavioral options are proposed to be assessed intuitively during goal pursuit, with unethical conduct emerging when the expected benefits of moral transgressions outweigh the expected costs. A key insight of the model is that any factors that increase the value of a goal—including incentives, framings, and mindsets—can motivate misbehavior by increasing the SEU of unethical conduct. Although Moral Utility Theory emphasizes the automatic and habitual nature of most SEU appraisals, it also describes a mechanism for initiating the deliberative moral reasoning process: the experience of moral uncertainty. Moral uncertainty is proposed to occur when the SEUs of ethical and unethical behaviors are similar in magnitude, thereby activating the behavioral inhibition system and motivating the allocation of attentional resources toward the decision process. This framework bridges the gap between affective and cognitive perspectives on ethical decision making by identifying automatic evaluations as a central driver of moral decisions while also specifying when and how moral reasoning processes are initiated. By combining dual-process models of morality with well-validated principles from the science of motivation, Moral Utility Theory provides theoretical parsimony and formal modeling potential to the study of ethical decision making. The framework also suggests practical strategies—from employee selection and training to goal setting and compensation systems—for encouraging ethical behavior in organizations.

How work gets done has changed fundamentally in recent decades, with a growing number of people working independently, outside of organizations in a style of work quite different from that assumed by many organizational behavior theories. To remain relevant, our research on individual work behaviors and the capabilities that enable them must also adapt to this new world of work, the so-called “gig economy.” We first describe the predictable challenges that individuals confront when working in this manner, including remaining viable, staying organized, maintaining identity, sustaining relationships, and coping emotionally. We then articulate a research agenda that pushes our field to focus on the specific capabilities and behaviors that enable people to manage these challenges effectively so as to survive or thrive in this new world of work. Foregrounding individual agency, we articulate the work and relational behaviors necessary for such thriving, and the cognitive and emotional capabilities that undergird them.

Job stressors such as time pressure, organizational constraints, and interpersonal conflicts matter for individual well-being within organizations, both at the day level and over longer periods of time. Recovery-enhancing processes such as psychological detachment from work during nonwork time, physical exercise, and sleep have the potential to protect well-being. Although the experience of job stressors calls for effective recovery processes, empirical research shows that recovery processes actually are impaired when job stressors are high (recovery paradox). This article presents explanations for the recovery paradox, discusses moderating factors, and suggests avenues for future research.

It is not always possible for leaders, teams, and organizations to practice what they preach. Misalignment between words and deeds can invite harsh interpersonal consequences, such as distrust and moral condemnation, which have negative knock-on effects throughout organizations. Yet the interpersonal consequences of such misalignment are not always severe, and are sometimes even positive. This paper presents a new model of when and why audiences respond negatively to those who “say one thing but do another.” We propose that audiences react negatively if they (a) perceive a high degree of misalignment (i.e., perceive low “behavioral integrity”), and (b) interpret such misalignment as a claim to an undeserved moral benefit (i.e., interpret it as hypocrisy). Our model integrates disparate research findings about factors that influence how audiences react to misalignment, and it clarifies conceptual confusion surrounding word-deed misalignment, behavioral integrity, and hypocrisy. We discuss how our model can inform unanswered questions, such as why people fail to practice what they preach despite the risk of negative consequences. Finally, we consider practical implications for leaders, proposing that anticipating and managing the consequences of misalignment will be more effective than trying to avoid it altogether.

The literatures on creativity and innovation are each premised on the same important assumption that has gone largely unquestioned: Creativity and innovation are outcomes that are almost inherently positive. Decades of research on creativity in organizations have been motivated by the assumption that creative ideas can be implemented to realize innovations that will inevitably increase profit, strengthen competitive advantage and ensure firm survival. The assumption that creativity and innovation have positive downstream consequences has constrained existing research by forcing a myopic focus on creativity and innovation as dependent variables. Thus, in a significant departure from the existing literature, we turn the tables to conceptualize creativity and innovation as independent variables that can have a sweeping and frequently negative impact on a wide range of other important outcomes. We conclude by calling for a new stream of research to more soberly evaluate the direct costs, side effects and long-term consequences of creativity and innovation.

Pride is often felt in the work context, but should it be shown to others? Pride displays communicate one’s own success and status, but can show a lack of interpersonal sensitivity. This double-edged nature of pride is not fully understood in organizational contexts; we do not know under what conditions pride displays are beneficial, or detrimental, to career advancement, team dynamics, and leader influence. In this article we integrate signaling theory with sensory habituation and sensitization concepts to develop a new contextualized model of pride at work. Specifically, we propose that pride displays are signals for two primary social judgments that have important implications for organizations: competence and warmth. We make the case that, while pride display under conditions of information asymmetry (lack of information about the sender) signals competence, repeated displays hasten habituation to that signal and instead foster sensitization to a (low) interpersonal warmth signal. Furthermore, additional characteristics of the sender, receiver and audience determine the signaling of these two social judgments from pride. This model advances theory by contextualizing the social function of pride, and suggests new research directions for emotion regulation, impression management, and the rise and fall in social hierarchies, with implications for newcomers, teamwork, and leadership in today’s workplace.