A longitudinal study of newcomer role adjustment in US organizations

This paper examines the socialization and adjustment experiences of newcomers to organizations from a role stress perspective. A longitudinal field study is reported which tested a three-stage socialization model using physiological and psychological distress symptoms, general satisfaction, and intention to leave the organization as indicators of newcomer adjustment. Data were collected from newcomers (the focal role) (N = 91) at three times during me study and also from their supervisors (the role senders) (N = 41). While the data confirmed the general utility of the model, it also suggested some revisions by way of new and altered pathways between some of the variables.     

Social antecedents of the role stress and career-enhancing strategies of newcomers to organizations: A longitudinal study

Newcomers experience uncertainty and stress following entry into an organization. Two features of socialization are important for reducing their stress: socialization tactics and relations with superiors and co-workers. The present study tests a structural equation model, including, first, the effects over time of initial institutional socialization tactics and, second, the association between social relations at the workplace on newcomers’ role stress and career-enhancing strategies, two years later, among a large (N=661) international sample of job and organization stayers. Using LISREL 8.3 the results indicate a good fit between the model and data on several fit indices. Institutional socialization tactics had a significant association with newcomers’ relations with both their superiors and co-workers, and a significant negative association with their role conflict. Newcomers’ relations with superiors had a negative relationship with their role ambiguity, and a positive relationship with two kinds of career-enhancing strategies that they use to aid in their adaptation to their work situation. The relations of newcomers with co-workers were positively related to role conflict and negatively related to role ambiguity. Co-worker relations were also positively related to immediate career-enhancing strategies. Role conflict was positively related to immediate and negatively related to intermediate career-enhancing strategies, while role ambiguity was negatively related to intermediate career-enhancing strategies. The results are discussed in relation to their theoretical and practical importance.     

Team Receptivity to Newcomers: Five Decades of Evidence and Future Research Themes

Reviews of research on newcomers mostly address socialization processes, focusing on individual adjustment. This article takes a different approach by examining the ways in which teams adapt to newcomers, indicating team receptivity. We review the empirical research published over the last five decades (1960–June 2012) that examines the antecedents of three team receptivity components—team reflection, team knowledge utilization, and newcomer acceptance—across different research disciplines and team settings. Drawing on this literature, we propose that team receptivity to newcomers can have positive consequences for sustained team performance, provided that team reflection and team knowledge utilization coincide with newcomer acceptance. We challenge scholars to tackle these three components simultaneously and provide methodological recommendations for doing so. To facilitate such efforts, we present a conceptual multi-level model specifying team, oldtimer, and newcomer characteristics that contribute to team receptivity and are amenable to managerial intervention.     

团队成员交换、社会因素策略与新员工社会化

团队工作方式在组织中日益普遍,团队成员成为影响新员工社会化的重要因素。探讨团队成员交换对新员工社会化结果的影响及其作用机制,尤其是社会因素策略这一组织社会化策略在其中的中介作用,选取201个入职时间在一年半以内的销售人员为调查样本,运用结构方程模型路径分析方法对研究模型进行检验。研究结果表明,团队成员交换对新员工社会化结果产生显著影响;新员工感知的社会因素策略在团队成员交换与任务掌握、角色清晰、工作满意度之间起部分中介作用,在团队成员交换与离职倾向之间起完全中介作用。这表明高质量的团队成员交换关系可以促进新员工感知更多来自组织的正向社会支持以及组织内部人的角色模范作用,最终帮助他们成功社会化。     

Newcomers’ reactions to unfulfilled leadership expectations: An attribution theory approach

This paper examines newcomers’ reactions when facing unfulfilled leadership expectations. Although leaders are ascribed a key role in newcomers’ socialization, very little is known about newcomers’ expectations of leadership and their subsequent behaviors when these expectations are not fulfilled. Against the background of a follower-centered perspective, we develop a differentiated model of newcomers’ leadership attributions. As general attribution theory has recently shown, causal links are not always made in clear-cut ways. Thus, there may be several steps between the attribution and non-attribution of leadership. As our qualitative empirical study in Germany reveals, different unfulfilled leadership expectation types lead to equally different leadership attribution levels, with various behavioral consequences for newcomers. We suggest a dynamic model, starting with investing in a relationship before newcomers choose refusing reactions such as confrontation or withdrawal.     

Building better measures of role ambiguity and role conflict: The validation of new role stressor scales

Occupational stress researchers have given considerable attention to role ambiguity and role conflict as predictors of employee health, job attitudes and behaviour. However, the validity of the Rizzo, House, and Lirtzman’s (1970 Rizzo, J. R., House, R. J., &; Lirtzman, S. I. (1970). Role conflict and ambiguity in complex organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 15, 150–163. doi: 10.2307/2391486[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) scales – the most popular role stressor measures – has been a source of disagreement among researchers. In response to the disputed validity of the Rizzo et al. scales, we developed new measures of role ambiguity and role conflict and conducted five studies to examine their psychometric qualities (Study 1 N?=?101 U.S. workers; Study 2 N?=?118 workers primarily employed in the U.S.; Study 3 N?=?135 employed U.S. MBA students; Study 4 N?=?973 members of the U.S. Air Force (USAF); Study 5 N?=?234 workers primarily employed in the U.S.). Across these five studies, we found that the new role stressor scales have desirable psychometric qualities: they displayed high levels of substantive validity, high levels of internal consistency and test–retest reliability, they produced an interpretable factor structure, and we found evidence of their construct validity. We therefore recommend that these new scales be used in future research on role stress.     

Social antecedents of the role stress and career-enhancing strategies of newcomers to organizations: A longitudinal study

Newcomers experience uncertainty and stress following entry into an organization. Two features of socialization are important for reducing their stress: socialization tactics and relations with superiors and co-workers. The present study tests a structural equation model, including, first, the effects over time of initial institutional socialization tactics and, second, the association between social relations at the workplace on newcomers' role stress and career-enhancing strategies, two years later, among a large (N=661) international sample of job and organization stayers. Using LISREL 8.3 the results indicate a good fit between the model and data on several fit indices. Institutional socialization tactics had a significant association with newcomers' relations with both their superiors and co-workers, and a significant negative association with their role conflict. Newcomers' relations with superiors had a negative relationship with their role ambiguity, and a positive relationship with two kinds of career-enhancing strategies that they use to aid in their adaptation to their work situation. The relations of newcomers with co-workers were positively related to role conflict and negatively related to role ambiguity. Co-worker relations were also positively related to immediate career-enhancing strategies. Role conflict was positively related to immediate and negatively related to intermediate career-enhancing strategies, while role ambiguity was negatively related to intermediate career-enhancing strategies. The results are discussed in relation to their theoretical and practical importance.     

The Intervening Role of Innovative Climate: A Study of Middle Managers in Manufacturing Organizations in Iran

Based on a developed model, this study deals with an investigation on whether innovative climate is a variable that moderates the relationship among middle managers' technological innovation and organizational factors such as structure, strategic posture, and environment. We used path analysis framework to study this relationship. The respondents (N=158, n=96) were all the managers of large or medium manufacturing companies with headquarters in the province of Tehran in Iran. The study found that innovative climate has an intervening role in the relationship among organizational structure, strategic posture and environment, and middle managers' technological innovation. The results have implications for the executive and human resource management practices.     

Bricks without clay: On urban myths in occupational health psychology

Abstract

There is a lack of intricate research into the relationships between work performance and other variables. This study examined the causal relationship between work, non-work stressors, and work performance. Using longitudinal multi-group data from three groups—university staff, trainee nurses, and part-time employees (overall N=244)—structural equation modelling was employed to explore one-way and reverse competing models. The results produced a good fitting model with one-way causal paths from work-related and non-work stressors (time 1) to job performance (time 2). Nested model comparison analysis provided further evidence to support this best fitting model, emphasizing the strong influence that non-work factors have within the workplace. This study has important implications for theory, methodology and statistical analysis, and practice in the field of work-related stressors and performance.     

News: University prizes

Abstract

Stressful working environments are often assumed to create conditions that may lead to bullying. However, few studies have investigated how factors experienced in the work environment may trigger perpetrators to engage in bullying of others. Drawing on Spector and Fox's (2005) stressor–emotion model of counterproductive work behaviour, the present study investigated the predictive effects of both individual and situational factors as predictors of being a perpetrator of workplace bullying, as applied to a representative sample of the Norwegian workforce (N=2359). Results from logistic regression analysis show that being oneself a target of bullying, regardless of the frequency, and being male strongly predicted involvement in bullying of others. Among the situational factors, only role conflict and interpersonal conflicts significantly predicted being a perpetrator of bullying. The present findings support the notion that bullying will thrive in stressful working environments and thus yield an important contribution in identifying antecedent conditions to counteract the development of bullying at workplaces.     

All I want for Christmas is recovery – changes in employee affective well-being before and after vacation

Abstract

Transformational leaders employ a visionary and creative style of leadership that inspires employees to make independent decisions and develop in their work. There is some evidence that the transformational (inspirational) leadership style is linked to employee burnout and stress. However, little research has focused on the psychological mechanisms that could explain this link, nor has there been a focus on positive affective well-being. We propose that transformational leaders influence their followers' self-efficacy, thereby affecting affective well-being in followers. This study extends previous work by examining the direct link between leadership and well-being both cross-sectionally (N=447) and longitudinally (N=188), and testing the mediating effects of self-efficacy. The study was carried out within parts of an elderly care department in a Danish local government. A theory-driven model of the relationships between leadership, self-efficacy and affective well-being was tested using Structural Equation Modelling. The results indicated that followers' self-ratings of self-efficacy mediated the relationship between transformational leadership style and positive affective well-being. Only limited evidence for a direct path between leadership behaviour and positive affective well-being was found. These findings have implications for how organizations may promote employee well-being, through interventions directed at supporting transformational leadership behaviours.     

Getting New Staff to Stay: The Mediating Role of Organizational Identification

Newcomer turnover is a major cost to organizations, and the quality of new employees' experiences in the first few months is critical in determining whether they decide to stay or leave. In a study that focused on the first stage of newcomer socialization, we investigate the impact of perceptions of social validation from the team and the team leader, and perceived fairness of treatment on newcomers' identification with their work team and the organization, specifically measuring the group self‐investment components of identification. The mediating role of these levels of group self‐investment and of the imbalance (i.e. difference) between levels of self‐investment on turnover intentions was also tested. New staff (N=569) joining a large public‐sector organization completed a questionnaire about their socialization experiences in their first 6 months of their employment. Structural equation modelling revealed that social validation by the team and team leaders, and fairness of treatment, predict increased investment with the organization and with the team. Organizational‐level self‐investment and an imbalance in favour of investment with the organization over that of the team mediated decreases in turnover intentions. We conclude that organizations should provide newcomers with validation that promotes identification with their organization during this critical stage of socialization.     

Psychosocial safety climate as an antecedent of work characteristics and psychological strain: A multilevel model

Abstract

Psychosocial safety climate (PSC) refers to a specific organizational climate for the psychological health of workers. It is largely determined by management and at low levels is proposed as a latent pathogen for psychosocial risk factors and psychological strain. Using an extended Job Demands-Control-Support framework, we predicted the (24 month) cross-level effects of PSC on psychological strain via work conditions. We used a novel design whereby data from two unrelated samples of nurses working in remote areas were used across time (N=202, Time 1; N=163, Time 2), matched at the work unit level (N= 48). Using hierarchical linear modelling we found that unit PSC assessed by nurses predicted work conditions (workload, control, supervisor support) and psychological strain in different nurses in the same work unit 24 months later. There was evidence that the between-group relationship between unit PSC and psychological strain was mediated via Time 2 work conditions (workload, job control) as well as Time 1 emotional demands. The results support a multilevel work stress model with PSC as a plausible primary cause, or “cause of the causes”, of work-related strain. The study adds to the literature that identifies organizational contextual factors as origins of the work stress process.     

Age of onset of epilepsy: its effects on coping strategies

Abstract

Research into the use of coping strategies to reduce emotional distress from negative life events has identified specific subscales within the more general concepts of problem-focused and emotionfocused coping. This study presents a preliminary assessment of the ultilization of coping strategies during stressful incidents among people with epilepsy, and the differences which may arise as a result of the age of onset of the disorder. Twenty early-onset and 20 late-onset patients were asked to complete a questionnaire using subscales from the «Ways of Coping» scale (Aldwin and Revenson 1987) and from the «COPE» scale (Carver et al 1989). Data were also obtained from two groups of 20 subjects without epilepsy, matched for age and sex with the patient groups (a total of 80 subjects included in the study). Results indicated that subjects with epilepsy attempted to minimize problems more than non-epileptic subjects. Adult onset of the disorder appeared to increase the use of negotiation, acceptance and self-blame. Thus, there appear to be some significant differences in the types of coping strategy employed in stressful situations, with the late-onset group tending to utilize strategies that may be considered maladaptive, perhaps in an initial adjustment to the disorder.     

The downside of organizational identification: Relations between identification,workaholism and well-being

Abstract

Employee organizational identification has been proposed and found to be positively related to employee health and well-being. The empirical evidence, however, is not unequivocal, and some authors have suggested possible downsides of identification with the organization as a whole or with a group within it. The potential negative effect of over-identification was tested empirically for the first time in the present paper. Two studies were conducted; Study 1 was cross-sectional and used a sample of Italian law court clerks (N=195) and Study 2 was longitudinal and employed a sample of Italian teachers (N=140 at T2). We proposed a curvilinear mediation model with identification curvilinearly predicting workaholism, and workaholism, in turn, negatively affecting employee well-being. This curvilinear link between organizational identification and workaholism means that workaholism at first decreases with growing identification, but when identification becomes too strong, workaholism increases. The results confirmed our hypotheses, and we discuss theoretical and practical implications.     

Job Strain,Effort-Reward Imbalance and Mental Distress: A study of occupations in general medical practice

There is increasing evidence to support the predictive power of social epidemiological models such as Effort-Reward Imbalance (Siegrist, 1996) and the Job-Strain Model (Karasek, and Theorell, 1990) for explaining occupational stress, although it has been suggested that the models may have distinctive contributions towards explaining work stress in specific work settings. Alternatively, it has been suggested that the explanatory power of the different models might be enhanced if they were combined. The aim of this paper is to explore these questions by examining the power of the two different models both separately and in combination for explaining job satisfaction and mental distress in general medical practice. This analysis was based on data collected from a postal survey of the members of staff (N=1089, response rate = 70%) of 81 practices, which were randomly selected from all general practices in the National Health Service Executive South East region. The results show that while both models were predictors of mental distress and job satisfaction the models that combined different dimensions were the strongest predictors.     

The empirical analysis of the -bilateral optimized combinatorial auction model

This study proposes a new and highly efficient dynamic combinatorial auction mechanism—the N-bilateral optimized combinatorial auction (N-BOCA). N-BOCA is a flexible iterative combinatorial auction model that offers more optimized trading for multiple suppliers and purchasers in the supply chain than one-sided combinatorial auction. We design the N-BOCA model from the perspectives of market architecture, trading rules, and decision strategy for winner determination, the decision strategy for winner determination needs flexible optimization modeling capability. Thus rule-based reasoning was applied for reflecting the flexible decision strategies. We also show the viability of N-BOCA through Paired Samples T-test experimentation. It shows that N-BOCA yields higher purchase efficiency and effectiveness than the one-auctioneer to multi-bidders (1-to-N) combinatorial auction mechanism.     

Multilevel causal attributions on transboundary risk: Effects on attributions of responsibility,psychological distance,and policy support

This study used two randomized experiments in a prospective design (Study 1 N = 297, Study 2 N = 296) to examine how multilevel causal attribution dimensions (internal vs. external to an individual or a country) shape domestic and foreign policy support to counter transboundary risk. Results from Study 1 and 2 showed that external-country (vs. internal-country) causal attribution reduced perceptions of internal-country attributions of responsibility, which had a cross-lagged effect on support for domestic-industry policies to mitigate the risk. In contrast, perceptions of external-country attributions of responsibility increased support for foreign policies in a 2-week follow up. This study offers theoretical insights into the demarcation of multilevel causal attribution dimensions in studying media framing effects. It also highlights some important causal mechanisms of how media frames shape public support for policies aimed at transboundary risk mitigation.     

A meta-analytic examination of the potential correlates and consequences of workload

Over the last four decades, occupational stress researchers have given considerable attention to the potential correlates and consequences of workload. In the current study, we use meta-analysis (overall k = 336) to quantitatively review the workload literature. In analyses of hypothesized correlates, we found that social support was negatively associated (ρ = ?.20 for supervisor support; ρ = –.11 for co-worker support) and that trait negative affectivity (ρ = .22), role ambiguity (ρ = .28), role conflict (ρ = .44) and work-family conflict (ρ = .44 for work-to-family conflict; ρ = .20 for family-to-work conflict) were each positively associated with workload. Analyses examining hypothesized outcome variables suggest that workload is negatively associated with several indices of psychological and physical well-being (ρs were generally in the –.20s and –.30s), and affective organizational commitment (ρ = –.11), and is positively associated with turnover intention (ρ = .16) and absenteeism (ρ = .07).     

Idiosyncratic Shocks and the Role of Nonconvexities in Plant and Aggregate Investment Dynamics

We study a model of lumpy investment wherein establishments face persistent shocks to common and plant‐specific productivity, and nonconvex adjustment costs lead them to pursue generalized (S, s) investment rules. We allow persistent heterogeneity in both capital and total factor productivity alongside low‐level investments exempt from adjustment costs to develop the first model consistent with the cross‐sectional distribution of establishment investment rates. Examining the implications of lumpy investment for aggregate dynamics in this setting, we find that they remain substantial when factor supply considerations are ignored, but are quantitatively irrelevant in general equilibrium. The substantial implications of general equilibrium extend beyond the dynamics of aggregate series. While the presence of idiosyncratic shocks makes the time‐averaged distribution of plant‐level investment rates largely invariant to market‐clearing movements in real wages and interest rates, we show that the dynamics of plants' investments differ sharply in their presence. Thus, model‐based estimations of capital adjustment costs involving panel data may be quite sensitive to the assumption about equilibrium. Our analysis also offers new insights about how nonconvex adjustment costs influence investment at the plant. When establishments face idiosyncratic productivity shocks consistent with existing estimates, we find that nonconvex costs do not cause lumpy investments, but act to eliminate them.